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Pubblicato il 10 aprile 2018 10 aprile 2018 by ladisillusione1610
Collective art, Pompidou Center and Palais de Tokyo
Last week, on March 28, the Pompidou Centre opened an exhibition with the title: Chagall, Lissitzky, Malévitch: L’avant-Garde Russe à Vítebsk (1918-1922). The exhibit revolves around a revolutionary art school, Vitebsk Fine Arts School, and three key figures in the elaboration of their new artistic education and collaborative creativity: Marc Chagall, the institution’s founder, and two artists that Chagall invites as professors: El Lissitzky and Kazimir Malevich, creator of Suprematism. Works of the three painters, with works by other students and teachers of the school are exposed, while the Russian avant-garde is explored, especially the creation and development of Suprematism and the UNOVIS group (Followers of the New Art, by its initials in Russian).
The display tells us a story, Chagall, as commissioner of fine arts of Vitebsk, establishes a school in the search of revolutionary art. He invited Lissitzky, and then is convinced of bringing Malevich as a teacher. Malevich, with his grand charisma and teaching methods after his arrival in 1919, starts aligning students to his artistic movement, Suprematism.
Malevich created Suprematism (enhancing the supremacy of the “pure artistic feeling”), an artistic current that abandons realism, considered by the painter as a distraction of the transcendent experience that art is supposed to evoke, as a response to the search of new order after the Russian Revolution. This movement emphasizes geometric abstraction, giving forms individual independence, and disengaging completely from the ‘real world object’. In Vitebsk, together with other teachers and students, he formed UNOVIS, a group that looked to establish Suprematism in all its vital aspects. The group designed posters, magazines, signs and postcard; adhering to the communist ideal, every member shared the credit and responsibility of the work, signing with a black square. This way, Suprematism intervened in every aspect of social life, detaching itself from individuality, thus creating collective art.
The development of the movement is documented in the Pompidou exhibition, in which we can find displayed: Prouns (Project for the affirmation of the new) from Lissitzky –his personal take on Suprematism –, Malevich’s suprematist works, and decorations, installations, paintings and texts from the UNOVIS group. The Prouns, through geometric figures and, for the first time, architectural volumes in the suprematist plane, show non-objectivity; they show the imposing force of the two planes: the background and the form, and how this come to spatially represent new ways of life and human relationships, ever changing in the progress to a new socialist society.
In Malevich’s suprematist works, the “pure art” ideal is revealed, the search for the eternal and the detachment from reality; the exhibit shows “Suprematism of the spirit”, a masterpiece in which one Malevich’s famous squares is “crucified”, and in which Malevich manifests the “pure art religion”, through which he strives for infinity.
With the posters, postcards, wagon painting and propaganda, the social spectrum that Suprematism wanted to achieved is exemplified. The movement was a collective response to the post-revolutionary Russia, which detached from the individual and the material to achieve a pure art, a new art. Just as Marxism strived for the utopia, Suprematism strived for the purest art.
On the other hand, since February 16 an “investigation lab” is exhibited in the Palais de Tokyo: ”: L’un et l’autr (one and the other) is an exhibition, a collective project created by to French artists of different generations: Kader Attia, born in 1970, and Jean-Jacques Lebel, 1936, and which attempts to show the greatest problems of our civilization.
The display consists on two installations, one of each artist, plus a selection of works by different artists, and as a counterpoint to the installations, a series of objects collected by both artists through the years. These objects transmit diverse discourses, both of reparations to the treated subjects, and deviation of these; according to the artists: “These objects reveal our humanity”, and it is in them where the significance of the exhibition converges.
The first installation: The culture of Fear: an invention of evil (2013), from Attia, shows the occidental obsession of categorizing, and adjoins the contemporary and colonial representations of the non-western being: the “Savage”. It proposes the genesis of the fear for the other, as an ideological construct created through the communication media.
The second installation: Soluble Poison. Scenes from the American occupation (Baghdad) (2013), from Lebel, displays a series of public photographs, taken in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by the torturers themselves between 2003 and 2005, of torture, humiliation, and rape. He arranges them in such a way that confronts the spectator with them, he forces him to watch. It denounces the crimes of imperialism and it makes us navigate through the horror of torture.
Both artists come together in the election of objects that compliment the exhibition, the objects that complete it, because through African busts, wooden statuettes, primitive weapons, poems, and other works of different artists, they manage to communicate what is sometimes lost in the so vital exhibition of terrible situations, the desire for redemption. Collectively they seek to reflect and make the viewer reflect on the great disheartens of current civilization.
The project is a collective act of resistance, the taking of an ethical stance before an ignominious and nihilist society. It responds to the times we live in: the stage of transition of power, the regression toward nationalist and the alt right, the rise of racism, and the society each time more used to violence and sadism; and it does so in a material way, a clear, straightforward and transcendent way, without the abstraction of concepts. It is a collective attempt of making the individual reflect, the problems are universal, but the solutions belong to the individual actor.
In this manner we find confluence in the collective art as a response to the social context, in two separate exhibitions, of diverging artistic themes and very different historical time. On the one hand, we have modern art, Russian avant-garde – Suprematism –, which in response to the Russian Revolution, perfectly reflected its times. Suprematism, as well as revolution, became the beacon for those seeking a new order, a “new world whose issues arise from within our being” according to Lissitzky. This liberation of art was compared to the communist freeing of the working class, both, the suprematists thought, progressed towards perfection, artistic and social. This way we arrived into pure art, non-objective, non-material art, the representation of a universe without objects, total geometric abstraction. On the other hand, we have contemporary art, actual art, from two French men seeking to rebel against society and its ignominy, cruelty, and eternal return to war, through objects that evoke that that is impossible to communicate, and installations that are critic to the great problems of the world. A collective collaboration that replies to a world whose perfection ideals are in perversion. In opposing ways to that of Suprematism, with material, object-based art that is imbedded to the real world, Lebel and Attia don’t lay out the new order, but the thirst of destruction of the actual one. Because society has lost hope, and utopia is far away.
Art, in response to the world seeking a new order after the Russian Revolution, became in a way nihilistic, a “sermon of nothingness and destruction”, according to the critic Alexandre Benois, that in some way sought purity and absolutes through non-objectivity. However nowadays, Lebel and Attia found their artistic ideas in the objects, letting them communicate what they have seen, and they create vital art that responds to the destructive society, the nihilist society. One art seeks to get rid of humanity and the other wants to retain it, to find it. And so, we see the decadence of the human being in the last century, we see the decline of ideals and the loss of hope, but the purpose of art remains the same, the quest to explain, respond and reflect in some way the reality that surrounds us.
Mariana Osorio
“L’Un et l’Autre.” 16 Feb- 13 May 2018. Palais de Tokyo, París.
“Chagall, Lissitzky, Malévitch: L’avant-garde Russe à Vitebsk (1918-1922).” 28 Mar-16 Jul 2018. Centre Pompidou, París.
“Chagall, Lissitzky, Malévitch.” Centre Pompidou, 2018,www.centrepompidou.fr/cpv/agenda/event.action?param.id=FR_R-a017ced1-a6b3-4706-ad98-3daeb9dac878¶m.idSource=FR_E-58c7b2f9-b4c9-4c19-8e7f-de7ce04c9e09.
“Jean-Jacques Lebel.” Artnet, www.artnet.com/artists/jean-jacques-lebel/biography.
“Jean-Jacques Lebel.” Palais De Tokyo EN, 31 Jan. 2018,www.palaisdetokyo.com/en/content/jean-jacques-lebel.
“Kader Attia & Jean-Jacques Lebel.” Palais De Tokyo, 27 Mar. 2018,www.palaisdetokyo.com/fr/evenement/lun-et-lautre.
“Kader Attia.” Palais De Tokyo EN, 31 Jan. 2018, http://www.palaisdetokyo.com/en/content/kader-attia.
“Russian Avant-Garde Art: Rayonnism, Suprematism, and Constructivism.” Owlcation, 17 Sept. 2015,www.owlcation.com/humanities/Russian-Avant-garde-Art-Rayonnism-Suprematism-and-Constructivism.
Mercier, Clémentine. “«L’Un Et L’Autre», Le Passé Décomposé.” Libération.fr, Libération, 22 Mar. 2018, www.next.liberation.fr/arts/2018/03/22/l-un-et-l-autre-le-passe-decompose_1638182.
Viveros-Fauné, Christian. “Why Artist Kader Attia Is Having an Art World Moment.” Artnet News, 28 Jan. 2017, www.news.artnet.com/art-world/kader-attia-reparations-repair-834059
“Visions of the Future: Rodchenko and Lissitzky 1917-1921.” The Struggle for Utopia: Rodchenko, Lissitzky, Moholy-Nagy ; 1917-1946, by Victor Margolin et al., Univ. of Chicago Press, 2009.
El Lissitzky, “Suprematism in world Reconstruction, 1920. ” The Documents of 20th-Century Art: Russian Art of the Avant-Garde Theory and Criticism 1902-1934. Ed. John E. Bowlt. New York: The Viking Press, 1976.
Howard, Jeremy. The Union of Youth: an Artists’ Society of the Russian Avant-Garde. Manchester University Press, 1992. Web.
Malevich, Kazimir. “Suprematism: Part II of the Non-Objective World. ” 1927.
Kovtun, Evgueny. Russian Avant-Garde: Art of Century. Confidential Concepts, 2014. Web.
Shatskikh, Aleksandra Semenovna., and Katherine Foshko Tsan. Vitebsk: the Life of Art. Yale University Press, 2007. Web.
“Suprematism Wall-Paintings of UNOVIS Group.” Russian Avant-Garde Gallery, Vitebsk, www.russianavantgard.com/unovis-c-6.html.
Lissitzky, El. Proun 1. 1919, Centre Pompidou. https://kunstmuseumbasel.ch/en/collection/highlights
Malevich, Suprématisme de l’espirit. 1920, Centre Pompidou. http://www.vania-marcade.com/page/10/
The culture of Fear: an invention of evil. 2013, Palais de Tokyo.http://www.palaisdetokyo.com/fr/evenement/lun-et-lautre
L’Un et l’Autre. 2018, Palais de Tokyo. http://www.palaisdetokyo.com/fr/evenement/lun-et-lautre
This entry was posted in:International
Taggato con: Art, Avant-Garde, Chagall, Collective Art, International, Lissitzky, Malévitch, Palais de Tokyo, Pompidou Center, Vìtebsk
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Home News Diaspora
Nigerian notorious drug dealer arrested, jailed in USA for drug trafficking, fraud
in Diaspora
Popular Nigerian, Temitope Ayoni Olaiya, a.k.a Tammy Olaiya on 28 February, 2020 faced a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison over the importation of 7kg of Cocaine into the United States.
The 40 year-old woman also faces sentencing for her role in a Bank fraud scheme, and for making false statements relating to fraudulent claims submitted to Medicaid for reimbursement.
She pleaded guilty to all the offences.
U.S. District Judge, Liam O’Grady, accepted the plea. Assistant U.S. Attorney Katherine E. Rumbaugh is prosecuting the case, according to a statement by Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Virginia.
“Tammy Olaiya is a ‘triple threat’ of criminality – drug trafficker, a fraudster, and a liar,” said G. Zachary Terwilliger, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
“Olaiya, a Nigerian immigrant who has spent the last two decades with the privilege of living in the United States as lawful permanent resident, clearly has zero respect for American laws pertaining to our borders, controlled substances, our financial system, or our health care system.”
According to Court documents, Tammy residing in Hyattsville, Maryland, recruited men from the greater Washington, D.C. area to act as Drug Courier; i.e., to travel to foreign countries to obtain drugs to bring back into the United States.
Olaiya opened bank accounts in the Couriers’ names, assisted them in obtaining Passports and Visas, and booked their travel arrangements. The Couriers that Olaiya recruited traveled primarily to São Paulo, Brazil, where they picked up kilogram quantities of Cocaine hidden in the lining of soft-sided briefcases or attaché cases. Altogether, law enforcement seized nearly seven kilograms of Cocaine at three different U.S. Airports from three separate Couriers recruited by Olaiya.
In addition to the Cocaine importation scheme, Olaiya also submitted falsified and fraudulent claims to the D.C. Department of Health Care Finance [DHCF], a Health Care benefit program funded by Medicaid.
Olaiya worked as a personal care aide for various home health agencies in the Washington D.C. area, and in order to receive payment for services rendered, Olaiya was required to submit timesheets signed by her clients documenting the services rendered. Instead of submitting time sheets for time actually worked providing health care services, Olaiya recruited Medicaid recipients to act as her “patients” and to sign her falsified timesheets in return for a small amount of money as a kickback. On at least two occasions, Olaiya billed DHCF for home health services she claimed to have provided while she was out of the country.
Olaiya also used her African goods business, FINEST FASSHIONS AFRICAN FABRICS at 7429 Annapolis Road, Hyaatsville in Maryland to carry out a bank fraud. Olaiya used accounts with payment platforms Square and Stripe to make fraudulent charges on stolen credit card numbers. Between June and December 2017, Olaiya submitted, or caused to be submitted, $381,500 in fraudulent Credit Card charges to the Stripe account.
Thereafter, Olaiya switched over to Square, and in the course of about two months, racked up more than $100,000 in fraudulent charges. When Square informed Olaiya that the true account holder had challenged the transaction, Olaiya created handwritten, falsified invoices documenting items purportedly purchased by the account holder, and provided the fake invoices to Square.
According to the US Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Virginia, the case was prosecuted as part of Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force [OCDETF] Operation Girl From Ipanema.
The OCDETF program is a Federal multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional task force that supplies supplemental Federal funding to Federal and State agencies involved in the identification, investigation, and prosecution of major drug trafficking organisations. The principal mission of the OCDETF program is to identify, disrupt, and dismantle the most serious drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, and money laundering organisations, and those primarily responsible for the nation’s illegal drug supply.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s [ICE] Homeland Security Investigations [HSI] Washington, D.C., and the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the DC Office of Inspector General provided significant assistance with the investigation.
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Osgood Pond
1955 USGS Map of Paul Smiths and Osgood Pond (Combining two USGS maps.) Osgood Pond, 2008 Five hundred acre Osgood Pond is in the town of Brighton, near Paul Smiths, New York. It is the site of White Pine Camp, which served as the Summer White House in 1926, and the historic Northbrook Lodge, possibly the first camp on the pond; both were built by local builder Benjamin A. Muncil in the early 1920s.
In the early 1850s, James Wardner and his brother Seth and a friend, Lorenzo Rand, camped all winter in a log cabin on Osgood Pond. They did well with hunting and trapping and James earned enough to buy land for a farm on his chosen site at Rainbow Lake in 1855. According to Wardner, they named the pond after Arthur Osgood, the first person to attempt farming in the region. 1
In 1879, Marc Cook, with Paul Smith's help, went into Camp Lou on Osgood Pond to attempt to cure his tuberculosis.
Paul Smith's Hotel had a golf course on Osgood Pond, but it was too sandy and too far from the hotel to be satisfactory; the golf house on Osgood was used by local Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts in 1932.
Osgood was the site of two summer camps: Lone Pine Camp, started in 1921 and Brig O' Doon, started in 1956.
Forest and Stream, Volume 36, Forest and Stream Publishing Company, New York, June 1891, p. 435 (full text here)
THE ST. REGIS CAMPS.
NOWHERE in the entire Adirondack region are the camps as numerous or as elaborate in their appointments as on the lakes immediately in the neighborhood of Paul Smith's Hotel, over 100 being situated within a radius of three miles from the hotel. This house is on the northern shore of the lower, but most northerly, of the two St. Regis lakes. Between these two, connected with them by narrow streams or runways for the water— "slews" the natives call them—is Spitfire Lake. North of Smith's about one-half mile is Osgood Pond. The banks of these lakes are owned by private individuals, who have erected upon them permanent camps, some of which have cost many thousands of dollars. Land on their shores is variously held at from $2,500 to $10,000 an acre.
The handsomest camps in Osgood Pond are owned by Mr. Hans Beatty and Mr. A. D. Juillard. In all these mountain homes, the sleeping apartments are tents, generally about 14 ft. square, covered by different colored flies, and erected upon platforms raised about 3 ft. from the ground.
From Adirondack Daily Enterprise, July 20, 2011:
Thanks for fighting fire at Osgood Pond
I write to express my family's deep appreciation to the fire departments of Paul Smiths-Gabriels, Saranac Lake, Bloomingdale and Lake Placid for their speed and effectiveness in containing the fire at our camp on Osgood Pond early Monday mornng. While we are devastated by the loss of the main lodge, the dedication and professionalism of these firefighters spared most of our trees and buildings, leaving us hope and the determination to rebuild here in what has been my family's second home for 130 years. Martha Butler, for Cranford Camp
Excerpts from Beech Hill Camp: A Glimpse into its Past (photocopy, source unknown)
On Osgood Pond, there are four turn-of-the-century camps: White Pine Camp; Northbrook Lodge; "Camp Lu," [sic] a family camp known now as Wanakewin, the oldest camp on Osgood); and our own Beech Hill Camp. In October. 1905, Harrison G. Otis and his wife, Mary Brooks Otis of Cleveland, Ohio, purchased property on Osgood Pond from the Paul Smith's Hotel Company. . . .Construction commenced immediately and in the late spring of 1906 the living room building was completed. It's likely that family and guests were housed in tents until other buildings were completed. [Harrison G. Otis may have been the Otis of Otis Elevator Company. Handwritten notes say "Yale 1920" and "Beech Hills Farm, Willoughby, Ohio [Agr.]"] The Otis' continued to enjoy the camp (any formal name unknown) until February, 1916, when Edwin Drexel Godfrey and Florence Withrow Godfrey, his wife, of Irvington on Hudson purchased it as a family camp.
Many changes were made under the Godfrey stewardship. The owner's cottage with its use of half-logs for interior walls may have been built under the direction of Ben Muncil. Interesting "whipped cream" stucco was used above the wainscoting and above the ceiling in the entrance room, and there was a screened sleeping porch, as is found in the Saranac Lake cure cottages. The canoe house with its hint of Japanese influence, also boasts the "whipped cream" stucco on its exterior.
Gardens with perennial flowers and shrubs spread color everywhere. Fountains and fish pools made the grounds sparkle, the beauty of the camp shimmering in the Victorian gazing globe on the main lawn adjacent to the diningroom building.
It was all here . . . chauffeur's quarters and garage with its gasoline pump; guide house for the fishing rods, guns and a place for hanging game; woodshed and woodshop; boathouse; and pump house with pump to push water up the hill to the two cisterns. The pressure was sufficient to bring water to each building in the camp and to provide fire protection.
There was also an English red clay tennis court, and a rustic cabin with stone fireplace and cozy windowseats that housed a snooker table. Guest cottages overlooking the lawn were connected by walkways that ran throughout the camp. Beautiful stone walls and stone gutters carried rainwater away from road and walkways. The entrance road ended at the turn-around and flagstone walks guided you to other guest cottages and to the lean-to and tea house at the eastern end of the camp.
The Godfrey family summered at the camp and invited children living on the lake to visit with their children. World War II erupted and in the course of the conflict, two Godfrey sons were lost.
In 1944, the Godfrey Camp was named Camp Osgood, Inc. and run as a boys' camp by Florence Withrow Godfrey until 1950. A Brooklyn, N.Y., lawyer and law clerk to a Supreme Court judge purchased the camp in June, 1950. Harry and Lynna Reiss were principals in Beech Hill Camp, Inc., which we know today as Beech Hill Camp. The Reiss' turned the buildings into housekeeping units and rented them for summer use. Their caretaker, Martin Lyon, supervised the opening and winterizing of the camp. From 1950 to 1957, the Reiss' enjoyed the camp along with the guests, who rented individual buildings and shared the common areas.
When Harry and Lynna grew disenchanted with the camp, they decided to sell. As is customary here in the Adirondacks, camps were sold fully or partially furnished. There were many Mission and Arts and Crafts furnishings remaining from the Otis-Godfrey era which were removed before the camp was purchased by Martin and Elsie Lyon in July of 1957.
By this time, many of the garden areas had begun to revert to their natural wild state as perennials and shrubs died and were replaced by forest and meadow plants. The beautiful stone walls and stone gutters suffered the ravages of forest encroachment and weather. The hard-surfaced road became pot-holed under Martin's bulldozer.
By 1969, Martin and Elsie were thinking of retirement. They decided to subdivide the camp, selling off each individual building, almost all with a portion of lakefront. Martin used his bulldozer to put through a road to the far end of the camp, giving road access to seven properties. A second subdivision was planned for the hillside which housed the cisterns for water and fire protection. He (estimated? illegible) another 12 lots having common beach rights. As soon as it became known that this was the intended purpose for the hillside, the Cranford Island owners purchased the entire hill, thus retaining the lovely unspoiled natural view from their property.
All of the properties were sold. Some of them were bought by families who had come to Beech Hill Camp when Harry and Lynna Reiss were owners and others under Martin and Elsie's tenure. Much of the history is still being researched and gradually we'll be able to piece together the story of our camp.
Manchester, Lee, "Two camps on Osgood Pond", ''Lake Placid News'', July 28, 2006
Donaldson, Deborah J., Adirondack Daily Enterprise, October 20, 2009.
Cook, Marc. “Camp Lou.” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 62, No. 372. New York NY, May, 1881.
See also Katherine Vallandigham
The Osgood Pond Association
1. Footsteps on Adirondack Trails, p. 114
Nearby LocalWiki regions: Greater Montreal Montréal Watertown Greater Woodstock VT Area Thousand Island Park Troy, New York
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October 18, 2020 · 06:11
Creation of doubt
We all have doubts and sometimes we create them. I like many others are appalled by the beheading in France, as the news gives us “The teacher killed in a suburb of Paris in an Islamist terror attack has been named as Samuel Paty” as well as “The history teacher, who is said to have discussed images of the Prophet Muhammad with his pupils, was beheaded”, as a Catholic I am appalled, yet as an academic I wonder why the matter was set into motion. In 2015 many learned “If you set aside for a moment the issue of whether satirical cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad are insulting, there’s a separate and complicated debate about whether any depiction – even a respectful one – is forbidden within Islam. For most Muslims it’s an absolute prohibition – Muhammad, or any of the other prophets of Islam, should not be pictured in any way. Pictures – as well as statues – are thought to encourage the worship of idols”, as such we see that Islam FORBIDS any representation of the prophet Muhammad. So is the stage one where a person was beheaded, or is the stage where secular France, knowingly and intentionally disrespects a religion? This is a much harder question isn’t it? I took the events of 2015 at I was against them, yet at that point I was not aware about the Islamic rule of their prophet. As a Catholic, I have an issue of people intentionally disrespecting any religion, it is for that same reason that I refused to read the Satanic verses by Salman Rushdie. I have nothing against the man, I was in those days completely in the dark on Islam and the book was an open attack on Islam. I heard people I knew commenting on how brilliant a book it was, but I knew that they too had no knowledge, none what so ever on the rules and believes towards Islam. As a Catholic, I still laugh over the joke Sir Ken Robinson made “He shares this story of a teacher who asks a 6 year old girl, “What are you drawing?” And the girl said, “I’m drawing a picture of god.” And the teacher said, “But nobody knows what god looks like.” And the girl said, “They will in a minute””, idols and images of the Catholic faith are not a taboo, it sets the joke of anticipation and the premise towards the willingness to fail, a fear most Christians have in abundance.
As such, why would Samuel Paty create a situation where he got ahead of himself? I do not condone what was done to him, but in defence of any Islamic person, why did he openly offend any religion in a school class? There is no way that there were no Islamic children in that school. I wonder if there is any school left where we share the classrooms with non-christians. Can we set the stage where we openly mock a religion whilst demanding respect from these very same people at the same time? As I personally see it, we create doubt, in ourselves and we create doubt in others. Why is that?
When we take a step back and we consider the Crusades (1096), we need to realise the state where we see “The crusader presence remained in the region in some form until the city of Acre fell in 1291, leading to the rapid loss of all remaining territory in the Levant. There were no further substantive attempts to recover the Holy Land after this”, consider the middle east being in a war for 196 years, this sets a stage (in those days of close to 7 generations that know a stage of war, a never ending war where hatred is taught (to at least some degree) from grandfather, to so to grandson, and that stage is made worse by intentionally disrespecting Islam, and you wonder why there are angry people? This is a stage that goes back to the Council of Clermont, where in 1095 it was decided that “capture Jerusalem for Christendom from its Muslim occupiers. The Pope’s speech to the church hierarchy and crowd of laymen at Clermont famously promised all participants a remission of their sins, a strategy which proved hugely popular amongst Europe’s nobility and knights and which was copied in all crusades thereafter”, apart from the stage where the reward was ‘promised all participants a remission of their sins’, basically on the promise of killing any saracen in sight. Can someone enlighten me where slaughter was approved in the Bible? All whilst Pope Urban II was viewed as “a reformer and active promoter of the idea of expanding Christendom by whatever means necessary. Hailing from a noble family from Burgundy, France, Urban II would establish himself as one of the most influential popes in history”, yes and a war lasting a few centuries longer 196 years achieved that?
So as we get to “On 27 November the cream of the French clergy and a crowd of laymen gathered in a field just outside Clermont for the finale of the council. It was here that Urban II made his now famous speech in an obviously pre-prepared set piece. The message, known as the Indulgence, was addressed in particular to Christian nobles and knights across Europe. Urban II promised that all those who defended Christendom and captured Jerusalem would be embarking on a pilgrimage, all their sins would be washed away, and their souls would reap untold rewards in the next life. In case anyone was concerned, a group of church scholars later went to work and came up with the idea that a campaign of violence could be justified by references to particular passages of the Bible and the works of Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430 CE)”, The man (not the actual Hippo) got his fame with the Just War theory. A stage where we are taught “The purpose of the doctrine is to ensure war is morally justifiable through a series of criteria, all of which must be met for a war to be considered just. The criteria are split into two groups: “right to go to war” (jus ad bellum) and “right conduct in war” (jus in bello). The first concerns the morality of going to war, and the second the moral conduct within war. Recently there have been calls for the inclusion of a third category of just war theory—jus post bellum—dealing with the morality of post-war settlement and reconstruction”, perhaps the French UN essay writer, might reflect on the Just war theory, I mean, she has such a great handle on fiction, might it not be an idea to set the record straight on historic events? I see and understand the stage of ‘Just war theory’, there is nothing wrong with it, but consider the stage we were at in 1095, the middle east was not a christian bastion. In 1000bc Jerusalem was Jewish, in 586 bc it became Babylonian, Alexander the Great made it Greek, after that is became Egyptian, then Roman, after that it became Muslim, 400 years before the first crusade. Can anyone even tell what Jerusalem was supposed to be?
But Christians needed expansion and the famine and destitute in Europe gave them the idea to tap into the wealthy reserves of the Arab nations. This is a stage that had war upon war, all whilst none had any clue who they were up against, merely that their enemy was non-christian, can we afford a repetition? Well, I actually do not care, if it decimates 96% of the population, I’ll be happy, because this planet will end up with all kinds of live stopping it become extinct. So back to Christians, can we tell how many versions there are? There are dozens of bibles all different, there are Catholics, Protestants, Anglicans, Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, 7 day advents, Quakers and a whole range of subversions and additions. Yet there are as far as I can tell, two forms of Islam, Sunni Islam and Shia Islam and they both have the same Quran, to the letter. Sunni’s and Shia’s pray together and their pilgrimage takes them all to the same to places. I believe that we create the doubt in ourselves and I do not care on secularism, armistice or atheist values, which of them allows for the open and wanton disrespect of Islam we see?
It does not make the violence acceptable, but we created that stage ourselves, we need to see that and we need to see it quickly. In case you wonder if it is just Islamic violence. I offer you the setting of another challenge. Buy a cow, go into Mumbai with that cow and slaughter your own cow, good luck getting out alive, your changes are not that good. If that setting offends you, then why allow the entire stage towards an image of Muhammad, in a school no less.
Filed under Media, Politics, Religion
Tagged as Anglicans, Arab nations, Baptists, Byzantine, catholics, Council of Clermont, Islam, Israel, Jewish, Jus ad bellum, Jus in bellum, Jus post bellum, just war theory, Lutherans, Methodists, Muhammad, Muslim, Pope Urban II, Protestants, Quran, Saint Augustine of Hippo, Salman Rushdie, Samuel Paty, Satanic verses, Shia, Sunni, Syria
August 8, 2020 · 02:51
Business lost, options lost
There is no denying it, at times people take decisions, and when that happens others get to live with the consequences. This is how it has always been, it is a simple truth. Yet, when was the last time you had to live with the ethical believes of others, all whilst they refuse to demand the same on the other side of the coin?
Consider the headline ‘Belgium suspends arms exports to Saudi national guard’, I get it, it is a choice, so when we see “the southern Belgian region of Wallonia halted weapons sales to Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry and air force over concerns about the conduct of its war in Yemen”, I cannot say one way or the other, yet so far NO ONE has held Iran to any level of standards, and the same was not demanded from the Houthi forces. That part is a first in understanding just how stupid the action was. Now, we need to understand that human rights groups have their own ideology and that is fine. So as there is now an increased danger that $2-$4 billion in small arms over the next 5 years will now end in the coffers of either Russia or China, one had to wonder how the US (at minus 25 trillion) or Europe (at minus 14 trillion) will live with losing billions in revenue and handing it over to China and/or Russia. Let’s be clear I have nothing against human rights, yet this is a situation where the house is on fire and someone is telling you (not a fireman mind you) that only rainwater can be used to stop the fire, all whilst it is not raining, so how will that end? I have seen a whole range of actions, but the EU refuses to act against Iranian interference or Houthi inhumane actions, for the most the European media has taken all the efforts to keep it out of their publications as well. Even as Israel’s Hayom gives us ‘Iran sees disaster as opportunity to advance regional interests’, we might not react, but who will asks the questions that matters when we see “more than 84,000 children who have died of starvation in the bloody civil war in Yemen can teach us a basic lesson”, so when we compare that to the UN news which was given last month, and similar news for close to a year ‘Waiting to declare famine ‘will be too late for Yemenis on brink of starvation’’, so please explain to me how ‘on brink of starvation’ is staged in a situation where well over 84,000 children that died of starvation? How much more idiocy will we watch, empty actions from human rights groups so that we can sleep at night in a stage where it is already too late?
So not only are these people in denial, they are handing billion dollar industries over to China and/or Russia, so how does that sit with you? And let’s be clear, Belgium is not in the greatest economic situations. Yet, they have that right, and they are not doing anything illegal, it is merely silly on a few levels. So when the initial options are lost and the opportunities are lost to a group of nations that can ACTUALLY SPEND money, how intelligent are these people? The moral high ground is only interesting on a level playing field and it was never a level playing field. In this some may state that they would never work in the arms industry, but what happens when you are offered an instructor job on weapons? If you are unemployed, are you allowed the station of refusal? Consider that for a moment, working or unemployed? Is it such a bad call to teach a person how to properly handing a firearm? Is it illegal to be a data miner? An investment banker? What is the borderline where we decide on the events of others?
Where is the wisdom?
We seem to believe that we have the wisdom to make things better in Yemen and Syria, but the people who should have acted refused to do so and now human rights are making it impossible for issues to be resolved, so basically our believe in human rights killed 84,000 children of hunger. Have you considered that part in the equation? Until human right groups can deal with both sides of the equation, they are basically worthless, not achieving much of anything, so if they get baskets of Yum Cha or Black-bread and Vodka this Christmas, they know which government is thanking them for the billions of extra revenue in 2020 and 2021. You see, in this instance the house is on fire and there is no rain coming, so will you forfeit the house or will you safe what you can? In the end having principles are nice, but unless the others are on the same page, you are merely handing others money you could make to make things better and remember, as an economic partner the EU had some options of talks in Saudi Arabia, when that falls away they are merely speakers with intent to be useless it ends. So tell me, when was the last time ANY government made time for any person with the mere intent to be useless?
No matter who the need has, I was willing (and eager) to sell either the MP5, the Vityaz-SN （PP-19-01), or the Norinco NR08. Whatever the client wants, and if MP5 is pulling itself off the market, we should remember that there are 2 alternatives. I wonder how much thought the human right groups took that into consideration and when the money stops, their options stop as well. Sun Tsu learns us what battles to fight and which ones we should ignore, it is a basic setting in commerce as well. If certain people will not learn that lesson a lot faster there will not be a population in Yemen left.
Filed under Finance, Military, Politics
Tagged as Belgium, China, Hayom, Herstall, Houthi, Human right, Iran, Israel, MP5, Norinco, NR08, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Vityaz, Yemen
June 9, 2020 · 21:11
Paranoia vs Delusions vs Megalomania
We all have that situation, Am I paranoid? Am I delusional? Is it me? We see these parts in ourselves, at least most balanced people have that side in them, it is part of the checks and balances we build within ourselves. So, when we see the BBC article only 10 hours ago stating ‘Satellite traffic images may suggest virus hit Wuhan earlier’ we need to take a long hard look at the matters that play. TheBBC makes the endgame clear (just to cover themselves) with “The study has not been peer-reviewed”, yet that is merely the part that matters the least. A number of serious questions and levels of scrutiny are required on both Harvard University as well as Dr John Brownstein. Now, I am not stating that the study is wrong, I have not read it, as such I am in no state to comment on it, but I do have thoughts. The first is all that satellite traffic. We might throw that thought away, but I have other issues. For that we need to go back to 2013 (March and August) at that point we had issues with Chemical attacks in Syria and no one knew anything, not even the Americans, so they cannot identify a mass extinction event with Sarin, but they can give a larger view on the flu? Consider the idea that the US has been actively PROTECTING the user of a chemical attack, did you consider that? I had that thought the day it happened, but they all hid behind “The UN mission found the likely use of the nerve agent Sarin”, in all this we accept ’likely’? In that stage we now see all kinds of speculation by people a lot will not care about and I am the delusional one? Added to that the online surges? So what data is used, where did the data come from? Added to all this is the stage of the way it is presented, and linked to all this is data that requires a lot of scrutiny. Consider that someone makes a paper like this whilst we also see “But if the infection was present – undetected perhaps – some people could have been leaving Wuhan” all linked to people searching for flu symptoms? And someone made a paper out of that?
I reckon it is time to massively scrutinize EVERYTHING coming from the US, yet too many listen to the words from Wall Street and they need a scapegoat or all these losses, all whilst we see that the lack of resources is the number two bad boy.
Is China innocent?
I do not know that, and to be honest, I do not care. They had the Swine flu over there and a few other issues, yet it is and has always been clear that Wuhan was the start. The fact that the flu went to so many places left me puzzled from the beginning. I admit that I know nothing of Wuhan, as such I have no idea how much international traffic it sees, yet in february there was a clear picture and even then it took the media 10 days to give a clear Pandemic message, even though I had clearly shown that the dictionary meaning of Pandemic had already been passed and the global governments did close to nothing, their economies would not let them and now they are crying like little girls. All starting their own blame game. So whilst we are all looking at China (which partially makes sense) no one is wondering how governments and the people reacted when the WHO gave us all on January 30th “A Public Health Emergency of Global Concern”, yet what did the governments do? They underestimated the issue again and again and we see very little of that, do we? In this the South China Morning Post gave “that China’s first confirmed Covid-19 case traced back to November 17th”, we can set the stage that there was an issue earlier, but there is also the stage of identifying the disease and in all that the larger issues is not blaming China, as I personally see it the lack of actions by governments on a global scale is a much larger issue, with the winner being President Trump making wild claims going back to March 2020, instead of closing the borders he let it all happen and now we see that the US has an optionally underreported number of almost 2 million cases infected whilst over 111,000 people died of the virus, 111,000 people that died of the flu. In all that less than 50% in the US are registered recovered cases. I reckon that this so called paper on a virus with wild statements like “they could not always compare satellite images taken on the same day in consecutive years due to cloud cover in some of the photo’s”, as I would like to call attention to the 2013 fiasco where implied wind and optionally dust too prevented the Intelligence agencies of seeing what was happening, it made all the difference to the dead people.
Filed under Finance, Politics, Science
Tagged as BBC, China, Contagion, Coronavirus, COVID-19, John Brownstein, President Trump, Sarin, Swine flu, Syria, US, Wuhan
April 20, 2020 · 00:30
When walls close in
I had an interesting day, my mind designed another game, I dreamt of a new movie and I considered what comes next in the entire Covid mess. I will say upfront that it is all speculation, the issues skating close to the truth usually are. It all started with the news. The BBC gives us ‘Trump: A safe gradual and phased opening’, which might be nice and OK, yet the people who actually know about sickness and disease think it is a bad idea. With 2,347,887 sick and 161,138 dead people some will get to say ‘I see dead people’, and they might be telling the truth. I will not waste your time to consider the 739K sick people in the US and the connected 39K dead people, the math there does not hold up completely because of the timeline and the speed at which it pushes through due to large cities like New York. And what do hundreds of Americans do, people without any level of medical education mind you? They protest against the Covid rules, they are the source of propagating the disease and that is good. You see Wall Street and its vassals need to learn the one lesson they forgot about, if you bank on a consumer based wealth cuve, you need actual consumers and the US lost over 39K consumers. Their debts cannot be collected and the curve changes. Even as some Texans push to reopen to open their business, we will see that the rents are due but a lot of customers will stay away. Open business without mindful consumers spending money. Yes it is the time for Amazon to really reel in the cash, but in the end, the shops still lose. And remember resident Trump making some waves in proclaiming against all evidence that the mortality rate of Covid would be no more than 1.8%? It is over 5% in the US at present. No one seems to be asking the right questions. The economic model must be adhered to and the EU is starting to realise that it is a mere tool in the needs of the US, AUS has not figured that out yet, but they will, or perhaps AUS will become the 53rd state of the US. All speculative options at present,something that will be merketter as the A state of the US.
In my view there is a lot of overreaction regarding the flu, yet I am willing to accept that it is done to lower the curve and to keep casualties down, OK, I get it. I might not like it, but I get it and that feeling remains absent for a lot in the US.
Andin all this as we see the reactions to investigations on the World Health Organisation, I am content to write those names down, the pretentious Marise Payne who is all about bi-partisanship. The interesting thing is that this all happened right after the accusations by President D. Trump, yet not unlike the Huawei situation no evidence of any kind was ever produced, and again the A state of the US is following. It is one of those times when ‘bipartisan’ seems to meen, ‘a tool for the US’.
You see a flu this amazing where mortality rate is in the sewers and all over the place, jumping from 2% to 10% whilst there are over 100K patients in that country is not natural. There can always be some fluctuation, but if you merely look at Germany and France, where the amount of dead people are apart by almost 500%, there is a larger issue, that issue is that there is more to the disease and nations are in denial of that part, yet blaming China makes it all OK, or so they think.
Let’s make sure that I am not stating that they are innocent, I am stating that so far we see no evidence of any kind and the open hostilities of the US towards China are not set in any light in the media. That too is a piece of evidence that needs to be illuminated.
The stage where Marise Payne is stating that the WHO should not run the investigation and that she is stating that China should allow for transparency whilst she herself is in a doubtful stage is unmentioned. I agree that the coronavirus needs to be investigated, yet it needs to be done by the right people, the fact that she wants to invalidate the WHO from the get go is weird to say the least. In all this the first station of the flu is healthcare and they have been underfunded for over a decade, the health of consumers was overplayed and the effects underestimated. This is visible in AUS, the UK, many nations in the EU and the US. I know too little of Japan to add them to the list.
THese consumers are adamant and directly involved, because without them the Wall Street formula fails and someone is finally realising it. Forbes stated on April 13th (a Monday) ‘Wall street Wobbles as investors ignore the science of Covid-19’ and there we see “its transmissibility and mortality rate are known to health officials. All of this information has been communicated publicly” yet there are clear open souces out there as well as the numbers in Germany,Spain, Italy and China that makes for a shoddy case in both matters and the people are just ignoring it. The article shows a few other parts and also the fact that when it comes to Wall Street, it is erratic, especially when the numbers go down and that is what will happen, as the US surpasses a mortality numbers of 50K, we will see panic by investors, especially as the disease does not differentiate between the rich and the poor, the worker and the abuser, a flu that merely kills. And when they realise that the death rate in the US is five times that of Germany, we will see initial inklings that there is a larger play and it is not seen in the death numbers, it will be seen in the stage where economies cannot get started because it requires consumers and they are dead. Yet the total deaths is lower than those in Syria and Yemen, so why bother now?
Because now they are consumers that these companies vie for and they no longer answer their phones, and for the most the health officials are ignored to avoid the danger that the message is too negative. As we see in the UK that the NHS people are wearing aprons instead of gowns. As they are on life support, we see a much larger danger. A nation where health care falls away, it took 114K patients and 15K deaths to pull that off, so when will Americans realise that their numbers are a lot worse and their levels of inequality. The Guardian gave us ‘Profit over people, cost over care: America’s broken healthcare’, and no one in the US is actively investigating that part? Australia is almost in a similar place.
It is not the beginning or the middle, this is the beginning of the beginning and things will get worse. I wonder how many people realise that, even as we see all kinds of numbers, when we do get sick and healthcare falls away, the world has a problem and the US will be one of the first ones to learn what happens when the Wall Street formula cannot be matched. For them profit is everything, lives are not.
So whilst you are in lockdown, consider the fact that when the walls fall in, it is not a case of the walls falling in, but you have been placed in a coffin and you are a number on the covid stats, no matter where you live. And optionally, you will be one of the forgotten, especially as the BBC and others are stating that these numbers are so much higher than expected. In the UK has 2,000 home care locations with the Coronavirus, yet ABC claims that their numbers are not to be found, so how high is the problem and what else is unknown at present. So whilst we are not in possession of the numbers, some are still willing to blame China, all whilst for too long too many places left the border open until specifics were known, that failing in foresight is also unmentioned in many places, I wonder what that investigation will bring to the table of Marie Payne, if she looks at it at all.
Tagged as Aus, BBC, China, Corona virus, Covid, death rate, Germany, Marise Payne, Medicare, mortality rate, NHS, Spain, Syria, the Guardian, Trump, UK, US, USA, Wall Street, WHO, Yemen
March 16, 2020 · 15:12
Just Saying “Haachoo”
We all get it, there is an overreaction at present, the overreaction (for the most) is people buying too much of whatever they do not need. So Saturday I saw a person getting back to the supermarket who wanted to return some of the toilet paper he had bought, I wonder if second hand toilet paper sells. He didn’t go to see if he can offload some of the toilet paper to his neighbours and break even that way. I did because 36 rolls is all they sold and 12 should keep me in shitty paper for at least a month, keeping more than that is a little excessive. My neighbours did not mind, they both paid their $5 and as such I broke a little better then even, I made $1 and created two happy neighbours. In my case, 36 rolls was the only option. Yet as we see the supermarkets, we see empty shelves of toilet paper, tissues, pasta and a few more items. It is panic buying in a Coronaviral atmosphere, even as Coronabeer is not sold beyond the normal amounts it does.
Why is it overreaching?
I get it, we want assurances, yet consider the numbers. Around 170,000 people got it at present. Until last week, 93% of ALL cases were in China, Italy, Iran and South Korea. As such over 3 billion people got overly angst in regards to an optional infecting 1,000 people, that was then. Now we see that Spain (7,845), Germany (5,813) and racing to the top 6 positions France with 5,423 cases. We get it, it is the flu and this one is growing fast, but in the end, France is looking at a 2.3% mortality rate, which is still better than the 3.6% that is the global number. Italy with a whopping 24,747 cases see a rising 7.3% death rate.
Now, I get it, it is scary, yet here in Australia, the mortality rate is set to 1.67%, a lot lover and now we see the stage where fear is more likely than not killing us before the flu will.
Yet the numbers show something else too, the numbers do not add up in all this. How did that one person in Suriname get infected? The one in Mauritania, Mongolia, or Gabon? There was one case in Gibraltar, but that person is now cured. We are all pointing at China, but the setting does not add up. There is even a case on St. Barths. How is this flu spreading, because all the information does not add up. It did for a while and now we see a pandemic and it is growing and growing in numbers on a stage that is not properly identified, as such the pandemic will only get worse.
For me I see one flaw, in all this there is no mention of Yemen, or Syria. I agree with anyone who states that they have enough problems, but this flu is larger than we think and these people need a lot, they do not need the Coronavirus to help a hand in killing them, yet that is also the larger issue. Two nations where the immune system is close to destroyed to bad water, no food and other means, the flu has a free reign in those places and even as the Middle East Eye gives us ‘Syria insists it is coronavirus-free‘, I believe that this is not the case and through there (and Yemen) it will spread further still. Beyond that, as we look at the numbers, the spread of the disease is largely uncontained as there are too many unknowns and as such when there is no containment, others will get infected, how? We cannot be certain.
It becomes a lot less certain when we consider the quote “Pakistani health officials said on Tuesday that at least five of their country’s cases originated from patients travelling to Pakistan from Syria via Qatar” as such, what else is being spread? And to what extent is Pakistan involved in the Syrian escalation? Because the last time I checked, refugees cannot afford a trip via Qatar, making Qatar also a larger target in other ways.
There is also the stage of consideration around “It was not immediately clear whether the infections could have originated in Qatar, where cases have risen to 337” (401 as per yesterday), even if that is a larger rise in the Middle East where, as per yesterday, Saudi Arabia had 118 cases, Oman had 22 cases, and Bahrain had 214 cases, the stage is larger than we realise because in a setting of non clarity containment cannot be reached. In all this, humanitarian help in Syria and Yemen could be spreading it faster, they have a better immune system and as such until they get noticeably sick they might be spreading the disease to dozens upon dozens more. and whomever they give it to, those infected will hit the mortality rate hard, they are malnourished, have underlying health issues, they tend to be dehydrated and have no way of keeping clean. It is a much larger stage that we cannot predict and it will hit every one of us in one way or another.
In all this, the mortality rate went from 3.4%, to 3.6% (last week) and is now set to 3.8%, as what stage will governments take the lead and have actual solutions in place? The fact that containment is not reached implies that whatever solution they think of is merely a non solving patch on a hole that hides a few other holes that are not patched at all.
Am I exaggerating?
Consider that last week 4 nations had 93% of all the cases, that has now dwindled down to 75.1%, the numbers and nations with cases are growing and we see no actual answers and no factual solutions other than post event considerations, giving a much larger rise to hysteria. and in all this the mortality rate does not add up. Globally it might be 3.8%, yet in Sweden it is 0.28%, in the US it is 1.83% and Italy wins with 7.3%, which is a lot higher than China with 3.9%, the numbers do not add up and the media is not informing a hysteria driven population, all whilst the guardian gives us ‘UK coronavirus crisis ‘to last until spring 2021 and could see 7.9m hospitalised‘‘, in this I wonder how spring 2021 is tested? There is enough doubt on the lack of containment, as such we have much larger fish to fry than ‘A Complete List of Trump’s Attempts to Play Down Coronavirus‘ (source: NY Times).
The setting in any war and believe me, this is a war against the flu, we need to set the stage of containment, as this is not achieved we see that the flu will win in the end. Personally I am not fuzzed, I will be either dead or better employed, either way is a win for me, yet for the US government, the flu is not about the sick (at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/business/economy/coronavirus-response-wall-street.html), it is seemingly about the volatility of Wall Street. And as we are being fed “The Federal Reserve, in a drastic attempt to ensure Wall Street remained functional as volatility roiled even normally staid bond markets, said it would promptly inject as much as $1.5 trillion in loans into the banking system and broaden its purchases of Treasury securities. But neither the Fed’s actions, nor a plan by the European Central Bank to offer cheap loans to banks and step up its bond-buying campaign, were enough to assuage investors, who sent the S&P 500 down 9.5 percent“, we need to consider that there is a mechanism to keep wall street afloat, even when the sick are being denied that. The lack of containment pretty much guarantees it.
And as we are being given (in this case by the Financial Times) “Spain has followed Italy’s lead in imposing a shutdown on its entire population to fight the coronavirus, while France is closing all non-essential shops and restaurants” in this we forget about one small little event. If there is no containment, how does it help and for the matter of imposing self isolation for two weeks, will that actually solve it? Consider that the people were infecting others BEFORE the disease struck them, is the idea that they are still contagious after they feel better two weeks later that strange? Consider that on December 4th 1872 a ship was found its crew missing, we used that event (Mary Celeste) in several weird occurances, yet the idea that a cured population becomes a Mary Celeste, is that so far fetched? In this Live Science dot com (at https://www.livescience.com/can-coronavirus-be-cured.html) gives us “Currently, however, there is no cure for this coronavirus, and treatments are based on the kind of care given for influenza (seasonal flu) and other severe respiratory illnesses, known as “supportive care,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)“, and as we accept the numbers giving us that 77,450 have recovered, can we be sure that they are not still spreading the flu? I am not telling you, I am asking, because I do not know and it seems that there are plenty of medical specialists in the dark. The quotes we can consider in the article give a larger rise to it and as such the over acting governments are merely showing that they are at best partially limiting the events of spread of the virus implying that the virus could last a lot longer.
There are too many unknowns and the fact that the numbers show that there is no actual containment, are my thoughts out of bounds? It is in that path that I see the actions of the WHO (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/european-countries-take-radical-steps-to-combat-coronavirus), slightly out of bounds. I agree with the language, but it cannot be connected to actions, actions require us to acknowledge that we know how to contain this and the numbers show a different story, containment is not reached and as far as I can tell, it was never merely a Chinese issue. It might have grown there faster and more radical, but the rest of the world got infected in other ways, and the medical world is staring in one direction all whilst they have no clue on the powers and the spreadability of the Covid-19 virus. It became a pandemic too quickly and we are now getting the smallest confirmation that the movie by Steven Soderbergh called Contagion (2011) was optimistic, it seems that we have to learn that part the hard way. In those days Manohla Gargis of the New York Times gave us :”“Contagion,” Steven Soderbergh’s smart, spooky thriller about contemporary plagues, is a paranoid freakout for the antigovernment, Tea Party age“, I merely wonder how she will react when Covid-19 comes knocking on her front door.
To support it we get Warner Brothers giving us: “the film ranked 270th in views in the company’s catalog at the end of 2019, when the existence of COVID-19 was not yet public knowledge. Now, it’s the second most-watched movie, bested only by the Harry Potter films“, it seems that the people are being made aware of what was out there and the fact that it is becoming reality will fuel more than a few wandering minds. We might all see this as providence, but it isn’t (at present), apart from the mortality rate not being on par, we have another consideration. It is the fact that there are cases in Mauritania, Mayotte, Mongolia, Suriname, Eswatini, St. Vincent Grenadines, Honduras and the Channel Islands, all with less than 5 cases, yet how did THEY get it? Containment is almost non existent and that is a larger need, when we walk the street we see 50-150 people, and there is every chance that up to 10 have Covid-19, up to ten in every street, that is the reality we face, not now, but in a weeks time? Who knows?
In a setting of non containment, the flu gets free reign, we have known that for decades, and often in the workplace.
Filed under Finance, Media, Politics, Science
Tagged as Bahrain, China, Contagion, COVID-19, Eswatini, Financial Times, Honduras, Iran, Italy, Mauritania, Mayotte, Mongolia, New York Times, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, St. Vincent Grenadines, Steven Soderbergh, Suriname, Syria, the Guardian, Trump, UK, US, WHO, Yemen
March 4, 2020 · 16:03
Mere numbers
Yes we all have mere numbers, and it is nice that some are advocating the lack of numeric connections on the news. Consider that we are being confronted with a disease with an optional death rate of 3.4%, however the news is being brought like that is not the death rate, it is the survival rate. From ‘Murder inquiries could be hit if coronavirus reduces police numbers‘, to ‘WHO says coronavirus death rate is 3.4% globally, higher than previously thought‘, in all this we see a massive level of overreaction by all (including media), why? Lets face it, it is a flu and 3.4% in fatalities is still lower then your chances to cross the road whilst the crossing light is red in Manhattan, Regent street London or Parramatta road in Sydney. The overreaction I see is just staggering, even now we see ‘Wall Street slides after Federal Reserve makes emergency US rate cut‘, all as we see the numbers that give us “Coronavirus Cases: 92,880 Deaths: 3,168” and this is all before you realise the slight side factor “Recovered: 48,589“, so as the amount of people are restoring it and as we see a level of fear mongering whilst the amount of people not alive is a mere 3.4%, in addition, as we see the small realisation that in a group of thirty including me, i would feel that I was the one not making it, that is until I realise that one of the other thirty is Rupert Murdoch, which would make him the unlucky fellow, age is apparently a factor, the young have a much better chance, so there you have it, playing Russian roulette with thirty others and one gun, making it one out of the thirty not making it, and when you realise that a pistol has 6 options, we see the overreaction. Age is a factor, making it a setting where the bulk of the people will end up having to pay their taxes. I did have fun last week, as i was in a train I stated on my mobile (with no one at the other end) “I’ve had the sniffles ever since I came back from China“, within a few minutes I was alone in that carriage, that will teach people lo listen to other people’s phone calls. Over reaction can work for you, I learned that a long time ago and I do have a flaky sense of humour to boot (every now and then I should just kick myself).
Even in the UK with now 51 cases, the UK still has no fatalities, we get it, it is a disease with an optional not happy ending, but we need to realise that so far the death toll is a mere 3.4%, some nations have a larger death population by drinking water. When you consider “Contaminated drinking water is estimated to cause 485 000 diarrhoeal deaths each year” and you consider that this flu virus has only taken the lives of 3,168 people, the overreaction by others is just a little too much. So as we are treated to adjustment in interest levels and we see US rate cuts all whilst the death toll in the US is so far 9 people, we see a massive overreaction, and it is time to call the media and governments to attention. In the US Heart disease will kill 165,000 people, cancer 152,000, no one cares, yet this flu that has killed 9 shows an overreaction that is uncanny, it is lower than diabetes, yet we overreact, all whilst sugar intake is off the charts.
Caution and the wind
We all need to take caution, I am not stating that this is the case, but the overaction seen all over the media is just stupid, a disease milked for circulation through the use of implied danger, not shown danger. The best headline is seen with ‘Corona Causes Stupidity To Go Viral‘ (at https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2020/03/01/corona-causes-stupidity-to-go-viral-n2562371), here we see “the United States has excellent care everywhere. While there is no “cure” for a virus, we have the ability to treat the symptoms more readily available than any other country in the world. And we also care to administer that care. Most of the rest of the world: not so much” for the most, the issue is spot on, even as we now see that the US has 9 fatalities, the media is all to happy about keeping people in the dark on the 3.4% fatality rate (at best),
Still, we should not throw caution in the wind, yet between that status and the mediated one where we see “80pc of Scots could get disease“, all whilst no national numbers in any country show any numbers that could give rise to such a blatant form of miscommunication. I think that the danger of Scots becoming British nationalists is a lot higher, if you catch my drift.
Even if we for whatever reason ‘hide’ behind the numbers, we all take a position, the media as mostly fear mongering, the governments in easing whatever economic pressures there are and even me, as to the overreaction of so many others. A disease with a death rate of 3.4% gives a different optimistic side, my survival rate on most cardiac options I could get hit with is a lot lower than 96.6%, so I have a better chance to live longer if I get the Coronavirus, how sic is that?
China, South Korea, Italy and iran, all have thousands of actual cases and there we see that ONLY China and Italy have a percentage of non-living that is at the 3.4%, South Korea has a fatality rate that is less than 1%, so 99% survives there, 32 deaths in 5,328 cases, as such Australia with one kill out of 39 is not in any danger of being an issue, especially as 21 cases have made a full recovery. Yet the media does not give us that part, does it? And when we see how it hits the places where poverty is a danger, is that because there are no cases in Monte Carlo? (fingers crossed), or perhaps it is because Saudi Arabia currently only has one case?
No matter how we slice it, we need to sit down and take a sober look at the numbers, in the first it already is a pandemic, in the second we see the cold numbers give us that 96.6% will merely get sick and recover without dying of the disease. There were 4 flu viruses in the past, the avian version (1957) killed around 2 million, the manana virus (Spanish flu) killed 50,000,000. the other two killed a million each, this Coronavirus does not add up to anything serious, the numbers prove me right. There is a massive overreaction, especially when you consider serious diseases like Ebola, or HIV. Their death rates are indeed serious, this Corona event does not add up to much at all and it is time that we take that into consideration.
By the way what was the rate cut by the federal reserve when HIV became an issue? It seems to me that this is an event that the media, especially the financial writers seem to have forgotten (read: ignored). So whilst the media is giving us ‘Washington state residents frustrated over obstacles to get coronavirus tests‘, or even ‘WHO warns of protective gear shortage as global recession fears mount‘, in a case where we see proven that 96.6% will not endure any fatalities, the overreaction is clearly seen, yet the lack of governments making sure that all people realise that there is too much overreaction in the midst of a generic flu season is a little staggering. All whilst the headlines are spiked with phrases like “its battle against the deadly virus“, I personally believe that the fatality rate needs to be a lot larger than 3.4% before we have a viral publication of “the deadly virus“, at least that is my take on it, call me crazy, but a situation where a virus optionally kills 3,200 all whilst traffic kills 1,250,000 people annually is a stretch, especially when you realise that the virus could have been a mere complicating factor in several deaths, the elderly die for all kinds of non-natural causes, the virus is a given complication here, but there will be some debate whether the complications, or the virus was the killer remained to be seen and the elderly will get hit harder, no doubt about that.
When we consider the mere numbers, the ado about Corona becomes much about nothing, even if it does kill, 3,200 deaths does not amount to anything when we compare it to the lack of life through survival in Syria (Idlib, Aleppo) or all over Yemen, did you consider that?
Filed under Media, Politics, Science
Tagged as Australia, China, Coronavirus, Daily Mail, Federal reserve, Italy, London, Rates, Rupert Murdoch, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, South Korea, Sydney, Syria, TownHall.com, UK, US, Wall Street, WHO, Yemen
The interpretation of a citizen
It is odd, is it not? That the image of a citizen, any citizen is merely a presentation of what might be, that is at today’s conundrum (whilst I am trying to formulate answers asked of other matters). When we read ‘This government has failed Shamima Begum‘ according to Anish Kapoor (at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/11/this-government-has-failed-shamima-begum), we consider the matter, but the reality is that ‘Shamima Begum failed her government her family, her nation and optionally her beliefs‘, yet that is not what we are told is it? Even if we accept to the the smallest degree the words of JFK ‘Ask not what your country can for you, ask what you can do for your country‘ we see the larger failure. We get to ask ‘How can my country protect me?‘ yet we should consider that this comes with the need to do something for our country, in the first we need to warn them that there is a danger. Shamima did seemingly not inform her parents, she followed (after some time) a stranger to another nation to become the enemy of the UK, she joined ISIS, and even as we see Anish Kapoor give us “Shamima left the UK when she was 15, after she had been extensively groomed under the noses of the very authorities tasked to protect her” she casually leaves out the fact that Shamima at 15 kept vital information from her parents, she kept vital information from the people around her who would have stepped in. So as I read “Shamima has undoubtedly said some stupid things; it is clear some of her words were uttered under duress and threat“, I would counter that with the fact that if she kept her family informed the situation would not exist. This was not a new situation, ISIS was a clear and present danger to people all over the world, and as I see “Is it now the new norm that we have to prove how British we are? Are some of us more British than others?” The writer needs to consider the simpler setting that those in WW2 siding with Germany would be strung up by the nearest tree without waiting for an optional trial.
And we can see that this was a political hest by the simple last line “It is clear that this Tory government is bent on excluding from these shores all those it can label as outsiders“, I do not believe that to be true, a person sided with enemy forces and joined an enemy army. Even as the given path of a war in terrorism is not the same, a path was crossed, she sided with the enemy and she can appeal to ISIS to give her an ISIS passport, she can await her next battle with death and in the end she will die. Our enemies die and we feel too often indifferent, and for the most we all know it, but the stage of ‘this poor poor poor girl was 15‘ does not fly with me and it should not fly with anyone seeing ISIS as the enemy.
The BBC (at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47240100) gives us “left home in 2015 at the height of the power of the self-styled Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq“, she left her family and her nation, she joined ISIS. the fact that we also get “Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana – flew from Gatwick Airport to Turkey after lying to their parents about their plans for the day. Their aim was to join another friend, Sharmeena Begum, who had left in late 2014” shows a slightly different part, we now see the path where Shamima if stronger connected to Sharmeena Begum ushering others to follow her trail towards ISIS, she was ‘elevated’ to the role of assistant ISIS recruiter, in my mind that makes her even less worthy of UK citizenship and optionally more worthy to become a guest of Hotel CIA Black Site (currently at an undisclosed area somewhere on this planet).
So as we are given “Eventually the teenager gave up and headed to a refugee camp“, so after ISIS was hit in devastating ways, she decided to take the money (her life) and run. Why would we ever allow her back? And in this we see the valid argument “the security services in London were also deeply concerned that the girls would be a propaganda tool to help IS recruit others from their community“, I wrote a year ago in my article ‘Living with choices made‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/02/15/living-with-choices-made/) “Shamima Begum is merely one of several risks at present and it is important to realise that a Queensberry Rules approach is not merely making us human and humane, it is getting us killed with 99% certainty, the opposition does not warrant, endorse of accepts any kind of rules. I do hope that the recruitment of 15 year old girls will suffice as evidence at present.“
I gave that station a year ago almost to the day, now consider (as we are being paranoid) the bible of paranoia (to some degree) by a man named George Orwell who gave us the classic 1984. He gives us “One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship” that is the danger that Shamima Begum represents, if you doubt that, consider what she kept hidden from her parents and HER community for a long time before she moved to Syria, that is not a path that took a day, it took a while and no one was seemingly aware, the fact that two other girls were part of it and in on it gives a larger problem, one that we are not ready to fight and to have them return to the UK is making matters worse. At times we get to live with the choices WE make.
In support of this I will give you the BBC quote from the article “From the tone of Shamima Begum’s Times interview, she does not appear to regret her decision. She describes being unfazed by seeing the decapitated head of an anti-IS fighter, whom she described as an “enemy of Islam”” that is the danger that Anish Kapoor wants to allow back into the UK. Even as The Telegraph gives us “I said those things then to protect myself and my unborn son.“, we see that opposite the BBC view “From the tone of Shamima Begum’s Times interview, she does not appear to regret her decision.” the images collapse and from my point of view, not in favour of any part that Ms. Begum would want to consider. In addition, the Telegraph (at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/26/shamima-begum-says-really-bad-way-syrian-camp-wants-return-home/) gives us “Ms Begum served in the jihadist group’s “morality police” and also tried to recruit other young women to join the jihadist group, well-placed sources told The Telegraph in April“, Shamima represents a much larger problem and it is interesting how Anish Kapoor skates around that part and is optionally willing to endager the lives of many to get someone back into the UK who gave up her nationality and her allegiance to her family.
And that was before we consider “earned a reputation as a strict “enforcer” of Isil’s laws, such as dress codes for women, sources claimed“, I will accept that this is out in the open as I tend to not give too much credence to ‘sources claimed‘, especially when these sources are unnamed and unidentified. Yet there is a larger identity shown and that part of any identity is a direct and credible danger to the British public, I wonder if Anish Kapoor took that into consideration when she gave us “The foolish utterances of a teenager, however, are not enough reason to deprive her of the rights and duties of citizenship“, one view against three optionally established and identified dangers.
I know how I roll and it is not on the side of Shamima, that part is hopefully decently visible. Yet I feel it is important to make sure that we do not ‘attack’ Anish Kapoor. The Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/09/britain-has-moral-duty-to-bring-back-shamina-begum) gave us earlier this week a piece by Kenan Malik, there we see a lot, yet he is trying to dissuade us by ‘her support for Islamic State‘, all whilst she JOINED ISIS, he then gives us ‘It’s about Britain and its moral responsibilities‘, which is fair point of view, yet that same britain needs to keep 68 million innocent civilians safe and adding someone who had (optionally still has) terrorist views does not hold water, not when it could endanger a lot of others. Even as he set it to a different premise he also gives us “The fact of their crime should not change that moral principle“, he now basically sets a criminal and terrorists on that very same premise, as the basic axiom goes, all squares are rectangles, not all rectangles are squares. As such all terrorists are criminals yet not all criminals are terrorists. And we get loads of comparisons by what I tend to call the ‘wooly sock’ group, we are in a day and age where we can no longer afford the impact of such acts, and when we offer to lets these people in, yet the entire intelligence cost of observing a person like that is funded by education, we will get all kinds of ‘nasty’ responses on where to put that invoice, but the foundation of it is a give to all. If we need to monitor the ‘re-education’ of these people, education gets to pay for it and from that point onwards we will get the carefully phrased denials.
We need to accept the consequence of acts, and letting people like Shamima Begum back is no longer an option. She wanted to avert the wisdom of family, she wanted to set the new age towards optional marriage and union with ISIS, she now sees the cost of that choice, and she must live with that choice.
As such we also see the part that Kenan Malik gives us “I observed that politicians often claim that “what separates a nation such as Britain from the barbarism of Isis” is “its humane values”“, he does forget the option that some remain British by not joining Barbarians, that is the element he forgets about and that is where Shemima is, she chose the other team, her choice, her consequence and the worst part in all this is that people like Kenan Malik and Anish Kapoor are willing to play dice with the lives of others, but when the cost is harshly presented, they are optionally on vacation, or they moved on to other matters and merely state that this is the responsibility of ‘this government’, well ‘this government’ made a decision and they are making Shamima live with her consequences.
As I see it ‘This government’ did not fail Shamima Begum, Shamima failed her government, her nation and her family (in any given order), it might be harsh but accurate.
Filed under Media, Military, Politics
Tagged as Anish Kapoor, BBC, Citizenship, ISIS, Kenan Malik, Shamima Begum, Syria, terrorism, the Guardian, The Telegraph, UK
January 6, 2020 · 11:10
The public and facts ignored
Yup, this is all about the public, and a little bit about the media. The centre of attention of all this is Qasam Soleimani, as the weekend hit us, the US decided to hit Iraq and specifically Soleimani, They got lucky and got another two hit value targets in the process, yet let it be clear that Soleimani was the direct target. Over the weekend I have seen loads of rubbish in particular a tweet from Rose McGowan apologising to Iran on behalf of the American people and that got me furious (not just me). The media has been so successful in hiding the actions of Iran, especially during the Yemeni events that it is time that the public gets a little history lesson on just what Qasem Soleimani got done. In the last 20 years he has made more unwritten deals (especially with Hezbollah) than any other Iranian general in history. Over the last few years Iran has been in two proxy wars, one with Israel via Hezbollah and one with Saudi Arabia (in Yemen) with Hezbollah and Houthi forces.
“There are two important issues in the Saudi efforts [against the model of Iran’s Islamic Republic]: First, they spend a lot of money; second, they sow the seeds of problems throughout the Islamic world using the Salafiyya. They do all this because they are afraid that the model of the Islamic Republic will have an influence on them – and this is actually happening… The most important principle of the Rule of the Jurisprudent, where a wise and God-fearing man rules, should be the red line for us all [that we must never relinquish]” (source: MEMRI, 2014)
“The once reclusive head of the Revolutionary Guards’ elite Quds Force has emerged from a lifetime in the shadows directing covert operations abroad, to achieve almost celebrity status in Iran. The man who, until a couple of years ago most Iranians would not have recognised on the street, is now the subject of documentaries, news reports and even pop songs” (source: BBC, 2015).
“In neighbouring Syria he is widely credited with delivering the strategy that has helped President Bashar al-Assad turn the tide against rebel forces and recapture key cities and towns. Iran has always denied deploying boots on the ground in Syria and Iraq, but every now and then holds public funerals for security forces and “military advisers” who were killed in these two countries” (source: BBC, 2015)
“The main purpose of his visit was to discuss new delivery routes for shipments of Russian S-300 surface-to-air missile systems, sources said. Several sources also said Soleimani wanted to talk about how Russia and Iran could help the Syrian government take back full control of the city of Aleppo” (source: Reuters, 2016)
“Photos have emerged claiming that Major General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) elite foreign operations unit, the Qods Force, is in Aleppo, Syria. Soleimani leads Iranian strategy in Syria in coordination with both Russia and Bashar al-Assad’s government. He commands the IRGC-led Shiite expeditionary force there, which includes the Afghan Fatemiyoun, Pakistani Zeynabiyoun, Lebanese Hezbollah, and the Iraqi Harakat al Nujaba” (source: Classified, 2016)
“Soleimani pointed to how this was already happening as the Revolutionary Guards “had been working around the clock to arm the Popular Mobilization militias” after its establishment. On the sidelines of his participation in the memorial service of one of the guards killed in Syria on Monday, Soleimani said that the Lebanese Hezbollah terrorist group has already provided support to the PMU militias, according to a statement published on Tasnim news agency” (source: Al-Arabiya, 2017)
“Major-General Qassem Soleimani, the hugely popular commander of the IRGC’s Qods Force, appeared to attack the spirit, if not the substance, of the government’s foreign policy by highlighting the role of the Qods Force – and the wider IRGC – in advancing Iranian strategic and foreign policy goals. Speaking on the 40th day of the “martyrdom” of Brigadier General Shaaban Nassiri – who was killed in late May during the operation to retake Mosul – Soleimani glorified the role of commanders like Nassiri who make the ultimate sacrifice in pursuit of national prestige through the projection of complex forms of hard power. This is, of course, a swipe at the Rouhani administration which is perceived to favour softer forms of diplomacy to advance the Iranian position” (source: Middle East Eye, 2017)
“Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds (Qods)Force, has called for the “eradication” of Israel in retaliation for the killing of a Hezbollah commander ten years ago. Speaking in Tehran at a ceremony commemorating the 39th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution February 14, Soleimani said “The eradication of Israel would be the best revenge for the killing of Imad Mughniyeh.”” (source: Radio Farda, 2018)
“Soleimani’s message was in essence a warning to the US to stop threatening Iran with war or risk exposing itself to an Iranian response. “We are near you, where you can’t even imagine … Come. We are ready. If you begin the war, we will end the war,” Tasnim news agency quoted Soleimani as saying” (source: SCMP, 2018)
“The day after anti-government protests erupted in Iraq, Iranian Gen. Qassim Soleimani flew into Baghdad late at night and took a helicopter to the heavily fortified Green Zone, where he surprised a group of top security officials by chairing a meeting in place of the prime minister. The arrival of Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force and the architect of its regional security apparatus, signaled Tehran’s concern over the protests, which had erupted across the capital and in Iraq’s Shi’ite heartland, and included calls for Iran to stop meddling in the country” (source: Haaretz, 2019)
““Saudi Arabia is building its regional influence with money only. This is a false influence and a failure…We will take revenge for our martyrs…(and) it might be anywhere around the world,” Qasem Soleimani said, according to Tasnim. The Islamic Republic has accused arch regional rivals Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates of backing militants who carry out attacks on security forces in Iran. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have denied any connection with the attacks” (source: Radio Farda, 2019)
This is just a small grasp of a much larger problem, Qasam Soleimani has had a finger in the regional porridge for a much larger extent of time, and the absence of his acts in the Yemeni events is a much larger failing of the media, even as scores of experts clearly state that the drones that Houthi forces in Yemen could in no way be Yemeni, the media remained silent. There is no way that any of this happened without the approval and blessing of Qasam Soleimani. Even as the media had no issues stating numerous articles on Jamal Khashoggi and Saudi Arabia and hiding behind ‘alleged’, ‘seemingly’ and ‘from unnamed sources’, they stopped short on any reporting regarding Iran, the entire nuclear accords had too many eyes stopping the media doing their job. As such the people are largely unaware of just how involved Iran was in Yemen. As targeted killing goes, Qasam Soleimani was an essential target for the US and largely this man was a thorn in the side of optional Middle East stability, even now we see: ‘Hezbollah vows retaliation against US for Soleimani killing‘, yes the death of Qasam will be a problem for Hezbollah, under the table agreements tend to be absent of actual agreements and Hezbollah will need to ingratiate itself again to Iran. Consider the support that Qassam gave for a terrorist organisation to give out: “Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has vowed to target US forces in the region in retaliation for the killing of top Iranian and Iraqi commanders in a US drone strike earlier this week“.
Most importantly, QS has been the centre of attacks on Israel for the longest of times, Hezbollah had (according to some) a stockpile of 130,000 missiles. I find that number largely exaggerated, yet even at 10% we see 13,000 missiles at $100K each, so where did Hezbollah get that money? My personal take is that there is a large financial debt on KLebanon in the forms of send missiles, Iran has nothing to lose in that way, they have someone else attack Israel and if that is concluded they will had over the invoice which must have gone into the billions at present, the orchestrator has been and was as always Qasam Soleimani.
Hezbollah will do whatever it can to let that invoice stand and continue, without it they run out and they will have to admit defeat to Israel (something they would never do). There is no denial that the impact of Qassam Soleimani has been seen and felt all over the Middle East, his links to Hezbollah, his actions in Syria and Yemen as well as his death leading to a rift in Qatar pushing some towards Iran is a larger issue that has not been dealt with. Only an hour ago did we learn “Qatar’s contradictory policy moves – at once hosting the aircraft that attacked the Iranian commander and then apologizing for it – demonstrate the Qatari leadership’s “extremely dangerous” drift towards Iran, according to expert Varsha Koduvayur, a senior research analyst at the Washington-based think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “On the one hand, Qatar hosts US forces at al-Udeid air base. But on the other hand, they prop up and fund scores of terror groups throughout the Middle East diametrically opposed to US interests, and work hand in hand with countries that seek to damage the US’s interests in the region,” said Koduvayur in an interview“, a push that plenty did not see coming, implying that QS had larger links to Qatar, the place where in 2 years all football will be, happy now?
As Al-Arabiya gives us ““We consider ourselves on Iran’s side. We did not, at all, expect such a thing to happen, or that such a decision would ever be taken. Such actions are unprecedented, and we are very sad and concerned about this,” al-Thani, who also met with his Iranian counterpart Mohammed Javad Zarif, was quoted as saying“, we see a larger play and it seems that there are links that we did not expect to be, QS had a much larger role to play in Iran’s foreign policy than most analyst expected, there are seemingly larger connection where the military decided on policy and not President Rouhani, or at least that is how it appears. So anyone who wants to apologise for the targeted killing whilst ignoring the thousands of deaths that Iran has orchestrated for are out of their minds. The man who gave us (in May 2019) “Iran’s most prominent military leader has recently met Iraqi militias in Baghdad and told them to “prepare for proxy war”, the Guardian has learned. Two senior intelligence sources said that Qassem Suleimani, leader of Iran’s powerful Quds force, summoned the militias under Tehran’s influence three weeks ago, amid a heightened state of tension in the region. The move to mobilise Iran’s regional allies is understood to have triggered fears in the US that Washington’s interests in the Middle East are facing a pressing threat” has been stopped, there is no doubt that Iran will not stop and the devil you know beats the devil you don’t, yet the devil we knew was extremely adapt on the world stage, whomever replaces him will be nowhere as good as Qassam Soleimani ever was, of that I am decently certain.
Tagged as Afghan, Al Arabia, BBC, Doha, Fatemiyoun, Haaretz, Harakat al Nujaba, Hezbollah, Iran, Iraq, IRGC, Israel, Lebanese, MEMRI, Middle East Eye, Pakistani, Qasam Soleimani, Qatar, Quds force, Radio Farda, reuters, Rose McGowan, Saudi Arabia, SCMP, Shaaban Nassiri, Syria, US, Yemen, Zeynabiyoun
November 1, 2019 · 12:19
Russia backed Constitution
Whilst the US is deciding which side of the isle is supposed to deliver the clown sitting at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the Russians have settled on getting visibility on the ‘Syria constitution talks begin in Geneva‘ and the Russians are backing it, more disturbing news is that the foreign ministers of Iran, Russia and Turkey at a press conference on a meeting of the Syria committee in Geneva. This is a moment that should have sprung from the loins of the EU, perhaps even America, none are there in the light of day, why is that?
The Entire Iran – Turkey – Syria triumvirate is now coming into effect, whilst the EU and US had decided to fight a senseless war of posturing, standing by Saudi Arabia they ended mocking up the entire Middle East, and let’s face it, it takes up a whole scoop of people with the gravitas of a comet the size of that one that ended the dinosaurs to do that, but yes, they pulled it off, or at least so it seems.
Even as we read the words “Foreign ministers from Russia, Iran and Turkey were in Geneva on Tuesday night to meet negotiators, even though Pedersen had asked all countries to stay away and leave the talks as an exclusively “Syrian owned, Syrian led process”. The three countries put out a joint statement before the opening” we see that the hands behind the machines are settling what was to be the shakes of agreement, agreements in more than one case 2 years in the making. From that point of view the of UN special envoy Geir Pederson sound as hollow as you might think they are. And where was the EU? Where was America? In all this, oh right! They are not there, they decided not to get involved, there is no meat on the tray, and there is no weight on the scales. Basically two elements in what we call a free western world did not deem Syria entitled to that part of life and Russia stepped in, as did Iran, as did Turkey. Two out of three with too much to win, a place for existential contracts, the price of rebuilding will be heavy, it will not be cheap for Syria, but Syria will be rebuilt, just like I mentioned in ‘Slicing the Tiramisu‘ on April 5th 2018, a little over 18 months ago (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/04/05/slicing-the-tiramisu/). The stage where we see: “The three presidents — including Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, Iran’s Hassan Rouhani and Russia’s Vladimir Putin — gathered in the Turkish capital, Ankara, where they pledged to cooperate on reconstruction and aid” we see the present escalate for the facilitation towards President Assad, whilst they now are willing to state “The leaders called for more support from the international community and emphasized their opposition to “separatist agendas” in Syria“, you see now that they are at the table getting rich the rest of the Syrian oversight will be costly thing” which both I myself and the Washington Post looked at in light of the predictions I foresaw in (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/02/24/losing-values-towards-insanity/) ‘Losing values towards insanity‘ (almost two months earlier) we see now that the road is paved for the construction companies headed by Yevgeniy Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin to make the millions they need to, the millions the saw in the endgame, in that entire scramble, troop losses were shallow, meaningless and eventful as we now see unfurl. It is a Russian version of Booz Allan Hamilton with the stage and setting to set up camp and head on over to Saudi Arabia and build a little more once invited. That was the game I saw almost 2 years ago and that is what is unfolding now, so your question might be: ‘How did the other two not predict that?‘ and my words would be: ‘They probably did and someone told them that it was far-fetched and that it had little chance of success‘ well that little chance of success is now a large boulder ready to be rolled over the EU and the USA all at the same time, whilst actions by BAH being thwarted again and again, we see that close to $25 billion in funds will go directly to the three opponents, Iran, Turkey and Russia. I reckon that Russia will open up construction avenues and use Iranian labourers in that setting, the Iranians will grasp at that opportunity, hoping that they will be in a better state when these larger constructions in Iran will fall through, yet in the end it will not matter for Russia, they get the largest slice of that cake. And that is merely the size of things within the first 2-3 years, then we will get the Telecom initiatives where Russia – China will take home the slices of cake for Huawei equipment to be rolled out and that will be the ‘experience’ that Russia will handle to give light to additional buildings all over the Middle East (read Saudi Arabia first). A setting that will ‘ingratiate’ Russia to the largest stage we see in the Middle East that is the stage that is now in debate and with ‘Russia-backed Syria constitution‘ they have set a larger option that had been planned for well over two years.
Even as we see the words: “Pederson, like his predecessor, Staffan de Mistura, is searching for positives, pointing out that the committee – with terms of reference and core rules of procedure – marks the first political agreement between the government of Syria and the opposition” the truth of the matter will be that it will all depend on the Bashar al-Assad and his foreign minister, Walid al-Muallem and on how they see the triumvirate in this whole, no matter how it is sliced, their considerations are for Syria and Syria alone, that is the smallest benefit that gives rise to whatever the EU and the US can push on, the Turkish opposition that is called out through “the hostile Turkish incursion into north-east Syria seriously threatens the work of the constitutional committee“, is the one part that could become the Chisel that stops the Russian Mallet from succeeding. President Erdogan and his need to slaughter as many Kurds as possible is the only part that is now a hindrance to Russian success, so good luck on that part.
Never try to make any agreements with animals, children or people sliding a little too far to the side of insanity, especially long term plans, they tend to blow up in ones face.
Filed under Finance, Law, Media, Military, Politics
Tagged as Bashar al-Assad, Dmitry Utkin, Eu, Geir Pederson, Hassan Rouhani, Huawei, Iran, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russia, Staffan de Mistura, Syria, Turkey, UN Special Envoy, US, Vladimir Putin, Walid al-Muallem, Yevgeniy Prigozhin
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Marshall and the Movies
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LISTFUL THINKING: 2012 Superlatives
New Year’s Day always marks a very interesting balancing act, reflecting on the old while also ringing in the new. So while people are still thinking about 2012, let me offer up the first annual Superlatives post for the films of 2012. I’ve already weighed in with the best and worst 10 of 2012, but what about the other 80 movies of the year? What about the performances? What about all sorts of other things? This is the post where I get all sorts of stuff floating in my mind out there.
For the sake of review, I’ll go ahead and re-list my 10 best and worst of 2012.
10 Best of 2012: “21 Jump Street,” “Argo,” “Hitchcock,” “Killing Them Softly,” “Looper,” “Bernie,” “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Les Misérables,” “The Master,” “The Queen of Versailles”
Honorable Mentions: “Rust and Bone,” “Prometheus,” “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” “Wreck-It Ralph,” “End of Watch,” “Holy Motors”
10 Worst of 2012: “The Grey,” “The Bourne Legacy,” “John Carter,” “Gone,” “The Vow,” “Killer Joe,” “The Paperboy,” “The Deep Blue Sea,” “The Watch,” “Casa De Mi Padre”
Honorable Mentions: “Pitch Perfect,” “Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap,” “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” “First Position,” “Keep the Lights On,” “Being Flynn”
10 More 2012 Releases I Still Need to See: “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” “The Impossible,” “Promised Land,” “The Intouchables,” “Seven Psychopaths,” “Hyde Park on Hudson,” “Not Fade Away,” “Smashed,” “The House I Live In,” “Searching for Sugar Man”
5 Most Surprising Movies of 2012: “Wreck-It Ralph,” “Bernie,” “End of Watch,” “Hitchcock,” “21 Jump Street”
5 Most Disappointing Movies of 2012: “The Dark Knight Rises,” “Django Unchained,” “Lincoln,” “Flight,” “The Bourne Legacy”
10 Most Forgettable Movies of 2012 (in alphabetical order): “Bachelorette,” “Hysteria,” “Jeff, Who Lives at Home,” “Lola Versus,” “Man on a Ledge,” “Men in Black III,” “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen,” “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World,” “Take This Waltz,” “Trouble with the Curve”
5 Most Rewatchable Movies of 2012: “21 Jump Street,” “Silver Linings Playbook,” “Wreck-It Ralph,” “Argo,” “Ted”
5 Movies of 2012 I’m Glad I Saw But Will Never Watch Again: “Lincoln,” “Amour,” “The Invisible War,” “Compliance,” “ReGeneration”
5 Most Underrated Movies of 2012: “Killing Them Softly,” “Les Misérables,” “Prometheus,” “Safety Not Guaranteed,” “End of Watch”
5 Most Overrated Movies of 2012: “The Sessions,” “Lincoln,” “Django Unchained,” “Life of Pi,” “The Avengers”
5 Movies That Got Better with Distance and Time: “Killing Them Softly,” “Zero Dark Thirty,” “The Master,” “Silver Linings Playbook,” “Prometheus”
5 Movies That Got Worse with Distance and Time: “Brave,” “Lincoln,” “Flight,” “The Sessions,” “The Dark Knight Rises”
5 Movies That Felt Shorter Than Their Runtime: “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Les Misérables,” “The Dark Knight Rises,” “Argo,” “Django Unchained”
5 Movies That Felt Longer Than Their Runtime: “Lincoln,” “Anna Karenina,” “This Is 40,” “Damsels in Distress,” The Five-Year Engagement“
Breakout Performances: Quvenzhané Wallis in “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” Eddie Redmayne in “Les Misérables,” Ezra Miller in “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” Garrett Hedlund in “On the Road,” Scoot McNairy in “Argo”
Breakthrough Performances: Bradley Cooper in “Silver Linings Playbook,” Michael Pena in “End of Watch,” Jack Black in “Bernie,” Channing Tatum in “21 Jump Street,” Elizabeth Banks in “People Like Us”
Breakdown Performances: Anna Kendrick in “Pitch Perfect,” Salma Hayek in “Savages,” Tom Cruise in “Rock of Ages,” Emile Hirsch in “Killer Joe,” Dev Patel in “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”
Best Body of Work in 2012: (tie) Anne Hathaway in “The Dark Knight Rises” and “Les Misérables,” Jennifer Lawrence in “The Hunger Games” and “Silver Linings Playbook”
Worst Body of Work in 2012: (tie) Rachel Weisz in “The Bourne Legacy” and “The Deep Blue Sea,” Taylor Kitsch in “John Carter” and “Savages”
Best Heroes: Jessica Chastain as Maya in “Zero Dark Thirty,” Mark Ruffalo as The Hulk in “The Avengers,” Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean in “Les Misérables”
Worst Heroes: Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man in “The Amazing Spider-Man,” Taylor Kitsch as John Carter in “John Carter,” Jeremy Renner as Aaron Cross in “The Bourne Legacy”
Best Villains: Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle/Catwoman in “The Dark Knight Rises,” Russell Crowe as Javert in “Les Misérables,” Leonardo DiCaprio as Calvin Candie in “Django Unchained”
Worst Villains: Tom Hardy as Bane in “The Dark Knight Rises,” Javier Bardem as Silva in “Skyfall,” Rhys Ifans as Lizard in “The Amazing Spider-Man”
Best Possessed Performance: Joaquin Phoenix in “The Master”
Worst Possessed Performance: Nicole Kidman in “The Paperboy”
Best Comedic Performance: (tie) Jack Black in “Bernie,” Channing Tatum in “21 Jump Street”
Worst Comedic Performance: The cast of “The Watch”
Best Cameo: Uggie in “The Campaign”
Worst Cameo: Ryan Reynolds in “Ted”
Best Singing: Eddie Redmayne in “Les Misérables”
Worst Singing: Alec Baldwin in “Rock of Ages”
That’s about all I can come up with for now … may add to this later! Happy 2013, everyone!
Tags: 21 Jump Street, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Amour, Andrew Garfield, Anna Karenina, Anna Kendrick, Anne Hathaway, Argo, Bachelorette, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Being Flynn, Bernie, Bradley Cooper, Brave, Casa De Mi Padre, Channing Tatum, Compliance, Damsels in Distress, Dev Patel, Django Unchained, Eddie Redmayne, Elizabeth Banks, Emile Hirsch, End of Watch, Ezra Miller, First Position, Flight, Garrett Hedlund, Gone, Hitchcock, Holy Motors, Hugh Jackman, Hysteria, Jack Black, Javier Bardem, Jeff Who Lives at Home, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner, Jessica Chastain, Joaquin Phoenix, John Carter, Keep the Lights On, Killer Joe, Killing Them Softly, Leonardo DiCaprio, Les Miserables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Lola Versus, Looper, Man on a Ledge, Mark Ruffalo, Men In Black III, Michael Pena, Nicole Kidman, On the Road, People Like Us, Pitch Perfect, Prometheus, Quvenzhané Wallis, Rachel Weisz, ReGeneration, Rhys Ifans, Rock of Ages, Russell Crowe, Rust and Bone, Ryan Reynolds, Safety Not Guaranteed, Salma Hayek, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, Savages, Scoot McNairy, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, Silver Linings Playbook, Skyfall, Something From Nothing, Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap, Take This Waltz, Taylor Kitsch, Ted, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Avengers, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, The Bourne Legacy, The Campaign, The Dark Knight Rises, The Deep Blue Sea, The Five-Year Engagement, The Grey, The Hunger Games, The Invisible War, The Master, The Paperboy, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Queen of Versailles, The Sessions, The Vow, The Watch, This is 40, Tom Cruise, Tom Hardy, Trouble with the Curve, Uggie, Wreck-It Ralph, Zero Dark Thirty
Categories : Features, Listful Thinking
REVIEW: Trouble with the Curve
Chances are you’ve already seen “Trouble with the Curve” … but you just don’t know it yet.
If you’ve seen “Gran Torino,” you’ve seen it. Clint Eastwood is just doing a PG-13 version of his cranky, stubborn Walt Kowalski. Don’t get me wrong, I still find that fairly entertaining though as I intend to pattern my 80-year-old willful disregarding of social conventions on him. As aging Atlanta Braves scout Gus, he’s still got the ability to make curmudgeonly charming once again.
If you’ve seen “The Fighter,” you’ve seen it. Amy Adams essentially does a dolled-up reprisal of her role as Charlene the MTV Girl, a tenacious sports groupie and strongly opinionated woman. Here, she’s got some of those same qualities on display as Gus’ daughter Mickey, a baseball enthusiast looking to climb the corporate ladder but faces casual workplace misogyny. She gets called onto the road to assist her ailing father, reawakening her love for the game. Adams is a bright and fun presence on the screen, but it’s hardly of the caliber of performance David O. Russell got out of her.
If you’ve seen … really any Justin Timberlake movie, you’ve seen it. Whether it’s “The Social Network,” “Bad Teacher,” or “Friends with Benefits,” it’s the same old schtick for the former N*Sync frontman. It’s less Sean Parker-ish here, however, since the character doesn’t have nearly the dimensionality of an Aaron Sorkin creation. Timberlake tackles the role of Johnny, a failed baseball player turned novice scout. Gus has made, then broken, then made his career … and may have made his dreams with Mickey.
If you’ve seen “Moneyball,” you’ve seen this movie. Even though “Trouble with the Curve” is about the human calculations of baseball while Bennett Miller’s Best Picture nominee glorified computer models and statistics as the new great tool of baseball, both share an equal goal of bringing back a romanticism quickly disappearing from America’s pastime.
But strangely enough, “Moneyball” does a better job achieving this drawing parallels between computer pixels and the bright stadium lights. “Trouble with the Curve,” clunking along at a leisurely pace it doesn’t earn (I mean seriously, it feels like an extra innings game), can only muster up cliches to show how much it loves baseball. The game has seen better, and it deserves better. C+ /
Tags: Amy Adams, Clint Eastwood, John Goodman, Justin Timberlake, Matthew Lillard, Trouble with the Curve
Categories : Movie Reviews
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Mormon Thought, News and Politics
Hasten to Prepare
by Chad Nielsen • June 5, 2020 • 43 Comments
At the “Be One” celebration in 2018, President Dallin H. Oaks discussed the frustration he experienced as a member of the Church before the ban on individuals of black African descent holding the priesthood or receiving saving temple ordinances was lifted. He said that he “observed the pain and frustration experienced by those who suffered these restrictions and those who criticized them and sought for reasons. I studied the reasons then being given and could not feel confirmation of the truth of any of them.” As he “witnessed the pain of black brothers and sisters,” he “longed for their relief.” When that restriction was lifted in 1978, he wept for joy. At the “Be One” celebration, he acknowledged that “the hearts and practices of individual members did not come suddenly and universally,” with some embracing the revelation and its implications of racial equality while others, to this day, have “continued the attitudes of racism that have been painful to so many throughout the world.” He went on to state that, “as we look to the future, one of the most important effects of the revelation on the priesthood is its divine call to abandon attitudes of prejudice against any group of God’s children. … As servants of God … we should hasten to prepare our attitudes and our actions—institutionally and personally—to abandon all personal prejudices.”[1] This was (and is) a weighty and important call to both members of the Church and to the Church itself.
I am grateful to live in a day where the pain President Oaks observed and was himself pained by is greatly lessened. I am grateful that the Church no longer discriminates about participation in saving ordinances based on race and that “the Church disavows theories advanced in the past” that supported that policy. I am grateful that the official stance has been articulated that “Church leaders today unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present, in any form.”[2] I am grateful to be part of a Church that has partnered with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to work towards bringing “hope, happiness, and good health to all of God’s children.”[3] And I am grateful to have a church president who, in light of the recent circumstances of the murder of George Floyd by police officer Derek Chauvin and the subsequent protests, shared a personal message on Facebook to express deep sadness at “recent evidence of racism and a blatant disregard for human life” and to call on “any of us who has prejudice towards another race … to repent!”[4] I am grateful for all of these things. Yet, I still feel like we have a ways to go to fully be in obedience to the “divine call to abandon attitudes of prejudice against any group of God’s children” as an institution or as individuals in the Church.
One of my frustrations in this regard is that it feels like the leaders of the Church have a difficult time in addressing racism head-on. Yes, we have had a few calls in recent years to abandon racism and prejudice, including general conference talks by President Gordon B. Hinckley and M. Russell Ballard and statements from members of the current First Presidency in other venues.[5] It seems problematic to me, however, that since I was born in 1990, there have only been three or four general conference talks that address the issue, even in passing.[6] There’s also the issue that it took 35 years for the Church as an institution to come out against the racist teachings that were used to support the priesthood and temple ban.[7] That’s a painful amount of silence compared to the call Dallin H. Oaks makes when he said we need to “hasten to prepare our attitudes and our actions—institutionally and personally—to abandon all personal prejudices.” We also have the example from earlier this year, when a quote from Joseph Fielding Smith that contained outdated racial commentary on the Book of Mormon was included in the “Come, Follow Me” manual for 2020. Not only did the quote pass all the review processes for the manual, but when it was finally noted that it might be a problem, Church leaders let it stand in the printed edition. Only after the Salt Lake Tribune pointed out the problem in January of this year did they publicly acknowledge the error, apologizing and asking members to disregard the printed version. Yet, even that response was only to the press—no statements were released on the Church’s website to tell members to disregard the quote, no letters or emails were sent out through official channels to inform Church members on the issue, and Church Newsroom coverage of an event where Elder Gary E. Stevenson addressed the problem removed any reference to his statement about the manual.[8] Even President Nelson’s post this week, while important, seemed slightly delayed in coming and odd to only come as a personal statement on Facebook rather than an official statement made by the Church or the First Presidency. It feels like an ongoing pattern of difficulty with addressing the issue of racism directly and in full view of the Church’s membership.
I suspect part of that struggle to address the issue is because previous Church leaders taught some racist ideas. I’ve posted two times so far this year about the Book of Mormon and its discussion of race,[10] and I was struck in the commentary on both of those blog posts about how Latter-day Saints seem caught between a desire to uphold the integrity and teachings of past prophets and a desire to fight against prejudice and racism. It is sad to me and frustrating that those two objectives feel at odds with each other in some difficult-to-navigate ways. In a Church that teaches that we need to obey the prophets here and now because they speak God’s words, it is difficult to admit that what they teach as God’s words about prejudice and racism are directly opposed to some of what their predecessors taught on the subject of race. It’s a difficult place to be—caught between supporting two good desires in what should be an ideal organization (God’s church on earth), making it difficult to navigate the issue while maintaining trust in our leaders for inspired direction.
Even with venting these frustrations, I do still acknowledge that the institution of the Church is improving, making changes, and speaking out on the subject of racism and prejudice. During the time that I have been writing this post, President Nelson’s remarks have gone from a Facebook status update to a Church Newsroom article with the full text presented, to a headline on the Church’s main website under the label of “prophetic direction.” There’s also the 2017 incident, where the Church issued a statement condemning racism after violence at a Charlottesville, Virginia protest. When some of the alt-right individuals in the Church tried to co-opt the statement to make it a discussion about reverse racism (i.e., “you cannot be anti-white and follower of Christ”), the Church quickly came back swinging in a very non-ambiguous way. It was bluntly stated that: “White supremacist attitudes are morally wrong and sinful, and we condemn them. Church members who promote or pursue a ‘white culture’ or white supremacy agenda are not in harmony with the teachings of the Church.”[11] And, with the “Come, Follow Me” manual incident, they did react and make the change in the digital versions of the manual, stating that they did so with the belief that the majority of Church members would use the digital version rather than the print version. Perhaps this last decade of statements and reactions against racism has been a time of laying a foundation from which the Church and its members can more readily push back against racism and prejudice.
In any case, it should not be ignored that President Oaks’s call to “abandon attitudes of prejudice against any group of God’s children” was directed not only at the institution, but also at the individual. As President Nelson recently wrote, “it behooves each of us to do whatever we can in our spheres of influence to preserve the dignity and respect every son and daughter of God deserves. … We need to work tirelessly to build bridges of understanding rather than creating walls of segregation.”[12] The death of George Floyd as a result of police brutality and the anger and demonstrations that have followed are a call to listen to the voices of those suffering from the effects of racism and to understand why they are angry and afraid, then to act on that understanding. I intend to take it as such, anyway, and to study more deeply about racism and reflect on what I can do better personally, beginning with Darius Gray’s “Healing the Wounds of Racism” and the resources Carolyn recently shared at By Common Consent. By taking the time to do so, I hope to better understand how I can personally hasten to prepare my attitudes and my actions to abandon all personal prejudices, as President Oaks has called upon us to do as servants of God.
[1] Dallin H. Oaks, “President Oaks Remarks at Worldwide Priesthood Celebration,” 1 July 2018, https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/president-oaks-remarks-worldwide-priesthood-celebration.
[2] “Race and the Priesthood,” Gospel Topics Essays, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/race-and-the-priesthood?lang=eng.
[3] Sarah Jane Weaver, “NAACP and the Church: How a Unique Partnership Is Blessing God’s Children,” 22 July 2019, Church Newsroom, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/church/news/naacp-and-the-church-how-a-unique-partnership-is-blessing-gods-children?lang=eng.
[4] “President Nelson Shares Social Post about Racism and Calls for Respect for Human Dignity,” 1 June 2020, Church Newsroom, https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/president-nelson-shares-social-post-encouraging-understanding-and-civility.
[5] See Gordon B. Hinckley, “The Need for Greater Kindness”, CR April 2006; M. Russell Ballard, “The Trek Continues!”, CR October 2017; Dallin H. Oaks, “President Oaks Remarks at Worldwide Priesthood Celebration,” 1 July 2018; Russell M. Nelson, NAACP Convention Remarks, 21 July 2019, Detroit, Michigan, Newsroom Church of Jesus Christ.org; “President Nelson Shares Social Post about Racism and Calls for Respect for Human Dignity,” 1 June 2020, Church Newsroom.
[6] https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/search?lang=eng&query=racism&facet=general-conference&highlight=true&page=1.
[7] While Church members like to point to Elder Bruce R. McConkie’s statement that we should “forget everything” that has been said by previous Church leaders “that is contrary to the present revelation” as a prompt and public disavowal of the racist teachings used to support the priesthood and temple ban, it should be noted that he seems to have only been speaking in relationship to the direct effects of the ban. In the very same speech, he continued to promote the racist teachings that had been used to support the ban, stating that “we can only suppose and reason that it is on the basis of our premortal devotion and faith” that the ban existed and adding in a later published version a reference to the idea that people with black African heritage are “the seed of Cain and Ham and Egyptus and Pharaoh.” (Bruce R. McConkie, “All Are Alike Unto God,” 18 August 1978, BYU Speeches and See Bruce R. McConkie, “The New Revelation on Priesthood,” in Priesthood [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1981], 126-37, especially p. 128.) Between the time the ban was lifted and the 2012-2013, when the Church released statements disavowing those teachings, I have only found three statements by Church leaders specifically rejecting the ideas, none of which were made in a forum that would provide wide exposure to Church membership (See Edward L. Kimball, Lengthen Your Stride: The Presidency of Spencer W. Kimball [SLC: Deseret Book Co., 2005], 238 for a quote by Spencer W. Kimball; Dallin H. Oaks cited in “Apostles Talk about Reasons for Lifting Ban,” Daily Herald, Provo, Utah [5 June 1988]: 21 [Associated Press]; reproduced with commentary in Dallin H. Oaks, Life’s Lessons Learned: Personal Reflections [Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Co., 2011], 68-69; and Jeffrey R. Holland, Interview, 4 March 2006). Instead, the attitude, in general, seemed to be that of Gordon B. Hinckley–that the 1978 Revelation “continues to speak for itself” and that he didn’t “see anything further that we need to do” (cited in Richard N. Ostling and Joan K. Ostling, Mormon America [New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1999], 104).
[8] Compare https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/elder-stevenson-naacp-martin-luther-king-memorial-luncheon with Sean Walker, “We are all part of the same divine familiy,” KSL.com 20 January 2020.
[10] See http://timesandseasons.org/index.php/2020/04/race-and-lineage-among-early-latter-day-saints/ and http://timesandseasons.org/index.php/2020/02/reconsidering-the-lamanites/.
[11] “Church Issues Statements on Situation in Charlottesville, Virginia,” 15 August 2017, Church Newsroom, https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/church-statement-charlottesville-virginia?__prclt=tNTTIVsb. See also Jana Riess, “LDS Church rebukes Mormon white supremacists, who rebuke the Church right back,” Religious News Service, 15 August 2017, https://religionnews.com/2017/08/15/lds-church-rebukes-mormon-white-supremacists-who-rebuke-the-church-right-back/.
[12] https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/president-nelson-shares-social-post-encouraging-understanding-and-civility.
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43 comments for “Hasten to Prepare”
“Yet, I still feel like we have a ways to go to fully be in obedience to the ‘divine call to abandon attitudes of prejudice against any group of God’s children’ as an institution or as individuals in the Church.“
I’ll let someone else acknowledge the elephant still in the room.
Chad Nielsen says:
I suspect that different people will see a few different elephants sitting in the room here. What’s on your mind in this case, p?
For starters we need to define the word PREJUDICE fully & accurately b/c the way some of us use the word is problematic.
Ah. That elephant.
Chad,
I appreciate your extensive use of the first-person-singular “I” rather than the plural “we” (and rather than second- or third-person). I think public discourse would be much improved if this practice were more common. Of course, there is a time and place for almost everything.
For instance I’d say the way the institutional church currently relates to women and the LGBT community is significantly prejudicial. I realize there are other descriptors or rationales like “God’s plan” or “societal norms” but it still looks like prejudice to me.
ji, that was something drilled into me when I was part of an interfaith group in college. In many ways, this post was a deeply personal expression of something that has been weighing on my mind for a long time. I shared it with everyone else with the thought of sparking thoughtfulness on the topic and, perhaps, some public dialogue too.
p, I honestly wasn’t thinking about the implications for women and the LGTB community when writing this post, but I think the thoughts I’ve shared, including the words you quoted from the post, still stand as my personal feelings about the need to overcome prejudice in attitudes and actions towards all humanity, with those groups included. I realize there is some painful irony in the particular individual I was quoting and paraphrasing in expressing those things when extended to include those groups (particularly the LGTB community) and agree that there are areas where progress can be made within the institution towards them. I would love to have thoughtful dialogue around how to be better towards and overcome prejudice against those members of God’s family too, particularly for what’s within my sphere of influence. I should take more time to study and consider my attitudes and actions there as well, though racism is still what is foremost in my mind at the moment.
To me, the elephant in the room is the unavoidable choice that either the Church, institutionally and individually, has been racist in its policy of priesthood and temple exclusion relating to black brothers and sisters or God himself is a racist. I grew up in the 50s and 60s and went on a mission in 1970-72, and can unequivocally tell you that the Church’s teachings about, and attitudes toward, blacks were racist. The Church has recently, with the essay on the priesthood, come close to blaming the policy on Brigham Young. But ultimately, the essay explained the policy as a reflection of societal attitudes. That is true. But even today, as demonstrated by Elder Oaks, we still attribute the policy to God. However, there is no written evidence I am aware of that gives any better reason for the doctrine than the disavowed tropes. And it was doctrine. Personally, I don’t believe God ever gave any such direction or revelation to any prophet that the ban was His will. Unfortunately, I can only assume that the Church for over 125 years carried out this racist policy because it fit into the general racist views held by its leaders and members. It was easy to hide behind the policy. But going forward after 1978, we can no longer hold onto that racism. As with polygamy, it was time for the Church to change directions (decades late) in 1978.
I agree with you that the current leaders are in a difficult position in their sincere efforts to move beyond the past blatant racism. But they cannot do it without calling into question the prophetic authority of any prophets, past and current. Maybe the current leadership and white membership (myself included) that were raised under the pall of the old ban have to pass away before the Church can actually have the courage to admit the policy, in and of itself, was not inspired, and to issue an apology for past racism. I hope that step can be taken well before that time.
I don’t know how we, as a church, can move past attitudes of prejudice when we believe the priesthood and temple ban was of God, as others have said. Denying a group of people access to God’s blessings and participation in the kingdom based on an immutable characteristic, that has no bearing on righteousness, is an act of prejudice. Christ showed countless times that individuals are judged and blessed based on their choices and intents. He ministered and blessed all who came to Him regardless of their group affiliation. He even blessed the gentile woman who came to Him. If the folk doctrine the church denounces in its essay isn’t true, then what possible reason could God have to deny priesthood and temple blessings to those of African descent?
I have heard some say that God knew the white members weren’t ready for equality, so to spare them from further condemnation, God put the ban in place. If this is true, why weren’t white members who were prejudiced repeatedly instructed to repent while the ban was in place? And why the silence for 35 years afterwards while racism continued? Why did the racist doctrines now denounced gain any traction, if it was white members’ racism that was holding God back? So we would essentially have to believe that God put a ban in place that enforces racial superiority. Then God watches silently as church leaders justify the ban with racist doctrine. Then God inspires leaders to lift the ban but to not retract the racist doctrine behind it. Then God inspires leaders to retract the racist doctrine decades later but gives no further insight into why the ban was there to begin with.
I just don’t understand how as a church that believes in continuing revelation, we can say that God tells us our shoulders should be covered but can’t make the effort to tell us why He supposedly caused 125 years of suffering and more for His black children.
Taiwan Missionary says:
The elephant in the room, as I see it:
A culture that pervasively crosses over the line from respecting and sustaining our Church leaders, into hagiography. This creates an environment where the membership views church leaders as perfect and incapable of making mistakes, rather than simply being good men who do their best to fulfill their callings from God.This culture creates an attitude in which the mistakes and commonly-held prejudices of the past cannot be acknowledged in our leaders, because God, it is asserted, would never allow His leaders to make mistakes—ignoring the fundamental reason that the Atonement is provided, in the first place—Christ atones for our mistakes, leaders included.
This cultural insistence as seeing everything that has happened in Mormonism as being directly and completely ordained of God means that we have a very hard time learning from our past mistakes; it makes self-examination of prejudices, whether on racial issues or LGBT issues, excruciatingly difficult. Honest attempts to acknowledge mistakes are twisted by the cultural environment as attempts by a hostile world or the Adversary to undermine us and God’s work.
Mark, Mary & Taiwan, those comments were strong and clear. May many read & ponder.
GEOFF -AUS says:
Are there any records of Elder Oaks expressing his distress with the racism of the church policy? He was in prominent positions and could have expressed his concern but waited until 2018?
I too was impressed with the hipocracy required to say we should “abandon attitudes of prejudice against any group of gods children” while leading the opposition to gay marriage in the church, and doing nothing for equality for women in the church. Appearently he was for improving the lot of women when pres of BYU, so he is aware of the problem.
Judging by comments I see there are plenty of members who are willing to defend racism, or defend the perpetrators of racism. And certainly would note vote against it.
Mark, Mary and Taiwan, thank you for sharing your thoughts. I feel like each of you brought up issues and questions that I’ve pondered on as I’ve studied and considered the history of the priesthood and temple ban.
I do want to focus on something Taiwan Missionary brought up–that the leaders are good (but flawed) men who do their best to fulfill their callings from God, but we tend to regard them too highly, which makes it difficult to deal with acknowledging and moving beyond mistakes. I definitely was instilled with the idea of viewing Church leaders (from the local level all the way up) in a hagiographic way at Church when I was growing up. It was a pretty rough transition as I studied the history and began to have more experiences with Church leaders (i.e. mission presidents, bishops and branch presidents, etc.) and realized that while many of the leaders in the Church are good men doing their best, they weren’t up to the standard I had created by revering them so highly. I’ve seen some friends and peers shatter at that same realization and leave the Church over it. This begs the question–how do we best transition away from the culture of hagiography in a way that isn’t shattering to those who were brought up in it and also still encourages respect for our leaders? I feel like the Saints volumes are a stepping stone in that direction, as they give a more well-rounded depiction of Church leaders than past histories published by the Church, even if they aren’t quite as thorough-going as, say, a John Turner, Richard Bushman, or Gregory Prince biography. I know one thing is that we can discuss these things with our children (the fact that my mom tried to do that with me about the Church and church leaders while I was growing up was a lot of what helped me make it through the transition). At the same time, I feel like people get a bit… prickly at Church whenever I say anything about Church leaders being less than perfect, which makes it uncomfortable to try to push back against a culture of perfection in a church setting. Are there things that you’ve seen as being helpful in approaching the issue?
An aspect of the priesthood ban you may not be aware of; in Britain it was presented as cultural as well as racial, so opposed intermarriage between cultures, though not as rigorously.
My wife and I got engaged in 1970, she was called in and admonished by her bishop. We are both white, but she was British, and I am Australian. We are now both Australian.
Geoff, I’m not sure about what records there are on Elder Oaks saying things about the ban while he president of BYU (while the ban was in effect). I do know, however, that he was actually probably the most vocal apostles to advocate the idea that the racist teachings that had supported the ban weren’t true at least as early as 1988, even if it was through a newspaper article and a book rather than public Church settings. It would be interesting to look into that question and see what can be found.
Agree Chad, An example Was the statement by Pres Nelson on the present unrest in America revelation? Had members here falling over themselve to say how wonderful, how good to have a prophet leading us in difficult times. I posted an article from wheat and tares critical of it, and got a very frosty response.
Had to look up hagiography, good word.
Have also noted members going back to church last week, and this, when Utah has 439 new cases of virus. Is this the highest? Are they still doing about 2750 tests a day. If so about 1 in 7 coming back positive? Not safe to go to meetings. Did anyone go last week? Masks, singing, sacrament?
Just announced October conference will be remote, so the top leaders are not expecting to go to public meetings before October. One law for us another for them?
Yeah, today was the highest for the virus in Utah. Going back to church might be a part of the spike in Utah, but we also had Memorial Day holiday weekend recently with a lot of businesses reopening due to lightening government restrictions, which are major contributing factors. There was also an outbreak at a meat processing plant in northern Utah that contributes to the statistic. With church, each stake is doing things differently though. Mine is doing a rotating schedule to reserve each building for one ward per week (so the ward can do multiple smaller group meetings), so I still have a few weeks before I have a church meeting and couldn’t say on conditions there.
The Wheat and Tares posts on President Nelson’s statement did bring up some good points to consider. I’m not really sure what to consider the statement as being, other than a Facebook post that is now considered prophetic council.
Chad Nielsen:
Hats off to your mother for preparing you for the imperfection of church leaders, in such a way that you were able to remain in the Church. As to your friends—and mine—who shattered over the realization that Church leaders are imperfect and left the Church as a result. We all have to realize that there is no Santa Claus, no Easter Bunny, no Tooth Fairy in the Church. I once got up in Testimony Meeting and warned that Tooth Fairy testimonies are not enough to get us through life. This way after my best friend died of leukemia at 53. His death hurt a lot of people in our Ward. Everyone knew what I meant.
I have gotten the occasional raised eyebrow for my embrace of warts-and-all Mormonism, but most people appreciated my candor. It helps to quote SWK, who as Church Pres. acknowledged that certain leaders are sent to try us, rather than build us. Perhaps not the most Christian attitude, but when I encounter the prickliness you mention, I simply push back with supporting quotes from Church leaders. It pays to read. I have told people that this Church is as much mine as it Is theirs, and that I will dispute with them, on personal views they try to peddle as doctrine.
A thick hide is needed to survive in Church.
FWIW, I think the trend toward greater candor in Church history (JS Papers, Saints) will continue, because Church leaders realize that this blend of leader adoration and airbrushed history has driven many young people from the Church. We still have that culture somewhat, but I am optimistic, because my impression is that most members have just quietly moved beyond it, and are Mormons on their own terms. Birth control is my favorite example—it is rarely an issue anymore, and when someone tries to raise it, they are quickly put in their place by others quoting the GHI. The anti-birth controllers are quoting GA statements from the 50s and 60s. The GHI is current.
How do we transition away from a culture of hagiography? By being faithful members who are okay with leaders being imperfect, sustaining them anyway, and standing up to people who pretend that they are. I think this is happening gradually, just slower than we would like.
Sorry to hear of your tangle with a Bishop who disapproved of trans-national marriage; the two of you are both part of the British Commonwealth, for crying out loud!
When I was a missionary in Taiwan, my first MP foamed at the mouth about inter-racial marriages between Asians and Caucasian Americans. THAT hobby horse was fortunately dust-binned when Jacob De Jager became our Area President. He was the Dutch GA whose wife was part-Dutch, part Chinese-Indonesian.
And now Gerritt Gong of the Q12 is married to a Caucasian.
One more of the “Doctrines of Men” that were once assumed to be from God.
Taiwan Missionary: “It helps to quote SWK, who as Church Pres. acknowledged that certain leaders are sent to try us, rather than build us.”
I went looking for a cite, but haven’t found one. Instead, I found:
Line upon Line – Power from Abrahamic Tests
by Truman G. Madsen · September 2, 2003
Meridian Magazine https://latterdaysaintmag.com/article-1-405/
“This leads to a statement allegedly made by the quotable J. Golden Kimball. Someone asked him how he accounted for the call of a certain brother to a certain position. He is supposed to have replied, ‘The Lord must have called him; no one else would have thought of him.’
Someone else was also complaining about how difficult it was to follow a certain leader. (You see, it is not just a matter of following the request to give a spectacular amount. What if you are called to give less than you can give? What if you are called not to be called? What if you are told only to wait for a decision and be patient?) In answer to this complaint, J. Golden says the legend, replied, ‘Well some of them are sent to lead us and some of them are sent to try us.’ After the laughter and delight of that statement passes, the truth of it becomes apparent. All of us are sent to lead and to try each other. And the priesthood is given to try us to the core because of what it demands of us.”
I have also found it useful to be prepared with GA quotes/citations expressing ideas contrary to or modifying common church cultural expectations or cultural “doctrine.” But I have found it pointless to “dispute” with some on their notions of doctrine or their adulation of church leaders. E.g., one high priests group leader refused to acknowledge a statement of a church president even when shown to him privately in print in the context of the entire speech in which it was included. I don’t mean he refused to believe the statement (I didn’t believe that statement either). instead, my group leader refused to believe that the statement had been made or that it meant anything even when made. He simply could not acknowledge that one church president had ever made a statement contradicted by another church president’s statement or action. It seems the illusion of consistency and truth of all teachings of the prophets is more important to him than facts staring him in the face. And he is quite intelligent. He and I are still friends, but I have learned it is not worthwhile to attempt some kinds of discussions with him. It’s important, I think, to know your audience and to make good decisions about what and whether and when to “dispute.”
dk-jrdk says:
Thanks for the post. It’s an important and troubling issue on many micro levels, even though we all broadly agree on the macro concerns. First a comment on the culture issue that has implications on the racial discussion and history.
The advice against cross culture marriages has statistical evidence. Those marriages to this day have statistically higher divorce rates. Where multiple generations can be affected by a divorce that’s not a minor thing that’s just between consenting adults. It’s fair, but not politically correct, to point out that concern. Especially in a time and place where those concerns had more value than cross cultural gnuflecting.
I can’t imagine most people not being worried about their daughter being married to a tribal Tajik, however in fairness I’d also be worried about my daughter being married to a New Yorker, Utahn, or even a Democrat or Republican, etc.
That’s not so much a reflection of my prejudice against the Tajik, New Yorker and Utah, etc, but as my love for her *combined* with the knowledge of how many problems people have as well as the specific problems members of each of those groups have.
In an all cases my feeling would have to depend on knowing or getting to know the individual in question. Absent that knowledge, it’s to some degree only reasonable that group identity is going to play some kind of role in assessing the individual (for whatever that’s worth for good or ill).
Anyone who says otherwise, better not have rolled their eyes or stuck up their nose when hearing that someone is “from Utah” or “is a Republican” comment.
Sorry guys and girls and non-binaries, you can’t ever escape the group dynamic as long as you treasure some things and insist some things have value. For inherently, when you value something, others don’t. Some people and cultures don’t care for gold, God, gays, sex in general or children.
Valuation is both a question of personal and cultural expression. And those things are strongly connected to group “membership”, and in the pre and early globalization days those things were also correlated with race, tribe, ethnicity etc. Globalization mixed it up a bit, strong correlations persist.
We look back on our high horse with disdain on those racist bigots, but the reality is the past was a different culture and country
I suppose it could be racist and bigoted for an Amazon tribal father to advise his daughter against leaving the jungle to marry a Russian oligarch.
But even if that were the case, surely there’d be some wisdom in it.
(And I specifically chose the Father-Daughter rationale here specifically to tease out that inherent tension)
That being said, I agree with so much sentiment in this post, but I have a feeling I’d strongly disagree with some of the conclusions or recommendations with some people more than others. That’s always the rub. And it’s in some ways, where Christ is so important, both as a Savior and exemplar.
But even thar reliance on Christ is filled with cultural value (and sometimes inherent devaluing of other contributions from other cultures).
JR:
Thank you! For the JGK story (I might have mixed him up with SWK in my mind). Your comment about needing to know your audience is both true and important.
Does your former HP Group Leader run screaming from the room when confronted with BY’s Adam-God’s writings from the JD, and current Church leaders’ disavowal of those writings?
I ask, because a particularly rigid Bishop I once had, would literally stuck his hands over his ears, when confronted by statements on the Church that went against his Disney version, and he would literally start singing “la-la-la” in a loud voice, so as to not hear the unwelcome statement. It was the act of a desperate three year-old.
The Brethren’s constant exhortations to OBEY and their infusion over many decades of virulent right-wing ideology (yes, including racism, sexism & homophobia) has severely damaged our little Body of Christ and made possible, for instance, the utter abomination of wide LDS support for Donald Trump, whose personal behavior is the very antithesis of all we supposedly hold dear and holy. That’s one example. Another might be the Brethren’s confident pairing with the Catholic Church, then in the early stages of an international child sex abuse catastrophe, to pass Prop 8 in CA.
LDS inability to refrain from common-cause on various issues w/ wild-eyed born-agains is yet another. No more Hugh B. Browns w/ his broad, enlightened viewpoints in upper quorums. That’s a rolling disaster as we have seen.
Peter Bleakley says:
Thankyou for a very thorough overview of what has happened and the key ingredients – they have all been very important to me since serving as a British missionary in Alabama in the epicentre of America’s racist dysfunctions at a time long before President Mormon Newsroom first disavowed all the racism in 2012, one of the happiest says of my life.
A few thoughts to add – while I am plugged onto the dissident Mormon bloggernacle so follow developments and local Utah media as closely as I can when I can break out of the European Union’s data protection firewall that makes this very hard online, most of the international membership of the world are not. So for example it mattered diddlysquat that Apostle Gary Stevenson’s incredibly embarrassing, and it turned out completely deceptive, apology to the Utah chapter of the NAACP on actual Martin Luther King Day and his promise that the Church would instruct everyone to ignore the racist quote by Joseph Fielding Smith and go online instead that week was featured heavily in Utah news media. When his promise to the black people was not kept, no more than a tiny handful of Latter-Day Saints in my country and continent had the first clue that any of that happened. So most of us carried studying the printed manuals and noone even seems to have batted an eyelid about the racist narrative regarding Lamanites and curse of dark skin representing divine disapproval. Because they have STILL not been told to believe any differently. The vast majority of members here and probably still in the USA have still not heard of, never mind read, the Gospel Topics Essays. So talking about those reforms and steps away from racist doctrine in the Church as things of the past now is profoundly inaccurate. We are still in the dark ages. Every month I have to begin the whole process of deconstructing one or other fellow Church member’s racist beliefs, including all the ones mentioned in the article. It’s like anti-racist groundhog day here! As it still is for a lot of people in Utah. And until the First Presidency actually apologise in no uncertain terms that is how it will be for decades going forward. And none of us had access pre-internet to Bruce R McConkie’s speech at bYU, not General Conference, telling everyone to ignore and forget the reasons that used to be given to justify the racism. It wasn’t until 2012 that WE were told that the Church wanted us to do that.
I would also point out in response to your question about what would help that the current First Presidency are directly sabotaging progress. In his party-pooping lecture at the Be One event Dallin Oaks insisted that while we must abandon all previous reasons for justifying God’s commandment to discriminate against black men and women, he still insisted that it WAS God’s commandment but 200 years of Prophets, Seers and Revelators including himself have still not managed to get an answer from God about what the real brilliant reason for God’s racism is. And instead of doing the job we pay him for and asking God himself, Dallin gave himself a get out of responsibility free card by teaching that God usually NEVER gives reasons for His commandments anyway (total nonsense) so we shouldn’t be expecting him to ask! It was a breathtaking tone deaf irrational car crash of a talk, specially at that event, and unravelled everything the Race and the Priesthood Gospel Topics Essay had achieved. Because he is a fanatic who refuses to countenance the idea that prophets can ever be wrong, so he is asserting his willpower to make that still so despite the mountain of evidence that he is wrong. The whole First presidency themselves are still teaching that they “cannot lead the Church astray”, “Always speak the truth”, Dallin’s article in the March 2020 Ensign insists that the apostles voting unanimously are enough to authorise doctrine and are infallible and always have been, and even President Eyring joined in recently teaching in General Conference that speaking or thinking of our leaders as having ‘human weaknesses’ is an actual sin we must repent of before every worthiness interview and Conference. So the biggest thing that would help is if the First Presidency themselves and all the Apostles who regularly join in actually stop teaching everyone that they and all their predecessors are infallible and it is an actual sin to think otherwise. It isn’t the members making it up or holding onto outdated traditions – they are simply trusting what these ordained prophets are telling them to believe. Now. Nothing else we can do will matter until that changes, and they are definitely not going to stop doing that any time soon my the looks of it.
Wondering says:
Thanks, Peter.
It wasn’t always so. Thank Correlation, HBL (though the speech from which I quote below was at Apostle HBL’s suggestion), ETB, JFieldingS, BRM, etc. for that disaster.
“There have been rare occasions when even the President of the Church in his preaching and teaching has not been ‘moved upon by the Holy Ghost.’ You will recall the Prophet Joseph declared that a prophet is not always a prophet. …
How shall the Church know when these adventurous expeditions of the brethren into these highly speculative principles and doctrines meet the requirements of the statutes that the announcers thereof have been ‘moved upon by the Holy Ghost’? The Church will know by the testimony of the Holy Ghost in the body of the members, whether the brethren in voicing their views are ‘moved upon by the Holy Ghost’; and in due time that knowledge will be made manifest.”
“When are the Writings or Sermons of Church Leaders Entitled to the Claim of Scripture?” President J. Reuben Clark, Mr., speech delivered July 7, 1954, published in the Church News, July 31, 1954.
https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V12N02_70.pdf
I’m not sure how “rare” those occasions have been, but at least the fact of them was once long ago published to the Church and everybody who could get their hands on the Church News.
Somewhere a much longer comment by me disappeared into cyberspace. The above quote was a part of it. Maybe it will be restored someday. Maybe it was too much of a rant to make it out of moderation.
Wondering,
I just checked the site dashboard to see if your comment was caught in moderation. Nothing there. Sorry about that. There’s something(s) broken with the comments function on this site, and I’m not sure when/if it will be fixed. I would have liked to see the full rant.
As I remember, the Clark speech was also partly President McKay’s suggestion as a way to undermine Joseph Fielding Smith’s anti-evolution publications. It was also quoted and reiterated in a brief form during the “Mormon Moment” of 2012 by Elder D. Todd Christofferson at April general conference (churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2012/04/the-doctrine-of-christ?lang=eng), so there are least a couple voices trying to keep it more realistic (counting Elder Uchtdorf in that category too). There was also Elder Christofferson’s talk where he basically said that we’re expected to seek confirmation before following the prophets and if we follow them down the wrong path in blind faith, we’re still culpable for our sins committed while doing so (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2014/10/free-forever-to-act-for-themselves?lang=eng). That one made for some fun discussions when I was a Sunday School teacher a few years ago.
OK, Chad, Here are parts of what I had written (mostly quotations), minus the rant:
“Forget everything that I have said, or what President Brigham Young or President George Q. Cannon or whomever has said in days past that is contrary to the present revelation. We spoke with limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that has now come into the world.” Bruce R. McConkie, BYU Devotional speech, August 18, 1978, https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/bruce-r-mcconkie/alike-unto-god/
It seemed to me then and now that it would be a mistake to interpret BRM’s statement to refer to anything more than the date at which the priesthood/temple ban would be lifted. The Official Declaration says nothing about the origin or rationale of the ban, so none of those origin or rationale theories is “contrary to the present revelation.”
Brigham Young taught, and I believe BRM and others echoed, that “When the Lord God cursed old Cain, He said, ‘Until the last drop of Abel’s blood receives the Priesthood, and enjoys the blessings of the same, Cain shall bear the curse;’” then Cain is calculated to have his share next and not until then…” Speech by Governor Brigham Young in Joint Session of the Legislature, Friday, 23 January 1852. And “Now says the grand father I will … put a mark upon you. What is that mark? you will see it on the countenance of every African you ever did see upon the face of the earth, or ever will see. Now I tell you what I KNOW; when the mark was put upon Cain, Abels children was in all probability young; THE LORD TOLD CAIN THAT HE SHOULD NOT RECEIVE THE BLESSINGS OF THE PREISTHOOD NOR HIS SEED, until the last of the posterity of Able had received the preisthood, UNTIL THE REDEMTION OF THE EARTH….” Speech by Gov. Young in Joint Session of the Legislature, 5 February. 5th 1852 (emphasis added).
In Mormon jargon of the time period, it seems the “redemption of the earth” meant the time when “Satan will be cast out, his power will be taken away, his dominion and authority will cease, and the earth will be given into the possession of the Saints, and “the meek will then inherit the earth.’ … the time when ‘righteousness shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.’…” Elder M. Sirrine’s lecture before the assembly of the Saints, The Latter-Day Saints’ Millennial Star, Vol. IX, No. 10, May 15, 1847, p.147. It meant “the redemption of the earth from the power of sin and Satan.’” Brigham Young, 1862, Discourses of Brigham Young, sel. John A. Widtsoe (1954), 18–19, quoted by Elder David A. Bednar, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/liahona/2015/08/youth/flood-the-earth-through-social-media?lang=eng and “Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young,” https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/teachings-brigham-young/chapter-4?lang=eng
Well, that time has not come and righteousness does not cover the earth as the waters cover the sea, but 1978 has come and gone. So, unless one wants to argue that the Lord changed his mind about what he told Cain (and how he preferred the seed of Abel to that of Cain), I can’t see how to avoid the conclusion that BY, President and Prophet of the Church, like others of us, sometimes claimed to know things that were not true.
I wish the Church curriculum committee could figure out that teaching adolescents and adults in the same way (and the same simplifications) that one teaches children ages 3-10, is not going to work for any who are thoughtful about what they read or experience in Church leadership roulette.
Thanks for those quotes and thoughts Wondering and Chad. It’s still so cautious and fluffy isn’t it and spiritual feelings alone are not always very reliable. Specially when the Apostles are teaching the kids that if they have any spiritual witnesses that seem to contradict what the Brethren are saying then that is a certain way to know that their spiritual promptings or witnesses came from actual Satan! So they have placed themselves above even God as the infallible arbiters of truth because if the Holy Spirit tells you they are lying, they will just say that’s Satan and you must ignore it. Catch 22. There’s been a complete Orwellian totalitarian coup d’etat of the Church. So frustrating when we made such progress for open engagement with the world and being more realistic under Hinckley in many areas.
There are actually at least 6 robust criteria to apply to anything the Apostles teach before taking them seriously that are supported by the scriptures and their own teachings when they aren’t batting for the Dark Side. This is what I try to encourage people to realise and apply instead of being so timid and hesitant or thinking they are not allowed to judge the Annointed Ones:
1 – Does it make rational sense? (Intellectual intelligence, “Ponder it in your own mind”)
2 – Does it feel right? (Emotional intelligence. Loving Charity is the most important spiritual gift. “What would Jesus do?”)
3 – Is it compatible with canonised scripture? (Scriptural authority.)
4 – Is it taught by most or all the Apostles in different settings? (Apostolic authority. This was reiterated recently in General Conference by Oaks I think, quoting 2 of the others who taught it previously, so that’s 3 so far LOL. And he revisited that idea of Apostles unanimously declaring doctrine in the March 2020 Ensign. Which is all a bit cheeky as he keeps unilaterally declaring the Family Proclamation he probably mostly wrote to be official revealed doctrine we must all agree with to have exaltation – he loves to hit the nuclear button! – and NONE of the other apostles have joined in to back him up. Awkward!)
5 – Does the Holy Spirit confirm it is true? (Spiritual intelligence and revelation.)
6 – Has it complied with the Laws of Common Consent by being presented to the entire membership for a sustaining or opposing vote? (Collective authority. the D and C study manual that seems to have finally disappeared down the Church website memory hole a couple of months ago was very clear that any significant doctrine or policy should be presented to the membership in the law of Common Consent, not just callings. They’ve ignored that since 1978.)
Each of those on their own can be flawed in different ways, but when you put them all together you have a pretty robust and reliable system for filtering truth from evil or personal opinion in what the Apostles teach and do that anyone can apply.
I have to say it feels a bit farcical even bothering with officially authorised ways of engaging with or filtering what the First Presidency does and teaches because they haven’t been ‘real’ authorities in any meaningful way for decades. These days they appoint and ordain themselves in secret in the temple, taking the last regime handover as an example they then wait 3 days to hold a press conference and inform the media that they are the new First Presidency holding all the keys of priesthood in God’s kingdom on earth, and then carry on functioning as the keyholding First presidency for months before letting the other leading Quorums like the Seventy or the general membership anywhere near voting to sustain or oppose their appointment. What if we all voted against? It is totally irrelevant to them what we vote. They have reframed the whole thing as a test of our loyalty to them now, not them being held accountable to the membership as the scriptures teach. The ‘Solemn Assembly’ 3 months after they were already in office was a joke, but people hardly notice these discrepancies they are so bamboozled. Noone else gets ordained or set apart BEFORE being sustained in the Church, apart from some of the apostles who inexplicably get ordained in between General Conferences without a vote like Elder Holland was. So technically they are imposters anyway, but if we do decide to play ball with them those 6 criteria are very empowering and helpful.
Peter, Your rant actually includes some helpful suggestions, unlike mine that disappeared into cyberspace. However, it may be worth noting that it is commonplace here to ordain young men to the Melchizedek priesthood (and sometimes others to the office of high priest) before presenting them to the membership to have such ordinations ratified by a sustaining vote. That seems to be most common with respect to young men called on missions and with respect to men called to the stake high council. I expect you’re right that it is totally irrelevant to those leading the church or its stakes how the membership votes on such matters. But I’m not sure how they would/could make the church organization function otherwise, unless it were by calling special meetings which would likely be sparsely attended. Currently in our ward callings and releasings go on with sustaining votes in the ward council only, followed by email notices to the ward members some time later. I suppose they could set up a system for email voting by the ward (those who have and use email) or just shut down those parts of the church hierarchy from which someone must be released.
As others have said, church leaders must stop preaching their own doctrinal infallibility and ignoring pressing issues for us to make progress. It is totally untenable for the church to instruct that members use their own spiritual experience and relationship to God to determine spiritual truths only when their witness aligns with current teachings. If this were the case, then none of us would be open to new revelation. “A bible, a bible we already have a bible,” or however the quote goes.
The search for truth is not simple and lasts a lifetime. Yet once we’ve completed all the milestones on the covenant path, it’s expected that no further knowledge is necessary. We should not necessarily seek more from God but simply comply with what we’ve been given and not question the status quo.
I have pushed back against untruths and awful culture in my own circumstances when I was in a position to do so, mostly when I was a second counselor in the Young Women’s program and in any sacrament talks. But the success of individual efforts is unfortunately so dependent on others with authority in the ward. I have sought guidance and brought up troubling issues with bishops and stake presidents. For many years, I have contemplated writing to Salt Lake but never have. I came to the conclusion, right or wrong, that church leaders have the information available they need to make changes. They are well-intentioned and try to live what they believe, but they can seek out minority and women’s perspectives. Yet, they choose to continue making small adjustments and sweeping the hard things under the rug for another generation to clean. This makes me more sad that I can express. I love the gospel as Christ taught it, and there are so many good works among church members. But there is so much anguish caused by prejudice and certainty.
If Nelson were to die and Oaks become Priphet before the next live conference (april?) there could be a lot of no votes, but no one would know.
One of our articles of faith is that God will yet reveal many great things. This implies that something that you find to be right today, might be changed by God tomorrow. Yet somehow we as a church really struggle with that. It kind of makes sense, why should I (church member) listen to what you (church leader) are saying today if you are just going to change it tomorrow? While overly simplified, I believe is the root of the problem. So church leaders try to put a face on it that appears to be consistent.
Also, if we were all cool with regular statements from church head quarters saying “Now that elder so and so as passed, here is a list of things he said which we no longer believe” it opens up a window for a Joseph Fielding Smith type to really create of havoc. So I’m kind of glad that the church tries to just let old talks/teachings slowly die away as members forget them.
I don’t know how to reduce the hero worship of church leaders, while also claiming that we should follow them. It’s a tough one. I do remember seminary teachers saying things like “Is it okay to have a favorite apostle?” and I think the answer should be “yes.” Because the only way for the answer to be “no” leads to a belief that they are all the same, and have been consistent over the past 100+ years. But by really getting into who said what, you see patterns and learn about the individuals. This helps you see them more as good men doing the best they can, instead of transcribers of messages beamed from heaven.
Excellent point about many things yet to be revealed implying future changes in belief. God as remover of error, as we become more able to accept the truth.
Re: Mary’s comments. It has been depressing to me over the years how many committed Latter-day Saints intensely dislike the scriptures in the DC that tell us to seek learning out of the best of books, and that the glory of God is intelligence. Our culture has somehow morphed from a religious movement started by a radical seeker of new religious truth into one where a lot of people don’t want more truth—in less than 200 years!
My answer, admittedly not very charitable, is to quote those scriptures as often as I can, and when I get pushback, suggest that the offended person write to Church HQS requesting that those scriptures be removed from the DC. I get dirty looks but my point has been made. Mary, please keep up the fight. One of my favorite phrases is in Dog Latin: illegitimit non carborundum, or, don’t let the (bleeps) wear your down!
Hedgehog says:
Just to say as a balance to Peter’s excellent comment, in my little corner of the church in Britain our very excellent GD teacher tackled the fact of the mistaken inclusion of the quote in the lesson manual, fallibility of leaders, past racism etc. head on. Being in primary, I didn’t get to attend myself, but my husband did, and I gather the entirety of the lesson was spent addressing this. It was vital he did so. We have a racially diverse ward with many people using the paper copy of the manual.
I personally was both very frustrated with and infuriated by the lack of any information flagging the error on the church website.
In our ward, with some but not much racial diversity, the bishop instructed us to do no more in SS than briefly call attention to the deletion from the on-line manual and request use of the on-line manual rather than the printed manual for that lesson. I think he was afraid the discussion might turn to dealing with contradictions among the various historical leaders of the Restored Church, a discussion that, in my view, needs to happen because only those who have blinders on or who don’t care to understand will be able to avoid the problem.
Peter’s comment moved me to read the full text of President Oaks’ comments at the “Be One” event, here: https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders-and-ministry/2018-06-01/president-oaks-full-remarks-from-the-lds-churchs-be-one-celebration-10994 Peter’s reading seems to me a natural reading of the remarks and the speaker, even if possibly overstated. Here are a few things I noted:
“I studied the reasons then being given and could not feel confirmation of the truth of any of them. As part of my prayerful study, I learned that, in general, the Lord rarely gives reasons for the commandments and directions He gives to His servants. I determined to be loyal to our prophetic leaders and to pray — as promised from the beginning of these restrictions — that the day would come when all would enjoy the blessings of priesthood and temple.”
Oaks did not explain what it meant “to be loyal to our prophetic leaders” but implies that it means accepting uncritically the divine origin of whatever they say, including the ban. For me that is an unworkable definition of loyalty. He claimed the lifting of the ban was “promised from the beginning of these restrictions.” He did not identify when or where that beginning was, but if he was referring to the teachings of BY he got it wrong. The promise was that the lifting of the ban would NOT come until the “redemption of the earth.” See quotes in the earlier comment.
“The reasons that had been given to try to explain the prior restrictions on members of African ancestry — even those previously voiced by revered Church leaders — were promptly and publicly disavowed.”
This was part of a description of the institutional, as opposed to individual, response to the revelation. As nearly as I have been able to discover, the claim that past reasons were promptly and publicly disavowed is false. There was no such disavowal in Apostle BRM’s BYU speech quoted above; it did not happen in Official Declaration 2; I can’t find it happening anywhere over the signature of the prophet or first presidency. This statement by a member of the first presidency in the presence of the others is the closest thing I’ve yet seen to such an authoritative disavowal, and it certainly wasn’t prompt. Maybe someone else can find what I have missed that could make it true that there was in 1978 a prompt and public disavowal.
“To concern ourselves with what has not been revealed or with past explanations by those who were operating with limited understanding can only result in speculation and frustration.”
Here he’s focused on the explanations, when the real problem is learning to discern who was/is operating with limited understanding and what it means for how we accept or don’t accept explanations or declarations of current leaders in the same ecclesiastical/prophetic positions. It is possible to sustain leaders’ efforts toward realizing Zion without believing everything they say. What is needed seems to me a more direct effort to change the common LDS cultural expectation that the words/teachings/doctrine of the scriptures and of prophets of the restored church somehow form a consistent, coherent doctrine from past to present. They don’t.
“Even as we unite to abandon all attitudes and practices of prejudice, we should remember that it is not prejudice for the Church to insist on certain rules in furtherance of the Lord’s requirement of worthiness to enter a temple.”
If Oaks intended this statement to be relevant to the ban, it’s extraordinarily tone-deaf and even inconsistent with OD-2 with its reference to “every faithful, worthy man in the Church”. By that reference OD-2 acknowledges that the ban had nothing to do with worthiness. It seems to me that Oaks was either throwing the word “worthiness” around carelessly, as in common Mormon-speak, or making an oblique reference to his favorite hobby horse, in an effort to distinguish issues related to homo-erotic behaviors or same-sex marriage from “prejudice.” Oaks is not usually careless with his words. Perhaps someone else can find a better third reading.
“It was [indeed] a breathtaking tone deaf irrational car crash of a talk,” but not unexpected. Tone-deafness is not unique to our leaders. Among other causes of tone-deafness: https://getpocket.com/explore/item/power-causes-brain-damage?utm_source=pocket-newtab
Wondering and Peter, I think you both do provide an accurate reading of the full text of the speech. It is similar to President Oaks’s remarks on the subject elsewhere–a mixed bag of progressive and good things about rejecting racism (which is most of what I focused on in the post) and remarks that weren’t quite as progressive (and in some cases simply wrong).
Footnote seven of my post here is basically a condensed version of a post I wrote (but never put up online) in response to the claim that the racist teachings were promptly disavowed. However, from what I’ve seen, President Oaks actually seems to sincerely believe that Elder McConkie did disavow the teachings (taking the oft-quoted section about forgetting what past prophets had said out of context), which is why President Oaks felt he could make statements rejecting those beliefs in the decades prior to 2013 (and possibly part of why the 2013 Gospel Topics essay passed review in disavowing those doctrines).
I’ve always seen the statement that “is not prejudice for the Church to insist on certain rules in furtherance of the Lord’s requirement of worthiness to enter a temple” as his way of covering the types of accusations about insisting on rejecting prejudice while still holding to the Church’s current stance about homosexuality that p brought up almost immediately in the comments section of the post.
President Oaks does a lot of trying to say “ignore our past and try to look to the future instead” in the talk, which was frustrating to me as well. The present is a result of the past and we need to work through the issues of the past to overcome them in the future. I feel like you’ve already discussed a lot of the issues with his approach there, Wondering, but it did feel a bit like he was trying to provide a version of the history of the ban with “alternative facts.”
To be honest, I’m kind of regretting drawing on the talk at this point because of those things, but I felt like the sections I quoted are still a good call to keep in the minds of Church members, even if a lot of the rest of speech was problematic.
Chad, My rant that disappeared into cyberspace (and which I hope will never become a part of the “restoration of all things”) concluded with a p.s. that I really appreciate your post — its calm, level-headed, and inspirational analysis and tone — much more than the excited sloganizing and rabble-rousing I’ve seen elsewhere. Thank you. Yes the sections you quoted are a good call to keep in mind. They weren’t even out-of-context proof-texting in the same way the writers of the New Testament and many others have done that.
On the peripheral topic,and to give Peter another quotation he may not have ready access to
The “Improvement Era,” the Church’s magazine published in March 1905, B.H. Roberts” “Relation of Inspiration and Revelation to Church Government” including the following at 365-66:
“I think it is a reasonable conclusion to say that constant, never-varying inspiration is not a factor in the administration of the affairs even of the Church; not even good men, no, not though they be prophets or other high officials of the Church, are at all times and in all things inspired of God.”
and quoted in Givens’ “The Crucible of Doubt,” Deseret Book, 2014, at 77.
Lest one think we have to go back to 1905 or 1954 to find such an acknowledgment, one should also consider:
“Revelations from God—the teachings and directions of the Spirit—are not constant. We believe in continuing revelation, not continuous revelation. We are often left to work out problems without the dictation or specific direction of the Spirit. That is part of the experience we must have in mortality.” “Teaching and Learning by the Spirit” by Elder Dallin H. Oaks, March 1977, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1997/03/teaching-and-learning-by-the-spirit?lang=eng
Some of the same idea was repeated in 2001 and 2013: “In His Own Time, in His Own Way” by Elder Dallin H. Oaks, from an address delivered to new mission presidents on June 27, 2001, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2013/08/in-his-own-time-in-his-own-way?lang=eng
I believe the plural “we” in Oaks’ 1977 statement includes himself and other leaders of the Church. Unfortunately, the concept has not become part of general Church culture and these concepts are likely to get significant pushback from some members and local leaders. Pushback is less when the concept is quoted and cited.
Wondering, thank you. I appreciate it. I actually just found your post lost to cyberspace (it was in a different filter section than I thought to look at). It can be part of the restoration of all things if you’d like, but I can also leave it where it’s at if you prefer at this point.
Thank you for sharing those quotes. I’ve been intending do a post about B.H. Roberts’s thoughts on the subject, including the quote and article you brought up.
Chad, Please leave it where it is. Or, preferably, delete it from the entire universe.
All, sorry about typing 1977 (twice!) when it should have been 1997.
This article may be applicable to some of the thoughts I expressed in the post: https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2020/06/09/despite-joining-president/
Colom said there was “no willingness on the part of the church to do anything material.” Do you suppose he meant :”having real importance or great consequences” or “being of a physical or worldly nature” or “relating to or concerned with physical rather than spiritual or intellectual things” [Merriam Webster]? I wonder what he had in mind.
I suspect “having real importance or great consequences” based on some of the other comments he made, but I guess we don’t really know what the NAACP has been asking for with the Church in their partnership.
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Posts Tagged ‘Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency’
The race to own India’s water
Water privatisation in India today comes in a wide range of what are called “solutions” by the votaries of public-private partnerships. There is water-related engineering and construction (such as earth-moving activities, alteration of river courses, artificial linking of rivers, building of dams and pipelines, etc), water and wastewater services, and water treatment, which affect both nature and communities. What remains outside the ambit of “solutions” – only until the victims can be persuaded to pay – are the impacts of the micro-scale geoengineering. Every impact damages people and the environment. Impacts can be categorised as: ecological (effects on natural ecosystems), social (related to rights of human beings and communities, health, cultural norms, attitudes, belief systems), economic (affecting livelihoods, well-being, and access to basic services) and even legal and institutional.
We are now seeing increasing pressure for private sector development in India – and the rest of Asia-Pacific. Manthan Adhyayan Kendra, an independent research unit concerned with water in India (they are based in Madhya Pradesh) says that this pressure is being mounted mainly by two influential international financial institutions: the World Bank and its regional partner, the Asian Development Bank. The World Bank gives funds, advice, training and technical assistance to governments and the private sector to implement privatisation.
Four entities allow the World Bank to undertake various functions. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) lends directly to the private sector and can even purchase equity in private companies. The Public Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF) seeks to improve the quality of infrastructure through private participation. The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) insures the private sector against commercial and political risk. The International Court for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) takes charge of disputes between investors and states. The Bank also has some other mechanisms that promote its activities in India including Water and Sanitation Program (WSP), Water and Sanitation for Urban Poor (WSUP), Water for Asian Cities (WAC) and others. The World Bank’s funding partners include the JBIC, AusAid, GTZ, USAID, DFID, UN-Habitat and the ADB.
More growth in large cities and towns, and urbanisation becoming a dominant land use pattern in more districts of India mean that the industrial, residential and municipal demands for water are rising quickly. India’s Central Pollution Control Board (an agency of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India) has released its ‘Observation on trend of Water Supply, Wastewater Generation in Cities and Towns’. Here are its main comments and highlights. I’ve left the language as it is – the import is what counts.
From The Economist's special report on water, 22 May 2010: Global water sources
“In decade of 90’s the growth of cities is observed is 33% while the growth of the decade in beginning of millennium is slowed down. Metropolitan cities is increased from 3 to 6 Nos. from 80’s to 2008. Class-I cities increase from 37 to 53 Nos. Class-II towns increase from 22 to 35. This trend indicates that all type of cities has grown in the decade of 90’s.”
Since the cities are growing, the population is enhanced from 30 million to 48 million.
Consequently water supply has been increased approximately twice in magnitude from 4,970 MLD (million litres per day) to 8,782 MLD.
Sewage generation has risen 38%.
Comparing the data of decades of 90’s to 2008, it is indicated that coastal cities and towns are not growing significantly.
Treatment capacity of sewage in comparison to decade of 80’s to until now has increased almost double (93%).
There are 498 Class-I Cities having population of 257 million and 410 Class-II Towns having population in India.
Total water supply including all class-I cities and class-II town in India is 48,093.88 MLD.
The CPCB says that wastewater generation from all class I cities and class II towns is 38,254 MLD whereas the installed treatment capacity is 11,787 MLD, which means that no more than a maximum of 31% of total sewage generated can be treated. (If the question is ‘where does the rest go?’, the CPCB answers that too in its report.) “This evidently indicates ominous position of sewage treatment, which is the main source of pollution of rivers and lakes,” warns the CPCB report. “To improve the water quality of rivers and lakes, there is an urgent need to increase sewage treatment capacity and its optimum utilisation.”
The CPCB, which thankfully still has a reputation for straight talking, has advised India’s municipalities and town administrations to “set up a very thoughtful action plan to fill this gap in a minimum time frame”. The CPCB has suggested that large cities in which and from which the pollution problem is more severe, cities/towns whose effluents and sewage are polluting rivers and water bodies “will be required to be taken up on priority basis in first phase”. Why is the CPCB so insistent? Quite simply, it says there is an “urgency of preventing pollution of our water bodies and preserving our precious water resources”.
But even in the India of non-city and non-town landscapes, there are plans being hatched by the would-be water merchants. An indication of the mischief afoot comes from a report righteously entitled ‘Pro-Poor Financial Services for Rural Water: Linking the Water Sector to Rural Finance’. (If so many good deeds are ‘pro-poor’ nowadays how come the ranks of the do-gooders is only increasing?) Here is what it says: “Previous studies suggest that a considerable demand for pro-poor financial services for water in rural areas remains unmet. The number of potential microfinance clients in rural areas for investments in water supply is estimated to be 5.0 million in East/Southeast Asia, 10.3 million in South Asia, and 3.1 million in sub-Saharan Africa.” Those three numbers get to the heart of the matter.
The report continues: “Concerning microloans for rural sanitation, there are 17 million potential clients in East/ Southeast Asia, 30.8 million in South Asia, and 4.4 million in sub-Saharan Africa. In total, the potential demand for micro-loans in these three regions is estimated at US $ 1.5 billion in the case of rural water supply, and US $ 5 billion in the case of rural sanitation. The challenge is how to unlock this latent demand and turn it into an effective process.” The authors make no bones about it, the riches at the bottom of the water table is what they’re after. And who are the authors? The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (well-known as GTZ in Asia, and which I was surprised to learn is a GmbH), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and of course the World Bank.
Cover of The Economist's special report on water, 22 May 2010
The water merchants have their cheerleading squad in place in the form of a pliant media, and The Economist has obliged by bringing out one of its typically characterless ‘surveys’, as it likes to call them. It is a special report on water (the 22 May 2010 issue) and the subject is dealt with in the sycophantic manner that the weekly reserves for the captains of industry. “Yet even if it takes two litres of groundwater to produce a litre of bottled water, companies like CocaCola and PepsiCo are hardly significant users compared with farmers and even many industrial producers.” (Hear, hear, who needs those pesky farmers anyway?) “PepsiCo has nevertheless become the first big company to declare its support for the human right to water. For its part, CocaCola is one of a consortium of companies that in 2008 formed the 2030 Water Resources Group, which strives to deal with the issue of water scarcity. Last year it commissioned a consultancy, McKinsey, to produce a report on the economics of a range of solutions.” This transatlantic weekly, once upon a time British, puts in a word for big dams too: “Dams and reservoirs certainly need constant repairs and careful maintenance and do not always get them, usually because the necessary institutions are not in place.”
Who are operating as water merchants and what do they want? There are several North American / West European companies now in India: Ondeo-Degrement, Veolia Environnement, Saur of France, RWE/Thames Water of Germany and the UK Bechtel, Enron (US), Compagnie Generale des Eaux (CGE). Indian companies are going to either compete with them, or join them – Tata subsidiary Jamshedpur Utilities and Services Company (JUSCO), IVRCL Infrastructures and Projects, Mahindra Infrastructure Ltd., IL&FS.
Surat, Gujarat: Fishing boats near the mouth of the Tapi river
The foreign multinationals are involved in several projects across the country. Compagnie Generale des Eaux (CGE) is operating urban water supply project in Hubli-Dharwad in Karnataka. Veolia is operating water and wastewater plant in Nagpur in Maharashtra and it has also formed a joint venture with JUSCO. Ondeo-Degremont has won contracts to construct water treatment plants in Mumbai and Chennai and it is also operating a wastewater treatment plant in Delhi. Thames Water was involved in a leak reduction project in Bangalore while United Utilities and Bechtel are partners in the Tiruppur project. JUSCO has projects in Jamshedpur, Bhopal, Kolkata and Adityapur. IVRCL is working on a wastewater treatment project in Alandur, desalination in Chennai and solid waste management in Tiruppur. IL&FS is involved in various projects in Haldia, Tiruppur, Vishakhapatnam and municipal waste processing facilities in Delhi and Ajmer, Rajasthan.
The CPCB has outlined the water, sewage and pollution tasks for cities, but its worries are going to be transformed into “a challenge to unlock latent demand” by the multilateral lending organisations on the one hand and the global water merchants (together with their Indian partners). Already deficit in terms of civic infrastructure and struggling with yawning gaps in the provision of healthcare and education, India’s towns and small cities will pass the burden of water profiteering on to those who can’t afford it. They leave the rural districts to earn a living in the cities, when their water rupee gets squeezed down to the last drop, where will they go then?
Tagged with Asian Development Bank, AusAid, Bechtel, BMZ, Britain, Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit, Central Pollution Control Board, CGE, Compagnie Generale des Eaux, CPCB, dam, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit, DFID, ecosystem, Enron, France, German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Germany, GTZ, IFAD, IFC, IL&FS, India, International Finance Corporation, International Fund for Agricultural Development, IVRCL Infrastructures and Projects, Jamshedpur Utilities and Services Company, JBIC, JUSCO, litres per day, Mahindra Infrastructure Ltd, Manthan Adhyayan Kendra, micro-finance, MIGA, Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, municipality, Ondeo-Degrement, pipeline, pollution, PPIAF, PPP, privatisation, Public Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility, public private partnership, river, rural finance, RWE/Thames Water, sanitation, Saur, sewage, sewage treatment, Tata, UN Habitat, UN-Water, USA, USAID, Veolia Environnement, wastewater, water, WHO, World Bank, World Health Organization
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Juventus Are Through To The Champions League Final
Juventus are through to the Champions League final after a 2-1 (Agg 4-1) win at home against Monaco.
Going into the game with a 2-0 lead from the first leg, the Italian Series A leaders managed a comfortable victory over the French side, which sees them reach their second Champions League final in three seasons.
Alves was the talk of the town after his wonder volley put his side 2-0 up, just minutes before half time, and what a strike it was! The Brazilian right back has played a major role in Juventus’s admission to the final; he assisted both of Hugain’s goals when they first met Monaco last week, and played a fantastic ball to Madzukic which led to their opening goal last night.
The 34 year old has three Champions League titles with his previous club Barcelona, one of which was against Juventus, to which he played a crucial part in the Spanish side’s 3-1 victory. He’ll be looking to add another title to his belt when they play the final in Cardiff 3rd of June.
As Juventus have been clinical in front of goal in the Champions League, much attention has been drawn to their ability of preventing goals. Despite Monaco scoring last night, Juve haven’t conceded a goal in their last 6 Champions League games, and much of that is down to the incredible form of goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon and the impenetrable back three, Giorgio Chiellini, Leonardo Bonucci and Andrea Barzagli.
It’s more than likely that Juve will face Real Madrid in the final. It will be a final that sees Ronaldo take on arguably the best defence in Europe right now. Juve will be the underdogs against the defending champions but certainly shouldn’t be ruled out. They’ve won the Series A league for the past five seasons, currently heading towards a sixth, and will be looking to forget about their defeat in the final two years ago.
Last year’s Champions League winners play their second leg with Atlético Madrid tonight, to which they lead 3-0.
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CFP: Enclosures: Women’s Religious Art and the Boundaries of Method, International Medieval Congress, Leeds 2020, deadline 10 September 2019
Posted byRoisin Astell September 9, 2019 June 25, 2020 Posted inCall for PapersTags:Call for Paper, CFP
This panel seeks to explore new methodologies for studying the art of women’s religious communities in global and cross-cultural perspective from about 500 to 1525 CE.
In the last few decades years, art historians have put women back on the map of European medieval art history. Harnessing the second-wave feminism, scholars, such as Caroline Walker Bynum and Madeline H. Caviness, paved the way for this radical shift. The generation that followed, most influentially Jeffrey Hamburger, has consolidated the study of the art and architecture of female monasticism, as manifested in the landmark exhibition of Crown and Veil (Essen and Bonn, 2005). In the process, art historians expanded our knowledge of the role of religious women as makers, commissioners, and recipients of art. The corpus of works of art has exponentially enlarged, fully encompassing the range of media engaged in women’s religious life, including objects previously relegated to margins of art history as crafts. To do so, art historians have employed a variety of methodologies, using interdisciplinary approaches.
Now, it is time to refresh the methodological foundations and broaden the scope of inquiry of this field. To this end, we invite speakers working on topics of the art of religious women and communities in any cultural, religious, and geographic context. In particular, we encourage the submission of papers that examines the methodological challenges and/or engage in innovative approaches in the field.
Potential questions may include, but are not limited to:
New insights into the role women’s religious communities played in the production and commission of art.
Is the art of female monasticism a productive category of inquiry? If so, what can we learn from examining medieval art through this lens and what are its boundaries? If not, what are the other venues for studying the art of religious women?
What new venues do interdisciplinary collaborations open up for the study of female monastic art?
Do we need to reassess gender-specific approaches to the art of women’s religious communities in light of recent scholarship on gender?
What lessons might be learned from examining other cultural and religious traditions? What methods have proven productive in examining non-Christian/non-Western cultural and religious communities?
Case studies of inter-religious and/or inter-cultural exchange, interchange, influences, and entanglement among women’s religious communities
Are there media specific to or preferred by female audience? Are there any of these universal?
New technological/digital approaches to studying the art of women’s religious communities
The session seeks to provide a forum for scholars at different career stages, across different art historical geographies. This session, we hope, will foster a dialogue across regions and religions of women’s religious communities, providing a fertile ground for discussion
We invite interested applicants to submit a 250 word abstract and a short c.v. to Kristina Potuckova (kristina.potuckova@yale.edu) and Orsolya Mednyánszky (omednyanszky@jhu.edu) by September 10, 2019.
Published by Roisin Astell
Roisin Astell received a First Class Honours in History of Art at the University of York (2014), under the supervision of Dr Emanuele Lugli. After spending a year learning French in Paris, Roisin then completed an MSt. in Medieval Studies at the University of Oxford (2016), where she was supervised by Professor Gervase Rosser and Professor Martin Kauffmann. In 2017, Roisin was awarded a CHASE AHRC studentship as a doctoral candidate at the University of Kent’s Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, under the supervision of Dr Emily Guerry. View more posts
CFP: Prologues in Learned Texts of Medieval Magic, Research Group on Manuscript Evidence (Kalamazoo 2020, Deadline 15th September 2019)
New Book: Flamboyant Architecture and Medieval Technicality: The Rise of Artistic Consciousness at the End of Middle Ages (c. 1400 – c. 1530), Jean-Marie Guillouët
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Watch The Dark Knight (2008) Online
Batman raises the stakes in his war on crime. With the help of Lt. Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman sets out to dismantle the remaining criminal organizations that plague the streets. The partnership proves to be effective, but they soon find themselves prey to a reign of chaos unleashed by a rising criminal mastermind known to the terrified citizens of Gotham as the Joker.
Actors: Aaron Eckhart, Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Heath Ledger, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman
Big Game (2014)
Air Force One is shot down by terrorists, leaving the President of the United States stranded in the wilderness. 13-year old Oskari is also in that wilderness, on a hunting…
Country: Finland, Germany, UK
Year 2038: The mineral resources of the earth are drained, in space there are fights for the last deposits on other planets and satellites. This is the situation when one…
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The Rocketeer (1991)
Young pilot Cliff Secord stumbles on a top secret rocket-pack and with the help of his mechanic/mentor, he attempts to save his girl and stop the Nazis as ‘The Rocketeer’.
Genre: Action, Adventure, Family, Science Fiction
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Master car thieves square off against French gangsters in the South of France with money, women and lives all on the line.
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College student Jake Lo is pursued by smugglers, mobsters and crooked federal agents after he witnesses a murder by a Mafia kingpin.
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It’s vacation time for Carter as he finds himself alongside Lee in Hong Kong wishing for more excitement. While Carter wants to party and meet the ladies, Lee is out…
Country: Hong Kong, USA
Genre: Action, Comedy, Crime, Thriller
Attack Force Z (1981)
Tim Burstall directs then-up-and-comers Mel Gibson and Sam Neill in this action-packed Cannes Film Festival selection about the grim realities of World War II, a gritty drama based on actual…
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Theseus is a mortal man chosen by Zeus to lead the fight against the ruthless King Hyperion, who is on a rampage across Greece to obtain a weapon that can…
Genre: Action, Drama, Fantasy, Romance
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
Returning for his fifth year of study at Hogwarts, Harry is stunned to find that his warnings about the return of Lord Voldemort have been ignored. Left with no choice,…
Genre: Action, Adventure, Family, Fantasy, Mystery
Noah (2014)
A man who suffers visions of an apocalyptic deluge takes measures to protect his family from the coming flood.
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F/X (1986)
A movies special effects man is hired by a government agency to help stage the assassination of a well known gangster. When the agency double cross him, he uses his…
Trailer: The Dark Knight (2008)
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GERARD GENETTE PARATEXT PDF
Work[ edit ] Genette is largely responsible for the reintroduction of a rhetorical vocabulary into literary criticism, for example such terms as trope and metonymy. Additionally his work on narrative, best known in English through the selection Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method , has been of importance. Thresholds of Interpretation Terms and techniques originating in his vocabulary and systems have, however, become widespread, such as the term paratext for prefaces, introductions, illustrations or other material accompanying the text, or hypotext for the sources of the text. If narratology could cope with Proust, this could no longer be said. They are primarily used to look at the syntax of narratives, rather than to perform an interpretation of them.
Author: Fenrijora Vidal
Uploader: Akinocage
Work[ edit ] Genette is largely responsible for the reintroduction of a rhetorical vocabulary into literary criticism, for example such terms as trope and metonymy. Additionally his work on narrative, best known in English through the selection Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method , has been of importance. Thresholds of Interpretation Terms and techniques originating in his vocabulary and systems have, however, become widespread, such as the term paratext for prefaces, introductions, illustrations or other material accompanying the text, or hypotext for the sources of the text.
If narratology could cope with Proust, this could no longer be said. They are primarily used to look at the syntax of narratives, rather than to perform an interpretation of them.
Order[ edit ] Say a story is narrated as follows: the clues of a murder are discovered by a detective event A ; the circumstances of the murder are finally revealed event B ; and lastly the murderer is caught event C. Add corresponding numbers to the lettered events that represent their order chronologically: 1, 2, and 3. If these events were described chronologically, they would run B1, A2, C3. Arranged in the text, however, they run A2 discovery , B1 flashback , C3 resolution.
It also deals with the structure of narratives on a more systematic basis, accounting for flash-forward, simultaneity, as well as possible, if rarely used, effects. The separation between an event and its narration allows several possibilities.
An event can occur once and be narrated once singular. An event can occur n times and be narrated n times multiple. Duration[ edit ] The separation between an event and its narration means that there is discourse time and narrative time. These are the two main elements of duration. Not many people, however, could read Ulysses in twenty-four hours. Thus it is safe to say it has a lengthy discourse time. Voice is concerned with who narrates, and from where.
This can be split four ways. Where the narration is from Intra-diegetic: inside the text. Hetero-diegetic: the narrator is not a character in the story. It is related to voice. Distance of the narrator changes with narrated speech, transposed speech and reported speech. Perspective of the narrator is called focalization.
Narratives can be non-focalized, internally focalized or externally focalized.
2SC5200 DATASHEET PDF
Gérard Genette
Jump to navigation Jump to search Paratext is a concept in literary interpretation. The main text of published authors e. These added elements form a frame for the main text, and can change the reception of a text or its interpretation by the public. Paratext is most often associated with books , as they typically include a cover with associated cover art , title, front matter dedication, opening information, foreword , back matter endpapers, colophon footnotes, and many other materials not crafted by the author. Other editorial decisions can also fall into the category of paratext, such as the formatting or typography. Because of their close association with the text, it may seem that authors should be given the final say about paratextual materials, but often that is not the case. One example of controversy surrounding paratext is the case of the young adult novel Liar , which was initially published with an image of a white girl on the cover, although the narrator of the story was identified in the text as black.
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Two movies I saw and more “I am not in the demographic” previews
I can sometimes pack in a film while Dad is with Flower, if other circumstances permit, and my local theater chain has deep discounts / big rewards in place for Labor Day weekend. I saw Operation Finale on Friday afternoon. And was again treated to a series of previews to films I can’t really imagine seeing. And Searching on Saturday afternoon. And another series of questionable previews. I know there are films out there I can get excited about. Theoretically.
Historical drama about the kidnapping of Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960 and the days between his apprehension and the flight out of Buenos Aires. Seen because I’m a huge Hannah Arendt fan and because this film was half price plus double bonus points, but it was a big disappointment. It’s impossible to remove the lens that Arendt saw Eichmann through from subsequent portrayals of the man, and while that is controversial (and the film seems to play in the direction of mild questioning of her picture of the bureaucratical, boring genocider), Ben Kingsley doesn’t resolve this problem successfully. He does a good job of capturing Eichmann’s fussiness and his petit bourgeois rigidity, but not so much his utter banality. The script is okay, but Kingsley is so much more on top of his job than is Jason Isaacs Oscar Isaac (as Mossad operative Peter Malkin) that Isaacs is left in the dust and scenes that were clearly intended to be high tension are simply boring. Kingsley strikes sparks that never land on anything flammable in Isaacs. The film also brings in Simon Russell Beale as a curiously enervated Ben-Gurion (they must be counting on the likelihood that big pieces of their audience have no memory of him), although with accurate hairdo. There are a few pluses: the rarely-seen Peter Strauss as Lothar Herrmann; a couple of mid-twentieth-century Israeli politics insider jokes (“we’ll bring out Abba Eban, everyone seems to love him”). But the film misses the Jewishness where it counts and only manages it in the form of kitsch (Peter’s mother’s Sabbath chicken soup). All in all, a lost opportunity that won’t harm anyone’s careers, but will also be forgotten in a year. However, I was intrigued enough that I will read Malkin’s book about the episode.
I couldn’t figure out the plot from this one — a young woman has visions so she travels to the basement of a Romanian abbey where things jump out at her. I can’t imagine why they showed this to the audience for Operation Finale.
A film about boxing with Sylvester Stallone. Stallone is on the “not for any reason” list. Boxing is on the “only if there is some other tremendously compelling reason” list. Not for me, even if Graham McTavish shows up (he’s not currently on the cast list).
Schindler’s List 25th anniversary release
I will concede that this was at least an appropriate trailer to show in conjunction with Operation Finale. However, I hate the “suffering ends in redemption” Holocaust story line. And after twenty-five years of explaining to undergraduates that the Holocaust occurred in color and that the six million died without the poignant score playing in the background, and that the horrifying thing about genocides are not the heroes and villains, but the industrial, callous, business-like nature of the killing, I don’t need to see this one (with its revoltingly Zionist ending) ever again.
A submarine movie that involves Marines sailing into Russian territory in order to rescue a rogue Russian plus Gary Oldman looking typically bemused, as he often does when he’s not mimicking a historical character. I can definitely be sold on a “cat and mouse” scenario submarine film, but the most interesting thing about this trailer was the CGI.
Still a “no.” Do they think they can wear us down?
Welcome to Morwen
A man viciously beaten in a bar (the reason isn’t stated in the trailer, but research reveals the excuse given was his cross-dressing) creates an artistic world in order to recover his memories. Based on a true story. See above re: suffering as redemption. I haven’t liked a Zemeckis film since the 1990s, and I hate Forrest Gump. Nope.
A film whose name I missed (which is annoying)
The plot is that a Black woman who works at an all-male, all-white sports management agency is denied a promotion she thinks is guaranteed and a subsequent visit to a psychic gives her the curse, i.e., ability, to hear men’s thoughts. This is really the only trailer I saw that night that I found even somewhat appealing, although the humor may be a bit on the raunchy side for me.
A man looks for his daughter (who disappears after his wife’s death) using her online traces. I have a generally positive opinion of John Cho, and the theater chain offered me double rewards points + 25 bonus points for seeing it this weekend, so I thought, why not? I would definitely recommend this film — it has a clear but solid script with about five plot twists plus a red herring. The first two are obvious; the third follows from the second. But you’d have to have been paying very good attention to guess the fourth and fifth, although they are not hidden. I.e., if you want to feel superior, watch every screen with all of your attention. Bonus: all the violence is implied rather than seen. Cho is fine (as is the highly strung Debra Messing) but the point here is the social critique rather than the acting. How have the Internet in general and social media and cell phones in particular affected our relationships? This film will really make you think about those themes without pushing any particular conclusion in your face. It’s a quiet film without a lot of embellishment but it punches about its weight, and I really liked it. It’s hard to see how this could have been a Hollywood blockbuster (it was made for under $5M), but I’d like to see more films like this one.
The horror film version of the D-Day invasions at Normandy. Why??? You’d think actual events hadn’t been bad enough or something.
When a group of criminals are kille during the commission of a crime, their widows are harassed by the competition and then step up to take their places. Mixed feelings — it looks violent and I’m tired of Liam Neeson as the hunted man. On the other hand, Viola Davis and Daniel Kaluuya, plus female empowerment (although some of it looks kitschy). Would consider seeing.
I guess this is the film Armitage was up for but couldn’t reconcile with the Berlin Station filming schedule? I didn’t really catch the plot from the trailer except that cities move on heavy-duty wheels and Hugo Weaving is chasing two young people. Oh, and Jackson, Walsh and Boyens were involved. Guessing Armitage was up for the role Weaving got? Anyway, I don’t usually see this kind of movie, and I doubt I’ll torture myself now — I don’t like to think about “what might have been.”
This is another one that I feel is being rammed down my throat. Repeated viewings don’t make it any more appealing. Still no.
Another “based on a true story” film about a teenager who became an FBI informant. Matthew McConaughey is on the “not unless there is a really compelling reason” list. This is another one I might see in a pinch.
~ by Servetus on September 2, 2018.
Tags: films, me, Operation Finale, Searching
48 Responses to “Two movies I saw and more “I am not in the demographic” previews”
I was thinking about seeing Operation Finale, but maybe I’ll skip it…But just to clarify, do you mean Oscar Isaac instead of Jason Isaacs? I just checked imdb and Jason isn’t listed in this movie…
I was thinking of seeing Searching though, so maybe I will make the effort to see that one!
missfoodietwoshoes said this on September 2, 2018 at 4:13 am | Reply
Oops, yeah. Thanks. Fixed. If you don’t know anything about this incident it might be of interest. Then again, if you don’t know anything about this incident, you might not recognize the participants — not sure.
I would definitely recommend Searching. (Even apart from John Cho, who is as low key here as ever.)
Servetus said this on September 2, 2018 at 4:20 am | Reply
No submarine move can compare to Das Boot. I must have seen that in the theatre when it came out ten times – with subtitles!
sparkhouse1 said this on September 2, 2018 at 8:24 am | Reply
I agree — that’s a great one. I saw another one recently that I liked on TV but the name escapes me.
Servetus said this on September 2, 2018 at 3:34 pm | Reply
The movie w Taraji B Hensen is called What Men Want which is the gender flip on the 2000
movie What Women Want w yep Mel Gibson
before he went postal. I think I read her version
has some issues and got pushed back. When I
saw O8 in June it had a trailer for it coming out
in Dec I think. You’I’ve got me intrigued about
Searching.. thank you for the movie round up
Glad you were able to get out and see a couple!!
Michele Marsh said this on September 2, 2018 at 9:57 am | Reply
That one sounds like it could be cute
Cindy said this on September 2, 2018 at 1:16 pm | Reply
Yeah she has become a badass on film just
pumping out one movie after another for several years now plus Empire on FOX U.S. tv
for couple of seasons now. She rocks female
empowerment but her roles are somewhat
the same each movie but she’s just skyrocketed her career. I think it looks cute too
I hope it does well.
Michele Marsh said this on September 2, 2018 at 2:33 pm | Reply
oh, excellent. I thought I recognized the actor. I loved her in Hidden Figures. I didn’t see What Women Want. I dunno. When a film has a fart joke in the trailer, that’s usually a signal to me that I won’t enjoy it.
Right I agree and isn’t Gibson on your no way list? He was ok in it I liked the premise of the movie more than the execution of it and I think it is a hit or miss movie w people. I wouldn’t revisit it myself now.
Yeah, he’s on my really no way, no how list.
Haha that is brilliant no way no how ! I love it!! 👏👍🤣
I do occasionally show “Gallipoli” in a modern history course. I should concede that. But otherwise, ick. Not even on free TV on a rainy afternoon. I’d much rather read.
You’re so funny! Ick yeah I will agree he’s a real twerp and I liked Lethal Weapon 1 but that’s about it from him. He apparently has a way w women and some potent sperm along w Eddie Murphy geez.,,
anti-Semite; insane wing of the Catholic Church … just no.
Before we found out about any of that, he did make some amusing movies.
janesteinmiller said this on September 3, 2018 at 3:54 am | Reply
Gallipoli was such a beautiful movie, and Year of Living Dangerously. Two of his best, so long ago. Definitely an actor that is hard to separate from his work now.
sparkhouse1 said this on September 2, 2018 at 4:35 pm | Reply
Gallipoli is a really good illustration of two things important to know about WWI: the generalized sentiment of popular nationalism, and the truly international quality of the war. Also demonstrates the idiocy of that war quite nicely.
oh: and — my students often have no idea of the sheer size of Australia.
well, Australia is a continent after all. Regarding Schindler’s List – I could never bring myself to watch it even though it is supposed to be such a great and moving film (‘film’ rather than movie is for the ‘greats’ lol). Your assessment makes me feel ok about that. I don’t know why but in my mind I equate it with Sophie’s choice, which was a really good movie but for some reason, even years later, it left me with a strange feeling of wishing I had never seen it and a strange icky feeling for having watched it. It’s hard to explain, but something like a feeling that something was made for manipulative ‘entertainment’ that shouldn’t have been entertainment. But then I feel bad because it was a moving film and it must have been good that I still think about it after all this time. But then I still am left with that icky voyeuristic feeling again. And I know she’s a great actress and I normally have no problem with her but I am left with a feeling that I don’t know if doing the accent and mannerisms were more important to her than what the film was about. Regardless, I can’t explain the feeling but I find it had to watch a movie like Schindler’s List but then I feel I have no right to that feeling since I haven’t seen the movie so I shouldn’t judge. Not making much sense here.
I’ve only seen Schindler’s List once, it’s tough to handle. While it is definitely artistic, like how it’s all black and white except for one character, I remember it feeling almost documentary-like. I haven’t seen Sophie’s Choice so I can’t speak to that, but I never got the feeling that Schindler’s List was made for any level of entertainment. But I think it’s important to honor our instincts and feelings, even about what we choose to watch. There are movies I choose not to watch for various reasons. I’m sure all of us do. It’s been a very long time since I’ve watched Roots, the original miniseries, for example, and I don’t know when I’ll be able to watch it again. It’s just so heavy a subject.
missfoodietwoshoes said this on September 3, 2018 at 5:06 am
It was definitely not intended as entertainment.
janesteinmiller said this on September 3, 2018 at 4:42 pm
Nor should it have been. Steven Spielberg has a knack for trying to make you feel the shock. Much like the opening of Saving Private Ryan.
I don’t object to that, but I’m bothered by the happy ending / “everything will be fine” trope that consistently pervades his films.
Servetus said this on September 4, 2018 at 3:22 am
Not always appropriate, certainly not the case for most following the Holocaust.
janesteinmiller said this on September 5, 2018 at 3:25 am
There’s a huge debate that goes on among film critics and scholars about precisely this issue: can the Holocaust be represented (artistically or otherwise)? What kind of representations are appropriate? A lot of it will come down to the individual sentiments of the spectator. IMO Schindler’s List is an inappropriate representation, but in general I don’t care for Spielberg’s historical vision and I think he is out of his depth when he applies his worldview to historical events. (The novel from which the film was drawn, by Thomas Kenneally, is much better and way less melodramatic.)
People forget now that Sophie’s Choice was incredibly controversial in its time (and back then there were critics who argued that the novel was actually Southern Gothic as opposed to a Holocaust story). I haven’t seen it in years, but there are a lot of representations that I didn’t care for, most notably that the novel seemed to suggest that the Holocaust was not really or primarily a Jewish event.
Servetus said this on September 3, 2018 at 2:57 pm
Sophies Choice we watched as a family movie night in 1984 on VHS about 2 years after it came out. My mom having lived thru WW2 got up and walked out of the room during the pivotal scene in the movie and was crying
She didn’t watch the rest of the movie. I think
as a viewer I thought the performances by Streep and Kevin Kline were fantastic. My dad would probably agree w your assessment of
the historical interpretation of the film but from
a purely emotional view I can still remember that scene to this day and know why it hit my mom so very hard…
Michele Marsh said this on September 3, 2018 at 3:14 pm
That is about when we saw it, too, also on VHS, also as a family.
Unfortunately, I think the only way many people are exposed to history is through film. Yet, if they weren’t interested in school, I’m not sure how much they might take away from it. For instance, not knowing Australia is a continent. So many don’t have basic knowledge of their own country, let alone outside of it. The internet had the potential for showing people the world, and anything they wanted to learn. It’s become a tool for a split second attention span, looking down all day, and not speaking with actual people. Do I sound ancient? I’m just realizing how much time I spend looking at my own phone, and wishing I spent more living.
That’s something that kind of astounds me about the current atmosphere — I really use the Internet to find things I wasn’t anticipating, not to have my prejudices confirmed. I’ve read something like two dozen novels by African authors in the last year because of the Internet, for instance. I don’t get the whole “I only read things I already agree with” mood (or why FB would see that as an attractive business model).
I do love the fact that I can find the answer to any question instantly, but I also miss the different sets of encyclopedias we had on the shelves in our home. One thing would lead to the next. Seeing something while looking for another, and stopping to read about that. I could spend hours looking at them. I think curiosity, and knowing how to learn is being lost, much like imagination, and being able to play or occupy themselves is to many childten. They did become awfully out of date with all the advancements of the last fifty+ years. So much just wasn’t in them. That isn’t an issue anymore.
I like to watch BBC World News for awhile each day not only because it gives a completely different viewpoint on American events, but because it actually covers the world. Our news is obsessed with our politics, and the one or two things that may be going on as far as a tragedy or crisis. We aren’t getting much of what goes on everywhere else.
I am a huge BBC News fan. When I travel I only watch BBC news (where available at the hotel.) I agree with you on the internet-I would never have been able to find all these resources on Richard otherwise. My dad owns a huge encyclopedia collection which is now stored in my sister’s old bedroom. I grew up in the age of using those as resources and learning tools whereas my nieces wouldn’t have a clue about them now, scribbling on their ipads. I too spent hours as a kid reading and perusing them and my dad had variations of them. He is a voracious reader and encouraged his kids to read which my brother does to an extent w/the twins. Thank you for sharing. It was a nice trip down memory lane for me.
Year of Living Dangerously was very good! I liked Linda Hunt esp in it, I thought she stole a lot of the seasons.
scenes I meant not seasons, geez I’m lame this morning and it’s not even Monday anymore.
Looking forward to Widows. As for Hunter Killers-yikes! Gerry Butler who are you listening to on movie choice!? 😳
Fatima said this on September 2, 2018 at 1:41 pm | Reply
Haha right! Gerry who are you listening to so cute and true!!🎯😀
I should add — I also saw the trailer for “Boy Erased” last night and this looks good despite the participation of Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe.
I have to ask not a Kidman or Crowe fan?
That is on my radar too.
yeah — it looked the scenes with the young men would make the film worth another two hours of Kidman as distressed mother.
They’re both negatives for me.
“Searching” sounds really interesting. I hadn’t heard of it before.
SueBC said this on September 2, 2018 at 11:02 pm | Reply
It was the #2 film in the US this weekend (admittedly, no one was in the theaters. Well, except me)
It just goes to show still, how few movies are made that have any interest for a mature female. Although that seems like a particularly bad set of previews.
My impression was that they had no idea which trailers to show at these two movies because they had no idea who was coming to see them. Apparently Labor Day weekend is a throwaway (just learned that this summer) when stuff opens that isn’t expected to do all that well. So the film offerings were atypical and they just threw whichever trailers at us. I guess.
Yeah, very few of these appeal to me. I am actually curious to see “A Star is Born”, even though I have already read mixed reviews and Operation Finale interests me too.I liked Forrest Gump and also like Steve Carrell, so I may try that Welcome to Marwen movie. 🙂
And I did like Schindler’s List (but can’t watch it again).
The one you don’t know the title of is “What Men Want” – I saw “What Women Want” way back when and while OK, not something I’d need to see again, so not sure a remake will really drag me to the cinema. I would go along if others wanted to see it.
Esther said this on September 6, 2018 at 1:13 pm | Reply
[…] the first time and no the second time and still […]
Two more movies and their associated trailers | Me + Richard Armitage said this on September 16, 2018 at 12:01 am | Reply
[…] Widows had only been on my “maybe” list, but I heard some positive things about it and my cinema chain offered me triple reward points for seeing it today, and I’ve been solo since last night, so I decided to strike! Herewith my response to Widows and to the six trailers I saw before it. […]
Today’s matinee and the trailers they showed | Me + Richard Armitage said this on November 17, 2018 at 4:25 am | Reply
[…] When I saw this trailer before I thought, huh, maybe, which is where I still am. Plus: Taraji P. Henson. […]
Green Book sucked [and trailers I saw] | Me + Richard Armitage said this on November 25, 2018 at 6:41 am | Reply
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The MusicNerd Chronicles
Blabbing about music and stuff since 2010!
Features · Q&A
The MusicNerd Q&A With The Drive-By Truckers
by Ken Kelley
Photo by David McClister
It’s not everyday that acclaimed alt.country rockers Drive-By Truckers are in our neck of the woods. So for that reason along with the fact that they are an amazing band, I would highly recommend getting your ass over to Prince Edward Island this Saturday (July 12) when the Drive-By Truckers perform as a part of the Big Red Music Festival.
Stating he was very much looking forward to his group’s first visit to Atlantic Canada, The MusicNerd Chronicles had the pleasure of chatting with Drive-By Truckers vocalist-guitarist Patterson Hood last week.
The three years that lapsed between 2011’s Go-Go Boots and your newest record English Oceans was the longest span of time between albums for the band. Was it simply time for the band to catch its breath after seemingly ceaseless touring and recording in the decade prior?
We definitely needed to step away from the band for a period of time. We had worked to a point where, had we not taken the break, it would have been working against us rather than for us. From 1998 onwards, we would release a record every year to two years and then spend the next year to year and a half touring the album. We literally just hit the wall. We were all physically burned out but we were suffering musically as well.
Did you keep moving forward all those years because you were afraid of losing the momentum that the group was building?
Very much so. On the less rational side of things, I think a big reason why we went so long before we considered taking a break was because we started this band when we were in our 30’s. Other bands were 10 years younger than us, doing the same thing. So once the group began gaining momentum, we had worked so hard for it that we were so terrified of losing what we had built up. But then it dawned on us at some point that if we don’t take care of ourselves and started putting out substandard records, it’s all going to go away anyway.
Are you working towards finding a better work/life balance for the band moving forward?
In the past, it was more of the function of economics that kept us so busy. I love touring but I also love seeing my family so finding a balance between the two would be a good thing.
Last month, you performed a benefit show with your band mate Mike Cooley and former Truckers member Jason Isbell who left the band after 2006’s A Blessing And A Curse. How was being back on stage with Jason?
We have been on wonderful terms with one another for awhile now but especially over the last couple of years. I couldn’t be prouder of Jason and everything he has done both on a personal level as well as a musical level. The issues that we all had are like water under the bridge now. We’ve all moved on and have nothing but the utmost of respect for one another.
An abbreviated version of this interview was published in the July 10, 2014 edition of Here Magazine
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Tag Archives: Mandy Patinkin
The Princess Bride – a fun movie for all
Posted on May 19, 2020 by Keith
Start with a beautiful heroine, a cavalier pirate, and an evil prince. Add one giant of a man, an eleven fingered bad guy, a Spanish swordsman, a scheming genius and a host of other great characters. Finish up with a great story read by a grandfather to his sick grandson and you have the delightfully charmlng “The Princess Bride.” About five years ago I wrote a post on this movie, which I will repeat below. “The Princess Bride” is a movie the whole family can watch and enjoy during our sheltering-at-home time.
“Mawwiage. Mawwiage is what bwings us together today.” Although this line is picking on people with speech impediments, in the context of the movie “The Princess Bride” it is quite comical, as it is uttered by the magnificently attired priest who is conducting a wedding service for the bride to her unloved groom. It is so unexpected it becomes farcical. And, that is one of the reasons why this Rob Reiner movie is so entertaining. It does so many unexpected things and all ages will enjoy the story, as narrated by a grandfather, Peter Falk, as he reads to his grandson played by “The Wonder Years” star Fred Savage.
The story fascinates as it begins with true love between a young girl played by Robin Wright in her first movie (before “Forrest Gump” and “House of Cards”) and a farm hand played by Cary Elwes, who would go on to star in “Robin Hood, Men in Tights.” They get separated and she catches the eye of a hated prince played wonderfully by Chris Sarandon. The prince’s greed, though, overtakes his lust and he sends her off for a visit to another land where he asked three interesting hired assassins to kill her, so he can blame the other country and grow his realm.
Without giving away too much of the movie, the Dread Pirate Roberts enters the picture to save her and has to ward off the assassins, the prince’s henchman, and torture. The three assassins are played wonderfully by Wallace Shawn (now appearing on “Young Sheldon”), whose catchphrase is “inconceivable,” Andre the Giant (the former pro-wrestler) and Mandy Patinkin as a swashbuckling Spaniard out for revenge for his father’s death. Andre the Giant turns out to be quite the comedic actor in several scenes. Patinkin’s passion for vengeance is also room for comedy and heroics.
But, other actors play wonderful roles in large cameo parts and other scenes. Billy Crystal and Carol Kane are quite funny playing Miracle Max and his wife. Christopher Guest plays the prince’s henchman quite well, especially as he is inquiring into the pain reactions of the Dread Pirate Roberts in his contrived torture chamber. Mel Smith has a fun cameo as the torturer and Peter Cook, is the magnificent lisping priest.
Yet, the idea to have Falk read the story to Savage makes the movie feel like a fairy tale. Especially when the dream scenes are read and Savage reacts rather annoyed to the story. The story includes perils such as the fire swamp with its ROES, Rodents of Enormous Size, as well as fighting off the talents of three assassins and even overcoming death. We learn the difference between “Mostly Dead” and “Totally Dead” from Miracle Max. Yes, it is silly especially when the future princess is booed by a character played by Margery Mason, which turns out to be one of the dreams that Savage does not care for.
Reiner’s directing and casting of this wonderful movie make it a treat for all ages. The screenplay and book were written by William Goldman. Reiner’s inclusion of Mark Knopfler (of Dire Straits) in developing the soundtrack and writing the best song “Storybook Love,” which was sung by Willy DeVille, makes it even more special. I have tried to stay away from much of the plot for those who have not seen the movie. If you have not and you have children or grandchildren, download this movie, make some popcorn and turn the lights low. If you have seen it, still follow the above steps, as the kids and all in the family will get a treat.
Posted in Ancestry, Books, Communication, Entertainment, Family, Fathers, Friends, Humor, Mothers, Music, Musings | Tagged Andre the Giant, Billy Crystal and Carol Kane, Carl Elwes and Robin Wright, Entertainment, Life Lessons, Mandy Patinkin, Movies, Peter Falk and Fred Savage, Rob Reiner and The Princess Bride, Storybook Love by Mark Knopfler, The Princess Bride, William Goldman and The Princess Bride | 8 Replies
The Princess Bride – a movie for all ages
Posted on May 5, 2015 by Keith
Without giving away too much of the movie, the Dread Pirate Roberts enters the picture to save her and has to ward off the assassins, the prince’s henchman, and torture. The three assassins are played wonderfully by Wallace Shawn, whose catchphrase is “inconceivable,” Andre the Giant (the former pro-wrestler) and Mandy Patinkin as a swashbuckling Spaniard out for revenge for his father’s death. Andre the Giant turns out to be quite the comedic actor in several scenes. Patinkin’s passion for vengeance is also room for comedy and heroics.
Reiner’s directing and casting of this wonderful movie make it a treat for all ages. His inclusion of Mark Knopfler (of Dire Straits) in developing the soundtrack and writing the best song “Storybook Love,” which was sung by Willy DeVille, makes it even more special. I have tried to stay away from much of the plot for those who have not seen the movie. If you have not and you have children or grandchildren, rent this movie, make some popcorn and turn the lights low. If you have seen it, still follow the above steps, as the kids and all in the family will get a treat.
Posted in Books, Entertainment, Family, Humor, Movies, Music, Musings | Tagged Andre the Giant, Billy Crystal, Carol Kane, Cary Elwes, Chris Sarandon, Christopher Guest, Fred Savage, Mandy Patinkin, Mark Knopfler, Peter Falk, Rob Reiner, Robin Wright, The Princess Bride | 7 Replies
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A Fasching family portrait
Hudson Fasching’s brother and sister are his inspiration and his biggest fans.
Chelsea Gortmaker
The Fasching family photographed at its Burnsville, Minn., home March 2. Hudson Fasching, middle, is a forward on the Gophers men’s hockey team, and his two siblings, Mallory, far left, and Cooper, far right, have a condition that leaves them unable to walk or talk and requiring round-the-clock care.
Megan Ryan
A typical Sunday afternoon at the Fasching household looks like that of many Minnesota families.
Hudson Fasching sits with his parents and siblings in the living room of their Burnsville home — a gas fire blazing and an NHL game playing on the TV.
It’s normal for the Faschings, but to outsiders, it may not seem that way.
Hudson is a phenom freshman forward for the Gophers men’s hockey team, starring on the first line in his first year with the team.
His younger siblings, 16-year-old Cooper and 15-year-old Mallory, lounge in wheelchairs, with their feet resting on Goldy Gopher pillows.
Cooper and Mallory were born healthy, but seizures for Cooper at six weeks and vomiting for Mallory at six weeks indicated that something was wrong.
While parents Rick and Shannon Fasching still don’t know the exact problem, doctors called it a mitochondrial disorder when they diagnosed Cooper.
Those doctors said there was a one-in-a-million chance of it happening a second time. But against all odds, it did.
“We hit the jackpot with Mallory,” Shannon said.
That mysterious condition has left the two unable to walk or talk. They are fed with formula through a tube and require constant care.
While Hudson spent large chunks of his youth in and out of hospitals for his siblings or helping his parents take care of them, he doesn’t view his life as being unusual.
“People ask me, ‘Is it different?’” Hudson said. “It’s normal for me, so I don’t really know anything else.”
Better than words
Hudson may be the local celebrity of the family after a standout high school career and a two-year stint with the U.S. National Development Team Program led to a starting spot with the Gophers. But Cooper and Mallory don’t live in their big brother’s shadow.
Cooper isn’t a stereotypical middle child. He is often in the spotlight — sometimes literally.
In a school holiday program one year, he couldn’t walk into the auditorium like his classmates, but the alternative was probably what he preferred.
“They pulled the curtain out, and there’s Cooper by himself, center stage — 200 parents sitting in there — and he is grinning ear-to-ear,” Rick said.
While many young kids would be mortified, Cooper has always been most comfortable in social situations.
As for Mallory, the sign above her bed says it all: “I didn’t ask to be a princess, but if the crown fits.”
“She just loves to be pampered, and if she’s not being pampered, she’s going to let you know about it,” Shannon said.
Maria Patch, who used to babysit Hudson and was a personal care assistant for Cooper and Mallory, said this was evident in the way Mallory would have her hair done and nails painted to go to Hudson’s hockey games.
“They’re just a part of the family, and they haven’t treated them any differently because of their disability,” Patch said.
Though the two can’t talk, they communicate other ways, and their family said Cooper and Mallory understand more than people think. And they’ve certainly helped shape the person their older brother has become.
Rick said since Hudson was around adults from a young age with all the doctor visits for his siblings, he’s mature, intelligent and driven.
His mother called him competitive and compassionate, though Hudson might like to deny it.
“Every time in an interview, my mom [says] the softest things,” Hudson said. “Like, oh, I’m a cuddler.”
Shannon has proof, though.
“I could pick Mallory up and lay her in his lap, and he would sit there and hold her and cuddle with her and think nothing of it,” she said. “He looks like a rough, tough hockey player, but he’s a pretty good guy.”
Hockey beyond the ice
Hudson first started skating at age 3 before playing hockey at age 5.
“I hated it at first,” he said. “It was definitely not an instant love. I remember my first couple practices; I was just miserable.”
Still, it was important for Rick that his son learned to skate. And while Shannon was busy with Cooper and Mallory, she was glad Hudson had a hobby — though she wasn’t quite sure it would stick.
“[A] whole hour and he went across the ice and back twice, and that was it,” she said.
“Then I called his dad [and said] … ‘Honey, I don’t think hockey is going to be his sport.’”
Shannon said Hudson pressed on so he could hang out with his friends on the team, but it didn’t take long for the sport to cement itself into Hudson’s life.
Patch said 6-year-old Hudson asked to show her the “hockey puck in Cooper’s belly,” which was actually a pump used to distribute medicine into the spine.
Hudson’s drive eventually made him into one of the best players in his age group over the next few years.
After playing in summer programs and making the state tournament with Apple Valley High School, Hudson made a difficult choice. He opted to spend his last two high school years in Ann Arbor, Mich., where he competed with the U.S. National Development Team Program.
While it was a good move career-wise, Shannon said the experience was “completely miserable.”
“You don’t make that time up,” Rick said. “It was literally the worst experience we have had as a family outside of finding out that these two are severely handicapped.”
Rick said he promised his son he wouldn’t cry but said he was bawling before they dropped him off.
Hudson said leaving his family made the decision difficult, but in the end, it worked out. He committed to the Gophers during his junior year of high school and traveled across the world representing the U.S.
Minnesota head coach Don Lucia said he had penciled in Hudson as a fourth-line forward prior to this season. But Hudson exceeded those expectations in August, so Lucia moved him up.
Hudson’s former youth hockey coach Dave Snuggerud — who is also a former Gophers, Olympic and NHL player — said that’s not surprising.
“He understands setbacks,” Snuggerud said. “He lives it every day with his family, and he knows with setbacks, you still have to find a way to get it done.”
Cooper and Mallory enjoy watching their brother play in Mariucci Arena, though Shannon said Cooper wishes it was quieter so he could hear the pucks hitting the boards.
Both attend a special education program at Eastview High School in which they learn communication skills and make notepads and greeting cards with about a half-dozen other students.
Mary Willman, who has taught Cooper since the sixth grade, said the teachers have created a lesson for the class centered on Hudson’s hockey excursions. The humble class icon has even visited the class.
“When I speak to them about Hudson, their parents, anything with their family or especially the subject of hockey, they are elated,” she said. “And any time Hudson’s mentioned, they clearly are in tune with the conversation.”
While it’s unknown how much Cooper and Mallory comprehend, Willman said, there is one thing she’s certain they understand: Hudson is their brother, he plays hockey and he is good at it.
“That, to me is what links the whole family,” she said.
Sticks together, stays together
The Faschings have been through a lot together.
After Cooper’s diagnosis, the family frequently made three-hour commutes from their old home in Indiana to Chicago for doctor appointments before they eventually moved to Minnesota.
Hudson said it wasn’t a big deal — he would just find the hospital’s children’s room and hang out there.
“He was so patient and so unselfish with his time,” Rick said. “I don’t think I ever once heard him complain.”
Shannon admitted there was at least one time when Hudson was older that she bribed him with the promise of rides at the Mall of America to help bring Mallory and Cooper to the doctor. Hudson kept up his end of the deal. His mom, not quite.
“I rode two rides, and I was so sick,” she said. “I felt like the worst mom. I promised this, and I can’t do it. … I got him a big ice cream. I bought him everything in sight.”
While the whole family is very positive about its battle with disability, Shannon admits there are some tough parts. For example, most teenagers don’t need a babysitter when their parents have a date night, but Cooper and Mallory do.
Hudson had his own challenges, mainly not having his siblings to support him against his parents. He would sometimes lament to his former babysitter Patch, saying, “My parents won’t let me get text messaging, and if Cooper and Mallory could talk, they would totally have my back.”
But Shannon said it wasn’t all bad.
“I always know where they are,” she said. “My kids never ran away.”
Rick said he agreed he didn’t have to settle the usual sibling bickering.
“There wasn’t a lot of fighting,” he said. “I mean, what’s Hudson going to do, pick on his handicapped brother and sister? He better not.”
And in many ways, Cooper and Mallory’s disabilities have brought the clan together.
“I don’t want to say it’s better, but we’re closer,” Shannon said. “We had dinner every night together because whenever Hudson got done with hockey, that’s when we had dinner.”
Hudson said he knows the sacrifices his family has made for him and his siblings. Shannon said he has told her he feels lucky just to be able to walk. She said Hudson also told her he feels the need to succeed because his siblings don’t have the opportunity.
As Hudson put it, he draws inspiration from Cooper and Mallory because “all the eggs are in my basket.”
“I took all the good genes,” he said. “So I’ve got to make it worth it.”
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The Need to Face Up to Reality, Not Sitting on Potential
Wed, 28 Nov 2001 Source: Adu-Asare, R. Y
Responses to a recent article, (“Ghanaian Businesspeople Asleep at the Wheels …”, Ghanaweb, Nov. 19, 2001) addressing the views of some Nigerians about the nature of doing business in Ghana elicited pent up frustration from Ghanaians around the world on the issue. However, besides acknowledging that problems exist in Ghana in the performance of tasks in a timely fashion with measurable results, few of the respondents provided any pointers as to why the situation is as it is. Rather, a lot of the respondents took umbrage at the mere fact that their Nigerian neighbors had the audacity even to be critical of Ghana.
Instead of addressing the fundamental issues associated with not getting things done in Ghana as might be expected, a respondent wrote of Nigerians thus, “if they claim to be this so-called effective businesspeople, why is the country [Nigeria] saddled with so much problems. Nigeria is the most impoverished oil producer in the world. They have all that one needs to create a sustainable economy, and that is oil; yet still they seem to have no clue as to what to do.” Well said, but what good do these observations do for solving Ghana’s own problems?
Continuing, the respondent cited above, wrote, “Yes, maybe Ghanaians are a little bit slow in the execution but yet still the fact remains Ghanaians are more level headed, peaceful, less corrupt, patient and better organized. Ghana has always been a leader in Sub-Sahara Africa and will continue to be. The facts are there to support that. Ghana is a more open society than Nigeria, where people are tolerant of others ideas or opinion. Nigeria is yet to gain that.”
I want to suggest that the tendency towards aggrandizement and inflated views have been part of the problem associated with lack of upward mobility characterizing the Ghanaian society. The tendency I refer to comes out of backward thinking such as comparing two hopeless cases; which ever one comes on top is still not good enough, in the larger scheme of things. Ghana may have been “a leader in Sub-Sahara Africa,” yet Ghanaians have been covering their butts with imported used clothes since independence.
In the economic sphere, the tendency for Ghanaians to assume that their conditions of existence are better than their neighbors’ comes out of a culture of believing in the potential, as opposed to the reality. Ghanaians count their potential wealth in the resources yet to be harnessed as opposed to finding the means to add value to what they produce for export. Since Ghanaians have all this big talk about being the “leader” in Su-Sahara Africa, how come the country is not one of the five that have filled their quota in the provisions of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, which allows about 2,000 products to be exported to the United States’ lucrative market, duty free?
Ghana, the self-anointed “showcase of Africa’s independence and freedom,” after 43 years of independence has one of the most dependent economies on the African continent. Planning of government projects, since independence, has always been predicated on expectation of foreign assistance thereby reproducing conditions for low productive capacity of the economy, characterized by massive unemployment and untold poverty. The culture of economic dependency in Ghana is so pervasive that nephews and nieces sit in waiting for handouts from uncles and aunts, leaving one to ponder the role of fathers and mothers.
On the political front, it appears Ghanaians are “level headed” and “patient” enough to have allowed an individual and his buddies to misrule their country, in absolute terms, for 20 years without anybody throwing a stone, a tomato or even putrefied egg. The attitudes indicated here have a tendency to reproduce docility in the body politic to the extent even Nana Kunadu Agyemang-Rawlings, the daughter of a humble public servant, exhibits a bloated impression indicating that she has the capacity to rule Ghana, by virtue of marriage.
With all humility, I’d like to suggest to fellow Ghanaians to recognize the precarious economic and political conditions in which our country is and to address the critical issues with a view towards positive change. Sure, some few Ghanaians, by dint of providence or default, may be well seated, so to speak, but yet even they breathe the same air as others in their community. In that regard, changing attitude towards business and work, as such, must be a collective responsibility for the benefit of all of society.
At the highest level of abstraction, attitude is a predisposition for one to respond to a particular situation or event in a given manner. An employer who pays the worker $1.00 for eight hours of work should expect work-output equal or less than $1.00 in value. In this sense, it is fair to say that anybody who pays me $1.00 for eight hours work should expect that I will sit on my behind or take a cigarette break whenever the opportunity arises. This scenario goes to address the fundamental issue of wage-labor relations in society and the expected productivity.
There must be a certain level of national debate in Ghana about how much workers deserve to be paid, and what to expect of them. When workers get paid less than $1.00 for eight hours of work I wonder how they are able to participate effectively in the national economy through consumption. Numerically, there are more working poor in Ghana than ‘businesspeople” and if they cannot be paid adequately to participate in the economy it follows that there would be over-production and stagnation, as it were.
Workers in Ghana deserve to be paid “living wages” if they are expected to put in full eight hours of work-output in a given day. Where I grew up in Ghana, it was well established that the amount of work done by farm day-laborers was commensurate with the quality and quantity of lunch provided by the farmer. Anybody listening?
I have a view also that the businessperson must play the role of problem solving relative to executing tasks in timely fashion with measurable results in order for the work process to move forward. Certainly, road construction, in the 21st century, would proceed better with certain types of equipment instead of pick-axe and spade.
Since Ghana is claimed to be so “peaceful” and “better organized”, I have been wondering, from where I’m perched, why the individual’s personal security in the country has become so precarious because of rising armed robberies? And by the way, I would also like to know why shipping containers arriving at Ghana’s seaports these days are loaded with discarded used appliances. Are these some of the qualities of being better organized and peaceful?
With reference to the article under discussion, a female Ghanaian resident in the United States wrote: “I was very impressed by the constructive criticism presented in your article, and am compelled to side with the Nigerian businessmen in question. The entire business atmosphere in Ghana has forever lacked drive. We propound a lot of theories, but are never able to bring things to fruition. I blame it all on talk with no action.” Thank you, Mary O…!
By the way, whether Ghanaians like it or not, Nigerians have earned the right to be critical of any country in West Africa. It is their money that has kept the peace in the region in the past decade by putting the likes of Foday Sankoh, the butcher of Sierra Leone and Charles Taylor, the warlord of Liberia, where they belong. I hope the incorrigible dictator, Campoare of Burkina Faso, is paying attention. The world is watching him and his “blood diamonds” connections.
Columnist: Adu-Asare, R. Y
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CUISINE OF SUDAN
A Sudanese plate of okra & eggplant
The cuisine of the country is as varied as the country’s geography and diverse ethnic communities. Some foods are, however, consumed widely like Kissra, a type of bread which is the staple of the Sudanese diet. It is made of corn or durra. Kissra is usually consumed with a stew and together constitute the most popular everyday meal of Sudan. Stews generally have dried meat, peanut butter, spices, and dried onions as the ingredients.
Porridge made of corn or wheat might also be consumed with stews. Soups are also an important part of the Sudanese cuisine. Kawari is the most popular soup and is made of cattle's or sheep's hoofs, spices, and vegetables. A dish made of banana paste called Moukhbaza is widely eaten in east Sudan. Dairy and milk are fundamental to the diet of most Sudanese. Some popular beverages of Sudan are fruit juices, such as a drink called Hilumur .
Mulukhiya (Jute plant soup)
Fasolia (bean stew)
Red Meat Stew
Kisra (bread)
Check out some of the famous sudanese dishes, courtesy of sudanesekitchen.
LITERATURE & THE ART
Unlike many other African countries, Sudan has a vast repertoire of written literature with the oldest ones dating from 700 BCE and was written in the Meroitic script. Like other countries in the continent, Sudan also has a rich heritage of oral literature. Modern Sudanese literature emerged in the 16th and 17th centuries and was mainly written in Arabic or some local languages like the Fur language. Oral literature from Sudan includes mythological stories and religious tales. The former is based on magic, superstition, and fanciful scenes. The latter has a religious overtone and are usually related to praising Muhammad. Modern Sudanese literature focusses on social realist and other themes.
The art of Sudan reflects its centuries-old history. The various kingdoms that ruled the land and the diverse ethnic groups inhabiting the country have all contributed to the Sudanese art. The Bambara people of Sudan are famous for their wood-carved antelope head dresses that have immense cultural significance. Terracotta sculptures from Sudan are also noteworthy. Mask-making, pottery, basket-weaving, etc., are some other skills of Sudanese craftsmen.
Tayeb Salih one of Sudan's greatest authors of the twentieth century
Dancer from West of Sudan
Sudan has a rich heritage of music and dance. The rich and varied music of Sudan is made up of traditional, rural East African roots, as well as of Arabic, Western or other African influences on the popular urban music from the early 20th century onwards. Since the establishment of cities like Khartoum as melting pots for people of diverse backgrounds, cultural heritage and tastes have shaped numerous forms of modern popular music. In the globalized world of today, the creation and consumption of music through satellite TV or on the internet is a driving force for change in Sudan, popular with local audiences as well as with Sudanese living abroad.
Check out these videos of Sudanese American dancers from Shabbal group in San Francisco
To learn more about Shabbal , please visit their facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/shabbaldance/
Copyright 2020 © MySudan. All Rights Reserved.
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David-Hillel Ruben
Action and Its Explanation
Ruben, David-Hillel, Action and Its Explanation, Oxford, 2003, 229pp, $45.00 (hbk), ISBN 0198235887.
Reviewed by Ausonio Marras, University of Western Ontario
In this book Ruben challenges two main versions of the widely held causal theory of action and argues that the category of action is primitive and cannot be reconstructed in terms of such categories as event and causation. He also outlines a counterfactual theory of causal explanation that makes no commitment to the existence of laws, and holds that at least some explanations of action are causal.
The first two chapters (which occupy about one third of the book) set out the “metaphysical preliminaries”. Chapter 1 offers a version of the “prolific” theory of action individuation, counting the bending of my finger (as I pull the trigger to kill the Queen) as distinct from the action of killing the Queen, and locating the latter at the time and place of the Queen’s death – contrary to “austere” theories (like Davidson’s) that identify the two actions and locate them at the time and place of the finger bending. The consequence of this way of counting actions – that, for example, I killed the Queen at distant Balmoral, where she died, six months after I shot her in London, and (suppose) three months after I myself died – is, Ruben argues, not only no more paradoxical than the austere view’s consequence that the Queen was killed in London six months before she died in Balmoral, but its paradoxical appearance can be explained away by extending Peter Geach’s familiar distinction between real changes and mere “Cambridge” changes to actions: my bending my finger is a real action, but my killing the Queen is a Cambridge action, one that only attributes a Cambridge change to me – the sort of change that Napoleon undergoes in being eulogized by Chirac, or that Adam and Eve undergo in gaining another remote descendant. As these examples show, one need not exist at p at t in order to have or acquire a property at p at t: “posthumous predication” is not as puzzling as might seem. However, if by posthumous predication I may be credited with the delayed action of killing the Queen at a time and place when and where I am not, why can’t my original, long past action of bending my finger (or pulling the trigger, or shooting the Queen) similarly be credited with acquiring the delayed property of being a killing, as some “austere” theorists (Davidson, Bennett, etc.) have suggested? Ruben admits it could, but to allow a shooting to become a killing is to countenance a Cambridge meta-event, and thus to overpopulate our ontology to no advantage. Perhaps so; but there seems to be something unsettling about the very idea of a Cambridge action, with its suggestion that it is somehow not a “real” action (the way a Cambridge change is not a “real” change). Unlike Adam’s and Eve’s acquiring a remote descendant, or Napoleon being eulogized now – events on which Adam and Napoleon had no say – my killing of the Queen was as real an action as was my pulling the trigger with murderous intentions. Indeed, it is difficult to see why I would be held accountable for it unless the killing was intimately related to my wounding the Queen at the place and time of my shooting her – a wounding that turned out to be mortal; and that “intimate relation” surely was not a causal one, for my wounding her did not cause my killing her, though it caused her death. If the relation between the wounding (or the shooting) and the killing was not a causal one, what was it? The only remotely plausible answers would seem to be: either the relation of identity or the relation of “becoming”: the wounding was a killing, or it became a killing. But it’s hard to see how an event (or action) can become another event (or action), except in the sense that it “turned out to be” a certain way: and that just means that it (the wounding) later came to merit a new and more appropriate characterization (as a killing). In other words, the Queen’s death made it true that the wounding was a mortal one, i.e., a killing – just as the “austere” theory would have it.
In chapter 2 various other distinctions are made: in particular, the distinction between action and activity (the latter, like house-cleaning, having a plurality of actions as constituents), basic and non-basic actions, mental and physical actions, and, prominently, the distinction between an action and the event “intrinsic” to it. An action (e.g. my killing of the Queen) logically entails an event intrinsic to it (the Queen’s death) but is never, even at the token level, identical with it: first, because the action and its intrinsic event “have different subjects” (the Queen’s death happens only to her, the killing involves both her and me), and second, because the action and the event have different properties, including different causal properties (the killing was culpable, the death was not; the death was partly caused by blood-letting, the killing was not, etc.). One might wonder how these reasons help us distinguish a (token) “basic” action from the (token) event intrinsic to it, e.g., my raising my arm on a given occasion from my arm rising on that occasion: both concern me and my arm, and both seem to have the same causal and other properties (e.g. they have the same space-time location, both are caused by my intention to signal, both cause the same air molecules to be displaced, etc.). These are unsurprising facts for “austere” theories that count my raising my arm and my arm rising as the same (token) event. But on Ruben’s account it turns out that basic actions are not to be identified with their intrinsic event for the simple but surprising reason, spelled out in Chapter 5, that basic actions have no events intrinsic to them. More on this later. The important point about basic actions in this chapter is that their basicness is not absolute (i.e., pertaining to an action type) but relative to an “action chain” generated by the by relation: for example, bending my finger on a given occasion is basic relative to a chain that also includes my pulling the trigger, my shooting the gun, my killing the Queen, etc., where each action on the chain is done by doing its predecessor, until we get to my bending my finger, which (in this case) is done directly, not by doing anything else. It turns out, unsurprisingly, that no basic actions are mere Cambridge actions: all basic actions are real (p. 69). It also turns out, contrary to the volitional theory, that not all basic actions are mental actions: my bending my finger – a basic action on the previous chain – is surely a physical action.
Chapters 3-5 describe and criticize three “folk-naturalist” theories of action: the “currently orthodox” causal theory (CTA), and two versions of the “agent-causal” theory. (“Folk naturalism”, a form of philosophical naturalism, attempts to reconstruct folk-talk about action and agency using concepts such as ’event’ and ’causation’ which are “ultimately acceptable or available to the natural sciences”; p. 82). After briefly describing the three theories and identifying a crucial assumption they all share (that each basic action is identical to an “intrinsic event”), chapter 3 focuses on the CTA – roughly the sort of theory espoused by Davidson, Goldman, Brand, etc. What CTA claims is that “a movement of X’s body, m, is X’s basic action iff m is rationalized and caused in the right way by X’s mental states” (p. 85). CTA thus identifies every (token) basic action with its intrinsic event – my bending my finger with my finger’s bending, when this has a rationalizing mental cause (a belief-desire pair or an intention or an action plan, etc.). It also views non-basic actions (my pulling the trigger, my shooting the Queen, etc.) as events caused by (or, on the “austere” view, identical with) an agent’s basic action. On CTA’s folk-naturalistic account, then, “there is no ontological divide between actions and events, between activity and passivity” (p. 86): “bodily events with the right rationalizing mental state causal ancestry are, on this view, actions” (p. 89). But crucial to the ensuing critique of CTA in chapter 4 is the “rationalizing requirement”, which commits CTA “to finding … some mental occurrences that cause and rationalize each token action” (p. 98). This, Ruben objects, requires of agents “an implausibly rich mental life … CTA is engaged in dramatic mental overpopulation. It overintellectualizes action” (p. 98). Why does Ruben think so?
The case is argued in detail in chapter 4. Rationalizing requires not only desires (or intentions) but also beliefs, for in order to rationalize an action I must believe that by performing it I will do or obtain something I desire. Some CTA theorists (e.g. Goldman) hold that, in order to cause action, the rationalizing beliefs and desires have to be occurrent (actually present to consciousness), not merely dispositional; but, Ruben objects, “in very many cases of action, careful introspection … fails to provide evidence of such conscious beliefs and desires” (p. 117). Even if, pace Goldman, we include dispositional (as well as unconscious or subconscious) beliefs and desires among the ones available to CTA (the only restriction being that they must in principle be available to consciousness), “there will still be insufficient mental material … to make the CTA plausible” (p. 119). For there are ubiquitous cases of genuinely intentional action for which “the agent has no rationalizing mental states (in particular, no beliefs) whose propositional content matches the action description” (p. 126). Such are the actions involved in many kinds of routine or skilled activity, or in the exercise of an art or craft – for example in shaving, ice-skating, painting, dancing, hugging, riding a bicycle, eating. Even though the whole activities, or the decision to engage in them, may involve some degree of strategy or planning, CTA “is meant to apply to all our actions, even to those actions that are parts of other actions”: my pulling the razor in some particular way while shaving, my twisting my body this way or that in dancing, etc. If I believed that by pulling the razor that way I would shave off some of my whiskers, the belief would rationalize the pulling: “But of course I may not have, and typically do not have, any such beliefs. The CTA founders … on many of these actions that are parts of longer stretches of activity requiring technique” (p. 129). Such actions are part of intelligent activity that merely requires “know how” very much in the Rylean sense that no rationalizing mental episodes are required to causally account for the performance of the constitutive actions.
Is Ruben’s case against CTA successful? He responds to a number of objections later in the chapter, but lingering doubts remain. First, one might argue that Ruben’s argument does not strike at the heart of CTA, whose essential concern, arguably, is to establish the thesis that those actions for which we do have rationalizing beliefs and desires can and, indeed, must be caused by them, if the rationalizing states are to be genuinely explanatory. A paramount motivating factor behind CTA from the very beginning (e.g. in the work of Donald Davidson) was to respond to the teleologists’ claim that “reasons can’t be causes”. Those (routine or skilful) actions which, like pulling the razor in some particular way, are not “done for a reason” (beyond the reason that rationalizes the activity of which they are constitutive) may well fall outside the scope of CTA if they can simply be accounted for in terms of Rylean “knowledge-how”. It seems compatible with CTA to suppose that, e.g., a skilled activity like shaving is caused by reasons even if it recruits routines and subroutines that do not themselves require independent rationalization. (Ruben rejects this suggestion insisting that the constituent parts of the activities in question are fully intentional actions requiring, according to CTA, their own rationalizing causes: to suppose that they can be rationalized simply as means to the larger end would require revising CTA in unacceptable ways.) Alternatively, one might argue that Ruben takes too narrow a view of what the rationalizing causes can be. Though pulling the razor in some particular way does not require an occurrent or even a dispositional belief (namely the belief that by pulling the razor that way I would effectively rid myself of some whiskers), it may require that I dispositionally have such a belief (cf. Robert Audi’s distinction between “dispositional beliefs” and “dispositions to believe” – a distinction that Ruben stresses and exploits in this book). Ruben objects that a belief I dispositionally have, unlike a “stored” dispositional belief which is retrievable and potentially present to consciousness, needs to be “formed” or “computed” from other general information that is stored or even hard-wired in me in some way. However, why should it make any substantive difference to CTA whether certain beliefs or other informational states are occurrent, dispositional (“stored”), or merely dispositionally had or physically hard-wired? (E.g. the question in cognitive science whether rules are stored in memory as data-structures or whether they are merely hard-wired is often regarded as a red herring.) Perhaps Ruben’s point is that mere dispositions to believe can’t rationalize actions, for “mere physical abilities and dispositions have no place in the folk-psychological arena” (p. 134). But why not, as long as the dispositions are individuated folk-psychologically, as dispositions to have such and such rationalizing beliefs? Ruben implies that such individuation is not possible, for the dispositions in question are “subpersonal”, neurophysiological states of a system encoding information that is inaccessible to the agent (cf. p. 134). But this is like saying that solubility has no place in folk-physics because that disposition is realized by microstates of a system whose informational content is inaccessible to the common folk.
The case against CTA is completed in chapter 4 with a discussion of mental action, where it is argued that CTA cannot give a convincing account of certain (“spontaneous”) cases of it. Chapter 5 turns to the second main type of causal theory of action, the “agent-causation” theory, of which two versions are considered and rejected: one, which identifies an action with an intrinsic event caused by the agent himself; the other, which identifies an action with the causing by the agent of an event intrinsic to the action. The first is found wanting because it “attempts to explain the less mysterious [action] by the more mysterious [agent-causality]” (p. 174); the second, because it is committed to a “reification of causings” (p. 166), and such entities or events are problematic (e.g. can causings be caused?). But the more interesting and controversial move in this chapter is Ruben’s rejection of the previously mentioned assumption shared by both versions of the agent causation theory as well as by CTA: “that there is an event intrinsic to every basic action” (p. 175). There are, Ruben acknowledged earlier, events that are intrinsic to (though distinct from) non-basic actions; but when it comes to a basic action, “no event intrinsic to that action [let alone identical to it] occurs … [W]hen X moves his hand, there is in one sense no such event at all as his hand moving. All that there is, is the action” (p. 177). As Ruben admits, this claim may be met with incredulity: “Is it really false that when I move my hand my hand moves”? (p. 178). Well, it is in one sense – a sense that warrants an exclusive disjunction in the case of basic actions: “either a person moves his hand or his hand moves. The first is an action; the second a (mere) event” (p. 177). But then, one may well protest, in that sense of ’event’ (as “mere event”) the claim is hardly surprising but actually quite trivial: since a “mere event” is, by definition, a non-action – an occurrence lacking an intentional cause or explanation – the claim is just that when a person performs a basic action, an event has occurred which is not a non-action (a “mere event”). Ruben’s metaphysical motivation for his thesis however, is far from trivial: it is to ground the idea that the category of action is irreducible to that of (mere?) event, since activity cannot be reduced to passivity.
In the sixth and final chapter Ruben sketches a counterfactual theory of causal explanation, along the lines of his 1990 book (Explaining Explanation, Routledge), and applies it to the domain of action. The theory makes use of familiar assumptions about the non-extensionality, context and interest relativity of explanation, and essentially relies on the counterfactual analysis of causal explanation (but not of causation) proposed by Steven Schiffer and others (according to which “the F causally explains the G iff (a) the F caused the G, and (b) the F would not have caused the G if the F had not be an F”; p. 200), save for some minor modifications to take care of possible objections relating to “transworld identity”, essentialism, overdetermination, and the necessity/sufficiency of the analysans. While Ruben does not assume that every action has a cause, he reasonably accepts the principle that if an action has a cause, it has a causal explanation (under appropriate descriptions of the cause and the effect). This of course establishes a connection between a (metaphysical) causal theory of action and an (epistemological) causal theory of action explanation. For example if CTA is true, then a corresponding causal theory of action explanation CTAE (every action is an event causally explained by rationalizing mental states) is also true. Ruben’s causal theory of action explanation, of course, is quite different from CTAE, not only in rejecting the view that an action explanation must invoke rationalizing mental causes, but also in remaining agnostic on the view that all action explanation is causal, and in refraining from imposing specific constraints on the nature of the cause (when the action has a cause) and its relation to either macro-level (folk) or micro-level (physical) laws. Action explanations and the counterfactuals on which they are based “are explanatory using only the resources available at the folk level itself” (p. 197), and not only do not depend on folk-psychological covering laws (there aren’t any, just as Davidson thought), but do not even imply or presuppose (as Davidson thought they did) the existence of micro-level laws under which the action-event and its cause might be subsumed under a (micro-)physical description. However, as Jaegwon Kim has often argued, a problem with this type of law-independent counterfactualist account is that no explanation is offered of why such macro-level counterfactuals should hold at all, or why, when they do hold, an adequate (e.g. non-epiphenomenalist) explanation has been provided. Granted that I would not have drunk the water had I not felt thirsty, what makes that counterfactual true? And since it is (presumably) also true that I would not have drunk the water had I not been in a neural state of a certain sort, how does an explanation of the drinking in terms of feeling thirsty avoid a commitment to epiphenomenalism, or – if feeling thirsty is equated with being in a certain neural state – to type-reductionism? Apparently Ruben is unconcerned with these questions, avowing that his position on causal explanation is consistent both with “macro-causal epiphenomenalism” and with “macro-causal reductionism” (p. 198); after all, the epistemology of explanation should not depend on the metaphysics of causation. Still, one wonders whether what we are offered is not, as Kim might put it, a “free-lunch” solution to the problem of action explanation.
None of the above, of course, challenges the quality of this book, which is by any measure a highly valuable contribution to the theory of action and action explanation. Because of its novel standpoint on many issues and its subtle and sustained critique of much current wisdom, its readers will find this book both inspiring and challenging.
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News | May 25, 2018
Full Moon Blog: The Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon
By Gordon Johnston
Image Credit: NASA/Bill Dunford
The next full Moon will be on Tuesday morning, May 29, 2018, appearing "opposite" the Sun (in Earth-based longitude) at 10:20 AM EDT. The Moon will appear full for about three days around this time, from Sunday night through Wednesday morning (and possibly early Wednesday evening).
The Maine Farmer's Almanac first published Native American names for the full Moons in the 1930's. According to this almanac, the last full Moon of Spring is known as the Strawberry Moon, a name universal to just about every Algonquin tribe. The name comes from the relatively short season for harvesting strawberries in northeastern North America. For my back yard at least, I can attest that the strawberries are coming in!
In lunisolar calendars the months change with the new Moon and full Moons fall in the middle of the lunar months. This full Moon is the middle of the fourth month of the Chinese calendar and Sivan in the Hebrew calendar. In the Islamic calendar the months start with the first sighting of the waxing crescent Moon a few days after the New Moon. This full Moon is near the middle of the holy month of Ramadan, the month in which the Quran was revealed. Observing this annual month of charitable acts, prayer, and fasting from dawn to sunset is one of the Five Pillars of Islam.
As usual, the wearing of suitably celebratory celestial attire is encouraged in honor of the full Moon.
As for other celestial events between now and the full Moon after next:
As Spring ends and Summer begins, the daily periods of sunlight will reach their longest. For the Washington, DC area, on the day of the full Moon at the end of May, morning twilight will begin at 4:36 AM, sunrise will be at 5:46 AM, the Sun will reach a maximum altitude of 72.8 degrees at 1:06 PM, sunset will be at 8:25 PM, and evening twilight will end at 9:36 PM EDT.
Rounded to the minute, the earliest sunrises of the year (5:42 AM EDT) will be from Sunday, June 10, to Sunday, June 17, 2018. The latest sunsets of the year (rounded to the minute) will be at 8:37 PM EDT from Wednesday, June 20 until Thursday, July 5, 2018. The Summer Solstice will be on Thursday, June 21, 2018, at 6:07 AM EDT, and this will be the day with the longest period of sunlight, 14 hours, 53 minutes, and 40.9 seconds. On the day of the Solstice, morning twilight will begin at 4:30 AM, sunrise will be at 5:43 AM, the Sun will reach a maximum altitude of 74.6 degrees at 1:10 PM, sunset will be at 8:37 PM, and evening twilight will end at 9:49 PM EDT.
Rounded to the minute, the earliest sunrises of the year (5:42 AM EDT) will be from Sunday, June 10, to Sunday, June 17, 2018. The latest sunsets of the year (rounded to the minute) will be at 8:37 PM EDT from Wednesday, June 20 until Thursday, July 5, 2018. The Summer Solstice will be on Thursday, June 21, 2018, at 6:07 AM EDT, and this will be the day with the longest period of sunlight, 14 hours, 53 minutes, and 40.9 seconds.
By the day of the full Moon at the end of June, morning twilight will begin at 4:33 AM, sunrise will be at 5:45 AM, the Sun will reach a maximum altitude of 74.4 degrees at 1:11 PM, sunset will be at 8:37 PM, and evening twilight will end at 9:50 PM EDT.
On the evening of the full Moon at the end of May, as evening twilight ends, the bright planet Venus as the evening star will appear in the west-northwest, about 15 degrees above the horizon. Not as bright as Venus, but still bright, will be the planet Jupiter, just past its brightest for the year, appearing about 29 degrees above the horizon in the southeast. The bright planet Saturn will be rising in the east-southeast at 10:26 PM, and will be at its brightest for the year at the end of June. The planet Mars will not rise until after midnight. By mid-June the planet Mercury will begin to be visible about 30 minutes after sunset in the west-northwest and by late June will be above the horizon at the time evening twilight ends. By the evening of the full Moon at the end of June, as evening twilight ends, Jupiter will have shifted to about 36 degrees above the southern horizon, Saturn will appear about 14 degrees above the southeastern horizon, and Mercury will appear about 2.5 degrees above the horizon in the west-northwest.
On the morning of the late May full Moon, as morning twilight begins, bright Saturn will appear in the south-southwest about 26 degrees above the horizon, Mars will appear to the left of Saturn about 29 degrees above the horizon in the south-southeast, and bright Jupiter will be setting in the west-southwest. The "Summer Triangle" will appear almost directly overhead. The "Summer Triangle" is not a constellation but consists of three bright stars from three different constellations; Deneb, the brightest star in the constellation Cygnus the Swan; Vega, the brightest star in the constellation Lyra the Harp; and Altair, the brightest star in the constellation Aquila the Eagle. By the morning of the late June full Moon, as morning twilight begins, Jupiter will have already set, Saturn will appear about 12 degrees above the horizon in the southwest, and Mars will appear about 27 degrees above the horizon in the south-southwest. The "Summer Triangle" will appear high in the west.
This summer will be great time for Jupiter and Saturn watching, especially with a backyard telescope. Jupiter was at its closest and brightest for the year on May 8 2018, and Saturn will be at its closest and brightest the morning of June 27, 2018 (called "opposition" because it is opposite the Earth from the Sun, effectively a "full Saturn"). Both will appear to shift towards the west over the coming months, making them visible earlier in the evening sky. With a small telescope you will be able to see Jupiter's four bright moons, Ganymede, Callisto, Europa, and Io, shifting positions noticeably in the course of an evening. Galileo was the first person known to point the newly developed telescope at Jupiter, and he immediately noticed these moons that we now call the Galilean moons. For Saturn, you should be able to see the brightly illuminated rings as well as the motions of Saturn's moons, particularly the largest moon, Titan.
Even though they are not visible usually, I include in these Moon missives information about Near Earth Objects (mostly asteroids) that pass the Earth within about 15 lunar distances, because I find it interesting that we have discovered so many. On Friday evening, May 25, 2018, at 6:30 PM EDT (2018-May-25 22:30 UTC), Near Earth Object (2018 JG2), between 46 and 103 meters (152 to 339 feet) in diameter, will pass the Earth at between 18.3 and 18.5 lunar distances (nominally 18.4), traveling at 6.91 kilometers per second (15,448 miles per hour).
On Friday night, May 25, 2018, the bright star Spica will appear about 6 degrees to the lower right of the waxing gibbous Moon. For the Washington, DC area, evening twilight will end at 9:32 PM, the Moon will reach its highest in the sky for the night at 10:30 PM, and Spica will set Saturday morning at around 3:45 AM EDT.
On Sunday night into Monday morning, May 27 to 28, 2018, the bright planet Jupiter will appear to the left of the nearly full Moon. For the Washington, DC area, evening twilight will end at 9:34 PM, the Moon will reach its highest in the sky for the evening just after midnight on Monday morning at 12:03 AM, and morning twilight will begin at 4:37 AM EDT.
On Monday afternoon, May 28, 2018, at 3:00 PM EDT (2018-May-28 19:00 UTC), Near Earth Object (2018 KR), between 14 and 31 meters (46 to 102 feet) in diameter, will pass the Earth at between 15.6 and 15.7 lunar distances (nominally 15.7), traveling at 4.03 kilometers per second (9,013 miles per hour).
On Monday night, May 28, 2018, at 10:46 PM EDT (2018-May-29 02:46 UTC), Near Earth Object 68347 (2001 KB67), between 291 and 652 meters (956 to 2,138 feet) in diameter, will pass the Earth at 9.5 lunar distances, traveling at 13.34 kilometers per second (29,838 miles per hour).
As mentioned above, the next full Moon will be on Tuesday, May 29, 2018, at 10:20 AM EDT.
On Tuesday, May 29, 2018, at 11:11 AM EDT (2018-May-29 15:11 UTC), Near Earth Object (2018 KN2), between 21 and 47 meters (69 to 155 feet) in diameter, will pass the Earth at 6.1 lunar distances, traveling at 8.04 kilometers per second (17,983 miles per hour).
On Thursday morning, May 31, 2018, at 1:05 AM EDT (2018-May-31 05:05 UTC), Near Earth Object (2013 LE7), between 9 and 20 meters (29 to 65 feet) in diameter, will pass the Earth at 17.7 lunar distances, traveling at 1.72 kilometers per second (3,850 miles per hour).
On Thursday night, May 31, 2018, the bright planet Saturn will appear less than 2 degrees to the right of the nearly full Moon. For the Washington, DC area, the Moon and Saturn will rise together in the east-southeast at 10:17 PM. They will appear to shift apart slightly as the night progresses. The Moon will reach its highest in the sky Friday morning at 3:16 AM, and morning twilight will begin at 4:34 AM EDT.
On Friday morning, June 1, 2018, at 2:09 AM EDT (2018-Jun-01 06:09 UTC with 2 minutes uncertainty), Near Earth Object (2018 KE1), between 24 and 54 meters (80 to 178 feet) in diameter, will pass the Earth at between 10.6 and 10.9 lunar distances (nominally 10.8), traveling at 16.21 kilometers per second (36,250 miles per hour).
Saturday night, June 2, 2018, at 12:34 PM EDT, the Moon will be at apogee, its farthest from the Earth for this orbit.
Saturday night, June 2, into Sunday morning, June 3, 2018, the planet Mars will appear below the waning crescent Moon. For the Washington, DC area, the Moon will rise in the east-southeast at 11:47 PM, Mars will rise 23 minutes later, on Sunday morning at 12:10 AM, and morning twilight will begin at 4:33 AM EDT.
Saturday evening, June 5, 2018, the planet Mercury will pass on the far side of the Sun as seen from Earth, called superior conjunction. Later in June Mercury will begin to emerge from the glow of sunset in the west-northwest.
Thursday night, June 7, 2018, the waning Moon will appear half-full as it reaches its last quarter at 11:37 PM EDT.
On Sunday afternoon, June 10, 2018, at 3:17 PM EDT (2018-Jun-10 19:17 UTC with 1 minute uncertainty), Near Earth Object (2018 EJ4), between 146 and 327 meters (479 to 1,072 feet) in diameter, will pass the Earth at 5.6 lunar distances, traveling at 6.18 kilometers per second (13,831 miles per hour).
On Monday morning, June 11, 2018, at 1:53 AM EDT (2018-Jun-11 05:53 UTC), Near Earth Object (2015 DP155), between 127 and 284 meters (417 to 933 feet) in diameter, will pass the Earth at 9.0 lunar distances, traveling at 4.42 kilometers per second (9,878 miles per hour).
Wednesday afternoon, June 13, 2018, at 3:43 PM EDT, will be the new Moon, when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun and will not be visible from the Earth. In most lunisolar calendars the new month starts with the New Moon. In the Hebrew calendar days start with sunset, so Wednesday evening marks the start of Tammuz in the Hebrew calendar. In the traditional Chinese calendar days begin at midnight and the day of the New Moon is the first day of the new month, but because China is 12 hours ahead of EDT, the fifth month in the Chinese calendar starts on June 14, 2018.
Thursday evening, June 14, 2018, at 7:55 PM EDT, the Moon will be at perigee, its closest to the Earth for this orbit.
In the Islamic calendar the months start with the first sighting of the waxing crescent Moon after the New Moon. The first day of Shawwal, with the signing of the crescent Moon the evening of Thursday, June 14, 2018, should mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan and is celebrated with Eid al-Fitr, the festival of breaking the fast. For the Washington, DC area, sunset will be at 8:35 PM, and the thin crescent Moon should be visible for about the last half-hour before it sets at 9:34 PM EDT.
On Friday, June 15, 2018, the thin, waxing, crescent Moon will appear below the bright planet Venus near the horizon in the west-northwest. For the Washington, DC area, evening twilight will end at 9:48, the Moon will set at 10:33 PM, and Venus will set at 11:10 PM EDT.
By Saturday, June 16, 2018, the waxing crescent Moon will appear to have shifted to appear to the left of and a little above Venus. For the Washington, DC area, evening twilight will end at 9:48 PM, Venus will set at 11:10 PM, and the Moon will set at 11:25 PM EDT.
Sunday evening, June 17, 2018, the bright star Regulus will appear in the west to the upper left of the waxing crescent Moon. For the Washington, DC area, evening twilight will end at 9:48 PM, the Moon will set Monday morning at 12:09 AM, and Regulus will set 5 minutes later at 12:14 AM EDT.
Monday, June 18, 2018, is the fifth day of the fifth month of the traditional Chinese calendar, the day of the Dragon Boat Festival.
On Wednesday morning, June 20, 2018, the Moon will appear half-full as it reaches its first quarter at 6:51 AM EDT.
The Summer Solstice, the astronomical end of Spring and start of Summer, will be Thursday morning, June 21, 2018, at 6:07 AM EDT.
On Thursday afternoon, June 21, 2018, at 4:54 PM EDT (2018-Jun-21 20:54 UTC with 2 minutes uncertainty), Near Earth Object (2017 YE5), between 384 and 859 meters (1,260 to 2,819 feet) in diameter, will pass the Earth at 15.5 lunar distances, traveling at 15.47 kilometers per second (34,612 miles per hour).
Thursday evening, June 21, 2018, the bright star Spica will appear below and slightly to the left of the waxing gibbous Moon.
On Friday evening, June 22, 2018, at 9:05 PM EDT (2018-Jun-23 01:05 UTC), Near Earth Object 467309 (1996 AW1), between 266 and 594 meters (872 to 1,950 feet) in diameter, will pass the Earth at 17.9 lunar distances, traveling at 13.99 kilometers per second (31,303 miles per hour).
Saturday evening, June 23, 2018, the bright planet Jupiter will appear to the lower right of the waxing gibbous Moon.
On Sunday morning June 24, 2018, at 5:06 AM EDT (2018-Jun-24 09:06 UTC), Near Earth Object 441987 (2010 NY65), between 133 and 298 meters (437 to 977 feet) in diameter, will pass the Earth at 7.3 lunar distances, traveling at 12.58 kilometers per second (28,143 miles per hour).
Monday evening, June 25, 2018, the bright star Antares will appear below and a little to the right of the nearly full waxing gibbous Moon.
Wednesday morning, June 27, 2018, Saturn will be at opposition, or opposite the Sun as seen from the Earth, effectively a "full" Saturn that rises around sunset and sets around sunrise. This is when Saturn will be at its closest and brightest for the year. With good binoculars or a small telescope, you should be able to see clearly the rings of Saturn and Saturn's large moon Titan, that has an atmosphere and seas of liquid methane.
Wednesday evening into Thursday morning, June 27 to 28, 2018, the bright planet Saturn, nearly at its brightest and closest to the Earth for the year, will appear below the full Moon. The pair will appear at their closest at around 11 PM EDT.
The full Moon after next will be just after midnight on Thursday morning, June 28, 2018, at 12:53 AM EDT.
Print these handouts to promote your InOMN event.
Download the Save the Date Poster
Download the Save the Date Postcard
Moon to Mars Posters
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King Albert
Belgium's former King meets estranged daughter for first time
BRUSSELS, October 27 (Reuters): Belgium's former King Albert has met his daughter Delphine for the first time, after she won a seven-year legal battle to prove that he is her father, earning recognition as a princess. The two met Albert's wife, Queen Paola, last Sunday at their royal residence, the Belvedere castle, in the Brussels suburb of Laeken, the royal household said on Tuesday. "This Sunday October 25, a new chapter has opened, filled with emotions, calm
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Kropotkin Thinks ... that some things are more important than racing - but not many
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At Least Three Events Scheduled For 2020 WorldSBK Calendar, More To Follow
Submitted by David Emmett on Fri, 2020-05-29 12:25
After the announcement that MotoGP was canceling some events with a view to moving ahead on others, today, Dorna announced a plan for the next three races on the WorldSBK calendar. Racing will resume at Jerez on the weekend after MotoGP leaves, and will then move to Portimao and Aragon.
The schedule does mean rearranging the existing plans. The Donington Park round of WorldSBK, planned for the weekend of July 5th, and the already rescheduled Assen round of WorldSBK on the weekend of August 23rd, have been postponed again. No new date has been set for the races, but the announcement says they will be reviewed as the pandemic situation develops.
Below is the press release from Dorna announcing the plans:
UPDATE: 2020 WorldSBK season situation features positive prospects
Progress is being made in order to have the World Superbike Championship restart under safe conditions this season
The 2020 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship is working hard on resuming racing action for the remainder of the season, amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The Championship started in fine style at Phillip Island and now, Dorna WSBK Organization would like to issue an update on the plans to get racing back underway, with the initial racing plan taking place in the month of August once permission is approved.
The Circuito de Jerez – Angel Nieto should welcome the restart of the season on the 31st July – 2nd August, before going to the Autodromo Internacional do Algarve in Portugal a week later on the 7th – 9th August. The season should then follow our current provisional schedule, at the MotorLand Aragon venue on 28th – 30th. The health of everybody is at the forefront of decision making and these rounds within the Iberian Peninsula are planned to be held behind closed doors, in-line with social distancing measures and medical guidelines set by the Spanish and Portuguese governments. Nevertheless, the situation is evolving, and we will adapt our protocols to the situation of the time.
Furthermore, updates have been made to the following events: the British and Dutch Rounds held at Donington Park and TT Circuit Assen respectively, have been postponed. The Dutch round itself has already been rescheduled once, from the 17th – 19th of April to the 21st – 23rd of August. However, new plans are underway with the best interests in mind, given the current restrictions in place that affect major sporting events within both the UK and the Netherlands. Further updates for the end season calendar will be communicated soon in order to further clarify the calendar situation.
The FIM and Dorna WSBK Organization is evaluating the different scenarios and adapting to each situation in each of the countries we should visit on a day-by-day basis. Our gratitude once again goes to all parties involved within the WorldSBK fraternity for their continued support. However, whichever decision is reached will have the health and safety at the forefront and that is something simply uncompromisable during these challenging times.
Gregorio Lavilla, WorldSBK Executive Director, Sporting and Organization Departments, said: “We are very positive about the future, as all the signs are pointing in a good direction to start in Jerez. We are looking at all possible scenarios for all three classes to race, although we continue to work hard on finding the optimum scenario for all parties. A lot will depend on the measures that various governments will implement. As for Donington Park and Assen, we are working with the circuits and governments to establish the best possible outcome for all, with the intention to hold those rounds towards the end of the 2020 season.”
Any further updates will be communicated accordingly.
World Supersport
Assen, The Netherlands
Jerez, Spain
Motorland Aragon, Spain
Donington, Great Britain
Portimao, Portugal
Silverstone And Phillip Island MotoGP Rounds Canceled, The Outlines Of a New 2020 Calendar Emerge
The outlines of a 2020 MotoGP calendar are starting to take shape. Today, Dorna announced that the races at Phillip Island and Silverstone have been canceled. MotoGP will not visit either the UK or Australia in 2020.
The news does not come as a surprise. The strategy to combat the COVID-19 pandemic chosen by the Australian government foresees opening the country to international travel only in December of 2020, making planning a race there almost impossible. Australia, thanks in part to its remote location, has been extremely successful in containing the pandemic, with only 103 recorded deaths. The fact that a member of the McLaren team tested positive for the coronavirus during the Australian F1 Grand Prix in March made it less likely for restrictions to be eased for international sport.
Delaying the Phillip Island race would have been a possibility, but at the start of the year, before the pandemic upended the calendar, Dorna were looking at a major reshuffle of the calendar, with 2021 due to kick off at Phillip Island in late February or early March. Whether that idea played a role in canceling the race is unknown, but if MotoGP was planning to race at Phillip Island in early March, it made little sense trying to force a race through in November or December.
A MotoGP race in Silverstone would have had to take place behind closed doors, and without fans. Silverstone invested very heavily in 2019, having the track resurfaced for the second year in a row after the 2018 resurfacing had caused massive problems with drainage, and caused the race to be canceled due to weather conditions. The circuit is currently focused on hosting two F1 races at the end of July and early August, races which are also likely to be held behind closed doors, and with finances tight, a third race without fans would be tough to bear.
Dropping Silverstone also makes logistics easier. Silverstone was the last of the races in Northern Europe left, after Assen and the Sachsenring were scrapped, and the trip from Spain or Italy up to the UK would have been time-consuming. Border controls and checks put in place for cross-Channnel freight traffic to combat COVID-19 would have complicated logistics even further.
These will not be the last Grand Prix cancellations for 2020. The Japanese Grand Prix is unlikely to happen in 2020, and overseas races are far from certain. The plan as MotoMatters.com understands it is that overseas races will only happen if fans can be present. The Sepang and Buriram rounds are likely to go ahead under these conditions, and a race in the Americas could also happen. If it is not possible to race in front of fans, then these will also be canceled.
With Silverstone and Phillip Island dropped, MotoGP is heading to the point where it will be possible to draw up a new calendar. The prospects of the races planned for Jerez on July 19th and 26th going ahead were boosted recently when the Spanish Council for Sports, part of the Ministry of Culture and Sports, announced they were working to assist a return of motorcycle racing in Spain. Once Dorna gets approval from the Spanish Ministry of Health for its plans, the races can go ahead.
What will a 2020 calendar look like? It will be somewhere between 11 and 16 races, either all held in Europe, or, as explained above, with some races held overseas if fans can attend. Races will be held at the same circuit on back-to-back weekends, with little time off. The four circuits in Spain, Brno, Austria, and Misano will host races, while other circuits, such as Mugello and Portimao, are being held in reserve.
Whatever the final shape of a published calendar, it will remain provisional. Although the WHO are optimistic about a second wave of the COVID-19 outbreak being more easily contained than the first wave, any major return of the disease will see all sports and mass events canceled once again. There will almost certainly be MotoGP races in 2020. But we won't know how many will be held until the season is over.
Below are the press release from Dorna, and a message from Silverstone CEO Stuart Pringle to ticket holders:
British and Australian Grands Prix cancelled
The FIM, IRTA and Dorna Sports regret to announce the cancellation of the British and Australian Grands Prix. The ongoing coronavirus outbreak and resulting calendar changes have obliged the cancellation of both events.
The British Grand Prix was set to take place from the 28th to the 30th of August at the classic Silverstone Circuit. Silverstone hosted the first Grands Prix held on the British mainland from 1977, and MotoGP™ returned to the illustrious track ten years ago. 2020 will now sadly mark the first year MotoGP™ sees no track action in the British Isles for the first time in the Championship’s more than 70-year history.
The Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix was set to take place at the legendary Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit from the 23rd to the 25th of October. Phillip Island hosted the very first Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix in 1989 and since 1997 has been the only home of MotoGP™ Down Under - with its unique layout providing some of the greatest battles ever witnessed on two wheels.
The cancellation of the British Grand Prix also obliges the cancellation of the corresponding British Talent Cup track activity at the same event.
Stuart Pringle, Silverstone Managing Director: “We are extremely disappointed about the cancellation of the British MotoGP event, not least as the cancelled race in 2018 is still such a recent memory, but we support the decision that has had to be taken at this exceptional time.
“I want to thank the stoic British fans for their patience and support. We must now look forward to 2021 when Silverstone will once again host the fastest and most historic MotoGP race on the calendar and work hard to make it a truly exceptional event for all to enjoy.”
Paul Little AO, Australian Grand Prix Corporation Chairman: “We’re very disappointed that MotoGP fans throughout Victoria, Australia and internationally won’t get the chance to make the pilgrimage to see the world’s best riders compete on one of the best circuits anywhere in the world, but the right decision has been made.
“The Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix puts Phillip Island on the global stage and it’ll be back better than ever in 2021.”
Carmelo Ezpeleta, CEO of Dorna Sports: “We’re saddened to have to announce the cancellation of these iconic events after finding no way through the logistical and operational issues resulting from the pandemic and rearranged calendar. Silverstone and Phillip Island are always two of the most thrilling race weekends of the season, with both tracks never failing in their promise to deliver some of the closest racing in our Championship.
“On behalf of Dorna, I would like to once again extend my thanks to the fans for their understanding and patience as we wait for the situation to improve. We look forward to returning to Silverstone and Phillip Island next year for more incredible battles."
A message to British MotoGP™ 2020 ticket holders from Silverstone MD Stuart Pringle
As promised, I am writing to let you know the latest regarding the 2020 British Grand Prix MotoGP™ at Silverstone.
It is with the deepest of regret we are letting you know the 2020 round of the MotoGP™ world championship, due to be held at Silverstone on August 28 - 30, will not be going ahead.
Despite months of work behind-the-scenes to try and make this key event happen, logistical restrictions under the current situation, combined with a shortened and rearranged MotoGP™ calendar, has caused the cancellation of the event.
Our obligations to protect the health and safety of everyone involved in preparing and delivering the event, our volunteer marshals and Race Makers, and of course, the amazing fans, means this is the best, safest and only decision to be made.
The global Coronavirus pandemic has been an enormous challenge for the UK and Silverstone and I wish to thank all of you for your patience during this time.
Nothing matters more to Silverstone and our owners, the British Racing Drivers’ Club, than taking care of our motorsport fans. I would like to reassure customers who have purchased a ticket that they will be given the option of either transferring their booking directly to 2021, or taking a full refund. All customers will be contacted in the next few weeks with full details, so we do ask them to please be patient with us as we work through all our bookings.
A thank you for key workers
I can also confirm that next year, we intend to give away thousands of tickets for the 2021 event to NHS and other key workers who have literally been putting their lives on the line for us all, during these challenging times. No one can be in any doubt of the huge debt of gratitude we owe to them.
Thank you for your patience, loyalty and support.
Managing Director, Silverstone
Phillip Island, Australia
Silverstone, Great Britain
Grand Prix Commission Gives Hint Of Size Of Calendar With Engine Allocations
Submitted by David Emmett on Thu, 2020-05-28 21:19
Today, the FIM announced that the Grand Prix Commission had decided on revised engine allocations for both the MotoGP and Moto3 classes. And in doing so, they gave a hint at how many races a 2020 MotoGP calendar might contain.
The GPC announced that in the MotoGP class, concession manufacturers (Aprilia and KTM) would be allowed 6 engines per rider for the season if the season consists of 11 races or less, and 7 engines if the season consists of up to 14 races. Non-concession manufacturers (Honda, Ducati, Suzuk, Yamaha) would have 4 or 5 engines in the respective cases.
The Moto3 engine allocation is a little more complex. Normally, Moto3 riders have 6 engines to last a season. If there are between 12 and 14 races held in 2020 - including the first race of the season, which was held back in March - then the riders will have 4 engines, and if there are between 14 and 18 races, then they will have 5 engines. If it isn't possible to hold a total of 12 engines, then this year's engine allocation will be combined with 2021, giving a grand total of 9 engines to last for both seasons.
The MotoGP engine allocations seem to point to a realistic calendar, with two possible scenarios: if MotoGP can only race in Europe, and no races can be held overseas, then a calendar of around 11 races seems likely. If it is possible to travel overseas - Thailand and Sepang seem the most likely candidates to host a race in 2020 - then there could be up 14 or so races.
The Grand Prix Commission also stepped in to ban private testing by the Moto2 and Moto3 teams. The decision was made on the grounds of fairness, and of finances. Budgets in the smaller classes are already under very heavy pressure due to the COVID-19 crisis, amplifying the advantage of the richer teams over the poorer teams. Add in the fact that travel restrictions vary hugely from country to country, and it is obvious that some riders and teams will be able to test, while it will be impossible for riders who can't travel. Add in the limited availability of tracks, and it made sense to ban private testing altogether.
A test is due to be held on the Wednesday before the Jerez round on July 19th, with all three classes getting sessions on track.
The FIM press release containing the new engine limits appears below:
FIM Grand Prix World Championship
Decisions of the Grand Prix Commission
The Grand Prix Commission, composed of Messrs. Carmelo Ezpeleta (Dorna, Chairman), Paul Duparc (FIM), Herve Poncharal (IRTA) and Takanao Tsubouchi (MSMA), in electronic meetings held on 22 and 27 May 2020, made the following decisions which are consequent on the impact of the coronavirus epidemic:
MOTOGP CLASS ENGINE ALLOCATION
Even though the FIM, IRTA, MSMA and Dorna are optimistic about restarting the Championship, it’s still uncertain how many events it will be possible to hold in 2020. For this reason it has been unanimously approved that the MotoGP Class engine allocation would be decided before agreed before publication of the revised calendar and would be per-event as follows:
Remaining Events on the 2020 Calendar (Qatar Grand Prix excluded) ENGINE ALLOCATION PER RIDER
Non-Concession Manufacturers Manufacturers Qualifying for Concessions
up to 11 events 4 6
MOTO3 CLASS ENGINE ALLOCATION
Similarly, for the Moto3 class, the engine allocation has also been agreed unanimously:
If the total number of events in 2020 is lower than 12 (including Qatar), both 2020 and 2021 will be considered as only one season and the combined maximum engine allocation for both seasons will be of 9 engines.
If the number of races in 2020 is 12 or more, then the allocation for the 2020 season will be separate and as follows:
Total Events on the 2020 Calendar (Qatar Grand Prix included) ENGINE ALLOCATION PER RIDER
MOTO3 AND MOTO2 CLASS PRIVATE TESTING
With immediate effect, riders in these classes will not be permitted to make further private testing in 2020 until further notice.
The following considerations prompted this decision:
With team income being significantly reduced, a ban on testing for all riders will level the playing field between those teams that might have better funding and those that might just be surviving on the monthly subsidy payments.
Availability of circuits is going to be even more limited than normal and may be subject to government restrictions. Furthermore, travel restrictions in Europe and around the World, still vary between countries meaning that only some teams might be permitted to move with vehicles and staff to a test. Most of the travel restrictions seem to be applicable until, at least, the end of June.
FIM, IRTA and Dorna are hoping to have a significant number of events, hopefully starting in July. These events will be condensed into a short period of time meaning that, in any case, there are limited days available for testing once racing is resumed.
It is the intention of Dorna to hold additional test sessions, for all classes, during the week of the first event.
Dunlop activities are currently limited with many key staff being furloughed. They have already indicated that they will not be able to provide a service at private tests.
A regularly updated version of the FIM Grand Prix Regulations which contains the detailed text of the regulation changes may be viewed shortly on:
http://www.fim-live.com/en/sport/regulations-and-documents/grand-prix/
Jack Miller Confirmed With Factory Ducati Team For 2021
Submitted by David Emmett on Wed, 2020-05-27 09:55
The next piece of the 2021 rider puzzle has just fallen into place. After strong rumours over the weekend, as well as tacit confirmation from team boss Davide Tardozzi, Ducati have confirmed that Jack Miller will join the factory Ducati team for the 2021 MotoGP season, with an option to extend the contract into 2022.
The move is a logical one on the part of Ducati. Ducati have long used Pramac as a team for nurturing talent and preparing them to go into the factory squad, as they have indeed done with Danilo Petrucci. Miller had shown significant progress since arriving at Pramac in 2018, finishing the 2019 season with five podiums.
Ducati made its confidence in Miller clear throughout 2018 and 2019, entrusting the Australian to test new parts before moving them up to the factory squad. It was Miller who first tested Ducati's holeshot device, at Motegi in 2018, and also Ducati's "shapeshifter", which squats the suspension on the straight, at Buriram in 2019.
Who Miller will replace is not settled yet, though the odds heavily favor this being a sign that Ducati is moving on from Danilo Petrucci. Despite Petrucci's victory at Mugello last year, the Italian suffered a slump in the second half of 2019, with Ducati losing confidence in him by the end of the year. Petrucci came very close to being moved back to the Avintia squad after the final race of 2019 in Valencia, as Ducati sought to accommodate Johann Zarco in the Pramac squad, which would have meant promoting Miller to the factory team and moving Petrucci back to Avintia. Only strong protest from Pramac team boss Paolo Campinoti kept Miller in Pramac for 2020.
Andrea Dovizioso looks likely to stay put in Ducati, although wrangling over the Italian's contract for 2021 is still ongoing. There have been rumors of a move to Aprilia, and of approaches by KTM, but so far, these have looked more like bargaining tactics than serious proposals.
Where Petrucci goes, if he leaves, is far from clear. In a recent interview with Italian website GPOne.com, Petrucci's manager Alberto Vergani said he believes that Petrucci is out of the factory Ducati squad, and that his options are to switch to Aprilia or to move to WorldSBK with Ducati. Much will depend on what happens with Andrea Iannone, and whether the Italian is able to ride in 2021 and retained by Aprilia.
Miller's signing is the sixth to be made before any racing has taken place in 2020. Four of those signings were logical progressions, riders staying put for the foreseeable future. Fabio Quartararo's promotion to the factory Yamaha squad was also widely expected, and a logical next step, the Frenchman having had a stunning debut season with the Petronas Yamaha team. Miller's promotion to the factory team is in the same vein as Quartararo's, a progress through the ranks to the factory team.
Ducati do not seem as certain of Miller as Yamaha were of Quartararo, however. The Frenchman was given a two-year deal in the factory team, while Miller has been given a one-year deal for 2021, with an option to extend for 2022. Ironically, the same offer given to Danilo Petrucci.
Rider line up for 2021:
Rider Bike Contract until
Monster Energy Yamaha
Maverick Viñales Yamaha M1 2022
Fabio Quartararo Yamaha M1 2022
Marc Márquez Honda RC213V 2024
Suzuki Ecstar
Alex Rins Suzuki GSX-RR 2022
Joan Mir Suzuki GSX-RR 2022
Ducati Factory
Jack Miller Ducati Desmosedici GP21 2021 (option for 2022)
Avintia Ducati
Tito Rabat Ducati 2021
Press release announcing the deal from Ducati:
Jack Miller to become official rider of the Ducati Team for the 2021 MotoGP season
Ducati Corse is pleased to announce that Jack Miller will be one of the two official Ducati Team riders in the 2021 MotoGP World Championship. The company from Borgo Panigale and the 25-year-old Australian rider have reached an agreement for next season with an option to extend the contract also for 2022.
Miller, who made his MotoGP debut in 2015 at just 20 years old, joined Ducati in 2018 with the Pramac Racing Team, the factory-supported team of the Bologna manufacturer, and finished last season eighth overall in the standings, taking five podiums during the year.
Jack Miller: "First of all I want to thank warmly Paolo Campinoti, Francesco Guidotti and all the Pramac Racing Team for the great support I have received from them in the two and a half years spent together. It is an honour for me to be able to continue my MotoGP career with the Borgo Panigale manufacturer and I would like to thank all the Ducati management, Claudio, Gigi, Paolo and Davide, for having trusted me and given me this incredible opportunity. I look forward to starting riding again this year, and I am ready to fully commit to the responsibility of being an official Ducati rider in 2021."
Claudio Domenicali, CEO of Ducati Motor Holding: "Since he arrived in the Pramac Racing Team, Jack has grown steadily, proving himself one of the fastest and most talented riders in the championship. So we are happy that he has agreed to ride the official Desmosedici GP bike of the Ducati Team next year. We are convinced that Jack has all the right skills to fight continuously for the positions that matter, in every race, starting already this season with the Desmosedici GP20 of the Pramac Racing Team, and taking a further step forward next year thanks to the support of the Ducati Team."
MotoGP Machines To Return To The Track: KTM Plan Two-Day Test At Red Bull Ring On Wednesday And Thursday
Submitted by David Emmett on Tue, 2020-05-26 22:16
After thirteen and a half weeks of silence, MotoGP bikes are to roar into life once again in their natural habitat. The KTM RC16 machines are to spend two days testing at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria, on May 27th and 28th. The last time MotoGP bikes were on track was at Qatar, on February 24th.
Factory rider Pol Espargaro will be joined at the Red Bull Ring by test rider Dani Pedrosa, where they will continue work on the RC16. Although development work on the bike stopped for over a month between mid-March and the middle of April, due to restrictions put in place in Austria to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, KTM are keen to continue testing the 2020 engine and the new chassis which made its debut in November last year at the Valencia and Jerez tests.
KTM had wanted to keep the test secret, according to German-language website Speedweek. The track had been booked by KTM ostensiby for a test of its X-Bow ultralight sports car, but this was subterfuge. It only emerged that the test was for KTM's MotoGP team when the Austrian factory was forced to report the test to race director Mike Webb.
Brad Binder is absent for the test. The South African is unable to leave his home country, as the South African government has currently banned all flights into and out of the country. Attempts to arrange travel out of South Africa for Binder have been unsuccessful. South Africa's pandemic policy has introduced multiple levels of restrictions, and although restrictions were recently eased back from level five to level four, flights will only resume once the government sees the curve of new cases flatten sufficiently for it to feel safe enough to move to level three.
KTM is the first factory to resume testing, but it is not yet clear when other factories will be able to follow suit. As a factory with concessions, KTM (and Aprilia) are able to test at any track. The other four MotoGP factories can only test at designated circuits.
Although getting two days on a Grand Prix circuit will help, Pol Espargaro will not be the only rider going into the first race at Jerez with a test under his belt. The entire field is due to have two sessions on track at Jerez on Wednesday July 15th, two days before the first of two races at the circuit. That relies on Dorna's plans to hold the race being approved by the Spanish government, but with La Liga, the Spanish soccer league, due to resume in two weeks' time, the prospects are looking very good.
https://www.speedweek.com/motogp/news/159222/Spielberg-Red-Bull-KTM-Test...
Pol Espargaro
Spielberg, Austria
Racing Creeps Closer: Spain To Drop Quarantine Restrictions, Japan Ends State Of Emergency
Submitted by David Emmett on Mon, 2020-05-25 17:02
The good news was that Dorna had submitted a plan to hold two races in Jerez on the 19th and 26th July, and that the authorities in Andalusia and the city of Jerez had supported the plan. But many obstacles remained in the path to turning the plan into reality. Now, nearly three weeks later, those obstacles are starting to disappear.
The biggest obstacle was removed on Monday, when the Spanish government announced that the enforced quarantine on anyone entering the country would be lifted from July 1st. The quarantine on entry was one of the major complications for the race in Jerez, as it would mean anyone entering from outside Spain - including engineers from Japan, Italy, and Austria, mechanics from many places around the world, and of course, riders - would have had to self isolate for 14 days on arriving in Spain, before traveling on to Jerez.
Dorna and IRTA had already planned to have everyone travel fourteen days earlier, but that could have made the situation more complicated. Different countries around the world are at different stages in their restrictions, with Brad and Darryn Binder, for example, still in South Africa, where international flights have been stopped altogether.
The chances of quarantine ending are looking very good. Spain has already announced an easing of restrictions, with various regions moving into a different phase in the lockdown exit strategy on Monday, although gatherings of more than 10 people remain banned. On Saturday, the Spanish prime minister announced that the two top divisions of Spanish soccer league La Liga could resume matches behind closed doors from June 8th, with the first match scheduled to be played on June 11th.
Significant obstacles remain, however. Despite the Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe announcing the state of emergency would be lifted in the last five provinces where it was still in force, travel restrictions remain in place. Japanese nationals have to self-isolate for 14 days upon arriving in Japan, though no restrictions apply on leaving. However, it would make returning to Japan between races almost impossible.
In practice, that would mean that Japanese engineers would be away from home and their families for perhaps six months at a time. This seems like too much to ask of their employees, and the Japanese factories are believed to be looking for a solution to this problem.
For the moment, however, progress is being made on a resumption of racing. IRTA president and Tech3 team boss Hervé Poncharal told the MotoGP Round Table podcast that there will be a test on Wednesday 15th July before racing resumes at Jerez, with all three Grand Prix classes getting two sessions to get back up to speed before the first of two rounds at Jerez, on the 19th and 26th.
No firm plans have been made for the rest of the season, though a new calendar is expected in a week or so. The MotoGP season will be somewhere between 12 and 16 races, depending on whether any of the races outside Europe can happen. Those races will depend on whether fans can attend, although the possibility of another race at Qatar remains. Buriram and Sepang look the most likely candidates, while Motegi will probably be dropped, and Phillip Island looks like it will be impossible to organize, given the current restrictions in Australia. Races will be back-to-back at a limited number of circuits, with fans and media likely to be excluded.
But the viability of these plans still remains out of Dorna and IRTA's hands. They still have to be given the approval of national governments, which is not a given. The F1 championship was planning to start its season at the Red Bull Ring in Austria, but so far, its plans have yet to be given approval, raising concerns over whether those races will be able to happen.
In summary, there seems to be more room for optimism over a return to racing. But that optimism still needs to be laced with a dose of pessimism.
MotoGP Silly Season Stirs Into Life: Pramac Expect Jack Miller To Take Factory Ducati Seat
With the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic hopefully behind us, the gears of the motorcycle world are starting to grind again. Riders are training once again, and their thoughts are turning to the future.
It is also clear that riders, teams, and factories are starting to think about 2021. This summer had promised to unleash a Silly Season of unrivaled scale, with all riders bar Tito Rabat out of contract at the end of 2020. January and February threw a wet blanket over the wilder speculation, as Maverick Viñales extend his contract with the factory Yamaha squad, Fabio Quartararo was promoted to the factory Yamaha team, and Valentino Rossi was promised a factory-supported Yamaha should he decide to continue for 2021.
After the Sepang test, HRC damped down the fire even further, signing Marc Marquez to an unprecedented four-year contract, which will see him race for Repsol Honda team until the end of 2024. Then in April and May, Suzuki did their part to remove any room for speculation by signing Alex Rins and Joan Mir to two-year contracts. And with racing out of the question during the lockdown, Silly Season went quiet.
But with racing now on the horizon again, albeit distantly and with some uncertainty, Silly Season is inching back into the limelight. In an interview with the official MotoGP.com website, Pramac Ducati boss Francesco Guidotti said that the Ducati are close to a deal with Jack Miller to ride for the factory team in 2021.
Pramac has always played a role as a junior team for Ducati, and a conduit for talent - the fact that Danilo Petrucci is currently in the factory squad after stepping up from Pramac is proof of that, as is the fact that Ducati signed a contract with Pecco Bagnaia for 2019 at the start of the 2018 season, when the Italian was still in Moto2. But that relationship and role has been made more explicit recently, Guidotti explained.
They used to be free to sign whoever they felt best suited the team, the Pramac team manager explained, but under the terms of a new deal, Ducati took over the reins where finding young talent was concerned. "Now the first approach is done by Ducati because they wanted to make a plan in the medium to long term with young riders and they asked us if it was possible," Guidotti said. As part of that process, Ducati were talking to Miller about stepping up to the factory team. "As far as I know, it’s not done yet. But, of course, from both parties there is the intention to do the deal. I think it’s close," Guidotti told MotoGP.com.
If a deal with Miller is close, whose place will he be taking in the factory squad? The chances are that it is Danilo Petrucci who will have to make way for the Australian. That swap almost happened at Valencia last year, when Ducati tried to find a spot for Johann Zarco in the Pramac team, which would have seen Miller bumped up to the factory team and Petrucci demoted to Avintia. In the end, it was Zarco who went to Avintia, after promises of strong factory support from Ducati boss Gigi Dall'Igna.
Petrucci is a stronger candidate for replacement than Andrea Dovizioso. Despite a trouble relationship with Gigi Dall'Igna, Dovizioso has been instrumental to the development of the Ducati Desmosedici since arriving at the factory in 2013. In recent weeks, Dovizioso's manager Simone Battistella has been carefully neutral in his comments about Dovizioso's future. He has held open the option of moving elsewhere, although the options appear to be limited. The best choice for both Dovizioso and Ducati could be to stick together for at least another season.
The question of who takes Miller's place at Pramac is open to question. Jorge Martin is the hot favorite at the moment, the Red Bull KTM Moto2 rider keen to make the jump to MotoGP, but with few options with KTM. KTM bosses have made clear they are happy with their current rider line up, and the only slot available would be at the Tech3 team, if either Miguel Oliveira or Iker Lecuona were to choose to leave at the end of 2020.
Martin is just one of a host of young riders who are also keen to make the jump from Moto2. Lorenzo Baldassarri, Remy Gardner, Jorge Navarro, Xavi Vierge, Luca Marini; perhaps even Enea Bastianini, Joe Roberts, Fabio Di Giannantonio and Tetsuta Nagashima. But with no racing since the Qatar season opener for the Moto2 and Moto3 classes, team bosses will have little data on which to base a choice.
Beyond Ducati, the situation surrounding Valentino Rossi and the Petronas Yamaha team remains delicate. Rossi and Petronas team boss Razlan Razali are engaged in a careful courtship dance in what seems like an inevitable relationship for 2021. As Razali told Tammy Gorali in an interview for MotoMatters.com, the goal of Petronas is to invest in young talent for the longer term. In response, Rossi told the MotoGP.com website that if he joined them, it would not be for a farewell tour, but to race to win a title.
At the moment, talks are happening through the intermediary of Yamaha. Both Rossi and Petronas are discussing options with Yamaha, and as Yamaha will have a major role to play in putting together any team for Rossi, they are the first port of call for clearing away obstacles.
The link up feels inevitable, however. Rossi looks determined to continue for 2021, and Yamaha have promised him a bike, and in the cash-strapped post-COVID-19 era, having Yamaha bear some of the financial burden should be attractive, even to a well-funded team like Petronas. Speaking to MotoGP.com, Rossi admitted his options were either race with Petronas next year or retire. Right now, Rossi does not look anywhere near ready to retire.
Jorge Martin
Grand Prix Commission Confirms No Wildcards, Extends Engine Development For KTM, Aprilia
The COVID-19 pandemic has complicated motorcycle racing in many different ways, some quite unexpected. To address some of those complications, the Grand Prix Commission, MotoGP's rulemaking body, agreed a number of exceptions to the rules for the 2020 season, concerning wildcards, concerning concession points, and concerning engine development.
Engine development had already been frozen in response to the coronavirus crisis. In part as a cost-cutting measure, and in part because the European manufacturers had had their factories closed, all six MSMA members agreed to halt engine development and use the engines they were due to homologate for the 2020 season for the start of the 2021 season.
That was a good move for most factories, but it put Aprilia, who had just designed and built a brand new 90°V engine, in a difficult situation. After such a major redesign, Aprilia were left with a lot of unknowns with the RS-GP engine, not least reliability. At the Sepang and Qatar tests, there were signs that the still young engine was still suffering a number of teething problems.
Consequently, the MSMA and the GPC agreed to allow the factories with concessions - factories which have not scored sufficient podiums in the past two seasons - continue developing their engines until June 29th of this year. That will allow KTM and Aprilia to continue to work on their engines for another two months.
This is particularly important for Aprilia, who wanted to run reliability tests on the dyno, to address the issues which arose during the MotoGP tests in February and March this year.
The system of concessions is an added headache during the pandemic. The system, which allows less successful factories to change and develop their engines during the season, and to do unlimited testing, is based on results achieved in the past two seasons. If a factory with concessions scores six concession points (accrued by scoring podiums), then they lose those concessions, and lose the right to testing and engine development.
However, the rules also say that if a manufacturer scores no concession points (i.e. is not on the podium) for an entire season, then they are given the right to concessions. In a normal, 19- or 20-race season, that is a good measure of where a manufacturer stands. But in 2020, with a shortened season and currently an unknown number of races on the calendar, it could be possible for an otherwise successful factory to be granted concessions with a couple of poor performances.
If, for example, there is another spike in COVID-19 cases after the two races to be held at Jerez, and racing becomes possible once again, then those results could determine who gets concessions. If no Ducati were to end up on the podium in either race, then Ducati would get concessions, despite the fact that Andrea Dovizioso has finished second in the championship for the past three seasons. Even more absurdly, if Yamaha were to take a clean sweep of the podium in both Jerez races, then the other five factories would all be granted concessions, while Yamaha would be stuck with limited testing and an engine freeze in 2021.
To address this potential anomaly, no manufacturers will be granted concessions at the end of the 2020 season. It will be possible to accumulate concession points which will carry over for the next two seasons by scoring podiums in 2020, but if a factory does not get on the podium in 2020, they will not be given concessions.
The final announcement made concerned wildcards. News of this had been circulating for a few days, but with any racing this year almost certain to be done completely behind closed doors, with no fans, media, guests, or VIPs present, then allowing in extra engineers and mechanics, along with riders as wildcards, was deemed to pose an unnecessary risk and an unnecessary complication. It could also complicate negotiations with local and national health authorities over the safety of holding events.
The dropping of wildcards means that Jorge Lorenzo will not race for Yamaha at Barcelona, as he had originally planned. It also means that test riders such as Sylvain Guintoli, Stefan Bradl, Michele Pirro, and Mika Kallio will not race as wildcards for their respective factories.
Whether Bradley Smith races in 2020 remains to be seen, as the Englishman is still due to step up to take the place of Andrea Iannone, should the Italian still be suspended when racing resumes. If Iannone's appeal to the CAS is successful, and he is allowed to race in 2020, then Smith will not be allowed to race for Aprilia as a wildcard.
The FIM press release from the Grand Prix Commission appears below:
Decision of the Grand Prix Commission
The Grand Prix Commission, composed of Messrs. Carmelo Ezpeleta (Dorna, Chairman), Paul Duparc (FIM), Hervé Poncharal (IRTA) and Takanao Tsubouchi (MSMA), in electronic meetings held on 30 April and 7 May 2020, made the following decisions which are all consequent on the impact of the coronavirus epidemic:
CONCESSION POINTS – MotoGP CLASS MANUFACTURERS
One consequence of the reduced number of events in 2020 meant it was possible for a non-concession manufacturer to gain concessions for 2021 based on results in just a few races. To address this issue the Commission agreed the following change to the regulations:
During the 2020 season concessions can only be lost, but not gained.
Current regulations apply to the timing of the loss of concessions.
All concession points gained during the 2020 by concession manufacturers will continue to have a 2-year validity.
ENGINE HOMOLOGATION – MotoGP CLASS MANUFACTURERS WITH CONCESSIONS
The GPC has decided that homologation of 2020/21 engine specifications for MotoGP class manufactures who benefit from concessions can be postponed. This means that KTM and Aprilia are now required to supply sample engines to the Technical Director by the deadline of 29th. June 2020.
WILD CARD ENTRIES – ALL CLASSES
The likelihood of any events in 2020 needing to be held behind closed doors means that it is necessary to keep participant numbers to the absolute minimum. It is also important to allow optimum utilisation of pit box space by the contracted teams.
The Commission have therefore decided that wild card entries, in all classes, will be suspended for the 2020 season. This decision was also in line with cost reduction policies for MotoGP Class manufacturers. There is every intention to restore wild card entries in 2021 but this decision will be reviewed prior to the 2021 season.
Oschersleben WorldSBK Round Officially Canceled, Jerez Rescheduled
The German round of WorldSBK at Oschersleben has now officially been canceled. With Germany still imposing restrictions due to the COVID-19 outbreak, and large-scale events being banned in the country until August 31st, it was clear that the race would have to be postponed at the very least. When postponement proved not to be possible, cancellation was the only option which remained.
In its place, Dorna is planning to hold a round of WorldSBK in Jerez. Today, Dorna, the regional government of Andalusia, and the city council of Jerez submitted a proposal to the Spanish government to stage two MotoGP races and a round of WorldSBK at the Jerez circuit, to bring a return to world championship motorcycle racing. The MotoGP races would be held on the weekends of July 19th and 26th, while the WorldSBK round would take place on the weekend of August 2nd. All races would happen with a much-reduced paddock, and without fans present.
That proposal must now be approved by several Spanish ministries, including the ministry of health and the ministry for transport. Once they give the go ahead, the MotoGP and WorldSBK rounds can go ahead.
At the moment, the WorldSBK calendar is due to resume at Donington Park on the weekend of July 5th. However, it is unclear whether that can go ahead as planned.
Below is the press release from Dorna:
Proposal in place for rescheduled Spanish Round at Jerez, Oschersleben cancelled
The 2020 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship set for further changes in order to resume racing
A teleconferencing meeting was held this morning between Juan Antonio Marín, Vice President of the Andalusian Government, Mamen Sánchez Díaz, Mayor of Jerez de la Frontera, and Carmelo Ezpeleta, CEO of Dorna Sports. Following the meeting, the three parties have agreed to propose to the Government of Spain that the 2020 MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship’s Spanish Round at the Circuito de Jerez – Angel Nieto will take place from the 31st of July to 2nd August. This would follow two consecutive MotoGP™ World Championship events at the circuit.
Once the authorization of the Spanish Government has been received, then the Spanish Round will have a new date. However, the first test would be the Spanish Grand Prix, which will open the season in the MotoGP™ category, and the second will be called the Andalusian Grand Prix.
Regrettably, after many scenarios being examined and evaluated and due to the extension of the German government's ban on large gatherings, the German Round has been cancelled. All parties are working on a suitable solution for the German Round that meets the interests of everyone for 2021. With the health and safety of all concerned at the forefront of the proposal, the proposal process regarding the Spanish Round is underway and updates will be communicated accordingly.
Oschersleben, Germany
Another Step Closer: Dorna, Andalusia, Jerez Agree Conditions For MotoGP And WorldSBK Races At Jerez
The return of World Championship racing took a big step towards reality on Thursday morning. At a teleconference, Dorna, the regional government of Andalusia, and the city council of Jerez agreed on conditions to hold two MotoGP races and a WorldSBK round at the Jerez circuit. The conditions would included a vastly reduced paddock, and holding the races behind closed doors, with no fans present. Those conditions have been turned into a proposal and submitted to the Spanish government for consideration.
If approved, the agreement would see MotoGP race at Jerez on consecutive weekends, on the 19th and 26th of July, and WorldSBK race in Jerez a week later, on the weekend of August 2nd. Those rounds would be added to the existing and revised provisional MotoGP and WorldSBK calendars, pending the approval of the FIM. The FIM is expected to nod through those changes.
How firm those calendars are is open to question. At the moment, the two Jerez races - if they happen - would be the first races on the MotoGP calendar, followed by the Brno and Austria rounds, both of which have a chance of going ahead. Czech TV reported yesterday that the organizers are hopeful of being able to hold the race behind closed doors, and the Red Bull Ring is in talks with the Austrian government to allow F1 to kick off its 2020 season at the circuit in July, followed by MotoGP in August.
The WorldSBK season is still scheduled to resume at Donington Park in the UK on the weekend of July 5th. No announcement has been made on that race, but given that the UK is still struggling with the disease where other countries are further along the road to recovery, the chances of it being held look slim.
Though the news of the Jerez MotoGP rounds is positive, it still faces significant obstacles. Dorna have sent the Spanish government a proposal, with no guarantee that the health ministry will approve them. But Dorna has been in extensive talks with the Spanish government on the subject of organizing races for a very long time, and must have indications that the government would look favorably on it.
With tourism a key industry for the Andalusia autonomous region, the regional government is keen to have races there. Despite the fact that no fans will be allowed to attend, the race will once again showcase the area as a destination once tourism returns.
The press release from Dorna appears below:
Agreement to make a proposal to the Spanish government to hold two Grands Prix and a WorldSBK round at Jerez
The Regional Government of Andalusia, the City Council of Jerez de la Frontera and Dorna Sports have agreed to make a proposal to the Spanish government that, if approved, would see the Circuito de Jerez-Angel Nieto hold two MotoGP™ Grands Prix and one WorldSBK round at the end of July and the start of August.
After an electronic meeting this morning between Juan Antonio Marín, Vice President of the Regional Government of Andalusia; Mamen Sánchez Díaz, Mayor of Jerez de la Frontera; and Carmelo Ezpeleta, CEO of Dorna Sports; the three parties have agreed to make a proposal to the Spanish government to organise two FIM MotoGP™ World Championship Grands Prix at the Circuito de Jerez-Angel Nieto on the weekends of the 19th and 26th of July, respectively.
Also proposed is a MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship round at the venue, to be held on the 2nd of August.
Once authorisation from the Spanish government has been given, the three events will be proposed to the FIM for inclusion on their respective calendars. The first MotoGP™ event would be the Grand Prix of Spain, becoming the season opener for the MotoGP™ class, and the second would be the Grand Prix of Andalusia.
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HomeMoneyStock Market Roils on News of China-US Trade Deal and Arrest of Executive of Chinese Tech Giant
Stock Market Roils on News of China-US Trade Deal and Arrest of Executive of Chinese Tech Giant
December 7, 2018 JW Williams 1
Sabrina Meng Wanzhou, Youtube
Trump reached a 90-day trade truce with China at the G20 meeting, but there was some confusion over it, and Trump later threatened that if China refused the deal, he is a “tariff man”. This agitated the stock market on Tuesday and led to an 800-point drop. During the G20 dinner, unbeknownst to Trump, the US Department of Justice ordered the arrest of the CFO of Huawei, a Chinese tech giant with strong ties to the Chinese government. The arrest is reported to be linked to violations of trade sanctions against Iran. US intelligence agencies have warned that Huawei is a national security threat.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell sharply Tuesday, losing nearly 800 points for its fourth worst day ever on worries over the US-China trade deal and concerns over economic growth. President Trump dined with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday during the G20 trade summit and agreed upon a 90-day truce, with reports that some US tariffs could be repealed. However, there was confusion over the start date and there were no written commitments, which contributed to the stock market drop.
As the diplomatic dinner took place, Chinese national Sabrina Meng Wanzhou, the CFO of Huawei Technology, was arrested in Canada on the orders of the US Department of Justice, without President Trump’s knowledge. However, reports indicate that Ambassador John Bolton was aware of the arrest as he sat also down for dinner at the G20 meeting. Some critics have speculated that the arrest is an attempt by the deep state to embarrass and undermine Trump. It is not known who ordered the arrest. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was reported to be aware of the arrest during the dinner. Meng is facing extradition to the US from Canada.
Meng is the daughter of the founder of Huawei, a Chinese tech company that was ranked the seventh largest in the world, which specializes information and communications technology (ICT). She was arrested for allegedly violating trade sanctions against Iran.
US intelligence agencies are very concerned over national security issues around Huawei and its smart phones that they claim can spy on users. Google’s smart phone is also capable of spying on users and stealing their data, but US intel agencies show very little concern about Google. A Chinese analyst said that the US and China are competing against each other in global trade and both are trying to dominate the new 5G market. The arrest could be used as a bargaining chip in trade with China.
In June, Facebook was accused of data sharing with Huawei, which was flagged as a ‘threat’ by US intelligence agencies. Huawei was founded by a former engineer in the People’s Liberation Army, and has close ties to the Chinese government. The CIA, NSA, and FBI and the Director of National Intelligence have warned American consumers not to use Huawei devices. In October, a US-based tech startup, CNEX, accused Huaweiof stealing its technology for solid-state drive (SSD) for mass information storage and improperly recruited 14 of its employees.
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April 4, 2018 Daily Caller 0
Trump is proposing 25% tariffs on 1300 Chinese imports which, if actually collected, would be $50 billion. This is said to be in retaliation for theft of intellectual property from US companies. If this proposal is implemented, part will be paid by Americans for higher prices for domestic products that use the imported materials. We expect that this proposal will not materialize as currently being discussed.
Sounds typical – when a US company can’t or won’t compete, then use the power of government to quash those who can compete to deliver low cost high quality goods to American consumers. The consumer always loses when government interferes with trade. Also I imagine US spy agencies are jealous of their monopoly to spy on all Americans. What’s ironic is that only the scum who call themselves government are guilty of fraud, graft, robbery, murder, war crimes, and crimes against humanity which they “classify” as secrets to prevent the taxpayer from discovering what he is funding and allowing the… Read more »
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Home Tags Las Vegas Auction
Tag: Las Vegas Auction
5th Annual Las Vegas Motorcycle Auction With Bonhams Goes Off At Bally’s Hotel & Casino With Three Steve McQueen Bikes
The 5th Annual Las Vegas Motorcycle Auction conducted through Bonhams at Bally's Hotel & Casino Jan. 7-8, 2015, contains three motorcycles previously owned by the late Steve McQueen.
As frequently happens, there was more than one lot that did not meet its reserve and had to be reloaded for the long trip home. But there were a few standouts in the crowd that panned out rather well for their owners.
Two of those standouts were a beautiful 1959 Ducati 175cc F3 Production Racer that brought in $89,700 and a rare (only 15 produced) 1950 Vincent Series C White Shadow that sold for $224,250. It was projected to sell for $170,000. Both of these bikes caused quite a stir.
It wasn’t just vintage motorcycles on the block Jan. 8, either. On the newer side there was a 1990 Honda RC30 with only 740 miles on it that went for $52,900, which is pretty impressive.
Of course there were the motorcycles with a provenance on display as well, like the trio of Steve McQueen bikes that came up for auction. The legendary actor was known for amassing an amazing collection of motorcycles in his lifetime. Last year a couple of Indian Chiefs he owned came up for sale.
(Photo : Traveling Gypsy)
The 5th Annual Las Vegas Motorcycle Auction was conducted by Bonhmas in January 2015 at Bally’s Hotel and Casino.
This year a 1912 Harley-Davidson X8E Big Twin that was once his came up again. It was originally sold at the Steve McQueen estate auction at the Imperial Palace in Las Vegas back in 1984.
Rumor has it McQueen rode the bike in a vintage motorcycle event. It’s not in its original form anymore, though. The wheels were changed and a headlight was added after the bike left McQueen’s hands. In spite of these modifications, it was still brought in $117,300 this week at Bally’s.
Another of his bikes was a 1936 Indian Chief that was also sold as part of his estate in ’84. It’s said to be in the same condition as when McQueen owned it. The bike came with a certificate of authenticity (COA), the signed bill of sale from the ’84 auction and a 1936 license plate from Carmel, Calif. It was predicted to sell for between $80,000 and $100,000, but never met its reserve.
A 1911 Peugeot Moto Legere MD 350 Twin that sold for $26,450 at the Bonhams auction in Las Vegas Jan. 8, 2015.
Besides McQueen’s bikes, there was a beautiful example of an old 1911 Peugeot Moto Legere MD 350 Twin that sold for $26,450. Back then the French were at the forefront of motorcycle design and production.
Another oldie was a 1912/13 Harley-Davidson Model 9B Single in original and unrestored condition that sold for $82,800. Interestingly, it has only had two owners in its entire lifetime.
1912/13 Model 9B Single in original and unrestored condition that sold for $82,800 at the 2015 Las Vegas Motorcycle show conducted by Bonhams.
There was also a beautiful old 1929 Indian 101 Scout with a Crocker kit top end that must not have met its reserve and therefore was withdrawn.
The 2015 Las Vegas Motorcycle Auction was conducted by Bonhams at Bally’s Hotel and Casino Jan. 7-8.
Speaking of not meeting its reserve, a gorgeous 1938 Harley-Davidson EL Knucklehead restored to 100 points was put up for between $100,000 – $130,000. The highest bid only reached $80,000, so it was ultimately withdrawn as well.
1938 Harley-Davidson EL Knucklehead at the 2015 Las Vegas Motorcycle Auction conducted by Bonhams at Bally’s Hotel and Casino
As with most years, there was also some great memorabilia pieces available such as posters, photographs, manuals and brochures, among other collectibles up for sale.
The 5th Annual Las Vegas Motorcycle Auction conducted by Bonhams at Bally’s Hotel and Casino in 2015 offered visitors a vast array of memorabilia.
Even with the handful of withdrawals, all in all the 5th Annual Las Vegas Motorcycle Auction was actually a huge success for most everyone involved.
Source: 5th Annual Las Vegas Motorcycle Auction With Bonhams Goes Off At Bally’s Hotel & Casino With Three Steve McQueen Bikes : From A to B : Design & Trend
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Suzy Khimm/ July 31, 2015
Bernie Sanders Is Starting to Talk About Race—Awkwardly
He'll need to do more to appeal to minority voters
Bernie Sanders, the Democrats’ 2016 insurgent, has prided himself during his long political career for being relentlessly focused on the issues he’s cared about the most: corporate greed, economic exploitation, and inequality. However, the challenges that he’s faced from #BlackLivesMatter activists and questions surrounding his appeal to voters of color and his plans for addressing structural racism have forced Sanders to adapt his message. He’s now going out of his way to show his concern about race and criminal justice issues. But it’s still a bit awkward for him.
On Wednesday night, Sanders spoke in a digital broadcast to supporters gathered at more than 3,500 house parties across the country. He was introduced by an African-American woman who spoke of his record fighting mass incarceration and police brutality. Though he spent most of his brief remarks on economic issues, Sanders also condemned the way that police had treated Sandra Bland, a young African American woman arrested after a traffic stop and found dead in her Texas jail cell three days later. Then came the windup to his concluding call for unity.
“When we overcome race issues, when we overcome questions of whether somebody was born in this country or not, when we overcome sexual orientation or gender issues, when we don’t let our opponents divide us up by race or sexual orientation, all that stuff,” he said. “When we stand together, there is nothing, nothing, nothing, we can’t accomplish.”
He’s certainly trying. After facing shouting protesters at Netroots Nation two weeks ago, Sanders quickly stepped up to denounce Bland's treatment (“That happens all over this country, and it especially happens to people of color”) and connect his economic message to race (“Providing free tuition at public colleges and universities will be a huge step forward for this country and the African-American communities”). But in his brief remarks on Wednesday, his appeal to identity politics remains vague—in contrast with, say, his call for a $15 minimum wage—and he seemed disconnected from his core economic message. After describing what happened to Bland, Sanders remarked: “We’re seeing that all over this country.” He went so far as to describe “institutional racism” as the problem, without elaborating further about what needed to be done.
That had the effect of addressing race and identity politics—“he was pretty blunt,” one white Bernie supporter told me—without making it clear how he’d address “all that stuff,” as Sanders put it. ““Inartful’ might be a way to say it,” said Sam Reggio, 34, at a Sanders house party in Washington, D.C.’s Petworth neighborhood. Reggio, who is white, supports Sanders for his fight against wealth inequality and support for single-payer health care, but he acknowledges that race and criminal justice are “hot issues for a lot of liberal voters”—issues which Sanders needs to tackle head on. For supporters like Reggio, Bernie’s struggle to grapple with these issue is coming from a real place, like everything else that he likes about the Vermont senator. “He’s a human being—it’s not something built up in a focus group,” he says.
Tom Beach is similarly passionate about Sanders’s dedication to standing up against Wall Street and fighting for ordinary workers. A self-described political novice, Beach felt inspired to host a Sanders house party in his Petworth home. But like Reggio, he also raised an eyebrow when Sanders tried to address race and criminal justice in his remarks. Bland’s story was “just plopped in there,” says Beach. “He felt like he did the race thing.” But Beach believes that the candidate’s ability to broaden his appeal will be a critical test for him—“a measure of his leadership,” he explains.
For Sanders to appeal to more minority voters, they need to be in the audience first. The house parties were the official kickoff for the campaig’s grassroots organizing effort, to expand field organizing beyond the few early—and largely white—primary states of New Hampshire and Iowa. And Wednesday’s gathering in this historically black, rapidly gentrifying corner of Washington made it clear why the Vermont senator needs better outreach. There were recent college grads, married couples, and gray-haired professionals; political greenhorns and seasoned field organizers; fresh transplants and D.C. natives. Many spoke about Bernie’s fight to get big money out of politics; others loved his support for free public college or labor unions. But almost all the two dozen Bernie partygoers were white.
Aaron Allen, 29, was one of the only attendees who was not. Half black, a quarter Latino, and a quarter white, Allen identifies as “all of the above” and hasn’t committed himself to supporting a Democratic 2016 candidate. The problem, he says, is that Sanders isn’t fluent in certain issues because he’s never had to be, representing an overwhelmingly white state. It’s not just with issues like race and criminal justice. “He’ll talk about equal pay for women, but it kind of stops there, as a footnote,” Allen said. He added that Sanders would do that rather than address a thornier cultural issue such as reproductive rights.
Allen thinks Sanders could do more to lay out his personal history and evolution on issues outside of his comfort zone. Yes, Sanders marched to support civil rights in the 1960s, Allen noted, “But why did he march? Why should we still be marching?”
Sanders, by his nature, is practically allergic to personal narrative—the kind of storytelling that’s the backbone of most politicians’ stump speeches. But that kind of biography could help fill in some of the gaps as he tries to build his credibility, introduce himself to new audiences, and diversify his own ranks of supporters. And that will mean continuing to wade into unfamiliar territory, even at the risk of sounding awkward.
Suzy Khimm @SuzyKhimm
Suzy Khimm is a journalist based in Washington, D.C., and a former staff writer for the New Republic, MSNBC, and The Washington Post.
Election 2016, Politics, Sandra Bland, Vermont, Bernie Sanders
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Katz: The University ‘has made great progress’
Auction to benefit KSG students committed to public service
Five years ago, following a student-led worker-advocacy campaign, Harvard President Neil L. Rudenstine convened a committee of 11 faculty, four students, and five Harvard staff members (three unionized employees and two senior administrators), to address the issue of wages and working conditions for service workers at the University.
The Harvard Committee on Employment and Contracting Policies (HCECP), which became known as the Katz Committee for its head, economics professor Lawrence Katz, was mandated to “think both creatively and realistically about how a university that aspires to the highest standards in education and research can define principles and policies that help it to advance the well-being of people whose often-unheralded efforts do so much to help the institution function from day to day.”
After months of research and interviews, the HCECP presented their findings and recommendations to the new president, Lawrence H. Summers, in December 2001. Summers accepted the committee’s recommendations and took steps to lay the groundwork for change.
Today, Katz says, “the University has made great progress towards the HCECP recommendations … by fostering a constructive, respectful relationship between Harvard and the labor unions representing thousands of employees.”
The committee made two key recommendations. The first was to re-examine the wage provisions of service-union contracts from the past decade to address a reduction in wages that had taken place because of various market factors, including a growing trend toward outsourcing.
The second recommendation was to establish a pioneering Wage and Benefits Parity Policy (WBPP), which required that outside contractors providing custodial, dining, and security services to the University offer total compensation to their workers equivalent to what Harvard pays its own unionized workers performing the same or similar work. The committee said that proper collective bargaining was the appropriate way to have wages determined both for Harvard employees and vendor employees.
The WBPP made Harvard the first institution of higher education in the United States to address equity issues for vendor employees, establishing a national model that has since been adopted by other universities and labor unions.
Wages and benefits: The year following the committee’s recommendations, the University signed contracts with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the union representing custodial employees and museum attendants, parking service monitors and guards, to substantially increase hourly wages.
Harvard also expanded its subsidized health insurance program to all regular service employees who work at least 16 hours a week, and extended full-benefit eligibility to employees who work 20 hours or more each week.
“Addressing wages and benefits was the most significant step the University made, and the WBPP system still allowed the individual schools to find the best suppliers at the best price without undercutting the worker’s compensation,” said Katz.
“Today, the Office of Labor Relations continues to conduct annual health and pension plan comparability reviews and work with the University’s vendors to establish comparable benefit plans to facilitate further compliance with the WBPP,” said William J. Murphy, director of the University’s Office of Labor Relations.
Work life: The Katz Committee addressed additional, nonwage, areas related to working at the University, making a number of recommendations. To meet the committee’s nonwage recommendations, Harvard created an infrastructure to ensure accountability and enforcement of new policies and practices. This included the creation of the University Ombuds Office to assist staff in resolving workplace issues, identifying options and strategies, and providing appropriate referrals. The Katz Committee also urged Harvard to “gather reliable data on the quality of work life at Harvard,” which the University has since done in two work climate surveys of staff – including services employees .
Another initiative arising from the recommendations is the Center for Workplace Development’s leadership development program.
“Over the last five years the leadership development program has provided training to more than 150 new managers and supervisors on values, communication, performance management, staff development, mediation/problem solving, and valuing diversity,” said Murphy.
Aside from additional training for managers and supervisors, Harvard has annually expanded the Bridge to Learning and Literacy Program, which provides free classes, including literacy and English, preparation for high school equivalency and citizenship tests, and computer skills training.
The Bridge Program has grown from a pilot class of 38 just six years ago to enrollment of more than 500 Harvard service and contract employees each semester.
Transparency: The Katz Committee recognized that to be successful, the new labor relations process must be a transparent one and that there must be a vehicle for the University to accurately communicate its policies.
“The major aspects of this ambitious policy have now been established and the Office of Labor Relations continues to work closely with on-campus vendors as well as University contract managers to achieve continued progress, compliance, and transparency,” said Murphy. “We are proud of the significant progress the University has made in the areas of wages and benefits, full-time employment, workplace values, training, and communication in the ongoing effort to develop and strengthen the workplace for service workers.”
Each year, the Office of Human Resources publishes an annual report on the status of service employees, made available on the newly launched http://www.laborrelations.harvard.edu Web site. The site also contains detailed information about recently concluded negotiations with unions representing custodial, dining services, security, and parking employees, as well as results from the annual WBPP audits.
“The five-year anniversary of the Katz Committee marks the start of an ongoing period of positive and constructive progress in the complex labor-management relationship at Harvard,” said Marilyn Hausammann, the University’s vice president of Human Resources. “Since Katz, the University has worked very hard to demonstrate its commitment to providing good jobs, high-quality benefits, and excellent educational opportunities that improve the long-term economic prospects of its employees.”
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NEW HAMPSHIRE LEGENDS OF HOCKEY
Hockey For Everyone
Senior All-Star Game
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Teams Honored
Donate Artifacts
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Born July 10, 1916 Berlin, NH
Albert ‘Barney’ LaRoche
Albert “Barney” LaRoche was born in Berlin, New Hampshire, on July 10, 1916. Also known as the “Rocket,” he played 22 years for the various town teams, and in 1937, they became known as the Berlin Maroons. He won six team scoring titles as the Maroons won five (senior) New England AHA titles, in 1941, ’48, ’49, ’51 and again in ’54. They won their first of three (senior) National AHA Championships in 1953-54 over Housatonic, Conn. He finished his playing career in 1956.
Barney coached Notre Dame (Rams) High School for 13 seasons and during that time, their record was 161-79-17. During his tenure, the Rams never lost a single game to another New Hampshire high school. He won an unprecedented 13 NHIAA championships while outscoring their opponents 83-11. The Rams played in two New England championships, finishing as runner-up to Hamden, Conn., in 1954 before returning the favor to Hamden in 1957.
Barney also went on to coach the Maroons four seasons, beginning in 1964-65, ’65-66, ’66-67 and again in 1970-71. During those four years, Berlin’s record was 61-37-7. The Maroons won their second National AHA Championship in 1966-67 over Muskegon, Mich. Of note, the Maroons also won their third and final AHA championship the following season, besting Walpole Mass,, although LaRoche was not coaching.
Charlie Holt
Albert 'Albie' Brodeur
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基盤整備
東京財団政策研究所
Just when the Japanese army seemed to be getting the worse of the struggle, relief came in the form of a typhoon, later described as a kamikaze (_divine wind_), which wrecked much of the Mongol fleet.
Following his victory against the Southern Song two years later in 1276, Kublai Khan again sent an envoy to Japan. Hojo Tokimune beheaded him, making a second Mongol invasion inevitable. In 1281, Kublai invaded Japan with a fleet of 4,400 warships bearing 140,000 men. The outcome of the battle is described in the ancient Chinese chronicle: _On August 1st, most of the fleet was destroyed by a fierce wind. On the 5th, Fan Wen-hu and other generals escaped on the ships that had survived the gale, leaving more than 100,000 troops behind at the foot of the mountains. With no ships to return in, the troops chose a leader and, following his orders, decided to cut down trees to build ships. At that moment, on the 7th, they were attacked by the Japanese army. The majority died in the battle and the remaining twenty to thirty thousand were taken prisoner and marched to Hakata. Here the Japanese killed the Mongols, Koreans and North Chinese (Han) troops, but spared the lives of the South Chinese, making them slaves. Thus the invasion ended as a tragic failure in which, as the legend goes, only three out of a hundred thousand returned._
The South Chinese troops whose lives the Japanese spared were from the Southern Song empire that had been overthrown by the Mongols several years earlier. Masters of maritime trade, they were a people well known to the Japanese who, by keeping them as slaves, were able to obtain various information such as shipbuilding techniques, sea routes, and the products and characteristics of foreign lands. This gave the Japanese the knowledge they needed to plunge into overseas adventures and led to the appearance of the wak_(Japanese pirates) who became feared on the Asian continent. The Mongol invasions thus indirectly spawned the Japanese pirates.
Information on Japan Opens the Way to the Age of Great Voyages
As explained in the previous section, the Mongol invasions had the unexpected result of making prisoners of the Japanese many South Chinese who had made their livings on and around the China Sea. By obtaining information about the China Sea region, the Japanese were able to strike out into maritime Asia. This was the dawn of the _age of great voyages_ that lasted from the fourteenth century to the beginning of the period of national seclusion in Japan in the early sixteenth century. Two main factors brought the Europeans to maritime Asia. One was the information on Japan provided by Marco Polo; the other was the Black Death. Both of these are deeply connected with the Mongol Empire. This section focuses on the first factor _information about Japan.
After working in the service of the Mongol ruler Kublai Khan for seventeen years, the Venetian merchant_s son Marco Polo made his way back by sea to the Persian Gulf via Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean. From Baghdad, he traveled by land to the Black Sea coast and again set sail from Constantinople (now Istanbul), reaching his native Venice in 1295. After his arrival in Venice, he was captured by the Genoese navy and wrote The Travels of Marco Polo while in captivity. The seafaring Genoese must have been very interested in the sea routes that Marco Polo had used during his travels. At the easternmost end of this route was the country of _Zipangu_ (based on the Chinese pronunciation _Jiipenguo_ ). About Japan, Marco Polo wrote, Zipangu is an island in the eastern ocean, situated at the distance of about fifteen hundred miles from the mainland, or coast of Manji. It is of considerable size; its inhabitants have fair complexions, are well made, and are civilized in their manners. Their religion is the worship of idols. They are independent of every foreign power, and governed only by their own kings. They have gold in the greatest abundance, its sources being inexhaustible, but as the king does not allow of its being exported, few merchants visit the country, nor is it frequented by much shipping from other parts. To this circumstance we are to attribute the extraordinary richness of the sovereign_s palace, according to what we are told by those who have access to the place.
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President's Office Open House scheduled for Oct. 14
The President's Office Open House will be held from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. Oct. 14 in Old Main. Planned activities include tours of the President’s Office and the Old Main bell tower.Image: Patrick Mansell
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The President's Office Open House will be held from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 14, in Old Main on Penn State's University Park campus. The annual open house is open to faculty, staff, students and the public.
Visitors can tour the President’s Office, view the Land-Grant Frescoes, and visit the Old Main bell tower. Lion Ambassadors will serve as tour guides and light refreshments will be served.
Old Main Frescoes capture Penn State's history and mission
Old Main bell tower to undergo restoration to extend life as iconic landmark
Activities and Traditions, Administration, Campus Life, President
Land-Grant Frescoes, Lion Ambassadors, Old Main, Old Main bell tower, President's Office Open House
Faculty and Staff, Students, Visitors and Neighbors
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NBC 26 Wisconsin WGBA
A great time to refinance your mortgage
It's a great time to refinance your home mortgage. Financial experts say interest rates are historically low.
Images taken by the media of the Capitol storming could help law enforcement identify participants. Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post via Getty ImagesThe images from the Jan. 6 siege on the United States Capitol will likely be seared into the memories of many Americans. Photographs and video published in print, online and on television showed protesters breaking windows to enter the building, sitting at a desk in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office and confronting an outnumbered Capitol police force. However, it may be the unpublished images that will be of most interest to law enforcement agencies as they track down and arrest as many of the rioters as possible for breaking a range of laws. The agencies may request or demand that news organizations turn over their unpublished material, which would force the media outlets to make uncomfortable choices. Journalists argue that if they are forced to reveal confidential sources or turn over any news information they have gathered but not yet published, it will erode the trust of sources and the public, who will doubt the independence that journalists often claim. Journalists serve the public, not the government. But is the public better served by bringing criminals to justice than protecting a journalistic principle? Conflicting interests Many of the people who participated in the attack on the Capitol building have been identified and arrested, some with help from photos published by the media and selfies and videos taken by the protesters. As the search for more suspects continues, if authorities seek unpublished images from the news media and media outlets willingly cooperate, it could put journalists in greater danger when covering future protests. Protesters may see them as potential informants and physically attack them to avoid being identified later. If the outlets resist and force authorities to issue subpoenas for the images, it is unlikely to improve the media’s standing with a distrustful public because it may appear the news organizations are obstructing justice. Equipment of media crews damaged during clashes after Trump supporters breached U.S. Capitol security. Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Dangers of covering protests Covering unrest is always dangerous for journalists, but the situation at the Capitol was especially so. The protesters were supporters of President Donald Trump, who has often referred to the media as the “enemy of the people.” Someone carved the words “Murder the Media” into a door in the building, and news outlets lost thousands of dollars of equipment when it was stolen and smashed by protesters. During protests after George Floyd was killed while being taken into police custody last summer, several reporters were injured and possibly targeted by protesters and police officers. In Seattle, police subpoenaed the Seattle Times and several television stations in June 2020 to obtain unpublished images from protests there to identify people suspected of criminal activity. The news organizations challenged the subpoenas in court under Washington state’s shield law, which protects journalists from being forced to name confidential sources or turn over unpublished information to state authorities. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed a brief supporting the news organizations’ position, in which it argued that enforcing the subpoena would jeopardize journalists’ safety as well as their editorial independence. A judge ruled against them. Police later dropped the subpoenas because media appeals of the judge’s decision were likely to take too long to resolve. Journalists often fight subpoenas for their materials. kolderal/Moment/Getty Images Legal protections for journalists Because the Capitol siege happened on federal government property, the incident is being investigated by federal authorities, meaning any court challenges to subpoenas would likely end up in federal court. This complicates matters. Forty states have shield laws, but there is no federal shield law. In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that journalists do not have a First Amendment right to refuse to reveal sources’ identities in response to a valid grand jury subpoena. The Branzburg v. Hayes decision was so divided, however, that many lower federal courts have limited its reach to grand jury situations. This means that journalists have a better chance of winning if they are subpoenaed to provide evidence in civil lawsuits or at criminal trials. The Jan. 6 incident does not involve confidential sources. Some federal courts have ruled that nonconfidential material gathered by journalists, including unpublished images, is also protected from disclosure, but the protection is usually less comprehensive than for confidential material. Given the seriousness of the Capitol incident, which led to five deaths, it would be difficult for journalists to successfully argue that their interests are more important than those of law enforcement. I have been studying the law regarding journalists and their sources for nearly 24 years. To my knowledge, U.S. journalists have rarely made the argument that they could face physical danger if they are forced to turn over information they have gathered. The closest parallel is a Washington Post reporter who successfully fought a subpoena from a war crimes tribunal 20 years ago because of fears of retribution in foreign conflict zones. One possible solution would be for news outlets to publish all images that have not already been published on their websites. That way, both the public and law enforcement agents would have access without a bruising legal battle over making the images available only to the police. A bonus would be that the public would have even more information about what happened.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Anthony Fargo, Indiana University. Read more:The insurrection at the Capitol challenged how US media frames unrest and shapes public opinionHow should you read unnamed sources and leaks? Anthony Fargo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Russia prison agency warns Navalny he faces immediate arrest
Russia's prison service said Thursday that top Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny faces immediate arrest once he returns from Germany. Navalny, who has been convalescing in Germany from an August poisoning with a nerve agent that he has blamed on the Kremlin, said he will fly back home Sunday.
The United States on Friday imposed sanctions on companies in Iran, China and the United Arab Emirates for doing business with the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines and on three Iranian entities over conventional arms proliferation. They are the latest in a series of measures aimed at stepping up pressure on Tehran in the waning days of President Donald Trump's administration, which ends on Wednesday. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington had sanctioned seven companies, including Chinese-based Jiangyin Mascot Special Steel Co and UAE-based Accenture Building Materials, and two people for shipping steel to or from Iran.
Covid-19: Brazil hospitals 'run out of oxygen' for virus patients
The Texas realtor who was pictured in the Capitol after taking a private plane to DC for Trump's rally has been arrested
Biden's new stimulus plan features family benefits that include an annual credit of up to $3,600
Ben Higgins says the 'Bachelorette' contestant who attended the Capitol riots is lying about the show supporting him, and reveals why he's no longer a Republican
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"The Business"
SENATE DEMS MOVE TO SAVE NET NEUTRALITY
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Estonia Drops Anti-Money Laundering Reform, Again
Estonian parliament again shelved the draft of a law that was to strengthen the rules on money-laundering, saying the bill will be discussed again after election in March, the Estonian Committee on Legal Affairs said on Thursday.
The law was drafted last year after the 230 billion euro money-laundering scandal involving the Estonian branch of Danske Bank erupted and was already rejected once in January.
In late 2018, Prime Minister Jüri Ratas said that Estonia had to learn from the Danske scandal” in order to be successful in combating money laundering, we must have both functioning rules as well as compliance and sufficient oversight.”
Ratas commissioned a report on the relevant legal framework and institutional capacities for reforming the financial sector, which included a set of proposals regarding how to further strengthen Estonia’s anti-money laundering capabilities.
The Anti-Money Laundering Government Committee comprised relevant government officials, financial regulators, as well as representatives from the the Bank of Estonia.
After declaring the proposed law too vague in January, the Legal Affairs Committee now says the it still needs “a more in-depth impact analysis and, as it stands, the final composition of the Parliament cannot proceed with the urgent procedure.”
According to the head of the parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee Jaanus Karilaid “interest groups need additional time for discussions and it is reasonable to come back to the next (Estonian parliament) next spring in order to process amendments to the law.”
Though he said that the fight against money laundering remains a priority, he deemed it, nevertheless, “irresponsible to hurry up the barge as a law that could damage our business environment and violate the fundamental rights of individuals.”
“The current parliament will not discuss this topic further,” a spokesperson also told RFE on Wednesday.
The new law includes increasing the maximum penalties applicable to financial institutions, giving more powers to the regulatory Financial Intelligence Unit, as well as requiring that people prove their wealth came from legitimate sources.
It is this latter provision which is under scrutiny, having been criticised by Estonia’s legal ombudsman as violating the principle of innocent until proven guilty.
OCCRP named Danske Bank its 2018 Corrupt Actor of the Year, allowing billions of dollars to flow to offshore companies from corrupt regimes and illegal activities.
The Estonian supervisory authority (EFSA) rejects Denmark’s allegations that it is responsible for the lack of oversight, claiming it is “somewhat astonished by the firm assertion of Danish financial supervision.” It says it was crucial in ending the illegal activity, after it deemed that “Danish supervision is not working.”
Author: Tajna Biscevic
Source: OCCRP
Danske Bank’s Choice Of CEO Blocked By Danish Regulator Scandal After Scandal Spurs Hiring Boom At Large European Banks The Scale Of Money Laundering In The UK: Too Big To Measure? Rabobank Fined €1 Million For Poor Money Laundering Checks
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Report: Group Of Columbia University Students To Dine With Iranian President
Filed Under:Columbia International Relations Council and Association, Columbia University, Josh Fattal, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Sara Shourd, Shane Bauer
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad/Getty Images
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — A group of Columbia University students are expected to have dinner with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad next week in Midtown.
According to the Columbia Spectator, the school’s newspaper, as many as 15 members of the Columbia International Relations Council and Association were invited.
CIRCA vice president of academics, Tim Chan, told the paper the Sept. 21 meeting is still tentative and none of the members expressed any reservations about breaking bread with the controversial Iranian leader.
Meanwhile, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, two American hikers jailed for over two years in Iran on espionage charges, could be freed “in a couple of days.”
An Iranian court has set bail at $500,000 for each of the men — the same arrangement that allowed fellow hiker Sara Shourd to go free a year ago.
The hikers all deny the charges and say they may have mistakenly crossed into Iran while hiking in Iraq’s Kurdish region.
On NBC’s ‘Today’ Show, Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that he hopes the release will improve relations with the U.S.
There’s speculation that Iran may have timed the potential release to coincide with Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York later this month for the United Nations General Assembly. Shourd was released last year just as Ahmadinejad made his way over for the annual gathering.
Ahmadinejad’s previous visits for the UN General Assembly have been the source of much controversy and sparked a number of protests.
During last year’s visit, he claimed that the United States was behind the 9/11 attacks.
“Some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attacks to reverse the declining economy and its grips on the Middle East in order to save the Zionist regime,” Ahmadinejad said.
President Barack Obama responded by saying, “It was offensive. It was hateful and particularly for him to make the statement here in Manhattan, just a little north of ground zero, where families lost their loved, ones was inexcusable.”
In trying to explain his 9/11 theories, Ahmadinejad said his real concern is for the poor American taxpayer, who after the terror attacks has been shelling out billions for the war on terror.
“We are trying to defend the rights of the American people here so their money is not used to kill people in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Ahmadinejad said.
Would you invite him over for dinner? What do you make of their invitation? Let Us know know below…
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Science at Nordita
Brief History of Nordita
How to Get to Nordita
Administrative Help
Information for Visitors [>]
Evaluations of Nordita
Financial Support to Nordita
Photos from Nordita [>]
In the first half of the 20th century, the work of Niels Bohr and his collaborators established Copenhagen as a world center for modern physics. Bohr encouraged contacts and collaborations with Nordic physicists, several of whom visited Copenhagen to take part in the international research going on there. These developments naturally led to discussions to establish a joint Nordic research center.
The 1950s saw a widespread political will for joint projects, both at the Nordic and at the European level; the war had demonstrated the importance of scientific preeminence and that of physics in particular. In 1952, the Western European nations decided to establish a large accelerator laboratory, the European Center for Nuclear Physics (CERN). Copenhagen figured prominently as a possible site for the new laboratory. Eventually Geneva was preferred but the theory group of the new laboratory was initially located in Copenhagen.
When it was finally decided that the CERN theory group was to move from Copenhagen to Geneva, Torsten Gustafson, Niels Bohr and other prominent Nordic physicists took the initiative to establish a Nordic center for theoretical physics in Copenhagen. The idea was well received at the political level, notably by the Swedish Prime Minister Tage Erlander. Theoretical physics was an uncontroversial, relatively inexpensive area of collaboration and research, and the other Nordic countries stood to benefit from the eminent research group in Copenhagen.
Nordita opened on October 1st 1957. An important activity of the new Institute was the training of young Nordic researchers, as there was no organized doctoral education in physics in the Nordic countries at that time. In the 1960s, the Nordic countries considerably expanded their research and teaching in physics, with many new positions being established at the universities. A large fraction of the researchers who had been trained at Nordita were offered positions and the Institute has continued to train future leaders in theoretical physics. Out of 320 young researchers who worked at Nordita in Copenhagen between 1957 and 2006, at least 165 have secured permanent university positions. It is still early days for Nordita in Stockholm, but of 20 postdoctoral fellows at Nordita since 2007, 18 have moved on into other academic positions at the postdoctoral or junior faculty level. Today, Nordita alumni form an extensive contact group, which the Institute draws upon for maintaining and extending Nordic collaborations.
Although Nordita originally derived its name from atomic physics, the Nordita faculty was quite diverse from the beginning. Christian Møller (1904-1980), Nordita's first Director, was known for his contributions to the theory of gravitation and quantum chemistry. Léon Rosenfeld (1904-1974) joined Nordita in 1958. He coined the term "lepton" and was among the first to work on quantum electrodynamics. Gunnar Källén (1926-1968) worked on elementary particle physics and the renormalization of quantum electrodynamics. Nuclear and atomic physics was represented in the early years by Stefan Rozental (1903-1994) and Ben Roy Mottelson. Mottelson would go on to win the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physics, together with Aage Bohr and Leo James Rainwater, for his groundbreaking work on the geometry of atomic nuclei. Aage Bohr became Director of Nordita in 1975. Gerald E. Brown accepted a Nordita professorship in 1960, bringing his research on many body problems and effective models for the atomic interaction, and later the theory of compact stars and the chiral bag model of the atomic nucleus.
James Hamilton arrived at Nordita in 1964 and soon established a research group in elementary particle physics, focusing in particular on the use of dispersion relations in the analysis of the strong interaction. At that time, particle physics was still widely considered a sub-field of nuclear physics and Hamilton's lectures provided invaluable guidance for young Nordic researchers interested in this emerging area of theoretical physics. In the years 1976-78, Hamilton published a series of papers calculating the effect of electromagnetic interactions on hadron scattering that became known as "the Nordita method."
Gösta Gustafson came to Copenhagen as a Nordita fellow in 1968 and worked with James Hamilton. He remained in close contact after returning to Lund in 1972 and the famous "Lund String Model" later emerged out of this interaction. This is a phenomenological model of hadronization in particle scattering that is still widely used, for instance in analyzing data from the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. As of today, it has been cited more than 2000 times, a striking documentation of its impact.
Holger Bech Nielsen was a Nordita fellow from 1967-1971. In the following years he produced a number of tremendously influential articles on highly energetic particle collisions. Nielsen is today regarded one of the fathers of String Theory. Nordita has remained a strong player in the field of String Theory with Paolo Di Vecchia and Konstantin Zarembo leading the high-energy theory group.
Nordita: the 50 years in Copenhagen, a research project supported by the Niels Bohr Archive and led by Helle Kiilerich, Chris Pethick, Ben Mottelsson, and Einar Guðmundsson.
Í tilefni af sextíu ára afmaeli NORDITA ("On the occasion of NORDITA's sixtieth anniversary", in Icelandic) by Einar Guðmundsson, former Nordita Fellow and board member. With an emphasis on the Icelandic contribution to Nordita.
NORDITA 50 år (in Swedish), by Christofer Cronström, published 2008 in Reflexer, the journal of Fysikersamfundet i Finland.
The Changing Face of NORDITA, 1957 - 1997 by Pofessors Ben Mottelson and Chris Pethick, first published in the Nordita Annual Report 1996.
James Hamilton, physicist, an online biography, written by A. Hamilton in 2009. James Hamilton was a Nordita Professor of Theoretical Particle Physics from 1964 to 1986, and the biography includes chapters on his years at Nordita in Copenhagen.
In the 1970's Nordita was instrumental in building up the field of astrophysics and cosmology in the Nordic countries through the training of young researchers and organizing workshops, and summer schools. It was an attractive subject for Nordita to introduce because of the numerous observational discoveries due to advances in instrumentation, and because astrophysics has broad contacts with other branches of physics that were already pursued at the Institute. This extension of research areas was aided by the flexibility Nordita had to make strategic recruitments and attract world class talent.
Astrophysical research at Nordita is still outstanding in its areas of specialization: the study of compact objects and high-density matter (neutron stars, black holes) led by Christopher Pethick, astrophysical magneto-hydrodynamics and plasma astrophysics led by Axel Brandenburg. This is a field that has greatly benefitted from the rapid increase in computational power allowing more sophisticated simulation of physical systems. Pethick has advanced physics by his imaginative applications of many-body theory across several different areas, starting with helium liquids, continuing with neutron star dynamics and supernova collapse, and more recently the analysis of the rich physics of ultra-cold atomic condensates, where he and his colleagues are engaged in a continuing dialogue with leading experimentalists.
Nordita has a strong tradition in the field of condensed matter physics. Alan Luther and Christopher Pethick came to Nordita in the mid 1970's and had profound influence on the development of condensed matter physics in the Nordic countries. Alan Luther is known for his work on electron systems in one dimension. The techniques he invented are of prime importance in the study of nano wires, including those exhibiting topological phases of matter. The strong emphasis on condensed matter physics continues with the recent addition of Alexander Balatsky, a leading expert on the theory of strongly correlated electrons, to the Nordita senior faculty.
The discovery of chaos and self-organized criticality in complex systems was one of the most important developments in science in the second half of the 20th century. These concepts are tightly woven into the fabric of many fields of science, and we have only touched on the full scope of insights they can bring. John Hertz, who joined Nordita in 1981, is a pioneer in the theory of neural networks and author of one of the defining textbooks in the field. Kim Sneppen, who was a Nordita fellow from 1989 to 1991, and co-author of the well known Bak-Sneppen model of co-evolution of interacting species, is recognized for his work on self-organized criticality and non-linear dynamics, extending into the field of biological networks. This field of research has a close interaction between theory and experiments on specific biological systems, such as bacteriophages (viruses infecting bacteria).
The scientific history of Nordita spans over 50 years and includes many other notable developments that are not described here. Over time, not only the content of fundamental research in theoretical physics has changed, but also its infrastructure and technology. The information age deeply affects how researchers gather and disseminate information and facilitates long-distance collaborations. Today seminars at Nordita are routinely recorded and uploaded to YouTube and software for computational astrophysics, developed at Nordita, is publicly available worldwide. Extensive numerical simulations have become an indispensible part of Nordita research, and, in that, the Institute greatly benefits from ready access to world-class technological infrastructure in Sweden and the other Nordic countries.
This page was printed on 2021-01-16 from nordita.org/aboutus/history
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Norway News
89 million tourists: Why France is still the most visited country on earth
France has managed to retain its crown as the most visited country in the world thanks to the 89 million visitors that came to see its sights in 2017. That's because of six main attributes.
The number of visitors coming through the arrival gates in France was up 8 percent on the previous year, a boost for the country after two years of falling numbers due in the main to the terror attacks in 2015.
Spain was ranked in the silver medal position, overtaking the US, which was pushed into third.
How does France manage to hold on to the top spot year after year? There a few main reasons.
1. The City of Light
It almost goes without saying, but the French capital is a huge draw for foreign visitors – over 30 million of them a year in fact, more than any other city in the world.
There's the city's romantic image, the stunning architecture, the Louvre museum, the iconic Eiffel Tower as well as the simple pleasure of sitting at a café terrace and watching the world go by (not to mention the stunning sunsets).
And don't forget Disneyland, which is a destination in itself for foreign visitors. With around 15 million visitors each year, the theme park, just to the east of the French capital is Europe's top tourist destination.
2. A variety of sun, sea and mountains
Many French people shun international destinations for their summer holidays and instead choose to travel within their own country. Why? Well, as they'll be keen to tell you, it's because France has everything, from sandy beaches, to snow covered mountains and vast expanses of countryside.
Simon Dawson, from UK tour operator French Cycling Holidays, agrees. “Different regions have completely different appearances,” he says. “There's the rolling countryside, great cities like Paris, Lyon, Marseille."
SEE ALSO: Ten beaches in France you need to visit
Basically France offers something for everyone. While the Germans may come for the beaches, the Brits come for the countryside and the Americans come for the chateaux and the culture.
The weather is a big factor too.
“France tends to have really good weather in the summer, it's hot, but not baking hot like in Spain or Italy for example,” says Dawson.
3. Strategic location
Part of France's appeal, however, could just be a sheer coincidence of geography. For example, for UK holidaymakers looking to escape their homeland's unreliable summers, France is just a short hop across the Channel.
Travellers from another of France's neighbours, Germany, made up 13 million visitors to France last year, more than any other country. However, not all these visitors are coming to see France itself.
“Because of France's position many tourists are forced to pass through the country on their way to other destinations,” explains Didier Arino, president of tourism industry specialists Protourisme. “Between 15 and 20 million of the visitors who come to France are just passing through on their way to Italy or Spain.”
4. Escape to the countryside
Around 80 percent of France is countryside – and most of it stunning and tranquil. Besides Paris, this is the part of France most tourists want to see," says Dawson. “The most popular areas for our customers are the Loire Valley, Provence, the famous beautiful regions of France,” he says.
The countryside is particularly popular with those from the UK, who have a romanticised vision of rural life in France, according to Protourisme's Arino.
“The British are in love with rural France. They idealise the countryside,” he says. The Brits enjoy the contrast of the peaceful "France profonde" compared to the hustle and bustle of the towns and cities many of them live in.
5. Food and wine
France is, of course, inseparable from its famed gastronomic traditions and the chance to dine on French specialties, even the clichéd snails or steak tartare are no doubt a major part of what attracts visitors to the country. France knows this and is keen to protect its status as the world's food capital,.
No proper French meal is complete without a few glasses of ‘vin' and the country's vast array of home-produced wines is another draw for tourists. Each year, around 24 million foreign tourists visit Bordeaux, Burgundy and France's other wine regions.
6. Art, history and culture
France is extremely proud of its long and often tumultuous history, from the French revolution to Napoleon and the two world wars, and historical sites are often on the itinerary for visitors. There are the famous battle sites of the Somme and the D-Day landings, as well as the stunning chateaux, churches and cathedrals that decorate the landscape.
In fact, France has some 39 sites on Unesco's World Heritage list, putting it fourth in the global rankings. Museums and art galleries are also a major pull for tourists. The Louvre alone, home to the Mona Lisa among around 35,000 other artifacts and artworks, attracts 9.7 million visitors a year, more than any other museum in the world.
The Lonely Planet's destination editor Kate Morgan sums it all up like this: "As a destination for travellers, France virtually has it all. France entices people of all ages with some of the world's most iconic landmarks, world-class art and architecture, sensational food, stunning beaches, glitzy ski resorts, beautiful countryside and a staggering amount of history."
SEE ALSO: Ten French Unesco sites you won't have heard of
French actress dissociates herself from Le Monde letter
Decoding the French: Eight YouTube channels to help explain life in France
Six Nations in jeopardy as France mulls rugby travel ban over virus fears
France says dozens of jihadists killed in weekend Mali air strike
France: More than 2,500 break virus restrictions at illegal rave
Storm Bella batters France, tens of thousands left without electricity
Covid-19: Travellers to UK will need to show negative test result
admin Jan 10, 2021
All international passengers will soon have to test negative for Covid-19 before travelling to the UK.…
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© 2021 - Norway Post Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
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Civil Aviation Authority on alert for Thomas Cook collapse
Honda unveils its electric vision strategy for Europe at Frankfurt Motor Show
Yogurt Maker Chobani Looks to Raise $500 Million to boost global expansion
How long can one entrepreneur carry a packaged food company before turning to outside investment? Hamdi Ulukaya, the founder of Greek-yogurt maker Chobani and our cover profile interview in January as he collected Global Entrepreneur of the year, is about to answer that question.
Ulukaya began Chobani with a Small Business Association backed loan that allowed him to buy a dilapidated factory in upstate New York, but the company has never raised equity. Ulukaya was considering an initial public offering for Chobani, but is now said to be considering an institutional investment for 20 percent of the company, according to a Reuters report.
Reuters says that Chobani is valued at about $2.5 billion with suggested annual revenues of more than $1 billion, a figure that, when our managing Editor Richard Alvin spent time with Ulukaya in late 2013 he refused to deny.
Few packaged food companies get to even $3 let alone $30 million in revenues without institutional investment. A statistic Happy Family founder Shazi Visram disclosed in an interview with us late last year. Visram’s company reached more than $60 million in revenues before she sold it to Danone. Up until that point, Visram had funded Happy Family with angel investments from approximately 200 individuals. Chobani is perhaps the largest fully-independent company in its industry.
Despite its remarkable growth–Chobani was founded only eight years ago–the company is now facing competition from more established brands, in the form of Danone’s Oikos yogurt and General Mills’ Yoplait. Greek yogurt, which was hardly known in the U.S. before Chobani began making it, is now about a $7.5 billion industry and is available in the UK at Tesco and selected other stores.
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Courts and tribunals
Types of courts and their roles
Local Court
Youth Justice Court
The Supreme Court is the highest court in the Northern Territory (NT). It hears both civil and criminal cases.
It is made up of a chief justice, judges and the master, who are appointed by the Administrator of the Northern Territory.
Civil cases are usually heard by a single judge. Some cases may be referred to a full court or the Court of Appeal which is heard by three judges.
Most criminal cases are heard in front of a panel of twelve people in the community that make up the jury and a judge.
The jury makes a decision on whether the defendant is guilty based on the evidence they hear in court.
The judge decides what punishment a person should receive if they are found guilty, known as sentencing.
For civil cases, appeals are made to the Court of Appeal.
For criminal cases, appeals are made to the Court of Criminal Appeal.
Appeals from these two courts are made to the High Court of Australia.
Darwin NT 0801
State Square
Find contact details for the registry office.
Find contact details for the sheriff's office.
Alice Springs NT 0871
Law Courts Building
Corner Hartly and Parsons Street
Find out more information and further contact details, go to the Supreme Court website.
Coroner and inquests
Court cases, orders and sentencing
Representing yourself in court
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By Jan Angel / July 31, 2020
We are in the thick of campaign season and now is the time we see those vying for the same elected position starting to turn and attack each other. Most of us tend to roll our eyes, throw away the mailers, and turn off the TV or radio. For me, as someone who has been elected and has had a long career in the financial industry; one candidate’s behavior has gotten my attention. Mike Pellicciotti has done what most are doing and is turning to partisan rhetoric attacks against his opponent State Treasurer Duane Davidson.
Pellicciotti has been quick to misrepresent Davidson on his attendance record at Pension Board meetings. Pellicciotti fails to mention that Duane Davidson was represented at those meetings by the Assistant State Treasurer (Pursuant to RCW 43.33A.020). There have been a total of 3 women, in state history, appointed to the Assistant State Treasurer role; Davidson has appointed two of them. Both of whom are financial experts and very qualified to serve in this position. Pellicciotti is suggesting that Davidson was negligent in attendance of these important board meetings. I believe this is a dismissive attack on successful women leaders. As a woman Senator and former Chair of the Senate Banking and Finance committee, I can tell you that the professionals Davidson has around him in the Treasurer’s office are the reason that Washington has been successful with its finances.
Davidson and his team have brought order to Washington’s finances and during his time as Treasurer, he has: refinanced Washington’s state debt savings of over $400 million, published multiple reports to stop public banking, and received a Triple A bond rating. If legislators like Pellicciotti would have listened to Davidson’s sound financial advice regarding the investments into the “Rainy Day Fund”, the state wouldn’t be in such dire straits with revenue.
Again, all these successes are not done alone. When someone is elected to office they use their best judgment to hire the most effective employees for the betterment of our state. What has impressed me is Davidson has not only hired talented staff, he has hired strong women.
As a woman in the finance industry, I understand the challenges that are faced in a male-dominated career field. I am beyond disgusted with Pellicciotti’s criticism on the Treasurer’s office and Davidson. He is dismissing the good work of two women and the strong management of Davidson who is eager to promote women into leadership roles.
With the 100th anniversary of Women’s Suffrage, I am saddened that I have to argue this point. Pellicciotti’s cheap partisan antics are at the expense of successful women in finance. We need people in the Treasurer’s office to have the experience and care about the finances of the state, not another mudslinging partisan activist. Re-elect Duane Davidson for State Treasurer.
Jan Angel is former State Senator representing the 26th Legislative District and former Chair of Senate Banking and Finance. Angel has than thirty seven years of business experience, including fourteen years in banking, nine years as a business owner with multiple locations in Kitsap and Pierce counties, and seven years in real estate sales.
Categories: Washington Tags: Election 2020
Jan Angel
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Los Angeles Clippers vs. Utah Jazz Game 6 – 4/28/17 Free NBA Playoff Pick
The Los Angeles Clippers are in a desperate situation, as they have to go on the road and figure out a way to survive another first-round exit from the playoffs, this time at the hands of the Utah Jazz. And with changes possibly in the offing, who knows what owner Steve Ballmer will do for next season. Meanwhile, Utah has benefited by the return of Rudy Gobert, along with the injury that was suffered by Blake Griffin, as they look to close out the series, in a game that is slated to begin at 10:30 PM ET at the Vivint Smart Home Arena in Salt Lake City. BetAnySports customers can get reduced juice on their NBA playoff odds, and after the opening tip, they can continue wagering as they take advantage of what Live Betting Ultra has to offer.
The Clippers were a more attacking crew after Gobert went out with a hyperextended knee, as the Jazz really only had Derrick Favors manning the middle – and he was overworked. But that was just for a few games. When Gobert returned to action, things changed. He logged 24 minutes in Game 4 and that increased to 36 in Game 5, as he had eleven points, eleven rebounds and five steals. The Clippers were very careful about going inside, taking 43% of their shots from beyond the arc in Game 4, but they got a little bolde rin Game , taking only a third of their attempts from downtown.
Gordon Hayward was another player the Jazz were worried about, as he had to leave Game 4 with effects from food poisoning. But even though he said he felt weak in the legs in Game 5, he managed to score 27 points in 41 minutes. He is shooting 48% for the series, and with the presence of Joe Ingles, George Hill and Rodney Hood, who woke up with 16 points in Game 5, Utah has more outlets to turn to than do the Clippers.
In the odds at BetAnySports upon which we will make our NBA playoff picks, the Jazz are favored:
Utah Jazz -5.5
Los Angeles Clippers +5.5
Over 193 points -110
Under 193 points -110
What was really disappointing about the Clippers in Game 5 was the fact that they got very little out of their supporting players. Aside from Chris Paul (28 points, nine assists), JJ Redick (26 points) and DeAndre Jordan (14 points, 12 rebounds), the Clippers scored 24 points. Redick has, on balance, been ineffective from three-point range, going just 7 for 22, and after an explosion in Game 4, in which he scored 25 points off the bench, including five triples, Jamal Crawford had just four points and attempted four shots in Game 5.
Austin Rivers also came back to action for the Clippers, but went 0-4 in 18 minutes, which was more than a lot of people thought he was going to play, coming off his injury. The intriguing matchup here involves DeAndre Jordan and Gobert. Jordan has averaged 14.2 ppg and 13 rebounds, and he may have to be very assertive underneath if the Clippers are going to have a chance to move forward here.
Remember that the Jazz are going to have a big advantage on their bench, especially with Joe Johnson, who has been this team’s standout in at least two games – the opener, when he sank the game-winning shot and totaled 21 off the bench, then was a dominant figure in Game 4, with 28 points. With balance on offense, and Gobert in the middle, they should be able to close this series out in Salt Lake City.
BetAnySports gives customers a great free play bonus just for signing up, then gets them with reduced juice, which affords them better NBA playoff betting odds…… Remember that there are number of ways to open up an account, among them the virtual currency of Bitcoin, which is not only fast and easy with their automated system, but never, ever incurs a transaction fee!
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Share this Story: Adam: Why the term 'people of colour' is offensive to so many
Adam: Why the term 'people of colour' is offensive to so many
Not only does it lump all non-whites together, but the painful history of the term makes it difficult to embrace.
Mohammed Adam
Jun 11, 2020 • June 12, 2020 • 3 minute read
Mohammed Adam takes a close look at what we're calling people in 2020. Photo by Jean Levac /Postmedia News
Living in the shadow of the United States, it is inevitable that Canadians will absorb and be influenced by aspects of American culture – good and bad. But one that, regrettably, Canadian media are adopting with increasing regularity is the American term “people of colour” to describe all those who are not white.
In newspapers, on radio and television, the term is becoming the accepted shorthand for Blacks, Latinos, Arabs, Asians and other non-whites. “Canadian people of colour,” “Canadians of colour,” and “Communities of colour” are not uncommon in headlines and stories. During last fall’s federal election, a TV anchor called NDP leader Jagmeet Singh a “person of colour.” Former Whitby Liberal MP Celina Caesar-Chavannes was described as a “woman of colour.”
Adam: Why the term 'people of colour' is offensive to so many Back to video
Though not as widely embraced by Canadian ethnic communities as it is in the U.S., use of the term is, worryingly, very much on the rise.
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, left, and former Liberal MP Celina Caesar-Chavannes.
I recognize that some non-white Canadians embrace it. I also recognize that those who use the term are not being disrespectful. They mean well. But meaning well isn’t the point. The problem is putting all non-white people in one box and assuming it’s fine.
I am African. I am Black. I am not a person of colour. If you feel the need to describe me by race or ethnicity, call me African. If you want to define me by colour, call me Black. That’s who I am. Don’t call me a person of colour. It undermines my identity and offends me.
Of course, there’s always the old question of why white, every bit as much a colour as black or brown, is left out of the debate about the colour of people.
“The term ‘people of colour’ is particularly problematic,” says Amina Mire, a Carleton University professor of sociology and anthropology whose speciality includes racialization. “It suggests that whiteness is not a colour. In my work, I often use ‘non-white people’ instead of ‘people of colour.’ ”
“If you think about it, all people have colour,” adds University of Ottawa sociologist and social demographer Fernando Mata.
The term however, is widely accepted in the U.S., where most African-Americans, Latinos, Asians and others, including politicians, civil rights leaders and activists embrace it as a term of solidarity and empowerment.
“People of colour” gained popularity around the 1980s as Black and other minority community leaders sought strength and power in numbers by coming together as one, powerful, unified force. The idea basically was that standing alone as African-Americans, Latinos or Asians, for example, did little to break racial barriers, and coming together under the banner of “people of colour” might be more effective. In a way, it acknowledges civil rights leader Martin Luther King’s injunction that Black people “cannot walk alone” in the fight for equal rights and social justice. They need allies to move the fight for racial equality beyond the traditional black/white divide. King indeed used the term “citizens of color” in his famous 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech.
But the term’s history rankles. Consider this paragraph in the 1807 Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves, which made unlawful, the importation into the U.S. of “… any negro, mulatto, or person of color, with intent to hold, sell, or dispose of such negro, mulatto, or person of color as a slave, or to be held to service or labour.”
I appreciate the need for solidarity and togetherness among historically marginalized people. Racial discrimination is not just the burden of Black people, but people of all colours. Standing against racial discrimination and injustice is an imperative for all people. But the painful history of the term makes it difficult to embrace. That history, with echoes of the word “colored” that was painted on segregation signs in the American South from the 1900s into the 1960s – and used to discriminate against Black people, is difficult to swallow. I see “colored” and “people of colour” as two branches of the same tree. That’s why I refuse to wear it.
Those who use “people of colour” should understand that it’s not a universal term of endearment. It’s an American term that should not be used blithely in Canada. Tread carefully.
Part 2: The term ‘people of colour’ doesn’t capture individual identities
Mohammed Adam is an Ottawa journalist and commentator.
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Elite Amateur Sport High Schools
December Snapshots: A roundup of local sports action
By sportsottawa December 26, 2019
Leave a Comment on December Snapshots: A roundup of local sports action
The Ottawa Sportspage’s monthly summary of sports news in the nation’s capital.
By Ottawa Sportspage
OTTAWA TITANS STAR ON INTERNATIONAL TEAR
Ottawa’s Bogdan Djerkovic has been on a roll against international opponents in the FINA World Men’s Junior Water Polo Championship. Djerkovic is part of a Team Canada squad that has a record of 3 wins and 3 losses at the championships that are being hosted by Kuwait. In the preliminary round of the tournament, the 19-year-old Ottawa Titans product scored 4 goals against Egypt, a game that Canada won, and two goals against Russia, which Canada won as well. Djerkovic scored one goal against both Spain and Hungary, which were both losses for Canada. Djerkovic scored three goals in Canada’s first classification game against the United States, which it lost, and three more against Australia in the ensuing classification game. At the time the Sportspage was published, Canada was preparing to play Hungary for a second time in its third and final classification match.
Djerkovic was also named to Canada’s Tokyo 2020 National Team athlete pool at the beginning of December. Canada’s men’s water polo team missed qualifying for the Olympics at the Lima 2019 Pan American Games. They’ll take another shot at qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics at a tournament in the Netherlands in late March.
CAPITAL WAVE’S GAUDREAULT HELPS CANADA TO EVEN RECORD IN CANADA CUP
Jessica Gaudreault of Ottawa’s Capital Wave water polo club helped the national team secure an even record of two wins and two losses in the 2019 Canada Cup. Gaudreault was in net for Canada in wins against the Netherlands and China. She did not play in either of Canada’s losses. Canada’s 2-2 record was enough for the team to finish in 3rd place of the five-team event that was held in Montreal in December.
PAIR OF LOCAL DIVERS QUALIFY FOR TEAM ONTARIO, WILL COMPETE AT SPAIN MEET
Two local divers, Kate Miller of the Nepean Ottawa Diving Club and Kathryn Grant of the Ottawa National Diving Club, qualified for Team Ontario based off of their performances at December’s Ontario Winter Provincials. Miller left the event with three gold medals and two silver medals, while Grant took home two golds of her own and one bronze medal. As part of Team Ontario, Miller and Grant will head to Spain in late January to compete in the Madrid Junior Open Age Group Meet.
HORN-MILLER GETS HIGHEST CANADIAN SPORTS HONOUR
Waneek Horn-Miller secured the highest honour in Canadian sports by being chosen as an inductee in Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame. As a 14-year-old protester Horn-Miller was nearly fatally wounded at the Oka crisis. She would recover from a stab wound that was close to her heart and compile more than 20 medals across multiple events at the North American Indigenous Games between 1990 and 1997. Her trailblazing ways continued at Carleton University where as a water polo player she was the school’s first female athlete of the year in 1994-95 – a feat she repeated in three consecutive years. In 1999, Horn-Miller was named MVP of the Canadian women’s water polo team. The next year she co-captained Canada’s team at the Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia. After being dismissed from the national program after nine years in 2003, Horn-Miller led a group of athletes to force Water Polo Canada to look into claims of coach abuses, which led to the firing of those who had been accused. In 2010, she was a torchbearer for Canada at the Olympics in Vancouver and in 2015 was named one of Canada’s most influential women in sport. In October she became the Hall of Fame’s 11th ever Indigenous inductee.
LOCAL BEACH VOLLEYBALL PLAYER WINS BRONZE MEDAL AT WORLD BEACH GAMES
Ottawa’s Charlotte Sider was part of Canada’s 4X4 volleyball team that claimed 3rd place at the 2019 ANOC World Beach Games that were held in Doha, Qater in October. Canada finished with a 2-1 record in pool play, beating teams from Australia and Gambia and losing to Vanuatu. Canada beat Nigeria in straight sets in the quarterfinals before losing to the United States in swept sets in the semifinals. In a rematch against Australia with the bronze medal on the line, Sider and Canada bested the Aussies by a score of 2 sets to 1.
TEENAGER DAVID NAMED CANADIAN MEN’S SOCCER PLAYER OF THE YEAR
Ottawa’s Jonathan David, 19, was named Canada’s men’s soccer player of the year. The Ottawa Gloucester Hornets and Ottawa Internationals alumni scored a combined 28 goals between Canada and his Belgium club KAA Gent in 2019, representing the highest total of any Canadian player in more than 20 years. Another goal record he claimed in 2019 was the most for Canada in the Concacaf Gold up, where he netted six in total and was a Golden Boot winner in the tournament. David’s appeared in 12 games for Canada’s national team since his first call up in September 2018 and has found the back of the net 11 times in total. Even before reaching his 20th birthday, he’s halfway to tying Dwayne De Rosario’s all-time Canadian national team record of 22 goals, which took him 81 total games.
OTTAWA PAIR INVITED TO HIGH PERFORMANCE BASKETBALL CAMP
Two Ottawa girls will be a part of a group of 57 athletes called from across the country to participate in a Canada Basketball-run camp to establish which players are best suited for the national U-17 and U-18 teams. Merissah Russell and Isabella Gaudet of Capital Courts Academy were the two local players to crack Canada Basketball’s invite list. As both were born in 2002, they’ll be assessed as potential members of the national U-18 team, which is competing this summer at the FIBA U-18 Women’s Americas Championship. As a country, Canada’s U-18 girls are currently ranked 4th best in the world. Fabienne Blizzard, Capital Courts’ head coach, was also invited to the camp held in December in Toronto. Blizzard is an assistant with the U-17 team. While Russell and Gaudet will leave the camp either having secured a Team Canada spot or not, they’ll also be integrated into the national team’s style of play and develop individual performance plans to benefit them into the future.
HOMECOMING COMING FOR WOMEN’S NATIONAL VOLLEYBALL TEAM PLAYER JOSEPH
Team Canada volleyball player Shaïnah Joseph will be expected to wear the maple in her hometown when Ottawa hosts the Netherlands, Poland and Japan for Volleyball Nations League play June 2-4 at the Arena at TD Place. The Canadian women will first seek to nail down a spot in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics at the continental qualifier Jan. 8-13 in the Dominican Republic.
OTTAWA ATHLETES TO COMPETE AT 2020 YOUTH OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES
Mont-Tremblant skier Sarah Brown of Ottawa has been named to Canada’s alpine team for the Jan. 9-22 Youth Olympic Winter Games, to be held in Lausanne, Switzerland. Nakkertok Nordic skier Luke Allen, an Ashbury College student, also made the grade to qualify for the Games, though his sport (along with many others) have yet to officially release their selections.
SLIDER POSTS CONSECUTIVE 4THS TO KICK OFF WORLD CUP SKELETON SEASON
Ottawa skeleton racer Mimi Rahneva recorded 4th-place finishes on back-to-back weekends to kick off her World Cup season on the track where she first learned to slide in Lake Placid, NY. “There were lots of building blocks laid here over the last two weeks. I’ve slid personal bests all week,” last season’s 3rd-ranked World Cup athlete said via Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton. “The conditions played a big role on race day, but I’m so happy with my result.”
LOUIS-RIEL GOLFER ROLLIN ROLLS IN MOST BIRDIES AT OFSAA GOLF
Louis-Riel high school’s Mathis Rollin recorded the most birdies in the field and earned the top local finish (tied for 6th overall) with rounds of 80 and 73 at the Oct. 16-17 OFSAA Boys’ Golf Championships in Kingsville, Ont.
SILVER FOR TEAM CANADA PARA HOCKEY PLAYERS AT INTERNATIONAL EVENT
Ottawa products Anton Jacobs-Webb and Tyrone Henry helped Canada to a runner-up performance at the Dec. 1-7 2019 Canadian Tire Para Hockey Cup in Paradise, N.L. Canada beat Czech Republic 6-0, fell to Russia 3-2 in a shootout and lost 4-1 to USA in the round robin, and then beat Russia 3-1 in the semi-final before going down 2-1 against USA in the final.
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Eliz Camacho
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"Eliz Camacho", Singer/Film Actress!
Return to Eliz Camacho's profile
One-Sheet
Hometown Fayetteville, NC
Genres Pop, R & B
Band Members Eliz Camacho
Achievements » more
Upcoming Shows None
Roney Hooks roneyhooks27@hotmail.com 646.591.4263
# Years Experience Performing Live: 13
# Live Perfomances Past Six-months: 12
Market Draw: Crown Colesium: 800+; UMOJA: 401-450; Fayetteville State University: 800+; Festival Park: 501-600
Performing Rights Society: BMI
Discography: House of Mirrors LP—2011
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American singer/songwriter and actress Elíz (e-leese) Camacho, born Elizabeth Marie Camacho, on March 10, 1991, in Hinsdale, Illinois, is an American singer/songwriter and actress. Elíz is of Puerto is of Puerto Rican, African American,...
American singer/songwriter and actress Elíz (e-leese) Camacho, born Elizabeth Marie Camacho, on March 10, 1991, in Hinsdale, Illinois, is an American singer/songwriter and actress. Elíz is of Puerto is of Puerto Rican, African American, and Native American (Cherokee) ancestry. With various styles ranging from “belting pipes” to “melodious harmony “, with a petite stature, Elíz’s electrifying charisma is the epitome of what can best be described as “lightning in a bottle” artistry.
Elíz began expressing her musical talents at a very young age, singing around the house, participating in local talent shows, and in her church. At age 7, she wrote and performed her first song for the children’s’ choir, an inspirational work entitled “Lift Him Higher”. In junior high school, Elíz’s music teacher noticed her gift for singing and encouraged her to compete in the National Honors Chorus competition. Eliz represented her school placing in the top finals for the junior high school level. While developing her musical talents, Elíz had her first acting experience in the role of “Rebecca” in the local theatre post-production, Our Town, (Thornton Wilder). At age 15, Eliz graduated from John Casablanca’s Modeling & Career Center with a certification in “Select TV/Print”. Eliz made her on screen debut at 17 in the independent film Trumpet My Return, playing the role of a troubled teen student. Eliz turned down acceptance to the Applied Meteorology program at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to further explore her passion for stardom in the entertainment industry.
Elíz’s musical career began to take off in 2008 with her first stadium appearance, accompanied by an ensemble chosen to sing the National Anthem for the President Obama Rally held at the Crown Arena in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Elíz made her musical stage play debut at Cape Fear Regional Theatre in their production of Westside Story (2009) playing the part of “Consuelo” . This was followed by her appearance in the principal role of “Taylor McKessie”, in Disney’s® High School Musical 2, “On Stage” (2009) and national appearances in several television commercials, including Coca-Cola® “Summer Fun” (2009) and ESPN-U® “University of Florida” (2009). Elíz was chosen to perform as one of the Ray Kennedy entertainers on the Palm Beach Princess Cruise ship performing “The Sounds of Christmas” (2009) as the lead female soprano.
Eliz was the only independent recording artist featured on the “Microsoft Windows Media Guide” ® during the week of the 2011 Grammy’s. She was also featured on the first female compilation album titled “She Got Next”. While already known as the “down-south, sultry, “ultra-sexy” diva, Eliz has made quite an impression on the “Big Apple” including being the special-guest/presenter/co-host at the 2011 Hip Hop Underground Music Awards at B.B. Kings in New York City in which she performed her song “Get Loose” before a cheering standing room only audience.
Eliz was the opening act for “Grammy-Award” winning songwriter/singer “Gordon Chambers” at the “One Night Only with Gordon Chambers” show which supported the “non-profit” organization “Samaritan’s Feet”. She has shared the stage with other headlining acts including Boyz II Men, Vivian Green, Omarion, and Yolanda Adams at the 2012 CIAA “Toyota Fan Experience” and with Tyra Banks, Kim Burell, Kelly Price, Robin Thicke, and Anthony Hamilton at the 2012 Women’s Empowerment Expo. 2012 also saw Elíz land a role in the motion picture Changing the Game (2012) playing “Julissa”, the sexy, flirtatious Latina flight attendant.
During her impressive young career, Elíz has already captured many notable awards and garnered several features including the “2012 Female R&B of the Year” (NCUMAS), “Featured Hottest R&B Singer” (Windows Media Guide®), “Artist of the Week” (Reverb Nation®),” Best New Artist of the Year” 2010 (Independent Artist Music Awards 2010), “Musician of the Month” (TalkofNc.com), WORLD NEWS®, FAMOUS WHY®, Carolina Entertainers of the Month (Carolina Artists®), CheckMateNewYork.com, HotStepz Magazine, Musician of the Month (CHASEMEBABY.COM), Shive Magazine, El Barrio Magazine, SASS Magazine, Disarray Magazine and X-Pozsed Magazine Primetyme Magazine and many others. Elíz is currently working on her highly anticipated album titled “House of Mirrors” and has released her first Urban/Adult Contemporary single, “Get Loose”, which first premiered on “All Access Music Group”. The world awaits the certain meteoric rise of Eliz Camacho to the upper echelon of the entertainment industry. THE BEST IS YET TO COME!!!
Unfinished Letter (Ajay B Club Mix)
Get Loose
Pop Finals Grand Prize Winner February 2016
Reached 15th in Best of Pop chart in 2017. In the top 20 for 1 week.
Top 10 in World, December 2020
Top 10 in World, November 2020
Top 10 in World, October 2020
Top 10 in World, September 2020
Top 10 in World, August 2020
Top 10 in World, July 2020
Top 10 in World, June 2020
Top 10 in World, May 2020
Top 10 in World, April 2020
Top 10 in World, March 2020
Top 10 in World, February 2020
Top 10 in World, January 2020
Top 10 in Electronic Dance Music, September 2018
Top 10 in Electronic Dance Music, August 2018
Top 10 in Electronic Dance Music, July 2018
Top 10 in Electronic Dance Music, June 2018
Top 10 in Electronic Dance Music, November 2017
Top 10 in Electronic Dance Music, October 2017
Top 10 in Pop, February 2016
Top 40 in Electronic Dance Music, May 2019
Top 40 in Electronic Dance Music, April 2019
Top 40 in Electronic Dance Music, March 2019
Top 40 in Electronic Dance Music, February 2019
Top 40 in Electronic Dance Music, January 2019
Top 40 in Electronic Dance Music, December 2018
Top 40 in Pop, November 2017
Top 40 in Pop, September 2016
Top 40 in Pop, June 2016
Top 40 in Pop, March 2016
Top 40 in Pop, January 2016
"IT’S SAFE TO SAY ELIZ CAMACHO GOT IT GOING ON " by Skope Magazine
IT’S SAFE TO SAY ELIZ CAMACHO GOT IT GOING ON "
SHE GOT NEXT MUSIC by Block Starz Music LLC
Beautiful and confident, nineteen year-old Eliz Camacho is a phenomenal Pop/R&B singer/songwriter from Fayetteville, North Carolina. Her new single, "Turn Tables", is featured on She Got Next...
Beautiful and confident, nineteen year-old Eliz Camacho is a phenomenal Pop/R&B singer/songwriter from Fayetteville, North Carolina. Her new single, "Turn Tables", is featured on She Got Next 2011.
"HOTTEST R&B SINGER!!!" by Windows Media Guide
HOTTEST R&B SINGER!!!"
Terrific Entertainment by Terrific Entertainment
We are very proud of her and we know that this is just the beginning!! There is a bright future for this young talented superstar."
El Barrio Magazine by El Barrio Magazine
She's Young New Hot And Sexy. R&B singer ELIZ dropped her new single "GETTIN INTO IT LIKE WHOA". 26 MGMT delivered to the music industry a passionate but hard core artist to the table. ELIZ loves what she do and believe that her music will reach and touches people across the world. without a doubt this her voice has a tone that fits for all styles of music from that trunk rattling base music hip hop to contemporary music, R&B , and jazz . ELIZ is the todays top talked about female artist that is making her way up the charts in the industry and her career. CHECK ELIZ NEW SINGLE OUT http://www.reverbnation.com/elizcamacho"
KRS ONE by John Anderson
“You would be making a wise choice choosing Eliz. Hope to you seeing you soon. John Anderson KRS ONE President.”"
LinkedIn by Arlene Victoria
Eliz is a hardworker, energetic and a positive influence to every one she works with. You will get great work from her as she makes the job that much more enjoyable
Analytica International by Salima Hooks
Eliz is a fabulous entertainer who is destined to do amazingly wonderful things. I wish her all the best in her career and I know we will be seeing a lot more of her
Copyright ©Amazing Media Group 2006-2021 Contact Us
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An Election Night to Remember.
When newly re-elected President Barack Obama gave his acceptance speech in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, Nov. 7, 2012 at Chicago’s McCormick Place convention center, my daughter Emilia was there to witness history from the front row.
Little did we know that she was about to become the right girl in the right place at the right time.
A senior at Northwestern University, Emilia had worked all summer as an unpaid Obama-Biden Campaign Fellow, helping to set up volunteer phone banks all over Chicago’s north side, as well as canvassing in the battleground states of Iowa and Wisconsin. Emilia had paid her campaign dues, and cast her first-ever vote for Obama. On election night, she was anxious but hopeful.
I must admit that I was less anxious. I had been a faithful adherent of Nate Silver’s 538 blog and had been checking the Talking Points Memo poll averages everyday. Unless math and the law of averages no longer mattered, the odds were long for Mitt Romney. However, as an Ohio boy born and raised, I feared for the kind of voter suppression and voting machine shenanigans that probably cost John Kerry the White House in 2004. But if Ohio, Wisconsin and Iowa held strong for Obama – I knew that Florida wouldn’t even matter. (Which, as it turned out, was a good thing.)
As the polls closed across the country on the evening of November 6, Emilia and a group of our closest friends drove from Evanston to the south end of downtown Chicago – hoping to celebrate the election victory they had all worked so hard to make happen. Our enterprising buddies JoAnn Loulan and Ronny Crawford, who had worked hard for Obama in California, managed to wangle ID and passes that would get them all very close to the presidential action in McCormick Place, the largest convention center in America.
Back in Woodland Hills, the rest of our family and more of our close friends gathered in front of our television to enjoy a big pot of chili, an endless parade of desserts – and President Obama’s steady Electoral College march to victory. One by one, the bellwether states came in for Obama: Pennsylvania, Iowa, Michigan – and, halleluiah! – Ohio. I knew Obama had won. We were switching from station to station when Fox News called the election for the President. It felt freaking great. Everybody jumped to their feet in our crowded den — cheering and laughing and celebrating the Democratic Party’s triumph over Tea Party lunacy and Mitt Romney lies.
But there were even more thrills in store.
We were watching MSNBC when President Obama strode onto the stage at McCormick Place to acknowledge his defeated foe, thank his supporters, claim his victory – and eloquently lay out his vision for America’s next four years.
Emilia, as I mentioned earlier, had a front row view of Obama as he spoke. Her enraptured face caught the attention of the photographers covering this historic moment.
At one point early in the President’s speech, the camera cut away to the crowd – and our beaming daughter Emilia filled our TV screen. Needless to say, our delirious corner of Woodland Hills got even louder at that moment.
What follows is the transcript of President Obama’s speech that night, illustrated with the photos that were taken of Emilia as he spoke.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Tonight, more than 200 years after a former colony won the right to determine its own destiny, the task of perfecting our union moves forward.
It moves forward because of you. It moves forward because you reaffirmed the spirit that has triumphed over war and depression, the spirit that has lifted this country from the depths of despair to the great heights of hope, the belief that while each of us will pursue our own individual dreams, we are an American family and we rise or fall together as one nation and as one people.
Tonight, in this election, you, the American people, reminded us that while our road has been hard, while our journey has been long, we have picked ourselves up, we have fought our way back, and we know in our hearts that for the United States of America the best is yet to come.
Our friend Suzy Crawford is just to Emilia’s right.
I want to thank every American who participated in this election — whether you voted for the very first time or waited in line for a very long time.
By the way, we have to fix that.
Whether you pounded the pavement or picked up the phone — whether you held an Obama sign or a Romney sign, you made your voice heard and you made a difference.
I just spoke with Governor Romney and I congratulated him and Paul Ryan on a hard-fought campaign. We may have battled fiercely, but it’s only because we love this country deeply and we care so strongly about its future. From George to Lenore to their son Mitt, the Romney family has chosen to give back to America through public service and that is the legacy that we honor and applaud tonight. In the weeks ahead, I also look forward to sitting down with Governor Romney to talk about where we can work together to move this country forward.
I want to thank my friend and partner of the last four years, America’s happy warrior, the best vice president anybody could ever hope for, Joe Biden.
And I wouldn’t be the man I am today without the woman who agreed to marry me 20 years ago. Let me say this publicly: Michelle, I have never loved you more. I have never been prouder to watch the rest of America fall in love with you, too, as our nation’s first lady.
Sasha and Malia, before our very eyes you’re growing up to become two strong, smart beautiful young women, just like your mom. And I’m so proud of you guys. But I will say that for now one dog’s probably enough.
To the best campaign team and volunteers in the history of politics. The best. The best ever. Some of you were new this time around, and some of you have been at my side since the very beginning. But all of you are family. No matter what you do or where you go from here, you will carry the memory of the history we made together and you will have the life-long appreciation of a grateful president. Thank you for believing all the way, through every hill, through every valley. You lifted me up the whole way and I will always be grateful for everything that you’ve done and all the incredible work that you put in.
I know that political campaigns can sometimes seem small, even silly. And that provides plenty of fodder for the cynics that tell us that politics is nothing more than a contest of egos or the domain of special interests. But if you ever get the chance to talk to folks who turned out at our rallies and crowded along a rope line in a high school gym, or saw folks working late in a campaign office in some tiny county far away from home, you’ll discover something else.
You’ll hear the determination in the voice of a young field organizer who’s working his way through college and wants to make sure every child has that same opportunity.
You’ll hear the pride in the voice of a volunteer who’s going door to door because her brother was finally hired when the local auto plant added another shift.
Our friends Bea & Steve Rashid appear in this photo, peeking up from the left of the woman in he center of the shot.
You’ll hear the deep patriotism in the voice of a military spouse whose working the phones late at night to make sure that no one who fights for this country ever has to fight for a job or a roof over their head when they come home.
That’s why we do this. That’s what politics can be. That’s why elections matter. It’s not small — it’s big. It’s important.
Democracy in a nation of 300 million can be noisy and messy and complicated. We have our own opinions. Each of us has deeply held beliefs. And when we go through tough times, when we make big decisions as a country, it necessarily stirs passions, stirs up controversy.
That won’t change after tonight, and it shouldn’t.
These arguments we have are a mark of our liberty. We can never forget that as we speak people in distant nations are risking their lives right now just for a chance to argue about the issues that matter, the chance to cast their ballots like we did today.
The marvelous Sydney Crawford is the lovely platinum blonde on Emilia’s left.
But despite all our differences, most of us share certain hopes for America’s future. We want our kids to grow up in a country where they have access to the best schools and the best teachers: a country that lives up to its legacy as the global leader in technology and discovery and innovation — with all the good jobs and new businesses that follow.
We want our children to live in an America that isn’t burdened by debt, that isn’t weakened by inequality, that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet.
We want to pass on a country that’s safe and respected and admired around the world, a nation that is defended by the strongest military on earth and the best troops this — this world has ever known.
But also a country that moves with confidence beyond this time of war, to shape a peace that is built on the promise of freedom and dignity for every human being. We believe in a generous America, in a compassionate America, in a tolerant America, open to the dreams of an immigrant’s daughter who studies in our schools and pledges to our flag.
To the young boy on the south side of Chicago who sees a life beyond the nearest street corner. To the furniture worker’s child in North Carolina who wants to become a doctor or a scientist, an engineer or an entrepreneur, a diplomat or even a president — that’s the future we hope for. That’s the vision we share. That’s where we need to go — forward.
That’s where we need to go.
Now, we will disagree, sometimes fiercely, about how to get there. As it has for more than two centuries, progress will come in fits and starts. It’s not always a straight line. It’s not always a smooth path.
By itself, the recognition that we have common hopes and dreams won’t end all the gridlock or solve all our problems or substitute for the painstaking work of building consensus and making the difficult compromises needed to move this country forward. But that common bond is where we must begin.
Our economy is recovering. A decade of war is ending. A long campaign is now over. And whether I earned your vote or not, I have listened to you, I have learned from you, and you’ve made me a better president. And with your stories and your struggles, I return to the White House more determined and more inspired than ever about the work there is to do and the future that lies ahead.
Tonight you voted for action, not politics as usual. You elected us to focus on your jobs, not ours. And in the coming weeks and months, I am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders of both parties to meet the challenges we can only solve together. Reducing our deficit. Reforming our tax code. Fixing our immigration system. Freeing ourselves from foreign oil. We’ve got more work to do.
Shelly Goldstein keeps count of Obama’s Electoral College victory.
But that doesn’t mean your work is done. The role of citizens in our Democracy does not end with your vote. America’s never been about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us together through the hard and frustrating, but necessary work of self-government. That’s the principle we were founded on.
This country has more wealth than any nation, but that’s not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military in history, but that’s not what makes us strong. Our university, our culture are all the envy of the world, but that’s not what keeps the world coming to our shores. What makes America exceptional are the bonds that hold together the most diverse nation on earth: the belief that our destiny is shared; that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations. The freedom which so many Americans have fought for and died for come with responsibilities as well as rights. And among those are love and charity and duty and patriotism. That’s what makes America great.
I am hopeful tonight because I’ve seen the spirit at work in America. I’ve seen it in the family business whose owners would rather cut their own pay than lay off their neighbors, and in the workers who would rather cut back their hours than see a friend lose a job. I’ve seen it in the soldiers who reenlist after losing a limb and in those SEALs who charged up the stairs into darkness and danger because they knew there was a buddy behind them watching their back. I’ve seen it on the shores of New Jersey and New York, where leaders from every party and level of government have swept aside their differences to help a community rebuild from the wreckage of a terrible storm.
And I saw just the other day, in Mentor, Ohio, where a father told the story of his 8-year-old daughter, whose long battle with leukemia nearly cost their family everything had it not been for health care reform passing just a few months before the insurance company was about to stop paying for her care. I had an opportunity to not just talk to the father, but meet this incredible daughter of his. And when he spoke to the crowd listening to that father’s story, every parent in that room had tears in their eyes, because we knew that little girl could be our own. And I know that every American wants her future to be just as bright. That’s who we are. That’s the country I’m so proud to lead as your president.
And tonight, despite all the hardship we’ve been through, despite all the frustrations of Washington, I’ve never been more hopeful about our future. I have never been more hopeful about America. And I ask you to sustain that hope. I’m not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. I’m not talking about the wishful idealism that allows us to just sit on the sidelines or shirk from a fight. I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting.
America, I believe we can build on the progress we’ve made and continue to fight for new jobs and new opportunity and new security for the middle class. I believe we can keep the promise of our founders, the idea that if you’re willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from or what you look like or where you love. It doesn’t matter whether you’re black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or young or old or rich or poor, able, disabled, gay or straight, you can make it here in America if you’re willing to try.
The author and his wife, Victoria, seal the victory with a kiss.
I believe we can seize this future together because we are not as divided as our politics suggests. We’re not as cynical as the pundits believe. We are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions, and we remain more than a collection of red states and blue states. We are and forever will be the United States of America. And together with your help and God’s grace we will continue our journey forward and remind the world just why it is that we live in the greatest nation on Earth.
Thank you, America. God bless you. God bless these United States.
Note: After President Obama’s speech, the news media went into action across the Internet, relaying the news of Obama’s victory across the world. And, quite often, our daughter found herself the face of that glorious, victorious night.
Filed under History, Politics
Tagged as Chicago, current-events, election night 2012, Electoral College, Emilia Barrosse, Joe Biden, McCormick Place, mccormick place convention center, Obama's victory, photographs, President Obama, Presidential Election, Romney, speech, talking points memo
GOTV: Occupy the Voting Booth!
It’s Sunday morning, President Obama’s giving a great speech on C-Span, and I’m going to an Obama for America call center this afternoon to spend a few hours helping to get out the vote in swing state Nevada. My daughter is going door to door for Obama in Wisconsin this weekend. My cousins in Cleveland have already voted early to help make sure the GOP Secretary of State in Ohio can’t mess with them on Election Day.
It’s GOTV time. Those of us in heavily blue states MUST get out and vote in big numbers so Obama-Biden captures the popular vote as well as the Electoral College.
Let’s go, California progressives! Vote like the Golden State is a swing state and the polls are within the margin of error.
Vote to re-elect President Barack Obama!
From Andrew Sullivan in The Daily Beast:
Filed under Politics
Tagged as California, Electoral College, GOTV, Obama. Biden, occupy the voting booth, Occupy Wall Street, Ohio, Presidential Election, Romney, swing state
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Communique Of The 23rd Extra-Ordinary Session Of The IGAD On The Situation In South Sudan
The IGAD Assembly of Heads of State and Government held its 23rd Extraordinary Summit in Nairobi, Kenya on 27th of December 2013, under the Chairmanship of H.E. Hailemariam Desalegn, the Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and the Chairperson of the IGAD Summit to discuss the situation in the Republic of South Sudan.
The Assembly was attended by H.E. Ismail Omar Guelleh, President of the Republic of Djibouti; H. E. Uhuru Kenyatta, President of the Republic of Kenya H.E. Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, President of the Federal Republic of Somalia; H. E. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, President of the Republic of Uganda; H.E. Bakri Hassan Saleh, First Vice President of the Republic of the Sudan; and H.E Dr. Barnaba Marial Benjamin, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of South Sudan.
The Assembly was also attended by Ambassador (Eng.) Mahboub Maalim, the Executive Secretary of IGAD and Ambassador Erastus Mwencha, the Deputy Chairperson of the African Union Commission.
The Summit received a briefing from the President of the Republic of Uganda on his country’s efforts in securing critical infrastructure and installations in the Republic of South Sudan as well as in evacuating its citizens.
The Summit further received a briefing from the Chairperson of the IGAD Council of Ministers and Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, H.E. Tedros Adhanom on the emergency three-day visit to Juba, Republic of South Sudan by the IGAD Council of Ministers on 19th December 2013.
After consideration of the reports and its deliberations on the overall political and security situation in South Sudan,
The summit:
On South Sudan
1. Recalling the hope for freedom, justice and prosperity that the people of the Republic of South Sudan expressed with joy on 9th July 2011 on occasion of the independence of the Republic of South Sudan
2. Cognizant of the peace, security and development that has been achieved in the Republic of South Sudan since independence in the midst of various challenges
3. Noting with satisfaction the positive development between the brotherly countries of the Republic of South Sudan and the Republic of Sudan and in that regard, commend H.E. President Omar Al-Bashir and H.E. President Salva Kiir Mayardit for their tireless efforts in bringing peace, security and prosperity to their two peoples.
4. Concerned by the unfortunate events that took place on the 15th of December 2013 and the subsequent escalation of the conflict and deterioration of the humanitarian situation;
5. Further Concerned about the reported widespread atrocities, deaths and displacement of civilian population;
6. Expressing their solidarity with the people of South Sudan at this hour of distress and tribulation;
7. Condemns all unconstitutional actions to challenge the constitutional order, democracy and the rule of law and in particularly condemns changing the democratic government of the Republic of South Sudan through use of force
8. Further Condemns the violent escalation of conflict in South Sudan and calls on all parties to refrain from steps that will inflame the conflict further particularly along ethnic and sectarian lines and particularly strongly condemns the bankrupt and opportunistic ideology of ethnic and religious sectarianism
9. Calls on all humanitarian actors to act quickly and provide all necessary assistance to all civilians and specifically calls on the government of South Sudan and all armed groups to open humanitarian corridors and ensure protection of civilian population;
10. Notes with satisfaction the IGAD Council of Ministers emergency visit of 19 December 2013 and the discussions with President Salva Kiir Mayardit and other stakeholders;
11. Commends the expressed commitment of both sides to engage in dialogue and reiterates the imperative of an immediate pursuit of a political solution including an all inclusive dialogue among all stakeholders concerned;
12. Commends the UN Security Council Resolution 2132 of 2013 which it notes as a prudent and timely move to complement ongoing political efforts in alleviating the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation in the country.
13. Commends the effort of the Republic of Uganda in securing critical infrastructure and installations in South Sudan and pledges its support to these effort;
14. Reaffirms the strong commitment of IGAD countries to assist in the pursuit of a speedy political solution to the crisis;
15. Made the following decisions: Stakeholders in the Republic of South Sudan:
• Welcomed the commitment by the Government of the Republic of South Sudan on immediately beginning unconditional dialogue with all stakeholders;
• Welcomed the commitment by the Government of the Republic of South Sudan to an immediate cessation of hostilities and called upon Dr. Riek Machar and other parties to make similar commitments;
• Determined that if hostilities do not cease within 4 days of this communiqué, the Summit will consider taking further measures;
• Requested all parties to accept a monitoring, verification and stabilisation mechanism;
• Undertake urgent measures in pursuit of an all inclusive dialogue including reviewing the status of the detainees in recognition of their role in accordance with the laws of the Republic of South Sudan, and in creating a conducive environment for all stakeholders to participate and determines that face-to-face talks by all stakeholders in the conflict should occur by the 31st of December 2013;
• Ensure the protection of civilians and humanitarian workers including those from neighbouring countries;
• Strongly Condemns criminal acts of murder, sexual violence, looting and other criminal acts against civilians and unarmed combatants by any actor and demand that all involved by be held responsible by their de-facto and or de jure leaders
• Liaise with IGAD envoys and the Council of Ministers to support the process of dialogue and related political and technical reforms;
16. The United Nations, the African Union and the International Community to:
• Support the IGAD process;
• Ensure that humanitarian assistance is immediately delivered to all affected;
• Support constitutional and other political reforms in South Sudan;
17. IGAD Member States:
• Direct the Council of Ministers to continue working with the Government of South Sudan and make contact with Dr. Riek Machar and other leaders
critical to bringing about peace; and keep the Summit appraised;
18. Directs the IGAD Secretariat to transmit these decisions to the African Union Commission and the United Nations Security Council;
19. Decides to remain seized of these matters.
Issued this 27th of December 2013 at State House, Nairobi, Kenya
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Patricia W. Hatamyar Moore
St. Thomas University School of Law
16401 N.W. 37th Ave.
The Tao of Pleading: Do Twombly and Iqbal Matter Empirically?
American University Law Review, Vol. 59, p. 553, 2010
Number of pages: 83 Posted: 13 Oct 2009 Last Revised: 24 Jan 2012
The Anti-Plaintiff Pending Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Pro-Defendant Composition of the Federal Rulemaking Committees
University of Cincinnati Law Review, Forthcoming, St. Thomas University School of Law (Florida) Research Paper No. 2015-09
Number of pages: 74 Posted: 23 Jun 2015 Last Revised: 04 Dec 2015
FRCP, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Civil Rules Advisory Committee
The Civil Caseload of the Federal District Courts
2015 University of Illinois Law Review 1177, St. Thomas University School of Law (Florida) Research Paper No. 2014-05
Number of pages: 62 Posted: 29 Mar 2014 Last Revised: 06 Jun 2015
federal courts, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, caseload statistics, Administrative Office of the United States Courts, litigation explosion
Active Learning and Law School Performance
Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 67-81, 2011
Number of pages: 15 Posted: 01 Jul 2011 Last Revised: 18 Dec 2012
Patricia W. Hatamyar Moore and Todd P. Sullivan
St. Thomas University School of Law and St. Thomas University - School of Law
Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, Vol. 3, No. 2, Summer 2011, St. Thomas University School of Law Research Paper No. 7
An Updated Quantitative Study of Iqbal's Impact on 12(B)(6) Motions
University of Richmond Law Review, Vol. 46, p. 603, 2012
civil procedure, pleading, Iqbal, civil rights, empirical legal studies, Federal Judicial Center
Brief of Thirty-Four Law Professors as Amici Curiae in Support of Appellants in Altera Corp. v. Papst Licensing GMBH
Southwestern Law School Research Paper No. 2015-25
Number of pages: 28 Posted: 22 Dec 2015 Last Revised: 06 Jan 2021
Debra Lyn Bassett, Anya Bernstein, Jeremy Bock, Patrick Joseph Borchers, Michael J. Burstein, Michael A. Carrier, Bernard Chao, Colleen V. Chien, Jorge L. Contreras, Scott Dodson, Joshua A. Douglas, Catherine Ross Dunham, Katherine Florey, Roger Allan Ford, Leah Chan Grinvald, Paul R. Gugliuzza, Timothy R. Holbrook, William Hubbard, Sapna Kumar, Megan M. La Belle, Mark A. Lemley, David I. Levine, Joseph Scott Miller, Patricia W. Hatamyar Moore, Ira Steven Nathenson, Xuan-Thao Nguyen, Philip A. Pucillo, Charles W. (Rocky) Rhodes, Cassandra Burke Robertson, Christopher B. Seaman, Gregory C. Sisk, Howard Wasserman, Buzz and Matthew K. Telford
Southwestern Law School, University at Buffalo Law School, Tulane University Law School, Creighton University School of Law, Yeshiva University - Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Rutgers Law School, University of Denver Sturm College of Law, Santa Clara University - School of Law, University of Utah - S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of California Hastings College of the Law, University of Kentucky - College of Law, Elon University School of Law, University of California, Davis, University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law, Suffolk University Law School, Temple University - James E. Beasley School of Law, Emory University, University of Baltimore - School of Law, University of Houston Law Center, Catholic University of America (CUA) - Columbus School of Law, Stanford Law School, UC Hastings Law, University of Georgia School of Law, St. Thomas University School of Law, St. Thomas University School of Law, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, Center for Intellectual Property & Innovation, Michigan State University College of Law, South Texas College of Law, Case Western Reserve University School of Law, Washington and Lee University School of Law, University of St. Thomas School of Law (Minnesota), Florida International University (FIU) - College of Law, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP and University of Pennsylvania Law School - Student/Alumni/Adjunct
patent, declaratory judgment, jurisdiction, personal jurisdiction, patent assertion entity, minimum contacts
Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins: The Illusory 'No-Injury Class' Reaches the Supreme Court
St. Thomas Journal of Complex Litigation (JCL), Forthcoming, St. Thomas University School of Law (Florida) Research Paper
Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, Article III standing, class actions, Fair Credit Reporting Act
Confronting the Myth of 'State Court Class Action Abuses' Through an Understanding of Heuristics and a Plea for More Statistics
University of Missouri-Kansas City Law Review, Vol. 82, No. 1, 2013
Interstate Establishment, Enforcement, and Modification of Child Support Orders
Oklahoma City University of law Review, Vol. 25, p. 511, 2000
Uniform Interstate Family Support Act, collection of child support, Full Faith and Credit for Child Support Orders Act
How to Write a $75,000 Brief: A Billable-Hours Fable
Number of pages: 8 Posted: 22 Oct 2008
Legal Profession, Professional Ethics
Comments in Opposition to the Proposed Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
Number of pages: 9 Posted: 03 Feb 2014
The Effect of 'Tort Reform' on Tort Case Filings
Valparaiso University Law Review, Vol. 43, No. 2, 2009
tort reform, Oklahoma, court filing statistics
See No Evil? The Role of the Directed Trustee Under ERISA
Tennessee Law Review, Vol. 64, No. 1, 1996
Are Women More Ethical Lawyers? An Empirical Study
Florida State University Law Review, Vol. 31, p. 785, 2004
Patricia W. Hatamyar Moore and Kevin M. Simmons
St. Thomas University School of Law and Austin College - Department of Economics
attorney disciplinary actions, gender differences
Prepared Statement, Hearing on 'The State of Class Actions Ten Years after the Class Action Fairness Act'
class actions, Class Action Fairness Act
Answer to Questions for the Record Submitted to Professor Patricia W. Moore Following the Hearing on 'The State of Class Actions Ten Years after the Enactment of the Class Action Fairness Act'
class actions, Class Action Fairness Act, Rule 23, Wal-Mart v. Dukes, Civil Rules Advisory Committee
Critical Applications and Proposals for Improvement of the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act and the Federal Full Faith and Credit for Child Support Orders Act
St. John's Law Review , Vol. 71, No. 1, 1997
UIFSA, FFCCSOA, child support jurisdiction
The Confrontation Clause
Oklahoma Practice Series, Vol. 7, 2007
Number of pages: 12 Posted: 04 Jul 2009 Last Revised: 24 Jan 2012
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Glendale author Tim Wahl introduces football to non-native speakers
Posted by storres@timespublications.com | Oct 29, 2020 | 0 |
Glendale author Tim Wahl is bringing together his two loves—English as a Second Language and football—for his new book,
“Footballogy: Elements of American Football for Non-Native Speakers of English” includes readings, illustrations, puzzles and self-assessments that guide readers to learn the story of football’s history and traditions as well as how the game is played.
Wahl, who just retired from a 32-year career in adult education with the Los Angeles Unified School District, taught ESL to people from all around the world. After years of researching American football being played in other countries, Wahl decided to use is retirement to write this book.
The book is written for people who are learning English and want to discover more about American culture. It can be used in classrooms as a means of learning the English language or for individual preference.
Hailing from Upstate New York, Wahl earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Iowa and his master’s degree at the University of Phoenix before moving to LA and teaching junior high school.
Wahl said he didn’t know what ESL was before he started teaching it. While working as a junior high school teacher, Wahl said he was advised to teach ESL to adults because they believed it was the greatest job.
“I got into it purely by accident,” Wahl said.
In the beginning, Wahl taught ESL to adults at night in Chinatown as a part-time job and continued his day job teaching kids.
Wahl said he enjoyed it so much that he made it his full-time job and ended up teaching adult education for 32 years.
Wahl is hoping to expand the works of “Footballogy” to workshops on American football in other countries. The problem, according to Wahl, is that he doesn’t have name recognition.
“I’m not somebody who played in the NFL,” Wahl said.
His book, “Footballogy: Elements of American Football for Non-Native Speakers of English,” is available at online retailers as well as available for discounted bulk orders through eslpublishing.com. n
PreviousFor King & Country saves the holiday for the less fortunate
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Installation, Maintenance & Warranty
Screens Overview
Screen Range by PO Box
Freeform Features
PO Box Designs – Trading Terms
In these Trading Terms:
(a) ACL means the Australian Consumer Law set out in a Schedule to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth);
(b) Approved Credit Limit has the meaning given to that term in clause 6(d);
(c) Consumer Guarantee has the meaning given to that term in the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth);
(d) Customer means the person or entity ordering a Job, as shown on the invoice, purchase order or other document evidencing an order for a Job;
(e) Credit Application means any form accepted by PBD as an application for credit;
(f) GST means the goods and services tax levied under the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999 (Cth) as amended;
(g) Job means the provision of goods and services by PBD to the Customer from time to time and described on an invoice;
(h) PBD means Bubbalooba Pty Ltd ACN 151030796 trading as PO Box Designs ABN 15 151 030 796;
(i) PPSA means the Personal Property Securities Act 2009 (Cth);
(j) Quote means a quote given to the Customer by the Supplier outlining the Job to be done by the Supplier and the price payable by the Customer to the Supplier in respect of same; and
(k) terms not defined but referred to in a Quote have the meaning given to them in the Quote
(a) These Trading Terms apply to all Jobs performed by PBD for the Customer unless expressly waived or varied by PBD in writing.
(b) These Trading Terms prevail over any conditions on the Customer’s order to the extent of any inconsistency.
(c) Each order of a Job by the Customer and each payment made by the Customer to PBD represents the Customer’s unequivocal and irrevocable acceptance that these Trading Terms apply as a legally binding contract between PBD and the Customer, whether or not the Customer signs a Quote or any other document.
PBD’s Quotes are open for acceptance within the period stated within them, or if no period is stated, within 30 days.
PBD’s products are custom made to order. The Customer accepts that works and items produced in order to complete the Job may slightly differ from 3D-rendered designs and photographs of previous Jobs completed by PBD.
(a) The order of precedence for determining the price of each Job shall be:
(i) the price shown on PBD’s invoice;
(ii) PBD’s current ruling price at the date of delivery; and
(iii) any Quote given by PBD.
(b) PBD makes no warranty that the price of a Job at the date of delivery shall be the same as at the date of order or quotation. If the Customer requests or agrees to variations, the Customer must pay the cost of such variations (as assessed by PBD) in addition to the price.
(c) Prices quoted do not include freight or delivery.
(d) Unless specifically stated, all prices quoted exclude GST.
(a) PBD may, but is not obliged to, perform a Job on terms that do not require payment in full at the time of delivery. If it does so, this clause applies.
(b) PBD may require the Customer to complete a Credit Application as a condition of extending credit.
(c) PBD may withdraw, suspend or vary the conditions of credit at any time.
(d) PBD may set and vary credit limits for the Customer from time to time (Approved Credit Limit).
(e) PBD may:
(i) vary the Customer’s Approved Credit Limit at any time; and/or
(ii) require the Customer to make a payment on or prior to delivery at any time.
(f) The Customer warrants and acknowledges that:
(i) the Customer has read and understood the Credit Application and these Trading Terms;
(ii) all of the information provided by the Customer to PBD is true and correct in every particular;
(iii) the Customer can pay its debts as and when they fall due;
(iv) each person who submits a Credit Application and makes orders on behalf of the Customer is (or at the time of making each order will be) authorised to do each of those things on behalf of the Customer, and the Customer promises not to make any claim or seek to withhold any payment or avoid its obligations, in respect of any of the above matters.
(g) If the Customer is a company, each director of the company must execute a guarantee & indemnity (in the form required by PBD) as security for obligations and payments due by the Customer to PBD under these Trading Terms.
(h) The Customer authorises and consents to the release to PBD of any information sought by PBD from any bank, financial institution, credit provider, credit reporting agency or register. If requested by PBD, the Customer must sign any document needed to enable PBD to obtain
such information.
(i) PBD may obtain, and the Customer must provide, further information from time to time.
(j) PBD’s rights under paragraphs (h) and (i) above extend to any person who has or is required to give a guarantee under this clause.
(a) Notwithstanding any prior grant of credit to the Customer, PBD reserves the right to:
(i) require a deposit to be paid before commencing manufacture of and/or ordering inputs and/or
setting aside the Job; and
(ii) demand progress payments as a condition of continuing or completing any job; and
(iii) demand payment prior to delivery in respect of any delivery of Job.
(b) Payment for each Job is due:
(i) for Customers with an Approved Credit Limit, by no later than the 14th day from the date of invoice; and
(ii) in all other cases, on or before the date of delivery/installation.
(c) All payments must be made in full without set off.
(d) PBD may charge and the Customer must pay:
(i) interest at the rate of 18% per annum, on all amounts not paid by the due date for payment, with such interest calculated from the due date until the date that all amounts due (including interest) are received as clear funds by the PBD; and
(ii) any other costs or fees incurred or applicable as a consequence of the late payment
(a) Delivery times made known to the Customer are estimates only and PBD will not be liable for any loss, damage or delay to the Customer (or its customers) arising from late delivery or non-delivery.
(b) For the purpose of these Trading Terms, a Job will be deemed to have been delivered:
(i) when delivered to or installed at the address shown on the Quote; or
(ii) when delivered into the possession of the Customer or a carrier engaged by the Customer, at the premises of PBD.
(c) PBD is not responsible to the Customer or any other person claiming through the Customer for any loss or damage to a Job in transit.
(a) The Customer shall inspect all goods immediately upon delivery/completion and shall not make any claim in respect of the Job unless the Job is defective and the Customer provides written notice of any alleged defect to PBD (defect notice) within seven (7) days of delivery.
(b) If the Customer fails to give a defect notice in accordance with this clause, then subject to
any non-excludable condition implied by law, the Job shall be deemed to have been accepted by the Customer.
(c) If PBD accepts a defect notice, the Customer must permit PBD to have access for the purpose of attending to any agreed remedial work.
No order may be cancelled except with PBD’s written consent and on terms which indemnify PBD against loss and damage occasioned by the cancellation.
Except as required under any applicable law, PBD is not obliged to accept return of any Job, and will only do so on terms agreed in writing.
(a) Title to each Job does not pass to the Customer until payment in full is received by PBD from the Customer, and until the price is paid in full the Customer must:
(i) store goods which have not been installed or paid for separately;
(ii) keep separate records in relation to the proceeds of the sale of any Job which has not been paid for, hold the proceeds of any such sale upon trust for and immediately remit such funds to the credit of PBD; and
(iii) if any Jobs are used or mixed with other materials, record the value of the Job so consumed in relation to each unit of finished product and upon sale of any unit of finished product immediately remit that amount from the proceeds of sale to PBD.
(b) If the Customer does not pay for any Job on the due date specified in each invoice, PBD is irrevocably authorised by the Customer to enter the Customer’s premises (or any premises under the control of the Customer or as agent of the Customer if the Job is stored at such premises) and use reasonable force to take possession of the Job without liability for the tort
of trespass, negligence or payment of any compensation to the Customer or anyone claiming
through the Customer whatsoever. Repossession of goods does not limit PBD’s right to claim for the price or for any other loss or damage.
(c) Even after delivery, the Job shall remain the property of PBD until all outstanding debts owed by the Customer to PBD, including part paid debts and secured debts, are paid.
(a) In this clause 13, terms which are defined in the PPSA have the meaning given to them in the PPSA.
(b) The Customer agrees to grant PBD a security interest in all of the Customer’s present and after-acquired property and their proceeds, as security for payments due from the Customer to PBD.
(c) At the request of PBD, the Customer agrees to promptly execute any documentation necessary, or to do anything else required by PBD, to ensure that the security interest created under these Trading Terms shall constitute a first ranking, perfected security interest over the Customer’s property and their proceeds. This includes providing any information necessary for PBD to complete a financing statement or financing change statement.
(d) The Customer waives the Customer’s right to receive a copy of a verification statement under the PPSA.
(e) The Customer agrees to reimburse PBD for all costs and charges incurred, expended or payable by PBD in relation to the filing of a financing statement or financing change statement in accordance with these Trading Terms.
Risk in each Job passes to the Customer upon delivery/installation.
Except as expressly set out, PBD makes no express warranties or other representations under these Trading Terms.
(a) Nothing in these Terms & Conditions purports to modify or exclude the Consumer Guarantees, or any other right available to the Buyer under the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) (including the ACL).
(b) Except as expressly set out, PBD makes no express warranties or other representations under these Terms & Conditions.
(a) PBD’s liability in respect of the Consumer Guarantees and any other warranties is limited to the fullest extent permitted by law.
(b) To the extent permitted by statute, the Consumer Guarantees and any other warranties or representations are void if the Customer or any other person:
(i) attempts to modify, reverse engineer, decompile, create other works or products from, or disassemble part or all of the Job;
(ii) interferes with, alters or removes any packaging or labelling from a component of the Job;
(iii) causes or permits any contamination to part or all of the Job; or
(iv) fails to comply with manufacturer’s instructions in relation to the use, application, storage and integrity of any component comprising the Job (including specifications and installation guidelines set out in any product manual).
(c) To the extent permitted by law, the liability of PBD from the failure of any Job to comply with the Consumer Guarantees or any other warranty or condition implied by law shall be limited to (at PBD’s option):
(i) the replacement or resupply of a part or parts of the Job;
(ii) the cost of replacement or resupply of a part or parts of the Job;
(iii) the repair of the Job; or
(iv) the cost of the repair of the Job.
(a) Safety: Where PBD works at a site controlled by or at the request of the Customer, the Customer must ensure that the site is safe and that the Customer complies with all applicable health & safety requirements. PBD agrees to comply with the Customer’s reasonable directions regarding health & safety whilst on site. PBD reserve the right to refuse to enter
and perform work at any site which it considers to be unsafe.
(b) Force Majeure: The Customer releases PBD from any claim, liability or responsibility concerning late delivery or failure to deliver a Job if this is due to strike, lockout, riot, industrial action, fire, storm, tempest, act of God, material shortage, government law or regulation or requirement or any other cause beyond the control of PBD and no such failure shall entitle the Customer to cancel and order or withhold payment.
(c) Entire Agreement:
(i) These Trading Terms contain the entire agreement between the parties and supersede all previous agreements concluded between the parties. Each order and invoice (or delivery slip) shall constitute a binding and enforceable contract between PBD and the Customer on the terms set out in these Trading Terms.
(ii) Any attempt by the Customer to impose any variation or additional terms inconsistent with these Trading Terms shall not bind PBD.
(d) Proper law: These Trading Terms are to be interpreted in accordance with the Acts of the State of Victoria Australia, and the parties submit to the jurisdiction of the Courts of that State.
(e) Dispute Resolution: If a dispute arises out of, or in any way in connection with, or otherwise relates to the supply of a Job, these Trading Terms or the breach, termination, validity or subject matter thereof, or as to any related claim at law, in equity or pursuant to any statute, the parties agree that they must not commence proceedings (other than for urgent interlocutory relief) in respect of such dispute until the parties first meet in good faith and use
their best endeavours to resolve the dispute to their mutual satisfaction.
(f) Variation
PBD may vary these Trading Terms from time to time, by notice in writing to the Customer.
© 2020 Bubbalooba Pty Ltd
Trading as P.O. BOX DESIGNS
Shed 13B 422 Sutton St
DELACOMBE (Ballarat) Vic 3350
Email: sales@poboxdesigns.com.au Phone: +61 3 4333 9271
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William I. H. and Lula E. Pitts Foundation
William Irby Hudson Pitts was a lifelong resident of Waverly Hall, Georgia. Born on a nearby plantation in 1862, Pitts attended local schools and then traveled to Atlanta to attend the Morris Business School. After working a year in Columbus, he returned to Waverly Hall to join his father’s mercantile business. Eventually, Pitts turned the small general store, along with early investments in Coca-Cola stock and other business activities, into a multi-million dollar fortune. A devout Methodist, Pitts attributed his good fortune to a golden rule that he hung in his family home: “All things work together for good to them that love God.”
In 1888, Pitts married Lula Cook Ellison of Ellerslie, Georgia. The couple had three children: Bessie, who died in 1907, W.I.H. Pitts, Jr., and Margaret Adger Pitts.
“Miss Margaret,” as she was called, never married and lived most of her life in the house her father built for the family. Both she and her parents were known for their philanthropy and their dedication to the Methodist Church. As one former business associate said of Mr. Pitts, he was “a man who was thrifty with a penny but charitable with dollars.” He gave away more than $1 million to charitable causes before his death at age 102 in 1964.
Upon establishing the William I.H. and Lula E. Pitts Foundation in 1941, Mr. Pitts named his daughter Margaret to a post as a lifetime trustee. Through the Foundation, the family gave away millions to Methodist causes and institutions, including LaGrange College, Andrew College in Cuthbert, Georgia, the Candler School of Theology at Emory University, Magnolia Manor in Americus, and Epworth-By-The-Sea, a Methodist retreat center on St. Simons Island.
Miss Margaret died at 104 years of age in 1998, and attributed her long life to good food, surrounding herself with good people, and asking the Lord to look after her every day.
Today, the trustees of the Pitts Foundation continue to honor the wishes of Mr. and Mrs. Pitts and Miss Margaret. The trustees use the original document as well as what is known of the donors’ philosophy as principal guides in making grant decisions.
“Of him it may be said as of one of England’s noble great: ‘He gave his substance to the poor, his sympathy to the suffering, his hand to the helpless, and his heart to God.'”
— Hubert T. Quillian,President of LaGrange College
speaking of Mr. Pitts on the founding of the Pitts Foundation
© 2021 William I. H. and Lula E. Pitts Foundation
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Quiz: NFL Hall of Fame Quiz: HowStuffWorks
NFL Hall of Fame Quiz
By: Nathan Chandler
Starry-eyed players all yearn for the NFL Hall of Fame. How much do you know about this gallery of gridiron greatness? Find out by taking this quiz!!!
Where is the Pro Football Hall of Fame (HOF) located?
About 400,000 people live in the Canton metro area, which is near Akron.
What color is the jacket awarded to Hall of Famers when they are inducted?
Each member of the Hall of Fame is given a gold blazer.
Who selects the players who are inducted into the HOF?
team owners
A few dozen members of the media vote for their choices each year. One media member from each team's city is allowed to vote.
How many years must a player or coach have been retired before they are eligible for the Hall of Fame?
After a player or coach is retired for five years, anyone — including fans — can nominate them for Hall of Fame consideration.
In what year was the HOF established?
The HOF was established in 1963. Its mission is to, "honor the heroes of the game, preserve its history, promote its values and celebrate excellence."
Which college has produced the greatest number of Hall of Famers?
Notre Dame leads the way with 13 Hall of Fame players, as of 2016. That list includes players like Tim Brown, Jerome Bettis and Joe Montana.
Which of these longtime NFL coaches is NOT in the Hall of Fame?
Chuck Noll
Marty Schottenheimer
On average, a coach is inducted into the HOF every other year. As of 2016, there are 23 inducted coaches.
Which of these Hall of Fame quarterbacks never won a Super Bowl title?
As of 2016, 25 modern-era QBs have been inducted into the HOF, including Steve Young, Bob Griese and Len Dawson.
Which school produced Hall of Famers like Marcus Allen, Frank Gifford and Ronnie Lott?
As of 2016, 12 former USC Trojans are in the Hall of Fame.
Which NFL team has the most HOF inductees?
The Bears are fertile grounds for Hall of Famers — as of 2016, 32 Bears players have been voted into the Hall.
Al Davis made it into the HOF for his accomplishments as what?
coach/owner
Davis was head coach of the Raiders in the 60s and then became a flashy, controversial team owner.
How many players were inducted in the Hall's first class?
There were 17 players inducted in the first year, far more than most years.
Are there more offensive linemen or defensive linemen in the HOF?
As of 2016, there are 44 offensive linemen in the Hall, and 37 defensive linemen.
How many Cincinnati Bengals players have been inducted into the Hall?
As of 2016, the Bengals have been home to just two Hall of Famers — Charlie Joiner and Anthony Munoz.
Jan Stenerud was the first player at which position to be named to the HOF?
Stenerud was the first full-time placekicker to be named to the HOF. He had a soccer-style kicking technique that he honed during his formative years in Norway.
To be inducted, a person must receive what percentage of the selection committee’s final vote?
You need a very solid vote count to make it into the HOF -- at least 80 percent of the selection committee must vote for you in order to finalize your induction.
Which Green Bay Packers legend — whom the team’s stadium is named after — was part of the first HOF class?
Earl “Curly” Lambeau
Bart Starr
Green Bay is one of the NFL’s most cherished franchises for a reason — the team has been home to more than 20 Hall of Famers.
Which of these former No. 1 overall draft picks is also a Hall of Famer?
Drew Bledsoe
As of 2016, 12 No. 1 draft picks are also a part of the HOF. That list includes names like John Elway, Paul Hornung and O.J. Simpson.
How many NFL teams have NO Hall of Fame inductees?
There are only two of the NFL's 32 teams who can't claim a Hall of Fame player.
Which two teams do NOT have a Hall of Fame inductee to their credit?
Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Seattle Seahawks
Jacksonville Jaguars and Houston Texans
Tennessee Titans and Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The Jaguars and Texans are the only teams without an inductee. They are relatively new franchises that started in 1995 and 2002, respectively.
George Halas, one of the charter inductees in 1963, owned and coached what NFL team?
As owner and coach of the Bears, Halas won eight titles.
Who is the only player inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the Canadian Football Hall of Fame?
Moon, who starred for the Edmonton Eskimos for six years, also played in the NFL from 1984 to 2000. He threw 291 touchdowns in his NFL career.
Which of these former Kansas City Chiefs greats is in the Hall of Fame?
Deron Cherry
Priest Holmes
Derrick Thomas
As of 2016, nine Chiefs have been inducted into the Hall.
In what year was a punter finally inducted into the HOF?
It took roughly half a century for a punter to make the HOF. It was a Ray Guy, who played for the Raiders in the 70s and 80s.
Harry Carson and Ray Nitschke both played what position and made it into the HOF?
Both were linebackers. As of 2016, there are 27 linebackers in the HOF.
Who is the only Hall of Famer to have played his entire career with the Baltimore Ravens?
Walter Jones
Johnathan Ogden
Orlando Pace
Ogden, a dominant offensive lineman, played with the Ravens from 1996 through 2007. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2013.
Mike Ditka won a Super Bowl as a coach, but he’s in the Hall of Fame for his playing career at what position?
As of 2016, there are only eight tight ends in the HOF, including Ditka.
On which day each year does the selection committee elect new members to the HOF?
the day before the Super Bowl
the day before the NFL Draft
The committee gathers each year to elect new Hall of Famers on “Selection Saturday,” in the city where the Super Bowl is hosted.
In what month is the annual Hall of Fame enshrinement ceremony held?
The ceremony is part of a long weekend full of activities in Canton, which also includes a parade and a preseason game.
As of 2016, how many players have been inducted into the HOF?
In the Hall's 53 years, 303 players have been inducted. That's an average of fewer than six players per season.
Pass This NFL Hall of Fame Coaches Challenge and Stay Out of the Red Zone!
Can You Name These Members of the Baseball Hall of Fame?
Can You Recognize These MLB Legends From Their Hall of Fame Plaques?
Is This NFL Star a Quarterback or Cornerback?
Can You Identify These NFL Legends From the Past Decade?
NFL Hall of Fame QBs quiz
Can You Name These NFL Players From an Image?
Can You Name the NFL Legend If We Give You the Teams They’ve Played On?
NFL Hall of Fame RBs Quiz
Can You Name the NFL Team If We Give You Three of Their Franchise Legends?
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News for the Month
Consumer Post
Nick Joaquin Literary Awards
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Home Cover Build, build, build
Build, build, build
“In order to achieve accomplishments, one must first accomplish determination.”—Mariveles Mayor Ace Jello Concepcion
Mariveles Mayor Ace Jello Concepcion receives the Seal of Good and Local Governance Award bestowed by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG). With him are (from left): Presidential Adviser on Political Affairs Francis Tolentino and Bataan Gov. Albert S. Garcia
It is a statistic hummed by government officials in this town—every family in Mariveles has at least three breadwinners.
“The family is not dependent on only one working member,” said Mariveles Mayor Ace Jello Concepcion.
He added that these three to four breadwinners in every family are all locally employed. They don’t have to leave their loved ones and go to a faraway country to look for work.
Concepcion is proud to say that in the past year alone, Mariveles has generated around 38,000 jobs for its constituents.
“This was possible through continuous investments and partnerships with international companies, with the assistance of the Authority of the Freeport Area of Bataan (AFAB),” he said.
Mariveles Municipal Administrator Jesus Russel T. Maninang
Jesus Russel T. Maninang, Municipal Administrator of Mariveles, bared that their town is the third richest municipality in the entire country.
“Mariveles is the no. 3 richest out of a total of 1,489 towns, according to the 2016 Commission on Audit (COA) Annual Financial Report,” Maninang said.
The 33-year-old millennial administrator added that last year, Mariveles was also one of the recipients of the Seal of Good and Local Governance Award bestowed by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG).
It is the third consecutive time that Mariveles has won the award.
The town was likewise recognized by the Council for the Welfare of Children (CWC) as the “Most Child-Friendly Municipality in the Philippines.”
For all the accolades earned, there is still no stopping its millennial mayor from accomplishing more. “We are just beginning to see a healthier and more improved municipality. Together with all our local government workers, we take pride in all our accomplishments and vow to continue in providing for our community,” Concepcion said.
Philippines Graphic made a count down of 17 outstanding projects of Mariveles over the past two years.
No. 17 LED street lights
The municipal government will place street lights in all 18 barangays. Already, it has installed 100 street lights for eight barangays in Mariveles: Barangays Poblacion, Balon, San Isidro, San Carlos, Batangas Dos, Townsite, Cabcaben, and Alion. Priority was given to barangays with heavy foot traffic.
LED lights were also installed along the National Road and Highways to provide a safer environment for our constituents, Maninang said. “We have also purchased additional two firetrucks, six dump trucks, one patrol and two ambulance cars, all for providing more efficient public service.”
No. 16 Newly-constructed Executive Conference Hall
The Executive Conference Hall was fully established in 2017. It is now the venue for several municipal meetings such as Budget Meetings, Annual Investment Plan Meetings, and Meetings with Barangay Captains. It has modern technology which allows for more effective presentation and discussion. The Executive Conference Hall is found beside the office of the Mayor.
No. 15 Command Center
This project serves as the electronic eyes and ears that keep Mariveles residents safe. There are CCTVs and computers linked to a mega-screen. Police and fire rescue teams are on round-the-clock alert.
No. 14 Rehabilitation of the Municipal Building
As part of the Local Government Unit’s plan in the continuous development of the municipality, it has also been putting effort in beautifying its own Municipal Compound. The Office of the Mayor, Office of the Vice Mayor, Office of the Municipal Administrator and the Office of the Sangguniang Bayan members underwent the first part of the rehabilitation while others are still in the renovation and construction phase. Furthermore, one of the highlights of the said rehabilitation is the newly constructed fountain located in front of the municipal grounds enjoyed by many locals.
No. 13 Historical Building
The proposed Historical building will be strategically located at the 0KM Marker. It will house the Municipal Historical Council and archive documents of the municipality. This is part of the Local Government Unit’s effort to preserve the rich history of Mariveles in addition to its vast eco and industrial tourism. The Historical building will also serve as a museum which will be open to the public.
No. 12 Tourism Building
Initially located at the Mariveles People’s Park, the Municipal Tourism building will be moved to the 0KM Marker beside the proposed Historical building. This will be the single location where tour operators offering packages can process their required documents for a more convenient transaction. Tourists may also inquire at our Tourism office for information on what our municipality can offer them in terms of industrial, historical and eco-tourism. A Pasalubong Center will also be a part of the building to showcase the products of Mariveles.
No.11 PSO Building
The proposed Public Safety Office building will house the municipality’s safety officers and personnel. It wil serve as their headquarters where they can also entertain complaints and concerns.
No. 10 Senior Citizens and Cooperative Building
The proposed Senior Citizens Cooperative Building will serve as the office for the members of the Senior Citizens and cooperatives. This is where they can facilitate their meetings and coordinate with the other offices.
No. 9 Mariveles Grains
The Mariveles Grains Terminal which was founded in 1996 is currently located at Barangay Baseco, Mariveles, Bataan. It operates a grain terminal which handles various products and services such as storage and distribution of grain products. The company has also offered numerous job opportunities for the constituents of Mariveles.
No. 8 GN Power
GNPower Mariveles Coal Plant is a partnership among AC Energy, Aboitiz Power subsidiary Therma Power and Power Partners. The 632MW power plant started commercial operations in February 2014 and has since been providing competitively priced baseload power to several distribution utilities.
AC Energy, Inc. is the development arm of the Ayala group in the energy sector. The company is committed to build a portfolio of power generation assets using renewable and conventional technologies. AC Energy shall contribute to the country’s energy requirements to power the nation’s progress.
An additional GN 600 MW will supply electricity for the whole of Luzon.
No. 7 Congressman Tet Garcia Legislative Building
The proposed two-story building will serve as the new Sangguniang Bayan building.
It will house the Sangguniang Bayan Session Hall, the Sangguniang Bayan Members and Staff Office, the Library and Archives, as well as the Alternative Learning System and a cafeteria.
No. 6 National Agencies Building
It will be a One-Stop-Shop for all national agency transactions—from the Philippine Postal Corporation (PhilPost), Commission on Elections (Comelec), Public Attorney’s Office (PAO), Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), Commission on Audit (CoA), and the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG).
Mariveles Mayor Ace Jello Concepcion said the three-storey building will provide a more convenient location for the town’s constituents who are processing their documents.
No. 5 Mariveles One-Stop-Shop
According to Mariveles Mayor AJ Concepcion, the three-storey building will provide a more convenient location for the town’s constituents who are processing their documents. Now undergoing construction, it will have a connecting bridge to the main municipal building.
No. 4 Municipal Disaster Risk Reducation and Management Office
The proposed two-storey building has state of the art equipment for monitoring storm paths and tidal threats. It is equipped with a disaster response vehicle and boats for saving those distressed at sea.
Municipal Administrator Maninang added that a 13-man municipal response team from Mariveles participated in the recent Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Asia 2018 held at the SMX Convention Center in Davao City. The summit aimed to hone skills in disaster preparedness and emergency response techniques.
No. 3 Housing
Providing for the housing needs of its constituents is a priority for the municipal government of Mariveles.
Recently, Fiesta Communities, a local government housing project done in partnership with the private sector was offered to the public.
“In a span of three days, the 1,000 units offered were all sold out,” said Mariveles Mayor AJ Concepcion.
He mentioned that they had talked to the Fiesta Communities owner to give the residents of Mariveles the first option to buy the units. Each unit is basically a one-bedroom row house that fetched less than P2.500 a month.
“Considering that a worker inside the Freeport Area of Bataan pays P2,500 for bed space, the Fiesta Communities unit is reasonably priced,” Concepcion said.
He added that they tried offering the Fiesta Communities units to Mariveles informal settlers that were up for relocation.
“We offered it with a P20,000 incentive from the province, and a P10,000 incentive from the local government, plus a discount from the Fiesta Communities. Well, a few took the opportunity but many didn’t,” he said.
Concepcion also said that the Mariveles local government is studying, benchmarking a relocation project in Valenzuela City called Disiplina Village.
“It’s a five-hectare property owned by the Valenzuela City government. They partnered with the National Housing Authority to build medium-rise houses. There is health servicing, a small wet market, a day-care center, peace and order facilities for the Philippine National Police (PNP), and even a fire station. Informal settlers don’t get to own their units but they pay only P300 a month. This is a reasonable arrangement, compared to them sleeping under the bridge or beside a mountain.”
No. 2 District Hospital
Mariveles, said Mayor Concepcion, wants to have a hospital because it is located on the far side of the Bataan peninsula.
But what they will build is a district hospital to be run by the province, but with the support and cooperation of its more affluent cities and towns.
“We have invested quite a bit in that hospital by retrofitting the building for about P10 million. We had it retrofitted because it used to be a school. Yes, it’s the school where I spent my high school,” Concepcion added.
Mariveles Administrator Jesus Russel Maninang said the local government also has its “Serbisyong Abot Kamay” every Friday.
It is a weekly visitation to barangays to provide medical and legal services, even a free haircut.
“We also provide free vaccine for animals and organize a regular zumba class,” Maninang said.
No. 1 Iskolar ng Bayan ng Mariveles
Every year, the municipal government of Mariveles provides scholarship grants to some 1,700 deserving junior and senior high school students. Under the Iskolar ng Bayan ng Mariveles program, these students will be recieving an annual allowance of P6,000.
Mayor Concepcion believes that education and health are the two things that all local governments must prioritize. “If our citizens are unschooled, how can they find work? If they are ailing, how can they continue working? Health and education must get top priority,” he said.
New Mariveles logo
Through Resolution No. 045-2017 (Approving the New Logo Design of the Municipality of Mariveles, Province of Bataan) last March 6, 2017, the Local Government Unit of Mariveles released its new logo.
The Philippine Flag found on the top corner represents the peaceful community of Mariveles.
The Fish and Rice on the left side represents the livelihood of the people of the municipality given its abundance of farms and surrounding seas.
The gear on the right side symbolizes the industrial economy of Mariveles being the home of the Freeport Area of Bataan while the gear’s 18 teeth represents the 18 barangays that make up the municipality.
The Rifle with the Soldier Hat is a symbol of the rich history of Mariveles being the starting point of the Death March after the Fall of Bataan during the WW2. This symbol is also found at the municipality’s 0KM Marker as a popular tourist destination.
Lastly, the year 1754 found at the bottom is the year of establishment of the Province.
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Fifth annual Notre Dame Day will launch April 22
Author: Notre Dame News
The University of Notre Dame family will come together on campus and around the world Sunday-Tuesday April 22-24 to celebrate the fifth annual Notre Dame Day.
The celebration will launch at 18:42 (6:42 p.m. EDT), referencing the University’s founding year, on April 22 and end at 12:11 a.m. April 24. The 29-hour live broadcast from Duncan Student Center will feature inspiring and entertaining Notre Dame stories from around the world through interviews, performances and appearances by celebrity guests. It also provides members of the Notre Dame family the opportunity to give back to areas of the University through an online fundraising competition.
Notre Dame Day will feature interviews and performances with students, faculty, administrators, staff, alumni and others who are living out the mission of Notre Dame. The broadcast team will be led by alumna and Board of Trustees member Anne Thompson from NBC News; Mike Golic and Mike Golic Jr. from ESPN; two Super Bowl Champions — Joe Theismann and Ryan Harris; and a number of broadcasters from the South Bend area and beyond.
Highlights of the more than 200 live interviews and 40 live performances include a conversation with Masters Champion Patrick Reed; performances from former Celtic Woman artist Chloe Agnew; a performance by four members of the Chicago cast of “Hamilton,” JJ Jeter, Colby Lewis, Brittany Campbell and Aaron Alexander; an interview with Time Magazine’s Person of the Year Lindsay Meyer; and much more.
Current and former Notre Dame athletics standouts participating in Notre Dame Day are NCAA women’s basketball champions Kathryn Westbeld and Jessica Shepard and Portland Trail Blazer Pat Connaughton.
During Notre Dame Day, anyone who makes a minimum $10 gift will receive five votes to cast for the programs at Notre Dame that matter most to them. More than 900 programs are eligible for receiving votes. Votes will determine the percentage of the $1.1 Million Challenge Fund that will be distributed to each area. For more information, read the Notre Dame Day FAQ.
For the first time ever, three TV stations have joined with Notre Dame for what they’re calling “Notre Dame Day in Michiana,” promoting the 31 Notre Dame clubs and organizations directly engaged in the Michiana community. The stations are WNDU, WSBT and Fox Michiana. All three stations will be live-streaming the Notre Dame Day broadcast on their Facebook pages.
“Notre Dame Day has truly become one of my favorite days of the year,” said Lou Nanni, vice president for University relations. “It’s an exciting 29 hours and a unique opportunity for Notre Dame students, alumni, parents and friends to rally around the dorms, clubs, academic programs, organizations and teams that mean the most to them. ND Day can have a transformative impact on our students, and it is all thanks to the incredible generosity and spirit of the Notre Dame family.”
The broadcast can be viewed online at NotreDameDay.nd.edu.
Originally published by Notre Dame News at news.nd.edu on April 18, 2018.
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Cultivating Self-Compassion
Medically reviewed by Scientific Advisory Board — Written by Margarita Tartakovsky, MS on June 22, 2011
When something has gone wrong, when there’s been a mistake made, no matter how small, many people are all too quick to point the finger — at themselves.
They flog themselves for any failure, letting their self-esteem bend and bow at the face of disappointments and triumphs. For many, self-esteem is shaky at best.
But there’s something you can build that’s more substantial than self-esteem. Something that doesn’t waver and can actually boost your well-being — and your performance isn’t a factor.
According to psychologist Kristin Neff, Ph.D, in her book Self-Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind, that something is self-compassion. Being self-compassionate means that whether you win or lose, surpass your sky-high expectations or fall short, you still extend the same kindness and sympathy toward yourself, just like you would a good friend.
Again, cultivating self-compassion is good for us. Research has shown that people who are self-compassionate about their imperfections have a greater well-being than people who judge themselves.
According to Neff, self-compassion consists of three components: self-kindness, common humanity and mindfulness. Because most of us have a tough time with all three, I wanted to share what each component means along with a simple exercise from the book to develop each one.
Self-Kindness
In the book, Neff writes that self-kindness “means that we stop the constant self-judgment and disparaging internal commentary that most of us have come to see as normal.” (Sound familiar?) That instead of condemning our mistakes, we try to understand them. That instead of continuing to criticize ourselves, we see just how damaging self-criticism is. And that we actively comfort ourselves.
Self-compassion means “recogniz[ing] that everyone has times when they blow it, and treat[ing] ourselves kindly.” Self-criticism damages our well-being. It leads to tension and anxiety. On the other hand, self-kindness leads to calmness, security and contentment, Neff explains.
Exercise. This might seem silly or strange at first, but when you’re upset, give yourself a hug or gently rock your body. Your body will respond to the physical warmth and care, Neff says. (Imagining a hug works, too.) In fact, hugging yourself actually has soothing benefits.
According to Neff, “research indicates that physical touch releases oxytocin [“hormone of love and bonding”], provides a sense of security, soothes distressing emotions and calms cardiovascular stress.”
Common humanity is recognizing the common human experience. As Neff writes, it’s different from self-acceptance or self-love, and both also are incomplete. Compassion acknowledges others, and even more so, it acknowledges that we are all fallible. That we are all interconnected and that we all suffer. In fact, compassion means “to suffer with,” Neff writes.
Neff applied this realization to her own life when she found out that her son has autism. “Instead of feeling ‘poor me,’ I would try to open my heart to all parents everywhere who were trying to do their best in challenging circumstances…I certainly wasn’t the only one having a hard time.”
Taking on this perspective led to two things, she says: She considered the unpredictability of being human, that being a parent has its ups and downs, its challenges and joys. She also considered that other parents have it far worse.
Self-compassion also helps you act. “The real gift of self-compassion, in fact, was that it gave me the equanimity needed to take actions that did ultimately help [my son].”
Neff concludes the chapter with these inspiring words:
“Being human is not about being any one particular way; it is about being as life creates you—with your own particular strengths and weaknesses, gifts and challenges, quirks and oddities. By accepting and embracing the human condition, I could better accept and embrace Rowan and also my role as the mother of an autistic child.”
Exercise. Think about a trait that you often criticize yourself for and “is an important part of your self-definition,” such as being a shy or lazy person. Then answer these questions:
How often do you show this trait? Who are you when you don’t show it? “Are you still you?”
Do certain circumstances bring out this trait? “Does this trait really define you if particular circumstances must be present in order for the trait to emerge?”
What circumstances have led to you having this trait, such as childhood experiences or genetics? “If these ‘outside’ forces were partly responsible for you having this trait, is it accurate to think of the trait as reflecting the inner you?”
Do you have a choice in showing this trait? Did you choose to have this trait in the first place?
What if you “reframe your self-description”? Neff uses the example of reframing “I am an angry person” to “Sometimes, in certain circumstances, I get angry.” Neff asks: “By not identifying so strongly with this trait, does anything change? Can you sense any more space, freedom, peace of mind?”
Mindfulness is clearly seeing and accepting what’s happening right now—without judgment, Neff writes. “The idea is that we need to see things as they are, no more, no less, in order to respond to our current situation in the most compassionate—and therefore effective—manner.”
Mindfulness gives us perspective. Most of us, though, are used to focusing on our flaws, which easily distorts our view and saps any self-compassion. As Neff says, we can “become completely absorbed by our perceived flaws.” This means that we miss our suffering altogether. “In that moment, we don’t have the perspective needed to recognize the suffering caused by our feelings of imperfection, let alone to respond to them with compassion.”
When something goes wrong, Neff writes, we need to stop for several breaths, acknowledge that we’re going through a difficult time and also recognize that we deserve to respond to our pain in a caring way.
Exercise. One helpful way to promote mindfulness is with a practice called noting. That is, you note everything you think, feel, hear, smell and sense. To do this, Neff suggests picking a comfortable spot and sitting down for 10 to 20 minutes. Acknowledge each thought, feeling or sensation and just go on to the next one. Neff gives the following examples: “itch in left foot,” “excitement,” “plane flying overhead.”
If you get lost in thought, like if you start planning tomorrow’s breakfast, simply say “lost in thought” to yourself. According to Neff, “This skill offers a big payoff in terms of allowing us to be more fully engaged in the present, and it also provides us with the mental perspective needed to deal with challenging situations effectively.”
Cultivating self-compassion may not be easy, but it’s no doubt a worthwhile, empowering and liberating way to live your life.
What does self-compassion mean to you? What helps you be more self-compassionate? What is the hardest part about being compassionate toward yourself?
Last medically reviewed on June 22, 2011
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Investiture Speech - Office of the President
Investiture Speech
President Joyce McConnell
Good morning, everyone. I am going to start with some thank yous, they’re going to take a little while, so you’ll have to bear with me. But I feel like it’s in keeping with the generous spirit of Colorado State University.
Mahala, thank you for your wonderful introduction. I promise all of you in the audience, I did not write it. It was truly lovely.
Jan, I cannot thank you enough for sharing our Land Acknowledgment with all of us today.
Nancy, thank you for your words.
Some of you know Nancy Tuor. But to those of you who do not, let me tell you that she is not only the chair of the CSU Board of Governors, but she is also someone I admire tremendously, who has had a distinguished career of leadership in both the private and public sectors. It’s my honor to serve you in your term as chair.
Thank you to the entire Board of Governors for having confidence in me to lead this amazing, great university, also to do it in its 150th year, as the 15th … first-female President.
And of course, thank you to Chancellor Tony Frank, for literally passing on our institutional mace this morning. Tony, I hope you put a little bit of your tremendous experience, wisdom, of course wit and charm in there — in that mace — when you passed it along to me. You are a tough act to follow, and you know what — I am deeply grateful to you for that!
Many more of those gathered here today have played critical roles in the care and feeding of this President. I cannot individually thank all of you aloud, although I am deeply, deeply grateful for everything you have done for me.
But there are a few people here whom I simply must recognize:
First, I must recognize my mother and father, Bessie and Harvey McConnell, are here to celebrate this occasion. There are no words to express what they mean to me or what a powerful role they have played in my life. I had the good fortune of being raised by loving, fun, open-hearted, open-minded parents with the highest integrity, parents with a passion for fairness and the well-being of all. Mom, Dad, thank you so much!
My mother’s sisters, Aunt Mary and Aunt Alice, took care of me sometimes when I was a baby. They read me books and started me on a lifelong love of reading and curiosity. And in being here today, they remind me of my roots. You see, my grandparents emigrated to the United States from Greece speaking only Greek and with little schooling. But they valued education above all else because they understood its transformative power.
My Aunt Mary reminded me that they had 10 children, all of whom were forbidden to drop out of school, even when the family needed the money.
Although I know my aunts do have a tendency to exaggerate, they tell me I am the fulfillment of my grandfather’s dream, because I am now in a position to see that the transformative power of education is available to a whole new generation of students. I am so proud to be in this position, and I want you all to know I take my responsibility — and CSU’s responsibility — to transform lives through education very, very seriously. And you can see, it is truly in my blood.
My wonderful siblings, Mary, Michael, and Lynne are here, as are their spouses, David and Melanie. Their love shines for me. They support me through good times and bad. They remind me of my human fallibility and that it is good to laugh at oneself on a regular basis.
My husband Vince Trivelli is here. He has been by my side for 37 years; he has believed in me when I did not believe in myself; who makes me laugh; who fills me with his enduring love and confidence.
My beautiful, smart, wonderful daughter, Alexandra, is here. Alexandra, I love you more than I can ever convey: You teach me every day what it means to love, to be an independent woman, to understand what it means to be young in this uncertain world. I hope that I can use that understanding to better support our students and young faculty and staff.
I am also just blown away to be supported here today by friends from West Virginia.
Ellen Cappalanti chaired the search committee when I became dean of the WVU College of Law. Ellen, you started me on my leadership journey. Thank you!
WVU President Gordon Gee, is here with his incredible fiancée, Laurie Erickson. Gordon believed that I could be a university president before I ever imagined this role for myself. I know that today he is here to cheer me on, to tell me to trust my instincts, to laugh, and to enjoy the adventure.
And my dear friend Nancy could not be here today. But if she watches or listens to this address, I want her to know how critical her friendship is and has been to me.
To end my thank yous, I also must thank other people who are here from West Virginia, particularly the two presidents of our schools in our system at WVU. And they are Carolyn Long and Jennifer Orlikoff and they have been great colleagues for me for many years.
And to end my thank yous, I must thank the entire team who’ve worked so hard to make today glorious. And particularly to our event team and to all of our musicians who have worked so hard. And to my two assistants who followed me here from West Virginia. Or, as Gordon would say, “I stole them.”
As many of you know, I accepted the Presidency of Colorado State University without ever having visited Fort Collins or the Colorado State University campus.
You see, I knew right away, from my very first interactions with members of this campus community, that this is a very, special, and incredibly welcoming place.
Once Vince and I arrived in town, we felt that even more, from generous and thoughtful people like Dave and Paul Edwards whose beautiful home — Magnolia House — is now CSU’s President’s home. They made it possible for us to settle in and to get to work right away, exploring this beautiful town and this beautiful campus.
At the start of the day, I walk onto campus under the towering trees of the historic Oval. I cherish this path, which leads right to my office, because it drives home the deep roots — and yes, that’s a pun intended — of CSU.
It also reminds me of the contradictions that are part of our long history.
Colorado State was built on land taken from Indigenous nations.
And yet, since our founding on that land, we have served the people of Colorado for 150 years as the state’s land-grant university.
Those two facts sometimes strike me as impossible to reconcile.
But aspiring to do the impossible is part of what we do at CSU. It is part of what makes this an extraordinary institution and community.
We were founded as the people’s university, a place to educate those who otherwise would not have access to higher education. That means all of our people, an ideal that we haven’t always lived up to, but work very hard to live up to now.
Throughout our history we have fostered Colorado’s ability to meet the needs of its people and communities through education, engagement, economic development and research.
But even as we celebrate our sesquicentennial, we also must expand our understanding of what people and what communities we serve.
We must become more inclusive and more equitable in our inclusivity.
We must offer greater access to the education, research and engagement to which we are so committed.
Chancellor Tony Frank, with the support of many here today, left us an extraordinary record of accomplishment to build on, including gains in enrollment, increased graduation rates, growth in research funding, innovation and scholarly activity, international recognition of our amazing faculty and students, fundraising exceeded a billion dollars, and campus construction of beautiful LEED sustainable Gold and Platinum buildings.
But if we stop here, we risk becoming irrelevant.
So of course, we will not stop. But what’s the alternative? I believe that the accelerating pace of our world leaves us with three options;
The first option would be to fall into the trap so aptly captured in the truism that it is irrational to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result.
The second option would be to commit to change, but at a cautious pace. I will tell you plainly that if we do this we will lag behind our bolder peers.
Finally, we can choose to transform Colorado State University, and to do so with the urgency that we know is warranted. We can be bold, we can be curious, and we can be courageous.
I believe that this is what we must do. And it is what we will do, to continue to fulfill our promises to our students, faculty, staff and the state of Colorado for another 150 years, and more.
I sometimes look out the windows of my office at the trees along the Oval and marvel at how permanent they seem, like they’ve always been there and always will be.
But as we know from photos and descriptions of the college back in the 1870s, almost the entire area from Fort Collins to the foothills was a treeless prairie.
We planted trees here. And we built a world-class university.
That’s important to what I want to tell you today, because it calls to mind a Greek proverb that says people plant trees so others may climb them and rest in their shade.
The message in that proverb is of course about the long game, the focus on the future — and the belief in the future — that must drive everyone who plants a tree. It is an act of faith. It was an act of faith for those who started a university. And it is an act of faith to become a university President.
Those are all bold. And they don’t bear fruit right away.
But when they do, you have the shade from the sun and the sound of the wind in the leaves — and at CSU you have a thriving institution that isn’t done growing.
Not by a long-shot.
What trees do we need to plant today in order to meet the needs of those who will follow us?
In my Fall Address, I introduced the notion Courageous Strategic Transformation, which is not a traditional strategic plan, but a bold imperative.
I ask all of you to join me in truly transforming CSU. And for those of you wondering what exactly I mean by that, let me get specific.
I want us to develop new strategies for access, with a commitment to equity and affordability. I want to make access to a CSU education — and the success it will bring — available to all Coloradoans, with a commitment to excellence as our guiding star.
I want us to create a campus climate that allows our students, faculty and staff to truly thrive. Every single member of our community deserves to know that they are welcomed and valued for every aspect of their identity, race, gender, religion, ethnicity, immigrant status, socio-economic status, disability, age, or veteran status. They deserve a place where there’s no question — theirs or anyone else’s — whether they belong. Because they do.
I want us to do more, and I want us to do it just as quickly as we can, to address the intersecting needs of our students, faculty and staff. I want them to find their educational and work experiences rigorous and rewarding. And I want us to make the mental health of our community members a priority, not just when they are in crisis, but every day. Let’s prevent crises in mental health, not just try to fix them.
I want us to innovate in education, research, and engagement for excellence, equity and elevating quality of life and prosperity for Colorado’s citizens, businesses and communities.
Throughout our history, our student populations have changed — and they are changing now. And we must be prepared to meet our students where they are. Many will be first generation; more will be increasingly diverse. Projections say by the end of the decade, one in four Coloradans will be Hispanic or Latin-X, and just a few years later that percentage will be close to 30 percent. Some of these promising young people are living in uncertain immigration status. Some of them are actively afraid that pursuing a degree at CSU could bring unwanted attention to them or their families.
We must find a way to open our educational doors to these students and make it possible for them to stay and succeed.
We also must do more to recruit Native American students whose tribal lands we have built upon. And as was true of the original land-grant colleges, we must work with these students to ensure that the courses and curricula we offer meet their needs.
We must also listen to — and then communicate clearly with — our many students and their families who are terribly anxious about the cost of higher education. They hear daily about the sky-rocketing cost of a college degree and how graduates are burdened by debt as they begin their careers. Many are convinced they simply cannot afford a degree. Colorado Governor Jared Polis takes this anxiety so seriously he has made addressing the issue the center of his policy agenda for higher education.
It’s no secret that public funding for higher education has declined for decades, but not just in Colorado, it’s true across the nation. Twenty years ago, state funding covered as much as two-thirds of the cost of educating a Colorado State University student, with about one-third of the financial burden falling to students and their families.
But over the past two decades, those numbers have flipped. Students and families are now covering at least three-quarters of the cost. That means they now have to save for years to afford college, and often still leave weighted down with debt.
There is good news on this front, though. And I believe that the return on state funds invested in educating students makes a difference in our economy, even if you consider only the expanded tax base.
That’s right, many Colorado residents graduate with no debt. But a Colorado resident graduating from CSU with a bachelor’s degree leaves here with an average debt of about $25,000 — about the price of a new car. It’s expensive, but they will graduate with an average starting salary of almost $50,000.
And all studies show that someone with an undergraduate degree will earn, on average, a million dollars more than those with a high school degree. They will also, maybe over their lifetime. They will also maybe more significantly, be healthier and their families will be healthier, and they will all enjoy a higher quality of life.
That’s a pretty good investment for both the state and the individual. Earning a high-quality CSU degree at a relatively low cost continues to be one of the best deals in higher education.
But to gain the confidence of those who are discouraged, we must talk transparently about how we contain costs. We must tell the story of our commitment to affordability, openly. Our students and their families need and deserve to understand how deeply we are committed to having them here.
And even while realizing these urgent goals, we must also re-affirm our excellence. To do this, we must establish priorities, say no to some things; we must act on those that we do establish as priorities, assess their efficacy and be willing to start anew if what we are doing is not delivering the excellence that our students deserve.
I want you to know that we are committed to the health, welfare and creating a beautiful environment for all of our faculty, staff and students to succeed. Particularly, in the area of mental health, I want to mention the Board of Governors. The Board of Governors recognizes the significance of the work that needs to be done and has been supportive of all of our efforts to develop and deliver on a strategy that focuses not only on treatment, but on prevention.
We have some of the best minds at this university, who can help us figure this out.
Some people like to quantify outcomes in terms of dollars and cents. But the way we measure this one thing is in human terms: We believe this expansion of resources will result in the university retaining students in crisis who might otherwise leave, helping keep them healthy and safe and be a part of the CSU community. And when we can do that, the positive impact will go beyond those individual students, directly and indirectly it will touch their classmates, friends, and families.
Serving our students is the essential part of our land-grant mission.
But as a university, we are also in the knowledge business. And as a land-grant, we are going to create that knowledge to address the critical environmental, social, and economic challenges facing our world today. Our faculty are world-class — recognized nationally and internationally for their innovative educational programs, research and engagement. I cannot name all of the challenges we face, but I have no doubt that our faculty are prepared to meet them.
The ones that are at top of mind for us, are climate change, the related issues of sustainability and renewable energy, food and agriculture, the vectors between animals and humans and disease … And we desire a broad-based economic prosperity based on meeting these challenges.
We will think innovatively, we will master what we need to master, and we will meet those challenges.
I also want to mention, just at the end, that we must integrate our Principles of Community more deeply into our policies. That is something I talked about at the fall address, and we will continue to work on.
But as we reaffirm our commitment to our land-grant mission—access, affordability, excellence and a commitment to Colorado and its citizens, it’s very important to look at what we’ve accomplished.
When this place was first conceived in 1870, Colorado was still a sparsely inhabited territory. It wouldn’t become a state until six years later. But it was already a place where those who envisioned the college intended that it would serve both the daughters and sons of Colorado.
From the very start, this university took a broader view than their peers at colleges back east in terms of who was welcome and who to include.
It’s a place where women led the way academically in the early years, taking the same coursework as the men and earning 11 of the 18 degrees awarded in the first five graduating classes.
It was a place where the third president, Alston Ellis — who had desegregated the public schools in Hamilton, Ohio before coming here — invited a talented young man to become the College’s first African-American student and, four years later, first African-American graduate.
And it’s the place where a member of our second graduating class, Grace Espy Patton, enrolled at age 15, graduated at 19, and began a short, but brilliant career. She worked first as a professor at the College; then earned national recognition as a writer, publisher and speaker. She became an early leader in the Colorado suffrage movement and a powerful advocate for public education. Ultimately, Patton was elected Colorado’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction. She earned more votes than the governor.
In an interview following that election — in which two other women were elected to the state assembly — Patton said:
“In these days it is a good thing to be a woman, but better still to be a Colorado woman.”
As a recently-minted Colorado woman, I’d say that’s true in these days, as well. And I’d add that it is even better still to be the president of this outstanding Colorado institution of higher education at this pivotal time in history.
So let’s move forward, courageous in our actions, strategic in our thinking, and prepared to transform in order to meet the challenges of our rapidly changing world.
Thank you all very much for this incredible honor.
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Regulatory and Ad-hoc
Business Updates Regulatory and Ad-hoc
Media and Games Invest increases stake in gamigo AG from 53% to 98%
Public Disclosure of inside information under Article 17 of MAR (Regulation (EU) No. 596/2014)
Monday, February 17, 2020 — Media and Games Invest increases stake in gamigo AG from 53% to 98%
Purchase price valuation is 50% below peergroup
A further increase to 100% is planned short term
Former gamigo shareholders will receive shares with a 25 months lock-up period
17, February 2020 – Media and Games Invest plc ("MGI", ISIN: MT0000005801010101; Symbol: M8G; Basic Board, Frankfurt Stock Exchange) is acquiring 1.05 million gamigo shares, representing approximately 45.5% of the total outstanding shares, thereby increasing its stake in gamigo AG from 53% to 98%. The agreements, which were approved today by the gamigo Supervisory Board and the Board of MGI, were signed today. The transaction is expected to be completed within the coming days. It is planned to also acquire the remaining gamigo shares thereafter.
In the 12-month period from 1 October 2018 to 30 September 2019, gamigo generated net revenues of EUR 56 million and EBITDA of EUR 16 million. Over the past five years, the company has grown by an average of 32% in terms of revenue and 64% in terms of EBITDA.
The purchase price of EUR 16.5 million in cash and up to 18.2 million MGI shares represents a valuation of seven times EBITDA based on the 12-month period ending September 30, 2019. Thus, the purchase price is about 50 percent below the valuation of comparable companies. According to current data from E&Y Corporate Finance, gaming companies achieve an average valuation of 13.5 times EBITDA.
The selling gamigo shareholders will receive the up to 18.2 million new MGI shares in two steps. In return, the company's share capital will be increased by up to 18.2 million new MGI shares. A lock-up period of around 25 months will apply to approximately 98% of these new shares. The cash portion of the purchase price is financed with a loan from UniCredit Bank in the amount of EUR 10 million at an interest rate of 5.5% p.a. and with free liquidity from MGI. The acquisition of approx. 2% of the gamigo shares is still pending, but negotiations for the purchase of these remaining shares are already underway. Should the negotiations fail, a squeeze-out of these shareholders will be attempted.
About Media and Games Invest plc:
Media and Games Invest plc, (“MGI”), is a fast and profitably growing company in the digital media and games markets, focusing on a "buy, integrate, build & improve" strategy through organic growth and acquisitions of companies and assets. Technology is actively used to create efficiency improvements and competitive advantages within the group. Synergy and integration potentials are important criteria for the expansion of the group. MGI group has performed well over 25 company and asset acquisitions within the last 6 years. The most important criterium for extending the group are synergy and integration potentials. The most important participations include gamigo AG, a fast-growing gaming and media company, ReachHero GmbH, a leading influencer SaaS platform, Applift GmbH, a leading media company specializing in mobile advertising, Pubnative, an SSP platform for mobile advertising and the assets of Verve, a leading North American mobile data platform for location-based programmatic video and display marketing. Media and Games Invest is listed a.o. on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and on XETRA.
This press release contains possible forward-looking statements that are based on the current assumptions and forecasts of the company management of Media and Games plc or companies associated with it. Various known and unknown risks and uncertainties, as well as other factors, could mean that the actual results, financial circumstances, the development or performance of Media and Games invest plc and the companies associated with it may deviate significantly from the estimations presented here. Neither Media and Games Invest plc nor the companies associated with it are obligated to update this sort of forward-looking statement or adjust them to future results or developments.
edicto GmbH
Axel Mühlhaus / Dr. Sönke Knop
Telephone: +49 69 9055 05 51
Email: MGI@edicto.de
Media and Games Invest plc
Sören Barz, Head of Investor Relations
Email: investor.relations@media-and-games-invest.com
About Media and Games Invest
Media and Games Invest plc (MGI), is a fast-growing and profitable company operating in the digital games sector with a strong supportive media unit and a focus on North America & EMEA. The company combines organic growth with value-accretive acquisitions, delivering strong and sustainable earnings growth. Since 2014 the MGI Group has successfully acquired more than 30 companies and assets which are integrated onto our platform, exploiting efficiency-enhancing technologies such as the cloud. The Company's shares are listed on Nasdaq First North Premier Growth Market in Stockholm and the Scale segment of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
The Company's certified advisor on Nasdaq First North Premier Growth Market is FNCA Sweden AB; info@fnca.se, +46-8-528 00 399.
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Esteemed social worker to present findings on LGBT youth wellness and families March 30
By BTL Staff|2018-01-16T10:47:13-05:00March 22nd, 2012|News|
FERNDALE –
Dr. Caitlin Ryan, founder and director of the Family Acceptance Project team at San Francisco State University is discussing practical implications and concrete strategies for rethinking approaches to supporting the health and well-being of all young people including LGBT youth in ethnically and religiously diverse families on March 30 at 9 a.m. at Affirmations Community Center.
Dr. Ryan and her Family Acceptance Project team have recently conducted new research on LGBT young people and their families showing that families have a dramatic influence on their LGBT children’s health and well being. She will share these key findings with faith leaders, youth-serving professionals and other care-giving adults.
Existing approaches to serving LGBT adolescents have focused almost exclusively on serving LGBT youth alone and through peer support, rather than in the context of their families. Dr. Ryan’s work changes the paradigm, to decrease risk for suicide, homelessness, school victimization, and HIV/AIDS and to promote wellness and positive development for LGBT youth and young adults in the context of their families.
Dr. Ryan is a clinical social worker and has worked on LGBT health and mental health issues for more than 35 years. Her work has specialized in translating science into basic concepts for decision makers, diverse communities and the general public. Her efforts to assist LGBT children have earned her recognition by many professional and community groups, including the American Association of Physicians for Human Rights and the National Association of People With AIDS.
She currently serves on the LGBT Youth Suicide Prevention Task Force of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention and is a Purpose Prize Fellow.
There is no charge for this program and a continental breakfast will be available. RSVP to Judy Lewis at [email protected] or call 248-398-7105 for more information.
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Renee Harmon needs our support
By BTL Staff|2011-07-28T09:00:00-04:00July 28th, 2011|Uncategorized|
Renee Harmon is a mother. She raised three children over ten years with her former partner, Tammy Davis. And when their 19-year relationship ended, so did Harmon’s relationship with her children. She hasn’t seen the children in two years. But she has seen a lot of courtrooms and paperwork and disappointment. This week, the State Supreme Court denied her the right to even present evidence in court so she could fight for custody of her kids.
This situation would never happen with straight married couples. In the event of a divorce, there are plenty of laws and processes that allow both parents access and responsibility to their children.
But there are no laws in our state that protect the children of same-sex couples. Harmon was never even recognized as a legal parent to the three children she helped plan and raise. In Michigan, though there’s no law explicitly against same-sex parent adoption, there is a widespread ban on the practice. Judges have interpreted state law (incorrectly) to mean that same-sex parents cannot adopt, even though such discrimination is written nowhere in our statutes. As a result, many children in Michigan with same-sex parents only have one legal parent.
And if those parents split apart, the legal parent has all the rights and responsibilities. This is what happened with Harmon’s family.
Michigan courts won’t even allow Harmon to present evidence showing she acted as a parent, which is a shocking affront to this community’s values and rights. There have been many cases that prove “de facto” parenting. These cases established custody rights (or child support payments) between heterosexual couples who were never married. Despite these previous cases, Harmon isn’t even allowed to present her case before a court in our state. The only difference is that she was in a same-sex relationship, not a heterosexual relationship.
Harmon is a brave woman who is soldiering on. Because she has been denied the right to present her case in the state courts, she is taking her case to the federal courts.
Harmon is fighting for rights that our entire community does not have. Harmon is not the only parent in the state without the right to care for his or her children. But she is choosing to be the one who fights the battle.
This means that we are the ones who must give her our support.
One of Harmon’s lawyers, Dana Nessel, has discussed with BTL her difficulties in securing support from our LGBT community centers and foundations. This we find embarrassing, and – as we stated in our editorial last week – shockingly shameful. Not only would these organizations not support Harmon financially, but they wouldn’t even voice public support of her cause or encourage their members to help her.
Harmon has been fundraising, and she will continue to keep on raising money to launch a new round of arguments in the federal courts this time. We must support her with our time and money. If she wins, she secures rights for our entire community. If she loses, all of the children in our community lose.
Do the right thing. Support Harmon. Support her right, and our right, to have a family. Do it for her children, and do it for all the children in this community.
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News | General
Australian Outback a Significant "Carbon Bank" – Study
Key Conservation organisations release a new study that finds Australia’s Outback to be a significant ‘Carbon Bank’.
Staff Reporter | 15 July 2010 at 10:40 am
A new study commissioned by The Nature Conservancy and the Pew Environment Group found that Australia’s vast Outback stores 9.7 billion tons of carbon, and if better managed, the area could store even greater levels that would help the country meet its greenhouse gas reduction targets.
The study, “Outback Carbon – An Assessment of Carbon Storage, Sequestration and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Remote Australia,” found that if steps are taken now to protect and manage the Outback’s natural environment, the area could absorb up to an additional 1.3 billion tons of carbon by 2050—the equivalent of taking 7.5 million cars off the road every year for the next four decades.
Approximately 80 percent or 6 million square kilometres of Australia’s Outback was examined in the study. The Outback is comprised of forests, woodlands and grasslands stretching across central and northern Australia.
Dr. Barry Traill, director of the Wild Australia Program, a joint project of the Pew Environment Group and The Nature Conservancy that works to protect large tracts of Australia’s terrestrial and marine environment says that due to its enormous size, the Outback environment is able to store huge amounts of carbon, so it serves as a massive pollution bank for Australia and the planet.
However, Dr.Traill says if the wide variety of its plants and trees continue to be cleared or degraded through poor management, stored carbon will be released into the atmosphere, adding to climate pollution.
The study found that reducing land clearing, promoting re-growth of native vegetation, managing wildfires, controlling feral animal populations and improving management of animal grazing can significantly increase the Outback’s carbon storage levels and could cut the country’s greenhouse emissions by 5 per cent by 2030.
The research says that several of these practices—reducing land clearing, managing wildfires and controlling feral animals—cost less than an estimated AU $20 per ton of carbon, which is significantly lower than other types of carbon reduction methods such as underground carbon storage.
Dr. Michael Looker of The Nature Conservancy in Australia says this new and important report shows that by taking better care of Australia’s Outback, its native plants, woodlands and forests, Australia has a logical and inexpensive way to cut emissions right in its own backyard.
He says to make the cuts in damaging greenhouse emissions that the science says are necessary to limit the impacts of climate change, Australia must take advantage of these practical solutions that are cost effective and available now.
Wild Australia is a joint project of the Pew Environment Group and The Nature Conservancy that works to protect large tracts of Australia’s unique terrestrial and marine environment. www.WildAustralia.org
The Nature Conservancy is a leading conservation organization working internationally to protect ecologically important lands and waters. It has more than one million members and has been responsible for the protection of more than 18 million acres in the United States and more than 8.9 million acres in Australia.
The Conservancy has helped preserve more than 117 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. www.nature.org
The Pew Environment Group is the conservation arm of The Pew Charitable Trusts, an NGO that applies a rigorous, analytical approach to improve public policy, inform the public and stimulate civic life. www.pewenvironment.org
Image Source: daren_ck | CC BY 2.0
Tags : Australian Outback, Carbon, Carbon Bank, Environment, PEW Environment Project, The Nature Conservancy,
A tale of two polls: So what is the real difference?
Thursday, 12th November 2020 at 8:37 am
Meet Pro Bono News’ first editorial advisory board
Thursday, 16th April 2020 at 8:02 am
Unpaid Carers Facing Significant Economic Disadvantage
Tuesday, 21st August 2018 at 3:45 pm
NFPs Driving WA Economy, Report Says
Wednesday, 15th February 2017 at 4:20 pm
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Satan tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden right? Nope. That's one of many phantom passages that people think are in the Bible.
Actually, that's not in the Bible
(CNN) - NFL legend Mike Ditka was giving a news conference one day after being fired as the coach of the Chicago Bears when he decided to quote the Bible.
“Scripture tells you that all things shall pass,” a choked-up Ditka said after leading his team to only five wins during the previous season. “This, too, shall pass.”
Ditka fumbled his biblical citation, though. The phrase “This, too, shall pass” doesn’t appear in the Bible. Ditka was quoting a phantom scripture that sounds like it belongs in the Bible, but look closer and it’s not there.
Ditka’s biblical blunder is as common as preachers delivering long-winded public prayers. The Bible may be the most revered book in America, but it’s also one of the most misquoted. Politicians, motivational speakers, coaches - all types of people - quote passages that actually have no place in the Bible, religious scholars say.
These phantom passages include:
“God helps those who help themselves.”
“Spare the rod, spoil the child.”
And there is this often-cited paraphrase: Satan tempted Eve to eat the forbidden apple in the Garden of Eden.
None of those passages appear in the Bible, and one is actually anti-biblical, scholars say.
But people rarely challenge them because biblical ignorance is so pervasive that it even reaches groups of people who should know better, says Steve Bouma-Prediger, a religion professor at Hope College in Holland, Michigan.
“In my college religion classes, I sometimes quote 2 Hesitations 4:3 (‘There are no internal combustion engines in heaven’),” Bouma-Prediger says. “I wait to see if anyone realizes that there is no such book in the Bible and therefore no such verse.
“Only a few catch on.”
Few catch on because they don’t want to - people prefer knowing biblical passages that reinforce their pre-existing beliefs, a Bible professor says.
“Most people who profess a deep love of the Bible have never actually read the book,” says Rabbi Rami Shapiro, who once had to persuade a student in his Bible class at Middle Tennessee State University that the saying “this dog won’t hunt” doesn’t appear in the Book of Proverbs.
“They have memorized parts of texts that they can string together to prove the biblical basis for whatever it is they believe in,” he says, “but they ignore the vast majority of the text."
Phantom biblical passages work in mysterious ways
Ignorance isn’t the only cause for phantom Bible verses. Confusion is another.
Some of the most popular faux verses are pithy paraphrases of biblical concepts or bits of folk wisdom.
Consider these two:
“God works in mysterious ways.”
“Cleanliness is next to Godliness.”
Both sound as if they are taken from the Bible, but they’re not. The first is a paraphrase of a 19th century hymn by the English poet William Cowper (“God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform).
The “cleanliness” passage was coined by John Wesley, the 18th century evangelist who founded Methodism, says Thomas Kidd, a history professor at Baylor University in Texas.
“No matter if John Wesley or someone else came up with a wise saying - if it sounds proverbish, people figure it must come from the Bible,” Kidd says.
Our fondness for the short and tweet-worthy may also explain our fondness for phantom biblical phrases. The pseudo-verses function like theological tweets: They’re pithy summarizations of biblical concepts.
“Spare the rod, spoil the child” falls into that category. It’s a popular verse - and painful for many kids. Could some enterprising kid avoid the rod by pointing out to his mother that it's not in the Bible?
It’s doubtful. Her possible retort: The popular saying is a distillation of Proverbs 13:24: “The one who withholds [or spares] the rod is one who hates his son.”
Another saying that sounds Bible-worthy: “Pride goes before a fall.” But its approximation, Proverbs 16:18, is actually written: “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”
There are some phantom biblical verses for which no excuse can be offered. The speaker goofed.
That’s what Bruce Wells, a theology professor, thinks happened to Ditka, the former NFL coach, when he strayed from the gridiron to biblical commentary during his 1993 press conference in Chicago.
Wells watched Ditka’s biblical blunder on local television when he lived in Chicago. After Ditka cited the mysterious passage, reporters scrambled unsuccessfully the next day to find the biblical source.
They should have consulted Wells, who is now director of the ancient studies program at Saint Joseph’s University in Pennsylvania. Wells says Ditka’s error probably came from a peculiar feature of the King James Bible.
“My hunch on the Ditka quote is that it comes from a quirk of the King James translation,” Wells says. “Ancient Hebrew had a particular way of saying things like, ‘and the next thing that happened was…’ The King James translators of the Old Testament consistently rendered this as ‘and it came to pass.’ ’’
When phantom Bible passages turn dangerous
People may get verses wrong, but they also mangle plenty of well-known biblical stories as well.
Two examples: The scripture never says a whale swallowed Jonah, the Old Testament prophet, nor did any New Testament passages say that three wise men visited baby Jesus, scholars say.
Those details may seem minor, but scholars say one popular phantom Bible story stands above the rest: The Genesis story about the fall of humanity.
Most people know the popular version - Satan in the guise of a serpent tempts Eve to pick the forbidden apple from the Tree of Life. It’s been downhill ever since.
But the story in the book of Genesis never places Satan in the Garden of Eden.
“Genesis mentions nothing but a serpent,” says Kevin Dunn, chair of the department of religion at Tufts University in Massachusetts.
“Not only does the text not mention Satan, the very idea of Satan as a devilish tempter postdates the composition of the Garden of Eden story by at least 500 years,” Dunn says.
Getting biblical scriptures and stories wrong may not seem significant, but it can become dangerous, one scholar says.
Most people have heard this one: “God helps those that help themselves.” It’s another phantom scripture that appears nowhere in the Bible, but many people think it does. It's actually attributed to Benjamin Franklin, one of the nation's founding fathers.
The passage is popular in part because it is a reflection of cherished American values: individual liberty and self-reliance, says Sidnie White Crawford, a religious studies scholar at the University of Nebraska.
Yet that passage contradicts the biblical definition of goodness: defining one’s worth by what one does for others, like the poor and the outcast, Crawford says.
Crawford cites a scripture from Leviticus that tells people that when they harvest the land, they should leave some “for the poor and the alien” (Leviticus 19:9-10), and another passage from Deuteronomy that declares that people should not be “tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor.”
“We often infect the Bible with our own values and morals, not asking what the Bible’s values and morals really are,” Crawford says.
Where do these phantom passages come from?
It’s easy to blame the spread of phantom biblical passages on pervasive biblical illiteracy. But the causes are varied and go back centuries.
Some of the guilty parties are anonymous, lost to history. They are artists and storytellers who over the years embellished biblical stories and passages with their own twists.
If, say, you were an anonymous artist painting the Garden of Eden during the Renaissance, why not portray the serpent as the devil to give some punch to your creation? And if you’re a preacher telling a story about Jonah, doesn’t it just sound better to say that Jonah was swallowed by a whale, not a “great fish”?
Others blame the spread of phantom Bible passages on King James, or more specifically the declining popularity of the King James translation of the Bible.
That translation, which marks 400 years of existence this year, had a near monopoly on the Bible market as recently as 50 years ago, says Douglas Jacobsen, a professor of church history and theology at Messiah College in Pennsylvania.
“If you quoted the Bible and got it wrong then, people were more likely to notice because there was only one text,” he says. “Today, so many different translations are used that almost no one can tell for sure if something supposedly from the Bible is being quoted accurately or not.”
Others blame the spread of phantom biblical verses on Martin Luther, the German monk who ignited the Protestant Reformation, the massive “protest” against the excesses of the Roman Catholic Church that led to the formation of Protestant church denominations.
“It is a great Protestant tradition for anyone - milkmaid, cobbler, or innkeeper - to be able to pick up the Bible and read for herself. No need for a highly trained scholar or cleric to walk a lay person through the text,” says Craig Hazen, director of the Christian Apologetics program at Biola University in Southern California.
But often the milkmaid, the cobbler - and the NFL coach - start creating biblical passages without the guidance of biblical experts, he says.
“You can see this manifest today in living room Bible studies across North America where lovely Christian people, with no training whatsoever, drink decaf, eat brownies and ask each other, ‘What does this text mean to you?’’’ Hazen says.
“Not only do they get the interpretation wrong, but very often end up quoting verses that really aren’t there.”
Filed under: Belief • Bible • Books • Christianity • Faith
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It's Confucius. There are books other than Bibles.
And the way of God can be found inside and outside of books. As above, so below.
I wonder what it is about articles like these that bring out the embittered and truly uneducated? It's amazing to me how some of them will go to great lengths to put down and ridicule what they don't understand. If God doesn't exist and He is a myth or a fairy tale humans invented, why do you anti-theists feel so threatened? No one is say you must believe, but why do you go out of your way to try to make the world accommodate your narrow minded hateful unbelief? Face the facts: religion, spirituality and mythology are important to MOST of the world's 7 Billion inhabitants, and you're not going to eradicate it any time soon. If anything, people will turn back to God because each of us were made with a need to believe in something or Someone greater than ourselves. There's no point in disputing this because you know I'm right. Every philosopher in the world will attest to this.
Sometimes it's fun to rant. Feel better? If you need a forum where nobody opposes your views, go somewhere else.
As long as both sides are learning from the experience its worthwhile, but try not to forcefeed the hemlock though, when all you have is lemon juice. It may be bitter, but it will only be rejected, no matter which side it comes from.
I, for one, do not have the need to believe in anything or anyone greater. So you are not absolutely right. There are other ways of believing than Christianity, and all other religions. So how is not believing being "narrow-minded", and your statement "If anything, people will turn back to God because each of us were made with a need to believe in something or Someone greater than ourselves. There's no point in disputing this because you know I'm right" NOT being narrow-minded?
RightturnClyde
I like this. It is honest. Yes why are atheists so adamant and why do they try to force their opinions on others. Accept that the French love France and the Germans love Germany and that is HOW we are ... and Christians love God. Atheists go and rant for a while on people whose bumper sticker says "I (heart) my dog" (well otherwise why have one?) .. even worse "my kid was student of the month at John Adams School" (millions of those) .. Obama/Biden bumper stickers (voters .. they are no longer running .. (I never saw anyone wit a "Pelosi" bumper sticker). Well said Sabrina .. you reduced it to words that are loud and clear (to a logical mind )
It's amusing that you like Sabrina's post, Clyde. It's full of all the things she attributes to the atheists. Maybe seeing yourself as a victim makes you feel special, but nobody is forcing you to read these posts.
ronkytown
Honestly, I do not carry hate for Christianity. I carry some hate for christian fundamentalists that make it their priority to taint politics. Look at the evangelical vote. It hinders democracy and creates nationalists that in turn think that their specific concept of religion should be forced onto everyone. The sad part is that they are part of a forced ideology! I am a former believer and I have read the book from cover to cover. It upsets me that people refer to themselves as Christians and don't even know what they believe. They are given other peoples interpretation of the text from a pulpit every Sunday morning. More so, this demonstrates a lack of critical thinking. Why can't you read the book that you say is infallible. Taking a scholarly approach to the bible clearly reveals that the sacred text is far from perfect and it has major errors. I believe that articles like these bring out the educated not uneducated. Many of us atheists came out of your churches. Although I do not deny that their are many positive themes in the bible, they are not without embedded error. Sabrina you shouldn't be talking about "force their opinions on others" when the evangelical vote has stripped marriage rights for the gay and lesbian community in the united states. Forced their opinion on others when they voted for a racist political officials in Arizona that decided it was a good idea to start racial profiling. I am a latino and have witnessed how the evangelical vote has been utilized to promote a right wing agenda. An agenda that basically sides with Israeli war crimes, and other injustices. In case you don't know Israeli blood is not superior to Palestinian blood. Just remember that Micah called for social justice! Not get the government out of education,health care, and my poor people. The same political policies advocated by the christian right are the same policies that caused the 10 tribes of Israel to disappear and also caused the Babylonian Exile. If you don't know what i am talking about go read the book!!! Its your fault i am atheist!!!!
June 10, 2011 at 3:19 am |
Doug F
Very good points Sabrina, I agree. Read my replies to "Mike C." above yours. The author has gone out of his way to try to discredit the Holy Bible. At least two of the passages he mentions ARE in the Bible and in my posts I discuss them. But, very nicely said on your part. God bless.
thank you 'RONKYTOWN' for that..the bible was read to me by parent and even at a young age i could understand that there was something not quite cohesive from what was actually written in the Book, to what was really practiced..i really couldn't believe that the 'teacher's teaching from the book, didn't understand\comprehend what they were reading..i could see that even thought they 'read' the words, it seemed as if by rote; lbecause after the pages closed and then 'religion'\church took over, there seemed to be a huge and opposing disconnect between the two points..GOD tells you to love..HIS first commandment and i saw it diluted by the 'interpretations' made to fit what fit or made them least comfortable..
one thing in the Book was to question everything, get cousel and allow your heart to guide you [not typed in actual context]
but it's in there and you will see it IF the time is taken to OPEN the book..and do not be frightened by what you will find out because you will be enlightened or at least less jedgmental..you trust you remember that little proverb..?
try it Sabrina, it seemed the reply you sent was as if powered by robot..
June 11, 2011 at 12:21 pm |
Gary Kearl
The Bible does not say "God helps those who help themselve" but it does teach that we must reach out to God and His son Jesus Christ, if they wish to improve our lives: Examples:
In Mathew 14:35-36 it says: "And when the men of that place ahad knowledge of him [Christ], they sent out into all that country round about, and brought unto him all that were diseased; And besought him that they might only touch the ahem of his garment: and as many as touched were made perfectly whole."
Jesus taught: "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." (Mat 7:7 and Luke 11:9)
The Apostle John, quoted Jesus Christ: "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." (Rev 3:20)
The principle that we have "agency" (right to chose between good and evil – as illustrated by the story of Adam and Eve and many susequent biblical figures) is coupled with the imperative that we must also actively seek God's help if we wish to be healed or saved.
Re: the scripture about sparing the rod. That verse in Proverbs is actually much strongly worded, than 'spare the rod spoil the child.' It says "He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes."
Michael Cerkas
So, what really is the point of this entire story/article? To indirectly discredit the Bible? To educate others that quoting the Bible with good intent is Wrong? To perhaps convince people that there is no God? Really... what is the point?
I read it twice and still could conclude no redeeming value in the story, unlike the Bible, where the entire book represents the basic tenets of life and intrinsically core values to live one's life by... Perhaps the reason for the story was to encourage people of faith like me to comment and lend something meaningful to contemplate? (as others have likewise contributed).
The author makes no attempt to discredit the Bible at any point in this article. The author also says nothing about people quoting the Bible (with good or ill intent). The article is fairly clearly about people who MISquote the Bible, attempting to add Biblical weight to viewpoints that are not, in fact, supported by the Bible. Try reading a third time and maybe you'll be able to figure it out.
The point is to get people to actually read the Bible instead of just believing every Proverb that comes out of someones mouth must be Biblical because it sounds Biblical. The fact of the matter is, many of these phrases are contorted to some politician's or preacher's political agenda.
Mike Ditka quoted the Bible as saying, "All things shall pass." His "this, too, shall pass" phrase was not being quoted from the bible; he was saying that about having only five wins in a season.
@Reality
More speculation I see. Bring some proof to the table. I see your "theories", and raise them the following:
1) Cornelius Tacitus
2) Pliny the Younger
3) Flavius Josephus
4) The Dead Sea Scrolls
The overwhelming majority of records used to confirm the life and activities of Nero are recorded by Tacitus and Pliny the Younger. Accepting Nero implicitly accepts the life of Jesus of Nazareth.
BAWOLF
jJeff M: I'm not sure your facts support your conclusion. Is it not possible that the historians you cite got one thing right and another wrong? Could they have been closer to the facts regarding Nero than they were to those regarding Jesus? Must accepting *one* thing they wrote inevitably lead to accepting *everything* they wrote? That doesn't seem logical to me.
You are correct that they could easily be flawed in what was recorded...but what are the odds that all the supporting evidence between the historians recording the same events would both have them wrong? Likewise, because I accept Jesus of Nazareth, do I have to accept Socrates? If we take this path, then we cannot safely assume that the majority of historical events actually occurred.
kgohl
The article keeps referring to the fruit as an apple. That's also not Biblical. John Milton made it an apple in "Paradise Lost". Whatever fruit it was, we have no access to anymore because God cut us off from it (Gen 3). We still have apples. As one of my college professors pointed out – oranges come from orange trees, pears come from pear trees, a Knowledge of Good and Evil tree would produce Knowledge of Good and Evil fruit. Someone else already addressed the serpent/Satan issue so I won't repeat. I think the article is good in that it highlights this – if you are going to cite anything, you'd better have read it yourself and know that you're getting the quote right.
I forgot one other thing. The article says "...pick the forbidden apple from the Tree of Life." Nobody got anything off of the Tree of Life. See Gen 3:22.
JohnAVA
You're right about the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil not being the same. Genesis 2:9 says they are different trees.
clint317
Who gives a rats butt about accuratly quoting the bible, inaccurate and contradictive as it already is. It's just a bunch of folk lore tales rewritten and pieced together to create the backbone for a lie-based organization bent on control of it's members through peer pressure, fear of the unknown and impossible mysterious magic no one has ever witnessed. Any story that has a hint of the absurd should be doubted by a rational mind. Here's an idea; the universe was created by a demon alien and our souls are food, there is no "good" god and we are kidding ourselves to think anything good can come from existance. I can make up crap too, see. Whatever makes you feel better, just keep it away from the kids. Facts are facts and fantasy is fantasy, get it straight and stop making our species look like a bunch of delusional childish gullible idiots.
Karen H
It's at least as important to quote the Bible accurately as it is to quote Shakespeare accurately, if you're going to quote it at all. Even if you think the Bible is "just a bunch of folklore," it's nevertheless an important book in Western literature. Without a solid knowledge of the Bible at least as literature, you will miss a huge amount of symbolism and meaning when you read the great works of English and American literature, such as the works of Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Hemingway, Donne, Mark Twain, and many, many more–books that have contributed greatly to western and American culture. All of these authors make reference to sections of the Bible as well as incorporate symbols and archetypes from it. To just dismiss the Bible as unimportant is to dismiss one of the greatest works of Western literature, and further debase the quality of education in the U.S. and make us more ignorant of our own rich history and culture.
Antiochus
The Idea that the Serpent was Satan comes from Revelation 12:9
"9And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world, he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him."
There's a passage in the bible somewhere that describes what to do in case of mildew
Spray and pray. But don't paraphrase the instructions on the can of Lysol.
http://WWW.WPRAY4U.COM
"...Why not portray the serpent as the devil to give some punch to your creation?"
Please. It would make no sense for some random serpent to tempt Eve to eat the fruit, but it makes perfect sense for Satan – who has already been cast out of God's presence and who wants to make Adam and Eve miserable too – to do so. So-called "scholarly" analyses of the Bible are, more often than not, ridiculous – if you really insist on making the serpent a completely standalone character in the Bible, not only does the story lose almost all of its meaning; and if, like most who read the Bible, you believe that temptations to do wrong come from the devil, then why would the serpent spread such temptations unless it was influenced by the devil? Oh yes, and you also have to explain why this sentient, malicious serpent capable of human speech (but completely uninfluenced by the devil) is in the garden to begin with, since it doesn't make much sense for God to create such a being.
June 9, 2011 at 12:37 pm |
doindngn
"Please. It would make no sense for some random serpent to tempt Eve to eat the fruit" Your absolutely correct. It makes just as much sense as the rest of the bible.
MG. good questions. The thing is, the serpent is given its own characteristics, e.g., 'the most cunning of all the beasts'. If this was satan, why give any description of the serpent's character...I mean, why would it matter? As far as mankind, most all of the old testament gives man credit all by himself for commiting sins, for constantly taking the wrong path. Satan is popular in the new testament but for Job, hardly mentioned in the old. Unfortunetly we make really bad decisions without satan's help. As far as speaking, automatically we write this off as impossible but it isnt' alone in the bible. Balam's ass wasn't given speech but was given BACK its speech. I know. Subtle but made me think. The other thing that makes me consider things were different was that until after the flood, man was not allowed to eat animals. It gives no reason but I draw the conclusion that something changed. What? I really don't know. It would make it easier to collect animals for the ark if they were able to communicate with speech. Anyway, I love the Bible and read it for what it says....sometimes leave a lot of things unanswered until I pass away.
"it doesn't make much sense for God to create such a being." Didn't God create all beings? Does it makes sense that a snake was capable of human speech? How was its mouth physically able to form syllables and coherent enunciation? You say the theory that the serpent wasn't Satan doesn't make sense, but how much sense does the entire story really make?
Jashobeam
The author is incorrect in his analysis of Ben Franklin's "God helps those who help themselves" line. It was not intended to be a commentary on how we should treat the oppressed in society. It comes from an Aesop fable about a commoner who cries out to Hercules when a wheel comes off his wagon, and a voice from heaven booms, "put your shoulder to the cart and put the wheel on yourself." The point being that we should look to ourselves before we look to others for help .
nobody ever claimed these were verses in the bible. OBVIUOSLY most of these are popular sayings and interpretations/summations based on certain scriptures. my goodness, non-believers are always trying to find a way to discredit the bible and anything else related to Christianity. always the 1st ones to blame God for something that went wrong in their lives but never blame Him when something God happens. "where was God when so and so died?" where were your prayers of thankfulness when he blessed you with a new job? if He wasn't a factor in your life from the get go, don't blame Him when things go take a turn for the worse. you are all definitely in my prayers whether you want to be or not. have a blessed day.
June 9, 2011 at 11:42 am |
Many of these phrase are said by pastors and preachers and politicians as justification for their ends. They do commonly cite it s coming from the Bible or that God/Jesus said it.
jerry schoeffler
i have learned something in life that god has shown over & over again, that there is a place were R. I. P. is and always will be. with that in mind then there must a place were R. I. H. also waits for us. all things that god has ask of us we failed him, every time he changed things to make it better for us we failed him ( it was to hard for us ) can god ever win with us???????????????
Are all of those question marks really neccesary? <- See, one will do.
KingdomCome
Interesting questions.... 🙂 John 6:22 says... "For no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me, and at the last day I will raise them up."
We can do nothing good without His help....the Lord says, "Without Me you can do nothing." (Jn. 15:5).
Haime52
We all know that that the Bible is oft' misquoted or quoted as authority in error. Some of the misquotes sited in this article are merely contractions of quotes and no less appropiate.
What I find disturbing is the statement about bible studies in livingrooms all over this nation by people who have no "Expert" to guide them. How like some religious elists, to think that the common man can not possibly interpet the scriptures for his or her self! Are we to go back to the dark ages when the clergy where to ONLY repository of religious knowledge and the people where expected to follow their teaching like so many ignorant sheep?
People! Read your Bibles for yourselves! Learn from it. You have to work out your own salvation not let someone else tell you what it takes.
The majority is usually wrong! Where in scripture is authority given for a change in the day of worship? Find it, if you can! Where did Jesus give the command? In point of fact, He didn't! Please read your Bibles and question what you believe and come to conclusions based on what is actually there, not on what someone tells you is there.
Who wrote this article? Anyone with a lick of sense or had actually read the Bible knows they are not in there. They are folk wisdom not bible verses.
Name*scott
How did you miss "do unto others as you would have them do unto you?"
The Golden Rule is from Aesop's fables, but it is also found in Matthew 7:12 and Luke 6:31, so the author was right not to include that one
xfox21
Guess you haven't looked at the bible either
Uhhhhhhh.........yeah.......READ: He who spareth the rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him correcteth him betimes" (Proverbs 13:24) and "Withhold not correction from a child: for if thou strike him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from hell." (Proverbs 23:13-14)
So......you are INCORRECT, Sir! Know the FACTS before writing an article.
You realize that everyone is referencing various translations from a difference language, don't you? So who's the fool?
I still can't find "Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child", so uh, you are completely off base, DM. You're probably one of those people that likes to paraphrase the Word of God, and don't like it when someone points out that the paraphrasing can be misleading.
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Interpretive Plan
Friends of Rich Hill
Tag Archives: Television
Rich Hill on Aerial America
Posted by Friends of Rich Hill in News
John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln assassination, Rich Hill, Television
Aerial America is a stunningly beautiful television show on the Smithsonian Channel. The premise of the show is simple, use awe inspiring aerial photography to tell compelling stories of a state’s varied history. The series, which premiered in 2010, has featured each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and has also expanded into other destinations. The hour long episodes feature exquisite fly overs of historic sites and vistas, along with a compelling retelling of their significance.
On April 26, 2015, the episode devoted to Washington, D.C. aired for the first time. It was ironic date for the show to debut because not only is April 26 the same day John Wilkes Booth was cornered and killed, but the episode itself featured a five minute segment about Lincoln’s assassination and Booth’s escape. The episode provided beautiful shots of Ford’s Theatre, the Surratt Tavern, Dr. Mudd’s House, and even our own Rich Hill:
These flybys of Rich Hill show it as it appeared in about July of 2014, shortly after it was donated to Charles County. Since then a lot of work has been done to clear away the foliage that was invading the house and repair the large holes on the sides of the house. For contrast here is a picture of Rich Hill taken earlier this week (9/27/2015):
It was wonderful to see Rich Hill on TV and highlighted among the other important historic buildings relating to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Like Ford’s Theatre, the Surratt Tavern, and the Dr. Mudd House, Rich Hill is an important site in the story of one of the most dramatic events in American history. We’re grateful that Aerial America took the time (albeit briefly) to show, and, in their own way, promote this irreplaceable home. And just think how nice the aerial photography of Rich Hill will look when the house is complete rehabilitated!
You can visit the Aerial America page of the Smithsonian Channel’s website to check for future airings of the Washington, D.C. episode (next one appears to be November 28th at 5:00 pm EST). You can also purchase the episode through video streaming websites like Amazon Video.
If you would like to see images of some of the other Lincoln assassination related sites from this episode, check out The Lincoln Assassination on Aerial America on Dave Taylor’s BoothieBarn.com.
Friends of Rich Hill is a group dedicated to the preservation and restoration of Rich Hill, an 18th century home in Charles County, Maryland.
Open House, April 23, 2017
History of Rich Hill
Tract History
Dr. Gustavus Brown
Colonel Samuel Cox
Historic Owners of Rich Hill
Preservation Matters
Rich Hill Virtual Tour
Behind the Walls of Rich Hill
Rich Hill Preservation Update: October 2015
A Prison Letter from Col. Samuel Cox
Two Previously Unpublished Photographs of Rich Hill
Historic Rich Hill
Rich Hill Farm Rd.
Bel Alton, MD 20611
Follow Friends of Rich Hill via Email
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SABR Salute: Eugene Murdock
Editor’s note: The SABR Salute, first bestowed upon writer Fred Lieb in 1976, was designed as a manner of recognizing the contributions of some of the older members of the Society. Subsequent SABR Salutes appeared in the SABR Membership Directory and honored members who had made great contributions to baseball historical research. Eugene Murdock (1921-1992) received the SABR Salute in 1991; the following biographical sketch appeared in that year’s membership directory.
When SABR held its 10th anniversary convention in Toronto July 24-26, 1981, the scheduled game of birdwatching (Blue Jays vs Orioles) was cancelled because of the player strike. We cranked up our own baseball game on the Erindale Campus — Canada vs USA — and one of the stars — along with Roy Hughes—was Professor Gene Murdock of Marietta College. At 60 years of age, he held the bat at the very end and swung with great confidence and authority from the left side.
It is surprising to learn, after the fact, that he never played regularly with any team. Even in high school in Lakewood, Ohio, where he was born April 30, 1921, he was not the star player but sports editor of the school paper. That role established the pattern of his baseball interest as researcher and reporter. The first major league game he attended was Yankees vs. Indians at League Park on August 10, 1929. Babe Ruth hit his 499th home run off Milt Shoffner, a hurler Gene would interview many years later.
Gene entered Wooster College in Ohio when war started in Europe in September 1939. With the military draft later hanging over him, he completed his BA requirements on an accelerated basis in December 1942 before spending three years in the Army, one-half of the tour in the European theater. Upon discharge in 1946, he entered Columbia University in New York to work with history professor Allan Nevins. It was that Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer who taught Gene the importance of oral history. (More about that later.) He received his MA in 1948 and Ph.D. in 1951.
Dr. Murdock, who married Rita McColl in October 1950, served his first teaching assignment at Rio Grande College in southern Ohio in 1952-56. He then became assistant professor of history at Marietta College in 1956 and moved up to full professor in 1963. He was chairman of the history department from 1972 to his retirement in 1986, after which he became Historian of the College. Throughout this period, he belonged to many historical societies and associations, some of which he headed as president, as well as serving on different editorial boards. In April 1991 his fellow historians bestowed upon him the Ohio Academy of History’s Distinguished Service Award.
Gene, who has lived all these years across the Ohio River from Marietta, in Williamstown, West Virginia, joined SABR as member No. 38 on September 10, 1971. He had published articles in Baseball Digest since 1965, and became a regular contributor to the annual SABR Baseball Research Journal. His first article, in the 1973 Journal, dealt with the contributions of 19th-century players, a field not well explored at that time. Most of his articles after that resulted from his substantial efforts in the field of oral history.
From 1973 to 1987 it was “Have Tape Recorder, Will Travel” as he interviewed 76 former players in 22 states from Connecticut to California. Professor Nevins had given him sound advice to concentrate on the older persons and those not necessarily in the public eye. More than 80 percent of those interviewed have since passed on. The interviews ran from 30 minutes to five hours in two interviews for Lute Boone, a good-field, no-hit infielder, who was far more interesting to talk to than Lefty Grove, for example. Twenty-two of the best interviews, including a combined effort on Joe and Luke Sewell (The Tuscaloosa Twosome), are chapters in a 360-page book published by Meckler Publishing in June 1991. The title is Baseball Players and Their Times, Oral Histories of the Game: 1920-40. It is the latest of three baseball books Gene has authored.
In May 1974 Gene wrote The Tragedy of Ban Johnson for the Journal of Sports History. Later he expanded this research on the long-time American League President, a former Marietta College student, into a 300-page book entitled Ban Johnson, the Czar of Baseball, published by Greenwood Press in 1982. Will Harridge provided some material for this detailed study, but the author was surprised and disappointed at the lack of historical information in the AL files.
In 1984 Greenwood Press published Gene’s book Mighty Casey All-American. This 160-page volume is a historical and literary examination of Ernest L. Thayer’s masterpiece, Casey at the Bat. In the historical section, Gene analyzes the controversy surrounding the authorship of the poem and discusses whether or not there was a real “Casey” and a real Mudville — all tongue-in-cheek, of course. In the literary part he introduces and supplies the text for 75 parodies of the original poem.
Gene’s contribution to the administrative side of SABR also has been substantial. He served as president from 1976 to 1978. Before that he was chairman of the SABR Hall of Fame Committee, which recommended improvements in the selection process, primarily of the Veterans Committee. One was a more balanced selection by era, as the 1920-45 era had far more players enshrined than any other. SABR did help get three 19th-century players enshrined but the Veterans Committee went ahead and put in an additional 15 players (including Tony Lazzeri) from the heavy-hitting 1920-45 period. Gene also headed the SABR nominating committee in 1981-82 and his proposal for two-year terms for the four operating officers was later implemented.
Our 1991 honoree has had some rough going in recent years. Rita, his wife of 37 years, died suddenly in June 1987. Three years later, in May 1990, Gene was diagnosed with a malignancy in his jaw. Radiation cleared that up by fall, but the malignancy recurred in his abdomen in December 1990. He is now in remission. He did have one special thrill during his illness. Regrettably, it was not baseball-related, but that should not detract from this SABR Salute. Let it be known that on October 30, 1990, Professor Eugene C. Murdock fired a hole-in-one on the 188-yard No. 2 hole at the Minibel Golf Course, Vienna, West Virginia. It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving baseball scholar.
To get back to the SABR Salute page, click here.
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NYS Test Results
St. Charles Chargers - Sports Program
Morning Care & After Care
Journalism Club
2020 Up-To-Date School Information
Family Association
Calendar Raffle Winners
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St. Charles School
Achieving Excellence Together
St. Charles Parish
Celebrating Over 50 Years of Excellence in Catholic Education
Among the great reformers of the troubled sixteenth century was Charles Borromeo, who was born on October 2, 1538 into a noble Italian family. An excellent student, Charles accepted responsibility and became a good example to others. When his uncle was elected head of the church as Pope Pius IV, Charles became a leading figure at the papal court in Rome. He displayed great energy, ability and diplomacy in fulfilling the various duties assigned to him, especially during the Council of Trent when it was reconvened. He became Bishop of Milan in 1563. He founded the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, set up Sunday Schools for teaching Religion, established schools, seminaries and convents, worked to reform the priesthood and helped the sick and the hungry. He died on November 4, 1584 and was canonized by Paul V on November 1, 1610.
St. Charles Parish was originally a mission of St. Patrick's Parish in Richmondtown. The church site on Mill Road was donated by Mr. and Mrs. Cusack and dedicated to St. Charles Borromeo in memory of their son, Charles, who was killed in World War I. A large influx of people into the Oakwood area changed the status of St. Charles to that of a separate parish. This happened in May, 1960 with the appointment of Reverend John Manning as the first pastor. Father Manning served until September, 1961. The Reverend John A. McGowan became pastor in 1961 and remained at St. Charles until his death in 1965. In 1966, Reverend Monsignor Robert Kelly followed as pastor and remained as Pastor Emeritus to assist Reverend Monsignor Thomas J. Gaffney-the 4th pastor of St. Charles Parish (1982-2004). Currently (and since 2004), Reverend Monsignor Thomas J. Bergin serves as pastor. Monsignor Bergin is well-experienced in the field of education. He is a driving force for some of our recent instructional advances and endeavors. September 1963 marked the formal beginning of St. Charles School. For the first year classes were held in Monsignor Farrell High School. The present school building was opened to 336 students in Grades 1 to 5 on September 14, 1964. The new church and gymnasium were added in 1973, and the gymnasium extension occurred in 1977. Our Kindergarten wing was opened in September, 1992.
Through the years, St. Charles School has been staffed by the Sisters of St. Dominic of Blauvelt, New York and a lay faculty. The first principal was Sister Marie Antoinette, O.P. who served from 1963 to 1968. She was succeeded by Sister Louis Marie, O.P. (1968-1975). Sister Jeanine, O.P. served as principal from 1975 to 2005. During her tenure the Pre-Kindergarten, Kindergarten and Computer programs, Middle States Accreditation, and Alumni Development were initiated. Mrs. Nancy Bushman served from 2005-2013. Under Mrs. Bushman, a Science Lab and the Villamarin Math and Science Academy as an after-school enrichment program was instituted. Mr. JC Kiernan is the current principal. Mr. Kiernan comes to St. Charles from Monsignor Farrell High School where he taught English for seven years and from St. Adalbert School where he served as Assistant Principal. Since his arrival, Mr. Kiernan has brought Title I services, Occupational Therapy, and Speech to St. Charles. He has also created a new school website, created a parent-school e-mail system, helped to plan the repainting of the school yard, and brought a hot lunch program, catered by Nucci's Restaurant, to the cafeteria.
During the summer of 2015, the Saint Charles family welcomes our 6th pastor, Rev. Louis Jerome. We look forward to many years of spiritual growth and guidance under the leadership of Father Jerome.
Saint Charles School
200 Penn Avenue
Email: StCharlesSchoolSI@gmail.com
© Copyright 2021 Saint Charles School
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Costa Rica hosted sambo “Friendship tournament”
10 March 2017 Sergei Grishin
Costa Rican sambo wrestlers measured strength with each other at the national “Friendship Tournament”. 46 sportsmen from 6 sambo clubs took part in the competitions, which were held on March 5. According to the President of the Costa Rican Association of Sambo Guillermo Sanchez, this tournament became the second one, organized by the Association this year.
Sambo in Costa Rica started to grow rapidly in 2014 after establishing the Association and associated sports in San Jose province. Within this short period, Costa Rican sportsmen made a major step forward, having taken part in 3 Pan-American Championships, winning 2 gold, 2 silver and 8 bronze medals. Costa Rica made its first appearance at Sambo world championship in Casablanca in 2015. Reina Cordoba demonstrated the best score (the 5th place); she also took the 7th place in 2016 in Sofia.
In 2016 during the Congress in Sofia, the Costa Rican Association of Sambo was acknowledged as the official associate member of FIAS. Currently there are 6 clubs in the country, but the Association has been working hard on opening new ones. To this end, seminars for school and university physical-education instructors are organized for further implementation of sambo in the educational program.
Costa Rican Association of Sambo holds seminars for referees and coaches on a regular basis, focusing on developing sambo sports style. 36 sportsmen participated in the first competition of this year (“Summer Tournament”) in San Jose on January 28. In Costa Rica summer lasts from December to March, this fact explains the name of the tournament.
Costa Rica Sambo Federation
News on the topic
The Costa Rican Championships were held in Guadeloupe 4 October 2017
Sambo in Costa Rica: for students, for the sake of peace and in memory of the heroes 14 April 2017
The composition of the Costa Rican national team for the Pan American Sambo Championships in Paraguay has been decided 5 August 2016
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Bihar Hazard Profile
The multi-disaster prone state of Bihar requires a multi-disciplinary approach to deal with these disasters requiring participation of various stakeholders. It requires a continuous and integrated process of planning, organising, coordinating and implementing measures that are necessary for risk prevention, mitigation of risk impacts, preparing to face the disaster event, response, rehabilitation and reconstruction. Some of the prominent disasters and their impacts are –
Flood:-
Bihar’s topography is marked by a number of perennial and non-perennial rivers of which, those originating from Nepal are known to carry high sediment loads that are then deposited on the plains of Bihar. A majority of the rainfall in this region is concentrated in the 3 months of monsoon during which the flow of rivers increases up to 50 times causing floods in Bihar. 68800 sq km out of a total area of 94160 sq km, an estimated 73% per cent of the total land area in Bihar is vulnerable to flood . Annual flooding in Bihar accounts for about 30-40% of the flood damages in India; 22.1% of the total flood affected population in India is reported to be located within the state of Bihar. 28 districts of Bihar fall under most flood prone and flood prone districts.
Earthquake :-
Bihar is located in the high seismic zone that falls on the boundary of the tectonic plate joining the Himalayan tectonic plate near the Bihar-Nepal Border and has six sub-surface fault lines moving towards the Gangetic planes in four directions. Major parts of the state are classified under in seismic zone IV and V by the Vulnerability Atlas of India, i.e. as having high earthquake vulnerability with the potential to cause very high degree of devastation. In all, 15.2% of the total area of Bihar is classified under Zone V and 63.7% of the total area of Bihar falls in Zone IV. Of the 38 districts, 8 districts fall in seismic zone V while 24 districts fall in seismic zone IV and 6 districts in seismic zone III with most districts falling under multiple seismic zones (i.e. either seismic zone V & IV or seismic zone IV & III). The state has in the past experienced major earthquakes; the worst was the 1934 earthquake in which more than 10,000 people lost their lives, followed by 1988 earthquake.
Drought :-
Though the climate of Bihar is favourable for production of various crops, the agriculture of the state is dependent on behaviour of monsoon and distribution of rainfall. Although the average rainfall in the state is 1120 mm, considerable variations occur between the different parts of the State. Large part of the state is now increasingly vulnerable to drought due to climate change. In the absence of adequate rainfall, most part of Bihar including North Bihar which is prone to floods faces drought situations. South and South West Bihar are more vulnerable and often experiences severe drought situations.
Other Hazards :-
Apart from the above hazards, the state is also prone to cold and heat waves, Cyclonic storms (high speed winds) and other human-induced hazards like fire, epidemics, road / boat accidents, stampedes etc. Incidences of fire are mainly local in nature but have a severe impact on villages. Since a majority of Kucha houses have thatch roofs and wooden structures, in the summer months when winds are high, fires from the traditional stoves spread to damage entire villages.
Bihar – Official website – http://disastermgmt.bih.nic.in/
Hazard Profile – Flood, Drought, Fire and Earthquake
Control Room – 0612-2217305, 0612-2217305
CHIEF MINSTER
Sh. Nitish Kumar
Saran Office-06152-222875
FAX-06152-232833, 244455 06152-222716
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NNationalNNews
National / Kamal Nath to take oath as Madhya Pradesh CM on Dec 17
Kamal Nath to take oath as Madhya Pradesh CM on Dec 17
Bhopal: Senior Congress leader Kamal Nath shows the Madhya Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel’s letter inviting him to form the new government in the State, outside Raj Bhawan in Bhopal, Friday, Dec 14, 2018. (PTI Photo)
Senior Congress leader Kamal Nath will be sworn in as the 18th chief minister of Madhya Pradesh on December 17.
Governor Anandiben Patel invited Nath, 72, to form the new government in the state, after he met her at the Raj Bhavan here Friday to stake claim to form the government.
“As the leader of the single largest party, I appoint you as the chief minister of under Article 164 of the Constitution and invite you to form cabinet,” she said in a letter to Nath after their meeting which lasted around 50 minutes.
Talking to reporters outside the Raj Bhavan later, Nath said the swearing-in ceremony will take place at the Lal Parade Ground in Bhopal at around 1.30 pm on December 17.
Nath, who has held several portfolios in the Union cabinet, will be the 18th chief minister of Madhya Pradesh after the state was formed on November 1, 1956.
The nine-time Lok Sabha member from Chhindwara was Thursday night elected as the leader of Congress Legislature Party (CLP).
Nath met the governor along with senior party leaders, including Digvijay Singh, Vivek Tankha, Ajay Singh, Arun Yadav and Suresh Pachouri. They apprised her about his election as the CLP leader.
Appointed as the Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee president on April 26, Nath was at the forefront in steering the party to a win in the November 28 Assembly polls.
The results were declared on December 11.
The Congress, which won 114 seats, has secured support of 121 MLAs, including SP (1) and BSP (2) legislators and four independents, to cross the majority mark of 116 seats in the 230-member assembly.
The BJP, which ruled the state for 15 years, got 109 seats in the elections. The saffron party’s Shivraj Singh Chouhan was the state’s longest serving chief minister since taking charge in 2005.
The Congress named Nath to head the CLP Thursday night after hours of hectic parleys held by party chief Rahul Gandhi with senior party leaders
(PTI)
Kamal Nath, Madhya Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh Assembly Polls 2018
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The Night Swim
Author(s): Megan Goldin
After the first season of her true crime podcast became an overnight sensation and set an innocent man free, Rachel Krall is now a household name - and the last hope for thousands of people seeking justice. But she's used to being recognised for her voice, not her face. Which makes it all the more unsettling when she finds a note on her car windshield, addressed to her, begging for help. The small town of Neapolis is being torn apart by a devastating rape trial. The town's golden boy, a swimmer destined for Olympic greatness, has been accused of raping a high school student, the beloved granddaughter of the police chief. Under pressure to make Season Three a success, Rachel throws herself into interviewing and investigating - but the mysterious letters keep showing up in unexpected places. Someone is following her, and she won't stop until Rachel finds out what happened to her sister twenty-five years ago. Officially, Jenny Stills tragically drowned, but the letters insists she was murdered - and when Rachel starts asking questions, nobody seems to want to answer. The past and present start to collide as Rachel uncovers startling connections between the two cases that will change the course of the trial and the lives of everyone involved. Electrifying and propulsive, The Night Swim asks- What is the price of a reputation? Can a small town ever right the wrongs of its past? And what really happened to Jenny?
Imprint : Michael Joseph
Author : Megan Goldin
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Saratoga’s Water: The Story You Have To Read
EXCLUSIVES/FEATURES
SARATOGA AFTER DARK
Shop #SaratogaStrong
Shop #CapitalRegionStrong
EXCLUSIVES / FEATURES, FOOD / DRINK
After an exhaustive, months-long investigation, ‘saratoga living’ gets to the bottom of all things water. We suggest you buckle up.
by Natalie Moore
Congress Spring In Congress Park was once thought to benefit dyspepsia, gout and skin ailments. (Dori Fitzpatrick)
In the opening scene of Ice Age: The Meltdown, Scrat, the acorn-obsessed saber-toothed squirrel, is hanging off the edge of a glacier where his acorn has become lodged. When he finally wedges it out, a stream of water springs from the hole. He plugs the leak with his paw, but another springs, followed by another and another until he runs out of body parts to plug the leaks with and is blown from the side of the glacier.
That’s what writing about water is like. Every time you think you’ve done it—plugged the leak and contained the tsunami—another leak, or, in this case, lead, sprouts. There’s e. Coli in the lake. Great. On top of it. But, oh wait, it also has blue green algae and zebra mussels, and there are invasive water chestnuts in the creek that connects the lake to the river. There’s the water crisis in Africa, in California and in the Colorado River basin, and then there’s the drinking water crises in Flint, MI and Newark, NJ. There’s saltwater and fresh water, glacial water and rainwater and, in Saratoga Springs, there’s mineral water.
In writing about all the waters of Saratoga, and actually, in writing about Saratoga in general, mineral waters come first. As Dr. Grace M. Swanner writes in her Saratoga Queen Of Spas (the book Saratoga Room Library Clerk Victoria Garlanda referred to as “The Bible” when she handed it to me), “It can realistically be said that the waters are the veritable ‘raison d’être’ of Saratoga Springs.” And so, in my quest to write as comprehensive a story on Saratoga water as possible, mineral water is where I’ll dive in first.
First, a quick and (somewhat) dirty history: The Saratoga region was originally a prime hunting ground for the Mohawk Indian tribe, whose members believed the waters that bubbled from the ground were a gift from the god Manitou. European settlers came in in the early 1700s, claimed the land and began developing it. In the 1800s, Saratoga was a destination for the rich and famous, who came to “take the waters” (drink from the mineral springs), but by the end of the century, private industry had begun extracting carbonic acid gas from the springs for use in soda, which was detrimental to the natural flow of the springs. The State of New York stepped in in the early 1900s, passing anti-pumping legislation, but not before many of the springs had been permanently damaged. Shortly after, in 1909, the State Reservation at Saratoga Springs was formed, which put the future of the springs solely in the state’s hands, followed by the creation of the “New Spa,” a European-style health center that became the first major project finished under Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, in 1935. The Saratoga Spa saw its finest hour between then and 1950, after which its funding was gradually cut, and it was transformed into the Saratoga Spa State Park we know today.
I made several trips to the Spa State Park this past summer, the first of which was to explore the benefits of soaking in Saratoga’s mineral waters by way of a spa day—solely for research purposes, of course. Established in 1935, Roosevelt Baths & Spa is the last remaining historical bathhouse in Saratoga Springs, and bathing in the carbonated waters of the Lincoln Spring—just as guests did back in the days of the Saratoga Spa—is its signature treatment. Benefits of such mineral baths, Spa Director Jared Taisey tells me, are believed to include therapeutic effects on skin conditions such as psoriasis, increased blood circulation and cell oxygenation, stimulation of the immune system, production of endorphins, normalized gland function and promotion of feelings of physical and psychological well-being. “Of course, everything is a belief—we can’t say for certain,” Taisey says.
Orenda Spring is one of 13 springs in the Saratoga Spa State Park. (Dori Fitzpatrick)
That got me thinking: How do we not know for certain? Hasn’t there been some study that definitively proves (or, gasp!, disproves) bathing in mineral waters has medicinal value? It turns out, there hasn’t. Academic study after academic study I reviewed all said some version of the same thing: There was “insufficient evidence” to support the fact that balneotherapy (the treatment of disease by bathing in mineral springs) was effective. In reading these studies, I came across the name Arianne Verhagen quite a bit, and decided to reach out to her to see what the deal was. “I do not think that, at the moment, the scientific world is able to state that balneotherapy is or is not effective,” says Verhagen, professor and head of the discipline of physiotherapy at University of Technology Sydney and whose research delves into the effect of balneotherapy on physiological impairments. “There are just not enough studies done of a certain size and quality to be able to draw these kinds of conclusions. I’m not sure why these studies are not performed, but I assume it’s a money problem, as these studies cost a lot of money, and probably researchers cannot find the funding for them.”
So, without scientific evidence to back the legitimacy of balneotherapy, we’re left with anecdotal evidence, which, it turns out, is in high supply. For starters, you can’t ignore more than four centuries of Saratogians and visitors to the Spa City who believe in the water’s healing qualities. One high-profile example is Zac Brown Band bassist Matt Mangano, who told saratoga living that running mineral water over his dislocated finger made it feel good enough to play a show at Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) that same night. Then there are the people who can speak to the increased feelings of psychological wellbeing: “We hear from a lot of our guests that after they have a mineral bath, they didn’t care that their cell phone was going off, or they shut it off because it was going off,” Taisey says. “Like, the world’s gonna survive for the couple hours that they’re spending here at the spa.”
That psychological wellbeing is key. “Given the right environment and the psychological assurance that health will be restored, the salutary physiological effect of the waters and minerals necessary for rebuilding body tissues will accomplish wonders,” Dr. Swanner writes. “This concept is basic to spa therapy. The mineral waters are not necessarily specific for any given disease. They contribute to the basic welfare of the person by improving the general health and thereby aiding nature in the natural healing process.” The other explanation for why people who came to the Saratoga Spa felt—and were, according to many studies conducted in the era—healed, is that “spa therapy” also included a regiment of exercise, healthy diet, rest and recreation.
So, while I can’t say I felt healed in any specific way by my mineral bath at Roosevelt (being in my 20s, I don’t have too many ailments in need of healing), it’s hard to imagine my relaxing soak, when paired with a healthy diet and exercise, would do me any harm. If anything, for the remainder of the day I went to the spa, I felt like I was still floating in that one-of-a-kind, effervescent water.
But bathing in mineral waters is only half of the equation; from Victorian Era tourists who came here to “take the waters,” to those who, while at the Saratoga Spa, drank from the Hathorn, Coesa and Geyser springs, which were piped into the Hall of Springs, Saratogians and visitors alike have been drinking from the “health-giving” mineral springs that dot Saratoga Springs for hundreds of years. So, I figured I’d see what all the fuss was about.
Many Saratoga residents fill five-gallon jugs with water from the State Seal Spring at Saratoga Spa State Park. (Dori Fitzpatrick)
Upon my arrival at the notoriously delicious State Seal Spring across from the Saratoga Automobile Museum, I filled my Nalgene and, too nervous to sip it in front of all the people standing around filling their five-gallon jugs, made like I was leaving. But that’s when I met Willow, a pup whose owner, 15-year Gansevoort resident David Dinallo, looked like a regular around those parts. “It’s the best water I’ve ever had,” Dinallo said about the State Seal. “I consider Fiji the benchmark of water, and this is right up there. The thing is, this water is free and Fiji costs $39 at BJ’s.” (Ironically, and devastatingly, I found out later, Fiji, home of the trendy Fiji bottled water brand Dinallo mentioned, is actually one of the worst-off countries in the world when it comes to water access—but more on that later.) “Twenty years ago, who would’ve ever bought water in bottles at the store?” he asked. “Now, most people won’t drink water out of the tap. But water from bottles isn’t much better, I hear.” Willow likes the State Seal water too: Several times, Dinallo put two bowls of water on the ground, one filled from the tap and one filled with State Seal water, and eight times out of ten, Willow drank from the State Seal bowl.
I broke the news to Dinallo that I’m a water-from-the-ground newb, and of course, he wanted me to try it, right then and there. But by then I’d realized people were waiting for a spigot and not getting water from the one I filled my bottle with. That’s because the one I chose was actually churning out good old-fashioned mineral water from the Geyser Spring. (The words “mineral water” are actually engraved in the concrete above the spigot—not sure how I missed that.) But Dinallo insisted I try that too. “It tastes like blood,” an onlooker warned. I swished it around in my mouth and spit it out. It tasted like blood.
The blood taste comes from iron in the water, I learned later. But not all the springs taste like that. That’s because, while all the mineral springs contain the same minerals—such as potassium, calcium and magnesium and, yes, iron—and are therefore believed to be from the same source (though that source is not officially known, Saratoga Spa State Park Manager David Guest tells me), they have varying concentrations of those minerals. Historically, the health benefits of the springs were also thought to vary. Congress Spring in Congress Park, for example, is categorized as cathartic and was thought to benefit dyspepsia, gout and skin ailments.
I ask Dr. Judy Halstead, a professor of chemistry at Skidmore College, her thoughts on the medicinal value of Saratoga’s mineral waters. “No, they’re not medicinal!” she flatly tells me. “No, no, no, no!” She explains: “When we say mineral, it means it’s got calcium and magnesium in it. It’s also gonna have a lot of sodium in it. So, anyone who’s concerned about their sodium consumption—you certainly don’t want to be taking mineral water. They’re also radioactive. Not to the point where they would be dangerous, but I can’t imagine any reasonable argument to just decide to consume a bunch of minerals, a bunch of salt and a little bit of radioactivity. That’s crazy.” Halstead ventures that perhaps tourists in the Victorian Era saw improvements in their health when they came to Saratoga not necessarily because of the mineral springs, but because of the regular drinking water. “Our surface water may have been somewhat cleaner long, long ago than if you were living in New York City or Philadelphia, where it’s easy to see that surface water would’ve been heavily polluted.”
Saratoga Spring Water focuses its business on glass containers because of their recyclability and durability. (Dori Fitzpatrick)
There are some springs, though, that don’t have as much salt, radioactivity, calcium or magnesium, or at least not in as high quantities, and are therefore not classified as “mineral.” One is the State Seal (which actually spews sand-filtered rain water) and another is the Sweet Water Spring, which, located across Route 50 from State Seal and the rest of Spa State Park, is the main source for Saratoga Spring Water, the company behind those blue glass bottles you see everywhere around town. (Pristine Mountain Springs in Stockbridge, VT, which has very similar characteristics as Sweet Water Spring, is the other source.) The identity of Saratoga Springs is undoubtedly tied to Saratoga Spring Water. Besides the obvious name-related similarities, Saratoga Spring Water is the last remaining bottler of Saratoga’s spring waters, having been in operation since 1872. Its iconic blue bottles have also, in a way, become synonymous with Saratoga—not only are they sold in 30 states and 5 countries, which puts Saratoga on the map as a “water” destination even after the closing of the Saratoga Spa, but Saratoga Spring Water souvenirs are a signature item in shops up and down Broadway (I’m the proud owner of a candle holder made out of half a Saratoga Spring Water bottle). “I think right now we have a symbiotic relationship with Saratoga where people might have a nostalgic view of their visit to Saratoga,” says Saratoga Spring Water President Adam “AC” Madkour. “They see our bottle on the shelves, and it brings them back to that time they were here. We’re getting the name Saratoga out across the country and around the world, and then, at the same time, those people who have all those great memories of visiting this area can have a little piece of that when they see our bottle.”
OK, time for a water break. Have you already had your two liters for the day?
With the storied history of Saratoga’s spring waters, and the national and international attention its premier bottled water brand has garnered, it makes sense to assume its drinking water supply is equally noteworthy. Rumors even swirl in Manhattan that New York City’s water is as good as it is—and makes the city’s pizza dough and bagels as good as they are—because it gets water from Saratoga Springs. (The tasty NYC tap water actually comes from a watershed in the Catskill Mountains, which have very little limestone rock and therefore don’t taint the water with bitter-tasting calcium.) But in reality, Saratoga’s spring waters are a completely separate entity from its drinking water. Whereas the mineral springs arise from waters trapped in layers of impenetrable rock deep below the earth’s surface and rise along fault lines, Saratoga’s main municipal water source is Loughberry Lake, a shallow reservoir next to Route 50 between Saratoga and Wilton. The city also uses ground water from the Geyser Crest system, as well as from Bog Meadow Brook and three Bog Meadow ground water wells during the summer months when water is in higher demand.
Drinking water is obviously a hot topic right now, given the crisis in Flint, MI and now Newark, NJ relating to lead in drinking water, as well as the water insecurity seen around the world from Africa to California and Fiji, where 53 percent of people don’t have access to safe drinking water. (It’s literally easier to get water from Fiji in any city in America than it is in Fiji itself.) “Flint has brought water to the forefront,” says Brett Johnson, chief water plant operator for the City of Saratoga Springs. “People are more educated because it’s been in the news. They’re worried their kids might get lead poisoning.”
Loughberry Lake, a shallow reservoir next to Route 50 between Saratoga and Wilton, is Saratoga’s main municipal water source. (Dori Fitzpatrick)
But Saratogians have nothing to worry about. Whereas contaminants such as chloride, nitrogen and mercury may be present in source water (i.e. Loughberry Lake) as a result of runoff from fertilizers, road salt or factory waste, and can therefore be treated at the plant, lead, which when ingested, severely affects mental and physical development, typically gets into drinking water after it leaves the treatment plant in the pipes that bring it to people’s homes. While most of the pipes transporting water under the City of Saratoga aren’t made of lead, there are a few, and in a routine water test in June 2017, lead levels were found to exceed the legal limit in 7 out of 60 homes in the city. As a result, the Department of Public Works worked with the New York State Department of Health and an engineering firm to test and subsequently introduce orthophosphate, a substance that prevents lead from leaching from pipes into water. (In Flint and Newark, many more homes are serviced by lead pipes, and both cities misused, or failed to use, corrosion inhibitors such as orthophosphate to prevent leaching.) Subsequent tests in November 2017, May 2018 and November 2018 in Saratoga found that lead had fallen below the maximum contaminant level.
Water scarcity is another issue—actually, one of the biggest issues—that communities around the world face today. While about 70 percent of Earth is covered in water, only about 2.5 percent of that is fresh water. (Saratoga isn’t coastal, so, thankfully, I’ll be leaving the discussion of ocean pollution, coral reef depletion, water levels rising, etc. to some other lucky reporter.) Even then, only one percent of Earth’s fresh water is easily accessible—most of it is trapped in glaciers (another topic I won’t be touching on, aside from in that Ice Age metaphor in the intro) and snowfields. According to the United Nations, in 2015 three in ten people didn’t have access to safe drinking water, including some in California, which was in the midst of a seven-year drought. (It turns out, the water shortage in California had less to do with the drought than it did with rich agriculture corporations hogging all the available ground water, but again, I’ll abstain from getting into that.) By 2025, the World Health Organization estimates that half of the world’s population will be living in water-stressed areas. That’s in five years.
While Saratoga hasn’t had any real issues with water scarcity in the past, the city is safeguarding against future problems. On a tour of the Saratoga water treatment plant (which has been in operation since 1935, the same year the Saratoga Spa and Roosevelt Baths & Spa were completed), Johnson pointed out a 1.5 megawatt generator that was installed in 2015 and is capable of running the facility at full capacity, as well as a gauge monitoring the water level of a 5 million-gallon storage tank located behind Skidmore College (it’s almost full, FYI). He also told me the city has a bid out for a study of Loughberry Lake that will determine the long-term viability of its water quality and safe yield, or in other words, if it will continue to be a reliable water source for the city in the coming years.
While Loughberry Lake just so happens to be Saratoga’s drinking water source, it’s first and foremost a lake. And as a lake, it’s susceptible to the same threats as Saratoga’s other surface waters—threats such as invasive species, contamination and eutrophication (when a body of water becomes overly enriched with nutrients).
Lake George is home to the world’s most advanced environmental monitoring system, The Jefferson Project. (Natalie Moore)
Let’s break that down. Invasive species, ones that are not originally from the area and cause environmental and/or economic damage, are a pretty straightforward problem. Zebra mussels and water chestnuts are the two main culprits in Saratoga County: The mussels compete with native fish for food and clog industrial water pipes, and the chestnuts develop into thick mats that block sunlight from native species and hinder activities such as swimming, boating and kayaking.
The obvious example of contamination of waters in the area would be when General Electric dumped around 1.3 million pounds of Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into the Hudson River in Hudson Falls, NY and Fort Edward, NY between 1947 and 1977. The now-banned substance had unintended impacts on human and environmental health, and can now be found in water, sediment, wildlife and people as far south as the New York Harbor. Road salt is another contaminant, which affects aquatic life and decreases water clarity, as is E. coli, which gets into water by way of animal feces or untreated sewage. This August, Brown’s Beach on Saratoga Lake was closed due to E. coli contamination from what was thought to be geese droppings from a flock that passed over the beach.
Besides E. coli, feces also contain nutrients, which, when they enter bodies of water, speed up eutrophication. “Natural eutrophication is the process by which a brand-new, pristine, geologically pure, young lake gradually and naturally becomes a swamp and then land,” Halstead tells me. “That’s a natural process. But when we add certain things, particularly nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus, to a body of water, that can accelerate it dramatically.” It happens like this: Nutrients, such as sewage or fertilizers, get into a water body by way of rainwater runoff and feed algae, creating algal blooms, which block sunlight causing plants to die. Then, bacteria digest the dead plants, using up oxygen in the process, and fish die, because they can’t survive without oxygen. It goes without saying that the recent repeal of a major Obama-era clean water regulation that put limits on the use of polluting chemicals, such as fertilizers, near bodies of water, is not good news for the health of surface water.
Obviously, invasive species, contaminants and eutrophication are important to the health of lakes and streams that aren’t a source of drinking water: When lakes are contaminated, their water can make people or animals sick and negatively impact tourism. But drinking water is still a chief concern. As of now, none of these issues pose a threat great enough that the Saratoga Springs water treatment plant can’t handle. When I was there, Johnson showed me all kinds of charts and meters that are constantly monitoring the levels of coliform, turbidity, inorganic compounds, nitrate, nitrite, lead, copper, volatile organic compounds and many more things I can’t even pronounce, in the city’s water. And still, some residents don’t trust it. “You know how old the pipes are…they’re not too hot,” says Saratoga Springs resident Justin Metzger. “Some of them are still wood if I’m not mistaken.” (Johnson told me this is “highly unlikely.”) Nick LaRose is another city resident who refuses to drink water from the tap (and who also happens to be my boyfriend). “You don’t know what they’re putting in it,” he says. “Fluoride? Fluoride’s not good for you. That Flint water crisis? The people were just drinking the water. And it had more lead in it than a Ticonderoga pencil factory.” (While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers water fluoridation as one of the ten great public health achievements of the 20th century because of its contribution to the decline in the public’s tooth decay, the relationship between fluoridated water and cancer has been debated for years. And Ticonderoga uses graphite in its pencils, not lead.)
“It can realistically be said that the waters are the veritable ‘raison d’être’ of Saratoga Springs,” writes Dr. Grace M. Swanner in her book, ‘Saratoga Queen Of Spas.’ (Dori Fitzpatrick)
State Seal water, though, LaRose says, he’d drink. “That’s what people did for thousands of years,” he says. “They didn’t put chemicals in the water in ancient Rome.” (The average life expectancy in ancient Rome was 25.) Dr. Halstead is not of the same mindset. She tells me she came across a blog post by a woman who said she saw someone letting their dog lick the spigot at the State Seal Spring. “How do you know what anybody’s been doing there?” Halstead says. “Honestly, really, I’m happy the parks and recreation people test it. I think I found a Post Star article that said they test it quarterly. Well that’s every three months. But really, do you want to drink water that’s been tested for bacteria every single solitary day and is filtered and disinfected”—as Saratoga city water is—“or do you want to be drinking your water from someplace a dog could’ve just been licking the faucet?” (In addition to the quarterly tests mentioned in the 2010 Post Star article Halstead was referring to, Guest tells me “The mineral spring water is collected and taken to an outside lab for analysis monthly.”)
But tap water doesn’t taste good, some people will say (not me—I have no problem gulping down Saratoga city water). Well, there are a couple of options. For one, you can buy a filter, such as a Brita, which a lot of Saratoga residents I talked with have. The issue there, Halstead says, is you’re putting extra responsibility on yourself that you were previously trusting the water plant with to change the filter frequently enough so that bacteria doesn’t grow in it. The other option is to just put a pitcher of your tap water in the fridge for a while before drinking it. “If you give it 12 hours or something, most people, even if they don’t like the taste of the local water, will find it to be more agreeable the next day,” she says.
Dr. Halstead, ever the tap water champion (though she does admit things can get sloppy, as they did in Flint), goes on to tell me that while tap water is regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency and State of New York, bottled water is regulated as a food by the Food and Drug Administration, and has minimal testing requirements. “Bottled water is something like 1000 times more expensive than tap water,” she continues. (It’s actually 3785 times more.) “You can get organics leaching out of the plastic bottle, the contribution to global climate change, the pollution from having to get rid of the bottles, the environmental impact of transporting those bottles, you’re making the plastic bottles…it’s just ridiculous.” Madkour and Saratoga Spring Water recognize these environmental issues and are working to combat them. “We realize what industry we’re in, and by focusing our business on glass containers, we believe that that is a more sustainable option. They have better recyclability, better durability and in conjunction with that, we offset all of our power usage with wind power so that we can be a carbon neutral operation.”
The very first person I talked to when I started my water investigation was Elizabeth Sobol, president and CEO of SPAC. Not the most obvious choice, I know. But I knew she was passionate about water—mineral and drinking—as evidenced by her bringing a three-part series of talks on water to SPAC this past summer. (I made it to the third installment of the series, a talk by Charles Fishman, author of The Big Thirst: The Secret Life And Turbulent Future Of Water, at the very end of my months-long water exploration, and, as expected, it sprouted countless more glacial leaks/leads, from wastewater and gray water, to the innovative ways water scarcity issues are being solved around the world.) “People hear me talk about it all the time: I look at SPAC as the perfect confluence of manmade beauty and natural beauty,” Sobol says. “There are certainly many other summer festivals that are located in beautiful locations—Tanglewood is the obvious example. But no other summer music festival of this magnitude is so specifically located in a park that was created around the presence of healing waters.”
The iconic Geyser Island Spouter in Saratoga Spa State Park is on an island of hardened minerals called Tufa. (Dori Fitzpatrick)
Sobol is helping to further highlight the presence of the springs in the Spa State Park with the renovation of the long-vacant Roosevelt II bathhouse. “Coesa [a wellness retreat center] will go in there, we’ll have a gallery space and a black box theater space and teaching kitchen and workshop and classroom space,” she says. “We’re essentially going to be breathing new life and purpose into a building that was originally built to take advantage of the waters and their healing properties.”
Sobol also talked about The Jefferson Project, a partnership between the FUND for Lake George, IBM and Rensselaer Polytech Institute (RPI) that is the world’s most advanced environmental monitoring system. The project’s goal is to identify, understand and respond to ecological stressors (which are often human caused), such as road salt, invasive species and excess nutrients (or eutrophication), in order to create a global model for ecosystem resilience. “I think it’s incredible that all these people and organizations are getting together, seeing the responsibility they have to help create templates for the future and for other people who are trying to stave off the same problem,” Sobol says.
I knew from previous interviews Sobol has done with saratoga living that when she moved here from Miami Beach to take over SPAC in 2016, she was at least, in part, swayed to come by the natural beauty of the area, so I asked her about it. “That fateful, cool, June evening when I came up here for the first time, I walked by Congress Park and the beauty of the fountain and the springs…the water there was just so riveting and beautiful and seeing the springs there made me curious. I suppose Congress Park, and the water in it, was the first thing about Saratoga Springs that really, totally arrested my attention.”
In my effort to wrap my head around water—it’s just two hydrogens and an oxygen, after all—I asked Sobol where, in her opinion, the topic of Saratoga’s mineral water meets drinking water meets surface water. “At the end of the day, if we’re not working together and we’re not acknowledging the interconnectedness of our own lives and water and how we’re connected to the earth, then it’s not a pretty future,” she says. “I think it’s that interconnectedness piece that, for me, makes it all not just interesting and fascinating, but also critical and urgent.” It seems like some special sort of destiny that, when Saratoga’s springs attracted the environmental, artistic, civic force that is Elizabeth Sobol to our little city, we had no idea that in addition to transforming SPAC, she’d be one of the most dominant voices advocating to save—and celebrate—our water.
Saratoga Water: The Numbers
13 The number of springs in the Saratoga Spa State Park
250 The minimum number, in parts per million, of dissolved solids such as calcium, magnesium, sodium and potassium that must be present in water for it to be considered mineral water
750,000 The amount, in dollars, the new Lincoln Bath House cost to build (it opened in 1930)
92 The percentage of patients with arthritis and related conditions who showed definite improvement after taking part in a special treatment program which included the use of naturally carbonated mineral waters in the form of baths and other forms of spa therapy during a study at the Veterans Hospital at Saratoga Springs from 1943-1947
107,299 The number of treatments given at the Lincoln and Washington bath houses in 1927
15,000-20,000 The approximate number of mineral baths given at Roosevelt Baths & Spa per year in recent years
2690 The amount of sodium, in milligrams per liter of water, in water from the Hathorn #3 Spring in the Spa State Park
2300 The recommended maximum daily intake of sodium, in milligrams
147 The number of years Saratoga Spring Water has been in business
30 The number of states Saratoga Spring Water is sold in
5 The number of countries Saratoga Spring Water is sold in
28,000 The approximate number of people the Saratoga Springs water system serves
1,530,219,000 The total amount of water, in gallons, produced in Saratoga Springs in 2018
7,066,000The amount of water, in gallons, consumed in Saratoga Springs on July 2, 2018 (the year’s highest single-day consumption)
1.72 The approximate amount, in dollars, Saratoga residents paid per 1000 gallons of water in 2018
31 The percent water bills in the US have surged since 2012 (vastly outpacing US inflation)
15 The “action level” of lead, in parts per billion (the maximum concentration of lead allowed in drinking water before the system must take action to control corrosion in pipes)
13,000 The highest level of lead, in parts per billion, found in Flint, MI during its water crisis
0.007 The percentage of the planet’s water that’s available for human use and consumption
30 The percentage of people worldwide who didn’t have access to safe drinking water in 2015
50 The estimated percentage of people worldwide who will be living in water-stressed areas by the year 2025
5000 The number of children who die each day from lack of water or diseases they got from tainted drinking water
9.6 The amount, in millions of dollars, the states of New York and Vermont have spent on controlling invasive water chestnuts over the last 29 years
1.3 The amount, in millions of pounds, of Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) that General Electric dumped into the Hudson River between 1947 and 1977
33 The percentage of students who correctly identified a tap water sample from Vermont Pure bottled water in a 2011 study
100 The number of times more air and water pollution created by making a 16-ounce water bottle from plastic polyethylene terephthalate (PET) than are created by making it out of glass
3785 The number of times more expensive single-serve plastic water bottles are than tap water when priced by the gallon (some bottling companies, such as Dasani, actually draw on municipal water supplies)
1.63 The number of liters of water Coca-Cola bottling plants, which produce Dasani, use for every 1 liter of beverage produced
2 The number, in billions, of plastic water bottles purchased by Americans each week (that’s 6 bottles per person per week)
2 The amount of water, in tablespoons, used to complete one Google search (with 4 million searches conducted a minute, Google uses 45 million gallons of water a day)
4.9 The number of gallons of water it takes to grow one walnut
18.5 The amount of clean water, in gallons, flushed down the toilet by each American every day
250 The amount of gallons of water it takes to provide electricity for one American each day (that’s 2.5 times more water than the average American actually uses in the kitchen and bathroom each day)
1 The amount of Poland Spring and Dasani bottled water, in millions of gallons, Americans drink every hour
73 The minimum number of terabytes of data generated by Jefferson Project computer models each year
51 The number of Jefferson Project sensor platforms in or around Lake George
11 The number of gallons of water present in a 150-pound man’s body (that’s 90 pounds worth!)
(13) DAVID GUEST; (250) FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION; (750,000, 92) SARATOGA QUEEN OF SPAS; (107,299) SARATOGA QUEEN OF SPAS; (15,000-20,000) JARED TAISEY; (2690) NEW YORK PARKS, RECREATION AND HISTORIC PRESERVATION; (2300) THE AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION; (147) SARATOGA SPRING WATER; (30) AC MADKOUR; (5) SARATOGA SPRING WATER; (28,000, 1,530, 219,000, 7,066,000, 1.72) CITY OF SARATOGA SPRINGS; (31) CBS; (15, 13,000) THE WASHINGTON POST; (.007) NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC; (30) UNITED NATIONS; (50) WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION; (5000) THE BIG THIRST; (9.6) SARATOGA PLAN; (1.3) US ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY; (33) BOSTON UNIVERSITY; (100) BERKELEY PLASTICS TASK FORCE; (3785) MONEY CRASHERS; (1.63, 4.9) MOTHER JONES; (2, 2, 18.5) CHARLES FISHMAN; (250, 1, 11) THE BIG THIRST; (73, 51) THE JEFFERSON PROJECT
Natalie Moore is the managing editor at saratoga living.
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Natalie Moore October 2, 2019
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Home Archaeology DNA study sheds new light on the people of the Neolithic Battle...
DNA study sheds new light on the people of the Neolithic Battle Axe Culture
In an interdisciplinary study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, an international research team has combined archaeological, genetic and stable isotope data to understand the demographic processes associated with the iconic Battle Axe Culture and its introduction in Scandinavia.
In 1953, a significant burial site belonging to the Battle Axe Culture was found when constructing a roundabout in Linköping. 4,500 years ago, a man and a woman were buried together with a child, a dog and a rich set of grave goods including one of the eponymous battle axes. “Today, we call this site ‘Bergsgraven’. I have been curious about this particular burial for a long time. The collaboration of archaeologists with geneticists allows us to understand more about these people as individuals as well as where their ancestors came from,” says archaeogeneticist Helena Malmström of Uppsala University, lead author of the study.
The Scandinavian Battle Axe Culture appears in the archaeological record about 5,000 years ago and archaeologically it resembles the continental European Corded Ware Culture. “The appearance and development of the culture complex has been debated for a long time, especially whether it was a regional phenomenon or whether it was associated with migratory processes of human groups, and – if the latter – from where,” says osteoarchaeologist Jan Storå of Stockholm University, one of the senior authors of the study.
By sequencing the genomes of prehistoric individuals from present-day Sweden, Estonia and Poland, the research team showed that the Scandinavian Battle Axe Culture and continental Corded Ware Culture share a common genetic ancestry, which had not been present in Scandinavia or central Europe before 5,000 years ago. “This suggests that the introduction of this new cultural manifestation was associated with movements of people. These groups have a history which we ultimately can trace back to the Pontic Steppe north of the Black Sea,” says population geneticist Torsten Günther of Uppsala University, co-lead author of the study.
In previous studies, the research team had been able to show that other cultural changes during the Stone Age, such as the introduction of farming practices, were also associated with movements of people. Torsten Günther: “Again, archaeogenomic analyses reveal new and surprising results concerning demographic processes in the Stone Age.” Jan Storå adds: “Prehistoric movements of people have played a major role in spreading innovations. But there is also some integration and reconnection of previous elements. For example, we find that people sharing the genetic signal of the Battle Axe sites were re-using megalithic tombs for their burials.”
Comparisons between these individuals and other prehistoric Scandinavians provided further valuable insights. Mattias Jakobsson, population geneticist at Uppsala University and one of the senior authors of this study, notes: “It is also interesting that the herders from the Battle Axe Culture differed from other contemporary farmer and hunter-gatherer groups in Scandinavia. At least three genetically and culturally different groups lived side-by-side for centuries and did not mix a lot.”
There is some evidence for low levels of genetic admixture between the incoming herders and other farming cultures. The research team was not able to determine whether this took place before or after their arrival in Scandinavia. “That remains an open question and still leaves room for future studies as more data from additional individuals as well as other geographic regions should provide a more detailed resolution,” concludes Helena Malmström.
The Bergsgraven burial as well as a reconstruction of the individuals is usually on exhibition at Östergötlands Museum in Linköping. “Östergötlands Museum is currently closed for renovation and renewal. Therefore, the display of the Bergsgraven grave has been temporarily removed, but it will be a central part of the upcoming exhibition, in which we aim to integrate current archaeological and historical research. This is a rare opportunity to build a new exhibition, and of course we want to tell the audience about the new analyses and interpretations made of the material,” says Per Nilsson, archaeologist at Östergötlands Museum.
Provided by: Uppsala University
More information: Helena Malmström et al. The genomic ancestry of the Scandinavian Battle Axe Culture people and their relation to the broader Corded Ware horizon. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2019). DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2019.1528
Image Credit: Uppsala University
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Local History Museums Museums in Perth
Museums in Perth City
categories=166524®ion=perth-city&type=museums
Army Museum of Western Australia
Website: http://www.armymuseumwa.com.au/
The Army Museum tells exciting stories of Western Australians in the Army and the Army in Western Australia through tanks, guns, medals, uniforms and art.
Museums:Local History,Military
Open Days:Wednesday,Thursday,Friday,Saturday,Sunday
History is brought to life through dioramas, soundscapes and audio-visual at the Army Museum of Western Australia.
Several impressive galleries display various periods and themes. These are located within the main museum building. There is a substantial collection of vehicles, artillery field guns and other military hardware located around the perimeter of the parade ground outside the main museum building. And in some of the adjacent sheds vehicles are also on display.
The museum's collection includes a substantial amount of archival material in the way of documents, letters, diaries, photographs and art work. The reference library is accessible by arrangement.
Download our app and enjoy a self-guided audio tour.
We offer school programs in line with the national curriculum and can tailor them to your needs.
Visit our website to find out more armymuseumwa.com.au
Azelia Ley Homestead Museum
Website: http://www.azelialeymuseum.com.au/contact/
Visitors to the Azelia Ley Homestead Museum can see a vast collection of furniture, clothing, photographs, paintings, toys, memorabilia, historical artefacts and much more
Open Days:Sunday,By Appointment Only
The Azelia Ley Homestead Museum is situated in Manning Park, Hamilton Hill and is open to the general public on Sunday afternoons from 1.30 pm to 4.30 pm. The Museum is also open to schools and other groups on weekdays by appointment.
Manning Park is accessible all year round for organized events, family day-outs and social gatherings. When the Museum is open there are always two members of the Historical Society of Cockburn in attendance.
Bassendean Railway Museum
Website: https://www.railheritagewa.org.au/museum/pages/bassendean/index.php
The Railway Museum at Bassendean, Perth Western Australia is Western Australia's premier museum devoted to railway history.
Historical Sites:Trains
Open Days:Wednesday,Sunday
The collection is highly significant as it is the only such one in Western Australia that aims to tell the story of all railways across the state. Other collections focus on one aspect or a region.
The majority of the collection is from the Western Australian Government Railways. There are also items representative of the extensive timber lines and gold mines that operated in the state as well as the private lines such as the Midland Railway Company.
The collection spans the whole spectrum of railway history. From Katie which was placed in service in 1881 when the Fremantle to Guildford Railway was built through to more modern diesel locomotives. Therefore whether you are interested is the heavy freight V class steam locomotives or the tiny 20 inch gauge mine locomotive 'Freudie' there is something to interest you at the museum. Four different railway gauges are exhibited.
Special events and visiting stalls are a feature of the annual "Railfest" day, usually in October - see the museum calendar.
Various passenger carriages and freight wagons that formed an integral part of the railway scene can also be appreciated. A number of these date back to the 19th century. The 1947 "Australind" buffet car is loved by children when hired for their own private birthday party.
The exhibition building houses an extensive collection of railway artefacts and photographs telling the story of railways in Western Australia.
Adults $9 | Concession $7 | Children (4 - 14 years) $4 | Children under 4 Free
Broomehill Historical Society
Website: https://www.histwest.org.au/affiliated-societies/broomehill-historical-society
Broomehill Historical Society was officially declared in 1997 and the following year a stone building was erected on the corner of Great Southern Highway and Journal Street – which is now our Museum.
Historical Sites:Buildings
Open Days:Public Holidays,By Appointment Only
Broomehill Historical Society was officially declared in 1997 and the following year a stone building was erected on the corner of Great Southern Highway and Journal Street – which is now our Museum . The building was officially opened on 20 April 1898 and used as the Agricultural Hall where meetings and dances were held. A room at the rear was added later for Road Board members to meet. At one stage the building housed the Mechanics’ Institute. In 1923 the building was purchased by the Presbyterian Church, the porch was added and regular services were held until the early 1940’s. The brick work was rendered after 1946. The Broomehill Shire Council purchased the building in the late 1960’s and in 1979 it was officially opened as a museum, containing many items of historical interest for Broomehill.
The museum is open by appointment, at long weekends and special events. Volunteers contact numbers are displayed on the front door. To help us maintain our collection, we ask for an entry donation and Broomehill and Holland Track souvenirs are available for sale.
In 1893 Mr R. John Holland (b 1855 – d 1936) cut a direct cart track from Broomehill to the Goldfields which was and is still known as the Holland track.
Buckingham House & The Old School House (Temporarily Closed)
Website: https://www.wanneroo.wa.gov.au/info/20058/museums_culture_and_arts/130/buckingham_house
Offering tours and classes primarily aimed at educating students and the public about the Wanneroo of old.
Instructed by engaging volunteers, students cook damper in the Buckingham kitchen; do a spot of sewing in the Buckingham sitting room; attend a lesson in the Old Wanneroo School House; learn how to milk a cow; and do some pioneer style washing.
Burt Memorial Hall Soldier Chapel
Website: https://www.perthcathedral.org/About-Us/burt-memorial-hall.html
CATHEDRAL SQUARE An inner city neighborhood in the heart of Perth. Houses the Burt Memorial Hall named after the 2 sons of Septimus Burt and his wife Louisaso Burt Memorial Hall later chapel was built
Open Days:Sunday,Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday,Friday,Saturday
The Burt Memorial Hall stands in the heart of the Heritage Precinct of Perth. It is an important historic symbol of Perth’s Burt family, who played a significant role in the government of the Swan River Colony when it was first established.
Archibald Burt came half way round the world to be the first Chief Justice of Western Australia, and earn a reputation for fair dealing with the indigenous peoples.
Of the three sons who came with Archibald in 1861, Septimus became the State’s first Attorney General. More recently, Archibald’s great-grandson, Sir Francis Burt, was Judge of the Supreme Court from 1969–77, Chief Justice from 1977–88, Lieutenant Governor of Western Australia from 1977–90 and Governor from 1990–93.
Tragically, Septimus lost two sons in the Great War. When Theodore Burt was killed at Montauban in 1916 his father built the Burt Memorial Hall as a memorial to his son. The Foundation stone on the South-West corner of the building was laid by Lord Forrest on 26 October 1917. A year later, Francis Burt was killed at Villers-Bretonneux. A memorial tablet of Donnybrook stone and Australian marble is mounted on the wall of the staircase well near the main entrance.
The Burt Memorial Hall is a superb example of a community building constructed in the Gothic Revival style. It was designed by Mr Herbert Parry, son of the second Bishop of Perth.
Worked into the fabric on the south side of the building facing St George’s Terrace are the Arms of the Diocese of Perth and the Burt family crest.
In 1922 a magnificent stained glass window depicting the Four Virtues was incorporated into this side of the building in memory of Septimus by his wife, Louisa. It consists of four large panels with figures representing the virtues of Justice, Prudence, Temperance and Fortitude. Beneath these panels are the Coats of Arms of the United Kingdom and Australia together with the Diocesan Arms of Canterbury and Perth.
The Hall’s position abutting St George’s Terrace, central to the Heritage Precinct increases its significance as a community facility. The lower dining room was used as a soup kitchen during the Great Depression of the 1930s. In World War II, it was used to house Dutch refugees fleeing from Indonesia (Dutch East Indies) and to provide meals to returned servicemen.
In May 1979 a fire in one of the rooms beneath the hall caused extensive damage to valuable equipment, books, furnishings and other effects. The fire also burnt the floor of the main hall, which had to be replaced.
The years have taken their toll on the old building. From 2012 to 2014, a new roof was added and a complete refurbishment undertaken as part of the Cathedral Restoration Project. The restored building was reopened and rededicated at Evensong on Sunday 20 July 2014.
The Burt Memorial Hall is currently used for a variety of Cathedral and diocesan functions, receptions, workshops, educational visits and exhibitions.
City of Perth History Centre
Website: https://www.visitperth.com.au/see-and-do/educational-attractions/Venues/city-of-perth-history-centre
The Noongar people are the traditional owners of the Perth region and the Swan Coastal Plain in particular. Perth is a modern and vibrant capital city, boasting a desirable lifestyle, great geographic
Open Days:Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday,Friday,By Appointment Only
As the capital city of one of the world’s most significant mining regions, Perth is rapidly growing in both population and economic prosperity.
The strength of our economy, especially our capabilities in the resource sector, ensures that both the city and the state are competitively placed for future investment and growth.
Perth's close proximity to Asia opens great potential for investors in energy, minerals, tourism and hospitality, education and agriculture and food.
Perth is in the midst of an exciting period of expansion and new developments. The large-scale capital works projects throughout the city and surrounding areas means Perth will change dramatically over the next ten years, better reflecting the growing global importance of the city.
These developments provide great opportunities for investors and will drive further economic growth, creating more jobs and stimulating commerce in all industries.
While the state of Western Australia is fortunate to have world-class reserves of natural mineral and energy resources, the city has become home to an equally impressive resource - a highly educated, skilled and productive workforce – gathered here by the strength of our tertiary institutions, economic climate and world-class lifestyle opportunities, making Perth the state's leading destination for creative innovation and cultural diversity.
For more information on Perth’s greatest strengths as an investment destination visit the Economic Development section.
City of Vincent Library
Website: https://library.vincent.wa.gov.au
A library and history centre in the heart of Leederville.
Open Days:Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday,Friday,Saturday,Sunday
No matter who you are, everyone is welcome to join the Library. Plus, membership is FREE!
Joining is super-easy, and to do so you’ll just need to bring in a few items:
Current proof of your name and address
The name, phone number and address of an alternative contact who doesn’t live at your address
If you’re a kid under 16, you’ll need mum, dad or your guardian to sign your membership application.
Claremont Freshwater Bay Museum (Temporarily Closed)
Website: http://www.freshwaterbaymuseum.com.au/
The collection holds more than 9000 items, including artefacts, photographs, oral history tapes and documents. Categories include business, domestic, fashion, education, convict history and clothing.
Open Days:By Appointment Only
Claremont Museum's main exhibitions are housed in a preserved nineteenth century schoolhouse. The schoolroom provides a glimpse into the colonial education system, c1862. Behind the teacher's room where we present changing exhibitions, the washhouse contains the original copper, a mangle and other traditional domestic equipment. Text panels throughout the museum provide insight into the settlement of the region and traditional practices of past eras.
A scale model displays Freshwater Bay in 1862. A display of early Claremont shops includes the barber, cobbler, draper and a 1940s corner store. Special exhibitions are changed periodically and address a variety of topics in history, science and the arts.
Cockman House (Temporarily Closed)
Website: http://www.wanneroo.wa.gov.au/cockmanhouse
Discover this heritage gem and the people that live here, in the oldest remaining house in the Wanneroo area.
Open Days:Sunday
Cockman House provides a unique opportunity for teachers and students to encounter what life was like in the past and learn about the families that lived here over a 130 year period.
Completed in 1860, this family home of three generations is a rare historic place of continuous residence by descendants of the original building. It presents a pioneer story that began with James and Mary Ann Cockman at the beginning of the Swan River Colony and progresses alongside the development of the Wanneroo district.
OPEN: Every Sunday 2:00pm - 5:00pm Closed all of February
Entry by donation
School Groups welcome Tuesday, Thursday & Friday.
Bookings required. For more information:
Fire and Emergency Education and Heritage Centre
Website: https://www.dfes.wa.gov.au/schooleducation/fehc/Pages/default.aspx
The Fire and Emergency Services Authority (FESA) Education and Heritage Centre is located in the original Perth Central Fire Station.
Museums:Local History,Other
Open Days:Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday
Now refurbished, the old station characterises both past and present emergency services’ through displays dedicated to the history of Western Australian (WA) fire services and a natural hazards and disasters education gallery.
Website: http://fremantleprison.com.au/
Built by convicts in the 1850s, Fremantle Prison was used as a place of incarceration for 136 years before being decommissioned in 1991.
Fremantle Prison was built as a convict barracks in the 19th century and remained in continual use until 1991. The Prison was a place of hangings, floggings, dramatic convict escapes and prisoner riots. Inmates included imperial convicts, colonial prisoners, enemy aliens, prisoners of war and maximum-security detainees.
Visitors can step inside and do time with Fremantle Prison’s experienced guides on a range of fascinating tours. Prison Day Tours highlight convict and prison life, daring escapes and colourful characters in tales laced with prison humour. Visitors with a spirit for adventure can descend 20 meters below the Prison to explore a one kilometre labyrinth of tunnels by foot and by boat on an underground Tunnels Tour or delve into the darker side of the Prison's history at night on a spooky Torchlight Tour.
Bookings are essential for Tunnels Tours and Torchlight Tours.
Halliday House - Bayswater Historical Society
Website: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ausbhs/
The Bayswater Historical Society has transformed Halliday House into a Heritage Centre and Museum.
This 1890s home now contains past photos of the people and places of Bayswater, and memorabilia from the early part of the century.
Halliday House is open to the public on the fouth Sunday of every month between the hours of 1.00pm and 4.00pm. Group bookings are welcome by appointment. For more information, please contact us on 9271 3741.
Mt Flora Regional Museum
Website: https://www.stirling.wa.gov.au/mountfloramuseum
Visit Mt Flora Regional Museum and discover the rich and diverse history of the City of Stirling. Explore the history through photographs, displays, artefacts and stories. It is worth a visit to Mount Flora Regional Museum for the view alone!
Open Days:Wednesday
Attractions: The exhibits at the Mt Flora Regional Museum offer a look into region’s past through photographs and artefacts.
Permanent exhibitions include:
Early days of school.
The mezzanine floor focuses on social history, where visitors can look through ‘windows in the past’ and see what typical rooms were like in the early days. For example, one exhibit is a 1940s kitchen showing utensils at the time, such as a wood stove, and a dining room set for a family dinner.
Go up the stairs to the panoramic lookout and you get one of the best views in the northern suburbs. In 1942 the Defence Forces also utilised the building as an observation post, and you can still see the fantastic view today.
A mural by Anne-Maree Pelusey is painted on the walls of the lookout and features about 300 local fish.
Outside the museum, there is a large grassy park with a children’s playground and picnic area.
The Mt Flora Regional Museum is housed in a 1936 water tank originally built for North Beach residents. After being phased out of service in the 1970s, the City of Stirling and the North Suburban Historical Society developed the facility into a museum.
Visiting the Museum
Mount Flora Regional Museum
Elvire Street, Watermans Bay
Wheelchair and general disabled access is available from the car park to the ground floor and the park area. Off street parking is also available.
Opening hours: Sundays, 1.30pm – 4.30pm. Open other times by appointment.
Our museum curator hosts guided tours where he relates local stories and informs visitors about the historical background of the museum site and building.
Community and school groups are encouraged to visit.
Please call to book a tour.
Museum of Performing Arts
Website: https://www.ptt.wa.gov.au/venues/his-majestys-theatre/discover/museum-of-performing-arts/
The Museum of Performing Arts houses more than 40,000 catalogued items of theatre memorabilia collected by the theatre's historian. Items such as glamorous costumes, photographs, press clippings, scripts, scores and other historic pieces are publicly exhibited at the Museum, DownStairs at the Maj, with a new exhibition to view every six to eight weeks. The oldest item in the Museum collection dates back to 1854 - a beautiful silk programme from a Perth performance of amateur theatricals.
Open Days:Thursday,Friday,Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday
HISTORY AND TOURS OF THE MUSEUM OF PERFORMING ARTS
Throughout its colourful and exciting history, His Majesty's Theatre has hosted a myriad of performance genres - from ballet to contemporary dance, opera to musical theatre, vaudeville to stand-up comedy, Shakespearean drama to pantomime and more.
Performers who have graced the stage at 'The Maj' include: Dame Nellie Melba, Anna Pavlova, Gladys Moncrieff, Dame Margot Fonteyn and Sir Robert Helpmann, as well as Academy Award winners Katharine Hepburn, Vivien Leigh, Sir John Gielgud, Claudette Colbert, Rex Harrison and Geoffrey Rush.
These performers, and thousands more who have performed at His Majesty's Theatre since 1904, have all contributed to the cultural and social livelihood of Western Australia. In a fitting celebration of this, in February 2001, His Majesty's Theatre opened the Museum of Performing Arts.
The Museum of Performing Arts is curated by Theatre Historian Ivan King and Friends of His Majesty's Theatre are only too happy to assist with enquiries.
Read the biography of Theatre Historian Ivan King.
Find out about our various theatre tours including: Grand Historical, Behind the Scenes, School Education and Technical.
To access the extensive collection of archival production photographs, visit the Museum of Performing Arts website at www.mopa.com.au
Museum Of Perth
Website: https://www.museumofperth.com.au/
The Museum of Perth chronicles the social, cultural, political and architectural history of Perth.
Open Days:Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday,Friday
This exhibition gallery serves as a meeting place of ideas and stories, a retail space, micro-cinema and a cultural hub in a part of the city that is in flux.
The Museum is an initiative of the Perth History Association Inc, a not-for-profit organisation founded in 2015.
Old Court House Law Museum
Website: https://www.lawsocietywa.asn.au/the-museum/
The Old Court House Law Museum is unique to Australia and one of a very small number of law museums worldwide. It is housed in the City of Perth's oldest building, constructed in 1836.
Open Days:Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday,Friday
The museum's objective is to promote understanding of the law, legal issues and the legal profession in Western Australia’s community and to preserve the history of the law and the legal profession in this state. The museum is a community service managed by the Law Society of Western Australia and is sponsored by the Public Purposes Trust and the Department of the Attorney General.
The Old Court House is Perth’s oldest remaining public building and was the most prominent building in the early days of the Swan River Colony. For the first six years of the Colony, court was held in the Anglican Church of St James: a small building with rush walls and thatched roof.
In 1836 Governor Stirling called for tenders for the construction of a new court and accepted the lowest bid of £698. The building was designed by the Colony’s Civil Engineer, Henry William Reveley. When it opened in 1837 it also served as a church for all denominations and a schoolroom.
The Old Court House was important in the early musical life of the colonists and was the scene of the first public concert. In 1846, Dom Salvado, a Spanish Benedictine Monk, gave a piano recital in the courtroom to raise funds to develop a mission. Salvado walked more than 100 kilometres to Perth from near New Norcia and gave a Bellini recital to a packed audience in the ragged clothes he arrived in.
Trial of John Gaven
The trial of John Gaven, the first European executed in the Colony, took place in the Old Court House in 1844. Gaven, a petty thief, was 15 years old when he was transported from Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight and apprenticed to the Pollard family in the South West. Within a few months of his arrival, he was accused of the murder of 18 year old George Pollard. He was found guilty in the Old Court House and was hanged three days later outside the Roundhouse in Fremantle on Easter Saturday.
In February 1849 a meeting of State importance was held in the Old Court House. In response to a labour shortage, farmers and merchants called a meeting at which a motion was passed in favour of a full penal colony. The following year convicts began to arrive.
Representative Government
The Old Court House was the venue for a public meeting to demand Representative Government. The demands were unsuccessful until 1870.
Arbitration Court
From 1905 to 1964 the State Industrial Arbitration Court proceedings were held in the Old Court House.
Law Society of Western Australia
From 1965 -1987 the Old Court House served as the office of the Law Society of Western Australia.
In 1987 the building was refurbished and opened to the public as the Francis Burt Law Education Centre and Museum - one of the few law museums worldwide.
In 1992 the Court House was listed by the National Trust as a Heritage Site.
Today the Old Court House Law Museum houses exhibition galleries and court room. It is home to the Francis Burt Law Education Programme.
Peninsula Farm
Located on the banks of the Swan River off Johnson Road, Maylands, is one of the first farms in the colony and the earliest metro residence still standing.
Museums:Farming,Local History
Open Days:Friday,Saturday,Sunday
As the site of one of the first farms in the colony and the earliest residence still standing in the metropolitan area, Peninsula Farm offers a unique opportunity to explore the first years of European settlement in Western Australia.
Royal Perth Hospital Museum
Website: http://www.rph.health.wa.gov.au/About-us/Museum
The Royal Perth Hospital Museum collects, records, preserves and interprets the history of Western Australia’s longest serving hospital.
Open Days:Wednesday,Thursday
Take a walk through the history of the Hospital from its foundation in a tent in 1829, to the opening of the Colonial Hospital in 1855, to the premier teaching hospital of today.
The original Hospital building still exists on the corner of Murray Street and Victoria Square. Additions and extensions now hide its Murray Street facade.
The medical equipment of the past provides an insight into our social history and changes in healthcare. Discover an iron lung machine used by one patient for over 40 years, some of the earliest Xray equipment in Australia imported from France by Dr W. J. Hancock in the early 1900s, nursing uniforms, photographs and more.
The many extraordinary items in the collection tell the story of nursing, medical and ancillary care provided to West Australians over the decades.
Access to the Museum is via the 10 -14 Murray Street entrance. Please follow the signs and phone the museum on 92243433 when you arrive at the locked gate to be admitted.
Open Wednesdays & Thursdays, 9am - 2pm
Royal Western Australian Historical Society
Website: https://www.histwest.org.au/services/museum
The Northampton Historical Society was formed in 1969 and meets in Chiverton House (pictured above) which was built c 1865-85 and sits in the main street in the town. This building is owned by the Shire but given exclusively to the Historical Society, which runs it as a museum.
The Northampton Historical Society was formed in 1969 and meets in Chiverton House (pictured above) which was built c 1865-85 and sits in the main street in the town. This building is owned by the Shire but given exclusively to the Historical Society, which runs it as a museum. The area saw the very first mining activity in the state – originally for tin - so the museum highlights this activity. The museum has a collection of documents, old School books diaries and letters and a large collection of photographs from past residents. The backyard of the house has a collection of old farm machinery. The Society has 54 members and volunteers, and meets on the 3rd Friday of the month at 4pm. Volunteers open the museum from 10 – 12 & 2 – 4 Sat/Sun/Mon/Wed/Friday. Admission $3 Adults, 50c Students. Volunteers also deal with requests for information. The Society sells an informational pamphlet Looking Back by Captain Mitchell The district contains the Gwalia mine site – settled c1863 which now has interpretive signs, as does the Lynton Convict Hiring Depot 1853-57 on the Port Gregory/ Kalbarri road.
St John Ambulance Museum
Website: http://www.stjohnambulance.com.au/about-us/our-history/st-john-museum
Today’s contemporary organisation is founded on a long and proud heritage which can be traced back to the days of the first Crusades when the Knights of St John, also known as Hospitallers
Located at the St John Ambulance Western Australia head office in Belmont, the museum uses videos and exhibits to graphically illustrate the history of the original Order from the time of the crusades through to the present day.
Specific to WA, the museum provides examples of the organisation's insignia, first aid trophies, first aid equipment and uniforms. It also provides an overview of the work conducted at the Ophthalmic Hospital in Jerusalem.
The museum is operated on a voluntary basis and admission is free. Please call (08) 9334 1434 to arrange your visit.
The Berndt Museum
Website: http://www.berndt.uwa.edu.au
Berndt Museum of Anthropology holds one of Australia's finest collections of Australian Aboriginal, contemporary and historical art and cultural materials.
Museums:Aboriginal,Local History
Open Days:Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Friday,Thursday
Berndt Museum of Anthropology was formally established in 1976 by the University of Western Australia. It holds one of Australia's finest collections of Australian Aboriginal, contemporary and historical art and cultural materials, as well as Asian and Melanesian collections.
Initially known as the Anthropology Research Museum, it was renamed the Berndt Museum of Anthropology in 1992. The change of name was to honour the Museum's founders and principal benefactors, Ronald M. and Catherine H. Berndt. The Museum administers the Professor Ronald M. and Dr Catherine H. Berndt Research Foundation that promotes research in the field of Aboriginal Australia.
The core collections were obtained by Ronald M. and Catherine H. Berndt during almost fifty years of fieldwork in many areas of Australia, as well as New Guinea.
These have been augmented by materials assembled by staff, graduate students and other associates of the Discipline of of Anthropology and Sociology, as well as through purchases and donations under the federal Cultural Gifts Program.
Website: http://www.perthmint.com.au/?gclid=CPaPrP_Tr9QCFUkKKgodUiYMFg&gclsrc=aw.ds
The Perth Mint has been open for 118 years. they have custom and unique coins ranging from a Norse to of the ghost buster coins and more. Come and see the rich and unique experience of the Perth Mint
The Perth Mint opened in 1899 in response to the discovery of rich gold deposits in Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie. It was Australia's third branch of Britain's Royal Mint - the others being the Sydney Mint and the Melbourne Mint (both closed). Diggers, who flocked to the then colony of Western Australia in huge numbers from other parts of Australia and from around the world, deposited their raw gold with us where it was refined and minted into gold coins. Gold refining continually took place at our original Hay Street premises until April 1990, when the operation was moved to a modern facility in Perth’s eastern suburbs. Between 1899 and 1931, we struck more than 106 million gold sovereigns and nearly 735,000 half sovereigns for use as currency in Australia and throughout the British Empire. The visionary leader Sir John Forrest, the first Premier of Western Australia, is regarded as our founding father. 'Big John' foresaw the importance of gold in the development of Western Australia's economy, and successfully lobbied the British Government to establish a branch of the Royal Mint in Perth. Forrest laid our foundation stone in 1896. Designed by George Temple Poole, our heritage building is one of Perth most impressive colonial-era monuments. In recognition of the quality of the architect's work, we possess the highest classification from the National Trust and are one of the first buildings entered on the State's heritage register.
The Scout Heritage Centre of WA
Website: http://www.scoutswa.com.au/scoutheritagecentre
The Heritage Centre is more than a museum: it is filled with great activities for youth members to entertain and inform.
Open Days:Tuesday
Be Prepared... for new adventure!
Scouting is a worldwide movement that has shaped the development of youth and adults for more than 100 years. Scouts are in every part of our community, and is the biggest and most successful youth organisation in Australia.
Why Scouts?
Scouting is fun!
Scouting is definitely fun, and it also prepares young people for life in the adult world by teaching responsibility for their own actions and progress. These achievements lay a solid foundation for the success of our future Australian leaders. But don’t tell the kids they’re learning… they think they’re just having fun!
No matter the age of the participant, Scouts provides fun and exciting programs that promote active learning. Whether the young boys and girls are canoeing, camping, visiting museums or helping their local community, the activity is sure to teach them about themselves and the world around them.
Scouting is Adventurous!
Each year, all sections of Scouts learn to share responsibilities and to live with each other through adventures set in the outdoors. Camping, abseiling, caving, horseback riding, fishing, rock climbing and diving are just a few of the exciting experiences that a Scout may have achieved in his or her time as a youth member.
Scouting is Challenging!
Scouts challenge their minds as well as their bodies. Not everyone looks for the outdoor buzz all the time, so Scouts have challenging activities linked with the internet and amateur radio, performance arts such as singing, dancing, and acting and awards linked to citizenship, community service and personal spiritual development.
Scouting is Commitment!
Scouting makes a direct and positive impact on the community by teaching positive values and leadership skills to youth. Every year, Scouts and their leaders contribute thousands of volunteer hours to their local communities. Sharing time with the aged in the local community, helping with Clean Up Australia Day, Harmony Day and planting trees to help with the Murray-Darling River Rescue are just a few examples of the commitment Scouts make to their communities.
Scouting is Inclusive!
We encourage the integration of children with special needs – physical and mental disabilities or medical conditions - into regular Scout Groups. We also have many Scout Groups that have formed within existing religious or cultural communities in. Scouting really is for everyone!
Scouting is Global!
There are over 28 million Scouts in 155 countries – and joining Scouts connects you to them all. International opportunities include joining the Jamboree of the Air (JOTA), the Jamboree of the Internet (JOTI), making a Pen-Pal, attending a World Jamboree or a World Scout Association event.
WA Museum Boola Bardip
Website: https://visit.museum.wa.gov.au/boolabardip/
WA Museum Boola Bardip sits in the heart of the Perth Cultural Centre and features eight permanent galleries, each with its own distinct theme and content, across its five levels.
Museums:Natural History,Science,State Museums,Aboriginal,Local History
This is just one of six Museums operated by the Western Australian Museum, the State’s premier cultural organisation, housing WA's scientific and cultural collection.
Boola Bardip means many stories in Whadjuk Nyoongar; the Country on which the Museum sits. WA Museum Boola Bardip is a place to share Western Australia’s many stories. Our people, our places and our role in the world.
Across its five levels, the new Museum features eight permanent galleries, each with its own distinct theme and content, which has been developed in consultation with around 54,000 from across WA.
WA Museum Boola Bardip also has a 1,000sqm special exhibition gallery, five revitalised heritage buildings, retail and café spaces – and of course, thousands of items from the State's collections displayed in new and innovative ways.
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Inaugural Report of the Arvest Consumer Sentiment Survey
Jul 17, 2014 | Newsroom | 0 comments
States surveyed were Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The inaugural report of the Arvest Consumer Sentiment Survey was released today. The report indicates varying levels of confidence across Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. The sentiment of Arkansas consumers regarding their views on the economy is lower than that of consumers in the neighboring states of Oklahoma and Missouri. All three trailed the national consumer sentiment index for June as reported by Thomson Reuters and the University of Michigan.
The Arvest Consumer Sentiment Survey is conducted by the Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER) in the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas. The University of Oklahoma’s Public Opinion Learning Laboratory conducted the 1,200 phone surveys.
“When Arvest decided to sponsor this survey, we felt it would be beneficial for our communities and customers to have a reading of how consumers are feeling about the economy in the states where we operate.”
Jason Kincy
The consumer sentiment index for Arkansas was 67.4, while Missouri was 68.6 and Oklahoma 76.4. The national index for June is 82.5.
The data was tabulated by the Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER) at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and evaluated on the individual state level by CBER director Kathy Deck; David Mitchell, director of the Bureau of Economic Research at Missouri State University; and Russell Evans, director of the Steven C. Agee Economic Research & Policy Institute at The Meinders School of Business, Oklahoma City University.
Jason Kincy, marketing director for Arvest Bank said, “When Arvest decided to sponsor this survey, we felt it would be beneficial for our communities and customers to have a reading of how consumers are feeling about the economy in the states where we operate. These first results give us better, more localized, information in that regard than has been available in the past. What is most important is knowing where people in Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma stand in their views – especially because consumers drive the majority of economic activity. Plus, with future results, we will be able to see if sentiment here is trending up or down with sentiment nationally.”
The Arvest Consumer Sentiment Survey will be conducted twice a year, with the next survey expected to be completed in late November. With each study, the index score will be released first, followed by additional information regarding specifics of consumer activities and plans.
Information about the survey, copies of this release, summary documents and print-ready logos can be found at: www.arvest.com/consumersentiment.
About Our Research Partners
The Center for Business and Economic Research, Sam M. Walton School of Business at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville (CBER) provides excellence in applied economic and business research to federal, state and local government, as well as to businesses currently operating or those that desire to operate in the state of Arkansas. The center further works to improve the economic opportunities of all Arkansans by conducting policy research in the public interest.
The University of Oklahoma Public Opinion Learning Laboratory (POLL) serves two functions: to provide a learning environment for the teaching of survey design, public opinion research and data analysis for the purpose of developing student capabilities to conduct academic and professional research and analysis; and to conduct research on public opinion, in order to foster knowledge about public affairs and to assist in the conduct of research on public policy of import to state and local governments, media organizations, other public and private entities, and the general public.
The Meinders School of Business (MSB) at Oklahoma City University, which includes the Steven C. Agee Economic Research & Policy Institute, offers a full range of undergraduate, graduate and professional development programs. MSB prepares graduate and undergraduate students to be socially responsible leaders in a global economy through teaching excellence and faculty scholarship in business practice and the disciplines. Faculty and students engage with the business community, local government and regulatory agencies as part of the teaching-learning process.
The Bureau of Economic Research, housed within the Economics Department at Missouri State University, serves as a clearinghouse for data and publications on economic conditions within the region, state and nation. The staff has a wide variety of experience and is able to provide consulting services, produce detailed GIS maps, economic and industry forecasts and other relevant reports.
Tags: Arvest Consumer Sentiment Survey
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EDUCATIONAL NEWS UPDATES DATE :-16/10/2020.
The third round will be held through the first two rounds for admission to the 11,000 vacant seats in RTE. Proceedings were initiated for allocating more than 8,000 seats in more than 10,000 schools across the state in RTE from 82,000. In which લાખ lakh students had filled the form till 18th October. In the first round, 3,000 students were allotted in the selection of admission schools. While other changes can be made, more than 6,000 students in the round were allotted RTE admission, according to information received from Navgujarat Samay> Ahmedabad. In the first round, the state's private primary and in the second round, the student who did not get admission in the Right to Education Act (RTE) schools as weak as 8% in Std-1 A third round of admissions is given. For which re-selection will be done in private school this year. 10 opportunities will be given during the procedure conducted for admission in Std-1 under RTE. For those students who want to announce the first round of two rounds in September against 4,000 seats and the second round on October in the change procedure in the school selected in 4 RTEs, the vacancies have been allotted to the students. Was now done. In which the third round student has been allotted admission for the remaining 12 seats in the re-selection of 6 schools. Proceedings will be held from October to October 15. In which the school was in choice. Even after two rounds of proceedings. After the re-election, about 15,000 vacancies have yet to be filled. The department will have to be set up for him to stay.
2,200 students get their favorite course in a private college Degree in engineering Only 12,500 students confirm admission. Result of admission quota of ACPC as well as management quota || Ahmedabad has 5,612 seats vacant. In Degree Engineering, after ACPC made the final allotment of 4,018 seats to confirm admission today, only 15,600 students paid the fee on the day of admission confirmation, only 15,200 students uploaded documents and confirmed admission on the last day. The same admission has been confirmed. More than 2,500 students while more than 2,500 students did not confirm admission. The reason for this is that in the previous year these students have got their favorite college and course by getting admission quota of ACPC till admission in management quota. Occurred after the round was over. When the ACPC allotted the first round this year to the colleges, the management quota was increased to 50 per cent, and out of the 8,612 students included in the merit, 2,15 students filled the choice of admission along with the ACPC round. Allowed. As a result, allotment of seats to government and 4,017 students out of them remained vacant. While self-supporting colleges have been. The seats started filling up at the first round stage.
Ahmedabad, but got admission in Diploma Engineering in other branches instead. While the proceedings for admission of 3524 students are such that no one in the first round currently got admission in the second round for any reason. Based on the given choice, 851 out of 6638 students of the college have been allotted this way. There were those who, in the second round in Rishfling, a total of 6638 students also gave higher branch consent than their own merit. 1459 students were sought as they were admitted but the admission could not be rescheduled in the second round. Rishfling is in the round. Thus, a further 3524 students who were admitted at the end of the reshuffling round have been allotted from 14th to 19th. Admission will be to confirm admission in Diploma Engineering by paying online fee. Candidates who have to cancel a total of 33833 in the first round for admission will be able to cancel online admission in allotment of admission to the student by 19th. Of these, only 24 out of 15,000 students were admitted as per the instructions of GTU as the admission confirmation session has already started. On the basis of which the admitted students will have to look at the website which started the reshuffling round by the committee of that college.
Rishfling in Diploma Engineering A further 3524 students were admitted માત્ર only 24 in the first round. A total of 6638 students consented to participate in the Rishfling Thousand Students Admission Round. In which it was confirmed that there were 1459 students who got admission in the first round of Navgujarat Samay> Ahmedabad, but got admission in Diploma Engineering in other branches instead. While the proceedings for admission of 3524 students are such that no one in the first round currently got admission in the second round for any reason. Based on the given choice, 851 out of 6638 students of the college have been allotted this way. There were those who, in the second round in Rishfling, a total of 6638 students also gave higher branch consent than their own merit. 1459 students were sought as they were admitted but the admission could not be rescheduled in the second round. Rishfling is in the round. Thus, a further 3524 students who were admitted at the end of the reshuffling round have been allotted from 14th to 19th. Admission will be to confirm admission in Diploma Engineering by paying online fee. Candidates who have to cancel a total of 33833 in the first round for admission will be able to cancel online admission in allotment of admission to the student by 19th. Of these, only 24 out of 15,000 students were admitted as per the instructions of GTU as the admission confirmation session has already started. On the basis of which the admitted students will have to look at the website which started the reshuffling round by the committee of that college
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Homeless Man Arrested For Attack Outside Santa Monica Main Library: Alert Police Blotter: Booked At Library.
Bail was set at $100,000 on Thursday, Feb. 14 for a 68-year-old homeless man after he attacked a person outside Santa Monica Main Library using a large stick with a ball and chain attached to it.
At 11:27 am officers of the Santa Monica Police Department were called out to the Main Public Library, located at the 600 block of Santa Monica Boulevard, in order to investigate a report of a fight that was happening outside the library building.
When the officers arrived they spoke with the two individuals involved in the fight.
The officers gathered from the conversations with these two people that the fight was as a result of a dispute over the positioning of each person’s property that was located just outside the south facing windows of the library.
During the conflict the suspect in this case had picked up his weapon, namely a very large stick that had a ball and chain attached to one end.
The suspect then proceeded to swing athis weapon at the other party partially striking him in the head.
The victim had managed to wrestle the suspect down to the ground, but after this had happened the suspect had bitten the victim’s finger, causing a very serious injury.
The officers arrested this homeless man and he was booked for assault with a deadly weapon and mayhem.
Editor’s Note: These reports are part of a regular police coverage series entitled “Alert Police Blotter” (APB), which injects some minor editorial into certain police activities in Santa Monica. Not all of the Mirror’s coverage of incidents involving police are portrayed in this manner. More serious crimes and police-related activities are regularly reported without editorial in the pages of the Santa Monica Mirror and its website, smmirror.com.
By mirrormmg February 26, 2013
by Edify TV
Over 1,700 apartment units are planned for a few block radius in a Westside neighborhood. Learn more in this video...
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Lessons from the Whitehouse-Annan Wager
In 2008, David Whitehouse (former BBC science correspondent with an astrophysics doctorate) made a wager with James Annan (climate scientist and statistics expert) involving global temperature data. Whitehouse wagered that the temperature data from the British Hadley Centre and University of East Anglia (HadCRUT) would not break its record high annual global temperature, which at the time was set in 1998, by 2011. The BBC, which coordinated the bet, recently declared Whitehouse the winner, although as we will see below, the true outcome is not entirely clear.
Predictably, particularly given the extremely poor performance of climate "skeptics" when it comes to climate predictions, the usual climate denial enablers are trumpeting the Whitehouse "victory" far and wide.
However, the stars had to align for Whitehouse to have a chance to win this bet. 2005 and 2010 were hotter than 1998 in the two other major surface temperature data sets, and likely will be in the soon-to-be updated HadCRUT data as well. The current HadCRUT data (HadCRUT3) has a known cool bias because it excludes several large regions which lack temperature station coverage, and also happen to be warming quite rapidly (such as the Arctic). Additionally, short-term natural effects dampened human-caused global warming over much of the 2008-2011 period. Despite this fact, the long-term human-caused global warming trend continues ever upward underneath that short-term natural noise.
More important than the winner of the bet is what we can learn from it. The main lesson here is that short-term temperature changes are quite unpredictable, as natural effects can overwhelm the steady greenhouse gas-caused warming over short timeframes.
Our story begins in December of 2007, when Whitehouse penned an article for New Statesman in which he repeated the myth of no global warming since 1998 several times. This argument has two glaring fundamental flaws. First, most global warming is going into the oceans, not the air, and the rise in the Earth's total heat content has not abated.
Figure 1: Total global heat content, data from Church et al. (2011)
Secondly, ten years is too short of a timeframe to determine if the warming has stopped anyway, because short-term noise can easily overwhelm the long-term global warming signal over such short timeframes, as happens on a regular basis (Figure 2).
Figure 2: BEST land-only surface temperature data (green) with linear trends applied to the timeframes 1973 to 1980, 1980 to 1988, 1988 to 1995, 1995 to 2001, 1998 to 2005, 2002 to 2010 (blue), and 1973 to 2010 (red). Hat-tip to Skeptical Science contributor Sphaerica for identifying all of these "cooling trends."
To his credit, in his 2007 article Whitehouse acknowledged that short-term effects may have been the cause of the temporarily slowed warming of global surface temperatures. Unfortunately he also posited a second, wholly unsupported possible explanation:
"we are led to the conclusion that either the hypothesis of carbon dioxide induced global warming holds but its effects are being modified in what seems to be an improbable though not impossible way, or, and this really is heresy according to some, the working hypothesis does not stand the test of data."
It's not improbable that short-term noise could dampen the long-term global warming signal. In fact, as Figure 2 shows, it happens quite frequently, but the steady rise of human-caused global warming always wins out in the end.
Whitehouse failed to explain exactly how or why the human-caused global warming theory would fail to "stand the test of data," and the proposition is a strange one, since Whitehouse also admits that rising greenhouse gases will undeniably cause the planet to warm.
A number of climate scientists took issue with the "warming has stopped" myth put forth by Whitehouse and other climate "skeptics," and they were debunked by Gavin Schmidt and Stefan Rahmstorf at RealClimate, and by James Annan on his blog, among others.
The BBC program More or Less set up a wager between Annan and Whitehouse for £100 that, according to HadCRUT, there would be no new record set by 2011. Being a statistics expert, Annan ran the numbers and estimated the odds of a record by 2011 at 87.5%, so he accepted the bet.
Annan's Science vs. Whitehouse's Gut
The basis of Annan's calculations is a simple one - greenhouse gas emissions are rising at a steady rate, and this rise is currently causing approximately 0.02°C warming of the global surface temperatures every year. The challenge is that this human-caused warming can easily be overwhelmed by natural effects over short timeframes. For example, a strong El Niño or La Niña can have a 0.2°C warming or cooling effect, respectively, on global temperatures for a given year.
However, over the long term the temperature effects of the El Niños and La Niñas offset each other, while the steady human-caused warming trend continues to rise. Annan's logic was that between 2008 and 2011 there would be a year in which the short-term natural effects aligned to amplify the human-caused warming trend, leading to a record hot year.
The basis for Whitehouse's end of the wager was on much shakier scientific footing:
"Looking at HadCrut3 it is clear that there isn’t much of an increase in the 1980s, more of an increase in the 1990s, then there is the big 1998 El Nino, followed by no increase in the past decade or so. It therefore seemed far more likely that the temperature would continue what it had been doing in the recent past than revert to an upward trend, in the next few years at least."
In short, Whitehouse bet that whatever had caused the temporary slowdown in surface warming would continue, despite the fact that he apparently did not comprehend its causes. However, Whitehouse was fortunate in that the short-term cooling effects did indeed continue to impact global temperatures.
Mother Nature Intervenes
The main influences on global temperatures are
human greenhouse gas emissions
human aerosol emissions (another byproduct of fossil fuel combustion which blocks sunlight, causing cooling)
the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO; El Niños and La Niñas)
Human nature did not help Annan's case either, as human aerosol emissions appear to have increased since 2000, offsetting some of the greenhouse gas-caused warming. But Mother Nature certainly did not work in Annan's favor over the 2008-2011 timeframe.
Solar activity is relatively stable, and thus tends to have a relatively small impact on global temperature changes. However, 2008-2010 was in the midst of the longest solar cycle minimum in a century, which had a cooling effect on global temperatures over that period, working in Whitehouse's favor.
Additionally, 2008 and 2011 were both influenced by strong La Niñas. In fact in 2011, La Niña had the fifth-strongest cooling effect on any year since 1950, and nevertheless was the hottest La Niña year on record, according to the World Meteorological Association. 2009 and 2010 both saw relatively moderate ENSO conditions, and thus were Annan's only real chances of winning the wager. Neither quite broke the 1998 record in HadCRUT3. However, HadCRUT was a rather poor choice of data sets on which to base this wager.
HadCRUT3 Cool Bias
At the end of 2009 (too late to influence the Whitehouse-Annan wager), an analysis by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) determined that the HadCRUT3 data is biased on the cool side:
"The new analysis estimates the warming to be higher than that shown from HadCRUT's more limited direct observations. This is because HadCRUT is sampling regions that have exhibited less change, on average, than the entire globe over this particular period."
As ECMWF notes, the main problem is that HadCRUT3 lacks temperature station coverage in areas like the Arctic and north and central Africa (Figure 3), where the other data sets (which use different methods to extrapolate for the areas which lack coverage) show these are some of the most rapidly-warming areas on Earth.
Figure 3: HadCRUT station coverage and temperature anomalies. Note the lack of coverage at the poles and portions of Africa.
The conclusion that HadCRUT3 data has a cool bias was subsequently supported by the Berkeley Earth Temperature Station (BEST) project, which conducted an independent analysis of global surface temperature data. The BEST results were in good agreement with estimates by the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), but showed more warming than HadCRUT3 data, particularly since 2000 (Figure 4).
Figure 4: The decadal land-surface average temperature from BEST using a 10-year moving average of surface temperatures over land. Anomalies are relative to the Jan 1950 - December 1979 mean. The grey band indicates 95% statistical and spatial uncertainty interval.
In fact, the wager would not have worked if Whitehouse and Annan had used GISS or NOAA data, because in both of those data sets, 2005 had already exceeded the 1998 temperature record. Additionally, in both data sets, 2010 was statistically tied with 2005 as the hottest year on record (Figure 5). Thus, as Annan noted in a follow-up story on the wager with More or Less, he arguably would have won the wager using either NOAA or GISS data.
Figure 5: NOAA (blue), GISS (red), and HadCRUT3 (green) annual average global surface temperature anomalies, with 1995-2010 baseline. 2010 and 2005 are the two hottest years on record in NOAA and GISS data.
A HadCRUT Update is Forthcoming
Hadley and U. of East Anglia are currently in the process of updating their data set to include additional Russian and Arctic temperature data, amongst other revisions. It appers that consistent with NOAA and GISS, 2005 and 2010 temperatures will exceed 1998 in the resulting HadCRUT4 data set.
Thus it appears that in 2008, the peak of 1998 had already been exceeded in every major surface temperature data set, including HadCRUT, once the HadCRUT4 results are finalized. Subsequent to 2005, it appears that as with the NOAA and GISS data, 2010 will be statistically tied with 2005 as the hottest year on record in HadCRUT4.
However, the long-term trend is more important than individual record years, and despite the short-term dampening of global surface warming, the underlying, steady march greenhouse gas warming continues, as demonstrated by Foster and Rahmstorf.
Foster and Rahmstorf Confirm Annan's Premise
Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) sought to identify the underlying global warming trend by filtering out the effects of solar and volcanic activity and ENSO using a statistical multiple linear regression technique. They found that in every single data set, once these short-term natural effects are removed, 2009 and 2010 were the two hottest years on record (Figure 6), and that the global warming trend has remained remarkably steady underneath that short-term natural noise.
Figure 6: Annual averages of the surface temperature data with the effects of solar and volcanic activity and ENSO removed by Foster and Rahmstorf (2011)
Global Warming Continues
Most importantly, we shouldn't allow this bet to distract us from the scientific evidence. As shown above, regardless of our wagers and wishes, the planet continues to warm. While statistically speaking, a new record will inevitably occur over the next few years, short-term temperature changes are nevertheless inherently difficult to predict. Nevertheless, underneath all of that short-term natural noise, the steady march of greenhouse gas warming continues ever upward, and will always win out in the end until we do something to change that.
Posted by dana1981 on Wednesday, 18 January, 2012
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Naval Researcher, Code Developer Liu Named ASCE Fellow
Ming Liu, Ph.D., P.E., F.ASCE, a research structural engineer at Naval Facilities Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center (NAVFAC EXWC) in Port Hueneme, CA, has been named a Fellow by the ASCE Board of Direction.
Liu’s expertise in civil engineering covers field testing and laboratory measurement with nondestructive testing (NDT) methods, forensic investigations for extreme events such as hurricanes, and civil and structural design in accordance with design codes. He has been heavily involved in research projects funded by the Federal Highway Administration, National Cooperative Highway Research Program, and National Science Foundation, among others. His technical role in federal service since 2009 has involved structural analysis and safety evaluation beyond the current design code requirements, including but not limited to risk analysis of concrete dams subjected to strong earthquakes, tsunami design loads for naval facilities, and structural design reviews on nuclear-safety-related structures under seismic loads.
Liu’s primary research areas are structural safety design and evaluation, structural reliability and optimization, life-cycle civil engineering, and dynamics of structures. His research achievements include time-variant performance of concrete structures, structural safety evaluation integrated with structural health monitoring data, risk acceptance criteria in structural design and safety evaluation, and resilience of deteriorating structural systems and infrastructure networks. His scientific contributions focus on risk-based structural design and safety evaluation: code requirements, standard development, and implementation.
He has been effectively influencing the current standard updating and new code development in such a way that the current engineering practice to assessment, repair, and rehabilitation of existing structures will be consistent with the reliability principles in the design code requirements for new structures. His current research interest focuses on risk-based structural safety evaluation and design with considerations of life-cycle costs and physical evidences from both experimental tests and computer simulations.
Liu served as an SEI-ASCE committee member of Task Group 3: Reliability Assessment of Structural Infrastructure Facilities and Risk-Based Decision Making from 2010 to 2016. He initiated and developed the survey questionnaires for the special project “Implementation of Risk-Based Structural Evaluation Methods: Best Practices and Development of Standards,” which was funded by the SEI TAD Executive Committee to prompt the implementation of risk-based structural design and evaluation. He was one of three primary organizers for the international workshop on the special project, which was held at ASCE Headquarters in September 2014.
He has authored or coauthored about 40 scientific publications, including technical committee documents, book chapters, journal articles, and conference papers. Currently he is the secretary of ACI 348 “Structural Reliability and Safety,” and is a voting member of ACI 444 “Structural Health Monitoring and Instrumentation” and ACI 562 “Evaluation, Repair, and Rehabilitation of Concrete Buildings.”
Liu received a B.Eng. in civil engineering from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China (1988), an M.S. in civil engineering from Bradley University (1996), and a Ph.D. in structural engineering from the University of Colorado–Boulder (2006). He has been a registered professional engineer in Colorado since 2001.
Designing tall buildings for wind
A new ASCE Manual of Practice brings much-needed consistency to criteria for tall buildings specific to wind effects.
New ASCE Fellows – December 2020
ASCE members elected to Fellow status have made celebrated contributions and developed creative solutions that have enhanced lives.
Ogden tabbed as ASCE Fellow
Fred L. Ogden, Ph.D., P.E., F.EWRI, F.ASCE, who works with the IBSS Corp. as acting chief scientist and academic-in-residence at the U.S. National Water Center, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, has been named a Fellow by the ASCE Board of Direction.
Shields elevated to Society Fellow
Gerarda M. Shields, Ph.D., P.E., F.ASCE, currently the Interim Dean of the School of Technology & Design at New York City College of Technology, has been named a Fellow by the ASCE Board of Direction.
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CalTrans offers grant to study freeway conversion in Long Beach
Thanks to a quarter million dollar environmental justice grant from the California Department of Transportation, the City of Long Beach will now be able to study options for turning its Terminal Island Freeway into a local street, reclaiming 88 acres of land for a network of parks, and improving public health. The CalTrans award calls the plan “a rare opportunity to coordinate replacing an underutilized freeway while mitigating pollution impacts to address long-standing community health concerns.” The grant is expected to take effect in early 2014 and support a multi-year study of the corridor. If completed, this project would not be the first large freeway removal in the country, nor is it the only one being considered, but it would be the largest in southern California’s history.
The freeway trunk (I-103) was once an important freight route serving the Port of Long Beach. Now that alternative routes have opened up and truck traffic has dropped, city officials believe the road may no longer be needed to serve freight traffic. They see the benefits of improving street network connections for neighborhoods to its east, while mitigating the impact of pollution and noise. City Fabrick—a local nonprofit design studio and key player in the process—has proposed turning a large portion of land into park space and creating a buffer for industrial uses to the west.
Brian Ulaszewski, the Executive Director of City Fabrick, offered lessons for other communities interested in pursuing similar projects:
As bold as this initiative has been it is based on practicalities; removing this segment of the Terminal Island Freeway has the capacity to improve traffic flow, reduce public health impacts from freight movement, and yield a substantial community benefit in the way of a mile-long park. This is the second attempt to compete for the Caltrans grant, the first being unsuccessful. The second, successful application had more engaged stakeholders, was clearer about the project intent and was grounded in adopted policy.
He references policies such as the Mobility Element of the Long Beach General Plan, which was updated in July and calls for increasing neighborhood connectivity around the freeway, while downplaying its role as a freight route. Ultimately, says Ulaszewski, all the work that’s already been done building support from more than two dozen groups—including residents, government agencies, port stakeholders, and various advocacy organizations—will make things much easier for Caltrans as the planning process moves forward.
Posted in NewsTagged CA, Caltrans, connectivity, freeway removal, green space, health, pollution
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Home Health Conditions
I Was 46 When I Discovered I Was Autistic. Suddenly My Life Made Sense
By Wanda Deschamps, from BroadviewUpdated: Nov. 30, 2020
My difficulties fitting in, my problems at work and my divorce all made sense when, at 46, I discovered I had autism.
Image Credits: Photo: Daniel Ehrenworth
“When I received my diagnosis, I felt relief,” says Deschamps.
I’m 10 years old, away at my first sleepover camp. The rest of the girls in my cabin are trying to put together a skit for the camp’s variety show, and I can see that it isn’t going to come together the way they imagine. I have a sixth sense about these things, like I’m on the outside looking in when I’m supposed to be part of something. I want to speak up and tell them how to fix it, but I’ve learned that being a know-it-all does not make me popular.
There was always something about me that most people considered “different.” As a kid, I didn’t enjoy sitcoms or skip rope like other girls my age. I wasn’t comfortable hugging friends, but I did love listening to discussions about politics. I’ve always been talkative and inquisitive, which wore out the patience of my friends and sometimes even the adults around me. My Grade 4 report summarized my social deficiencies with “needs improvement.” I stuck out, but I gradually learned to be less conspicuous.
It wasn’t until I turned 46 that I learned my uniqueness has a name: autism.
That was over three years ago. My diagnosis was like discovering a piece of my brain, picking it up, putting it in place and feeling whole for the first time. This was also like receiving the key to unlock my life and live for the first time—according to my own values, principles, beliefs and choices instead of weighed down by the expectations and assumptions of others. What I’ve found out since is that there are a significant number of others like me—individuals who weren’t identified as having autism until midlife. And for reasons that are still coming to light, many of them are women.
Although autism has a high profile today, it was only identified in 1943 by the American child psychiatrist Leo Kanner. He’d observed antisocial children who became obsessed with certain objects and reacted poorly to unexpected change. Kanner named this disorder infantile autism. A year later, Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger published a study about children in his clinic who exhibited similar characteristics. His findings were largely overlooked until 1981, when the term Asperger’s syndrome came to be applied to higher-functioning individuals. Asperger compared them to “absent-minded professors” who might be socially awkward but intellectually precocious. The line between autism and Asperger’s was erased in 2013 when the term autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was introduced, to account for the many degrees and kinds of autistic behaviours.
Today, approximately one in 66 Canadians is diagnosed on the autism spectrum, and those numbers are on the rise, possibly because of improved diagnostic methods and awareness of the condition. A neurodevelopmental condition that affects brain development, autism can cause communication problems and a lack of awareness of social cues—for many who have it, social interactions must be learned as opposed to intuited.
Being autistic means I can appear dispassionate, even though I am empathetic. I am highly loyal, honest, straightforward and direct. I’m driven by intellectual inquiry, and thus more interested in why something happened than how it happened. I am capable of stunning people by reciting credit card numbers from memory, and sometimes speak quickly and with a sense of conviction because I have moved along a conversation in my mind while the other person is still formulating his or her next thought. At work, I have been both highly praised for these attributes and harshly admonished. This wide range of reactions to the same behaviour is a reality for women with undiagnosed autism and one of the reasons why more extensive diagnosis and research into autism in women are necessary.
Autism is diagnosed four to five times more commonly in boys than in girls. Growing research suggests that autistic characteristics in girls and women may go unrecognized by health and education professionals because they present differently than in boys and men in clinical settings, as well as in daily life settings such as school and work. Why are girls and women in particular going unrecognized?
Yani Hamdani, a clinician-scientist at the Azrieli Adult Neurodevelopmental Centre at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, offers a few possible explanations. One is that autism has historically been perceived as a predominantly male condition, including how it has been represented in popular culture. From Raymond in Rain Man to Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory, characters with autistic traits in movies and TV shows have mainly been male. Autism researcher Judith Gould, former director of the Lorna Wing Centre for Autism in Kent, U.K., believes that female autism has been understudied from the outset, noting that Dr. Leo Kanner had only three girls in his group of 11 research participants.
Screening and diagnostic tools may not be as sensitive to autism in girls and women because they have been predominantly developed based on studies with boys. A girl’s obsessive reading would not necessarily be seen as an indicator of autism, while a boy’s preoccupation with lining up toy cars or trains might very well serve as a marker. “Girls and women may learn strategies to hide, mask or camouflage their autistic ways of being, doing and socially interacting,” Hamdani tells me, “and may be more adept at doing so than boys or men, suggesting that there may be different gender socialization processes at play.”
This reminds me of how I paid particular attention to the most popular girls in my classes at school, adopting their attitudes and ways of communicating as my own. Initially, I was not great at camouflaging; it can only be finessed with frequent practice. So I focused on other strategies to combat my differentness. I was involved in a wide range of activities, from dancing to figure skating to acting to chorus singing, and I kept a to-do list to ensure everything was managed. It was almost as if every minute of the day was planned and structured so that I could focus more on what I was doing and less on how I was doing and even less on how I felt I was doing. Eventually, I learned to feel a sense of belonging. And while social acceptance offered a reprieve from feeling like I was living on the margins, it also delayed my diagnosis.
I was the youngest of 10, with parents who were 40 and 51 when I was born (older fathers are more likely to have autistic children). When I was eight, my mother moved to Toronto to pursue a second master’s degree while my father stayed home in Antigonish, N.S., and served as the primary parent. This helped instill in me the notion of equal opportunity for women, but it also created a void in my life.
My increasing isolation, stress, anxiety and confusion led me to struggle both academically and socially, leaving a trail of concerned teachers and friends. A call home from a junior high vice-principal worried about my emotional health finally made the situation impossible to ignore. I was floundering at school; my poor math and science marks meant I was failing Grade 9. Dad met with my teachers individually and successfully negotiated a pass. But I only felt self-loathing: I was stupid. No one suspected that the underlying issue was autism.
My grades improved, but throughout high school I still felt a sense of social isolation, and our stressful home situation only exacerbated it. In 1988, the fall after high school graduation, I had a son with my boyfriend, Steven. We knew we couldn’t raise him and placed him for adoption, though we’ve had the good fortune of an open relationship with him since he was five. We then completed our undergraduate degrees—mine a bachelor of arts with a major in sociology and a minor in history, followed by a year of business college.
In 1994 I found work as a records assistant for a Maritime university’s alumni and fundraising programs. Soon after, I married Steven. I was good at my job—it provided an avenue for me to apply my attentiveness to detail. But my overall confidence took a severe hit when only 17 months after the wedding, Steven announced he was leaving me. Our lack of compatibility had not been obvious to me. I had convinced myself we belonged together because we were together rather than questioning if we were truly happy.
Deschamps suspected she was autistic when her sons, Adrien (left) and Rene, received their diagnoses.
Two months later, I met Ryan. We married in 2000, and two sons followed: Adrien and Rene. Meanwhile, my career in fundraising continued to flourish. Always underlying my success was my undiagnosed autism. To combat my continued struggle to attach words to concepts, I listened attentively to people I considered articulate, then memorized their words, phrases and sentences, and recorded them for future use. This presented as a commitment to self-improvement, while in reality it was one of my obsessions—my version of lining up toy cars.
New jobs took us to Regina in 2011, and for me it was nothing short of complete upheaval. As I pushed higher at work—as well as further into middle age—camouflaging my autism left me fatigued, angry and resentful.
Our family situation had its own stresses. Adrien read at age three, wrote at age four and had astounding recall, yet he struggled socially beginning in primary school. His teachers noticed immediately that he avoided making eye contact, often preferred to be alone and had interests in topics well beyond his age level. Finally, in 2012, when he was nine, he was diagnosed with autism. Then, the next year, Rene’s Grade 1 teacher began to express concerns about his challenges in focusing, processing information and interacting with classmates. Regrettably, because of our stress levels and the fact that Adrien and Rene were very different from each other, autism didn’t occur to us. Meanwhile, I was pursuing an MA in Canadian history, ultimately as a full-time student, and entered therapy to address my growing state of anxiety. This was my third time in counselling and the third time I would dig deeper, feel better—and miss the most important component of the picture. Autism never entered the conversation.
In 2015, what seemed like another great opportunity appeared: I was recruited for a new job in Waterloo, Ont. There, I began being complimented and recognized for my work like never before. Given my underlying self-loathing, I didn’t know how to deal with it. As I approached my one-year work anniversary, all the symptoms of my undiagnosed condition manifested themselves in my work environment: sensory overload and being baffled by social cues and office politics.
At home, Rene’s symptoms—verbal precociousness, challenges focusing and trouble with interactions at school—were becoming more prevalent. We began the assessment process in early 2017; at the same time, my emotional troubles hit a crisis point, and in May, I had a complete breakdown at work. The day after we received Rene’s autism diagnosis, I asked my family physician to refer me for my own evaluation. “I think I have it, too,” I explained. My assessment consisted of completing in-person exercises as well as the Adult Autism Spectrum Quotient, a self-reporting survey comprising 50 statements, such as “I would rather go to a library than a party,” “I am fascinated by numbers” and “I find it difficult to work out people’s intentions.”
When, two months later, I received my official autism diagnosis, I felt relief. Finally, everything started to make sense. I couldn’t get over the positive effect of the diagnosis. For the first time, I fully enjoyed life.
I sought accommodation at work but instead lost my job. Since then I’ve become an entrepreneur. My new firm is called Liberty Co. to signify that confronting the facts brings us freedom. The firm’s goal is to increase the participation level of the neurodiverse population in the workforce. I am also the catalyst behind a collective focused on building gender equity through supporting other women. And I am sharing my story and the stories of others, often under the banner of the Inclusion Revolution—a worldwide movement launched by the inclusivity leader Caroline Casey. Championing gender equity and neurodiversity provides an avenue for me to be an advocate for women with autism, including as a participant in research into autistic women’s experiences in the workplace.
Hamdani highlights the urgency around early female diagnosis because the burden of late identification can be huge. The psychologist who conducted my assessment described my background as “a complicated picture” because of the number of environmental and social factors involved. Unfortunately, my case is similar to others. By the time some women with autism are diagnosed, their mental health has reached a crisis point, and they are experiencing depression and even suicidality.
Self-awareness is the greatest gift you can give yourself, and knowing my strengths as well as my limitations, both related and unrelated to my autism, has allowed me to build my self-esteem and connect with others. My husband is the main beneficiary of all this positive change—I’ve relaxed and I’m more focused on myself and us. Finally, I am a proud autism mom, modelling for my children how you can be unashamed, unafraid and undeterred as an individual with unique abilities. To honour my newfound freedom, I refer to myself as “Real Wanda.” I like her!
Next, read the heartwarming story of how a support group for parents of children with autism inspired an entire town to be more inclusive and accessible.
© 2020, Wanda Deschamps. From “I learned I had autism at 46,” Broadview (March 6, 2020), broadview.org
Originally Published: November 30, 2020
Originally Published in Reader's Digest Canada
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The Macular Degeneration Foundation of Australia (MDF) has released significant and startling research indicating a massive increase in the Australian public's awareness of macular degeneration (MD). Over the last two years there has been an increase in the MD awareness figure of 53% (from 47% in February 2007 to 72% in September 09).
Although MD is the leading cause of blindness and severe vision loss in Australia and affects 25-30 million people over 50 years of age in the Western world, the awareness of the disease in Australia has to date been dangerously low.
CEO Julie Heraghty said "at the start of worldwide (age-related) MD Week (19-27 September 2009) the MDF's September 2009 National Galaxy poll has placed Australia as a world leader in public awareness of the disease; however we must not become complacent."
"The MDF was alarmed at low awareness levels from polling results received in February 2007, especially considering Australia's ageing population and the importance of early detection to save sight. The Foundation was determined to turn this around and we embarked upon a significant TV, radio and print campaign combined with unique projects. We were supported by outstanding partnerships and Government recognition of the importance of eye health," Ms Heraghty explained.
In February 2007 only 47% of Australians were aware of MD and only 58% of people in the at-risk group for AMD were aware of this disease. Furthermore, only 32% knew this disease affected the eyes and only 1 in 3 over 50+ years had claimed to have had their macula checked. The research showed that most Australians simply did not know where the macula was, let alone that MD affects the eyes.
The September 2009 National Galaxy Poll research shows:
Overall population awareness figure for MD has increased by 53%
Population awareness figure for over 50 years has increased by 48%
Awareness MD affects the eyes - figure has increased by 90%
Macula checked in the last 2 years for those aged 50+ years - figure has increased by 75%
More than 58% of those 50 years and over have had their macula checked in the past two years which has increased by 75% since February 2007. Optometrists across the nation are reporting the Foundation's awareness campaign is driving those at risk of AMD to not only have their eyes tested but also to ask about their macula. This is a significant result.
"These awareness campaigns are exceptional, however the Foundation will continue to raise awareness to encourage at-risk Australians to visit their Optometrist, have their macula checked and save sight.
“We are beginning to make a significant difference across Australia on this important medical issue. We must not rest until a cure for macular degeneration is found," Ms Heraghty concluded.
Note: The Macular Degeneration Foundation telephone study was conducted in September 2009 by Galaxy Research among a nationally representative sample of 1,100 Australians aged sixteen years and over. The data was post weighted to national proportions using the latest ABS population estimates.
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The Hundred Foot Journey (2014)
The River: from feature film to TV, Bruce Greenwood adds more details VIDEO: Steven Spielberg cameo in The Blues Brothers
Stephen Lang talks Terra Nova as show lands in New Zealand
by Brandon Jones on February 20, 2012 in Filmography, Producer Only, Terra Nova (2011) 0
From the NZHerald: Welcome to the world of Terra Nova folks – the most expensive TV show ever made. With its flashy CGI effects, vicious dinosaurs, and vast sets, including the prehistoric human colony the show takes its name from, the feature-length pilot cost around US$20 million ($24.1 million) alone. And each of the following 11 episodes of the Steven Spielberg-backed series cost US$4 million to make.
It would want to look good then, and though it’s no Avatar, it is certainly cinematic in scope.
But as Avatar veteran turned Terra Nova star Stephen Lang, who plays hard-as-nails colony leader Commander Nathaniel Taylor, says, it’s not just about the effects.
“In the end, if you don’t have a good yarn to tell, then all the special effects in the world aren’t going to help you. And if you don’t care about the people who are going through what ever it is they are going through, then it’s going to be an empty experience.”
“I’ve done a lot of stuff with lots of explosions in it,” he says in his dry, staunch tone, “and I must say Conan the Barbarian had more special effects in it than anything I’ve ever done, with the exception of Avatar. But this one is certainly up there.”
The premise for the show goes like this. The year is 2149 with human life on the verge of extinction because of overpopulation and air pollution. The only hope of survival – for a chosen few at least – lies through a time portal that allows people to travel 85 million years back in time to an “alternate” prehistoric earth.
The story picks up with the Tenth Pilgrimage of settlers on their way to Terra Nova, Among them are the Shannon family: dad and former cop Jim, his surgeon wife Elisabeth, and their three children Josh, Maddy and Zoe.
It’s a chance for a new start.
As Taylor says in his welcome to the colony’s latest inhabitants: “Citizens of 2149, together we are at the dawn of a new civilisation. Welcome to Terra Nova folks. Welcome home.”
Today, Lang is talking to TimeOut during a brief break from shooting on set. He’s still wearing his military-style uniform, with a gnarly handgun in a holster strapped to his body, having just come out of “the jungle”.
“We have a plan, it’s very risky, to send [Jim] Shannon back to carry out a little sabotage that is necessary to the survival of our colony,” he says of the scene he’s just shot.
And as for executive producer Spielberg’s actual involvement? Well, let’s just say he’s a busy man. Young star Landon Liboiron (who plays Josh Shannon) cheekily describes the King of Hollywood as a “Wizard of Oz-type character”.
“We haven’t met him yet. But, I mean, he is working on 20 different things,” he laughs. “During the pilot we were laughing that Steven Spielberg was going to shoot down, [come] boosting out of a helicopter with the Jurassic Park theme playing to check on everything.”
Seriously though, the show’s writer and producer Rene Echevarria says Spielberg was involved in casting key roles (“he’s made a few stars in his day”), the production design of the colony and the dinosaurs (“he lent the production a dinosaur expert”) and establishing the ecological themes of the show (“the idea that the community was renewable”).
One of the most noticeable things about Terra Nova is its family-friendly audience focus, with the Shannons at the heart of the story.
“Not that we sacrificed dinosaurs for it or anything,” jokes director Jon Cassar, the man also behind action-packed political series 24 and most recently The Kennedys. “It’s just about where you put the spine of your show and the Shannon family is exactly where it’s at.”
“You’ve got your weekly story, your family drama and within that you’ve got the mythology, mostly because of this renegade tribe called the Sixers who are mysterious right from the get go. They become a major force.
“The fanboys will like that part [because] you can’t do sci-fi without mythology,” says Cassar.
The idea of time travel and the “alternate time line” Terra Nova is in are two elements of the show that could be hot topics for sci-fi geeks – and Cassar knows it.
“With science fiction you have so much leeway to go whichever way you want to go and make up your own rules. There is a part of it that’s interesting in that way, but the difficult part of coming up with a sci-fi concept is the amount of scrutiny you come under.
“If a cop show comes out it doesn’t get scrutinised – except maybe from cops. And I had a friend who was an ER doctor and she said her and her friends got together and watched ER as a comedy every week.
“But sci-fi is incredibly scrutinised by people who think they know the rules of sci-fi. You say ‘time travel’ and everyone starts giving you the rules of time travel,” he says.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=10785735
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News - November 2014 RSS Feed
Spiritans celebrate 150 years in Sierra Leone
Becoming a Christian missionary has lost the appeal it once had for thousands of young Irish men and women who, from the middle of the 19th century, joined many of the congregations and missionary movements that flourished here until the 1980s.
Bolivia Recognizes Spiritan’s Humanitarian Ministry
P. Leonardo da Silva Costa, CSSp. received recognition from the country of Bolivia for his prison ministry and promotion of human rights leading Prison Pastoral.
The Passing of Fr. Francis W. Wright, CSSp.
Fr. Francis W. Wright, CSSp. of Bethel Park, a member of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, died peacefully November 12, 2014. He was 92 years old.
Fr. Claude Tassin
Claude Tassin is a French Spiritan, he was born in 1944. He lived for some years on a mission in Central African Republic and Gabon.
Duquesne African Studies Awards
Duquesne University’s Center for African Studies has named four winning projects for its 2014-2015 Rev. Alphons Loogman, Faculty Research Grant competition.
Archbishop Fiorenza Lecture
Fr. Don Nesti, CSSp., Director of the Center for Faith & Culture and former President of Duquesne University, will keynote at the symposium/lecture series established in honor of the Most Reverend Joseph A. Fiorenza, Archbishop Emeritus of Galveston-Houston, who continues to be recognized as one who fosters ecumenical and interreligious dialogue.
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You are here: Home India Navigating Foreign Lands - Visakhapatnam Province
Navigating Foreign Lands - Visakhapatnam Province
Navigating Foreign Lands
Navigating Foreign Lands: Society, Language and Culture Interface was the theme of A Six Day International Webinar conducted in St.Joseph’s College for Women (A), Visakhapatnam by the Department of English.
In order to inculcate respect and to create a bond with different cultures, society and language, the Department of English provided a platform to the students of Literature through A Six Day Webinar.
As part of the integration and exposure to diversification of culture, six guest speakers Mr. Katemi Ezekiel from Africa, Sr. Anila SJA and Sr. Claude SJA from Switzerland, Fr. Amar MSFS from Germany, Ms. Vicky Anne Hale from America, Ms. Siana Gordon from U.A.E (United Arab Emirates) and Mr. Edward Vinod from Australia were invited to enunciate the culture, language, traditions, customs and educational opportunities available in that particular country.
The webinar was conducted from 5th Oct. to 10th Oct.2020 and around hundred and twenty students and the staff attended the webinar. The unique presentation of each speaker about their country and culture evoked a sense of nostalgia among the participants. It was an unexplainable experience that brought about a fellowship, unity in diversity among the students and the staff. Above all the disclosure of the varieties of cultures achieved its purpose of creating oneness.
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Home and Garden: Paintings and Drawings of English Middle Class Urban Domestic Space 1914 to the present
Geffrye Museum, London
20 February-24 June 2007
On 20 February 2007, a remarkable exhibition opened at the Geffrye Museum in East London, accompanied by an excellently researched and produced catalogue. This venture is as rigorously defined by the curators as its title implies, but to the proverbial 'visitor from Mars' it provides a superbly informative and revealing investigation, anthropological in its scope and yet rich in contemporary art.
Many of the painters whose works have been included are among England's best-known luminaries. Most important, however, is the way in which this exhibition provides a superbly researched investigation into what has constituted a certain world of 'civilised' London social life; partly, but not always, related to the usually quite modest interiors and adjacent gardens of a creative middle class. Many of these views are privately conceived and arranged, and all are documentations of an 'acceptable' life with its own codes and 'mores'. It is no accident that the majority of the sites are in North London.
The museum context for this exhibition runs back into the 18th and 19th century epochs, forming parts I and II, which preceded this particular 20th-century component at a short interval. Likewise, there will be a part IV, running from 16 October 2007 until 2 February 2008. This whole is therefore a massive entity, and opens up a seam of well-correlated English life that tells us more about a small, localised creative section of society. The series of catalogues for these 'parts' are also an invaluable source of reference, not least about what went on behind the curtains of North Camden, Hampstead and points East. The current exhibition, part III, 'Home and Garden: Domestic Spaces in Paintings from 1914-60' shows, as for previous periods, how these groups imaged themselves. It also focuses on, as in the title, the domestic spaces they occupied, as well as the various influences and behavioural patterns of individual families, as identifiable and defined each within its own peer group. It should be recalled that recently covered on the Studio International website was their exhibition entitled 'The West Indian Front Room: Memories and Impressions of Black British Homes', which provided a penetrating appraisal of similar family preoccupations in East London, post-war immigrant families 'at play' with fine anthropological detail. This much more comprehensive exhibition of a domestic mise-en-scène for a class that would consider itself socially somewhat superior, reveals the same painstaking scholarship.
This third instalment on the broad theme of 'Home and Garden' reveals an urban middle class and their living patterns (as captured in one exposure). Many of the families have incorporated small gardens into the living rooms, scenes of spatial definition or indeed of anarchy, broader creative influences and individualised behavioural patterns. Geographically, the painter groups emerged differently, as the London Group, the Bloomsbury Group or the Camden Town Group. Vanessa Bell's 'Interior with Duncan Grant' (1934) consciously evokes the interior and attitudes of the 1930s. From the 1940s, a rich documentation is provided by a broad canvas spread of 'The Burleigh Family Taking Tea' (CHH Burleigh, 1947) with the family members relaxing, distributed around carefully detailed Crittal metal windows (a new installation in the period) opening a whole wall of an older house and so bringing the garden into the living space, itself replete with furniture appropriate to such a family's taste. In fact, the furniture came from Heal's in Tottenham Court Road, as the catalogue explains. The Burleigh family are both exhibiting their contemporaneity and distancing from bourgeois social patterns as they see it, caught in the 'taking tea' emphasis in the title. The curtains are made of 'Old Glamis Fabrics', a dramatic charge of contemporary colours. The curators learnt this from the Dundee painter Andrew McIntosh Patrick as from the Fine Arts Society since his father had purchased such curtains in 1935 for his Dundee studio (the catalogue and its footnotes offer an unusually wide depth of detailed information of this kind).
Also included in the show is Paul Nash's 'Grotto in the Snow' (1939), which indeed looks more like an air raid shelter of the type being promoted in urban gardens at the start of the Second World War. By David Jones there is 'The Sitting Room at Howson Rd' (1926), which as the curators say 'captures domesticity as a site memory, as well as a site of activity which might be stifled by the presence of parents or super-egos. One is both child and adult in the same situation'. For the many creative individuals who have grown up in less than sympathetic households this can certainly remind of such experiences. By contrast, 'Sunday Afternoon at Church Hill' (1991) by Vincent York is a straight, non-reflective portrait of real people, apparently uncontrived.
David Hockney is represented here by 'Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy' (1970-71), now a contemporary icon. Victor Pasmore's famous 'The Gardens of Hammersmith No 2' (Tate Gallery) stands out subliminally as a masterpiece, although it seems to stretch a bit the museum's definition of the subject matter 'Home and Garden'. John Pearce, a relatively new talent on offer from the Francis Kyle Gallery shows 'North London Interior' (1999) as well as superb evocation of his own garden, entitled 'Brambles in a North London Garden' (2001). The late Patrick Caulfield provides a typically caustic note and is represented by 'Dining/Kitchen/Living' (1980) representing a sad menage of dysfunctional contemporary spaces, brilliantly discordant. This was to be an important inclusion but, sadly, the Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts in Japan was unable to make it available, although it is rightly included in the catalogue.
Walter Sickert's 'Hampstead' (1913-14) provides a touchstone for the whole show. Quentin Bell had said, 'The great aim of Sickertian realism was to find beauty in the dull, the tawdry, the commonplace'. This sums up the ethos of the entire exhibition. But many of the views, especially of the gardens - and one should add the portrait subjects here - display their own aesthetic appeal anyway. The important thing was to be seen to be different as well, if this were possible. The curatorial team of authors, Judith Batalion, Charlotte Gere, Eleanor John and Christine Lalumia, are to be congratulated on their broad contribution and meticulous detail.
Michael Spens
Sickert in Venice. Dulwich Picture Gallery, London. 2009
In 1905 Sickert returned triumphantly from Venice ready to take on and lead the new generation of British artists:
William Roberts: England at Play
The new Pallant House Gallery was described and reviewed on this website in 2006. The magnificent Wilson collection acquisition has created in this corner of England a remarkable focus on 20th-century British art, predominantly painting. Now this show of the work of William Roberts RA, a quintessential British master, celebrates the 25th anniversary of the original Pallant Gallery by filling an important gap in the general revision and updating of modern British masters.
David Hockney Portraits
What an artist is trying to do for people is bring them closer to something, because of course art is about sharing: you wouldn't be an artist unless you wanted to share an experience, a thought.' David Hockney
Modern Painters: The Camden Town Group
To most people who live in London the name Camden Town means a busy interchange on the Northern Line of the Underground where trains often shudder to a halt in the tunnel for a red light. Passengers sit in claustrophobic silence until the lights change and they can continue their journey.
Pierre Soulages
Pierre Soulages did not begin with giant monochromes, but with smaller works, in which the play of intersecting black brushstrokes over white or yellow grounds yielded a look approaching oriental calligraphy (and in the past resulted in rather superficial comparisons with Franz Kline).
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The Left Wants A Philanthropy Of The Few
Wall Street Journal op-ed: The Left Wants a Philanthropy of the Few, by Elise Westhoff (President & CEO, Philanthropy Roundtable):
It takes a fine sense of irony to start the season of giving by trying to limit Americans’ generosity. Yet that would be the outcome of a high-profile legislative proposal unveiled on Dec. 1, “Giving Tuesday,” conceived by former hedge-fund manager John Arnold and Boston College law professor Ray Madoff. The proposal would stifle Americans who want to support worthy causes but aren’t superrich. It would also further the goals of progressive politicians who seek to punish charitable giving they don’t like and can’t control.
The “Initiative to Accelerate Charitable Giving” is framed as a way to force the wealthy to give more. It enjoys the backing of some of America’s biggest and most prominent foundations, including Ford, Kresge, Kellogg and Hewlett. These large and powerful institutions are effectively trying to dictate how smaller and less influential donors give, which dovetails neatly with the goals of progressive politicians and activists.
The centerpiece is a series of regulations on donor-advised funds, a popular option for philanthropists outside the 1%. While the foundations supporting the initiative control a combined $38 billion, the average donor-advised fund has a little more than $166,000 set aside for charity. Donor-advised funds allow individuals to donate as much as they like annually, even a few hundred dollars. Some choose to give right away, while others take a long-term approach, waiting to align their priorities with the needs of the communities they aim to serve. These funds also provide donors with the option of privacy—the particular focus of political attack.
Donor-advised funds have multiplied. The number of accounts has risen by more than 300% since 2010, and as their popularity has grown, so has the criticism. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse routinely savages them, since he can’t see and therefore attack or control who gives to them. Yet the vast majority of givers are supporting critical services helping people in need, and liberals use donor-advised funds to support their favored causes too.
The Arnold-Madoff initiative would starve them of funding. Most notably, it encourages Congress to pass legislation that would force donor-advised funds to disburse money within 15 years or lose tax deductibility, pushing more money into the hands of tax collectors instead of charities. The 15-year marker is entirely arbitrary, and discriminatory: The foundations that back the proposal would still be able to hold their tax-advantaged funds in perpetuity. Yet donor-advised funds already have a higher payout rate than the required minimum payout for a foundation—approximately 20% compared with 5%—even though they have only a tenth of the $1 trillion managed by foundations. Donor-advised funds and private foundations alike should have the option to address the needs of communities over a longer time horizon.
The Arnold-Madoff proposal would take that long-term freedom away from smaller donors. ...
The current system of philanthropic freedom enables Americans of all backgrounds, beliefs and bank-account sizes to support worthy causes and benefit their communities and the country. That system should be preserved and expanded, not controlled and shrunk by a powerful few.
Bloomberg, Billionaires Urge Tax Reform to Free $1 Trillion for Charity
Boston College Law School Magazine, Madoff Does It Again: Professor Helps Assemble Coalition of Wealthy Philanthropists and Foundations to Incentivize Charitable Giving
Chronicle of Philanthropy, Powerhouse Coalition of Wealthy Donors and Big Foundations Urges Congress to Spur More Giving
Nonprofit Times, War of Words Escalates Over DAF Distribution Reforms
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2021/01/the-left-wants-a-philanthropy-of-the-few.html
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Every Champions League club ranked by their net spend over last five seasons
2nd September 2017, 8:25 pm
Updated: 2nd September 2017, 8:44 pm
The summer transfer window is now closed, meaning managers have to settle with the squads they have until the market reopens in January.
There have been some crazy transfers throughout the summer, with big money deals taking Ousmane Dembele to Barcelona and Neymar to Paris Saint-Germain.
Transfer fees have gone up and up throughout the summer, with plenty of Champions League clubs setting new heights for their record individual deals.
But does lavish spending necessarily mean a club can’t turn a profit? talkSPORT have crunched the numbers, and you can see the net spend of every club – ranked from least to highest – by clicking the right arrow, above….
32. Benfica made a profit of £332.34m
31. Porto made a profit of £215.74m
30. Sevilla made a profit of £140.48m
29. Sporting Lisbon made a profit of £102.3m
28. Shakhtar Donetsk made a profit of £84m
27. Anderlecht made a profit of £62.28m
26. Basel made a profit of £51.51m
25. Borussia Dortmund made a profit of £32.33m
24. Feyenoord made a profit of £31.9m
23. Olympiacos made a profit of £29.56m
22. CSKA Moscow made a profit of £29.42m
21. Atletico Madrid made a profit of £21.34m
20. Celtic made a profit of £19.95m
19. Roma made a profit of £18.07m
18. Monaco made a profit of £13.22m
17. Maribor made a profit of £8.76m
16. Tottenham Hotspur made a profit of £5.02m
15. APOEL made a profit of £4.54m
14. Qarabag's net spend was £600k
13. Besiktas' net spend was £10.81m
12. Spartak Moscow's net spend was £51.42m
11. Real Madrid's net spend was £66.15m
10. Napoli's net spend was £102.52m
9. Juventus' net spend was £121.07m
8. Liverpool's net spend was £150.51m
7. Chelsea's net spend was £153.38m
6. RB Leipzig net spend was £161.13m
5. Bayern Munich's net spend was £165.85m
4. Barcelona's net spend was £226.17m
3. Paris Saint-Germain's net spend was £507.7m
2. Manchester United's net spend was £569.07m
1. Manchester City's net spend was £633.88m
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by TamasGaram | Dec 5, 2020 | Posts | 0 comments
The history of a cover-up.
Despite the fact that he is a popular and young author, I have not yet read anything by Guillaume Musso before, so that the powerful ability of the author to create atmosphere took me by complete surprise, as he has grasped my attention from the first pages, sucked me into the story and did not let go before he turned me around and made me dizzy several times. He did this while the text is not long, the descriptions do not become too overwhelming, we could say that sentences building up atmosphere are completely minimised, and the essence is summarised in the events outlined in a few lines.
Everything that is important comes from meetings and dialogues, the author drags us into every key scene so that we can experience the events there and then, and then he quickly pulls us out into the present so that we face the consequences. Yes, but then, what makes this novel so special and exciting? Well, the way this all materialises. Were it just a simple crime story, it would be possible for us to speculate within the first third of the text who the murderer is, who is not suspicious, yet, could be connected to the murder.
Thrillers have their own obligatory elements, just like any other literary genres.
What a successful author’s offer can make special and enjoyable today is not rejecting mandatory panels but the presentation of the sequence of events, making the reader think, and even forcing him/her to re-assess each character’s motivation over and over again. The mystery is there right at the very beginning of the story: why does a successful author, who has published three books, all of which are adored by readers and critics alike, retire to a small, secluded island in the Mediterranean?
What compels a man to live his life in solitude for 20 years without writing a single line?
These are serious questions in themselves, and the explanation is much more complicated, much more macabre than we could have anticipated beforehand. The seemingly peaceful inhabitants of the island may not be who they appear to be, and the characters who show up in the meantime may not be merely curious characters connecting two story lines, either, even if they appear to be so at first glance. There are attempts of various kinds to find out the truth behind the story, while the reader is increasingly involved in the detection of gradually unfolding events, while the seemingly viable, logical solution keeps changing from chapter to chapter.
Just when we think we have an answer to the question, and we also know who committed the mysterious murder that has been keeping the island in feverish excitement, Musso throws in yet another detail that compells us to reassess our opinion, and he keeps up this habit to the very last chapter. So The Secret Life of Writers is a terribly exciting mystery-thriller, entertaining and thought-provoking at the same time. It is easy to consume, although, despite the rolling story, it raises serious questions. Why do we create? What makes the writer a writer? Is criticism important? Is someone who condemns himself to solitude actually lonely? Is it possible to rise above the desire for revenge?
Is there forgiveness?
Anyone who is interested in the questions raised and can tolerate psychological stress should definitely read this novel. I don’t regret it. It’s perfect for me now.
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The Classifications of Parallel Programming
by Henry Young October 4, 2014 November 18, 2014 0901
A parallel program needs a model in order to be written. Therefore, a parallel programming model serves as a source of inspiration for this form of computation that features a large number of calculations which can be carried out simultaneously.
Parallel computing is based on the idea that large problems can be easier solved by dividing them into smaller ones. Although there are several types of parallel programming, users got interested in using it only due to the physical constraints preventing frequency scaling. Furthermore, the power consumption generated by computers and the heat that they deliver have become a major concern in the past years, so parallel computing has become the main paradigm in computer architecture.
Bit-level parallelism is a type of parallel programming which is based on enlarging the processor wide size. Due to this measure there were made some big advancements in computer architecture. Furthermore, by enlarging the word size, the number of commands that the processor must execute to run an operation is reduced. For example, an 8-bit processor that must add two 16-bit integers requires two instructions instead of one. In order to complete the operation, it must add the 8 lower-order bits from each integer and then the 8 higher ones. Therefore, a 16-bit processor could operate by using a single instruction, so it is more effective.
Instruction-level parallelism is a form of parallel computing that is used to measure how many of the operations that exist in a computer program can be performed at the same time. The potential overlap that can take place among certain commands is known as instruction level parallelism.
Data parallelism has the role to distribute information across different parallel computing nodes. Moreover, it represents a multiprocessor system that executes a single set of commands. So, this form of parallelization is achieved when each processor runs the same task on different pieces of distributed information. There are cases where a single execution thread coordinates operations on all the data, and others where separate threads coordinate the operation, but they execute the same command.
Task parallelism is also named control parallelism, and it is a form of parallelization of computer code across a large number of processors in parallel programming environments. It has the goal to distribute threads, or execution processes across certain computing nodes. This function parallelism is achieved when each processor executes a different process on certain data. Furthermore, the processes can execute the same or different code.
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August 17, 2018 James Curran
Luke Shaw: Manchester United’s left-back solution
Luke Shaw broke into the Southampton first-team at the age of 16. At the age of 18, he moved to Manchester United for £30 million. Since then, a combination of long-term injuries and a failure to impress Jose Mourinho has resulted in limited game time. Last season, Manchester United were craving a natural left-sided player; it’s time for Jose Mourinho to take note.
Back in March, Luke Shaw was hauled off at half-time by Jose Mourinho during their home win over Brighton. Before the Everton clash in April, Jose Mourinho commented “I cannot compare the way he trains, the way he commits, the focus, the ambition. I cannot compare.”
Dropped for the World Cup, with Gareth Southgate preferring his club teammate Ashley Young. With only a year left of his contract, it looked like Luke Shaw’s career was over. However, a Man of the Match performance and his first senior goal against Leicester has given him hope.
Even though Ashley Young has an impressive season, it’s time for Luke Shaw to fulfill his potential. What can he add to Jose Mourinho’s team?
Jose Mourinho hailed Luke Shaw’s performance as ‘the complete performance’ against Leicester. Can he use this as a springboard, so that Jose Mourinho can no longer ignore him?
As a natural left-sided player, Luke Shaw gives Manchester United width in the attacking third. He is given licence to push forward and rather than an Ashley Young who would cut back inside, he can attack on the outside of the opposition full back.
This is evident in Luke Shaw’s first professional goal and Manchester United’s second of the evening.
Luke Shaw’s forward run has stretched Leicester City’s narrow defensive unit. As the ball is played across the midfield into Luke Shaw’s path, he is able to take it first time on his left side. He then lifts it over the oncoming defender before slotting home. His attacking run has also taken 7 Leicester City players out of the game, who were focused on the central defensive block.
The most important thing is that a right-footed left-back would have cut back inside to shoot. Luke Shaw offers another attacking option to Manchester United and can open the play up in the attacking third.
This will be important against the teams lower down in the division. Manchester United struggled to break down defensive teams last season. The ability to stretch their low defensive blocks on the left flank as well as the right will be key to Jose Mourinho unlocking the team’s potential. This attacking option will also provide further options for Paul Pogba as Manchester United look to unlock his potential.
Defensive pressing
If Manchester United are to improve on their league position this season, they need to press higher up the pitch. Jose Mourinho can no longer win the title nullifying oppositions strengths. Manchester City and Liverpool’s high press has been successful domestically and in Europe and it’s time Jose Mourinho adapted his tactics.
Luke Shaw showed evidence of his ability to press higher than his defensive line against Leicester City. This enables Jose Mourinho to stop attacks further away from the Manchester United goal and also transition quickly into attack.
Even in the final minutes against Leicester City, Luke Shaw is still showing the fitness levels to step up out of the defensive line. In this move, he wins the ball from the opposition right-wing but he is more in line with his midfield than fellow defenders. This is where he can add real value. His ability to pressure quickly can help Manchester United transition from defence to attack. It will also help them play further up the pitch, which can help them unlock chances against lower level opposition.
Maintaining Width
Earlier in the article, we picked up the importance of Luke Shaw’s positioning. As Luke Shaw is a natural left-sided player, it helps Manchester United maintain their width and stretch the opposition. This can be seen in his pass map, below, from the match against Leicester City.
The graphic above shows he had an 89% passing accuracy, which helped Manchester United control the game. Furthermore, the majority of his passes were wide left. This provides Manchester United with another option going forward. He can maintain the width and stretch the opposition, choosing to come inside when it benefits the team rather than being the natural default of a right-footed left-back.
How can Jose Mourinho continue to ignore Luke Shaw?
Throughout last season, Manchester United struggled to break down the opposition and their defensive approach ultimately resulted in them losing the title to Manchester City. Although Ashley Young had a great season, part of the reason for this was the lack of a natural left-sided player. Jose Mourinho preferred to play an inside forward on the left-hand side of midfield last season. In the latter stages of the season, this role was undertaken by Alexis Sanchez, who regularly cut inside looking for attempts at goal.
This left Manchester United with a lack of width on the left side of the field. The solution to this problem is to play Luke Shaw. He will maintain the width in midfield and can overlap Alexis Sanchez to provide further options. We have already seen his attacking capabilities in the first game of the season. Jose Mourinho described his performance as ‘very complete’ and should continue to use Luke Shaw to provide a new attacking option for Manchester United. We questioned how Manchester United can evolve this season, Luke Shaw has already provided Jose Mourinho with another option.
Manchester United fan and tactical analyst, regular TFA contributor, follow me on Twitter.
Nikola Vlasic 2020 – scout report
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One of the most exciting signings of the summer transfer window, at least as far as Manchester United fans are […]
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REVIEW: “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch”
Choose-Your-Own-Adventures books are always a lot of fun. You’re able to explore multiple different endings to a story, some ridiculous, some serious, and you’re able to replay that story countless times to explore each different branch of the story. It’s a method of storytelling that’s never really been tried in film or TV before. Before Bandersnatch, that is. Bandersnatch is the first film in the Black Mirror series. Written by Charlie Brooker and directed by David Slade, Bandersnatch is a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure film that allows audiences to choose how the story of Stefan Butler (Fionn Whitehead) plays out. It’s a whole lot of fun and genuinely impressive to watch (and participate in). (NOTE: There will be spoilers for Bandersnatch. I will try to keep them minor, but it’s hard to talk about this film without spoiling some things.)
In 1984, a young programmer begins to question reality as he adapts a sprawling fantasy novel into a video game and soon faces a mind-mangling challenge.
It’s hard to review this movie as I counted no less than five completely different endings. It’s a genuine Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story, down to the fact that if you choose a really bad option, the story will straight up just end right there and it’ll tell you to go back and try again and that’s a whole lot of fun. Most of the choices you make seem fairly inconsequential; things like picking a particular cereal to eat or a song to listen to. But then there are bigger options (and plenty of them) that have drastic impacts on the outcome of the story. What’s fun about those options is that there often isn’t an obvious choice; there are pros and cons to each choice and you really have to think about the choice you’re making (and what the consequences of that choice might be) before you make it and that kind of in-depth thought is what makes this whole gimmick feel less like a gimmick.
The other fun thing about the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure gimmick is that the episode more or less acknowledges that someone is making decisions for Stefan. Early on in the story, Stefan meets a fellow game developer, Colin Ritman (Will Poulter), who introduces Stefan to drugs and reveals to him that he believes they’re all living in one of many timelines and that their choices don’t ultimately matter as, in another timeline, they’ll have made the opposite choice. This line of thought is what ultimately drives the story to its climax as Stefan becomes more and more convinced that someone is watching him and forcing him to do things and he ultimately confronts the viewer and demands they tell him who they are. We’re then given two choices, (one of those choices being that we’re “Netflix” which leads to a pretty bonkers ending involving a massive conspiracy) that then leads us to have to decide whether or not to kill Stefan’s dad (Craig Parkinson), and if we do kill him, whether or not to bury the body or chop it up (one option leads to one ending while the other option leads to a pretty amazing meta ending that involves a future programmer trying to resurrect Stefan’s code and a beautiful Black Mirror twist that I won’t spoil here).
I can’t imagine the amount of work that Charlie Brooker, David Slade, and the various other people who made this film had to put into it. Pulling something like this off is extremely complicated. They had to script and film each possible decision the viewer might make and they had to devise a system to effectively deliver those choices to the viewer as they made them. There had to have been so much pre and post-production on this film for it to even exist. So, with that said, it’s truly amazing how good this movie is. Yes, it’s ultimately a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure gimmick, but this is also Charlie Brooker we’re talking about; he doesn’t half-ass things.
This film’s narrative is as compelling as any regular Black Mirror episode would be. The main character, Stefan, is an interesting and multi-faceted character and his slide into madness makes up much of what this film explores (which is what Black Mirror is best at doing). The surrounding characters are all interesting and mysterious and compelling as well. Of particular enjoyment is Dr. Hayes (Alice Lowe), Stefan’s therapist. In true Black Mirror fashion, you aren’t ever sure if she’s really on Stefan’s side or not. You’re also never really sure if Stefan is actually experiencing these events or if he’s just having some pretty massive delusions. That’s an idea that Black Mirror has played with before, but it works particularly well in a story that revolves around an outside force deciding what the main character is going to do.
All in all, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch is an enjoyable film. It’s less of a film and more of an interactive experience, but those interactive elements don’t take away from the experience of the film. Bandersnatch very much has a beginning, a middle, and an ending (although it’s a bit unclear as to which ending should be considered the “true” ending; though, I’d argue that’s half the fun of this). The interactive elements mesh very well with the story; they don’t feel out of place and, from a technological standpoint, they’re implemented seamlessly and there’s very little loading time when you actually make a selection. The cinematography, acting, and soundtrack are all up to the standards you’d expect from Black Mirror and I just can’t emphasize enough how impressive this film is. It’s an unprecedented experiment in Choose-Your-Own-Adventure storytelling and it works remarkably well. I’d absolutely recommend checking it out.
4.5 out of 5 wands
Posted in movies, tv shows and tagged bandersnatch, black mirror, black mirror: bandersnatch, charlie brooker, david slade, netflix on December 28, 2018 by Michael Cook. Leave a comment
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You are here: Home / Bank of america / Breaking The Bank : Behind The Financial Meltdown ~ Frontline [Video]
Breaking The Bank : Behind The Financial Meltdown ~ Frontline [Video]
F R O N T L I N E
In Breaking the Bank, FRONTLINE producer Michael Kirk (Inside the Meltdown, Bush’s War) draws on a rare combination of high-profile interviews with key players Ken Lewis and former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain to reveal the story of two banks at the heart of the financial crisis, the rocky merger, and the government’s new role in taking over — some call it “nationalizing” — the American banking system.
It all began on that fateful weekend in September 2008 when the American economy was on the verge of melting down. Then-Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson, his former protégé John Thain, and Ken Lewis, one of the most powerful bankers in the country, secretly cut a deal to merge Bank of America and Merrill Lynch.
The merger of the nation’s largest bank and Merrill Lynch was supposed to help save the American financial system by preventing the imminent Lehman Brothers bankruptcy from setting off a destructive chain reaction. But it became immediately clear that it had not worked. Within days, the entire global financial system was collapsing.
In Washington, Secretary Paulson was determined to spend billions of government dollars to prevent the American banking system from dragging the country into a depression. That October, Lewis, Thain and other top bank CEOs found themselves at an emergency meeting at the Treasury Department. Paulson told the group they had no choice but to accept $125 billion of capital from American taxpayers in order to save the financial system. Initially, Bank of America’s CEO Lewis was supportive of the plan. “We are so intertwined with the U.S. that it’s hard to separate what’s good for the United States and what’s good for Bank of America,” Lewis tells FRONTLINE.
But some observers now say that Paulson’s injection of public capital was the beginning of unprecedented government involvement in the nation’s banking system, with consequences few understood.
“I think we nationalized the banks in the U.S. on that day,” former International Monetary Fund chief economist Simon Johnson says. “The government got a lot of say in how they are run, a lot of constraints, a lot of responsibility. A lot of downside risk was taken on that day.”
By December, Lewis was discovering what it meant to have the government as a partial owner. When fourth-quarter losses at Merrill grew to $15 billion, Lewis began to look for a way to get out of the deal. But in tense negotiations with government officials, Lewis was told he had no choice. If he did not go through with the merger, regulators threatened to change the bank’s management.
“Ken Lewis blinked, the full force of the government is being brought upon him. The rules of the game have changed,” Wall Street Journal reporter Dan Fitzpatrick says. “Ken Lewis is on top of the financial services world, but he’s not in charge. The government holds all the cards at the end of the day.”
FRONTLINE’s Breaking the Bank tells the story of Lewis’ struggle to survive in this new financial order, where public outrage and government edicts are now as important to banking as shareholders and deposits. With his bank on the brink, Lewis now finds himself the subject of a shareholder revolt, congressional indignation, presidential pressure and the increasingly conflicting demands of private investors and government officials.
“This is more than a story about just one man or one bank,” says producer Michael Kirk. “This is the story of the most important change in the relationship between government and private business in a generation.”
Filed Under: Bank of america, Frontline, Hank Paulson, IMF, John Thain, Ken Lewis, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Michael Kirk, Simon Johnson, Wall Street Tagged With: BofA, Citi, Frontline, Geithner, Lehman, Merrill, Paulson, Simon Johnson, Thain, Wall Street
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@BilldeBlasio @NYGovCuomo PLEASE read this thread. I like you both but this is whack. FIX THIS! JT twitter.com/NYCComptroller… 1 hour ago
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HomeArchivesEmerson Student, Alumni, Produce, Write, Direct Feature Film
Emerson Student, Alumni, Produce, Write, Direct Feature Film
While hundreds of Emerson seniors are looking forward to graduating this month, at least one member of the Class of 2017 is eagerly waiting for his first feature film to be completed.
Barren Trees was made by Brandon Golden ’17 and his production company, Project 10K, along with close to two dozen Emerson students and recent alumni, including co-directors Lei Zhenchuan ’16 and Ryan Eatherton ’16, who also wrote and stars in the film. It is scheduled to be sent to distributors May 22, according to Eatherton.
“We really want to develop this company,” Lei said. “Brandon, with his ability and how [Project 10K] is run really provided a platform for young filmmakers.”
The film tells two interconnected stories. In one, a pair of contract killers reeling from their own personal problems head to New Hampshire for their latest job, making a rash detour along the way. The second part tells the story of their victim, a middle-aged man in the witness protection program struggling with identity issues.
Golden said he had gotten somewhat disillusioned about the film industry while working on a set in New York, and had turned his attention to launching a clothing label, when he got the idea for a production company that would give young filmmakers $10,000 to make feature films.
Last summer, Lei, who worked with Golden at a local wearable brain interface maker, came to him with what they thought would be Golden’s first project. It was a script that Lei and Eatherton worked on together their freshman year. Eatherton, who wrote it, described it as a Guy Ritchie–type movie set in Boston that itself was an English adaptation of a script Lei wrote back home in China.
Everyone loved it. There was just one problem.
“What we realized shortly after was for the amount of money we had at the time…there was no way that movie was going to be made, because it had cock fighting and a giant shootout,” Eatherton said.
They decided Lei and Eatherton would develop, and Eatherton would write, a new script with a $10,000 budget in mind. Everyone loved the resulting screenplay, Barren Trees. There was just one problem.
“[T]here was no way it was going to be made for $10,000,” Eatherton recalled. “But we all liked it so much we decided to make it anyway.”
Determined to have complete creative control over the project, and not wanting to make promises they couldn’t keep, the team passed on launching a Kickstarter campaign and Golden was able to scrape together $60,000 between his own money and private investors to make Barren Trees a reality.
“I wanted to be able to say, ‘This is a feature film that we fronted, that we were so passionate about,’” Golden said.
The Project 10K team leveraged personal and Emerson connections to get help and advice from anywhere they could. Golden said he reached out to a former executive story editor for 60 Minutes, and Allyn Stewart, a producer of the film Sully, who told him to “make sure the movie is yours.”
Once shooting started, Lei reached out to Associate Professor Harlan Bosmajian, his cinematography instructor, who has been director of photography on dozens of films and TV series.
“I just started spamming him and said, ‘I’m doing my first feature film, and I need your help,’” said Lei, who worked with Bosmajian in New York on Breakable You, starring Holly Hunter and Tony Shalhoub. (“He was great, dedicated, a hard worker,” Bosmajian said of Lei. “I think he impressed the whole professional crew.”)
Bosmajian said he’s used to getting approached by graduating seniors and alumni about help finding work on a film, but not about making a full-length feature themselves.
“Not a lot of students go for the feature film right away,” Bosmajian said. “It’s a huge undertaking, and it takes a lot of time and resources. And for a cinematographer, you shoot the film and that takes about a month and a half and then you move on with the rest of your life, but for a director, you have to live with that film for, like, two years.”
Bosmajian said he told Lei to do as much prep work before shooting so he and his DP weren’t making creative decisions on set, to keep the lighting simple, and to “think about the simplest way to tell the story and still maintain a sense of style.”
He said $60,000 is a totally realistic budget for a good independent feature film.
“That was actually the budget of the first feature I ever shot as well, which was a black-and-white piece shot in Connecticut,” Bosmajian said. “You can’t shoot Lawrence of Arabia for $60,000, but you can shoot one of the many indie films that have done well; those are doable. Like Tangerine—you can shoot that for $60,000, but it has to begin with the script.”
The script, while totally fictional, takes elements of actual stories from Eatherton’s past. It combines adrenaline, like when the two hitmen, played by Eatherton and Dorchester actor George Walter Hooker IV, decide to rob a restaurant, with periods of introspective dialogue and quiet character study.
“I think it’s really interesting to explore the victim and to sort of have the last day of his life,” Lei said.
Eatherton, a triple threat as actor, writer, and co-director of the film, said he’s always wanted to pursue all of those possible careers equally.
“My idea my whole life is, I will pursue whichever one develops first, but on this I got to do all three,” he said.
Casting Eatherton as Derek, and Hooker, who nailed his audition, as Eddie, was easy, they all said. Casting the mark was a lot harder, until Eatherton remembered that he had a very particular 40-something man in mind when he was writing the character: his dad.
Phil Eatherton had no acting experience, but his son did, and thought he could direct him.
“If anybody wanted this to succeed as much as me, it’s my dad,” Ryan Eatherton said. “So I knew he would want this to go well and he would work his [tail] off.”
On screen, he looks like a natural, Eatherton said. On set he became known as “Phil Pacino.”
Lei said before he came to Emerson he worked for a couple of production companies in China, and he is working to sell the film in that country, as well as in the United States.
Last month, Golden said he had the opportunity to see a rough cut of Barren Trees.
“We were all on edge,” Golden said. “It could have been anywhere from not comprehendible to very good, and I saw it and I started crying, because I believe for the money…it could not have been better.”
ELA Students Figure Out Post-Graduation Moves
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Six Nations organizes to resist taxation
Jim Windle
OHSWEKEN – A group of citizens and business people gathered at the GREAT Theatre last Thursday to take steps towards forming a people’s committee to address the question of taxation on Six Nations Territory. They will be meeting each and every Thursday beginning at 7 pm as they discuss strategies and get updates on how to resist the Ontario and Federal government’s efforts to impose taxation on Haudenosaunee people both on and off reserve.
The meeting was a follow up from a recent public meeting called by Elected Chief Bill Montour at Six Nations Polytechnic when the community was given an opportunity to speak to the taxation issue. At that meeting Chief Montour recommended a people’s committee be formed to seek ways to stop the further erosion of Haudenosaunee rights and freedoms, including taxation.
Audrey Squire-Hill of the Turtle Island Business Association called for a referendum of some kind to seek input from as broad a cross section of the community as possible.
Dire warnings were presented outlining government strategies used elsewhere, especially in British Columbia, where offers of immediate money and promises of a certain amount of autonomy, have lured some Onkwehon:we peoples into a trap whereby they ultimately give up their rights as sovereign peoples, and in essence, become Canadian citizens
“We know that Harper’s termination plan is coming,” said Squire-Hill. “How do we develop a strategy to stop it? We’re not talking about going to Band Council or talking to any group. We’re talking about developing a people’s agenda and a people’s initiative.”
She pointed out that historically her people have sat back and done nothing until after it hits, but this time, she wants her people to be ready with an action plan to resist before its becomes too late to do so.
“People are unaware of how imminent this is,” she warned.
One thing that came from this first of many community meetings on the subject was a recommendation to begin to develop an information and communication network with an informative website and an active social media campaign and a list of people willing to join together and resist Prime Minister Harper’s assimilation tactics against Six Nations in particular, but Onkwehon:we people at large as well.
The meetings are open to all and will continue every Thursday at the GREAT Theatre from 7 pm until 9 p.m.
Jim Windle is a veteran news and sports reporter who has been published in a number of mediums and publications. contact Jim: windlejim@rocketmail.com
Oneida reporting 36 COVID-19 cases in outbreak
COVID-19 vaccine for frontline workers
Clive Garlow
When it’s all gone and there are no more tax benefits for the people of Six Nations, the ones who could not bother attending this extremely important meeting, will have NO cause to whine and complain. What is there….about 12-13,000 people on Six? Typical. The rest leave it to the few to do something about it and cry like babies when their rights and benefits are lost due to their indifference. Nothing more to say other than if you want it, get off your duffs and fight for it. Otherwise, be silent when it’s gone.
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TWU Institute of Health Sciences - Houston Center
Texas Woman’s University to conduct Fall 2019 commencement
Dec. 11, 2019 — HOUSTON — The Fall 2019 semester at Texas Woman’s University will draw to a close with commencement ceremonies scheduled Friday and Saturday, Dec. 13 and 14, on the university’s Denton campus, and Sunday, Dec. 15, in Houston.
The Houston ceremony will take place at 1 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 15, in The Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel and Convention Center, 1601 Lake Robbins Drive. Texas Woman’s University alumna Anne Gill, Dr.P.H., assistant dean for interprofessional education, professor of pediatrics and a professor in the Center for Medical Ethics and Policy, Baylor College of Medicine, will deliver the commencement address. Approximately 241 degrees will be awarded during the Houston ceremony.
The Denton ceremonies include candidates from TWU’s Dallas Center. Approximately 1,138 degrees will be awarded during the Denton ceremonies, which take place in the Kitty Magee Arena of Pioneer Hall, located on Bell Avenue.
A number of the students walking across the Houston stage this fall have remarkable stories of achievement:
Amy Alvarado will receive her MBA during the ceremony. Alvarado overcame a divorce after 18 years of marriage, started a new job and raised two busy teenagers as a single mom, all while completing her graduate degree. During her first semester alone, she enrolled in three classes while finalizing divorce proceedings, purchasing a new home and car and working for a for-profit hospital. Through it all, she only made one B. She currently works as a revenue billing manager at MD Anderson and plans to continue working in the health care field and progressing in hospital revenue management.
Deltra Muoki will receive her Ph.D. in nursing science. While working as a unit resource person and educator in MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Gastrointestinal and Colorectal Center, Muoki partnered with Novartis pharmaceuticals to develop a standardized annual training and competency check-off, and later developed and operated the first feeding tube clinic at the center. She earned her master of science as an adult/gerontology nurse practitioner, and now her Ph.D., from Texas Woman’s, all while getting married and giving birth to three children, two of whom were born premature and had to spend several months in the NICU. She plans to educate future nurses and continue her research regarding caregiver burden and feeding tube placement in the community.
Jason Stark will receive his master of healthcare administration degree, graduating with a perfect 4.0 grade point average. He is president of Cole Health, a privately-owned outpatient rehabilitation facility with 20 locations throughout Texas, and plans to apply what he’s learned to further grow and expand his company into new markets across Texas and the United States. Stark also would like to develop a customer experience training program to be implemented system-wide within his organization.
Sheranda Michelle Fesler will receive her Ph.D. in nursing science. As the first in her family to attend and graduate from college, Fesler chose TWU 13 years ago to pursue her first graduate degree in nursing education. Nursing is her second career after retiring from the U.S. Army after 23 years of service. In addition to working as the assistant director of clinical practice at Texas Children’s Hospital, Fesler has been a graduate teaching assistant and an adjunct faculty member in TWU’s undergraduate nursing program. She hopes to use her Ph.D. to teach in an online graduate nursing program.
Matt Flores
Assistant Vice President, University Communications
mattflores@twu.edu
Page last updated 9:12 AM, December 7, 2020
TWU Houston Center
6700 Fannin
Houston Campus Map
Building Hours (beginning August 24):
FANNIN Entrance:
Monday through Friday 7:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m.
*CARD ACCESS from 7:00 a.m. - 8:00 a.m.; 6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Saturday 7:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. (CARD ACCESS ONLY)
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TWU Tidbits
TWU is one of six regional SENCER (Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities) Centers in the country. SENCER is a comprehensive faculty development and science education reform project funded by the National Science Foundation.
TWU’s Fitness and Recreation Center is the state’s first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified recreation center at a public university. The U.S. Green Building Council awarded the fitness center a LEED Silver certification for its environmental design, making the facility one of the nation’s top “green” buildings.
For about 30 years TWU has provided holiday gifts to the children of our students who are parents. TWU's Holiday Gift Program for students who have children is believed to be the only program of its kind in the country. The 2016 TWU Holiday Gift Program broke all records — the university community provided gifts to more than 430 children from 226 families of our enrolled students in Denton, Dallas, Houston and online in Arkansas, Louisiana and Washington State.
TWU graduates 24 percent of all Texas nursing doctoral degrees from four-year public universities.
TWU graduates 56 percent of all Texas allied health doctoral degrees from four-year public universities.
TWU has the largest collection of research material on women in the southern United States.
Texas Woman’s University is home to the Texas First Ladies Historic Costume Collection and the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame.
TWU houses the official archives of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs)
Music Professor Pamela Youngblood is the 2016-2018 Artist of Phi Kappa Phi — the nation’s most selective all-discipline honor society.
Notable figures including Robert Frost, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sinclair Lewis, Amelia Earhart and Frank Lloyd Wright visited the TWU campus during the tenure of president L.H. Hubbard (1926 to 1950.)
In 2017, TWU graduated more speech therapists than any other program in Texas and is one of the largest programs in the U.S.
The TWU Gymnastics team won its 10th national championship in 2017.
For more than 30 years, TWU student athletes have achieved an overall team GPA of 3.0 or higher.
TWU’s doctoral program in nursing was the first of its kind in the Southwest.
TWU’s Ph.D. in dance is the oldest continuing doctoral program in dance in the United States and one of only three Ph.D. programs nationwide.
TWU offers the only undergraduate degree program in culinary science and food service management in Texas.
TWU researchers were the first to document bone loss in space in a project with NASA. Today, the TWU Institute for Women’s Health has the world’s largest database of osteoporosis imagery/scans.
In 1999, TWU became the first university in the state to offer a distance education (online) doctoral program — the Ph.D. in nursing science.
In 2010, TWU became the first university in Texas to offer a Ph.D. in women’s studies. TWU was the first university in Texas to offer a freestanding master of arts degree in women’s studies (1999).
TWU became the first public university in Texas to offer a specialist degree in September 2006.
TWU’s Fine Arts Building was the first facility in Texas designed and built specifically to house programs in the studio arts.
In 1956, TWU opened the first building in the nation dedicated to library science instruction.
TWU offered the first bachelor’s degree in health and physical education in Texas.
Page last updated 11:16 AM, February 14, 2020
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Uber, Ola India face Intelligence probe related to alleged tax evasion
The Director General of Goods and Services Tax Intelligence (DGGI) has launched an investigation into ride-hailing firms Uber and Ola. The DGGI has issued summons to officials of the two companies related to alleged tax evasion worth hundreds of crores of rupees, according to the sources.
The tax liability dues for Uber India has reportedly been calculated as about Rs 800 crore, while as for Bengaluru-based Ola, it has been set at around Rs 300 crore. However, according to the industry sources, two different tax intelligence teams based in different cities have calculated the dues for the companies and sent the notices based on their interpretation. “This has resulted in the calculation of the tax at the rate of 15 per cent for Uber and 6 per cent tax for Ola,” said an industry source.
Industry sources said that these tax dues are related to the 2015-2017 period before GST (goods and services) kicked in and deals with services tax.
Both Ola and Uber confirmed that an investigation is being conducted by the DGGI, but they didn’t share comments related to the tax liability.
“We are in receipt of a notice from the tax department relating to certain matters prior to 2017 in our mobility business. These pertain to the erstwhile service tax regime,” said Ola spokesperson on Monday evening. The SoftBank-backed company said it has been actively engaged with the department and are cooperating with the tax authorities and are confident that it will be able to resolve this satisfactorily. “Ola is a proud taxpayer and we comply with all our tax obligations and have contributed several thousand crores in taxes over the last 4 years alone,” said the Ola spokesperson.
“Uber is a law-abiding and compliant company. We are working closely with the authorities on all tax-related queries and will respond accordingly,” said an Uber spokesperson.
GST Intelligence has reportedly found that Uber India and Ola did not pay goods and services tax (GST) on the incentives paid to drivers for many years. Also, the firms have allegedly not paid the GST amount on ride cancellations.
Besides Ola and Uber, many tech companies have come on the radar of the income tax (I-T) department. The income-tax department recently conducted surveys at Instakart, a group company of e-commerce giant Flipkart, and food delivery firm Swiggy in Bengaluru. The surveys are related to an alleged bogus input tax credit connected to the external vendors of these firms, according to the sources.
Last week, a team of I-T department officials reached the office of Instakart, located on the Flipkart campus in Bengaluru. They were investigating Merlin and Surya Services, which are the third-party vendors for Instakart. An I-T department team also landed at the office of Swiggy to conduct the survey. According to the sources, due to a third-party vendor Greenfinch’s alleged default, the department initiated a follow-up survey at Swiggy.
*By Peerzada Abrar, Bengaluru, Business Standard*
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Ban on Sharm el-Sheikh flights lifted
By Neil Lancefield, PA Transport Correspondent
Restrictions on flights between the UK and Sharm el-Sheikh have been lifted after nearly four years.
The Department for Transport announced that it has ended the ban due to improvements in security procedures at the Egyptian resort’s airport and close co-operation between the UK and Egypt on aviation security.
Sharm el-Sheikh was a popular destination with UK tourists until all UK flights were halted in November 2015 following the bombing of a Russian airliner.
UK lifts flight restriction on Sharm El-Sheikh Airporthttps://t.co/Ci2ygF30nS pic.twitter.com/bx5GZfJjLL
— UK in Egypt (@UKinEgypt) October 22, 2019
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: “We look forward to services to Sharm el-Sheikh resuming, and lifting the restriction is the first step in that process.
“The safety and security of British nationals remains our top priority and this decision follows close co-operation between our aviation security experts and their Egyptian counterparts, and improvements in security procedures at the airport.
“We will now work closely with airlines who wish to resume flights to and from the airport.”
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office updated its travel advice for Egypt to reflect the change in policy, but continued to warn of a “heightened risk of terrorism against aviation in Egypt”.
It added that “additional security measures are in place for flights departing from Egypt to the UK” and advised visitors to the country to “co-operate fully with security officials at airports”.
Travel trade organisation Abta said the decision to lift flight restrictions was “welcome news” for the industry as well as the local economy around Sharm el-Sheikh.
Tui confirmed it will resume selling holidays to the resort, while airline easyJet said it will “look at any opportunities” in relation to the news.
The Government’s decision could be too late for flights to operate this winter, meaning holidaymakers may have to wait until next summer to make the trip.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the safety of British nationals remains the Government’s top priority (Aaron Chown/PA)
Hundreds of thousands of UK tourists went to the Red Sea destination each year before the ban on flights was introduced.
The measure has seen the number of UK visitors dwindle as it forced them to either take multiple flights or a ferry from Hurghada.
It was one of the factors which led to the collapse of airline Monarch in October 2017.
Speaking 12 months earlier, then-chief executive Andrew Swaffield said the company’s financial struggles began when flights to Sharm el-Sheikh were banned.
“That was really the moment … it became clear that things were beginning to turn,” he told delegates at a travel convention.
All 224 people on board an Airbus 321 operated by Russian airline Metrojet were killed in a suspected terrorist bombing soon after take-off from Sharm el-Sheikh Airport in October 2015.
Islamic State jihadis claimed responsibility for the attack.
More than 16,000 Britons stranded in the area were brought home on a series of rescue flights amid heightened security.
It has been reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, will discuss resuming flights between the countries at a summit later this week.
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Texas A&M Recognized Nationally as a "Bicycle Friendly University"
From Texas A&M Today
Texas A&M University has been designated a “Bicycle Friendly University” by the League of American Bicyclists, an honor based on initiatives by Transportation Services and other parts of the institution in serving the needs of the cycling community while also reducing the campus’ carbon footprint, officials note.
“This recent recognition is yet another example of how our Department of Transportation Services works to allow our campus community to travel safely and efficiently across our campus,” said Vice President of Finance and Administration Jerry Strawser. “In addition to reducing our traffic and carbon footprint, our investment in cycling infrastructure provides an opportunity for physical activity that is beneficial for our campus’ well-being.”
In addition to working to make thousands of bicyclists safer as they move through traffic on campus, Texas A&M’s Transportation Services’ Alternative Transportation Unit provides all registered students, faculty and staff with cost-effective and sustainable transportation options on campus.
Alternative Transportation Unit Manager Ron Steedly cited the various programs offered by his unit.
These options include the highly successful “Bike Lease” and “Borrow a Bike” programs. “Bike Lease” allows registered users to lease a bike shop quality bike for the semester, with the option to renew the bike at the end of the lease. “Borrow a Bike” is a free bike share program for interested cyclists that need bikes for a short period of time.
“We work hard as a university to support the cycling community by offering riders additional amenities, such as improved and new bike lanes and routes, bike fix-it-stations, bicycle registration, bicycle parking, and by offering free workshops on bicycle maintenance and safety skills through the ‘Hub,’ the on-campus do-it-yourself repair facility operated by Texas A&M Rec Sports,” Steedly added.
“By utilizing the ‘Hub’ cyclists can take advantage of repair tools, basic supplies and parts needed to keep their bicycles in tip top shape.”
The League of American Bicyclists, which presented its Bronze Award to Texas A&M, is leading the movement to create a Bicycle Friendly America for everyone. As leaders, league officials say their commitment is to listen and learn, define standards and share best practices to engage diverse communities and build a powerful, unified voice for change.
“We are honored to have received this prestigious designation, and are pleased that our efforts to create and maintain a vibrant and supporting biking community on campus is being recognized nationally,” said Executive Director Peter Lange, Transportation Services.
“This recognition would not be possible without the dedication, commitment and most importantly, resources provided by the Division of Student Affairs, Office of Sustainability, University Police Department, the City of College Station and the City of Bryan. Our partners are just as committed to making these types of advancements on campus and working together is what made this designation possible.”
Moving forward, Transportation Services officials say Texas A&M will have access to a variety of free tools and technical assistance from the league to become even more bicycle-friendly.
University officials note that creating a bike-friendly campus helps to reduce car parking demand and has the potential to contribute to the improved overall health of the university community. A bike-friendly campus also promotes an alternative method of transportation to and around campus.
To learn more about building a Bicycle Friendly America, visit www.bikeleague.org/BFA.
About Texas A&M University Transportation Services
Texas A&M Transportation Services is one of the largest parking, transportation and fleet operations on any college campus in the country. They were named “2009 Parking Organization of the Year” by the International Parking Institute and “Innovative Organization of the Year – 2012″ by the National Parking Association.
https://today.tamu.edu/2015/11/09/texas-am-recognized-nationally-as-a-bicycle-friendly-university/
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The Supermoons you will see in 2021
By Jo Abi| 1 week ago
There will be some stunning displays in our night sky in 2021, with wolf, snow, worm, pink, flower and supermoons.
It's the supermoons that most impress, with astrologers citing them as creating "heightened awareness" and "potential for life change". Supermoons have also been credited with influencing the weather, earthquakes and volcanos but there is no scientific evidence of this.
"The moon in astrology represents our deep inner world and our emotions," Rachel Lang, intuitive astrologer says. "During the full moon, we tend to see aspects of our life that need to be cleared."
The Supermoon rises behind the Opera House on November 14, 2016 in Sydney, Australia. (Getty)
Supermoons happen once every 14 months when the moon is at its closest point to the earth at the same time it is full, according to NASA.
"The term 'Supermoon' was coined in 1979 and is often used today to describe what astronomers would call a perigean full moon: a full moon occurring near or at the time when the moon is at its closest point in its orbit around the Earth," the website explains.
RELATED: What to expect for your star sign in 2021
In 2021 we will be lucky enough to see two of them - one on March 28 and another on May 26.
2021 will bring two Supermoons in our skys. (Getty)
Before then, we will be treated to a Wolf Moon on January 28, which has the appearance of a shadow being cast across it, named after the wolves that would howl at night.
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This will followed by a Snow Moon on February 27, which was named as such owing to its timing in conjunction with winter in the US.
A Worm Moon will happen on March 28. This gets its name from the timing of weather patterns in the North America once again, when the ground begins to thaw and the worms come out of the ground.
Crowds look on as the Supermoon rises behind the Fremantle War Memorial at Monument Hill on November 14, 2016. (Getty)
A Pink Moon happens on April 26 when pink moss appears. A Flower Moon takes place on May 26 when flowers are in bloom in the US.
June 24 will bring a Strawberry Moon, named after the fruit's harvest time in the north, and then there will be a Buck Moon on July 23, named after the time male deer grow their antlers.
A Sturgeon Moon on August 22 was named by Native American tribes to signified a time when all things ripen, and a Harvest Moon happens on September 20.
This will be followed by a Blood Moon on October 20, a Frost Moon on November 19 and a Cold Moon on December 18 to wrap up what will have been a luminous year.
This century's biggest supermoon puts on an astronomical show
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Tokyo – Japan
Asia>
Tokyo - Japan
The East Capital
It’s been almost 5 years since the first and only only time I’ve been to Japan. It was October 2012 when we found great tickets on an odd open-jaw combination. London-Rome–Moscow-Tokyo, and the return Tokyo-Moscow-London. Fun times back then, but a great joy in the overall trip. It was 8 of us, the very first time I was travelling with a greater number of friends, but we survived and returned with the best experience possibly in our lives back in the days; and still, 5 years after and having visited another 87 countries so far in the world, Japan ranks among the best top 5 in the list, no hesitation. In this occasion, 4 of us travelling, my family. My brother repeating with me, and my parents. We had spoken for a long now about when to go to Japan together, switched destinations all over many times; been to France, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, China, South Korea… and finally Japan, including a stop-over in Doha to enjoy an entire day there and break the long journey; for me a returning place but for my family the first time in the Middle East.
Let’s start from the first experience: landing in Japan is landing in another world. Don’t expect the technology difference with the rest of the world is that big anymore, as contrary, they seem to be more old dated and fashioned in many ways. But their superb mentality, cleanliness, education and politeness will shock anyone. Not to mention the attention to detail and the perfect functionality of everything, like their transit systems, the busiest in the world, where everything just work without failures, on time, to the precision.
Tokyo will be for majority of the tourists coming to Japan, their main port of entry in the country, and so, the first place they will get to see. It is without any doubt, one of the most impressive and fascinating cities in the world, but not the place where to see the traditional and old Japan. For that, you will need to include in your tour some of the historical cities such as Nikko, Nagoya, Kyoto, Nara, Horyu-Ji, Himeji-Jo, Osaka and Hiroshima to name a few. All of these were in my plan, together with a visit to nearby Yokohama which you can treat as a “district” of massive Tokyo, although it is an entire different city.
WWII and earthquakes destroyed most of the Imperial Tokyo. The thousands of “skinny buildings” everywhere in the city are not worth architecturally speaking, but rather ugly. The most traditional areas in Tokyo are the Golden Gai and of course Asakusa, and the Imperial Palace and gardens. These will give you an initial idea on what’s yet to come if you are on a tour across other cities and places in Japan. But what makes this city unique is the vast amount of neon lights and adverts actually covering these buildings. Specially at night, Tokyo is completely another city, another world, a must see. Of course, new areas are ever growing with state of the art skyscrapers and striking architecture. Tokyo does not have a centre itself, it has many downtowns, separate cities melting into a huge one.
Walking through some of the most famous districts such as Shinjuku, Akihabara, Shibuya or Ginza is all about the senses. Colours, lights, sounds, music, smells, people. You will feel transported to another world, where the adverts do even speak, the street lights have music, huge screens are everywhere, millions of people cross the busiest crossing in the world at precision. Karaoke capsules can be seen from the street every few hundred meters, and pachinko can be found literally on every corner. Whenever you change the district, you are in a totally different world, and the fact that there are so many to go, and how big they are, means you need to give this city enough time. Back in 2012 we stayed for 3 days, while in this trip we spent 5 in total. That was the perfect calculation. No rush and enough for enjoying every bit, every sight; whenever needed resting, plenty of time for food and to just simply watching the life pass by and repeat some favourite spots.
As one of the most expensive city in the world, have in mind everything cost high. On the opposite side of the story, it does not really apply to food; or better said, to street food or noodle restaurants, where prices are normal and much lower than you could think and you get great food and a good amount!. How this all works is a little bit (well, too much), different to anything you have seen before. In the majority of the places you need to use the vending machines within the restaurant and pay for it prior you hand the receipt to the waiter. Each button in the machine has the name (in Japanese of course) and the picture of the dish. Either ask anyone if they can help with translation, or have a play and risk for the outcome. It feels more like a gamble than anything else but was a great fun every time!. Anything with udon noodles is great, and so it is the pork and chicken. Remember their cuisine is based on noodles, rice, soups, sushi and Japanese curry sauce.
The country that gave birth to Sushi is, in the other hand, super expensive. Honestly, you can get the same almost anywhere else in the world for a fraction of the price you pay in Tokyo. Still, if you are up for at least giving a try one day, after all, you are in Japan! go for it, try some of the places around Shinjuku, this is a famous area for Sushi but if you don’t want to really blow the budget, keep it as a one time visit only. For Japanese, Sushi is an art, and the same way you will enjoy this delicacies, you will enjoy to see the chefs preparing this fresh and directly into your plate.
For more information about Tokyo check Wikipedia and Wikitravel sites. Japan’s currency is the Yen (JPY). Please note that any price reference is true as from when this guide was created, therefore check prices in advance as with the time they change.
What to see and do in Tokyo
The best way to plan any visit of the city is by dividing it on it’s respective neighbours, and grouping the sights within each area. Distances can be vast between the districts, hence why having a good organisation and planning beforehand is almost imperative in order to maximise your time. The most important for a 3 to 4 days visit are:
Shinjuku One of the most representative areas, it’s world renown for the millions of neon lights. If you have seen the movie “Lost in Translation” you will easily recognise this area (when Bill Murray takes the taxi from the airport to the hotel and passes along the main street). It is also one of the major financial districts and major transport hub.
-Golden Gai Next to Kabukicho streets, with more than 100 tiny shacks selling food and snacks. During the day the place is all closed, but very lively at night.
-Hanazono Shrine Right across the road east from the Golden Gai, almost hidden in between the buildings. From the 17th century constructed in the Edo period dedicated to Inari.
-Kabukicho A district within the district. Just towards the north and east from the Shinjuku train/metro station. East exit from the station. It’s specially great at night with all neon lights and adverts, and the giant Gozilla head at the top of a hotel overlooking the entire street below.
-Omoide Yokocho Nostalgic area how once it was Tokyo. Next to the train station to the north west, with plenty of tiny great restaurants.
-Cocoon Tower A shiny new skyscraper which has become a landmark for its design.
-Metropolitan Government building It’s the City Hall and has a free viewing platform from one of the towers. Open from 9:30am until 23:00pm at night.
Harajuku South from Shinjuku and right before Shibuya. This district is characterised for containing one of the largest urban parks in the city and high-fashion stores. Yogogi and Harajuku metro/train station serve the area.
-NTT Docomo Yoyogi Building The third tallest in Tokyo, modelled after the Empire State Building of New York City. Located right outside Yogogi metro station, easy to see then from the parks.
-Yogogi Park Along the western side of the metro station, together with Meji Jingu forms one of the largest park in the city.
-Meji Jungu Shrine Just north from Yogogi is this large and beautiful shrine dedicated to the Emperor Meiji and his wife the Empress Shoken after their death in 1912 and 1914.
-Takeshita Street The main artery full of shops and restaurants cutting through the district from west at the metro station towards the east. A must visit when in Tokyo!.
-Tōgō Shrine Towards the eastern end of Takeshita, by the northern side, is this 1940s temple dedicated to Gensui (Marshal-Admiral) the Marquis Tōgō Heihachirō.
Shibuya Another major transport hub with the confluence of few JR lines and Tokyo Metro lines (Shibuya station). There is not a movie filmed in Tokyo which do not use this area as one of the spots. A must visit when in the city, and not just the main intersection but the streets surrounding it with plenty of shops, restaurants and entertainment.
-The scramble crossing Just outside Shibuya metro station, Hachiko exit. Stay for a while and see the vast amount of people crossing at one time. The busiest crossing in the world, specially Monday to Friday during the rush hour. It’s in fact one of the mandatory sights while in the city, becoming specially beautiful at night with the many lights and adverts surrounding the square. The best view you can get is from the first floor of the Starbucks Coffee. Go up and enjoy the show.
–Hachikō The little statue of the dog. Take Hachikō exit from the metro station. As you will be curious on why a statue of this dog, the best is if you read this remarkable article in Wikipedia.
–Karaokekan It’s one of the largest karaoke places in Tokyo, made famous in the movie “Lost in Translation”. Located in Udagawachō Street, few meters from the crossing in the middle of a frenetic shopping area worth to walk through.
Nagatacho and Hibiya (Chiyoda) Around the southern edges of the Imperial Palace and gardens, it is home to many ministries and government buildings, some of which the finest examples of how the city used to look before WWII.
-Ministry of Justice Located by the southern gate of the Imperial Palace (Sakurada Gate), is one of the few early 20th century buildings in traditional red brick of how the city used to look before WWII when almost everything got destroyed.
-National Diet Building In the quadrant west from the Ministry of Justice, perfectly aligned with the avenue heading to the Sakurada Gate of the Imperial Palace. Another of the architectural masterpieces of the past.
-Hie Shrine Old temple with a nice row of Torii (traditional Japanese gate multiplied many times creating a passage). The views of Akasaka from this temple are nice since it’s located on a hill. It’s few meters behind the National Diet.
Ginza (Chiyoda) The area within the district of Chiyoda, south of Tokyo Station and literally east from the Hibiya Park. Yurakucho or Shimbashi stations on the JR Circle Line (Yamanote). It is the up-scale shopping district and one of the most exclusive and expensive places to live. Every high street boutique shop has its flagship here.
-Harumi-dori The main thoroughfare in the district with the countless boutique flagships occupying entire buildings, some of which in incredible architectural design. Armani, Dior, Nissan, Wako and Mitsukoshi department stores and more.
-Sukiyabashi Crossroad The westernmost end of Harumi-dori.
-Sony Building The showroom of one of the world’s most famous companies. Unfortunately recently closed for demolition and soon build of the new structure due for opening 2022.
-Intersection of Chuo-dori and Harumi-dori With the glass cylinder of the San-ai Building. Every postcard or image of Tokyo depicts this place, a must see at night too when fully illuminated by neon lights everywhere.
–Kyukyodo Landmark clock tower and Wako shopping centres.
–Nakagin Capsule Tower South of Ginza (by metro Shimbashi). This landmark construction appears in many movies, nowadays listed as a protected building.
Tokyo Station (Chiyoda) JR Yamanote (Circle Line) to Tokyo station. It’s another major financial centre and transport hub. The old train station recently refurbished is a landmark on its own. Notice the hundreds of Japanese people taking pictures of it!
-Tokyo Station Built in 1914 in red bricks, in between the Imperial Palace by its main facade along the west and Ginza towards the south, it looks nowadays as a theme park building surrounded by all the new skyscrapers mushrooming all over.
-Imperial Palace The primary residence of the Emperor of Japan. You must book tickets in advance which are completely free but finish quick. The maximum advance you can guarantee them are 2 months; this is the official and only website to do this. The palace and gardens are completely surrounded by a moat, offering nice views of the walls and the many gates, among them, the most famous, the Kiyo Gate.
-Imperial Palace East Garden Closed Monday and Friday. Free entrance. A great place to enjoy the architecture of the old structures among the rock gardens so traditional from Japan (zen gardens). The remains of the highest and largest castle tower ever built in Japan Edo Castle) are visible towards the northeastern edge of the park.
Akihabara (Chiyoda) JR Yamanote (Circle Line) to Akihabara station. The next district north from Tokyo Station, it is also known as the Electric Town. This is where you will find any impossible gadget you could imagine, collectables, manga, games and thousands of neon lights everywhere.
Asakusa (Taito) Northeast from Chiyoda district, contains the unmissable sight number one in Tokyo, the Asakusa Temple. The nearest JR stations are Okachimachi or Ueno, however you can get next to the temple if using the Tokyo Metro to Asakusa station.
-Edo Dori Street Famous for being home to the Bandai Headquarters. Right outside the building there are all of the statues of their manga cartoons heroes, like Doraemon.
-Asakusa Temple The most famous and most visited temple in Tokyo, packed with thousands of visitors constantly. The entrance gates are just only a fraction of what is yet to come. Walk along the market and you will reach the temples at the end.
-Tokyo Sky Tree Right across the Sumida River, opposite the Asakusa Temple compounds. Is the latest addition in the Tokyo skyline. The world’s tallest freestanding broadcasting tower. A 360 degrees viewing platform is on the top, but beware, this is not free and quite expensive. I recommend you take the chance of going up to the free towers mentioned above in the guide instead.
Bunkyo Civic Center In the district of Bunkyo which is the next north of Chiyoda. One of the buildings where you can take the chance of going up to the viewing platform for free. Perhaps this is the one offering the best views. Take JR metro yellow line to Suidobashi or Tokyo Metro to Kōrakuen station, pass the Tokyo Dome famous for the indoor amusement park and you get to see the building itself ahead.
The city has 2 international airports, Haneda the closest one to the city, but the smallest; and Narita, the main gateway in the country. If landing or taking off from Narita, the faster and most direct option is the Narita Express Train. It is included with a JR pass. You will need to go to the train office in Narita, swap your ticket receipts for the final JR Pass if you have not done this before, and ask them to get you tickets for the Narita Express (all trains must have reservation). Frequency is rather limited, but while you clear immigration and find your way to the station, the chances a train is waiting and ready are high. This train stops at various station within Tokyo: Tokyo Station, Shinagawa, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Musashi-Kosugi and Ikebukuro, all of which are the most likely stations where your accommodation will be or from where you can transfer into the metro or JR lines to your final destination. Remember that if you hold a JR pass, then you can take any of the JR lines using this pass, but you cannot use the pass on the Tokyo Metro system lines, for that you will need to pay the ticket.
If Haneda is your port of entry or departure, then you have two rail options, super fast, to reach both of the airport terminals. One is the Tokyo Monorail from/to Hamamatsucho station in the JR Yamanote circle line with various intermediary stops on the way; and the other the Keikyu Line also departing from the JR circle line where it connects at Shinagawa, with 3 stops in between, for ¥410 per way and a journey time of 12 minutes. There are plenty of buses as the next option, including the really late night and very early hours. With so many routes possible, the best is to get to the information desk upon arrivals and check to your desired destination what’s the best option. Get the ticket in advance before boarding, as there is no other way to buy it. For the Haneda Express Bus, the cost of the buses vary depending on distance, with single tickets to Shinagawa costing ¥1030 and to Shimbashi/Ginza ¥1400. Taxis do have a flat rate (the Keikyu Taxi) of ¥5900 to Chiyoda area, and increasing the farther the district you go, with a night/early morning supplement of ¥1200. If you are more than 4 people, this will be your best option especially if with luggage and tired after a long flight, or when taking off or landing at inconvenient hours. Here is the Haneda transport website with all of this and more information.
The largest transit system in the world is here, in Tokyo. It’s twin subway system is the busiest in the world too. And it’s just that, as the word says, two independent subway systems from two different companies, and many other lines of other companies. It’s for this reason you rarely see a map with all the lines at once, otherwise you will totally freak out on the outcome. Instead, make sure you have or get a separate map for each of the companies: JR Lines and Tokyo Metro. But as confusing it might look at first, you get used to it quickly. The most important will be the circle JR line, known as the Yamanote Line. Rarely you will be using any other line, this one passes through absolutely every district worth for sightseeing, or at least have stations at walking distance to everything you need to see.
As for buses, they are everywhere. How to find your destination, well, try asking of figuring it out yourself. People is very helpful and will try their best to assist you. A common sense is to guess the direction you need to go, and check on the bus stop the maps for the best route.
Any hotel in Tokyo can be seriously expensive, and most important, do not expect space. Everything in this huge city is pretty limited in space, unless you are willing to pay the prime and I am not even talking on the high standard either. Very good 4* properties do not mean at all space, and at the time you will be running your searches, you will come across something unique to this country, the term “semi double” room. Well, what can I say about this! It’s not a double and not a single, just something in between which I would never consider for any westerner to be honest. Asian people are usually smaller than westerners. The difference in prices rise dramatically the bigger the bed and bedroom.
As usual, a good and reasonable point to start your search would be checking some of our preferred affiliate hotel search engine such as Hotels.com, Booking.com, Expedia, Otel.com, Agoda, Opodo or Ebookers. It will take you longer than expected, be patience, and over all, make sure to know where the hotel you are intending to book is. Make yourself an “easy life” and avoid long commutes. If your hotel lies within the Yamanote metro line (the circle line) then it’s the best you can do.
In our recent trip, we stayed for a week at the Hotel Villa Fontaine Tokyo-Ueno Okachimachi, 2-4-4 Kojima, Taito-ku. Yes don’t get scared or confused on the address and name, it is all way more simple that it looks. Located at walking distance from Akihabara district, and not far from Asakusa, it worked great for us. First of all, it’s just 10 minutes walk to Okachimachi or Ueno JR metro stations in the circle line, hence access to every district and sight within Tokyo could not be any easier. Then the property itself, nice 4* with “larger” standards than other hotels under the same category. The staff was extremely polite and friendly, and caring at all times, anyone across every department. The breakfast was in the other hand, the only poor thing, very simple to the western standards, was great to the Asian point of view. The bedroom, although small, was having proper single beds very comfortable, nicely cared and decorated and very quiet at night. For a long stay as was ours, this was very important to have a place were we can truly rest and enjoy, and this property did fulfil our needs.
For the last night in our tour, we stayed at the APA Hotel Shinagawa Sengakuji-Ekimae, in 2-16-30 Takanawa Minato-ku. Once again, don’t worry about the name. Just remember the brand APA, it is one of the top Japanese hotel chains therefore their standards are very high all across their properties. In fact, elsewhere in this trip through Japan we did only stayed at Japanese chain hotels. I selected this place on purpose for being almost next door to Shinagawa metro station with direct link to Haneda Airport as this was the point of departure for our flights back to London. Once again, a great choice, from the nice and friendly staff, to the great medium size bedroom, comfortable beds and very quiet even though the metro lines were passing very near the front of building. The breakfast was one of the best we had in this trip altogether, and so was the room size the largest of any hotel.
Back in October 2012 we stayed at the Hotel Listel Shinjuku, 5-3-20 Shinjuku. A basic hotel which turned to be really nice but simple, with great friendly staff and continental breakfast. Not to mention the location! Walking distance to Shinjuku, one of the main places to be in the city, specially at night. And very, very quiet, as it’s some streets behind the main avenue.
Album from the trip during 2017
Tokyo, Japan, August 2017
Tokyo, Japan, October 2012
Tags: Akihabara, Asakusa, Asia, Chiyoda, Ginza, Golden Gai, Hachiko, Harajuku, Hibiya, Japan, Kabukicho, Karaokekan, Nagatacho, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Tokyo
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Tribal Unit
Connect with like-minded people
Creating a Tribe Around Your Business
Post author By Frances
If you’ve got a good business, then creating a (healthy) cult following is a great way to take it to the next level. This usually requires a lot of work, and some money. However, the rewards are great when you do it effectively. Here’s how to get started.
What are they into? Where do they hang out? What are their likes and dislikes? To which groups do they belong? Do you know their geographic, sociographic, psychographic, demographic, and behavioral attributes? Do you know their opinions, attitudes, activities, behaviors, values, and interests? Learn the answers to these questions and you’ll be closer to determining the best strategy for building a tribe around your business.
Introduction to Psychographics
Anchor Your Business to Other Niches
Once you’ve identified your target audience, start hanging out with them. Sponsor events that they attend, even if those events are outside of your industry. Promote the things they’re into, even if those things aren’t related to the products that you sell. Your tribe will follow you because you get them. Do that, and they’ll see your product as an integral part of their lives.
Anchor Your Business to Things That Matter
Good health is important to everybody. So is the environment. Are you getting placements in blogs like Mind Body Green? If not, why not? If the answer is because it’s too expensive or too difficult, then try other blogs. A quick Google search will reveal lots of them, and you may find that it’s easier to strike a deal with a newer website like 1AND1 or StoicMeaning.com than it would be to get placement on a site like Daily Burn or The Minimalists.
The first touch is just the beginning. If you want people to follow you, then you need to lead. Engage your audience, and make them feel accepted. Let them know that you want them in your tribe. Remind them in fact, that they are part of your tribe. Do this, and they will stay.
Top Websites for Business Advice
How to Develop a Cult Following in the Holistic Remedy Space
How To Use Social Media Marketing As A Business Tool
© 2021 Tribal Unit
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Indian Davis Cup Team Likely To Travel To Pakistan After 55 Years – UKMALAYALEE
UKMALAYALEE > Category > Trending News > Indian Davis Cup Team Likely To Travel To Pakistan After 55 Years
Indian Davis Cup Team Likely To Travel To Pakistan After 55 Years
Wednesday 26 June 2019 11:13 PM UTC
NEW DELHI June 27: An Indian Davis Cup team is likely to travel to Pakistan after 55 years with the national tennis federation AITA hinting that the central government will allow the players to compete against the neighbouring country in September.
No Indian Davis Cup squad has travelled to Pakistan since March 1964 and in that tie, held in Lahore, India had won 4-0.
“We have written to the government and hopefully we will go to Pakistan, that’s the impression we have,” All India Tennis Association (AITA) Secretary General Hironmoy Chatterjee told PTI on Wednesday.
“It’s not a bilateral series, it’s (like) a World Cup, so the government will allow. I am confident we will go and play in Pakistan.
We will announce it in a day or two. Pakistan Federation has mentioned that the tie will be played in Islamabad.”
The The winner of the Asia/Oceania Group I tie will move to the World Group Qualifiers. The last tie between the two nations was played in Mumbai in 2006, which India won 3-2.
Current non-playing captain Mahesh Bhupathi was part of that team, which also had legendary Leander Paes, Prakash Amritraj and Rohan Bopanna.
Before that, India and Pakistan played at a neutral venue in Malaysia in 1973.
Pakistan is not likely to pose any serious challenge to the Indian team since none of their singles players are even ranked on ATP computer as per the new regulations.
On the other hand, India’s top players Prajnesh Gunneswaran and Ramkumar Ramanathan have created a few upsets on ATP circuit in recent past.
Pakistan, though, have a good competitor in doubles specialist Aisam-ul-haq Qureshi. Bopanna and Qureshi have played as a team in the past and the Indo-Pak Express had tasted reasonable success.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) President, Salim Saifullah has said that they will host India on grass courts of Pakistan Sports Complex.
“We are hopeful of earning much-needed revenues for tennis during the live broadcast of the grass court tie as Pakistan and India sporting events garner a lot of interest,” the PTF President said.
He said the PTF was confident that the Indian government would clear its team to play the tie in Islamabad. “It is after 13 years that Pakistan and India will meet on a tennis court,” he said.
Pakistan until last year was forced to host its Davis Cup ties at neutral venues as teams refused to travel to the country because of security concerns.
But the scenario changed when Pakistan hosted Uzbekistan, Korea and Thailand in their previous ties.
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Subspecialties Health Economics and Policy, Retina, Basic & Translational Research, Business and Innovation, Imaging & Diagnostics
Ophthalmic Frontiers: AI
Four AI and deep learning gurus discuss the use of these advanced technologies in eye care – and predict where they may take us next
Michael D. Abramoff, Pearse Keane, Stephen Odaibo, Daniel Ting | 12/17/2019 | Longer Read
From left: Michael D. Abramoff, Daniel Ting, Pearse Keane and Stephen Odaibo.
Meet the AI Gurus
Michael D. Abramoff is a retina specialist, physician/scientist, the Robert C. Watzke, Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, of Electrical and Computer, and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Iowa, and Founder and Executive Chairman of IDx. He is based in Iowa City, Iowa, USA.
Pearse Keane is an NIHR Clinician Scientist at the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, and Consultant Ophthalmologist at Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in London, UK.
Stephen Odaibo is a retina specialist, computer scientist, mathematician, full-stack AI engineer and co-founder of RETINA-AI in Texas, USA.
Daniel Ting is a Vitreoretinal Specialist at the Singapore National Eye Center, Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, and Adjunct Professor at the State Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology at Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center in China.
What is your experience with artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning in ophthalmology?
Abramoff: I continue to see patients as a fellowship trained retina specialist, and for decades studied the use of neural networks and artificial intelligence to diagnose and treat diseases. I founded IDx, which created the first ever autonomous artificial intelligence cleared by FDA through the first clinical trial for AI. To do autonomous AI “the right way,” I had to create ethical principles for autonomous AI, that have now led to regulatory and payment pathways for autonomous AI.
I’ve been studying neural networks since 1988 and it was the subject of my Master’s and PhD theses. Since then, I’ve published over 270 peer reviewed journal papers (h-index 61) on artificial intelligence and retinal diseases that have been cited over 30,000 times, as well as many book chapters. I’m also the inventor on 17 US patents and 5 patent applications on autonomous AI algorithms and devices.
My focus is on autonomous AI: AI that makes clinical decisions by itself without human or physician interpretation, because to me that is the only way to decrease cost, improve access, and improve quality in healthcare. In 2018, we completed the first pre-registered, prospective clinical trial, testing the safety, efficacy, and equity of an autonomous AI in real-world clinical care (1).
Keane: My clinical practice is focused on retinal diseases, in particular macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy (DR). My research at the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology is based on ophthalmic imaging, in particular OCT, and is increasingly focused on applying AI to ophthalmic imaging. When I say “AI,” I’m referring to deep learning, which is a new flavor of AI, responsible for the hype we’ve seen in the past few years. The main reason I’m known in this field is because I initiated a collaboration between Moorfields Eye Hospital and a company called DeepMind in 2015. We formalized it in 2016, and in September 2018 we published the first paper in Nature Medicine, presenting a deep learning algorithm that was able to look at OCT scans, triage them, and diagnose patients, assessing more than 50 different retinal diseases, with performance on a par with world-leading retina specialists.
We are now working with Google Health to implement that as a product that can be used to treat – we hope – millions of people around the world. A lot of my initial AI work began with that industry collaboration, but as a result of my experience over the last few years, I have developed my own expertise in AI within Moorfields.
Odaibo: I am a fellowship-trained retina specialist, as well as a mathematician, computer scientist and hands-on full-stack AI engineer. I spend approximately 20 percent of my professional time on direct patient clinical care, and the remaining 80 percent on AI research and development – especially AI engineering. I single-handedly built the world’s first mobile AI app for eye care providers, and subsequently founded a company, RETINA-AI Health, where a talented team continues to innovate and develop new technologies in this space.
I have been involved with what is now known as “AI” for most of my life, and I obtained advanced degrees in both mathematics and computer science. Anticipating the need for faster computers – quantum computers – to solve optimization problems such as those in machine learning, I have done work in quantum mechanics and published a technical book on the subject while in residency. I have also published a book on finite group theory, the mathematical theory which lays the foundation for quantum concepts. Most recently, my efforts are focused on the practical engineering side of AI for healthcare, as well as on the deployment of AI in various environments. My primary goal now is to improve healthcare access both in the developed and the developing worlds. For instance, we will be presenting our experience on deploying AI for diabetic retinopathy screening in Africa at this year’s Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) conference in Vancouver – the primary and largest machine-learning research conference in the world.
Ting: To date, my AI lab has published more than 30 AI articles in major journals such as JAMA (2), Nature Medicine (3), Nature Digital Medicine (4), Nature Biomedical Engineering (5) and Lancet Digital Health (6). This could not be done without my mentor, Tien Wong, who has laid out a great platform for me. As the clinical lead for the AI program, I have also received approximately $1.5 million as principal investigator and $25 million as co-investigator/collaborator in research funding. Together with other AI experts, we have led two major AI article reviews (7, 8). I also serve on four editorials boards, where I manage AI and big data-related manuscripts. Even more excitingly, I am also a founding member of the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) AI taskforce committee, which began in October 2019.
AI/deep learning 101
Keane: Deep learning is just a rebranding of artificial neural networks – a concept that has been around since the 1950s. They are computational models that superficially resemble the brain in the way that they process information. They are not pre-designed or pre-specified. You feed them information, such as a digital photo, consisting of a matrix of numbers, which are fed into the layers of a neural network, and you train the neural network to recognize specific examples by repeating the process millions of times.
This approach is proven to be much more powerful than classical computer programming approaches, where you would essentially try to describe the features of a particular phenomenon by using thousands of lines of code.
If you have a million photos of patients with diabetes, some of whom have DR, while others don’t, you can train an algorithm to be able to detect it and decide whether a referral is needed. The Moorfields-DeepMind collaboration has applied this concept to OCT scans: we’ve trained the neural network to be able to look at scans of different retinal conditions divide cases into referrals of different urgency; the key application is determining how quickly a patient should get in front of a retina specialist. It is much more complicated to train neural networks to analyze a three-dimensional OCT scan than it is to deal with a two-dimensional retinal photograph, and this is the aspect of our work we’re most proud about.
Odaibo: AI/Deep Learning in a nutshell is a way to learn from one’s mistakes. The core instrument at the center of almost all AI algorithms is a neural network. Neural networks transform data successively via a network structure into an output that can be compared with the correct label of, say, the disease depicted in an ophthalmic image. If the neural network’s output is different from the correct diagnosis, the neural network is penalized. In the next round of training, it responds to that penalty by attempting to improve its guessing ability. This process continues iteratively until the neural network is able to gradually get the correct answers most of the time. The desirable, but not guaranteed, outcome of training a neural network is called convergence.
One can think of AI as consisting of data science and data engineering. Within this framework, knowledge – such as of disease features – is stored in trained neural network models, housed in a computing architecture that allows for deployment of the AI service for use by people such as physicians and, ultimately, patients. The training of the neural network models is “data science,” while the construction of architecture to house and serve the trained model is “data engineering.”
Ting: AI was first conceptualized in 1956 after a workshop at Dartmouth College. The term “machine learning” (ML) was subsequently coined by Arthur Samuel in 1959 and stated that “the computer should have the ability to learn using various statistical techniques, without being explicitly programmed” (7). Using ML, the algorithm can learn and make predictions based on the data that has been fed into the training phase, using either a supervised or unsupervised approach. ML has been widely adopted in applications such as computer vision and predictive analytics using complex mathematical models. With the advent of graphic processing units (GPUs), advances in mathematical models, the availability of big datasets, and low-cost sensors, deep learning (DL) techniques have sparked tremendous interest and been applied in many industries. DL uses multiple processing layers to learn representation of data with multiple levels of abstraction. DL approaches use complete images, and associate the entire image with a diagnostic output, thereby eliminating the use of “hand-engineered” image features. With improved performance, DL is now widely adopted in image recognition, speech recognition and natural language processing (10).
To build a robust DL system, it is important to have two main components – the “brain” (technical networks – Convolutional Neural Network; CNN) and the “dictionary” or datasets (11). A CNN is a deep neural network consisting of a cascade of processing layers that resemble the biological processes of the animal visual cortex. It transforms the input volume into an output volume via a differentiable function. Inspired by Hubel and Weisel, each neuron in the visual cortex will respond to the stimulus that is specific to a region within an image, similar to how the brain neuron would respond to the visual stimuli, which will activate a particular region of the visual space, known as the receptive field. These receptive fields are tied together to cover the entire visual field. Two classes of cells are found in this region – simple and complex cells.
Broadly, the CNN can be divided into the input, hidden (also known as feature-extraction layers) and output layers. The hidden layers usually consist of convolutional, pooling, fully connected and normalization layers, and the number of hidden layers will differ for different CNNs. The training and development phase is usually split into training, validation, and testing datasets (see below for descriptions). These datasets must not intersect; an image that is in one of the datasets (like training) must not be used in any of the other datasets (like validation). Ideally, this non-intersection should extend to patients. The general class distribution for the targeted condition should be maintained in all these datasets.
Training dataset: Training of deep neural nets is generally done in batches (subsets) randomly sampled from the training dataset. The training dataset is what is used for optimizing the network weights via backpropagation.
Validation dataset: Validation is used for parameter selection and tuning, and is customarily also used to implement stopping conditions for training.
Testing dataset: Finally, the reported performance of the AI algorithm should be computed exclusively using the selected optimized model weights on the testing datasets. It is important to test the AI system using independent datasets, captured using different devices, population and clinical settings. This process ensures the generalizability of the system in the clinical settings.
Abramoff: The problem with building autonomous AI using CNN in the manner described by others is that no one understands how such an AI makes its clinical decision. Because the CNN’s performance depends entirely on the training data, and not on any understanding of the disease markers, it is susceptible to catastrophic failure, as we and other have shown, as well as to racial and ethnic bias (9).
Therefore, at IDx we use CNNs and other AI algorithms in a very different manner, building AI using many detectors, each of which detect the markers of disease themselves, which are invariant to race, ethnicity, and age, and combine their outputs to a patient-level clinical output. It is this focus on designing autonomous AI – so it is maximally reducible to characteristics aligned with scientific knowledge of human clinician cognition – that seems to have made regulators and physicians more comfortable with autonomous AI.
Which unmet needs in ophthalmology can be met by AI – and how?
Keane: In the UK, ophthalmology has the highest number of out-patient appointments: nearly 10 percent of all NHS clinic appointments, and patient numbers are rising rapidly.
Globally, there is an aging population with increased prevalence of diseases like diabetes: 25 percent of patients over the age of 60 in the EU have early or intermediate AMD (12). As the world’s population gets older, it becomes more than just a concern about retinal diseases – it’s a concern that is inherent in the aging process itself. If you could imagine tools like AI being used in every person over 60 in every country in the world on a regular basis, as part of an assessment of aging populations and general health, the scope is huge. If we don’t come up with new and innovative approaches, we’re going to be in trouble. It’s not a question of luxury, there’s an urgency to come up with innovative solutions.
Odaibo: AI has rightly been compared with electricity in the sense that it will permeate and find applications in essentially all areas of human endeavor, including ophthalmology. The more obvious applications include image classification, like using AI to tell whether a fundus photograph depicts moderate DR or mild DR. Most such image classifications have not yet been done, but they could exist in the future for conditions such as corneal dystrophies or retinal dystrophies. Non-image based ophthalmic disease classification is an area that is essentially untouched so far; there, the input is not an image, but genetic, demographic, metabolomic, symptomatologic data, and some combination of those. Another broad area of application, and one in which RETINA-AI has begun work, is in the construction of generative models for latent feature exploration and synthetic data generation. There is a myriad of opportunities there for personalized pharmaceutical development and synthetic data generation.
Ting: By 2050, the world’s population aged 60 years and older is estimated to be 2 billion – up from 900 million in 2015 – with 80 percent living in low- and middle-income countries. People are living longer, and the pace of aging is faster than ever. Because of this, there is a need for long-term surveillance of many ocular and systemic conditions like DR, glaucoma, AMD, and cardiovascular conditions. Population expansion also creates pressure to screen for important causes of childhood blindness, such as retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), refractive error, and amblyopia. For example, diabetic patients require lifelong screening for DR. With countries in Africa having just one doctor per 300,000 people, this is simply not possible. Thus, AI could significantly improve the screening rate – although the deployment of such AI technology requires careful planning, infrastructure and specialists’ support for those with vision-threatening DR.
The capabilities of deep learning should not be construed as competence. What networks can provide is excellent performance in a well-defined task. Networks are able to classify DR and detect risk factors for AMD – but they are not a substitute for a retina specialist.
What are the main barriers to clinical adoption of AI?
Abramoff: Building an AI algorithm is now relatively easy, and as I like to say, diagnostic AIs are a commodity. What is challenging is building AI into a system, aligned with clinical guidelines, and clinical decision making, robust and easy to use by existing staff in the clinic, in order to move specialty care to primary care, or into the community. Rather than having to travel to a retina specialist, you can now go to a clinic at a grocery store to get a diabetic retinal screening. Minimal training in taking good-quality images and operating a robotic camera, and integration into the healthcare system – this is what really counts if we want to make AI work well on a large scale. Most importantly, using rigorous validation against clinical outcome (rather than comparison to unvalidated clinicians) for safety, efficacy and equity, in a scientifically valid, transparent and accountable way for the whole population, while ensuring patient derived data is used ethically and transparently. Currently there is little training on autonomous AI validation, clinical trials, how to compare to clinical outcome, how to validate human factor design. However, it is essential that as clinicians, all of us become more familiar with understanding whether a specific autonomous AI is the right fit for our patients.
In April 2018, the first-ever autonomous AI was cleared by the FDA. The healthcare system had been entirely built around human physician diagnosing, treating, and recording outcomes, and it was certainly not ready for autonomous AI, where a computer makes a diagnosis or treatment decisions. Regulation, ethics, liability, medical records, payments, and quality measures: none of those aspects were ready to deal with autonomous AI, so we have overcome these hurdles one by one. We created ethical rules for autonomous AI, a pathway for valuing payment for autonomous AI based on the novel concept of “AI work,” how to qualify autonomous AI diagnostic output for clinical quality measures, the legal framework, liability issues, as well as inputting AI into medical records. While we solved most of these, we are still working on some, and they are specific to each country’s healthcare system. There is a lot of enthusiasm for changing systems to incorporate autonomous AI, but there are many aspects to consider – not least safety and efficacy. It is important to be transparent and accountable, and show that you abide by existing rules and regulations.
Keane:It’s important to remember that AI and deep learning are not magic. There are certain applications where deep learning will work very well, but there are many where it won’t. There is no question of AI replacing ophthalmologists.
Certain AI systems might get a better reception in specific healthcare settings. In a public healthcare setting, struggling with huge numbers of patients, it’s going to be much more attractive to have something that prioritizes patients with a sight-threatening disease, so the amount of time spent on people with less serious disease is reduced. In a private healthcare setting, you might not want to reduce the overall number of referrals that are going into the system. Also, any new technology needs a pathway to be introduced into the system.
At Moorfields, we’ve learned how curated data is a major bottleneck for AI projects. So we’ve learned how to aggregate and curate ophthalmic data for the purposes of training AI models, and we’ve introduced the technical infrastructure, so we can actually harness the power of the huge amounts of data that Moorfields produces. We do more than a thousand OCT scans per day at Moorfields, and now we have the infrastructure to deal with them.
We’ve also learned about concerns around using patient data – this is potentially a sensitive topic, which requires caution. Our collaboration involves the use of anonymized clinical data from the NHS in the UK and we are transparent, keeping patients and the public informed about what we’re doing.
We’re trying to create an ecosystem of world-leading AI experts, so that we can do lots of novel, early-stage development of AI systems in an academic setting. We might start a hundred early-stage projects, but only a minority of those will be translated into clinical practice, with an industry collaborator.
Odaibo: The biggest challenge to adoption is the interdisciplinarity of the problem at hand. Communication amongst clinicians, clinical administrators, regulators, data scientists, and data engineers is crucial, but these individuals often speak different languages. The relative novelty of AI technologies also requires some time for everyone to come on board and understand each other’s languages. Regulatory barriers are appropriately in place and pace the deployment into clinical usage. There are also some engineering challenges to overcome to have full spectrum continuity in learning and improvement of systems.
Cost will also play a role; cloud-based systems and AI talent are both costly. All in all, appropriate cross-talk and continued advancement will inevitably result in progress because the overall projected cost-savings and clinical efficacy improvement is significantly compelling.
Ting: The potential challenges of AI research and clinical adoption in ophthalmology are numerous. First, AI approaches in ocular disease require a large number of images. Data sharing from different centers is an obvious approach to increase the number of input data for network training, however, increasing the number of data elements does not necessarily enhance the performance of a network. For example, adding large amounts of data from healthy subjects will most likely not improve the classification of disease. Moreover, very large datasets for training may increase the likelihood of making spurious connections (13). When it comes to using retinal images to predict and classify ocular and systemic disease, a clear guideline for the optimal number of cases for training is needed.
Second, when data are to be shared between different centers, regulations and state privacy rules need to be considered. These may differ between countries, and while they are designed to ensure patients’ privacy, they sometimes form barriers for effective research initiatives and patients’ care. Generally, there is an agreement that images and all other patient-related data need to be anonymized and patient’s consent has to be obtained before sharing, if possible. The implementation of the necessary solutions – including data storage, management, and analysis – is time- and cost-intensive. Investing in data-sharing is a difficult decision, because the financial requirements are high, and the benefit is not immediate. Nonetheless, all AI research groups worldwide should continue to collaborate to rectify this barrier, aiming to harness the power of big data and DL to advance the discovery of scientific knowledge.
Third, the decision for data sharing can sometimes be influenced by the fear that competitors may explore novel results first. This competition can even occur within an institution. Indeed, key performance indicators (as defined by funding bodies or universities, including number of publications, impact factor and citation metrics) may represent major hurdles for effective data sharing. On an institutional level the filing of collaboration agreements with other partners is a long and labor-intensive procedure that slows down analysis of shared data. Such periods may even be prolonged when intellectual property issues are to be negotiated. Given that these are usually multiple-institution agreements, time spans of one year or more are common.
Fourth, a large number of images are required in the training set and they need to be well phenotyped for different diseases. The performance of the network will depend on the number of images, the quality of those images, and how representative the data is for the entire spectrum of the disease. In addition, the applicability in clinical practice will depend on the quality of the phenotyping system and the ability of the human graders to follow that system.
Fifth, though the number of images that are available for diseases such as glaucoma, DR and AMD is sufficient to train networks, orphan diseases represent a problem because of the lack of cases. One approach is to create synthetic fundus images that mimic the disease. This is a difficult task and current approaches have proven unsuccessful (14, 15). In addition, it is doubtful that competent authorities would approve an approach where data do not stem from real patients. Nevertheless, generation of synthetic images is an interesting approach that may have potential for future applications.
Sixth, the capabilities of DL should not be construed as competence. What networks can provide is excellent performance in a well-defined task. Networks are able to classify DR and detect risk factors for AMD, but they are not a substitute for a retina specialist. As such, the inclusion of novel technology into DL systems is difficult, because it will require a large number of data with this novel technology. Inclusion of novel technology into network-based classification systems is a long and costly effort. Given that there are many novel imaging approaches on the horizon, including OCT-angiography or Doppler OCT(16, 17), this may have considerable potential for diagnosis, classification and progression analysis. And that is an important challenge for the future.
Seventh, providing healthcare is logistically complex, and solutions differ significantly between different countries. Implementing AI-based solutions into such workflows is challenging and requires sufficient connectivity. A concerted effort from all stakeholders is required, including regulators, insurances, hospital managers, IT teams, physicians, and patients. Implementation needs to be easy and straightforward, and without administrative hurdles. Quick dissemination of results is an important aspect in this respect. Another step for AI being implemented into a clinical setting is a realistic business model that needs to consider the specific interest of the patient, the payer, and the provider. Main factors to be considered in this respect are reimbursement, efficiency, and unmet clinical need. The business model also needs to consider the long-term implications, because continuous connectivity and the capacity to learn is associated with the ability to improve clinical performance over time.
Eighth, there is a lack of ethical and legal regulations for DL algorithms. These concerns can occur during the data sourcing, product development, and clinical deployment stage (18, 19). Char and colleagues stated that the intent behind the design of DL algorithms also needs to be considered (18). One needs to be careful about building racial biases into the healthcare algorithms, especially when the healthcare delivery already varies by race. Moreover, given the growing importance of quality indicators for public evaluations and reimbursement rates, there may be a tendency to design the DL algorithms that would result in better performance metrics, but not necessarily better clinical care for the patients. Traditionally, a physician could withhold the patients’ information from the medical record to keep it confidential. In the era of digital health records integrated with the deep-learning-based decision support, it would be hard to withhold patients’ clinical data from the electronic system. Hence, the medical ethics surrounding these issues may need to evolve over time.
Lastly, the AI system is supposed to be a cost-effective tool for screening eye diseases. Thus, this may not be the bottleneck when compared with the above-mentioned challenges.
I believe that in about three to five years medicine will be notably different as a result of AI, and the current time will undoubtedly be considered a prior era of medicine.
How long before we see real changes in patient outcomes as a result of implementing AI/deep learning?
Abramoff: Autonomous AI solves access, cost and quality problems in places where the diabetic eye exam was previously not accessible for people with diabetes. We have implemented the systems at places where the access time to ophthalmology was half a year or more. After installing autonomous AI, these health systems can now provide patients with same-day eye care appointments. AI has already diagnosed thousands of patients who have been tested for diabetic retinopathy, and a sizeable percentage were found to have diabetic retinopathy, and were therefore referred for further treatment – which we know saves sight. In fact, now that IDx has solved the accessibility and cost problem of the diabetic eye exam, we have been focusing on the full care pathway to ensure improved outcomes.
Things are moving at an incredibly rapid pace. Except for ophthalmology, autonomous AI is not available to the public anywhere: you can’t buy a self-driving car yet, you cannot get a loan from an autonomous unsupervised AI, but you can now get a diagnosis from an AI system. And people are getting diagnosed by AI today. I find it amazing that healthcare was the first field to deploy autonomous AI when we hear so much about autonomous cars.
Keane: I predict it to be a timeframe of two to three years. I think it is coming sooner than we might imagine.
Odaibo: I believe that in about three to five years medicine will be notably different as a result of AI, and the current time will undoubtedly be considered a prior era of medicine.
Ting: We started integrating the AI system into the Singapore Integrated DR Screening Program (SiDRP) in 2018. We are expecting to see the patients’ outcomes in the next three to five years. For other conditions such as glaucoma, AMD or ROP, it may take slightly longer than the DR algorithms, although many groups have already published robust outcomes on the respective AI systems.
What’s exciting in AI/deep learning right now – and which groups or projects are you following around the world?
Keane: I pay more attention to people in the field than to projects, and two people immediately spring to mind. The first is Aaron Lee, an ophthalmologist in Seattle, USA – one of very few doctors in the world with a deep understanding of the technical aspects of AI, combined with a deep understanding of ophthalmology; he’s doing a lot of novel work. The other person is Luke Oakden-Rayner, a radiologist in Australia.
For AI to transform healthcare, professionals have to be central to the process. It cannot be transformed by people outside of the profession, and it is far more powerful to have a healthcare professional who has some knowledge of both worlds, than it is to have a world-leading ophthalmologist with no knowledge of AI or a world-leading AI expert with no knowledge of ophthalmology.
Odaibo: On the data science side, one very exciting area is generative models, such as generative adversarial networks and variational auto-encoders, which are methods that allow one to generate synthetic data, as well as learn the latent features of a representation. On the engineering side, advances in AI DevOps platforms and methods bring us closer to feasible truly-continuous systems. I’m actively involved in this area and RETINA-AI Health will be hosting an AI DevOps hackathon in February 2020 in Lagos in collaboration with Microsoft Africa. I’m also writing a technical tutorial series in Medium on container-orchestration technologies, such as Kubernetes.
Ting: To me, the most exciting advance in AI/deep learning is the evolution of quantum physics published by Arute and colleagues from Google AI (20). The processor that has been described can significantly increase the processing speed for data analysis. It takes about 200 seconds (3.5 minutes) to sample one instance of a quantum circuit a million times – to put this in context, the same task done by a supercomputer at present takes approximately 10,000 years. This technology may well take us to industry 5.0 within the next few decades as it may, once again, disrupt many technical and medical industries.
Does the implementation of AI/deep learning into ophthalmic practice have a competitive element to it?
Odaibo: There absolutely is a competitive element! Country-wise, some of the top contenders in the field of AI in general are the US, China and Russia, while the fastest-growing in terms of talent is in Africa and Nigeria, in particular. In terms of funding and state-level enthusiasm, China is far ahead of every other country. The US is a distant second in funding of AI. Anecdotally, it appears that eight of every ten venture firms looking to invest in AI are based in China. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
Ting: It certainly does. US/Canada and Europe have always been running at the forefront of many countries worldwide due to the proximity to all the world class computer science departments (like Cambridge, Imperial, University of Toronto, New York University and the California Institute of Technology). In Singapore, we are also privileged to have a world-class technical team to develop many robust algorithms in ophthalmology. Singapore only has a population of 5 million. It is much smaller than other counties, but also, thanks to this, it is easier to create a robust ecosystem to support the clinical deployment of an AI algorithm – for example, the aforementioned integration of the AI system into the Singapore national DR screening program (2). Nonetheless, if I were to pick which country is going to get there first, China will still be on the top of my list for several reasons. First, China is the country with the largest population worldwide, and in terms of data, they will always beat other countries. Second, people will then question the cleanliness of their data.
In my mind, the top five eye institutions in China are already competing at the world-class level, including AI, and many of the Chinese clinicians are, to me, under-rated. On a recent trip to China, I was shocked to find what they had already achieved in AI and data science in ophthalmology. Third, the Chinese government, led by President Xi, is extremely supportive of making China an AI-integrated society. There are many funding opportunities available for research and development related projects. At present, there are already many ongoing real time AI-integrated algorithms deployed in the clinical space. That being said, while China may still be slightly ahead of the game, the language barrier may hinder some good scientific findings from being accepted in the high-impact medical journals.
What’s next for AI and deep learning in eye care? Do you have a wish list for the next 5-10 years – and beyond?
Abramoff: The biggest problem for bringing new autonomous AI to market right now is agreeing on what the disease actually is. For DR or AMD we have had outcome-based standards for decades: surrogates for outcome. It is easier to rigorously validate an autonomous AI to market when we have such an outcome or surrogate outcome that is widely accepted and evidence based. In glaucoma, we are slowly coming to an appropriate surrogate outcome, and when that is done, we can rigorously validate autonomous AI for glaucoma, and similarly for other diseases.
Keane: Ten years from now, a patient will come in, and we will have 10 different types of high-resolution imaging of the eye, like adaptive optics or OCT, a lot of different functional tests, such as visual field testing, electrophysiological tests, ERGS, as well as full genomic testing. Maybe we have the patient’s metabolomics and their proteomics from a urine sample, and they have uploaded the contents of their phone or smartwatch, so it tells us about their activity and real-world visual function. We will then need AI systems to help us integrate all these complex multi-modal data, so we can make the best decisions for our patients.
I also hope that we can bring the expertise of a hospital like Moorfields into the community and into patients’ homes so that, if they have a stable chronic eye disease like glaucoma, they don’t have to come into the hospital for check-ups. A lot of the monitoring of these chronic diseases could be done in the community and in the homes, improving quality of life. AI will be a big facilitator of that.
Odaibo: Incremental steps are how we will advance. The importance of implementation and engineering will increasingly be appreciated. Additionally, healthcare financing models will develop and mature on a case-by-case basis to gradually inch us forward towards increased healthcare access.
Ting: I would like to see more of the research AI algorithms translated into clinical care over the next few years. Hopefully they will make a positive impact on patient outcomes and experience. The application of deep learning in genomics and proteomics is also something I am eagerly anticipating. Google Deep Mind Alphafold team has won the Critical Assessment of protein Structure Prediction (CASP) in 2018 and, since then, multiple research groups have explored the use of deep learning in similar domains. The implications of selecting the appropriate target gene or proteins may bring many breakthroughs in novel therapeutic targets, and could potentially halt or even reverse some incurable diseases.
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MD Abràmoff et al., “Pivotal trial of an autonomous AI-based diagnostic system for detection of diabetic retinopathy in primary care offices”, NPJ Digit Med, 1 (2018). PMID: 31304320.
D Ting et al., “Development and validation of a deep learning system for diabetic retinopathy and related eye diseases using retinal images from multiethnic populations with diabetes”, JAMA, 318, 2211 (2017). PMID: 29234807.
D Ting et al., “AI for medical imaging goes deep”, Nat Med, 24, 539 (2018). PMID: 29736024.
D Ting et al., “Deep learning in estimating prevalence and systemic risk factors for diabetic retinopathy: a multi-ethnic study”, NPJ Digit Med, 2, 24 (2019). PMID: 31304371.
D Ting and T Wong, “Eyeing cardiovascular risk factors”, Nat Biomed Eng, 2, 140 (2018). PMID: 31015720.
V Bellemo et al., “Artificial intelligence using deep learning to screen for referable and vision-threatening diabetic retinopathy in Africa: a validation study”, Lancet Digital Health, 1, 35 (2019).
D Ting et al., “Deep learning in ophthalmology: The technical and clinical considerations”, Prog Retin Eye Res, 72, 100759 (2019). PMID: 31048019.
D Ting et al., “Artificial intelligence and deep learning in ophthalmology”, Br J Ophthalmol, 103, 167 (2019). PMID: 30361278.
SG Finlayson et al., “Adversarial attacks on medical machine learning”, Science, 363, 1287 (2019). PMID: 30898923.
Y LeCun et al., “Deep learning”, Nature, 521, 436 (2019).
D Ting et al., “An Ophthalmologist’s Guide to Deciphering Studies in Artificial Intelligence”, Ophthalmology, 126, 1475 (2019). PMID: 31635697.
JQ Li et al., "Prevalence and incidence of age-related macular degeneration in Europe: a systematic review and meta-analysis", Br J Ophthalmol (2019). PMID: 31712255.
L Gomes, “Machine-learning maestro Michael Jordan on the delusions of big data and other huge engineering efforts”, IEEE Spectrum, 20 (2014).
E Menti et al., “Automatic Generation of Synthetic Retinal Fundus Images: Vascular Network”, Cham: Springer International Publishing, 167 (2016).
S Fiorini et al., “Automatic Generation of Synthetic Retinal Fundus Images: Vascular Network”, Procedia Computer Science, 90, 54 (2016).
V Doblhoff-Dier et al., “Measurement of the total retinal blood flow using dual beam Fourier-domain Doppler optical coherence tomography with orthogonal detection planes”, Biomedical optics express, 5, 630 (2014). PMID: 24575355.
R Leitgeb et al., “Doppler optical coherence tomography”, Progress in Retinal and Eye Research, 41, 26 (2014).
D Char et al., “Implementing Machine Learning in Health Care - Addressing Ethical Challenges”, The New England journal of medicine, 378, 981 (2018).
E Vayena et al., “Machine learning in medicine: Addressing ethical challenges”, PLoS Med, 15, e1002689 (2018). PMID: 30399149.
F Arute et al., “Quantum supremacy using a programmable superconducting processor”, Nature, 574, 505 (2019). PMID: 31645734.
FDA, "Proposed regulatory framework for modifications to artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML)-based software as a medical device (SaMD)" (2019). Available at: bit.ly/2Lfs40D. Accessed December 4, 2019.
WHO, "WHO Guideline: recommendations on digital interventions for health system strenghtening" (2019). Available at: bit.ly/2rP1W63. Accessed December 4, 2019.
Michael D. Abramoff
Retina specialist, physician/scientist, the Robert C. Watzke, Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, of Electrical and Computer, and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Iowa, and Founder and Executive Chairman of IDx. He is based in Iowa City, Iowa, USA.
Pearse Keane
A specialist in in applied clinical imaging research, Pearse has a particular interest in optical coherence tomography. Now a consultant at Moorfields Eye Hospital, he previously carried out OCT research with some of the original inventors of the technology at the Doheny Eye Institute. As the first UK ophthalmologist to receive a Clinician Scientist Award from the National Institute of Health Research, his current work focuses on exploring the potential of new technologies and innovations in the treatment of visual impairment and blindness.
Stephen Odaibo
Stephen Odaibo is a retina specialist, computer scientist, full-stack AI engineer and co-founder of RETINA-AI.
Daniel Ting
Vitreoretinal Specialist at the Singapore National Eye Center, Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, and Adjunct Professor at the State Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology at Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center in China.
Subspecialties Imaging & Diagnostics
Creating a new standard in ophthalmic surgery visualization
11/09/2020 | Sponsored by Beyeonics
Clinical applications of hand-held OCT: Bringing the OCT to the patient and not the patient to the OCT
09/07/2020 | Sponsored by Leica Microsystems
Subspecialties Cataract
Advanced Techniques in Cataract & Refractive Surgery
Send me the latest from The Ophthalmologist.
COVID-19 and Dry Eye Disease
09/16/2020 | Sponsored by Santen Pharmaceuticals
2. Business & Profession Other
Don’t Disrespect Diamox
05/16/2014 | Mark Hillen
3. Subspecialties COVID-19
Caution: Surgeons at Risk
10/06/2020 | John Liu, Irfan Nizarali Kherani, Ike Ahmed
4. Subspecialties Cataract
The Misnomer of Monovision
08/13/2015 | Ray Radford
5. Subspecialties Cornea / Ocular Surface
Avoiding Corneal Transplantation with a Breakthrough Keratoconus Treatment
09/10/2020 | Sponsored by Gebauer
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Murder Loves Company
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← Janet Yellen’s Cash Haul of $7 Million Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg; She Failed to Report Her Wall Street Speaking Fees from JPMorgan and Others in 2018
Trump’s “Patriots” Disgrace U.S. on Front Pages Across Five Continents →
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 7, 2021 ~
As a violent mob of Trump’s citizen militia scaled walls, broke windows and seized control of the Capitol building yesterday around 2 p.m., the Dow Jones Industrial Average set a new intraday high of 31,022.65. It gave up very little by the 4 p.m. close, gaining 437.8 points on the day.
The Trump operatives were attempting to stop Congress from confirming President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral win. Dressed in paramilitary clothing or jeans and red MAGA hats, the mob overpowered the Capitol Police inside and outside the building, gaining access to both Senate and House chambers and lawmaker offices, including the office of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.
Jamie Stiehm, a US political columnist, was inside the Capitol building and reported the following for the BBC:
“I went inside to the House of Representatives and up into the press gallery, where we were assigned seats, looking down at the rather somber gathering. Speaker Nancy Pelosi was holding the gavel, and keeping people to their five-minute statements.
“As we went into the second hour, all of a sudden we heard breaking glass. The air began getting fogged. An announcement from the Capitol Police said, ‘An individual has breached the building.’ So everyone looked around and then it was business as usual. But after that, the announcements kept coming. And they were getting more and more urgent…The police didn’t seem to know what was happening. They weren’t coordinated. They locked the chamber doors but at the same time, they told us we would have to evacuate. So there was a sense of panic…There was a sense of ‘nobody’s in charge here, the Capitol Police have lost control of the building, anything can happen.’ ”
An excellent report by Emilie Munson for Hearst Newspapers on how House Reps, Senators and press were eventually evacuated by Capitol Police through tunnels is provided here. The Capitol building was not declared secured by the Capitol Police until approximately 5:50 p.m. At around 8:00 p.m. Congress resumed its deliberations and confirmed the Biden win after hours of debate.
Grisly images of the mayhem at the Capitol are available at Bloomberg News here. According to CNBC, four people were left dead as a result of the riots. A young, unidentified woman was shot inside the Capitol building according to Capitol Police and died of her injuries. Another woman and two men died from “medical emergencies,” according to the CNBC report, which was based on information provided at a press conference by Washington, D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee.
CNBC also reported that “At least fourteen police officers sustained injuries with multiple [officers] still in the hospital.” One officer, whose photo of being assaulted by the mob is included in the link to Bloomberg photos above, sustained serious injuries.
According to multiple news reports, this was the worst invasion of the Capitol building since 1814, during the War of 1812 with the British.
While all of this mayhem and insurrection played out on television screens around the world, and world leaders were forced to confront the possibility that there would not be a peaceful transition to a new President in the United States, the Dow Jones Industrial Average yawned at the chaos. This is certainly not a normal reaction for the U.S. stock market, especially since it’s already in bubble territory.
There was the distinct impression among market watchers that an invisible hand was once again intervening to prevent a crash in the market as the violent events unfolded. Thoughts turned immediately to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s Exchange Stabilization Fund which, under the law (31 U.S.C. §5302) “may deal in gold, foreign exchange, and other instruments of credit and securities the Secretary considers necessary.” Conveniently, the Exchange Stabilization Fund has grown from $94.3 billion in assets prior to Trump taking office to $682 billion as of September 30, 2020.
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