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Home Sports Guardiola says Man City will not sacrifice League Cup for title race
Guardiola says Man City will not sacrifice League Cup for title race
Holders Manchester City will take Tuesday’s League Cup quarter-final with Leicester City seriously, says manager Pep Guardiola, even though they are in a tight duel with Liverpool for the Premier League title. Guardiola whose Premier League champions trail Liverpool by a point says it is only by winning trophies the club can get better, even if the League Cup is viewed as the third most important domestic trophy in English football. The 47-year-old Spaniard concedes Liverpool may benefit from no longer being involved in the League Cup their next match is against Wolverhampton Wanderers on Friday and if City progress they will face a two-legged semi-final in January. “We could say yes,” said Guardiola, answering a question at his press conference over whether Liverpool had an advantage in having a lighter fixture list. “But I’d prefer to be in the League Cup than not.
“I cannot imagine going into a game thinking, ‘Oh, it will be better to lose because then we’ll have more time to rest’. I have never thought in that way. “That is the only way a club like Manchester City who 10 years ago were not in this position can grow up, and get better and better. And that’s what we have to do.” Guardiola said that those players who had played on Saturday in the 3-1 win over Everton would probably have to shoulder the responsibility of backing up against Leicester due to a growing injury list. Belgian star Kevin de Bruyne returned against Everton and should play again whilst record goalscorer Argentinian Sergio Aguero could start after a four week absence through injury. “We don’t have many players,” said Guardiola. “We have a lot of injured players. Some players that played Saturday and in the last games have to play. “But it is a chance to reach a semi-final and since I’ve been here my teams have never dropped one game, not even a friendly game. “It is a competition, it must be respected, like we did it last season. We are going to try and win the game.”
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Even so, the first infomercial of the same type we see on TV today, aired in 1982 and was for a hair growth supplement called “New Generation” which was marketed by entrepreneur Robert E. Murphy Jr. It was such a success that other companies quickly began following suit and purchasing program-length commercial air time. At this time infomercials used to commonly be shown during late night/early morning hours, although stations discovered success showing them at other times when they learned that the majority of purchases were made in the morning, during the day, and around primetime.
Amazon derives many of its sales (around 40% in 2008) from third-party sellers who sell products on Amazon.[129] Associates receive a commission for referring customers to Amazon by placing links to Amazon on their websites if the referral results in a sale. Worldwide, Amazon has "over 900,000 members" in its affiliate programs.[130] In the middle of 2014, the Amazon Affiliate Program is used by 1.2% of all websites and it is the second most popular advertising network after Google Ads.[131] It is frequently used by websites and non-profits to provide a way for supporters to earn them a commission.[132] Amazon reported over 1.3 million sellers sold products through Amazon's websites in 2007. Unlike eBay, Amazon sellers do not have to maintain separate payment accounts; all payments are handled by Amazon.[citation needed]
In June 2017, Amazon announced that it would acquire Whole Foods, a high-end supermarket chain with over 400 stores, for $13.4 billion.[14][41] The acquisition was seen by media experts as a move to strengthen its physical holdings and challenge Walmart's supremacy as a brick and mortar retailer. This sentiment was heightened by the fact that the announcement coincided with Walmart's purchase of men's apparel company Bonobos.[42] On August 23, 2017, Whole Foods shareholders, as well as the Federal Trade Commission, approved the deal.[43][44]
Amazon was never going to be able to compete with Google’s YouTube in user-uploaded video content, and it didn’t have the social infrastructure of Facebook to become a destination where people discuss their lives and share videos from around the web. But what Amazon did have was the resources to purchase a company that was poised to outrun both Facebook and YouTube to a new type of business: live-streaming, in particular video games live-streaming. The pioneer of that market was Twitch, which Amazon purchased in 2014 for just shy of $1 billion.
Categories: Companies in the NASDAQ-100 IndexCompanies listed on NASDAQAmazon (company)1994 establishments in Washington (state)3D publishingAmerican companies established in 1994Android (operating system) softwareArts and crafts retailersBookstores of the United StatesCloud computing providersE-book suppliersInternet properties established in 1994IOS softwareMobile phone manufacturersMultinational companies headquartered in the United StatesOnline music storesOnline retailers of the United StatesRetail companies established in 1994Review websitesSelf-publishing companiesSoftware companies based in SeattleSoftware companies established in 1994Technology companies established in 1994TvOS softwareUniversal Windows Platform appsWebby Award winners
After reading a report about the future of the Internet that projected annual web commerce growth at 2,300%, Bezos created a list of 20 products that could be marketed online. He narrowed the list to what he felt were the five most promising products, which included: compact discs, computer hardware, computer software, videos, and books. Bezos finally decided that his new business would sell books online, due to the large worldwide demand for literature, the low price points for books, along with the huge number of titles available in print.[27] Amazon was founded in the garage of Bezos' rented home in Bellevue, Washington.[25][28][29] Bezos' parents invested almost $250,000 in the start-up.[30]
As it stands today, Amazon employs more than half a million people, more so than any other technology company in the country and second only to Walmart in the US. But the eventual result of its investments in robotics and AI is that technology’s biggest and fast-growing workforce could see that growth start to slow and, perhaps years down the line, even shrink as robots tackle ever more complicated tasks. In the process, the company may develop robots for use outside its fulfillment centers. Amazon has already changed how we shop and, by extension, how we live our lives. Its next big step could be changing how we work.
Junglee is a former online shopping service provided by Amazon that enabled customers to search for products from online and offline retailers in India. Junglee started off as a virtual database that was used to extract information off the internet and deliver it to enterprise applications. As it progressed, Junglee started to use its database technology to create a single window marketplace on the internet by making every item from every supplier available for purchase. Web shoppers could locate, compare and transact millions of products from across the Internet shopping mall through one window.[114]
Depending on which options you choose, using an online marketplace like Amazon can make the fulfillment process easier for new and small businesses. Not only can Amazon interact with customers on your behalf, saving you time while protecting your personal and private information, but it can also handle the entire shipping process, including returns. As a result, owners can concentrate on building their businesses.
Amazon, with its unfettered access to troves of valuable consumer and seller data, came upon a rather interesting business model around 2009, when it launched a private label division under the name AmazonBasics. It started first with the items the company noticed people most often purchased without thinking too hard about the brand name, like batteries and HDMI cables. But as The New York Times reported this past summer, this proved to be a way to fast track a fledgling product category into a massive money-making top seller — AmazonBasics’ AA batteries now outsell Duracell and Energizer on Amazon.com after just a few years.
H&M's business concept is to offer fashion and quality at the best price. H&M has since it was founded in 1947 grown into one of the world's leading fashion companies. The content of this site is copyright-protected and is the property of H&M Hennes & Mauritz AB. H&M is committed to accessibility. That commitment means H&M embraces WCAG guidelines and supports assistive technologies such as screen readers. If you are using a screen reader, magnifier, or other assistive technologies and are experiencing difficulties using this website, please call our TOLL-FREE support line (855-466-7467) for assistance.
Aim for smaller products and travel deals. Some of the best buys on Cyber Monday will surprise you, from apparel to shoes to beauty products, says consumer and money saving expert Woroch. “It’s also a great day to shop for travel deals, specifically airfare sales,” she says. “Apple products and other electronics will be a good deal on this day too.”
Jump up ^ "Pitch Perfect". On The Media. January 1, 2010. Archived from the original on 2010-01-09. Retrieved 2010-01-16. He figured out that he could build brand recognition by blanketing the airwaves with cheap direct-to-consumer commercials, and then take the product into retail stores where he slapped an "As Seen On TV" logo on them, which he designed himself. It’s a very lucrative formula, he told me, so that’s what he’s been doing ever since.
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Here's how Trump hobbled Obamacare and drove enrollment down this year
By wpadmin | December 16, 2018
The open enrollment period for people to sign up for health insurance next year through the Affordable Care Act ends Saturday in most states, and signups are significantly down from last year.
Donald Trump didn’t repeal and replace former President Barack Obama‘s signature health-care law, more commonly known as Obamacare, he was able to dismantle key parts of it that health policy researchers are blaming for much of the drop.
Sign-ups on the federal health insurance marketplace have fallen 11.7 percent from the same time last year, according to the latest figures from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The number of new people buying the coverage has dropped even more: 19.7 percent.
The lagging numbers also come as the future of the Affordable Care Act is uncertain. A federal judge in Texas ruled late Friday the law unconstitutional, potentially threatening health-care coverage for millions of Americans and setting up a new legal showdown over Obama’s policy initiative. The lawsuit was backed by the Trump administration, and is likely to be appealed — which could mean the legislation will heard anew by the Supreme Court, which upheld Obamacare in a narrowly divided 2012 ruling.
Trump cheered the judge’s decision in a tweet.
As I predicted all along, Obamacare has been struck down as an UNCONSTITUTIONAL disaster! Now Congress must pass a STRONG law that provides GREAT healthcare and protects pre-existing conditions. Mitch and Nancy, get it done!
To be sure, the tight labor market is playing at least some role in lower Obamacare enrollment figures this season, health policy experts say.
Historically low unemployment, which was at 3.7 percent in November and October, is helping reduce dependence on the federal health program as more Americans are getting their health insurance from employers. And while Obamacare doesn’t require small businesses to offer health coverage, more may now be doing so to attract and retain workers.
The ACA’s final enrollment numbers won’t be tallied until next week, but health policy experts say several key changes the Trump administration made to the ACA law are helping drive enrollment down this year.
One factor that health policy analysts say could be depressing enrollment for 2019 is the move by the Trump administration allowing people to remain longer in less-expensive short-term health plans, also sometimes referred to as “skimpy” plans.
The Obama administration had restricted the use of short-term plans — which as a rule offer less comprehensive coverage of benefits — to three months. But the Trump administration is allowing people to stay in short-term plans for up to 12 months. And it is allowing consumers to renew their coverage in such plans twice.
Some policy analysts predict those less-expensive plans could attract healthier customers than people who opt for the more expensive, and more comprehensive, Obamacare plans.
This enrollment season was also the first since Congress repealed the so-called individual mandate as part of Trump’s tax plan. The mandate, which is still in effect for 2018, imposes a tax penalty on people without coverage. It was designed to persuade people to buy insurance instead of paying the extra tax, which came to the greater of $ 695 per adult or up to 2.5 percent of household income, depending on how many months an individual went without coverage.
At the time, Trump claimed the tax plan “essentially” repealed the health-care law, which was false.
But without the mandate, Obamacare exchanges were expected to see fewer sign-ups, especially from younger, healthier people who feel they may not need coverage, said Judy Solomon, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington think tank.
The Obama administration spent $ 100 million for its advertising and promotional budget in its last year. The Trump administration then scaled back that budget by 90 percent to $ 10 million for this year’s enrollment. The administration also steadily cut funding for so-called navigators, customer service representatives who walk people through the enrollment process.
Some researchers say it’s affecting public awareness of the program and deadline to buy coverage. According to the most recent poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation, only 24 percent of Americans ages 18 to 64 are aware of the current open enrollment deadline.
Open enrollment ran for seven weeks this year in most states, much shorter than under the Obama administration. The Trump administration shortened that time period back last year. However, the Obama administration had planned something similar.
Category: News Tags: down, drove, enrollment, Here's, hobbled, Obamacare, This, Trump, Year
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AMICUS ANTHOLOGIES, PART ONE (1965-1972)
February 23, 2017 Alfred Eaker Leave a comment
With Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965, directed by Freddie Francis and written by Milton Subotsky) Amicus Productions (spearheaded by Subotsky and Max Rosenberg, who previously produced for Hammer and was a cousin to Doris Wishman) established itself as a vital competitor to Hammer Studios. Rather than imitating Hammer’s modernization of Gothic classics, Amicus developed its own niche with omnibus films. They were successful enough to be in full-fledged production for a decade, establishing a reputation as the go-to studio for horror anthologies. This, their introductory portmanteau film, clearly influenced by EC Comics, sets a pattern of to-be-expected unevenness. Still, Amicus installs themselves as a horror studio to be reckoned with, sparing no expense in procuring Hammer’s top actors: Peter Cushing (who would star in all but one of the Amicus anthologies) and Christopher Lee. For its wraparound segment, Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors opens to the duo (among other passengers) on a train. Dr. Schreck 1)“Shreck” is German for “terror,” and a nod to the famous star of F.W. Murnau‘s Nosferatu. (Cushing, saddled with a terrible German accent and glued on brows) pulls out a deck of tarot cards. “Pick a card, any card, and tape it three times,” Schreck tells his fellow passengers. Each participant will hear of a fate that may await them. Among the passengers is Christopher Lee who will, of course, factor into one of the five narratives.
In “Werewolf,” Neil McCallum is an architect renovating an old dark house, which turns out to be cursed. The title monster is featured in this pedestrian tale of ancestral revenge with a “twist.”
With Alan Freeman (better known as the U.K D.J. for “Pick of the Pops”) served up as a snack for a venus fly trap, “The Creeping Vine,” thankfully doesn’t take itself so seriously. It is refreshingly lightheaded hokum.
“Voodoo” is the worst of the lot; badly dated in its stereotypes, with Kenny Lynch belting out a stolen voodoo tune.
“Disembodied Hand,” has elitist art critic Franklin Marsh (Lee) driving artist Eric Landor (Michael Gough) to suicide. Landor’s severed hand returns to exact revenge on the mean critic. It’s in the spirit of The Beast with Five Fingers, among others, and chock-full of two-dimensional caricatures of both artists and critics. It holds no surprises, but with Lee and Gough engaged in a bit of whistling-while-they-work fun, it’s easily the best episode.
“Vampire” feature a young Donald Sutherland who discovers he is married to… a vampire! It barely raises a pulse.
Seen today, Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors is more camp than horror, and its appeal is one of genre nostalgia. Still, the phenomenal box office success of Dr. Terror green-lighted a second portmanteau film in 1967, entitled Torture Garden (directed by Freddie Francis and written by Robert Bloch). It contains no torture nor any garden. Burgess Meredith (in a preposterous disguise, reminding us of the Penguin) is Old Nick himself, going by the pseudonym of Dr. Diablo and moonlighting as a carnival barker who promises a tortuous exhibit that can reveal the future. “You’ll shake, you’ll shiver, but it’s all good fun,” Diablo hammily tells his patrons. Unfortunately, only one of the four tales lives up to that promise.
“Enoch,” is the opening narrative. Michael Bryant’s inheritance money (from an uncle who took his time dying) is going to be spoiled by a mean ol’ puddy tat with a lot of doubloons.
“Over Hollywood” has Beverly Adams discovering the fountain of youth in Hollywood with robotic consequences.
“Mr. Steinway” might be seen as a poor precursor to Stephen King’s “Christine,” replacing a killer car with a killer piano. It’s as absurd as it sounds.
The first three segments are sloppily written and executed with little enthusiasm; each progressively worse, but the final segment single-handedly salvages the anthology.
“The Man Who Collected Poe” finds Jack Palance (playing against type) as an Edgar Allan Poe-obsessed geek who may have found his soulmate in fellow fanatic Peter Cushing. However, somebody’s got something—or someone—hidden in the basement and … somebody’s got the fever, which leads to a fiery finale. Cushing and Palance clearly enjoyed playing opposite one another and their chemistry, along with clever writing, making one wish the previous segments had been as enjoyable.
1970’s The House That Dripped Blood (directed by Peter Duffell and written by Robert Bloch) is a considerable improvement over its predecessors. Duffell lacks the visual astuteness of Freddie Francis, but he has superior stories to work with and a top notch cast. The connecting theme is the titular house, which has a bit of baggage left over from all who have resided there.
In “Method For Murder,” Denholm Elliott is a horror author who writes a character that becomes a tad too three-dimensional, much to his wife’s peril.
“Waxworks” stars Cushing as an uptight retired stockbroker and lifelong bachelor who visits a wax museum, only to see a figure of a woman whom he once was in love with. Obsession and unrequited love naturally go hand-in-hand, or head-on-plate.
In “Sweets to the Sweet,” Nyree Dawn Porter is hired to tutor a young, motherless child (Chloe Franks) who is unloved by her cold-hearted father, Christopher Lee. Without giving too much away, let’s just say the underlying theme is one few filmmakers would dare tackle today.
“The Cloak” is the most famous of the four episodes, remembered fondly for its absurd humor. It stars John Pertwee (best known for his portrayal of Dr. Who) as an actor who mantles the cloak of a purported actual vampire. Hammer favorite Ingrid Pitt bares her fangs and, of course, a bit more.
All four episodes feature strong acting, which is a rarity in contemporary horror and should be a model for genre filmmakers. Elliot’s restrained performance in “Method For Murder” is admirable enough to forgive the predictable “twist.” The stylish “Waxworks” features an equally stylish performance from Cushing, although narratively it is the thinnest episode. “Sweets to the Sweet” is psychologically intense with three powerhouse performances, making it the strongest entry. Although John Pertwee is a bit on-the-sleeve in “The Cloak,” his performance suits the tone; but, he’s no match for Pitt.
Asylum (1972, directed by Roy Ward Baker and written by Robert Bloch) is often cited as the best of the Amicus anthologies. It opens on Dr. Martin (Robert Powell, best known as the blue-eyed Anglo-Saxon savior plopped into the Middle East in Franco Zeferelli’s Jesus of Nazareth) showing up for his scheduled job interview with Dr. Starr for a position at the Dunsmoor Asylum. Martin is met by Dr. Rutherford (Patrick Magee), however, and informed that Dr. Starr is now a patient after going insane and becoming violent. Rutherford devises a test for Martin: he will interview four patients and if he can guess which one is Dr. Starr, then he will be hired. Naturally, this segues into four tales from Mr. Bloch.
In “Frozen Fear,” Walter (Richard Todd) is having a sordid affair with Bonnie (Barbara Parkins). When his wife Ruth (Sylvia Syms) won’t give him a divorce, Walter grabs an axe and fills his basement freezer with prime ex-wife cold cuts. Little does Walter know that the wifey was a voodoo priestess, and when that freezer thaws, big things come a-crawling in small packages—lots of them. This vignette is the most blatantly indebted to EC comics and, as such, it’s probably Amicus’ finest twenty minutes.
“The Weird Tailor” opens with tailor Bruno (Barry Morse) on the verge of being evicted. As luck would have it, Mr. Smith (Peter Cushing) walks into Bruno’s shop and orders a unique suit. With the promise of a hefty commission, Bruno obsessively begins working according to Mr. Smith’s very specific instructions. Unknown to Bruno, the suit is meant to resurrect Mr. Smith’s recently deceased son. Things don’t go according to plan. Previously adapted for Boris Karloff’s “Thriller”, this one can’t match the TV effort. Given a shorter running time for Asylum, Bloch was forced to excise the prologue, and with it gone, the suspense and menace are diminished. The original thriller was actually more perverse in suggesting Bruno’s wife’s sexual attraction to a mannequin. Additionally, Bruno’s character was less sympathetic, bringing a pronounced, and weird, abusive quality that is merely sketched here. Cushing is superb, bringing a sense of pathos to the character, but his part is little more than a cameo. Being more compressed, the schlock quality of the ending is more pronounced. Yet, for all of its comparative flaws, this is a strong second episode.
“Lucy Comes To Stay” is the weakest of the four episodes. Barbara (Charlotte Rampling) has been released from the asylum to the care of her brother, George (James Valliers) and nurse Higgins (Megs Jenkins). However, Barbara has an imaginary friend named Lucy (Britt Ekland) who doesn’t care for George or the nurse. Lucy is also handy with a knife. Disappointingly, it plays out exactly as expected, and isn’t helped by lackluster performances (Rampling being the exception).
Surprisingly, “Mannequins of Horror” is an extension of the wraparound, with the arrival of a new doctor named Byron (Herbert Lom) who has the demonic hobby of placing spirits within miniature robots and imbuing them with life, which serves as a potential gateway to immortality. Dr. Martin returns to uncover Dr. Starr’s identity in a delightfully unpleasant ending. It’s something of a mini-masterpiece that clearly proved an inspiration to later, albeit inferior films.
PART TWO will begin with Tales From The Crypt (1972) and take us to the final Amicus anthology: From Beyond The Grave (1974).
1. ↑ “Shreck” is German for “terror,” and a nod to the famous star of F.W. Murnau‘s Nosferatu.
AnthologyChristopher LeeFreddie FrancisHorrorPeter CushingPeter DuffellRoy Ward Baker
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David Schildknecht - Wine Advocate (WA)
After a brief stint in academe and several years in the restaurant business, David Schildknecht logged more than a decade as a wine retailer in Washington, DC. with the late Rex Wine & Spirits (from 1982), with Mayflower Wine and Spirits, and lastly with Pearson’s. This was an exciting time to be Washington-based and David, who grew up nearby, rediscovered his personal roots while discovering wine in company with the many luminaries who were then regularly passing through or who, like Robert Parker, were establishing their formidable future reputations from a Capital Area base. It was David’s pleasure to repay some of Bob’s enthusiasm, information and assistance in kind when he regularly assembled and presented wines from German growers for Bob’s reports in the Wine Advocate from 1990 through 1996.
In 1993, David moved the scene of his retail operations and his family of six to the banks of the Ohio River, establishing the wide-ranging wine program at Bellevue, Kentucky-based The Party Source. From 1997-2002, he divided his time between reporting from Austria, Germany and Hungary for Wine & Spirits and the International Wine Cellar, and importing wines of France (as well as fulfilling numerous other roles) for Cincinnati, Ohio-based wine importer and distributor Vintner Select.
Almost from the beginning of his career as a merchant, David has published articles on wine, beginning with a 1984 piece on Alsace for the long-departed magazine Friends of Wine. His commentary began appearing in Stephen Tanzer’s International (then New York) Wine Cellar with coverage of Alsace in 1986 and expanded to include Germany, Bordeaux, and occasionally California and Hungary. His comprehensive vintage reports from Germany (beginning in 1989) and Austria (from 1997) became a staple fixture of that journal.
David's familiarity with and championing of the wines of Alsace, Burgundy, and the Loire has been a constant feature of his quarter century as a merchant. Like Robert Parker, Alsace was the first wine growing region David visited, and in the June, 1990 issue of The Wine Advocate, he was headlined as "The force behind ... this country's greatest selection of Alsace wines." David's fascination with and annual trips to Burgundy began in the early eighties as a result of his contacts with Robert Chadderdon, Robert Haas, Robert Kacher, Becky Wasserman, and other pioneering American importers, and Anthony Hanson, in the second (1995) edition of his seminal book Burgundy, took time to acknowledge and "warmly thank" David. In an October 31, 1995 profile in the Wine Spectator, Matt Kramer wrote "Probably no other retailer so ardently promotes such an array of Loire ... wines as well as Burgundy." Over the past fifteen years, David has also devoted increased attention and travel time to the Languedoc, Roussillon, and Champagne (too often viewed only as a branded celebratory beverage rather than as one of the world's great wine regions).
Always anxious to spot trends, champion little known regions, and lead consumers to unanticipated vinous riches, David enthusiastically accepted Robert Parker's invitation to report on wines from wide tracts of Central Europe and of North America east of the Rockies that have been unjustly neglected by many of the world's wine journals. His report on the wines of New York appeared in the June, 2006 issue of the Wine Advocate and commentary on wines from Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia will soon follow. It is in that same spirit of adventure that David has accepted responsibility for covering wines of New Zealand and South Africa, two growing regions which he will only now visit for the first time.
David has been a James Beard Award finalist for his wine journalism, the recipient of the Vinea Wachau's 2006 Steinfederpreis, and has authored the material on German wines in the newly released 3rd edition of the Oxford Companion to Wine. In recent years, his observations and opinions on wine - soon to include a column as North American correspondent - have begun appearing in The World of Fine Wine (U.K.), and been regularly posted on the ethereal pages of erobertparker.com and jancisrobinson.com. Beginning in Autumn of this year (2006) his musings as a columnist also appear, for a German speaking audience, in Vinaria (Austria). David is currently engaged in bringing his early work in philosophical fields to bear on wine, in which connection he was recently invited as a guest instructor in a pilot course in Aesthetics at U.C. Davis.
David’s inaugural (vintage 2004) reports in the pages of Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate were based on his twenty-first annual tasting tour of Germany (averaging more than seventy winery visits) and his ninth to Austria. He seldom breaks a sweat until the number of wines (or their score) breaks three figures, and only once caught himself napping on his numb feet, glass in hand, in the middle of a freezing cellar. Since that day, he has taped thousands of hours of tasting notes with nary another inexplicable silence. With the Wine Advocate as his new sounding board, that record bids fair to continue.
After one memorable mid-‘90s session, Robert Parker wrote to compliment David on his "legendary tasting abilities" and "laser-like precision", concluding: "I am delighted that you are content to be only a part-time wine writer." That will now no longer be the case, but only on account of the unique opportunity afforded him by full time work as a member of Robert Parker's team at The Wine Advocate.
He currently covers the wines of Germany, Austria, Eastern Europe, America’s Eastern & Midwestern wineries, Alsace, Burgundy, the Loire Valley, Languedoc-Roussillon, Champagne, New Zealand and South Africa.
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U.S. Researchers Stung by Claims of AIDS Origin
Review of Dephlogistication ...
Edward Hooper Biography
AIDS Weekly
ETIOLOGY: No AIDS-Related Viruses or Chimpanzee DNA Found in 1950s-Era Polio Vaccine
AIDS Weekly, September 25, 2000
© 2000 AIDS Weekly via NewsRx.com and NewsRx.net
Tests performed by three independent laboratories on 1950s-era polio vaccine samples from The Wistar Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, failed to find any traces of SIV, HIV-1, or DNA indicating that chimpanzee cells were used to prepare the vaccine, according to the scientist who coordinated the testing.
Dr. Claudio Basilico, chairman of microbiology at New York University Medical Center and head of Wistar's external AIDS/Poliovirus Advisory Committee, announced the findings at a Royal Society meeting in London, England, entitled "Origins of HIV and the AIDS Epidemic."
Taken together, the findings provide strong evidence to refute the theory that an oral polio vaccine prepared at The Wistar Institute and administered to people in the then-Belgian Congo in the late 1950s provided the route of transmission for HIV or HIV related viruses from chimpanzees to humans, as has been proposed by Mr. Edward Hooper in his book The River (Little, Brown and Co., 1999).
A linchpin in Hooper's theory is the supposition that chimpanzee cells were used in the preparation of the vaccine. For this reason, it is significant that the tests identified DNA from only one species of primate - the Asian macaque monkey, not the chimpanzee - in the Wistar vaccine samples. The two former Wistar scientists who developed the vaccines, Dr. Hilary Koprowski and Dr. Stanley Plotkin, have long maintained that no chimpanzee cells were used in their preparation.
"There is nothing in the results from these tests to support the theory that HIV entered the human population during the late 1950s poliovirus clinical trials in Africa," Basilico says. "The different tests performed by the three independent laboratories did not find any evidence of SIV or HIV in the samples nor did they find chimpanzee DNA. In fact, the laboratories were able to determine that all of the Wistar samples were grown in monkey cell cultures rather than chimpanzee cell cultures."
"We want to thank Basilico and the Wistar external AIDS/Poliovirus Advisory Committee, as well as the laboratories who generously donated their resources to this project, for shepherding these tests through to a conclusion," says Dr. Clayton Buck, acting director of The Wistar Institute. "We trust that these results will put to rest any remaining concerns of a link between a Wistar-produced oral polio vaccine and AIDS. The findings should also serve to restore public confidence in the production and administration of vaccines and in the response of science to public inquiry."
For the tests, the Wistar samples were subdivided and coded by Dr. Vincent Racaniello, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York. Sets of the samples were then delivered to the three independent laboratories which had agreed to perform the tests: Dr. Shirley Kwok, Roche Molecular Systems, Pleasanton, California; Dr. Svante Paabo, Max Planck Institute, Leipzig, Germany; and Dr. Simon Wain-Hobson, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France. Kwok tested for the presence of SIV/HIV in the samples; Paabo tested for the presence and species origin of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA in the samples; and Wain-Hobson's laboratory performed both tests.
Additional sets of samples, including control samples, were prepared and coded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Atlanta, Georgia, and delivered to the three testing laboratories. All codes were provided only to Basilico for later interpretation of the results.
The laboratories were selected by the Wistar external AIDS/Poliovirus Advisory Committee. The members of the committee are: Dr. Claudio Basilico, New York University Medical Center, New York, New York; Dr. Clayton Buck, Wistar Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Dr. Ronald Desrosiers, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts; Dr. David Ho, Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, New York, New York; and Dr. Eckard Wimmer, SUNY at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York.
Wistar covered costs of about $20,000 associated with the testing, with the participating laboratories contributing additional materials and services estimated to approach $100,000 in total.
This article was prepared by AIDS Weekly editors from staff and other reports.
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THES Review
1959 Manchester Case of Syndrome Resembling AIDS
Dr Hilary Koprowski - The Man of Many Ideas
The Allegation that The River has Damaged Modern Attempts to Eradicate Polio
Scientists Reach no Conclusion on AIDS-Polio Vaccine Connection
Smoke and Mirrors from Stanley Plotkin
Submitted by Ed Hooper on Fri, 08/12/2006 - 1:00am
In the past on this site [for instance in "Plotkin's Chums (1): Eminent scientists sign their names to falsehoods"], I have referred to identical or nearly identical letters written by Stanley Plotkin and his allies to TV executives and film festival organisers, urging them not to show "The Origins of AIDS" documentary. The reason they offer for writing such letters is inherently dishonest, for each letter is based on the false assertion that the OPV theory of AIDS origin has been disproved.
Apart from legal threats delivered through their lawyers, this letter-writing campaign has been one of the major approaches that Dr Plotkin’s group have used in their ongoing attempts to counter, and indeed to suppress, the OPV hypothesis.
I have received copies of many of these letters, which I am holding in reserve for an appropriate moment. However, I have decided that it worth posting details about one such initiative on this web-site, to give readers some idea about how Dr Stanley Plotkin operates.
Plotkin’s latest ploy.
In September 2006 I received an e-mail from Arnie Gelbart, executive producer of Galafilm, the co-producers of "The Origins of AIDS". He said that following a recent broadcast of the film by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), letters of criticism from Dr Mark Wainberg and Dr Stanley Plotkin had been addressed to the head of news, and the executive vice president of CBC. He asked if I could provide any material to send to CBC to help them respond to these claims.
I realised almost immediately that Dr Wainberg was not only, as he described himself, a co-chair of the 16th International Conference on AIDS (the major world conference on that disease, which had just been held in Toronto).
He was also an active member of Dr Plotkin’s team of "OPV theory refuters": one of the nine collaborators who, since 2004, have assisted Plotkin by writing identical or nearly identical letters to TV companies and film festivals, urging them not to show a film ["The Origins of AIDS"] which they claimed was "dangerous" and "misleading". The fact that in this instance the two men had written separately to CBC, as if one was disinterestedly supporting the legitimate concerns of the other, struck me as rather revealing.
However, this latest initiative represents a good example of how Stanley Plotkin has chosen to respond to the OPV theory.
He has never made any sincere attempt to respond to the majority of the points made in, or questions raised by, The River, or in my follow-up articles. And he has never attempted to provide a convincing account of his own involvement, which was significant, in the 1950s OPV trials in the Belgian Congo.
Instead, Dr Plotkin’s approach has been as follows:
a) he has misrepresented certain specific points in the history which he believes cannot be checked; on the basis of these falsehoods he then later asserts that he has "proved Hooper wrong";
b) he has encouraged and assisted the placing of alleged counter-arguments to the OPV theory (such as the negative testing of vaccine samples; phylogenetic dating; and "wrong sub-species" of chimp) in the medical literature; most of these articles have apparently been written by his allies and collaborators, or else by scientists whose grants, and indeed careers, now seem to depend on their continuing to promulgate such arguments;
c) even though the arguments mentioned in (b) may later be revealed as dubious, flawed or bogus, Plotkin ignores all counter-evidence, and instead points to these published articles in order to assert that "Hooper’s allegations have been refuted"; (a surprising number of people, including scientists who should know better, appear to have been taken in by this approach, perhaps basing their reasoning on the assumption that "if it’s good enough for Nature and Science, it’s good enough for me");
d) he has provided copies of the articles cited in (b) to TV stations and film companies, and then pressured them not to broadcast a "misleading" film;
e) he and Koprowski have used a combination of letter-writing and legal initiatives in order to chip away at publishers, conference organisers and journal editors, with the intention of discrediting me personally, and/or eliminating The River and the "Origins of AIDS" documentary from the public domain.
[In these five foregoing points alone, I have used quote marks to indicate the spirit of what has been said, rather than direct quotations from Dr Plotkin.]
Dr Plotkin’s response to the OPV/AIDS theory has relied heavily on the fact that he has developed a predominantly favourable reputation among the virology and vaccine communities during a long career. He uses this existing goodwill as a base which places him in a good position to persuade friends that his claims on this issue ought to be believed, or else on occasions, I suspect, to call in favours.
However, his active role in this debate has also relied heavily on clandestine methods. He and his allies have relied on misinformation, obfuscation, and pressuring witnesses into adapting their stories on significant points - or else into silence. This is a "smoke and mirrors" approach. There is no evidence to indicate or suggest that Dr Plotkin himself is a spook, but the methods he has used have been tried and tested over many years by members of the intelligence community.
In addition, he has been able to employ collaborators or assistants to do much of the dirty work for him. This is an approach that requires access to money, of which both Stanley Plotkin and his former boss, Hilary Koprowski, have acquired a great deal in the course of their long careers. (Plotkin was for many years managing director of the Aventis Pasteur (now Sanofi Pasteur) vaccine house, and is still listed as a consultant to the CEO of that company. There is evidence, moreover, that this company has funded some of the Plotkin group’s more dubious activities in Africa. Koprowski is said to be worth more than $30 million, following his patenting of monoclonal antibodies in the US and Japan. This is a technique that was actually developed by Caesar Milstein at the Medical Research Council in the UK, but for which Koprowski managed to acquire some of the more lucrative patents.)
These are among the tactics which doctors Plotkin and Koprowski have used in a bid to persuade others to accept their "modified" versions of events. As a rule, only people who are backed up against a wall, or who are very worried about potential consequences, resort to such tactics.
I now have many examples in which I can prove that Dr Plotkin, Dr Koprowski and their allies have deliberately misrepresented the truth. If they feel they can disprove this, then perhaps they should sue me for libel or defamation. I will gladly see them in court.
In the past, Dr Plotkin has threatened me with legal action once, and Dr Koprowski has threatened either me, or my publishers and myself in tandem, on at least three occasions. On each occasion, either I or my publishers have responded robustly, and no response has been received from the other side....until (in the case of Koprowski) a few years pass, and he once again threatens litigation in a different form or format.
A study of Dr Koprowski's history reveals that this is a tactic to which he has resorted often during his long scientific career; in fact, he has used the threat of legal action as a device for getting his own way ever since the 1950s. As far as I can determine, he has not encountered very many opponents who are unafraid of him, and who are fully prepared to oppose his legal threats.
In any case, in recent years doctors Plotkin and Koprowski have adopted a different tack. They steer well clear of me, but instead they employ lawyers in a bid to pressure book publishers and television executives into not publishing books, or not broadcasting films, on this subject.
I have decided that enough is enough. I now have so much evidence about the activities of these doctors and about the untruths they have told, especially about their activities in Africa, that I feel it is time to invite them to put up or shut up. If they believe that they have evidence to show that I'm a liar, then let them produce that evidence.
Even though there are strong suggestions that the two doctors read the items posted on this web-site, I do not expect to hear back from them. This is despite the fact that they would clearly love to sue me for libel or defamation. However, as they and their lawyers know, "libel" is not libel if the writer has evidence to support what he claims - which I have, and which they, in very many cases, clearly do not!
In any case, I believe it is vitally important that some of their approaches to modifying the truth are exposed, even if the process, for several reasons, has to be a gradual one. Accordingly, copies of Dr Plotkin’s and Dr Wainberg’s letters to CBC can be read below, as can the three enclosures that accompanied Dr Plotkin's letter. The letter that I wrote to Jerry McIntosh, Director of Independent Documentaries at CBC, in response to the claims in the two doctors’ letters can also be read.
Finally, just to complete the CBC history, I am led to believe that a polite but robust written response from a CBC executive to doctors Wainberg and Plotkin had already been drafted, or possibly sent, even before my letter to CBC arrived. Apparently it was pointed out that "The Origins of AIDS" had raised valid questions about how AIDS might have started. It was also apparently pointed out that, contrary to Plotkin's and Wainberg's claims, neither the bushmeat nor the OPV theory had been proven or disproven, and that it was therefore legitimate for a responsible news organisation like CBC to continue to examine and discuss both theories.
Ed Hooper. November 23rd, 2006; slightly adapted December 8th, 2006.
Re: "The Origins of AIDS" documentary, and subsequent complaints about its recent broadcast by CBC.
Dear Mr McIntosh,
My name is Edward Hooper. I am the author of a book entitled The River, and I featured as a talking head in the later stages of the Galafilm/MFP documentary, "The Origins of AIDS", a film that ends up offering considerable support to the oral polio vaccine [OPV] theory of origin of AIDS. I personally am strongly persuaded that this theory explains how the AIDS pandemic began.
The OPV theory proposes that pandemic HIV-1 arrived in humans via an OPV called CHAT, which was administered to nearly one million colonised Africans in the Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi in the late 1950s and which, uniquely for such a vaccine, was prepared in the cells of the common chimpanzee, the animal that is host to a simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) that is the immediate ancestor of HIV-1.
The documentary has been extremely well-received and has won several awards, which is why opponents of the OPV theory have been trying so hard to suppress it.
My help has recently been sought by Arnie Gelbart of Galafilm, who has sent me a copy of an e-mail to him from your colleague Christine Whalen, together with letters to the executive officers of CBC by doctors Plotkin and Wainberg, and a copy of Dr Plotkin’s editorial in Vaccine, entitled "Chimpanzees and journalists".
I think it's rather important that you (and CBC) have the full picture of what is going on here, which is rather different from what you might assume on the basis of the latter three documents.
I note that Dr Plotkin, in his letter to Dr Burman, describes CBC’s broadcasting of "The Origins of AIDS" as "a wilful act of ignorance and irresponsibility", and that Dr Wainberg, in his earlier letter, describes the OPV theory as one that is "dangerously misleading" and that has been "scientifically refuted".
The first thing to point out is that doctors Plotkin and Wainberg are not just casual allies in this matter. They have been actively collaborating for more than two years, writing a series of identical or near-identical letters to film festival directors, urging them to drop the "Origins of AIDS" documentary from their schedules. I have copies of some of these letters. Moreover I believe, but cannot prove, that these men have also written similar letters to other television executives.
Dr Wainberg is one of a group of eight or nine doctors who have consistently collaborated with Dr Plotkin in this initiative since (at latest) the summer of 2004. The group also includes doctors Beatrice Hahn and Bette Korber (two of the most prominent supporters of the "officially-approved" bushmeat theory of AIDS origin, and both virulent opponents of the OPV theory); Hahn’s former boss Dr Robert Gallo (who has described Plotkin’s former boss, the developer of CHAT vaccine, Dr Hilary Koprowski, as his "mentor"); doctors Robin Weiss and Simon Wain-Hobson (the two surviving organisers of the Royal Society conference on "Origins of HIV and the AIDS epidemic" in 2000); and Dr John Moore, an AIDS vaccine expert with a good command of the English language, who has been metaphorically described by colleagues as a "gun for hire", and who Dr Plotkin seems to have hired as a media and public relations advisor.
[Some further background. The bushmeat theory of origin proposes that pandemic HIV-1 arose via a single zoonotic (cross-species) infection in around 1931, after a bushmeat hunter or seller became infected with chimpanzee SIV, perhaps through a cut. It does not explain why AIDS (and not only the pandemic, but any of the other three known outbreaks) failed to appear before the twentieth century, and there is a 600-mile distance between the place where the bushmeat proponents believe the crucial zoonosis occurred, and Leopoldville/Kinshasa – the place they believe was the cradle of the epidemic. By contrast, the OPV theory can readily explain these two factors.]
If the arguments that Stanley Plotkin’s letter-writers made in their identical letters were proven, or even scientifically or historically reasonable, then one could not take issue with their campaign. But that is emphatically not the case.
Throughout the course of this campaign, their approach has been to present themselves as disinterested scientific “experts” who, because of their expertise, are party to the truth about how AIDS began. The reality, however, is that the letter-writers have a political agenda – that of suppressing open discussion of an uncomfortable alternative theory (OPV), by means fair or foul.
Almost every one of the scientific claims made by these men and women is either speculative, misleading, or just plain untrue. They rely on hypothesis and assertion, but when examined closely, it becomes apparent that their arguments are not supported by sound scientific reasoning. (I shall support these claims in more detail below.)
Their historical claims are based on a series of falsehoods - falsehoods which have been systematically placed in the medical literature in the last eight years, mainly by the same group of doctors and their allies. A group of three Belgian and Dutch scientists who have been working for Dr Plotkin since 2000, and whose work has been financed at least in part by the company of which Plotkin was formerly managing director (Sanofi Pasteur, formerly known as Aventis Pasteur) has pressured several of the witnesses whom I had previously tape-recorded, and quoted in The River, persuading them to adapt their testimony on key points. African collaborators of Dr Plotkin have used financial inducements to encourage certain African witnesses to do the same. Fortunately, not all of those so approached have acquiesced with this process, and I have evidence (much of it documentary evidence) to illustrate what has happened.
Before I go any further, I should provide some brief background about myself. Between 1985 and 1987 I was a Uganda-based freelance journalist working mainly for the BBC and the Guardian (but on a couple of occasions for CBC radio). I first came across the AIDS epidemic by chance in 1986, and I have been researching and writing exclusively about AIDS since 1987. Since 1990 I have written only three or four articles for newspapers or magazines, so it is hardly appropriate for Dr Plotkin and his allies to refer to me as a “journalist”, though it suits them to do so, and thus imply that I merely have a passing interest in the subject. I don’t much like pigeon-holing myself, but since I have spent the last 19 years researching and writing books about AIDS (and the last 16 years about the origins of the condition), I personally feel that the terms "author" and "science writer" are more appropriate.
The great majority of those who have read my work, and in particular The River, would attest, I believe, that I am a careful and conscientious researcher, a good science writer, and a man of integrity. (Of course, the aforementioned scientists would doubtless disagree!) But at the risk of being accused of blowing my own trumpet, I will go further. In recent years, several scientists who are widely considered to be wise and impartial, and who are well-versed in this field, have told me (or others) that I probably know more about the subject of the origin of AIDS, in all its aspects (scientific, historical and political) than anyone else alive. One person who said this to my face was the great evolutionary biologist, Bill Hamilton, who was my mentor, and who wrote the foreword to The River. Sadly, Bill died in 2000, after paying a second visit to the Congo in an attempt to gather further faecal specimens from chimpanzees. After his death, this unassuming man was lionised, with one obituary describing him as "the greatest biologist since Charles Darwin".
Now let me turn to the "Chimpanzees and journalists" editorial by Dr Stanley Plotkin. It should be noted that Dr Plotkin is on the editorial board of Vaccine, in which the editorial appears, and that this little-known journal therefore provides him with a convenient mouthpiece for his views.
He bases his editorial primarily on an article in the same issue of Vaccine written by Dr Paul Osterrieth, which we may presume was commissioned by Dr Plotkin himself. Dr Osterrieth was head of the virology lab at the Laboratoire Medical de Stanleyville [LMS], where the CHAT vaccine experiments were carried out in the late 1950s. Osterrieth’s article is entitled: “Oral polio vaccine: fact versus fiction”, but unfortunately it relies heavily on the latter. Several of the claims that Osterrieth makes in that article are provably untrue, and some of his claims contradict statements he himself has previously made in published writings on this subject.
Dr Osterrieth has for several years been unreliable about what he did and did not do at the LMS. In the one page paper he presented before the Royal Society in 2000, entitled "Vaccine could not have been prepared in Stanleyville", Dr Osterrieth asserted that "[the polio] [v]accine was never handled in my laboratory, and contamination with chimpanzee cells was not possible". But I have seven or eight witnesses, Belgian and African, who state unequivocally that the polio vaccine in question (CHAT) was handled in his laboratory. Several other witnesses have told me that materials (organs and blood) from some of the 450-odd chimpanzees that were sacrificed at Lindi camp (a holding centre for over 500 chimps that was set up in the rain forest, some 15 kilometres from Stanleyville) were routinely brought to Osterrieth’s lab, so clearly contamination (either accidental or through vaccine production) was possible.
Furthermore, the chief LMS lab technician of that period, Pierre Doupagne, told me in 2002 that he himself had routinely prepared chimpanzee tissue cultures and given them to Dr Osterrieth, "to do what with, I do not know". That was a courageous admission for Doupagne (a personal friend of Osterrieth’s) to make, even if he was not prepared to go the whole way and admit what Osterrieth was doing with the tissue cultures. However, African assistants who were working at the LMS, one of them in Osterrieth’s lab, testify that Osterrieth himself was indeed preparing the polio vaccine there. This process was not complicated, for it simply involved the inoculation of a small quantity of the American-made polio vaccine into chimpanzee tissue culture, to make a larger quantity of new vaccine of higher titer, or concentration. (This is similar to the process of seeding a litre of warm milk with a spoonful of old yogurt, to produce a fresh pot of yogurt.) In short, it is clear that the title of Osterrieth’s article is misleading, and that in reality, vaccine could very readily have been prepared in Stanleyville, just as the lab assistants stated.
Supporting this analysis, I have three significant witnesses who held senior roles with respect to the Stanleyville research programme in the 1950s, and who have told me quite simply that Koprowski’s vaccine was being prepared in the cells of the Lindi chimps. Furthermore, I have eye-witnesses who confirm each individual step of the process, from the extraction of kidneys from an anaesthetised but still living chimpanzee (to minimise the risks of bacterial contamination), to the feeding of vaccine that had been made in Osterrieth’s lab to soldiers in the local army camp. Most of these steps are multiply confirmed.
To sum up, I believe there is overwhelming evidence (both documentary and testimonial) to show that Dr Osterrieth is not telling the truth about the work he did at the LMS.
However, in his editorial, Dr Plotkin predicates his entire argument on the assumption that the claims in Osterrieth’s "Fact versus fiction" article should be treated as gospel truth, and therefore as an irrevocable disproof of my claim that CHAT vaccine was being prepared locally, and in chimpanzee cells. Let me now address some of the specific scientific claims made in the Vaccine editorial. Unlike several of Dr Plotkin’s previous contributions on this subject, this article is written in seemingly restrained and reasonable language. However, that title, "Chimpanzees and journalists" gives some sense of the aggression that is bubbling beneath the surface.
[In each case below, I indicate the paragraph of the editorial in which the initial claim appears. I list some appropriate supporting references at the end of this letter.]
a) [Paragraph 2] Plotkin’s assertion that the "physical evidence" presented at two conferences on the origins of HIV-1, held at London and Rome, "was all against the OPV hypothesis" is a falsehood. To explain why, I need first to provide some brief background about those meetings, both of which (though the Plotkin camp might deny it) were convened in direct response to a reawakening of public and scientific interest in the OPV hypothesis, after The River was published in 1999.
The Society meeting held in London in 2000 was carefully choreographed by the above-mentioned doctors, Weiss and Wain-Hobson, in order to present an apparent victory for the medical powers-that-be, and a come-uppance for myself - and was so reported in most press outlets. (Bill Hamilton, who had initially proposed this conference to the Royal Society, was also scheduled to be a co-organiser, but sadly he died before the meeting took place.) Before the conference, the list of speakers was adapted in order to overcome the objections of doctors Plotkin, Koprowski, Hahn and Korber, who had otherwise threatened to boycott the meeting. Dr Weiss insisted that only one epidemiologist (Dr Kevin De Cock, a collaborator of Dr Hahn’s) should be allowed as a full speaker, and at the end of the meeting, Weiss delivered a profoundly biased closing speech.
At the Rome meeting a year later (also initially proposed by Bill Hamilton) I was asked to speak in his place, which was a great honour. Here, the balance of speakers was much fairer. Yet Dr Weiss had again been invited in order to give the closing comments, and again his analysis was one-sided, simply ignoring most of the new information I had presented. I was so disgusted that I found myself rising from my chair and walking out.
In reality, not one single piece of "physical evidence" against the OPV theory was presented at either of these conferences.
None the less, let me examine the evidence that was presented. At the Royal Society meeting, various scientists reported the testing of five or six different American-made pools of the suspect polio vaccine, CHAT, which had belatedly been released by Koprowski’s former institute, the Wistar. They found these CHAT samples to be free of HIV-1, chimpanzee SIV, and chimp DNA – and their negative results were undoubtedly accurately reported. However, doctors Plotkin and Koprowski then falsely claimed that these were the same vaccines that had been used in Africa. In fact, none of these vaccine samples had ever been near Africa, and neither were they from the same vaccine batches that were used in Africa. (A batch represents vaccine made in a single production run. Therefore every vaccine batch is considered homogenous, which cannot be said of every vaccine pool.)
My suspicions about this crucial detail were confirmed in early 2001, when I returned to Africa for eight weeks, and discovered that batches of CHAT vaccine had been locally prepared in Stanleyville/Kisangani. Put simply, the original vaccine had been regrown locally in the cells and sera of common chimpanzees, hundreds of which were available (supposedly merely for testing polio vaccine safety) at Lindi camp. I have since learnt that in the late 1950s it was standard practice for recipient laboratories in places like Europe, Africa and Asia to regrow American-produced polio vaccines in locally available tissue culture cells. This had the effect of boosting both quantity and also titer, or concentration. (However, in the case of the Stanleyville research, there may also have been an experimental aspect to the work.)
Plotkin, Koprowski and Osterrieth have stated that my claims that CHAT was prepared locally in Stanleyville are based on the memories of unreliable African technicians, who didn’t know what was going on. I find this (to say the least) quite condescending. However, since my 2001 trip, further (senior, non-African) sources have confirmed this crucial detail about local preparation in Stanleyville, and it is now apparent that the majority of the CHAT vaccine used in Africa (with the exception of a final campaign in Burundi, which occurred at the start of 1960) was locally prepared.
(One further related point. Plotkin claims that since The River was published, "the author seems to have abandoned the idea that contamination occurred in Philadelphia and now postulates wildcat production of CHAT in chimpanzee cells in Stanleyville". What he fails to say is that my initial belief that the vaccine could only have been made in America or Europe was based almost exclusively on assurances provided by himself and Dr Koprowski, and by doctors Osterrieth and Ninane from the LMS. I can now prove that significant parts of the information provided by these doctors in their early interviews was deliberately misleading. I detected much of this false testimony before The River was published in 1999, but as I say, only obtained confirmation that vaccine had been locally prepared in chimp cells in 2001.)
b) [Paragraph 2] Plotkin, Hahn and Korber claim that the ancestor of HIV-1 existed in or around 1931, long before the polio vaccine trials. However, this is pseudo-science, using a false model to "calculate" the age of the virus. (More than any other organism known to medical science, HIV-1 evolves through recombination, a process whereby two different strains of the virus meet inside a cell – either in a living host, or else in a tissue culture in a laboratory - and exchange genetic material to produce an entirely new progeny. Some have described this process as "viral sex". 90% of HIV-1’s evolution occurs through recombination, and only 10% through mutation, an entirely different process. Yet the dating techniques of the geneticists like Korber are able to measure only mutation. The geneticists’ claims that they can date the age of the HIVs by theoretical calculations are, quite simply, spurious.)
[Paragraph 2] Plotkin claims that "the chimpanzees available to the [Stanleyville] research team in the late 1950s, had they been infected with SIV, would have been infected by strains distant from HIV-1", but this is pure speculation.
Plotkin and Hahn both assert that the true ancestor of pandemic HIV-1 is found only in one sub-species of the common chimp, Pan troglodytes troglodytes [ptt], the range of which begins 800 miles west of Kisangani/Stanleyville. It is true that the genetic analysis of chimp SIVs that has been published to date suggests that SIV-infected Ptt chimps seem to have a virus that is normally about 10% closer genetically to pandemic HIV-1 than the SIV of the Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii [Pts] chimps that are found near Stanleyville/Kisangani. However, fewer than 1 in 200 chimp troops from central Africa have been sampled, and all the sampling carried out to date has been done either by Beatrice Hahn or her collaborators. There is evidence to suggest that certain interesting results that do not fit with her overall thesis may not have been published.
Furthermore, this entire line of enquiry may well be irrelevant. Firstly, because I have recently located a document that proves what I had long suspected from anecdotal accounts: that the Ptt sub-species of chimps was also present among the research animals used at Stanleyville. The second reason is that if pandemic HIV-1 arose through recombination between different chimp SIV strains, as appears increasingly likely, then the SIVs from either sub-species (Ptt or Pts), or indeed both sub-species, could have provided the necessary ingredients.
Lastly, Dr Plotkin raises doubts about whether the Stanleyville chimps would have been SIV-infected. However, roughly 13% of wild chimpanzees (both Ptt and Pts) seem to be naturally infected with SIV, meaning that approximately 50 of the chimps that were specifically used for the polio research are likely to have been SIV-infected upon arrival at Lindi camp. Co-caging and group caging of chimps were practised at both Lindi and the LMS research hangar, which would have readily allowed onward transmission of SIVs, whether from Pts or Ptt, to further chimpanzees of either sub-species.
d) [Paragraph 1] Plotkin writes that: "A correlation between locations where CHAT was administered and early possible cases of AIDS was also proposed [by Hooper], though the supposed correlation was later heavily criticised." The claims by Dr De Cock that there was no epidemiological linkage between the vaccinations and the first appearances of HIV-1 and AIDS were inherently slanted, and all the more so because he inexplicably excluded the vaccinations in Ruanda-Urundi, which made up two-thirds of the total, from his analysis. Plotkin’s own analysis of the data was indeed heavily critical of me, but it was also highly revealing, being littered with mistakes, which served to show both his bias and his ignorance of African geography.
An experienced statistician has since looked at the raw data, and concluded that the correlations between CHAT vaccinations and early HIV-1 are "highly significant" (meaning there is a chance of less than 1 in 1,000 that the findings result from coincidence), and those between the vaccinations and early AIDS are "significant" (a less than 1 in 100 chance of coincidence). These two quite separate epidemiological confirmations are immensely important, and the work will be published soon.
e) [Paragraph 3] Plotkin claims that virologists who visited the LMS in the 1950s state that "Osterrieth’s attempts at simian cell culture [ie making tissue culture] post-date the vaccination campaign in which HIV-transfer supposedly occurred." Yet information obtained from Pierre Doupagne in Belgium, and his assistant in Africa indicates the opposite. They claim that they were preparing chimp cultures from 1956 (the year Lindi camp opened) at latest, and supplying them to Osterrieth. Furthermore, one of Osterrieth’s assistants states that Osterrieth was making polio vaccine in the weeks immediately preceding the key vaccination campaign in Ruzizi (which occurred in February to April 1958).
f) [Paragraph 4] Plotkin suggests that technicians and other persons working at the LMS may have confused "diluting a [vaccine] stock made in Philadelphia" with "making new vaccine". Again, this is disingenuous and misleading. Both contemporary articles and the personal diary of one of the vaccinators reveal that dilution of the CHAT vaccine in Africa took place not in the lab, but in the field, on the morning that the vaccine was to be used. Later, Plotkin writes that: "Those scientists with a technical background sufficient to make the distinction [between diluting vaccine and making vaccine] are unanimous in doubting that a vaccine could have been produced [in Stanleyville]." This claim is absurd. Growing polio vaccine virus in local tissue culture is not a difficult process, provided that all lab tools and glassware are kept sterile. Killed polio vaccines were being produced locally in Africa in the cells of local primates from 1953 onwards, and live vaccines were being similarly produced from 1955 onwards. One of the places where both types of vaccine were being produced was the small veterinary lab of Gabu, in the same Congolese province as Stanleyville. The vaccine-maker was an inconoclastic Polish vet called Alexandre Jezierski, with whose work both Koprowski and his Belgian collaborators were familiar, from (respectively) 1955 and 1954 onwards.
g) [Paragraph 5] Plotkin states that "Although the journalist in question will never abandon his ideas, they have not been confirmed, and it is unfortunate that they have hindered eradication of polio by OPV in Africa." The latter claim, just like similar claims by Dr Koprowski, is false, and is part of a smear campaign designed to present me as the villain of the piece. Different peoples in Africa have been refusing to accept vaccines since the beginning of the last century, and refusing polio vaccines since at least the 1970s. The reasons given are various, and include fears that the vaccines are contaminated with substances such as "family planning drugs", "cancer" and "AIDS". Plotkin and Koprowski’s claims are pure fabrication, for not one of the articles they cite actually blames vaccine refusal on my work. Indeed, one of the articles cited by Koprowski does not even exist! In reality, the recent rejection of polio vaccines in northern Nigeria seems to have been largely based on religio-cultural-political concerns following 9/11.
Furthermore, virologists with whom I have spoken believe that for a variety of technical reasons, complete eradication of poliovirus from the planet may prove to be extremely difficult. It may therefore suit the interests of certain scientists to try to blame the failure to eradicate polio (which was originally scheduled for year 2000) on myself. I should perhaps add that in all my public statements on this issue, I have always stressed that: "as far as is known, modern polio vaccines are safe."
Dr Plotkin asserts that "[t]he journalist in question will never abandon his ideas", but again he is wrong. I am perfectly prepared to abandon my "ideas" if Dr Plotkin or others ever produce a single piece of compelling proof to refute the OPV theory. Up to now, all Dr Plotkin has managed to produce is a mixture of indignation, sloppy science, and false testimonies. There is now so much evidence of false reporting by Plotkin and his collaborators, and by some of the sources he quotes, that no impartial observer could reasonably explain away all the instances as "honest mistakes" or the product of "faulty memories". It is now quite clear that a deliberate cover-up is underway.
In the last seven years this cover-up has been greatly assisted by scientific friends and colleagues of Plotkin and Koprowski, some of whom are quite innocently inclined to "take their word for it". The cover-up has also been assisted by certain defensive virologists and public health officials who believe that an attack on the safety of any vaccine, even an experimental vaccine used only in the late 1950s, constitutes an attack on the safety of vaccination per se.
A major role in the process has been played by the two main pillars of scientific enquiry, Nature and Science, which over the last seven years have regularly published (to great fanfare) new "disproofs" and "refutations" of the OPV theory, not one of which has stood up scientifically. Yet these journals steadfastly refuse to publish the responses of those (including myself) who think differently, or even to allow the theory they are so determined to refute to be laid out, just once, in their pages.
It is surely no coincidence that all major coverage of AIDS in Nature is channelled through Robin Weiss, while major AIDS coverage in Science is apparently routed through another committed defender of Koprowski, Jon Cohen.
I have already written far more than I intended to write. Apart from supplying some supporting references (mainly essays from my web-site, which themselves cite a wide range of references), I will now bring this response to a close.
One thing I should make clear, however, is that I am fully familiar with the libel laws, and that I can support the claims made in this letter.
Dr Plotkin has tried threatening me legally on two occasions, and his old boss, Dr Koprowski, has done so on three occasions. On each occasion, I responded robustly, and never heard from them again.
In reality, these two men will never carry through a legal suit against me, because they are fully aware (a) that even if I had to finance it myself, I would go to court to fight them; (b) that they would not win such a court case; and (c) that so much information directly confounding their claims would come to light that the event would almost certainly arouse considerable media interest.
Their technique, instead, is quietly to pressure people such as television executives, film festival organisers, book publishers and journal publishers with letters of the type you have received, letters which falsely seek to present the debate as one that they have already won, and letters which (in the past at least) have often hinted at the possibility of legal action. Using such clandestine approaches, they have achieved a surprising degree of success in promoting their own fabricated versions of history, and suppressing the OPV theory.
I believe that such smoke and mirrors techniques have traditionally been used in the past by certain corporations, such as those that have been determined to promote the safety of cigarette-smoking, or to present the concept of global warming as a myth.
I estimate that I get to hear about only some 20% to 30% of such approaches - but whenever I have the time, I try - as here - to provide appropriate counter-evidence.
If you do wish to have further details, I would be willing to cooperate, and could, if required, supply supporting material for the claims made in this letter. However, I’m afraid I could only do this if I were paid professional rates for my time. I am 100% independent in my research, and I have placed a lot of my written material in the public domain so that it is feely available, for instance on my web-site, www.aidsorigins.com. However, I am currently busy with my own work, and so would need to charge for any further hours or days spent following up this issue on your behalf.
I hope that this discussion of the Plotkin documents has been of assistance to you.
Edward Hooper
(all of which can be found on www.aidsorigins.com):
1) A response to the alleged scientific "disproofs" of the OPV theory that are claimed by Dr Plotkin and his collaborators:
"The latest scientific evidence strongly supports the OPV theory",E. Hooper; January 2005.
2) An analysis of the slanted nature of the debate at the Royal Society:
The Politics of a Scientific Meeting: The Origin-of-AIDS Debate at the Royal Society , B. Martin, Politics and the Life Sciences 20 (2) 119-130 (September 2005).
3) A response to Dr Plotkin’s claims that The River has endangered the global polio eradication campaign:
"As far as is known, modern polio vaccines are safe", E. Hooper; February 2004.
4) My latest article responding to Dr Beatrice Hahn’s claims that she has discovered the "source" of HIV-1:
"The Hollywooding of Science", E. Hooper; August 2006.
5) If proved, the OPV theory might spark a billion-dollar class-action law suit. For this and other reasons, there are genuine concerns that one of Dr Plotkin’s supporters might be tempted to fabricate "evidence" in a bid to support his position. In the following article, I highlight the genuine concerns that one of these scientists might be tempted to cheat in a big way.
"Three warnings about potential future malpractice by members of 'the bushmeat group’", E. Hooper; August 2006.
6) In this article, I describe how, in 2001, doctors collaborating with Stanley Plotkin smuggled highly relevant 1950s biopsy and autopsy samples out of Kisangani (formerly Stanleyville); nothing has been heard of them since.
"The annexing of the Stanleyville samples", E. Hooper; November 2004.
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Ford announces scrappage scheme for pre-Euro 5 vehicles
Freight & Transport, Passenger Cars
Will Date
Car-giant Ford has announced a car and van scrappage scheme for pre-Euro 5 vehicles, which will offer customers incentives to switch to lower emission Euro 6 models.
Applicable to Ford cars or vans registered before December 2009, the scheme will enable eligible consumers to benefit from of a scrappage incentive of £2,000 which can be used to offset the price of a variety of new petrol or diesel model.
Ford customers can get a £2,000 incentive for scrapping pre-Euro 5 petrol and diesel vehicles registered in 2009 or earlier
The scrappage programme will run to the end of the year and is effective for registrations from 1 September to 31 December 2017.
Announcing the scheme, Andy Barratt, chairman and managing director of Ford of Britain “Ford shares society’s concerns over air quality. Removing generations of the most polluting vehicles will have the most immediate positive effect on air quality, and this Ford scrappage scheme aims to do just that.
“We don’t believe incentivising sales of new cars goes far enough and we will ensure that all trade-in vehicles are scrapped. Acting together we can take hundreds of thousands of the dirtiest cars off our roads and out of our cities.”
According to Ford, all of its new EcoBoost petrol and EcoBlue diesel models meet the Euro 6 standard, which came into effect in September 2015.
The standard sets a maximum emission limit of 0.06g/km for nitrogen oxides from petrol vehicles, 0.08g/km for nitrogen oxides from diesel vehicles and 0.0045g/km particulate matter from diesel.
In order to be eligible for the Ford scrappage scheme, the vehicle is required to have been registered up to 31 December 2009, and must have been registered in the owner’s name for at least 90 days. The trade-in vehicle must be scrapped to receive the incentive.
All new ships should be zero-emission capable by 2025, says DfT
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Window On The Arctic
Image source: www.abercrombiekent.com
A new observatory at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean will help keeps tabs on the delicate environment of the far north.
Canada’s University of Victoria, which runs the station has stated that the observatory will relay information continuously throughout the year for the first time ever.
The observatory includes an underwater camera, microphone, and a device that can measure ice thickness, coupled with instruments to measure temperature, salinity, and other data that can be used to monitor the health of the environment.
There is also an above-ground weather station to track local weather patterns and climate data.
University of Victoria researchers finished installing the observatory’s instruments in late 2012 before frigid conditions could halt their progress. It’s located in Cambridge Bay, in the Canadian province of Nunavut, north of the Arctic Circle.
The design of the new observatory is based in part on two larger networks of seafloor monitors off the coast of British Columbia’s Vancouver Island, named VENUS and NEPTUNE. The latter is made up of six different instrument stations that gather data on plate tectonics, hydrothermal vents and deep sea creatures.
NEPTUNE Canada, the world’s first regional-scale cabled observatory network, is located off the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The network, which extends across the Juan de Fuca plate, gathers live data from a rich constellation of instruments deployed in a broad spectrum of undersea environments.
VENUS was installed in the Saanich Inlet array in early 2006. The Strait of Georgia Mid-Water node was deployed at 170m in early 2008 and later that year, the Deep Water Node at 287m. The data is transmitted via high-speed fibre optic communications from the seafloor to an innovative data archival system at the University of Victoria. This system provides free Internet access to an immense wealth of data, both live and archived throughout the life of the planned 25-year project.
The new observatory built on Arctic Ocean seafloor in Nunavut, Canada will track climate and ocean data that could be used to sustain the fragile environment.
Written by Jenne Attebery KopalekPosted in Ecology, Science, Society, TechnologyTags: Arctic, Arctic Circle, Meteorology, Underwater observatory, weatherDecember 6, 2013
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Home » Search My Neighborhood » Events » Calendar of Events » Somerset County » Upcoming events at TD Bank Ballpark
Upcoming events at TD Bank Ballpark Family Events in Somerset County
31 upcoming events at TD Bank Ballpark
To ensure the best possible experience, please check with the host before attending in case details have changed.
Somerset Patriots vs. York Revolution Sports PG Pick!
The Somerset Patriots will welcome SpongeBob SquarePants to the ballpark to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the premier of the legendary children's show. The team has partnered with the ALS...
When: Wednesday, July 17, 7:05PM-10:05PM
Where: TD Bank Ballpark, 1 Patriots Park, Bridgewater, NJ 08807
Join us at TD Bank Ballpark for a special 11:05 am Day Game. It's a Businessperson Special. Take an extended lunch break and get out of the office for a little fun at the ballpark!
When: Thursday, July 18, 11:05PM-2:05PM
Somerset Patriots vs. Long Island Ducks Sports PG Pick!
Don't miss the Best FIREWORKS Show in New Jersey following the game.
When: Friday, July 26, 7:05PM-10:05PM
When: Saturday, July 27, 7:05PM-10:05PM
The ZOOperstars will entertain fans throughout the game. Come out and enjoy one of the best entertainment acts in minor league baseball! The game features Scout Night with the Somerset Patriots....
When: Sunday, July 28, 5:05PM-8:05PM
Join us at TD Bank Ballpark for Bark In The Park Night. Bring your well-behaved, socialized dog to the game to enjoy a night out with the whole family. Dogs must have all their shots and be...
When: Tuesday, July 30, 7:05PM-10:05PM
The first 1,500 Fans in attendance will receive a Fan Choice Bobblehead when they enter the ballpark. The Somerset Patriots will host Sparkee's Birthday Bash. Come celebrate with Sparkee and all...
Join us at TD Bank Ballpark for a special 11:05 am Day Game. It's a Businessperson Special. Take an extended lunch break and get out of the office for a little fun at the ballpark! It's a Senior...
When: Wednesday, July 31, 11:05PM-2:05PM
When: Thursday, August 1, 7:05PM-10:05PM
Somerset Patriots vs. Sugar Land Skeeters Sports PG Pick!
The first 2,500 Fans in attendance will receive a T-Shirt when they enter the ballpark. The Somerset Patriots will host 90's Night at the ballpark. Fans will be able to enjoy different activities...
When: Friday, August 9, 7:05PM-10:05PM
Come out and enjoy Somerset Patriots Baseball followed by the Best FIREWORKS Show In New Jersey! The game features a Fortnite event at the ballpark. Fans will be able to play the popular survival...
When: Saturday, August 10, 7:05PM-10:05PM
The Somerset Patriots will host a special 30th Anniversary Celebration of the sports comedy classic Major League. Actor Corbin Bernsen, who played 3B Roger Dorn in the movie, will appear at the...
When: Sunday, August 11, 5:05PM-8:05PM
Somerset Patriots vs. Lancaster Barnstormers Sports PG Pick!
The game features STAR WARS Night with the Somerset Patriots. Come out and see your favorite STAR WARS characters at the game. Characters will take pictures during the game on the main concourse....
When: Tuesday, August 13, 7:05PM-10:05PM
When: Wednesday, August 14, 11:05PM-2:05PM
The game features Garden State Agricultural Night. Enjoy a Farmers Fair at TD Bank Ballpark from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm
When: Thursday, August 15, 7:05PM-10:05PM
Somerset Patriots vs. Southern Maryland Blue Crabs Sports PG Pick!
The game features Polish Heritage Night at the ballpark. Enjoy food specials, music, and much more celebrating Polish Heritage.
When: Friday, August 23, 7:05PM-10:05PM
Come out and enjoy Somerset Patriots Baseball followed by the Best FIREWORKS Show In New Jersey!
The first 2,000 Fans in attendance will receive a T-Shirt. The game is our annual Veterans of America Day Celebration at TD Bank Ballpark. Arrive early and help us honor our Veterans in a special...
When: Monday, August 26, 7:05PM-10:05PM
The first 2,000 Fans in attendance will receive a Bookmark.
It's a Senior Wednesday at TD Bank Ballpark. All fans 55+ will receive $5.00 Upper Box Tickets at the Box Office for this game. This game is an Unused Ticket or Voucher Exchange Date! Bring any...
When: Wednesday, August 28, 7:05PM-10:05PM
Come out and enjoy Somerset Patriots Baseball followed by the Best FIREWORKS Show In New Jersey! The game features Scout Night with the Somerset Patriots. Bring your Scout Group out to the...
Somerset Patriots vs. High Point Rockers Sports PG Pick!
Don't miss the Best FIREWORKS Show in New Jersey following the game. The game features Knights of Columbus Night at TD Bank Ballpark.
When: Friday, September 6, 7:05PM-10:05PM
The game is Superhero Day with the Somerset Patriots. The first 1,000 Kids in attendance will receive a Superhero Cape. Fans will be able to celebrate the 80th Anniversary of Batman at the game....
When: Saturday, September 7, 7:05PM-10:05PM
The game features a Grandparents Day Celebration at the ballpark! Come out to the ballpark early to meet and get autographs from all the Somerset Patriots players and coaches in the Sunday...
When: Sunday, September 8, 1:05PM-4:05PM
This game is an Unused Ticket or Voucher Exchange Date! Bring any unused tickets or vouchers from this season to the ticket office to exchange them for a ticket to this game.
When: Tuesday, September 10, 6:35PM-9:35PM
When: Wednesday, September 11, 6:35PM-9:35PM
When: Thursday, September 12, 6:35PM-9:35PM
Somerset Patriots vs. New Britain Bees Sports PG Pick!
Somerset Patriots vs. New Britain Bees at TD Bank Ballpark!
When: Friday, September 20, 7:05PM-10:05PM
Don't miss the Best FIREWORKS Show in New Jersey following the game. The game features our annual Irish Heritage Night at the ballpark. There will be a pre-game bag piper playing out front of the...
When: Saturday, September 21, 7:05PM-10:05PM
The game features Halloween Day at the ballpark! Come out to the ballpark early to meet and get autographs from all the Somerset Patriots players and coaches in the Sunday Autograph Session...
When: Sunday, September 22, 1:05PM-4:05PM
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HITMAN from Halifax is a band that should be checked out. Anders Ekdahl ©2018
Let’s start with your latest recording. When you look back at it now what kind of feelings do you have for it?
-We are extremely excited to have our newest recordings finished. Looking back, it feels like a long road to get this EP to where it is now. It actually started off as a full length but due to time restrictions we ended up cutting it into part 1 and part 2. So there will be a second half coming early next year.
We love these songs and are proud of what we have accomplished but are even more excited for the future. We have definitely grown as a band even since starting this EP over a year ago.
I am fascinated by band names. What was it that made you settle on the one you have and what does it mean to you?
-Hitman was originally the title of one of our old songs that we no longer play. We had a show coming up and didn’t have a band name yet so we ended up using it as more of a placeholder just for that show… but as the years went on, all of a sudden we had shirts, CDs and flags. So I guess it stuck, haha.
What does it mean to you that there are people out there that actually appreciate and look forward to what you are doing?
-It’s amazing. It’s the greatest feeling to see someone you don’t know wearing your shirt or someone driving by blasting one of your songs. It’s nice to see the band growing every day and gaining new fans.
How important is image to the band? What impression do you want the fans to get of the band?
-We aren’t a very image driven band. We all wear what is comfortable. I (Sylvain) have played with a few bands who force you to wear the pants, and cut off sleeves and I couldn’t stand it. I much prefer to wear what is comfortable, as do the rest of the guys. We just try to let the music speak for itself. I’ve never really gotten into bands that are overly gimmicky.
I am a huge fan of LP art work. How important is it to have the right art work for your album?
-LP art is definitely very important. It’s the initial thing a potential new fan is going to notice if they are browsing in a record store (those are still a thing right?). When we get our artwork designed, I always try to think of how it would look blown up, or on a shirt. There are always multiple uses for one image. And if you’re lucky someone might get it tattooed on them, who knows! Haha
We live in a superficial world today where you don’t exist if you are not on Youtube and Facebook. Has social media been only beneficial in socializing with the fans or is there a down side to it too?
-I think social media is playing an awesome role in band development. People all over the world can stumble upon your music just by accident now. That would have been pretty much unheard of in the last generation. But with anything so new, there are definitely some downsides, but a lot if it is just learning how to play the same game differently.
When you play in a band does it feel like you are a part of a massive community? That you belong to something that gives meaning to your life?
-Absolutely, I think for all of us in the band, the music we play and the music we listen to and love, has shaped our lives to a sizable extent. For the four of us, music is pretty front and center even when we’re not on stage. Most of the closest people in our lives at this point, we’ve met through music in one way or another. But it’s not only our close circle; all it takes is to go on the road and you quickly see that there is some shared sense of community in the metal scene where ever you go. People we’ve never met before readily show us hospitality and are quick friends. I think because metal and heavier music isn’t so mainstream, that there’s this sense of community and belonging that exists, that may not be there for a lot of other types of music; like you’re in on this cool secret that not everyone is privy to or understands. It’s something that is our own and belongs to us…something that’s not just generically marketed to the masses.
When you are in the middle of it do you notice what state our beloved music scene is in? Is the scene healthy or does it suffer from some ailment?
-There will always be ups and downs. We’ve played packed shows and we’ve played shows where the crowd was a little lacking, haha. One thing I know for sure is that the people that love this kind of music LOVE this kind of music. The passion is definitely not lacking. As an independent touring band somewhat isolated on the East Coast of Canada where there aren’t any huge populations, they key is getting your product… your music… out there before you hit the road. It can be tough getting people to your shows the first time you hit a new city if no one has heard you or heard of you before. Touring and touring and touring some more is one way to get your music and name out there. Wrangling that beast known as social media, like we were talking about before, is another way. As far as the scene on a larger scale, there are metal bands packing stadiums and outdoor festivals around the world so I don’t feel like the scene is on life-support or anything. What’s important is getting these younger and newer bands playing these stadiums and festivals with some of the old guard metal bands that still command an audience. People need to be exposed to these up and coming bands. I’ve heard criticism that it’s a lot of the “older” bands in the scene that are still the main draws, but I can attest first hand that there are many, MANY jaw-dropping, amazing, talented metal bands doing the independent circuit, playing smaller shows, that are more than qualified to carry the torch.
How much of a touring band are you guys? How hard is it to get gigs outside of your borders?
-We are usually on the road quite a bit. This year has been a little slower with our focus on getting this EP finished. Over the last few years we have covered a ton of Canada and ventured over to the States once to play Warped Tour.
This year we’ve just been doing some festivals in Atlantic Canada, laying low to get the album done and planning for a tour in Europe for next summer.
What will the future bring?
-Tons of new fans, tons of tasty beers, lots of sleeping in vans and huge shows if we have a bit of luck.
« MOUNTAINEER
HAMADRIA »
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Interview with bluesman Steve Freund, a veteran musician where continues to share his love for the blues
Posted by Michael Limnios Blues Network on April 22, 2013 at 4:38pm
"People still have dramatic life experiences, and there are still artists who can express these experiences through music."
Steve Freund: The Flame of Blues Heat
Guitarist, producer and bandleader Steve Freund, praised by Rolling Stone for his "masterful, no-nonsense guitar work" continues to share his feeling for the blues wherever he can. Steve has appeared on over 34 albums, and produced seven. Steve’s third studio album, Lonesome Flight, was released by 9 Below Productions in 2010 and included nine original songs along with four blues classics. He also played on Koko Taylor’s Grammy winning Blues Explosion.
Steve began his career in Chicago as a second guitar behind Hubert Sumlin, Lee Jackson, Homesick James, Louis Myers, and many others. He spent two years working with Big Walter Horton and Floyd Jones, learning the deep blues and the idiosyncrasies that are part of the art. In 1978, he became Sunnyland Slim's main guitarist, playing just about every gig with the piano legend until the time of his death. Freund became the consummate piano accompanist working with Pinetop Perkins, Jimmy Walker, Henry Gray, Erwin Helfer and many more. He also spent nine years working with harmonica legend James Cotton.
Freund's dedication and knowledge of the blues earned him the opportunity to teach accredited courses at Chicago's Columbia College in 1993-94. He moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1990’s. He plays regularly at The Saloon in San Francisco, Cafe Van Kleef in Oakland, Armando's in Martinez and also tours nationally and internationally.
What do you learn about yourself from the blues, what does the blues mean to you?
The blues is the canvas that I paint my feelings on. It changes my emotions. It is a language that I speak.
What experiences in your life make you a GOOD BLUES MUSICIAN and SONGWRITER?
The deaths of my friends and family, love lost, and separation, all have influenced my performing and songwriting.
How do you describe Steve Freund sound and progress, which is your music philosophy?
I seek a clean guitar tone with a bit of "heat" to it. I prefer "round notes". I strive to sing and play with taste and creativity, and hope my sound continues to achieve a higher level each day.
From whom have you have learned the most secrets about blues? What is the best advice ever given you?
Playing with all the legends for many years has unlocked the secrets to me just by association, just by being with them. The best advice came from Floyd Jones and Hubert Sumlin, who both advised me to "just be yourself. Don't try to play like someone else." Fred Below also suggested that I try to play more like a saxophone. All good advice.
I won't mention the worst moment, and there have been several highlights. The most recent was sharing the stage at the San Francisco Blues Festival with Otis Rush.
What is the “feel” you miss most nowadays from the 70s and old days of Blues?
It's hard to explain. There are many great musicians playing today, but very few who had the life experiences of my old friends who came up during the years of racial segregation and bigotry. That is just a feeling.
Are there any memories from Big Walter Horton, Paul Butterfield, and Sunnyland Slim which you’d like to share with us?
Every night with Walter was an event each time we played. Same for Sunnyland and Paul. It was magical. I have no words for it.
Which memory from Hubert Sumlin, Koko Taylor, Homesick James, and Louis Myers, makes you smile?
Homesick James was the first person to ever let me sit in with a band in Chicago. Hubert was the second. Those were huge thrills for me. They treated me very, very well, especially Hubert. We all remained friends for many years. Traveling through Europe and Canada with Koko was an experience each night. One night that stands out with her was a night in Canada when all the water in the hotel toilets were frozen solid. I was on Louis's last recording, and i went to his house several times to rehearse and help arrange songs with him. Sitting in his small apartment in Chicago was a semi-sweet experience for me.
New York, Chicago and San Francisco. What the difference and similarity between the local blues scenes: East and West?
To me, NYC was never a real "blues" town. When I moved to Chicago it was rocking every night, all night long. That seems to have changed nowadays. There are very few bands playing traditional blues there now. The west coast has many bands playing many styles, and you can find some real good down-home blues out here. That's one of the reasons I have stayed here so long.
What’s the best jam you ever played in? What are some of the most memorable gigs you've had?
Jamming with Willie Mabon, Champion Jack Dupree, and Big Mama Thornton all stand out as memorable jams. All my gigs with Sunnyland, Big Walter, Floyd Jones, and Otis Rush are quite memorable.
Some music styles can be fads but the blues is always with us. Why do think that is? Give one wish for the BLUES
Blues is the music of the people. It speaks the truth and it can hypnotize you when it is played right. I wish for young musicians to come after me and continue to honor the traditional styles.
Which things do you prefer to do in your free time? Happiness is……
Gardening, cooking, hiking, biking, and listening to and playing guitar as much as I can.
When we talk about blues, we usually refer to memories and moments of the past. Apart from the old cats of blues, do you believe in the existence of real blues nowadays?
Yes I do. People still have dramatic life experiences, and there are still artists who can express these experiences through music.
Do you believe that there is “misuse”, that there is a trend to misappropriate the name of blues?
Sometimes people think that just because they play a certain progression, say a 12 bar progression, that it's blues. For me there has to be some sort of emotion, some "angst" for me to call it blues. It can still be great music, but without a certain feeling I don't call it blues. Blues is in the ear of the beholder.
Do you think that your progress is as it started out? Or has this changed and are you pointing in a new direction?
I still play the same styles of music that I started out playing, with the addition of some "jazz" or jump blues. I still enjoy the Mississippi style of blues the most, whether it's acoustic or electric.
Which incident of your life you‘d like to be captured and illustrated in a painting?
This is the best question of the interview, and I have thought about it for quite a while. I suppose my birth would make a good painting as I hope my innocence could be captured. That would be like an empty canvas ready to be painted on.
Steve Freund - Official website
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You are here: Home / Innovations / Internet security program looks to expand
Internet security program looks to expand
December 6, 2012 By Online Editor
By: Tyler Costello
The college’s internet security program looks to increase enrollment and add a fourth year to focus on assessing computer and network security techniques.
Algonquin’s Internet security program, currently in its third year, is already looking to expand in order to meet the demand of a growing industry.
“IT security companies are all lamenting the lack of experienced skilled people in this field,” said Tom Levasseur, who works for CGI Group Inc., one of the largest IT consulting firms in the region and a provider of part-time teaching staff to the program. He also founded and owns HackingAway.org, a website that focuses on cyber security.
“Another year would give the students skills that will make them immediately more useful right from their first job,” said Levasseur.
Right now the program has 24 seats once a year but the college is investigating the possibility of increasing that to around 30 to 48 or running it twice a year, says Patrick Ouellette, program coordinator of the computer systems technician and technology program.
“We’re in the process of putting a proposal together for further training beyond that,” said Ouellette.
Ouellette said he would like to see another year added to the program so that students can gain that more in depth, applied learning.
An additional year would likely focus on penetration testing, a method of evaluating the security of a computer system or network by simulating an attack.
“It would be a good idea to expand it, there have been a lot of breaches going on each and every year,” said Jesse Aboagye, a student in the program. “I would take it if they were teaching those technical skills because the demand is high.”
The field of Internet security is growing quickly because as more people use the Internet more opportunities for security issues arise, says Levasseur.
“The cyber criminals are finding more and more ways to steal data that can be sold at a profit. These criminals are becoming more numerous and more sophisticated, so we defenders must do the same,” said Levasseur.
“There is a problem… but Algonquin is getting to a position where we are starting to train people that will help,” said Ouellette.
Students can enroll in the program after they have graduated from the two-year computer systems technician program.
In those first two years students learn operating systems, hardware and all the components that make up the IT world. After graduating the students have the option of taking a third year with a choice of networking or Internet security.
To be accepted into a third year of Internet security, “You have to have a very high GPA, you have to be an achiever and a go-getter,” said Ouellette.
Once in the program students learn a variety of tools that will help with Internet security such as intrusion prevention, digital forensics and disaster recovery plans.
“They teach us how someone might break into a system in a very controlled way,” said David Corson, the Students’ Association president and a student in the program.
“You’re protecting everything and all the potential ways that somebody could get in, the hacker needs one,” said Ouellette. “Because of that, it’s a very tough game.”
Internet security program looks to expand Reviewed by Online Editor on December 6, 2012 .
By: Tyler Costello Algonquin’s Internet security program, currently in its third year, is already looking to expand in order to meet the demand of a growing industry. “IT security companies are all lamenting the lack of experienced skilled people in this field,” said Tom Levasseur, who works for CGI Group Inc., one of the largest […]
The Algonquin Times is a newspaper produced by journalism and advertising students for the Algonquin College community. Follow us on social media! Algonquin Times Twitter Twitter (Events & Promos) Facebook Facebook (Events & Promos) Instagram Snapchat
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Current News, Death and Investigation, The Never-Ending Media War, Trial News
Justice For Michael Will Not Come Without Scars-Pt 1
November 1, 2011 Raven 7 Comments
Are We Back To This Again? Sadly, The Answer Is...Yes
To kick things off with my analysis of the trial, I decided to go back and reprint an article that I wrote on Sept 25th, a few days before the trial commenced. Since this blog was originally posted as a note to my personal Facebook page, I don’t think too many saw it at the time. When I wrote this, I had just come away from reading a CNN headline that had proclaimed this as “The Michael Jackson Trial.” I was very incensed by this, but it did not come as a shocker. Since then, I have noticed the media has been much more sensitive in rightfully calling this either “The Michael Jackson Death Trial” or, more appropriately, “The Conrad Murray Trial.” As morbid as it sounds, I rather like “The Michael Jackson Death Trial” because what that name does is to remind people in a very graphic way that this is homicide trial. But of course we knew from Day One that this trial would be about Michael Jackson-or that at least the defense would try to make it so. In the days leading up to the trial, I had a lot of concerns about how this would be played out in the media. I’ve decided to call this Part One because I’m going to be adding a Part Two and possibly even a Part Three once the verdict comes down.
This week marks the end and yet beginning of what has been a long road for Michael Jackson’s family and fans. It is the start of what we hope will be justice, as the man accused of being directly responsible for his death faces his music at long last-and I don’t mean MJ’s music (okay, haha, not so funny but…)
Anyway, what occurred to me this morning, as I scoured many headlines devoted to this topic, is how the media insists on calling this “The Michael Jackson Trial” rather than “The Conrad Murray Trial.” Rest asured, that is no accident. It certainly makes one want to shout, “Hello people, Michael Jackson had HIS trial back in 2005…this trial is for his accused killer! Last time I checked, Michael Jackson was the victim in this case.” Did they call “The Casey Anthony Trial” the “Caylee Anthony Trial?” Or the OJ Simpson Trial “The Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman Trial? Of course not! So why all this insistence on labeling this case “the Michael Jackson Trial?”
Well, two simple reasons which should be obvious. First of all-and this is how the media would defend it-the name Michael Jackson is the one that grabs headlines, is immediatly recognizable, and that guarantees both ratings and hits. If someone says the Conrad Murray trial, people might scratch their heads and go, “Who?” But call it “the Michael Jackson Trial” and everyone is immediatly on the right page! Now THAT gets attention. Now people will go, “Okay, yeah, I’m with you.”
But it also means something much more subliminal, and insidious. It is also a not-so-subtle reminder that as far as the media is concerned, this IS Michael Jackson’s trial, all over again. What better golden opportunity could they have to recreate the mass ratings of 2005? Let’s face it, justice for Michael Jackson is the least of the media’s concerns. For them, it is just another excuse to present “the freak show” and garner massive ratings as they tear into “analyzing” every aspect of Michael Jackson’s character. We’ve all known this for months, that the price of justice for Michael would be another mass character assasination in the media-the fans have known it; his family knows it. After all, the only defense Murray and his team have is to present MJ in the worst possible light, the same way that the only defense a person accused of rape has is to tear into their victim’s character. We have been gearing ourselves for this for a long time.
Yet, now that the trial date looms just around the corner-this week-the bricks are really starting to sweat. I think a lot of people who have reason to be concerned are nervous. We don’t really know what curves and dodgeballs the defense is going to throw-worse yet, how the media will respond to those throws (second thought, we do know; that’s the scary part). The bottom line is that it’s tough to hear someone you love being assasinated in media headlines. You would think society would be on the victim’s side but these days, in our super hyped up cynicism towards celebrity, it seems to be just the opposite. Ever since the OJ trial, when many were convinced Simpson “got away with it” because of his celebrity status, the public appetite to see some celebrity-ANY celebrity-lynched has been at an all time fever high. These days, it seems almost any celebrity accused is somehow supposed to pay penitence for OJ’s crime, or else they unfairly become the scapegoats. I have always held a deeply seated belief that this was the root cause of the public’s condemantion of Michael Jackson following his acquittal on all counts in 2005. And with all the idiot talking heads spewing their “we let a child molestor off” spiel, is it any wonder the public outcry was at fever pitch?
Now, to add further fuel to that fire, we had the much publicized Casey Anthony trial earlier this year, in which once again, a highly suspect accuser was let off the hook. Casey Anthony wasn’t a celebrity, but the trial certainly made her one, if albeit an infamous one!
From the media’s perspective, it doesn’t seem to matter that now the shoe has been reversed. A celebrity is not on trial for committing a crime-rather, we now have a celebrity who has been the VICTIM of a crime. It is an altogether different dynamic, yet the media seems to be playing by the same rules. It’s a no brainer. Putting the celebrity and the celebrity’s lifestyle on trial is what will guarantee ratings, and no celebrity’s personal life ever made greater copy than Michael Jackson’s! Rest assured, the would-be, yellow journalists and legal analysts have been salivating over this one for-as Led Zeppelin said-“a long, long, lonely long time.”
But as the heat fires up, maybe it is a good idea to take a deep breath and really look at the bigger picture here. We as fans have known from Day One what this process is going to entail. Now it is time to bite the bullet and be strong. Remember that at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what the yammering twits have to say-or shouldn’t. What should ultimately matters is what those twelve men and women on the jury decide. It really comes down to one simple question. Or maybe two. Did Conrad Murray or did he not administer the lethal dose of propofol that killed Michael Jackson, and if so, did he behave negligently in the aftermath, when precious minutes meant the difference between life and death? I think for most reasonable people, the answer to the second question is obvious. What is murkier-and will be the real issue for the jury-is Question #1. The defense, as we know, will try to argue that Michael self administered the propofol and/or demanded it to the point that Murray had no choice. But any reasonable thinking person also knows that Murray DID have a choice. He is a physician who knows his patients’ lives depend on the actions he takes. As to the arguement that Michael self-adminsistered, I think it is a ludicrous defense as the coroner has already pointed out but in the end, it all comes down to how well the defense presents their case-and how well the prosecution can tear it down.
Michael sang about keeping the faith. We have to keep the faith now that justice will prevail. In her own recent and wonderful blog, Deborah Kunesh of Refelections On The Dance reminded us that justice prevailed for Michael in 2005. http://www.facebook.com/#!/note.php?…13875445343716 We can’t really blame the legal system for the fact that the media turned the event into a public lynching. But nevertheless, it did happen, and as a result, left a permanently bitter taste.
So what happens now? I don’t know how the verdict will go, of course. But I have a very strong feeling-and a very strong faith-that justice will be on Michael’s side again. While Murray’s defense will be to bring up every possible mitigating circumstance and every mitigating bit of evidence to cloud the jurors’ minds, the bottomline is that the facts of this case speak loud and clear.
However, it is those very mitigating circumstances and evidence that we know the media will run with. We already know they will be looking to pounce on anything relating to Michael’s character, his alleged drug use, and even the allegations, which will undoubtedly be brought into the mix even though they have no bearing whatsoever on the current case. Ultimatelly, we know it is not the media who decides Murray’s fate or the person Michael Jackson was, for better or worse. But the media DOES have the power to influence and sway public opinion. That’s what they do. Regardless of the eventual verdict, they are going to have a field day with this. It is the last, golden opportunity for them to suck the last drop of blood they can from the name Michael Jackson. Don’t forget, these are the people who hurt him, bullied him, and ran him ragged while he lived. After he died, they felt bad for all of five minutes, paid a few “tributes” and then went right back to their old tricks. It was the same with Princess Diana. The public outrage over the media’s role in her death evaporated quickly to apathy; we were right back to where we started, as if nothing had happened. If the world had heeded the public’s outcry THEN to curb the media’s bloodlust, it’s possible that Michael Jackson might still be alive. Why? Simply because the very things that drove him to depression and chronic insomnia might never have been a factor.
Michael Jackson “won” in 2005, but at what cost? By the end of that trial, his health was wracked, his spirit broken, and his reputation as a beloved superstar forever tarnished. Although he still had fame and money, his life became a sort of vagabond existence. He no longer had a permanent home; he wandered with his children from country to country. Part of that, of course, was a search for respite. He was looking for a safe haven where he could regain his health and replensih his spirit. But what had been done to him in his homeland still haunted him, wherever he went.
Words Michael Wrote In 2005, After The Trial
Likewise now, in 2011, any form of justice for Michael will only come at a very heavy price. By the end of October or early November, when the verdict comes down, Murray may or may not be facing prison time. But even if he is sentenced, I have a feeling that we will be left feeling much as Michael did in June of 2005. The sweet sensation of victory will be tainted by a heavy burden.
I think this trial will probably vindicate Michael on several levels. There will be things that will come out of it that will be in Michael’s favor. On the other hand, I fully suspect a good many things may come out of it that fans really don’t want to hear. That is going to be the nature of the beast. And of course, how the media chooses to present/analyze those things will be crucial. Even though the actual trial will be televised (and hopefully this will eliminate some of the rampant twisting of facts such as what we saw in 2005) the public’s opinion of this trial will, as stated, largely depend on the media’s influence. After all, only the most diehard Jackson fans are going to sit and watch the full trial, minute by minute. I don’t think this is going to carry the same weight as the Casey Anthony trial (where an innocent child was involved, thus inviting a kind of national outrage and vested interest in the case). Of course, Michael Jackson fans will be following it closely. But I think it is safe to say that most Americans, if they watch at all, will be doing so mostly out of a sense of morbid curiosity; they will be tuning in and only casually watching, perhaps, while at work or while multi-tasking their daily household duties; most will probably not watch at all (after all, most of us have to work for a living, and having access to TV and even internet is not an option for everyone)-these are the people who will rely, instead, on evening news broadcasts and legal pundit shows to “fill them in” on what transpired in court that day. And therein lies the danger, because it is those people who will be most apt to fall prey to the media’s manipulation of this case. After all, a testimony that might be viewed one way to a viewer when watching for themselves can be perceived quite differently once that same testimony is filtered and cross examined by the likes of a Nancy Grace or a-God forbid!-Diane Dimond.
To cut to the chase here, we as Michael Jackson fans know that a lot of stones are going to be thrown over the next few weeks. Those stones can’t hurt Michael anymore, but we know how they can still hurt US. We feel their bruises, as surely as Michael did. And because he is no longer here, we have, in essence, taken those stones upon ourselves. I think we have to ask ourselves many crucial questions. How are we going to deal with the insanity of these next few weeks? How are we going to react when trial testimony may reveal things that aren’t exactly pleasant to us? And can we control our gloating when things do go in our favor? The world, after all, is going to be watching us. This is not only a test of faith, but a test of courage and grace under fire as well.
As I said, I do feel strongly that justice will prevail. But yes, it will come at a price, and it will not come without scars. It was that way for Michael. It will be that way for us.
In Part Two, which I hope to have up by mid-week, I will look at how the reality of the media’s treatment of Michael during this trial has stacked up against my initial fears, expectations, and predictions. Has it been as bad as I thought it would be? Or have we seen a subtle shift in the pendulum as more and more damning evidence against Murray has surfaced? Or, at the end of the day, is “Michael Jackson-The Victim” just another cheap tactic for ratings? Also, I will be posting my reactions to and thoughts on those post-mortem photos, the audio tape, the “j” word and many other concerns that have been brought to light since this drama began last September.
We're Baaaaaack!
October 30, 2011 Raven 21 Comments
"Well It's About Damn Time!"
Well, after a very long delay and surviving the worst year of my life, I am finally back and Allforloveblog is back in business-for good this time. Well, sort of. As you can see, I have pretty much had to start the site over from scratch, but do not fear. All of the old content is still safe. As some of you may already know, the old site was back online briefly in a “read only” format. But maintaining the site as it was while trying to get things operational again and uploading to a new host server proved impossible.
This was the only realistically viable solution. But as I’ve stated, everything is still safe. The plan is to provide a direct link to the old site’s content from here. All of that will take some time, so bear with me. However, the upside is that Allforloveblog is now on a paid, permanent host server which means another catastrophe like the one that put me out of commission for most of 2011 will NOT happen again. Ever.
This isn’t the time or place to go into everything that happened to me this past year. Most of you, I’m sure, are well aware from my Facebook updates that I have had a traumatic year of many personal setbacks. Not the least was that in February of this year, only a few days after having posted my last entry for Februray 5th about how to break down a Michael Jackson concert, I was suddenly left without power in the dead of winter and completely stranded. I survived, but for days I had no power, no heat-and no internet. Of course, had that been the worst of it, life could have gotten back to normal once the power was restored. But no, I also had to deal with a situation in which the home computer network was completely down and with no knowledge or expertise in how to restore it or to retrieve my data, I was helpless. I had no one to turn to because even the most knowledgable computer geeks I knew could not figure out the intricacies of our former setup. And frankly, with so many urgent and more pressing issues I had to deal with at the time (the breakup of a 16-year relationship, and struggling to cope with the new pressures of trying to keep my home and to make a living for myself) I don’t think anyone can fault me if I say getting the site back online was a priority that had to take a backseat for awhile. Now that things in my life have finally started to turn around, I can once again bring the kind of focus and dedication to this site that I did before. Of course, now that I have to work full time to make ends meet, I may not be able to update as frequently as I did in the past. But hopefully, the quality will manage to outweigh the quantity.
That’s as much as I’m going to say about me or what happened to me this past year. I realize this site is about Michael, not about me, and that my readers come here to get my latest updates on all things MJ. I will just say that from this point forward, a new page has been turned and I’m really looking forward to embarking on this journey again.
However, there’s nothing like six weeks with no internet to really make one appreciate Michael Jackson on a whole new level. I didn’t realize just how immersed I had become in the whole cyberspace MJ “fan-mily” thing until I had to spend time without it. Suddenly, I had no access to the latest media gossip; no way to know what deviousness TMZ had been up to lately, or what some ill informed hater had to say. I lost touch for a time with the whole back and forth war between the Jacksons and the estate; with the protests against Sony, all of the fan wars, and even with the details of the death investigation and impending Murray trial. So what did I do during that time? How did I pass all of those lonely, winter hours? Well, I listened to my Michael Jackson CD’s. I watched my videos and DVD’s. I read the books I have on him…you know, those quaint, old fashioned things with the hard covers and pages in between; many of which I had been intending to “get around” to reading for ages. I became reacquainted with Moonwalk. On many a chilly March afternoon, I wrapped myself in a blanket and devoured Dancing the Dream.
Taking Some Time To Step Back Can Have Its Own Rewards
In short, I once again got to know Michael Jackson the artist and, perhaps even moreso, Michael Jackson the man. Without the distractions and drama of the internet, I reconnected to the things about Michael that mattered most. And yes, these are the things that do matter most-his own words, his music, his artistry, his dance steps that defied the laws of physics-these are all of the things that will still be here, and will still matter, long after everything else has died away.
But with that being said, I was happy to once again be able to rejoin the cyberspace community. I am eternally grateful for Facebook, which enabled me to stay connected to most of you throughout this ordeal. I am grateful to all of you for your kind words and encouragement, and for never losing faith that Allforlove would return. I am grateful and thankful to my fellow MJ bloggers who kept me in the loop and who kept me on their blogrolls. Of course, if you did remove me, I understand. After all, eight months is a long time to keep up an inactive link. Hopefully, everyone will help spread the word that AFLB is back. As for those of you who were on my previous blogroll, I will add all of you back; it will just take me some time to get everything organized again and back 100% to the way it was. So if you hear me say “bear with me” once, you will probably hear it a million times over the next few weeks, LOL.
Of course my biggest regret is not being able to get the site back up in time to cover the Murray trial. I’d had very high hopes that I would be able to be back online before the trial got underway in September, but due to yet another curveball that life decided to throw us at that point, it did not happen. So here we are, with the trial entering what will most likely be its final week. I was really looking forward to bringing you many, many chapters of Murray’s Believe It Or Not (my own little take on Ripley’s Believe It Or Not) as we weighed through all of the ridiculous defense theories. But at this point, I guess all of that is really moot. Everything that’s been done or said during this trial has already been thoroughly hashed out, scrutinized, analyzed, poked, prodded, inspected, dejected, etc., etc on many, many sites. Once Dr. Paul White is cross-examined by the prosecuton on Monday, it will all be pretty much over save for closing arguements, jury deliberation-and, of course, the verdict.
What I will most likely do is post a general, overall summary of my thoughts on the entire trial, rather than trying to play a desperate game of “catch up” with everything that has transpired. Like most of you, I’ve been glued to my set and to the internet these past four weeks, and boy has it been a rollercoaster of emotions! Over the next week or so, I’ll post my thoughts, analysis, and reflections on this last week of the trial, as well as my summary of the past four weeks overall. I’ll just say there have been a lot of things that have surprised me-pleasantly so, but then a lot of things that were totally in line with what I expected, along with a few shockers, and yes, some moments of total disgust.
In the meantime, I just want you all to know how much your loyalty to me during this difficult time has been appreciated!
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Statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
According to information of mass media Armenian side under the pretext of so-called “25th anniversary of the independence” of illegal regime established in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan plans to organize the conference in Yerevan on September 2-3 and take the participants to the seized lands. There are also plans to organize the international youth conference in Khankandi on September 15-18, and other provocative events.
It is well known that Armenia has unleashed war against Azerbaijan, by using force occupied twenty percent of Azerbaijan’s territories and ethnically cleansed about one million Azerbaijanis from those areas, and committed numerous other war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the acts of genocide.
The illegal regime established by Armenia in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan is ultimately nothing other than the product of aggression and occupation; it is under Armenia’s direction and control and survives by virtue of its military, political, financial and other support, as was also confirmed by the European Court of Human Rights in its judgment of 16 June 2015 on the case of Chiragov and others v. Armenia.
The international community has consistently deplored, in the strongest terms, the use of military force against Azerbaijan and the resulting occupation of its territories. In 1993, the United Nations Security Council adopted resolutions 822 (1993), 853 (1993), 874 (1993) and 884 (1993), condemning the use of force against Azerbaijan and occupation of its territories and reaffirming the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and the inviolability of its internationally recognized borders. In those resolutions, the Security Council reaffirmed that the Nagorno-Karabakh region is part of Azerbaijan and called for immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of the occupying forces from all occupied territories of Azerbaijan. Other international organizations have adopted a similar position.
Instead of taking constructive steps towards the resolution of the conflict further provocative events planned by Armenia under the pretext of so-called “25th anniversary of the independence” of illegal regime are contrary to the spirit of Vienna and Sankt-Petersburg meetings of the Presidents, undermine the negotiation process mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs and detrimental to the efforts to build the durable peace in the region. They only serve for futile efforts of propagating the illegal regime and deliberate provocation.
We do call upon persons who are invited to the activities under the pretext of “25th anniversary of the independence” of illegal regime to respect the norms and principles of international law and to refrain from attending these provocative events and visiting the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. The visitors to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan violate the national legislation of Azerbaijan and will be addressed by the Government of Azerbaijan accordingly, including a ban will be put on their future visits to Azerbaijan.
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Prehistoric film proves timeless
By ROBERT CALCAGNO
March 25, 2013 in Film, Lifestyle
It’s interesting when the circumstances surrounding the release of a new film are just as intriguing as the film itself. The latest from DreamWorks Animation, the prehistoric family adventure The Croods, has a lot at stake. Not only is this the first DreamWorks Animation film to be released through 20th Century Fox, but it’s also the production company’s first film since Rise of the Guardians, which disappointed at the box office and partly contributed to the company letting go more than 350 employees earlier in the year.
Caveman rock · A prehistoric family embarks on the world´s first family road trip in The Croods. Once the Croods are out of their cave, their uncivilized natures become pronounced. Be sure to catch the Trojan Marching Band in the opening sequence performing a remix of, what else, “Tusk.” — Courtesy of 2013 DreamWorks Animation LLC
That being said, when it comes to juding a film, it ultimately boils down to whether the film is worthwhile or not. And though there are issues with the character design and the unbalanced approach to the theme of the story, The Croods is saved by a genuinely heartwarming family dynamic, some wonderful creatures and a more jovial approach compared to past DreamWorks features.
The film, directed by Chris Sanders (Lilo & Stitch, How to Train Your Dragon and Kirk De Micco), is about the Croods, a modern Stone Age family living in a prehistoric world on the verge of change. The father, Grug (Nicolas Cage), is so overprotective of his family that the family spends days at a time in its cave, away from the outside world. Though the other family members are content with the father’s orders, the eldest daughter Eep (Emma Stone) desperately wants to see the outside world.
One night she comes across Guy (Ryan Reynolds), a journeyman capable of making fire and tools, who warns Eep of an impending catastrophe that he calls “the End,” not an imaginative name, but a name that illustrates a charming aspect of the film — that everyone speaks with a childlike lack of subtlety and etiquette, something which makes the characters more sympathetic.
When an earthquake destroys their cave, the Croods must face a dangerous world to find a safe haven on the other side of the giant mountain in the distance. So, think The Land Before Time except with people rather than talking baby dinosaurs.
An issue with the structure of the plot is that each act seems to have a separate theme: The first act is about the father-daughter relationship between Grug and Eep, the second is about facing the dangers of the world while staying together as a family and the third focuses just on Grug’s effort to “evolve” in order to save his family.
The reason for this might have been because when the film was originally going to be an Aardman Animation production back in 2007, the plot was mostly about the conflict between Grug and Guy. Though this might be the fault of the film’s marketing, which seemed to place Eep as the lead, the shift in focus is unexpected.
The dynamic among the family keeps the film together. Once they’re out of the cave, the uncivilized wild nature of the different members is let loose, like the pudgy Thunk (Clark Duke), the feisty elder Gran (Cloris Leachman) and the ferocious toddler Sandy (Randy Thom). Even the relationship between Eep as Guy goes differently than other young romances, with Eep being the hyper-aggressive super-strong one in the couple and Guy as the startled one.
The world the family inhabits is a world gone wild. The concept design department really brings its A-game to the environments and creatures. Instead of just going with a Flintstones knock-off, the designers created something really interesting and unique.
There should also be a shoutout to the Spirit of Troy marching band, which colloborated with composer Alan Silvestri in an opening chase sequence that proved to be the highlight of the musical score.
It’s a shame, then, that the same inventiveness wasn’t used in the design of the main characters. Instead of just looking like cavemen, the attempts to make them look more “normal” are jarring, like their hyper-realistic eyes or the sharp cheekbones. The look of the characters is way too gentrified, especially Guy’s design.
If you don’t pay attention to that kind of detail, you won’t mind too much. For those who do pay attention to character design, however, no matter how much you end up liking these characters, it’s really hard to get over the flaws in their look. It’s more disappointing when you know Chris Sanders, whose character drawings are some of the most recognizable in the industry, is at the helm.
Looking past the character designs though, The Croods is an enjoyable family adventure with some great-looking animals and a more alternative take on the “modern Stone Age family” than other films in the genre.
It’s not clear if this film is the start of a new successful era for DreamWorks Animation or just another bump in the road for a company that’s already weathered several rough patches lately. Still, if you have a close-knit and partially crazy family, there’s plenty to like about The Croods. And that likely connection with the audience might be this film’s true saving grace.
Tags: alan silvestri, clark duke, cloris leachman, dreamworks, emma stone, Film, film review, Nicolas Cage, randy thom, ryan reynolds, spirit of troy, the croods
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9to5to9: Making the content of their character matter more
Submitted by on Wednesday, 5 November 2008 No Comment
The great thing about kids is that they see things differently — or don’t see things at all that the jaded adult eye learns to observe.
Take tiny babies, surround them with playmates of every color and they’ll never notice a difference until someone tells them there is one.
That’s the way it is with Big Guy and his friends. He goes to a richly diverse school with people of many races and ethnic origins. You see Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream daily:
Friday, I watched tiny hands of every hue dig side-by-side in the dirt, working together toward a goal. Even though it was a goal some disagreed with. “I’ll plant broccoli, but I’m not gonna eat it,” Big Guy warned.
And as much as the scene made me hopeful, it also made me sad for the day when they begin to realize that some in the world will judge them more by color than by character.
Tonight, we took a giant step toward delaying that day.
“This is our moment,” President-Elect Barack Obama told supporters in Chicago and viewers across the nation.
“This is our time to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes We Can.”
And people believed we can in the oddest of places.
Places like the West Virginia county I grew up in, ethnic population less than 1 percent. Obama carried it by a slight margin, though he lost the state. But, then, so did Al Gore and John Kerrey.
Places like the entire state of Virginia, which hasn’t gone Democratic in a presidential election in my lifetime. It did today.
Places like the county where I now live, where the fact that Obama trails by less than 0.5 percent with weeks of votes still to be counted is the moral equivalent of a win in this dead-red territory.
No, not everyone believes. There’s a lot of red on the map south of the Mason Dixon Line. But then, the two previous Democractic tickets — which included men from Tennessee and North Carolina — couldn’t make inroads there either.
It never occurred to Big Guy to question whether America would elect an African-American president. He had no prejudice to overcome in voting for Obama in his school’s mock election today.
He chose The Bomber because he thought Obama is nice and John McCain is grumpy. “Will The Cain be nicer now that The Bomber won?” he asked tonight just before bedtime.
And now, he’ll never have cause at all to apply color to question electability.
There’s still more work to be done. One election, no matter how historic, doesn’t erase racism. But for tonight at least, as I look at the sleeping guys, I know we as a country truly are capable of judging someone not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
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6 Wn.2d 696, THE STATE OF WASHINGTON, Respondent, v. DENZEL DAVIS, Appellant
[No. 28075. En Banc. Supreme Court December 30, 1940.]
THE STATE OF WASHINGTON, Respondent, v. DENZEL
DAVIS, Appellant.«1»
[1] HOMICIDE - TRIAL - QUESTIONS FOR JURY - GRADE OR DEGREE OF OFFENSE. In a prosecution for murder, a trial must be had, notwithstanding the accused's plea of guilty, in order that the degree of murder might be determined by jury; and in such a trial, the state is not bound by the accused's confession or plea, nor is it limited in the method of proving its case.
[2] CRIMINAL LAW - EVIDENCE - OTHER OFFENSES - CONNECTED TRANSACTIONS. In a criminal prosecution, the state is entitled to introduce any evidence that is competent, relevant, and material; and where evidence tends to support the state's contention, and is admissible under the general rules of evidence, it is unimportant that it incidentally tends to show that the accused has been guilty of some other and separate offense.
STATE v. DAVIS. 697
Dec. 1940] Syllabus.
[3] HOMICIDE - EVIDENCE - PREVIOUS QUARRELS. In a prosecution for murder, evidence of previous quarrels between the accused and the deceased is generally admissible, particularly where the existence of malice or premeditation at the time of the homicide is in issue.
[4] SAME - EVIDENCE - SURROUNDING CIRCUMSTANCES. To establish a charge of murder in the first degree, proof of deliberation or premeditation is necessary, and for this purpose the state is entitled to present to the jury a complete picture of all relevant surrounding circumstances, present and antecedent.
[5] SAME - MURDER IN FIRST DEGREE - PREMEDITATION - TIME REQUIRED. The premeditation required to support a conviction of murder in the first degree may involve no more than a moment in point of time; and in determining whether premeditation was present in a given case, the relationship of the accused and the deceased for at least several weeks prior to the homicide may be shown to the jury by competent evidence.
[6] SAME - EVIDENCE - CIRCUMSTANCES PRECEDING ACT. In a prosecution for the murder of a mother by her son, the act of the accused in forging his mother's name to a check properly constituted part of the state's case as showing the relations between the accused and his mother shortly prior to the killing, and it was not error for counsel for the state to refer to it in his opening statement, or for the court to admit evidence concerning it.
[7] WITNESSES - CROSS - EXAMINATION - LIMITATION TO SUBJECTS OF DIRECT EXAMINATION. In a prosecution for murder, where the testimony of a witness called by the state as an expert alienist was limited upon his examination in chief to the matter of the sanity of the accused at the time of the killing and at the time of the trial, the opinion of the alienist on the question of the premeditation of the killing was not a proper subject of cross-examination.
[8] CRIMINAL LAW - EVIDENCE - OPINION EVIDENCE - AS TO PREMEDITATION. In a prosecution for murder, where an expert alienist called by the state to testify as to the mental condition of the accused had examined him while the latter was in jail, but had no knowledge of the facts of the case, his opinion on the question of the premeditation of the killing was inadmissible, and the court properly excluded a written report made by the alienist prior to the trial in which he stated that in his opinion the killing was not premeditated, and properly sustained objections to questions concerning the matter of premeditation propounded to the alienist by the accused's counsel on cross-examination.
698 STATE v. DAVIS.
Syllabus. [Dec. 1940
[9] SAME - TRIAL - INSTRUCTIONS - INSANITY. In a prosecution for murder, in which a plea of insanity had been interposed, it was not reversible error to instruct the jury that if the accused was to be acquitted upon his plea of insanity, he must convince the jury by a preponderance of the evidence that at the time of the commission of the alleged crime his mind was diseased to such an extent that he was unable to perceive the moral qualities of the act with which he was charged and was unable to tell right from wrong with reference to the act charged.
[10] SAME. In a prosecution for murder, it was not error to instruct the jury that "certain evidence" had been admitted for the purpose only of determining the mental condition of the accused, and that it should not be considered as an excuse or proof of justification for the crime, without pointing out to the jury the particular testimony referred to, where three witnesses called by the accused testified as to his mental condition, and it is impossible that the jury could have been confused by the instruction.
[11] SAME - TRIAL - INSTRUCTIONS - PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE. In a prosecution for murder, it was not error to refuse to instruct the jury that the charge against the accused was a mere formal accusation, was not evidence of his guilt, and that no juror should be influenced because the accused had been charged with the crime, where the court did instruct the jury as to the presumption of innocence and burden of proof.
[12] HOMICIDE - TRIAL - INSTRUCTIONS - GRADE OR DEGREE OF OFFENSE - PRESUMPTIONS. In a prosecution for murder, it was not error to refuse to instruct the jury that, if the killing was admitted, it would be presumed that the crime, if any, was that of murder in the second degree, where the accused had pleaded guilty to murder in the first degree, and, aside from questions raised by the plea of insanity, upon the evidence introduced the jury could only find the accused guilty of murder either in the first degree or in the second degree, and the jury was properly instructed concerning the elements of those offenses and that, before it could find the accused guilty of murder in the first degree, the state must have convinced it beyond reasonable doubt of the presence of each of the elements of that crime; there being no place in the trial for the application of the presumption of murder in the second degree, under the peculiar circumstances of the case.
[13] CRIMINAL LAW - TRIAL - INSTRUCTIONS -PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE. In a prosecution for murder, it was not error to refuse to instruct the jury directly that, although the accused
admitted the killing, he should nevertheless be presumed innocent of any crime until his guilt was established beyond a reasonable doubt, where the jury was advised as to the presumption of innocence, and was told that the presumption continued throughout the entire trial and until it found that it had been overcome by the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.
[14] SAME - TRIAL - INSTRUCTIONS - INSANITY. In a prosecution for murder, it was not error to refuse a proposed instruction referring to the duty of the jury to find the accused not guilty if it determined that he was insane at the time of the commission of the homicide, where the proposed instruction contained an incorrect statement of law on a collateral matter, and by other instructions the jury was properly informed that, if it found that, at the time of the homicide, the accused was insane it should bring in a verdict of not guilty by reason of mental irresponsibility.
[15] SAME. In a prosecution for murder, the court properly refused a proposed instruction that if the jury believed that the accused was insane during the trial of the action then its verdict should be "Not guilty on account of insanity."
[16] CONSTITUTIONAL LAW - PERSONAL AND CIVIL RIGHTS - DEPRIVATION OF LIFE OR LIBERTY - INSANITY AT TIME OF TRIAL. If one accused of crime be insane at the time of trial, his constitutional rights are violated, as he is not capable of defending himself, and, if found guilty and the sentence executed, he would be deprived of fife or liberty without due process of law.
[17] INSANE PERSONs - CRIMES - INSANITY AT TIME OF TRIAL. There is no statute requiring the jury to pass specifically on the question of an accused's sanity at the time of trial, if the jury returns a verdict of guilty as charged; however, a superior court possesses inherent authority to ascertain whether one accused of crime and put on trial is sane or insane at the time of trial, such power resting in its sound discretion and to be exercised at any time it deems such an investigation appropriate.
[18] SAME - CRIMES - INSANITY AFTER CONVICTION. Courts possess an inherent power to act upon a showing of the insanity of one convicted of murder and sentenced to death, and, if necessary, to issue a stay of execution to permit a proper and adequate investigation to be made; and by Rem. Rev. Stat., § 6942, the governor is vested with discretionary power to act in such a case.
[18] See 49 A. L. R. 804; 14 Am. Jur. 805.
Opinion Per BEALS, J. [Dec. 1940
[19] HOMICIDE - MURDER IN THE FIRST DEGREE - EVIDENCE - SUFFICIENCY. The law does not attempt to lay down any rule establishing a definite minimum period of time during which the premeditated intention to kill must exist, it being for the jury to determine in a given case whether that element is present; and held in the instant case that there was ample basis in the record for a finding by the jury that the killing was premeditated and constituted murder in the first degree.
BLAKE, C. J., dissents.
Appeal from a judgment of the superior court for King county, Wilkins, J., entered June 1, 1940, upon a trial and conviction of murder in the first degree. Affirmed.
Jacob Kalina, for appellant.
B. Gray Warner, Charles C. Rails, and John A. Burns, for respondent.
BEALS, J. -
For some time prior to the month of March, 1940, Denzel Davis had been living with his mother, Harriet Redding, in her home on Stone avenue, just north of the limits of the city of Seattle. He was married, but for two months or so had been separated from his wife, and was living with his mother, who supported him. Davis was not employed, and had no income save what his mother gave him. Mrs. Redding was employed at a department store in Seattle, and supplemented her income by dressmaking.
In 1931, Davis, because of minor offenses, including petty thieving, was sent to an institution for delinquent boys. Later, he enlisted in the army, and deserted. It is evident that Davis and his mother had several arguments over money and concerning Denzel's wife, of whom Mrs. Redding disapproved, in the course of which arguments Davis used extremely bad language, his attitude causing his mother much sorrow.
March 1, 1940, Davis induced a merchant to cash a check for twenty dollars, to which he had forged his
Dec. 1940] STATE v. DAVIS. 701
Opinion Per BEALS, J.
mother's name. Mrs. Redding later made this check good, but told her son that she would not again help him out of such a situation.
The evening of Sunday, March 17th, Davis and his mother had some disagreement, which continued over until Monday morning, when the argument was continued. In the course of the dispute, Davis picked up a hammer and struck his mother a hard blow on the back of her head. Mrs. Redding fell on her back, groaning. Davis then picked up an ice pick and stabbed her. Mrs. Redding continued groaning, and Davis stabbed her seventeen times with the ice pick. Mrs. Redding continued to groan, and Davis tied two wire cords and a chain around her neck. He then placed his mother in a recess under a drain board, nailing the door shut. He then, with his shirt, cleaned up the blood from the floor, putting the garment in the soiled clothes basket in the bedroom closet. He left the apartment, after taking what money he found in his mother's purse, together with her watch and a ring which he took from her finger. He went down town and joined his wife at the quarters she was occupying.
During the day, he pawned his mother's ring with one pawnbroker, and her watch with another. During the afternoon, Davis and his wife engaged a room at a down-town hotel, and later went to a theater and visited a beer parlor. On Tuesday, he told his wife that he had killed his mother, and that he would surrender himself to the police. By this time, the murder had been discovered, and Davis knew that he was wanted as a suspect. Instead of surrendering himself, he slept Tuesday night in a basement in a vacant house. Wednesday morning, he secreted himself in the basement of a house next door, where he remained until Saturday morning, when he went upstairs to the
room of a friend, who was then absent. While there, hearing footsteps approaching, he hid in a closet, where he was found by deputy sheriffs who were searching for him. Davis was taken to the sheriff's office, where he made a full confession.
An information was filed, charging Denzel Davis, alias W. A. Redding, with murder in the first degree, and, when arraigned, Davis entered a plea of guilty. The court appointed counsel for Davis, he having none, and his counsel, on Davis' behalf, entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity and mental irresponsibility. It was also stated in the plea that the insanity and mental irresponsibility still existed. A trial was necessary under Rem. Rev. Stat., § 2116 [P. C. § 9169], which reads as follows:
"If, on the arraignment of any person, he shall plead guilty, if the offense charged be not murder, the court shall, in its discretion, hear testimony, and determine the amount and kind of punishment to be inflicted; but if the defendant plead guilty to a charge of murder, a jury shall be impaneled to hear testimony, and determine the degree of murder and the punishment therefor."
The case was called for trial May 6th, and during argument between counsel, Davis again stated that he was guilty of the charge. Davis was put on trial before a jury upon his own plea of guilty and upon the plea of insanity interposed by his counsel. The jury returned a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree, recommending that the death sentence be imposed. From a judgment of guilty and a sentence of death, an appeal has been taken to this court.
Error is assigned upon a portion of the opening statement of the prosecuting attorney to the effect that appellant had forged his mother's name to a check, appellant also assigning error upon the admission, over his objection, of testimony concerning this
Dec. 1940] Opinion Per BEALS, J.
matter. Appellant also complains of the refusal of the trial court to admit in evidence, on appellant's offer, a written report made by an alienist who testified for the state, appellant having sought to introduce the report. Error is also assigned upon the denial by the trial court of appellant's motion, made at the conclusion of the state's case, to reduce the charge from first to second degree murder. Appellant also assigns error upon the giving of two instructions, to which he excepted, and upon the court's refusal to give several instructions which appellant requested. Finally, appellant assigns error upon the denial of his motions for a new trial and for arrest of judgment.
In his opening argument, the state for the state told the jury that appellant had forged his mother's name to a check and cashed the same, to which statement appellant excepted. In the course of the state's case, evidence was offered concerning this matter, which evidence was admitted over appellant's objections. The testimony was to the effect that, March 1st, appellant had signed his mother's name to a check for twenty dollars; that appellant had cashed the check with a neighboring merchant; and that his mother had later repaid the merchant and taken up the check. Appellant argues that this evidence was erroneously admitted over his objection, as constituting evidence of a separate crime having no bearing upon the murder charge. Appellant's assignments of error based upon the prosecuting attorney's opening statement, and the claim of error in permitting, over appellant's objection, the introduction of evidence concerning the check, will be discussed together. If the evidence was properly admitted, it was right for the attorney for the state to refer to the matter in his opening statement. In this connection, appellant cites several of our decisions.
In the case of State v. O'Donnell, 191 Wash. 511, 71 P. (2d) 571, the attorney for the state told the jury that the evidence would show that the defendants had previously been convicted of burglary and robbery. From the statement made, it appeared that the prior convictions of the defendants were for offenses nowise connected with the pending charge. The statement was held reversible error.
In the case of State v. Barton, 198 Wash. 268, 88 P. (2d) 385, this court approved the general rule that, in a criminal trial, evidence of other crimes should not be admitted as part of the state's case in chief; and in the case of State v. Devlin, 145 Wash. 44, 258 Pac. 826, the admission of testimony that the defendant's picture was in the "rogues' gallery" was held erroneous.
[1] In the case at bar, it was necessary that a trial be had, notwithstanding appellant's plea of guilty, in order that the degree of murder might be determined by a jury. Appellant had made a confession, and had pleaded guilty, but the state was bound by neither, nor limited in the method of proving its case. Maddox State, 108 Neb. 809, 189 N. W. 398; People v. Parisi, 190 Cal. 542, 213 Pac. 968; Reeves v. State, 116 Tex. Crim. App. 451, 32 S. W. (2d) 471; Curtis v. State, 119 Tex. Crim. App. 398, 46 S. W. (2d) 303.
[2] In making its case, the state was entitled to introduce any evidence which was competent, relevant, and material to the issue to be determined by the jury. That a portion of the evidence so offered might incidentally tend to show that appellant had been guilty of some other and separate offense, is unimportant if the evidence tended to support the state's contention in the case being tried, and was admissible under the general rules of evidence. State v. Thuna, 59 Wash.
689, 109 Pac. 331, Ill Pac. 768; State v. Macleod, 78 Wash. 175, 138 Pac. 648.
In the case of State v. Gottfreedson, 24 Wash. 398, 64 Pac. 523, this court said:
"The general rule is well established that proof of the commission of a separate and distinct crime will not be admitted for the purpose of aiding the conviction of defendant for the crime charged. There are exceptions, however, to this general rule, as where the testimony shows a connection between the transaction under investigation and some other transaction, and where they are so interwoven that the omission of the testimony in relation to the other crime would detract something from the testimony which the state would have a right to introduce as tending to show the commission of the crime charged by the defendant,
. . . or where the testimony tending to show the commission of one crime tends to prove a condition of mind which must necessarily be entertained by the defendant in the commission of the crime charged."
The matter of this check had been the subject of discussion between Davis and his mother as recently as a week prior to March 18th, and on that morning Davis still had in his possession a dollar or so of the money which he realized from the check.
[3] In murder cases, evidence of previous disputes or quarrels between the accused and the deceased is generally admissible, particularly where the existence of malice or premeditation at the time of the homicide is in issue. State v. Churchill, 52 Wash. 210, 100 Pac. 309; State v. Hoyer, 105 Wash. 160, 177 Pac. 683; State v. Clark, 119 La. 733, 44 So. 449; White v. State, 30 Tex. Crim. App. 652, 18 S. W. 462. Such evidence tends to show the relationship of the parties and their feelings one toward the other, and often bears directly upon the state of mind of the accused with consequent bearing upon the question of malice and premeditation.
Commonwealth v. Russ, 232 Mass. 58, 122 N. E. 176; Commonwealth v. Retkovitz, 222 Mass. 245, 110 N. E. 293; People v. Bowser, 196 N. Y. 296, 89 N. E. 818.
[4] In the case at bar, in order to establish the charge laid in the information of murder in the first degree, proof of deliberation or premeditation was necessary. In its attempt to prove this, the state was entitled to present to the jury a complete picture of all relevant surrounding circumstances, present and antecedent. The jury was entitled to consider all physical circumstances of the killing, in the light of the background of the relationship of the parties and transactions between them. State v. Spadoni, 137 Wash. 684, 243 Pac. 854.
[5] This court has held that the premeditation required in order to support a conviction of the crime of murder in the first degree may involve no more than a moment in point of time. State v. Rutten, 13 Wash. 203, 43 Pac. 30; State v. Arata, 56 Wash. 185, 105 Pac. 227; State v. Duncan, 101 Wash. 542, 172 Pac. 915. In determining whether or not premeditation was present in the case at bar, the relationship of the mother and son for at least several weeks prior to the homicide could be shown to the jury by competent evidence. In this connection, the opinion of this court in the case of State v. Gaines, 144 Wash. 446, 258 Pac. 508, is of interest.
[6] In the case at bar, Davis' act in signing his mother's name to the check, without authority, properly constituted part of the state's case as showing the relations between appellant and his mother shortly prior to the killing, the evidence showing that his mother had told appellant that she would not again help him out of any such difficulty.
We find no error in connection with this matter.
[7, 8] Dr. N. K. Rickles, called as a witness for the
state, testifying as an expert alienist, stated that he had examined appellant while the latter was in jail, and that, in the opinion of the witness, the appellant was sane, both at the time of the killing and at the time of the trial. The witness had made a written report of his examination and conclusions, which report had been delivered to the prosecuting attorney. It appears that, in this report, the witness had stated that, in his opinion, the killing was not premeditated. Appellant offered this report in evidence, and attempted to prove by the witness that, in his opinion, the killing was not premeditated. On the state's objection, the court refused to admit the report in evidence, and sustained objections to questions concerning this matter which were propounded to the witness by appellant's counsel. The witness did not, on direct examination, refer to the report mentioned. That matter was first brought out on cross-examination.
Upon the record, the matter was not a proper subject of cross-examination, as the testimony of the witness upon his examination in chief was limited to the matter of the sanity or insanity of appellant at the time of the killing and at the time of the trial. There was nothing in the report which tended to impeach the testimony of the witness upon his examination in chief. The witness, of course, had no personal knowledge concerning the facts of the case, and his opinion on the question of premeditation or the lack of premeditation was inadmissible. The witness was examined and cross-examined at length as to appellant's mental condition, which was a proper subject for expert testimony, upon which the witness was competent to testify. The opinion of the witness, however, upon the presence or lack of premeditation, as stated on some other occasion, was not admissible on appellant's trial. The written report made by the witness prior
to the trial was properly excluded on the state's objection. No error was committed by the trial court in this connection.
[9] Appellant next assigns error upon the giving of the following instruction:
"Every condition of mental responsibility or of insanity will not excuse a crime.
"If the defendant is to be acquitted upon his plea of mental irresponsibility or insanity, he must convince you by a preponderance of the evidence, that at the time the crime is alleged to have been committed, his mind was diseased to such an extent that he was unable to perceive the moral qualities of the act with which he is charged, and was unable to tell right from wrong with reference to the particular act charged.
Any person may be sick or diseased in body or mind and yet be able to distinguish right from wrong with respect to a particular act."
Appellant excepted to this instruction, and argues that the court erred in telling the jury that the jury must be convinced that appellant "was unable to perceive the moral qualities of" his act, contending that the placing upon appellant of the burden of proving that he was unable to perceive the moral quality of his act increased beyond legal limits the burden which rested upon appellant. The instruction placed no undue burden upon appellant, and could not have confused the jury. While the instruction might have been more happily worded, we find therein no reversible error.
[10] Appellant also complains of an instruction in which the jury were told that "certain evidence" had been admitted under the limitation that it should be considered by the jury only in determining the mental condition of appellant at the time of the killing, the jury having been told in the same instruction that the testimony should not be considered as an excuse for
the crime nor to prove justification for anger, hatred, revenge, etc. Appellant complains of the instruction, contending that the court did not point out to the jury the particular testimony referred to. Three witnesses called by appellant testified as to his mental condition, stating that, in their opinion, appellant was insane. One of the witnesses was an expert alienist, another was appellant's wife, and another an acquaintance.
We find no error in the instruction complained of. It is impossible to imagine that the jury could have been confused thereby. By its language, the instruction referred to evidence concerning the question of appellant's mental condition at the time of the acts described in the information.
[11] Appellant next contends that the trial court erred in refusing, at his request, to instruct the jury that the charge against appellant was a mere formal accusation, was not evidence of his guilt, and that no juror should be influenced because appellant had been charged with the crime. The trial court instructed the jury as to the presumption of innocence and concerning the burden of proof. Upon the record, we find no merit in this assignment of error.
[12] Appellant next assigns error upon the refusal of the trial court to instruct the jury that, if the killing was admitted, it would be presumed that the crime, if any crime had been committed by appellant, was that of murder in the second degree.
In the case of State v. Payne, 10 Wash. 545, 39 Pac. 157, the defendant was tried upon an information charging him with murder in the first degree. The jury returned a verdict of guilty of manslaughter, and from a judgment and sentence upon the verdict, defendant appealed. The trial court had instructed the jury that, the homicide having been proved, the
presumption was that it was murder in the second degree. In the course of the opinion, this court said:
"The proper instruction is that the presumption will have force unless there is something in the case to rebut it. Such was the instruction under consideration, and the better line of reasoning sustains it. Instructions like this are also sustained by the weight of authority."
The same rule was approved in the cases of State v. White, 10 Wash. 611, 39 Pac. 160, 41 Pac. 442; State v. Clark, 58 Wash. 128, 107 Pac. 1047; and State v. Duncan, 101 Wash. 542, 172 Pac. 915.
In the late case of State v. Gallagher, 4 Wn. (2d) 437, 103 P. (2d) 1100, we said:
"Where the killing of a human being is admitted, the killing is presumed to constitute the crime of murder in the second degree. The burden is imposed on the state to raise the charge to murder in the first degree. The defendant has the burden of justifying his act or reducing the charge to manslaughter."
The general rule is as contended for by appellant. The only question to be determined is whether or not, under the facts in the case at bar, the general rule applies, appellant having pleaded guilty to the charge of murder in the first degree. In all the cases cited, pleas of not guilty had been entered.
The case at bar went to the jury upon appellant's plea of guilty to the charge of first degree murder, and upon the plea interposed on appellant's behalf by his counsel, of not guilty by reason of insanity. Under the law, when appellant was found guilty, it became the duty of the jury to determine the degree of the crime. The court instructed the jury concerning the crimes of murder in the first degree and murder in the second degree, giving the jury the opportunity to find appellant guilty of either, in case they rejected the plea of not guilty because of insanity. The court instructed
the jury concerning the elements of the crime of murder in the first degree, and told the jury that the burden rested upon the state to prove beyond a reasonable doubt all of the elements of that crime.
The state makes a forceful argument that, on the record, the court erred in instructing the jury that they might find appellant guilty of murder in the second degree, and that, under the rule laid down in the cases of State v. Gottstein, 111 Wash. 600, 191 Pac. 766, and State v. Mahoney, 120 Wash. 633, 208 Pac. 37, appellant was guilty of murder in the first degree, if guilty of any crime at all. It is not necessary to consider this question.
In all the cases relied upon by appellant, the defendants, having pleaded not guilty, objected to the giving of the instruction, contending that it placed upon them an undue burden. In the case of State v. Mahoney, supra, this court found no error in the failure of the trial court to instruct the jury concerning the offense of murder in the second degree, being of the opinion that, in order to find the defendant guilty at all, the jury must have accepted evidence which in itself showed premeditation.
In the case at bar, the jury rejected the plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, and no question upon that phase of the case is before us.
In the case of State v. Payne, supra, this court made a careful study of the history of and reasons for the doctrine that the jury should be instructed that, a homicide having been proved, it should be presumed that it constituted murder in the second degree. After stating the old common law rule that, a killing having been shown, it would be presumed that murder had been committed, the court continued by showing the distinction between the degrees of the crime of murder, and that the presence of premeditation, which is
required to constitute the crime of murder in the first degree, is a distinct element, having no relation whatever to the fact of the killing, and that, for this reason, no presumption that the crime is murder in the first degree flows from proof of a homicide, while as to murder in the second degree, the reasons upon which the common law rule was based still have force. The court continued:
"Every one is presumed to intend the natural and necessary results of his actions. If he kills another he must, in the absence of a showing to the contrary, be presumed to have intended to kill him. And while it is true that even although he did intend to kill he may not be guilty of murder, or of any other crime, yet if he is not, it is by reason of some fact in justification of his action, the burden of proving which public policy demands should be cast upon him. If it is held that the fact of killing does not raise the presumption that it was malicious, the administration of criminal justice will be greatly interfered with. It is therefore the duty of courts to hold otherwise, if due care for the rights of the defendant will allow. Without such presumption to aid the prosecution it might happen that two persons would be alone in a room, and one kill the other, without any justification whatever, and yet the prosecution be utterly unable to secure his conviction, for the reason that there was nothing to show the circumstances surrounding the killing. Hence no presumption that it was other than justifiable could be established."
The rule was originally adopted of necessity, to assist the state in establishing a connected and complete prima facie case. The presumption, unlike the statutory presumption of innocence, is not one established for the benefit and protection of a person charged with the commission of a crime.
Appellant was charged with the crime of murder in the first degree, to which he pleaded guilty. Under the law above quoted, a jury was impaneled to hear
testimony and to "determine the degree of murder." While the defendant did not take the stand, his counsel called witnesses whose evidence tended to support the plea of insanity interposed by appellant's counsel.
The court instructed the jury that it was their duty under the law to determine whether the defendant was guilty of murder in the first degree or murder in the second degree, then gave an instruction defining both crimes, followed by an instruction concerning premeditation. By this instruction, the court told the jury that, before they could find appellant guilty of murder in the first degree,
". . . the state must convince you beyond a reasonable doubt of all the following elements of that crime:
"(1) That the defendant, on or about the 18th day of March, 1940, did beat, stab, strangle and wound one
Harriet Redding with certain deadly weapons, to-wit: a hammer, ice-pick, cord and chain;
"(2) That the defendant did this act with a premeditated design to effect the death of said Harriet Redding;
"(3) That as a result of the said wounds so inflicted the said Harriet Redding then and there died;
"(4) That the said act on the part of the defendant occurred in King county, Washington."
The court then instructed the jury concerning murder in the second degree, as follows:
"The killing of a human being, unless it is excusable or justifiable, committed with a design to effect the death of the person killed, but without premeditation, is murder in the second degree.
"The intentional killing of a human being resulting from sudden heat or passion, excitement, hatred or fear, is murder in the second degree."
After instructing the jury in connection with the matter of the plea of insanity, the court gave the usual instruction on the presumption of innocence, and finally
instructed the jury as to the forms of verdict which they should take with them to the jury room.
Aside from questions raised by the plea of insanity, which plea the jury rejected, upon appellant's plea of guilty to the charge of murder in the first degree, upon the evidence introduced, the jury could only find appellant guilty of murder either in the first degree or the second degree. The jury was properly instructed concerning the elements of these two offenses, and that, before they could find appellant guilty of murder in the first degree, the state must have convinced them beyond a reasonable doubt of the presence of each of the elements of that crime. The jury was properly instructed as to the definition of the crime of murder in the second degree. They were instructed as to the presumption of innocence.
Under the peculiar circumstances of this case, in view of appellant's plea of guilty, the trial court did not err in refusing to instruct the jury, as requested by appellant's counsel, concerning the presumption that, a homicide having been proven, the killing constituted murder in the second degree. There was no place in appellant's trial for the application of that presumption. The jury were properly and completely instructed as to their duties, and no right of appellant was violated.
[13] Appellant assigns error upon the refusal of the trial court to instruct the jury directly that, although appellant admitted the killing, he should nevertheless be presumed innocent of any crime until his guilt was established beyond a reasonable doubt. Appellant requested an instruction to this effect, which the court refused to give. By an instruction which the court gave, the jury were advised as to the presumption of innocence, and were told that this presumption "continues throughout the entire trial and until you
have found that this presumption has been overcome by the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt." The giving of this instruction was all that appellant could possibly ask. We find no merit in this assignment of error.
[14] Appellant next argues that the trial court committed reversible error in refusing to give appellant's requested instruction No. 9, referring to the duty of the jury to find appellant not guilty if, from the facts, and under the court's instructions, the jury determined that he was insane at the time of the commission of the homicide. In this connection, it should be noted that the instructions given by the court are subject to some criticism as not being as explicit or definite as they should have been, but from the instructions considered as a whole there can be no possible question but that the jury were informed that, if they found that, at the time of the homicide, appellant was insane, they should bring in a verdict of not guilty by reason of mental irresponsibility. It appears from the instructions that a form of verdict was submitted to the jury for use in the event they made such a finding. By another instruction, the jury were told of the special plea of insanity or mental irresponsibility; and in another instruction, the jury were advised that, if appellant was to be acquitted upon the plea of insanity, the jury must be convinced, by a preponderance of the evidence, that, at the time of the alleged homicide, he was mentally irresponsible, as defined by the court in the instruction.
The instruction which appellant requested embodied an incorrect statement of law, on a collateral matter, and the court would have erred in using it as an instruction to the jury. In failing to give the requested instruction, the trial court did not err.
[15-17] Appellant also contends that the trial court
erred in refusing to give his requested instruction No. 7, as follows:
"You are instructed that if you believe either that the defendant was insane at the time of the commission of the act alleged in the information, or that he is insane during the trial of this action, then your verdict will be `Not guilty on account of insanity.'"
This instruction was properly refused. If one accused of crime and put on his trial be insane at the time of trial, his constitutional rights are violated, as an insane person is not capable of defending himself, and if found guilty and the sentence executed, he would be deprived of life or liberty without due process of law. State ex rel. Mackintosh v. Superior Court, 45 Wash. 248, 88 Pac. 207; State v. Wilson, 69 Wash. 235, 124 Pac. 1125; State v. Henke, 196 Wash. 185, 82 P. (2d) 544. While an insane person should not be put upon trial for an alleged offense, if he be tried, a finding by the jury, if the procedure followed allowed such a finding, that he was insane at the time of trial, would not mean that he was not guilty of the crime with which he was charged. Such insanity meals no more than that the one accused may not be tried while mentally irresponsible. If reason is regained, the person charged may subsequently be tried.
We are not aware of any statute which requires the jury to pass specifically on the question of an accused's sanity at the time of trial, if the jury returns a verdict of guilty as charged. Ram. Rev. Stat., § 2175 [P. C. § 9295], requires a special finding by the jury in cases where a plea of insanity or mental irresponsibility has been interposed, and when the jury is returning a verdict of acquittal on that plea, but this section has no application when the jury returns a verdict of guilty as charged. A superior court possesses inherent authority to ascertain whether or not one accused of crime
and put on his trial is sane or insane at the time of trial. State v. Schrader, 135 Wash. 650, 238 Pac. 617, 243 Pac. 10. This power rests in the sound discretion of the trial court, and may be exercised at any time the court deems such an investigation appropriate.
In the case at bar, the judge presiding at appellant's trial necessarily had appellant under personal observation for several days, and evidently found no reason for causing any investigation to be made concerning appellant's then mental condition as distinguished from appellant's mental condition at the time of the homicide. The record contains no evidence indicating that appellant's mental state at the time of trial differed from his condition at the time of the commission of the crime to which he had pleaded guilty.
The trial court therefore did not err in submitting to the jury a special finding as to appellant's sanity or insanity at the time of trial, not to be answered by the jury in case they found appellant guilty as charged. This question has been determined against appellant's contention in State v. Henke, supra.
[18] Appellant's present mental condition as to sanity or insanity is not presented on this appeal. Of course a person found guilty of the crime of first degree murder and sentenced to death should not suffer that penalty while insane. Courts possess an inherent power to act upon a showing of supervening insanity, and if necessary, to issue a stay of execution to permit a proper and adequate investigation to be made. Our courts possess this power, independent of any statutory authority. State v. Nordstrom, 21 Wash. 403, 58 Pac. 248, 53 L. R. A. 584; Grossi v. Long, 136 Wash. 133, 238 Pac. 983; State ex rel. Alfani v. Superior Court, 139 Wash. 125, 245 Pac. 929, 49 A. L. R. 801. By Rem. Rev. Stat., § 6942 [P. C. § 2832], the governor of the state is vested with discretionary power to act in case of the
Dissenting Opinion Per BLAKE, C. [Dec. 1940
insanity of any person confined under sentence after conviction of crime.
[19] Finally, appellant contends that the trial court erred in refusing to withdraw from the jury the charge of murder in the first degree, appellant contending that the record shows no sufficient evidence of premeditation. This question has already been discussed in this opinion, and authorities cited. It is the law that the premeditated intent to kill may be formed in a very short interval before the actual killing. The law does not attempt to lay down any rule establishing a definite minimum period of time during which the premeditated intention to kill must exist. It is for the jury to determine whether premeditation did, in fact, exist prior to the homicide. In the case at bar, the history of the homicide, as shown by the record, afforded ample basis for a finding by the jury, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the killing was premeditated, and constituted murder in the first degree.
Appellant presents no arguments in support of his contention that the trial court erred in failing to grant his motion for arrest of judgment or his motion for new trial, save in connection with his contentions which we have already discussed.
Appellant had a fair trial, and the record is free from reversible error. The judgment appealed from is accordingly affirmed.
MAIN, MILLARD, STEINERT, ROBINSON, SIMPSON, JEFFERS, and DRIVER, JJ., concur.
BLAKE, C. J. (dissenting) - A homicide having been admitted or proven beyond a reasonable doubt, the presumption is that it is murder in the second degree. The presumption will prevail if there is nothing in the case to rebut it. State v. Payne, 10 Wash. 545, 39 Pac. 157. If defendant would reduce the crime to
manslaughter, the burden is on him to rebut the presumption. If the state would elevate the crime to murder in the first degree, the burden is upon it to establish the essential characteristics of that crime and the jury should be so instructed. State v. White, 10 Wash. 611, 39 Pac. 160, 41 Pac. 442; State v. Melvern, 32 Wash. 7, 72 Pac. 489; State v. Clark, 58 Wash. 128, 107 Pac. 1047; State v. Totten, 67 Wash. 192, 121 Pac. 70; State v. Duncan, 101 Wash. 542, 172 Pac. 915; State v. Gallagher, 4 Wn. (2d) 437, 103 P. (2d) 1100.
I dissent.
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50 Wn.2d 229, JOHN L. MILLER, Respondent, v. THE CITY OF PASCO et al., Appellants
[No. 33766. En Banc. Supreme Court May 2, 1957.]
JOHN L. MILLER, Respondent, v. THE CITY OF PASCO et al.,
Appellants.«1»
[1] DECLARATORY JUDGMENT - PROCEEDINGS - PARTIES - INTEREST IN SUBJECT MATTER - TAXPAYER. A taxpayer and resident of Pasco, who otherwise met the qualifications of an interested party as prescribed by RCW 7.24.020, was correctly held to be a proper party plaintiff in an action under the declaratory judgment act to declare unconstitutional chapter 294, Laws of 1955, providing that the city of Pasco could lease, sell, or otherwise dispose of certain property.
[2] MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS - PROPERTY - DISPOSITION OF PROPERTY. When cities of the third class obtain unqualified title to real estate, they may dispose of it when such disposition is for the common benefit; in view of RCW 35.24.010, which provides that "Every city of the third class . . . may purchase, lease, receive, hold, and enjoy real and personal property and may control and dispose of it for the common benefit;
[3] STATUTES - CONSTRUCTION - MEANING OF WORDS. To ascertain the legislative intent in the interpretation of a statute, the words used are given their usual and ordinary meaning.
[4] MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS - PROPERTY - DISPOSITION OF PROPERTY -SALE. In an action to enjoin the city of Pasco from leasing or disposing of certain property, held that the trial court erred in holding that the property could not be sold; since, giving the words "dispose of" their usual and ordinary meaning, RCW 35.24.010 authorizes the sale of the property under the facts of this case.
[5] SAME - PROPERTY - POWER TO LEASE. In the absence of a specific legislative grant to cities of the third class to permit the leasing of municipally-owned property, such cities are not authorized to delegate the control of their property to others.
[6] SAME. The power to grant the control of municipally-owned property, by lease or otherwise, is not given to cities of the third class by RCW 35.24.010.
[1] See 37 A.L. R. 1243; 16 Am. Jur. 327.
230 MILLER v. PASCO. [50 Wn. (2d)
[7] STATUTES - CONSTRUCTION - GIVING MEANING TO ENTIRE STATUTE. Each and every section of a legislative enactment must be given meaning.
[8] SAME - GENERAL POWERS LIMITED BY SPECIFIC POWERS. Where general powers are granted with specific powers enumerated, the general powers are modified, limited, and restricted to the extent of the specific enumeration.
[9] MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS - PROPERTY - POWER TO LEASE. It was not error to enjoin the city of Pasco from leasing municipally-owned land for the purpose of establishing a parking lot; Since under RCW 35.24.300 the power of a City of the third class to lease its municipally-owned lands is limited to waterfront property to be used for purposes of manufacturing, commercial or other business purposes, and property to be used for wharves, docks, and other navigation purposes.
[10] CONSTITUTIONAL LAW - PRIVILEGES AND IMMUNITIES - APPLICATION TO MUNICIPALITIES - SPECIAL LEGISLATION. Laws of 1955, chapter 294, granting to the city of Pasco the right to lease municipallyowned property, is violative of Const. Art. II, § 28(6), which prohibits the enacting of special laws for granting corporate powers or privileges; since such power has not been granted to other cities of the third class.
MALLERY, SCHWELLENBACH, and FINLEY, JJ., dissent.
Appeal from a judgment of the superior court for Franklin county, No. 8560, Freese, J., entered January 3, 1956, upon findings in favor of the plaintiff, in an action for a declaratory judgment and for injunctive relief. Modified.
Richard G. Patrick, for appellants.
John Horrigan and Theodore D. Peterson, for respondent.
OTT, J. -
John L. Miller sought a judgment to declare chapter 294, Laws of 1955, p. 1317, unconstitutional, and to enjoin the city of Pasco (a city of the third class) from leasing or disposing of the real property described in the act.
The city's demurrer, challenging the right of the plaintiff to institute the action, was overruled. By its answer, the city alleged that it was authorized by chapter 294, Laws of 1955, to sell or lease the property in question, and that the law was constitutional. Further answering the complaint and as an affirmative defense, the city alleged that it was expressly authorized to lease or sell the real estate by RCW 35.24.010 [cf. Rem. Rev. Stat. (Sup), § 9914] and RCW 35.24.300 [cf. Rem. Rev. Stat., § 9128, Laws of 1915, chapter
May 1957] MILLER v. PASCO. 231
184, § 15, p. 658]. The reply denied the affirmative matters pleaded.
Upon the trial, the issues being thus joined, the court determined (1) that John L. Miller was a proper party plaintiff, (2) that the city of Pasco could not lease or dispose of the property by sale, and (3) that chapter 294, Laws of 1955, was unconstitutional. The city of Pasco has appealed.
In determining that the respondent had the capacity to maintain this action, the court relied upon State ex rel. Lemon v. Langlie, 45 Wn. (2d) 82, 273 P. (2d) 464 (1954). In that case, this court held that a resident taxpayer was a proper party plaintiff in a mandamus proceeding against state officers, where, as in the instant case, the attorney general had declined to institute the action after being requested so to do. The rule announced in the Lemon case permitted such a proceeding to be instituted by a taxpayer under those circumstances, and where the proceeding related to the performance of duties by state officers.
[1] The rule is not apposite to the issue here presented. This is a declaratory judgment proceeding in which an act of the legislature is challenged as being unconstitutional. The uniform declaratory judgment act (RCW 7.24) specifies who may institute such proceedings.
RCW 7.24.020 [cf. Rem. Rev. Stat. (Sup.), § 784-2] provides in part:
"A person interested. . . whose rights, status or other legal relations are affected by a statute, municipal ordinance, . . . may have determined any question of construction or validity arising under the . . . statute, ordinance,. . . and obtain a declaration of rights, status or other legal relations thereunder."
"The enumeration in RCW 7.24.020 . . . does not limit or restrict the exercise of the general powers conferred in RCW 7.24.010, in any proceeding where declaratory relief is sought, in which a judgment or decree will terminate the controversy or remove an uncertainty."
RCW 7.24.120 [cf. Rem. Rev. Stat. (Sup.), § 784-12] provides:
"This chapter is declared to be remedial; its purpose is to settle and to afford relief from uncertainty and insecurity with respect to rights, status and other legal relations; and is to be liberally construed and administered."
Applying the legislative mandate of liberal construction to the facts in this case, the record establishes that John L. Miller is a resident and taxpayer of Pasco, and otherwise meets the qualifications of an interested person, as defined by RCW 7.24.020, supra. The court did not err in its finding that John L. Miller was a proper party plaintiff.
Does RCW 35.24.010, supra, grant to cities of the third class the power to dispose of property, the fee title to which was obtained by condemnation? RCW 35.24.010 provides in part as follows:
"Every city of the third class . . . may purchase, lease, receive, hold, and enjoy real and personal property and may, control and dispose of it for the common benefit; . . ." (Italics ours.)
[2] The intention of the legislature is clear that, when cities of the third class obtain unqualified title to real estate they may dispose of it when such disposition is for the common benefit. There is nothing in the act which would indicate that fee title to real estate must remain irrevocably in the municipality. The act provides that third-class cities may "dispose of it [property] for the common benefit."
[3] To ascertain legislative intent in the interpretation of a statute, the words used are to be given their usual and ordinary meaning. Pacific Northwest Alloys v. State, 49 Wn. (2d) 702, 705, 306 P. (2d) 197 (1957). What is the usual and ordinary meaning of the words "dispose of"? Webster's New International Dictionary (2d ed.) defines the words as "To get rid of; . . . part with; . . . bargain away."
[4] Since the city's acquisition of this property in 1945, Pasco has had an unusual growth, both in area and in population. Parks and playgrounds were needed and provided
in other sections of the city. In the exercise of their discretion, the city authorities determined that the property here in question was no longer needed for the purpose for which it was acquired, and that the common benefit required that it be leased or sold. Giving the words, "dispose of," their usual and ordinary meaning, RCW 35.24.010 authorizes the sale of the property, under the facts of this case.
Does RCW 35.24.010, supra, grant to cities of the third class authority to lease such property?
[5, 6] The act grants to cities of the third class the right to control such property for the common benefit. In the absence of a specific legislative grant to cities of the third class to permit the leasing of municipally-owned property, such cities are not authorized to delegate the control of their property to others. The power to grant the control of municipally-owned property, by lease or otherwise, is not given to cities of the third class by RCW 35.24.010.
Is the power to lease municipally-owned real estate for parking lot purposes granted to cities of the third class by RCW 35.24.300, supra? The section provides in part:
"The city council of such city shall have power to purchase, lease, or otherwise acquire real estate and personal property necessary or proper for municipal purposes and to control, lease, sublease, convey, or otherwise dispose of the same; to acquire and plat land for cemeteries and parks and provide for the regulation thereof; to lease any water front and other lands adjacent thereto owned by it for manufacturing, commercial or other business purposes: to lease for wharf, dock and other purposes of navigation and commerce such portions of its streets which bound upon or terminate in its waterfront or the navigable waters of such city, subject, however, to the written consent of the lessees of a majority of the square feet frontage of the harbor area abutting on any street proposed to be so leased."
[7, 8] Two rules of statutory construction, to which we have uniformly adhered, apply to the issue presented by this proceeding: (1) that each and every section of a legislative enactment must be given meaning, and (2) where general powers are granted with specific powers enumerated, the general powers are modified, limited, and
restricted to the extent of the specific enumeration. Groves v. Meyers, 35 Wn. (2d) 403, 213 P. (2d) 483 (1950); State v. Thompson, 38 Wn. (2d) 774, 232 P. (2d) 87 (1951); Public Hospital Dist. No. 2 of Okanogan County v. Taxpayers of Public Hospital Dist. No. 2 of Okanogan County, 44 Wn. (2d) 623, 269 P. (2d) 594 (1954); 50 Am. Jur. 244, § 249; 82 C. J. S. 658, § 332.
[9] If, as appellant contends, cities of the third class, by RCW 35.24.300, supra, have general power to lease, sublease. convey or otherwise dispose of their real estate, then the remainder of the quoted portion of the section, which authorizes specific types of leases, is surplusage and meaningless. By this section, the power of a city of the third class to lease its municipally-owned lands is limited to (1) waterfront property to be used for the purposes of manufacturing, etc., and (2) property to be used for wharves, docks, and other navigation purposes.
The legislative grant to lease municipally-owned property, as provided by RCW 35.24.300, supra, is ambiguous and requires judicial interpretation. The general and specific powers above enumerated are all contained in a single sentence. In order to give the entire sentence meaning and to retain the limited types of leases which the legislature specifically authorized cities of the third class to execute., the general grant of power must yield in its scope to the specific powers enumerated.
For the reasons stated, the authority to lease municipally-owned property for the purpose of establishing a parking lot is not conferred upon cities of the third class by RCW 35.24.300, supra. The trial court did not err in its determination that the city should be enjoined from leasing the property involved in this proceeding.
Is chapter 294, Laws of 1955, supra, unconstitutional as being special legislation? The act provides:
"The city council of the city of Pasco, upon finding that the property is not required for park purposes, shall have power to lease, sell, or otherwise dispose to the best and highest bidder after advertising for bids in not less than three editions of the official newspaper, the following
described property located in Franklin county, state of Washington: [property description]."
Art. II, § 28, of the state constitution, provides in part:
"The legislature is prohibited from enacting any private or special laws in the following cases: . . .
"6. For granting corporate powers or privileges."
[10] In Terry v. King County, 43 Wash. 61, 86 Pac. 210 (1906), we held that Art. II, § 28, subd. 6, of the constitution, applies to legislation granting special powers to municipal corporations. Chapter 294, Laws of 1955, grants to the city of Pasco authority to lease its municipally-owned property. Such power has not been granted to other cities of the third class. The legislature has attempted to limit the grant of this authority to one particular city of the third class, and, hence, it is special legislation as that term is defined in Young Men's Christian Ass'n v. Parish, 89 Wash. 495, 154 Pac. 785 (1916), where we stated:
"A special law is one which relates to particular persons or things, while a general law is one which applies to all persons or things of a class."
The trial court did not err in declaring chapter 294, Laws of 1955, unconstitutional as violative of Art. II, § 28, of the state constitution.
The judgment of the trial court is modified by dissolving the injunction restraining the sale of the property by the city. In all other respects, the judgment is affirmed.
HILL, C. J., DONWORTH, WEAVER, ROSELLINI, and FOSTER, JJ., concur.
MALLERY, J. (dissenting) - I dissent. The respondent brought this action to restrain the city of Pasco from leasing a tract of its land for a parking lot. He predicated his cause of action upon the damage the parking lot would do to his residential property five blocks away by reason of decreasing its market value, and the damage to his construction business resulting from the construction by a competitor of a contemplated private shopping district adjacent to the parking lot. No zoning violation is alleged.
Parking is a police power problem to be solved by the legislative, not the judicial, branch of the government.
This action does not lie because (1) the city acted within its legislative authority, and (2) the respondent has no justiciable interest in the public policy here in question.
(1) RCW 35.24.290 [cf. Rem. Rev. Stat., § 9127] provides. inter alia:
"The city council of each third class city shall have power: . . .
"(18) To make all such ordinances, bylaws, rules, regulations and resolutions, not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the state of Washington, as may be deemed expedient to maintain the peace, good government and welfare of the corporation and its trade, commerce and manufactures, and to do and perform any and all other acts and things necessary or proper to carry out the provisions of this chapter, and to enact and enforce within the limits of such city all other local, police, sanitary and other regulations as do not conflict with general laws; . . ."
RCW 35.24.300 [cf. Rem. Rev. Stat., § 9128] provides, inter alia:
"The city council of such city shall have power to purchase, lease, or otherwise acquire real estate and personal property necessary or proper for municipal purposes and to control, lease, sublease, convey or otherwise dispose of the same; . . ."
The appellant has ample statutory authority to lease the land for a parking lot.
(2) The respondent cannot maintain his action. Minorities have many constitutional rights which majorities cannot violate with impunity, but no such right is here involved. His only constitutional right, in the instant situation, is to advance his cause in the legislative field where the majority rules. He has no right to obstruct the orderly legislative processes of the city of Pasco by recourse to the courts, in the absence of a justiciable issue.
SCHWELLENBACH and FINLEY, JJ., concur with MALLERY, J.
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शुक्रवार, 5 जुलाई 2013
at 6:11 pm | 0 comments | cynical hypocrisy, penalty
Deliberate attempt to sabotage--- GURUDAS DAS GUPTA
Dated 20.6.2013
RESPONSE TO MINISTER OF PETROLEUM,
MR. VEERAPPA MOILY’S STATEMENT
BY GURUDAS DAS GUPTA, MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT
Mr. Moily’s statement is misleading and malicious. I request him to kindly identify the vested interest I am representing.
The point in question is that Mr. Jaipal Reddy had issued the order imposing penalty on RIL for deliberately reducing the production level. It is amazing that he says that the file did not come to him. The matter was in the public domain. Everybody knew the penalty that had been imposed but the Minister who succeeds Mr. Jaipal Reddy does not know the matter. It is a deliberate ignorance to shift the burden on to his officers. It is all well known that Reliance refused to pay penalty, asked for arbitration. Even two arbitrators had been appointed by both the parties. Even lawyers have been appointed by the Ministry of Petroleum. In fact, the two judges were involved in discussion to nominate the third. Such a long, long process that has taken place during the time of his predecessor cannot be unknown to him. Government is a continuing process. When a new Minister takes office he must know what his predecessor has done. Mr. Moily in an interview to Economic Times on 23rd January, 2013 had made a statement. To quote, “The Government is thinking to junk the arbitration and start direct negotiations.” He further said that the government has a weak case in arbitration. If Minister speaks in this way, what is the message that goes to his officials? The most intriguing is that on the one hand he says that the file was not put up to him, on the other, he makes a public statement debunking arbitration. It is a case of cynical hypocrisy. Therefore, it is not a case of ignorance but a deliberate attempt to sabotage the process of realizing the penalty and undermining arbitration. The second question that arises is that why he has not given the notice for penalty for the year of 2012-13 when the production had further declined. In fact, if the calculation is correctly made, the penalty should have been 1.7 billion dollars.
Why he is closing his eyes to further sharp decline in the current year which is almost 19 per cent of the approved level of production.
In case of relinquishment of the area given to Reliance, the CAG asked for vacation of at least 50 per cent of the allotted area. The Director General of Hydrocarbon has submitted his report categorically stating that 83 per cent of the area should be surrendered. Why he has not taken any action so far. Why he is allowing Reliance to occupy 6000 sq. km area illegally.
In fact, the Minister in a statement published in a number of papers on 16th June, 2013 said that he will not be guided by technical advice but shall always favour production and investment. Here again he is speaking against relinquishment to favour the corporate raising the slogan of ‘improving production and investment.’
All of us would welcome massive investment in the oil and gas sector to make India self-reliant but that cannot be at the cost of loot of national resources.
Therefore, the collusion of the Minister with the corporate is clear. He wants to condone the criminality of underproduction and consequent damage to the Indian economy and allow the corporate to grab 6000 sq. km in violation of the contract.
Deliberate attempt to sabotage--- GURUDAS DAS GUPT...
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Review: UFC Undisputed 3 (Sony Playstation 3)
Aaron Sirois | February 28, 2012 | Archive, Sony PS3, Top Story, Video Game Reviews | 4 Comments
Developer: Yuke’s
Genre: Sports/Fighting
It’s no secret that I’m a pretty big fan of the UFC Undisputed franchise. Both 2009 and 2010 made my personal top ten, and my review for 2010 was pretty glowing. That being said, there was room for improvement, and the extra time in development had my expectations flying sky high. It was going to be tough for Yuke’s to meet them.
The big thing this year seems to be simply adding more to the formula. Two new weight classes have been introduced, and Pride rules and fighters get to shine as well. With over one hundred and fifty fighters, that is an astoundingly large roster. The Pride rule set allows for knees and kicks to downed opponents, as well as ropes instead of a cage. There is a ton of content to digest here. Clearly, they didn’t just do a quick update and call it a day.
So, is this the best MMA game yet, or has the magic finally worn off? Let’s find out!
We have a lot of stuff to go through, so I’ll try to be as brief as possible.
Career Mode has seen a ton of changes. It has completely eschewed all of the personal touches from last year in favor of more fights at a faster pace. You won’t have to deal with post-fight interviews, weigh ins, or Rachelle Leah sending you e-mail after e-mail. There is also fewer time to train between fights, though this has been balanced out by making training more streamlined.
You train by completing one of several minigames or sparring practices. For example, the tire flip challenge has you flipping a tire to green zones in order to score points. This increases your strength, takedowns, and other attributes. You gain points based on how well you did in these games, but you also have the choice to skip them in favor of fewer points. Instead of skills naturally diminishing over time when they aren’t trained, you’ll find that focusing on one skill over another tends to limit the latter. For example, constantly training in submissions will have an averse effect on your striking. These losses can be balanced out, but if you want to be a great puncher/submission fighter, you’re going to have to work towards it.
There are more fight options than ever. Unless you’re the champion, you usually have around six different opponent to chose from. As such, you can really go up the rankings at your own pace. Tune up fights allow you to take a weaker opponent, fill-in fights give you less training time but more currency, and you can even take a fight in a different weight class if you feel like it. However, you can only make a permanent change to your class after winning a title vs title match. Once champion, you can start taking fights in Pride, which has new fighters and different rules. You start out in the WFA against CAFs, but eventually move on to the UFC. What I liked here is that you could indefinitely remain in the WFA, defending your title and building your reputation and skills. This is so that the UFC offers you better debut fights, and you can shore up holes in your game before stepping up in competition.
Overall, there have been many changes to career mode, but whether or not it is better really depends on what you’re looking for. For those looking for a faster path to the top, this is probably a godsend. For those who liked all of the pomp and circumstance of the last game, this will probably be a disappointment. Either way, career mode still offers a meaty experience that allows you to create a fighter from scratch and take him to the top. Oh yeah, and you can play as a UFC fighter as well, though his skills and move sets will be reset.
The title modes have made a return, and are pretty much the same, with some cosmetic changes. Title Mode has you running through a division in order to capture the title. If you lose three times, you’re out, and have to start again. Once you’ve won the title, you unlock Title Defense. However, it should be noted that now you can only play through TD with a fighter that you have won the title with. This is kind of annoying, but somewhat logical. TD is essentially a survival mode, with you fighting bout after bout with no breaks until you lose the title. You have a task list to complete in order to earn points in the game’s shop, and it allows you to shoot for goals so the fighting doesn’t get too stale. There is no option to save your place though, so beware.
The Ultimate Fights mode returns as well, but this one has definitely been changed for the worse. This mode gives you classic fights and asks you to relive them through the eyes of either fighter. When you pick your fighter, you are then given one task after another to complete. You can only complete one at a time, and it’s timed. This completely takes away the freedom of this mode, and I found it lacking. However, there are fewer tasks to complete overall, so some may get into it. If you didn’t preorder the game somewhere or buy DLC, you’ll only have five fights to work with. The rest are on the disc, and even viewable in the menu, but you can’t select them. This is shameless and stupid.
Beyond that, there are even more modes to contend with. Exhibition has tons of options to mess around with, as well as that impossibly huge roster. Event Mode allows you to create your own card, or use a historical one if you desire. Tournament Mode has you run through several fights to win, and the new Pride option has you fighting all of your fights in one night. This means health carries over, and strategy becomes huge. You can also create highlight reels, fighters, logos, and banners, and all of these can be shared online and rated by other players.
The online mode is back and really hasn’t seen much change. You can still select from a random ranked match or a player match. The goal is to win fights to increase your ranking. Online camps return, but I was unable to play them with the seven day trial included with the game. However, they still work the same, with you joining friends under one banner, earning prestige, and sparring with each other in good fun. There are connection issues as usual, and while they aren’t as bad as in 2010, they are still there. Online still offers you the stiffest competition and is definitely worth checking out.
There is a lot to see and do in UFC Undisputed 3, and apart from Ultimate Fights, it’s all good. It’s kind of sad they couldn’t come up with any new modes, but the sheer amount of content to run through and the number of ways to play is astonishing. The additions of two new weight classes and Pride really helped out. As such, the game gets high marks in this department.
Visually, speaking, the UFC series has always made an impact with its high quality character models and animations. The same can be said here, though the impact is lessened because, let’s face it, it hasn’t done all that much to improve upon the previous game.
The fighter models still look fantastic. With over one-hundred and fifty fighters in the game, it’s pretty great how realistic each of them look. I did notice fewer instances of the uncanny valley, but then again, I didn’t play as Anthony Johnson, so I might have just missed the most blatant example. The eyes do seem to look a bit better though. There has been some greater focus put on damage during fights. Cuts, welts, and even some gashes look better than ever. It can be a bit much though, as I’d expect dozens of stitches would be needed for some wounds I’ve received. There is still a bit of a disconnect between created fighters and licensed fighters, but this is to be expected.
The animations are tighter than ever. Compared to last year, the number of goofs and glitches is almost nothing. On top of that, a number of new animations, positions, and poses were added. When I compare this to the first Undisputed game, it’s like night and day. I’m not exaggerating at all there. With new positions and scrambles against the cage, new strikes, and entrances, this is just getting better and better.
The big focus, presentation-wise, has been on making it more and more like what you see on TV. This gives us entrances for main card fights, more of trainers talking to fighters between rounds, and generic shadow boxing during pre-fight introductions. The menus could still use some jazzing up, but the game looks pretty great as a whole. I don’t imagine we’re going to see any visual leaps until a new console generation is unleashed, but this is still pretty high end.
With the personal touch cut out of career, you no longer have a voiced character that does post fight interviews or pre-fight hype. Instead, the only voices you’re going to hear are the announcers and some fighters during highlight reels. Mike Goldberg and Joe Rogan return and do a fantastic job as usual. Goldy is pulling double duty, as he’s also the voice that explains the game in various tutorials. Bas Rutten and Steve Quadros have been added to commentate on Pride matches. They’re spirited, no doubt about that, but Bas is insanely annoying. I don’t know if it’s just his voice or the ridiculous amount of energy he puts in, but I really didn’t like him. Still, he doesn’t do a bad job at all.
The music is there for background purposes once again, and I really miss the licensed tracks from the first game. A number of BGMs make returns, and there are some licensed UFC BGMs as well. This means the music playing during Fight Nights is right on the money. A couple of songs are ones that Yuke’s seems to have lying around. The song that plays during the WFA introduction was the same generic tune I used for a CAW in WWE ’12. That’s understandable, but kind of sloppy.
In fights, the sound is great as usual. You can hear and feel the power of each strike, as well as the grunt of a pained fighter. The audience will chant fighter’s names this year, and are pretty good about responding to the action. If you strike an opponent when they are trying to touch gloves, for example, they will boo the ever loving crap out of you. Make a dramatic escape or finish, however, and they’ll chant your name. It’s a small, but nice, touch that adds to the game in a tangible way.
Basically, Undisputed 3 maintains the high level presentation of its forebears, while continuing to add little flourishes to improve upon the formula. I will still always hate Lenne Hardt, the ring announcer for Pride, but that’s the price you pay for a new mode I guess.
The basics remain the same, so I’ll get them out of the way quickly. The face buttons each control a limb each, the right shoulder buttons are for blocking, and the left shoulder buttons are attack modifiers. The analog sticks control movement and grappling. The control scheme can be pretty complicated, as a move may have you flicking the left stick while pressing a shoulder button and tapping a face button. However, there are plenty of tutorials to get you used to how things work.
The ground game has seen a few changes. For starters, you can no longer just hold back on the right stick to block grapple attempts. You need to time your defenses, which definitely takes some getting used to. More importantly, you can do major ground and pound damage from any position. You can also finish the fight from any top position, which is a blessing. Finally, there have been several new positions added. The most important of these is the mounted crucifix, which is just awesome.
Submissions have also been greatly altered. Now when you apply a submission, you open up a minigame. Each player has a bar, and the initiator chases the defender along an octagon. As the move goes on, the attacker’s bar gets smaller. Anytime the attacker’s bar overlaps the defender’s bar, a meter fills up, whereas it empties when they’re not overlapping. The game ends when the meter fills up either way, or if the attacker runs out of time. If the attacker wins, then he wins the fight via submission. If the defender wins, they break out of the hold and end up in an advantageous position. The game is similar to what we saw for chokes in EA Sports MMA. The only difference is that it controls differently and the bar shrinks over time. The controls are a bit awkward at first, but you get used to them over time. Either way, this is a much better system than what we’ve seen previously from the series.
There are a couple of other random changes and quirks I’ll mention here. While it is still easy to rock someone after a series of hits, fighters also recover more quickly, meaning finishes are harder to come by early on. At this point, my fastest fights are all submissions against guys with poor ground defense. Another odd thing is that body shots seem to do significantly less damage. I’ve used powerful kickboxers and landed shot after shot, only to see little progress made. The body also seems to recover the most health between rounds. Flying punches to a downed opponent are now something that everyone has and uses frequently. They are quite powerful, as long as the opponent doesn’t catch your arm and take you out with a triangle choke. These minor changes are something that only veterans will catch, but they do make a noticeable impact on the game
If you play the Pride rule set, you’re in for a different kind of game, but it’s mostly similar. The big changes are that you can’t use elbows, and kicks are perfectly legal on the ground. This means you’ll finally get to soccer kick someone in the face for a win. It seems to be an instant knockout, but it’s not easy to pull off. Beyond that, you should have no issues making the transition.
Undisputed 3 maintains the series pedigree of fast paced fights that are as fun to play as they are technical. Knockouts and submissions can happen at any time, and fights rarely go to decision. With tons of moves and styles available, there is a lot of depth. You can’t really play someone like Royce Gracie the same way you play Chuck Liddell. On the same hand, you can’t fight those two fighters the same way either. It makes for an exciting game with plenty to offer.
Replayability
For a dedicated player, this game offers near limitless content.
Firstly, if you want to get the full experience from the career mode, you’ll probably want to play through each weight class. That will take you dozens of hours at least. That’s without playing the other modes at all.
Secondly, if you get into the online, you can probably get hundreds of fights before you start to get bored. Joining an online camp helps as well, as you’re fighting for team glory. There are a ton of fighters to use, or you can try out your CAFs against stiffer competition.
Since there are five difficulty settings, a big part of the fun is working your way up the hardest one and still coming out on top. Playing through a career on Advanced difficulty was much more difficult than on a lower setting. I can’t imagine what it would be like on Ultimate.
There are also so many styles that you can implement which change the way you play the game. My first foray into career mode, I created a kickboxer who used his reach to land kicks without fear of counters. My next playthrough, I created a submission specialist who got dominated on his feet, but could submit anyone on the ground. I plan to go through it again with at least one more guy, perhaps making a clinch fighter to take advantage of that cage.
If you get into this game, you’re looking at hundreds of hours worth of meaningful content. With the extra classes and Pride mode, it found a way to surpass its forebears in a substantial way. Color me impressed.
The best thing about mixed martial arts is that on any night, any fighter can beat any other fighter. After watching Tim Boetsch make an improbable comeback against Yushin Okami at 144, it got me really thinking. This is a game about using your strengths and exploiting your opponent’s weaknesses. If you’re going against a submission specialist, keep the fight on your feet, even if you’re a ground and pound expert. If they’re a better striker, don’t be afraid to use the clinch to press the action. Study your stats, and those of your opponent. If you give ground all accounts, skillful play is what will win the day. Use sways, counters, and strategic striking pull off the upset.
With so many elements going into each fight, there is balance made almost by default. Every fight style is valid if implemented properly. Multiple difficulty settings make use of advanced techniques and reversals to keep you on your toes. If you feel like just slugging it out for a crazy finish, stick to the lower difficulty settings.
In career mode, there’s nothing quite like losing a fight, working on what went wrong, and winning. I took note of how my poor submission defense was costing me shots, so I started training it more. I lost a little bit of flair in my striking, but was able to pull of a rear naked choke against a top notch submission guy. It felt great. Winning a rematch in this game is more satisfying than any other game I’ve ever played.
This being the third game in the series, there isn’t really any originality to be found. All of the modes were present in previous games, except the Pride mode. However, EA Sports MMA had the same rule set available for play, even if it couldn’t use the license. As such, this game doesn’t win points for that. Likewise, the submission system is eerily similar to what EA put out.
It is easy to forgive the game for its lack of originality. The prior games have been so good that fundamentally altering the experience for the sake of something new could have greatly backfired. Instead, the gameplay has been refined to a greater extent, making the experience better as a whole. However, there is a strong sense of deja vu. It’s a good thing there was some extra time between titles, as the series would otherwise run the risk of becoming stale.
Addictiveness
Like the other games in the franchise, I had a hard time putting this game down. Knocking opponents out is addicting, as is building a character into a monster. My first time through career mode was probably finished in three or four sittings. That’s hours of play at a time. On top of that, I was trying out other modes and using various fighters in exhibition. It wasn’t uncommon for me to simply hit rematch and try to put in a better performance.
Losing a match is demoralizing, but it also opens your eyes to a mistake you’ve been making. After getting knocked out by Junior Dos Santos whilst going for a takedown, I really started to work on my timing. Instead of diving for takedowns from far away, I tried to time my attempts with his strikes, and moved in closer. The next time I fought him, I was much more successful. It was a satisfying experience. There are few games out there that offer this level of excitement.
Appeal Factor
The UFC keeps getting bigger and bigger. With even more people owning gaming systems in their houses, this game has a fairly big target audience. It also crosses over into fighting game territory, giving the game more appeal than most sports games. I’m a great example. Undisputed 2009 was the reason I got into MMA, not the other way around.
For people who played the previous games to death, this might provide a tough sell, as it is very similar. I can only tell you that the changes, few as there have been, have all been for the better. The combat is deeper, more balanced, and still as exciting as ever. The career mode has seen enough changes that you might get back into it. Also, the addition of two new weight classes helps to mix things up. Bantamweights might not be very strong, but they are fast little dudes.
The long wait between sequels is also sure to give this game a boost. Given time to miss the series, hopefully this game will do gangbusters.
I’m still really bummed that so many fights and fighters were locked away as DLC and pre-order bonuses. Especially when it comes to Brian Stann and Phil Davis. These are not new fighters, and have been major players in the UFC for a while now. They should have been included as regular members of the roster. I can understand someone like Overeem ending up as DLC, but not these guys. The Ultimate Fights mode looks downright depressing, with only about a quarter of it unlocked.
It also really bums me that THQ still can’t get their act together in terms of online connectivity. Every game they put out has issues on day one, and updates are too slow to come out. It took months for 2010 to become playable. While this game is better about it, it should still function properly.
These negatives aside, this is a great game that offers even more content and depth to those willing to look for it. If Yuke’s gave this same kind of attention to their WWE games, I’d be one happy camper.
The Scores
Modes: Great
Graphics: Great
Audio: Incredible
Gameplay: Classic
Replayability: Unparalleled
Balance: Great
Originality: Very Poor
Addictiveness: Great
Appeal Factor: Very Good
Miscellaneous: Very Good
Final Score: Great Game!
The Undisputed franchise continues to get better and better. Undisputed 3 is the best yet, featuring plenty of gameplay tweaks and tons of extra fighters to play around with. For fight fans or MMA fans, this is one game you shouldn’t pass up. While there are negatives, they are outweighed by everything the game does right. The fighting is tight, deep, and a blast to play. There are enough modes that everyone will find one they like, and there’s nothing like reworking stats and strategies to prepare for the next fight. One wonders what the next game in the series will be able to do to improve upon this. I suppose it will offer a new division, but will that be enough? I can’t wait to find out.
Tags: ps3, Sony, THQ, UFC Undisputed 3
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Alexander Lucard February 28, 2012 Reply
At least one of us writing for this site has positive words to say about THQ!
This is actually something worth being positive about! Can’t say that about most things they put out.
Daniel Stein February 28, 2012 Reply
great article! I have nothing wrong with THQ..true a connectivity patch is always overdue..but at least their product works, unlike many new releases
Glad you liked it! The comments towards THQ refers to how they’ve been dropping the ball quite often lately. WWE 12 was a disaster, and Saints Row the Third was a huge disappointment to a lot of people I know. It’s also sad how they have connection issues with every single game. They need to step it up as a company.
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Anonymous Hacks UK Government Site in Response to Detention of David Miranda
United Kingdom authorities have detained David Miranda, Glenn Greenwald's partner. Greenwald is the journalist responsible for publishing the information obtained by Edward Snowden from the NSA. Anonymous hackers have responded to the incident by hacking a UK government website.
The fact that UK authorities have detained Miranda has been heavily criticized – including by Amnesty International despite the fact that he was released after nine hours of questioning.
For their part, the hacktivists have defaced the official website of the Mole Valley District Council (molevalley.gov.uk), which they've used to publish a statement.
“We expect there to be many pointed questions asked in the coming days, both domestically and internationally as to how and why an already ridiculously broad and draconian act of law was ripped of its last remaining shred of legitimacy in what cannot be described as anything other than an act of pure spite and intimidation, an act intended to exert a chilling effect on a stream of high-quality journalistic reporting whose historic importance cannot possibly be overstated,” the hackers said.
The statement is accompanied by a table comprised of the personal details of US government employees. The table includes information on their children, parents, spouses and friends.
The hacktivists say that if Miranda can be detained under terrorism legislation just because he’s related to Greenwald, based on the same theory, other possible terrorists might be related to people working in the US government and military.
“We encourage anyone who is interested in preventing terror attacks to fully investigate these spouses and siblings and mothers and fathers and son and daughters, before they too are embroidered in terrible terror plots of the most heinous variety,” Anonymous members said.
Finally, they conclude their statement with a threat. The hackers say they’re preparing something that’s “befitting the gravity of the crimes.”
“Oh, and before we go, we should probably mention that we have been very, very angry over the last few months -- and very, very busy. The only reason you have not heard from us before now is that we have been waiting and watching as the leaks come out and the spooks trip up over own lies and distortions,” the hacktivists noted.
At the time of writing, the Mole Valley Council website still hosts Anonymous’ statement.
Google: UK privacy laws don't apply to us, we're American
Google has argued that UK privacy laws do not apply to the firm as it is a US-based company.
According to law firm Olswang, Google made the statement after Olswang brought a High Court case against the search giant. The claimants in the case, backed by Safari Users Against Google's Secret Tracking, argue that Google is bypassing the Apple iPhone's built-in security settings in order to monitor and collect users' personal information through the Safari browser.
At the time of publishing, Google had not responded to V3's request for comment on the accusations.
The case is similar to one filed with the US Federal Trade Commission, which ended with Google being fined $22.5m. Claimant Marc Bradshaw said the UK action is designed to make UK authorities take even sterner action against Google, arguing that fines alone will not work.
"It seems to us absurd to suggest that consumers can't bring a claim against a company which is operating in the UK and is even constructing a $1bn headquarters in London. If consumers can't bring a civil claim against a company in a country where it operates, the only way of ensuring it behaves is by having a robust regulator," Bradshaw said.
"Fines would be useless – even if Google agreed to pay them – because Google earns more than the maximum fine in less than two hours. With no restraint Google is free to continue to invade our privacy whether we like it or not."
Olswang partner Dan Tench said the law firm has already started working to make departments such as the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) take a more proactive and stern approach with Google.
"Our letter to the Information Commissioner conveyed our client's position that fines won't work and urged him to change Google's behaviour through an enforcement notice or other alternative sanctions. The response was that they found our client's position simplistic and difficult to implement," Tench said.
"But a leading QC disagrees and has advised that the Information Commissioner does have stronger powers. We note that France's regulator CNIL has been more robust, announcing a final ultimatum to Google to ensure quickly that its privacy policy complies with European law. Our regulator should listen to consumers and recognise that other sanctions are needed to get Google to behave."
The case is one of many privacy complaints facing Google. In the US, rights group Consumer Watchdog launched a similar complaint against the firm. Last week, Google claimed Gmail users should not expect privacy in a court filing for the case.
Google Code fast becoming hackers' malware mule
A second cyber attack that hides malware in Google Code has been found, according to Zscaler researchers.
Zscaler's Pradeep Kulkarni reported finding the malware, claiming in a public blog post that attackers are targeting vulnerabilities in Google's validation procedures. "Recently we blogged about Google Code hosting malware. Within a month we have observed a second instance where malicious .jar files are being hosted on Google Code," said Kulkarni.
"Using Google code to distribute malware seems to be increasing in popularity, no doubt due not only to the free hosting provided, but also to the positive reputation of the Google.com domain. This indicates that there is presently inadequate validation performed by Google prior to content being uploaded to the Google Code site."
The original Google Code attack was uncovered by Zscaler ThreatLabZ security researcher Chris Mannon at the start of August. Unlike the first incident, Kulkarni said the second outbreak hides malware on the hxxp://update-java.googlecode.com and hxxps://code.google.com/p/update-java URLs. He said that, while troubling, the architecture of the attack indicates that the hackers' only goal is to store malware in Google Code.
"The two projects are hosted on 'code.google.com' by the same uploader who has an email ID of 'daicadad...@gmail.com'. The second project is also currently live (hosted at "hxxp://code.google.com/p/update-java-download") and contains the same 'Client.jar' file. You will note that other links within the projects like Project Home, Wiki and Issues contain minimal information about the project, suggesting that malware-hosting was the only goal," he wrote.
Kulkarni noted that the malware has likely been hiding in Google code for some time, predicting that the number of attacks targeting the platform will continue until the company adds more robust security.
"In the past, we have seen sites such as Dropbox, Google Code and other free hosting providers being leveraged to deliver malware. Free hosting providers, especially those with a positive reputation are becoming popular for attackers to serve malicious content. Enterprises and end users alike, should consider any third-party content, regardless of location, to be untrusted until it has been appropriately scanned," he wrote.
Zscaler is one of many companies to criticise Google's security protocols. Independent security researcher Elliott Kember came to blows with the company earlier this month over how Google's Chrome browser stores passwords.
LastPass Vulnerability Left IE Passwords Exposed, Update Now
SecurityWatch has confirmed with LastPass that a vulnerability existed in its software, leaving some passwords accessible. A patch has already been released and is available to download.
We learned about the vulnerability from our reader David Hughes. We in turn informed LastPass who confirmed that the issue was created by a recent update to their system. Their fix should be released today, and we encourage everyone to update their software or download the new version from LastPass. This issue would only affect users of IE with LastPass version 2.0.20.
Our reader informed us that when he performed a memory dump on Windows IE, he was able to retrieve stored LastPass passwords in plaintext. It seems that when the password manager autofills fields in IE, the unencrypted passwords remain accessible in memory. Passwords from previous sessions do not appear to be affected, as quitting IE cleans up the memory. Additionally, passwords which have not been used to autofill fields remain encrypted and cannot be retrieved using this vulnerability.
The issue appears to only affects IE users, so everyone else is safe unless you've been using your browser to store passwords for you—which you should stop doing.
While the issue sounds scary, the scope of the vulnerability is limited. LastPass told security watch, "this particular issue would be extremely difficult to exploit - requiring that you be using IE, that you've logged in to LastPass to decrypt your data, perform a memory dump, hunt through the memory dump, and actually locate the passwords - we have made fixing this a priority because we value the privacy and security of our users' data above all else."
Furthermore, dumping the memory is far easier to do if you have direct access to the target computer—something an attacker is unlikely to have. If an attacker can remotely access your machine and perform the dump, then you probably have a lot more to worry about.
If you are using this version of LastPass in IE, the update from LastPass will surely take care of the issue, so the best way to stay secure is to download it immediate.
Most importantly, do not stop using a password manager. If you're feeling wary of LastPass, consider our other Editors' Choice DashLane 2.0. Storing and creating unique passwords is a very valuable service, and will absolutely keep you safer online.
We're going to continue to recommend LastPass as a password manager, and I've been impressed with the speed with which the issue has been addressed over the past few days. If any other tipsters out there are interested, you can report issues directly to LastPass from their website —or just drop us a line.
Android under siege from 100,000-strong malware horde
The amount of mobile malware targeting the Android community has boomed over the last four months, according to security firm Kaspersky.
Kaspersky researchers reported detecting 100,000 mobile malware variants during the second quarter of 2013, in its latest IT Threat Evolution report.
"Virtually all mobile samples that were discovered in the mobile realm were targeting Android in Q2 - just like in the first quarter of the year. One remarkable milestone was reached right at the end of the quarter - on 30 June the 100,000 modifications barrier (consisting of 629 malware families) was broken," read the report.
The report said 29,695 of the attacks were entirely new, marking a quickening in pace by hackers, who are believed to have created 22,750 new Android malware variants in the previous quarter. The paper said the figure is particularly troubling as each of the malware variants is being carried on a number of Trojan apps.
"We're not counting individual malicious apps, but malicious code samples. These code samples, however, are mostly used in multiple Trojanised apps, resulting in a significantly higher number of malicious apps waiting to be downloaded," read the report.
"The common procedure for cyber criminals is to download legitimate apps, adding malicious code and using them as a vehicle for distribution. The repackaged apps are then uploaded again, especially to third-party app stores. Popular apps are targeted to abuse their reputation, since users are actively searching for them and this therefore makes life easier for cybercriminals."
The researchers highlighted the discovery of a new Obad Trojan as being particularly troubling, confirming it has several new features.
"Those who created [Obad] took advantage of yet another previously unknown flaw in Android OS, which enables a malicious program to gain extended Device Administrator privileges without being listed among the applications having such privileges," they noted.
"This makes it impossible to remove the malware from the mobile device. Overall, the malicious program exploits three previously unpublished vulnerabilities. We have never encountered anything like it before in mobile malware."
The paper listed the Trojan as being particularly dangerous as it grants criminals a variety of powers over the infected device. "It can send SMS messages to premium numbers, download and install other malware on the infected device and/or send it via Bluetooth, as well as remotely perform commands from the console," read the report.
The growth in mobile malware comes during a wider boom in global cybercrime levels, with Kaspersky claiming to have neutralised 983,051,408 incidents during Q2 2013.
Mobile malware has been a growing concern within the security community, with vendors reporting new sophisticated attacks and vulnerabilities on a near daily basis. Most recently Symantec reported finding a flaw in Google Android's cryptographic protocols leaving as many as 360,000 applications open to attack.
PRISM: China to investigate IBM, Oracle and EMC following NSA snooping concerns
Chinese authorities are planning to launch a probe investigating the security of IBM, Oracle and EMC hardware, following concerns that the NSA could be using the tech for cyber espionage purposes as part of its PRISM programme.
According to Reuters, the Chinese government-owned news outlet Shanghai Securities News revealed the plans, quoting an unnamed source as saying: "At present, thanks to their technological superiority, many of our core information technology systems are basically dominated by foreign hardware and software firms, but the Prism scandal implies security problems."
At the time of publishing, EMC had not responded to V3's request for comment and IBM had declined V3's request for comment. Oracle told V3 the company is aware of the report but declined to offer any additional comment.
The decision by China to investigate major US giants comes after the US caused a stir by moving to ban Chinese vendor Huawei due to espionage concerns, as the two nations face off over cyber issues.
The PRISM scandal broke this summer when ex-CIA analyst Edward Snowden leaked documents revealing the NSA has been siphoning vast amounts of web user data from numerous technology companies including Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo.
The scandal opened a Pandora's box of revelations with reports emerging that numerous other intelligence agencies are running similar campaigns, or used PRISM data for their own operations.
The UK is believed to be one of the worst offenders, with reports suggesting the GCHQ is collecting vast reserves of data by tapping into global telecoms cables, under an operation called Tempora.
The NSA has since moved to quell rights groups' concerns, releasing a paper claiming its agents only accessed 0.00004 percent of the world's web traffic while conducting their PRISM missions. Despite the paper, many companies remain concerned.
Most recently ex-Navy Seal and Silent Circle chief executive Mike Janke told V3 campaigns like PRISM will continue to run until governments create new legislation forbidding them.
Pakistani Hackers Defaced Indian Minister personal website
The personal website of Rajesh Tope (rajeshtope.org), the minister for higher and technical education for the Government of Maharashtra, Mumbai, has been breached and defaced by Pakistani hackers.
The attack took place on August 14, Pakistan’s Independence Day, The Hackers Post informs.
On the defaced website, the hackers, part of the Xploiters Crew, addressed messages riddled with expletives to the people of India, the country’s army, and Indian hackers.
“Next time if you try to attack our borders or cyber space we will [expletive] your economy by hitting your banks, Forex, exchangers and corporation as well as leaking customers detail and credit cards. This will be the worse face of cyber attack which you will ever face when we will leak 50 thousand Indian credit cards,” the hackers warned.
At the time of writing, the website of Rajesh Tope has been restored. A defacement mirror is available on zone-h.org.
Edward Snowden documents show NSA broke privacy rules
The US National Security Agency (NSA) broke privacy rules and overstepped its legal authority thousands of times in the past two years, according to documents leaked by Edward Snowden.
The incidents resulted in the unauthorised electronic surveillance of US citizens, according to documents published by the Washington Post.
Mr Snowden, a former NSA contractor, has leaked top secret documents to the US and British media.
He has been given asylum in Russia.
On Thursday, the Washington Post posted on its website a selection of documents it said had been provided by Mr Snowden, who fled the US in June after providing documents detailing NSA surveillance programmes to the Guardian and Washington Post newspapers.
'Operator error'
The documents purport to show that the unauthorised interception of telephone calls and emails of Americans and foreign nationals on US soil resulted from errors and departures from standard agency processes, including through a data collection method that a secret US surveillance court later ruled unconstitutional.
The documents offer more detail into the agency practices than is typically shared with members of Congress, the US justice department, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
An internal audit dated May 2012 counted 2,776 incidents over the previous 12 months of unauthorised data collection. The rate of violations grew significantly each quarter, from 546 in the second quarter of 2011 to 865 in the first quarter of 2012.
It is unclear how many individuals were subjected to unauthorised surveillance.
NSA auditors speculated the number of incidents jumped in the first quarter of 2012 because a large number of Chinese surveillance targets visited the US for the Chinese New Year. NSA surveillance of foreign nationals while they are on US soil is restricted.
According to an internal NSA audit report detailing the incidents in the first quarter of 2012, the majority occurred due to "operator error", usually from failure to follow procedures, typographical errors, insufficient research information, or workload issues.
Other incidents were attributed to "system error", such as a lack of capabilities or glitches and bugs.
Some data was intercepted when foreign targets entered the US - where NSA surveillance is restricted - but the system was unaware the target had entered US soil.
Other "inadvertent collection incidents" were targets believed to be non-Americans but who turned out to be US citizens upon further investigation.
In one instance in 2008, a "large number" of calls placed from Washington DC were intercepted after an error in a computer program entered "202" - the telephone area code for Washington DC - into a data query instead of "20", the country code for Egypt.
NSA reaction
In another case, the agency vacuumed up vast amounts of international data from a fibre optic cable running through the US into an NSA computer, where it was stored and analysed. Months later, the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruled the programme violated the search and seizure protections afforded by the US constitution.
Mr Snowden, 30, has been charged with espionage in a federal court in the US. He is currently in Russia, where the government of Vladimir Putin has granted him a year of asylum on the condition he cease disclosing secret US government information.
In a statement provided to the BBC, John DeLong, the NSA's director of compliance, pointed to internal privacy safeguards such as a hotline for people to report NSA activity they believe to be inconsistent with the rules.
"We take each report seriously, investigate the matter, address the issue, constantly look for trends, and address them as well - all as a part of NSA's internal oversight and compliance efforts," Mr DeLong said.
He said the agency's internal privacy compliance programme had a staff of 300, a fourfold increase since 2009.
US President Barack Obama has defended the series of programmes described in Mr Snowden's leaks, but has promised reforms to guarantee greater oversight.
"Given the history of abuse by governments, it's right to ask questions about surveillance, particularly as technology is reshaping every aspect of our lives," he said last week.
Snowden's father contacts son via internet: lawyer
The father of former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden had contacted his son via the Internet despite security concerns, Snowden's lawyer said Thursday.
"We don't recommend using the Internet for communication, not even via an encrypted channel, even though we understand that Edward is an IT expert," RIA Novosti news agency quoted Anatoly Kucherena as saying.
Still, Lon Snowden's fatherly feelings "proved stronger than security awareness," Kucherena said.
Earlier media reports said Lon Snowden had contacted his son using encrypted messages. Previously, the father communicated with his son only via his lawyer Kucherena.
According to the lawyer, Snowden is taking an adaptation course in a safe place, and "he is missing his family."
The former National Security Agency (NSA) leaker's father said Saturday he had secured documents to visit the whistleblower in Russia, where the son has been granted a year's temporary asylum after spending almost seven weeks stranded in Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport because Washington revoked his passport.
Snowden faces espionage charges in the United States after disclosing a classified intelligence surveillance project code-named PRISM.
Russia's decision on Aug. 1 to grant him asylum in the face of calls by the the U.S. to return him for a trial has cooled U.S.-Russian relations and prompted President Barack Obama to cancel a scheduled meeting with counterpart Vladimir Putin in September.
Webcam hack 'sextortion' target Miss Teen USA
The Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed Wednesday they were investigating an alleged "sextortion" case involving newly crowned Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf from Orange County and other women.
Laura Eimiller, spokeswoman for the FBI's Los Angeles office, said the investigation was several months old but would not discuss any details of the case, including whether a suspect had been identified.
Wolf, who was Miss California Teen USA before winning the Miss Teen USA pageant over the weekend at the Atlantis Hotel in the Bahamas, said in media interviews that she received an anonymous email from someone claiming to be in possession of nude photos of her taken via the webcam on her computer.
Wolf also said the author tried to extort her to ensure that the photos were not made public.
The incident, in which someone was able hack into Wolf's computer and turn on its webcam, is the latest in a string of so-called "sextortion" cases involving individuals who have used email accounts, social media or a computer's own hardware to glean compromising information or images of its user.
A Glendale man, Karen “Gary” Kazaryan, pleaded guilty last month in a “sextortion” case in which he targeted 350 women and coerced them into showing him pictures of them nude.
Prosecutors alleged Kazaryan hacked into the Facebook, Skype and email accounts of victims and changed their passwords, locking them out of their own online accounts. He then searched emails and other files for naked or semi-naked pictures of the women, as well as other information, such as passwords and the names of their friends.
Kazaryan then posed online as those women and sent instant messages to their friends, convincing them to remove their clothing so he could view and take pictures of them, authorities alleged.
Once the victims learned that someone had impersonated their friend, Kazaryan then used the photos to coerce them to remove their clothing on camera, according to authorities.
In December, a Florida man who hacked into email accounts and procured naked images of celebrities, including Mila Kunis, Christina Aguilera and Scarlett Johansson, was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Christopher Chaney, 35, pleaded guilty in federal court in Los Angeles to nine counts of computer hacking and wiretapping for the unauthorized access of email accounts belonging to 50 people in the entertainment industry.
Once Chaney got photos of the celebrities and other information, he forwarded the material to another hacker and two celebrity websites that made them public, according to a plea agreement made public last year.
Chaney has admitted that from at least November 2010 to October 2011, he hacked into the email accounts of Johansson, Kunis and others by taking their email addresses, clicking on the “Forgot your password?” feature and then resetting the passwords by correctly answering their security questions using publicly available information he found by searching the Internet.
WikiLeaks Released 3.6 gigabytes of encrypted insurance data online
WikiLeaks post on its Facebook page link to 3.6Gb encrypted data insurance documents.
The group described encryption as a necessary measure in light of previous attempts to block its leaking of classified information.
Online porn consumers exposed to cyber crimes
Hundreds of Australians accessing pornography online have been caught - some quite literally - with their pants down by cyber criminals who fraudulently claim to be members of the Australian Federal Police.
Using viruses known as ''ransomware'', foreign gangs film users of adult websites by activating the webcams on the users' computers.
The viruses lock the desktop and post an incriminating image of the person on their screen, before warning they have breached federal laws relating to child pornography, copyright or privacy.
The victims are instructed by the hackers to pay a fine of $100 or $199 using a credit card or money transfer service. If credit card details are handed over, further frauds often occur. If the fine is not paid within 72 hours, data files on the computer can be encrypted or wiped.
The police and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission have been inundated with calls from victims of ransomware, which include the ''ukash'', ''reveton'' and ''trojan.ransomlock'' viruses.
''We've taken some very interesting calls. Some people are very open, while others swear they have been hacked while using Facebook.
We had one bloke who was almost in tears because they were caught in their underpants,'' a police source said.
Originating in Russia in 2009, the virus has swept through western Europe, Canada and the US using logos of local law enforcement agencies to lend credibility to the scam.
AFP cybercrime operations manager Commander Glen McEwan has issued several warnings about ransomware, which has evolved over the past six months to evade detection by some anti-virus software, spam filters and firewalls.
''The Australian community is reminded that the AFP does not solicit funds and this message is not associated with the AFP in any way,'' Commander McEwan said. He urged victims to report any cyber fraud to the ACCC website SCAMwatch.
The Australian Crime Commission recently identified ransomware as a new frontier for cyber gangs and an emerging threat to Australia's 12 million internet subscribers.
Sean Kopelke, technology director with IT security firm Symantec has identified 16 versions of malware linked to organised crime gangs in Russia, Europe and the Middle East.
A recent Symantec study of one virus found 68,000 computers were infected within a month, with 2.9 per cent of those ensnared by the scam making payments of almost $400,000.
Pentagon to host China's defence minister for talks
The Pentagon will host China's Defence Minister General Chang Wanquan for talks on Monday at a time of "positive momentum" in military relations between the two countries, a US official said.
Chang was due to start his visit on Friday in Hawaii where he was scheduled to meet the head of US Pacific Command, before heading to Colorado to the headquarters for Northern Command, which oversees forces in North America, officials said.
"The purpose of the visit is to sustain the very positive momentum that we've seen in the US-China mil-to-mil relationship that's really been present for the past year and a half or so," said a senior defence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
US military officials have touted progress in the defence dialogue with China after years of false starts and say a counter-piracy exercise next week in the Gulf of Aden will see unprecedented cooperation between the two countries' naval forces.
Despite improving ties, US concerns over Chinese cyber espionage are expected to feature high on the agenda when Chang meets his American counterpart, Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel, in Washington on Monday.
At a security conference in Singapore in June, Hagel blamed the Chinese government and armed forces for snooping on sensitive US computer networks.
Some cyber intrusions "appear to be tied to the Chinese government and military," Hagel said in the speech.
But revelations about US electronic surveillance of Internet traffic and phone records, leaked by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, have made it more difficult for Washington to level accusations against Beijing.
Chang's meeting with Hagel and other senior officials and officers will allow "the two leaders an opportunity to have a robust exchange of views on a variety of issues in the US-China relationship," including Cyber security, the defence official said.
The talks are also likely to cover North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, territorial disputes in the South China Sea between China and neighbouring nations as well as rival claims between Japan and China over islands in the East China Sea.
Hagel has been invited to visit China next year.
Virus targets the social network in new fraud twist
In the world of cyber fraud, a fake fan on Instagram can be worth five times more than a stolen credit card number.
As social media has become increasingly influential in shaping reputations, hackers have used their computer skills to create and sell false endorsements - such as "likes" and "followers" - that purport to come from users of Facebook , its photo-sharing app Instagram, Twitter, Google's YouTube, LinkedIn and other popular websites.
In the latest twist, a computer virus widely used to steal credit card data, known as Zeus, has been modified to create bogus Instagram "likes" that can be used to generate buzz for a company or individual, according to cyber experts at RSA, the security division of EMC Corp.
These fake "likes" are sold in batches of 1,000 on Internet hacker forums, where cyber criminals also flog credit card numbers and other information stolen from PCs. According to RSA, 1,000 Instagram "followers" can be bought for $15 and 1,000 Instagram "likes" go for $30, whereas 1,000 credit card numbers cost as little as $6.
It may seem odd that fake social media accounts would be worth more than real credit card numbers, but online marketing experts say some people are willing to spend heavily to make a splash on the Internet, seeking buzz for its own sake or for a business purpose, such as making a new product seem popular.
"People perceive importance on what is trending," said Victor Pan, a senior data analyst with WordStream, which advises companies on online marketing. "It is the bandwagon effect."
Facebook, which has nearly 1.2 billion users, said it is in the process of beefing up security on Instagram, which it bought last year for $1 billion. Instagram, which has about 130 million active users, will have the same security measures that Facebook uses, said spokesman Michael Kirkland.
He encouraged users to report suspicious activity through links on Facebook sites and apps.
"We work hard to limit spam on our service and prohibit the creation of accounts through unauthorized or automated means," Kirkland said.
KNOWING WHEN TO STOP
The modified Zeus virus is the first piece of malicious software uncovered to date that has been used to post false "likes" on a social network, according to experts who track cyber crime.
Fraudsters most commonly manipulate "likes" using automated software programs.
The modified version of Zeus controls infected computers from a central server, forcing them to post likes for specific users. They could also be given marching orders to engage in other operations or download other types of malicious software, according to RSA.
Cyber criminals have used Zeus to infect hundreds of millions of PCs since the virus first surfaced more than five years ago, according to Don Jackson, a senior security researcher with Dell SecureWorks.
That the virus is now being adapted to target Instagram is a sign of the rising importance of social media in marketing, and the increasing sophistication of hackers trying to profit from the trend.
Online marketing consultant Will Mitchell said he sometimes advises clients to buy bogus social-networking traffic, but only to get an early foothold online.
When asked about the ethics of faking endorsements, Mitchell replied, "It's fine to do for the first 100, but I always advise stopping after that."
He said one of his clients once bought more than 300,000 "likes" on Facebook against his advice, a move that Mitchell felt damaged the client's reputation. "It was just ridiculous," he said. "Everybody knew what they were doing."
Still, experts say schemes to manipulate social networks are unlikely to go away. Creating fake social media accounts can also be used for more nefarious purposes than creating fake "likes," such as identity theft.
"The accounts are always just a means to an end. The criminals are always looking to profit," said computer security expert Chris Grier, a University of California at Berkeley research scientist who spent a year working on a team that investigated fake accounts on Twitter.
Anonymous Targets Italy’s Ministry of Defense
Anonymous hackers continue to target the Italian government as part of their protests against the installation of a US Navy Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) station in Niscemi, Sicily.
Earlier this week, we learned that the hacktivists leaked emails sent to Italian government officials relating to the MUOS project.
Today, the hackers have contacted me to reveal that they’re launching distributed denial-of-service attacks against the website of Italy’s Ministry of Defense, and the official site of Niscemi.
“Stop MUOS, stop militarization of Italy,” the hackers said.
Currently, the website of Niscemi (comune.niscemi.cl.it) is down and, according to the hackers’ reports, it has been down for several hours. The website of the Ministry of Defense (difesa.it) is working intermittently.
The hacktivists have cited research papers which show that the installation of a MUOS station in the area would harm not only the environment, but also the people living in Niscemi.
Syria Versus The World
A group of Syrian hackers, calling themselves the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) and loyal to the beleaguered Assad dictatorship in Syria, have been grabbing a lot of headlines in the last year for their increasing number of Internet based attacks.
However, this tends to be low level stuff, like breaking into Twitter accounts. The Assads remained power for decades by favoring the most talented, best educated and wealthy families at the expense of everyone else and now many of those Syrians are supporting the Assads anyway they can. For the last two years the 80 percent who were left out have been in open rebellion and early on the SEA showed up to help their families hang on to their wealth and position in Syria.
The SEA has not made any really sophisticated hacks and appear to be young, well-educated and savvy computer users who knew enough to get access to the underground hacker market place where all sorts of hacking tools and services are for sale. SEA has used these to publicize their cause (via defacing of anti-Assad websites) and seeking to identify rebel leaders, especially those operating inside Syria. This intel collection effort does not get much publicity but it is probably more helpful than the low-level hacks. That’s because the Assad secret police are still very active inside Syria and have been effective in finding and capturing (or just killing) lots of rebels.
Occasionally SEA will get really ambitious. Last May SEA attempted to take control of the water system in an Israeli city (Haifa). The effort failed, although the attackers had reasonable expectations that they might succeed. That’s because earlier that year an American Internet security firm set up three honey pot servers to measure the extent that hackers are attacking SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) and ISC (industrial control system) targets. The response by hackers was surprising and scary, and the hackers going after Haifa apparently knew this. But the Israelis also knew of the danger and took precautions.
At the heart of modern industry are the ISC and SCADA systems which control motors, sensors, alarms, pumps, valves, and other essential equipment. Water systems are among the most common SCADA systems. The successful hack of SCADA systems allows the attacker to take remote control of these systems. Options for the attacker include turning off safety systems in a nuclear reactor, opening or shutting a dam’s overflow sluices, opening oil pipelines to contaminate sea or land, or shutting down water supplies and sewage systems for large numbers of people.
There are a lot of Arab, and Moslem, hacking groups like SEA and one thing they all have in common is a desire to stick it to Israel. That has proved difficult, despite the degree to which the Israeli economy is dependent on the Internet. Fortunately for Israel, many of the most successful and talented Internet security experts and companies are Israeli. The Israeli government has also been energetic in supporting Internet security measures. Thus the constant Arab and Moslem attacks just make the Israeli defenses more formidable. Practice makes perfect, which is essential if you are playing defense in Cyber War.
Facebook Exploit august 2013,hacker Post's on Zuckerberg’s wall
A Palestinian information system expert says he was forced to post a bug report on Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page after the social network’s security team failed to recognize that a critical vulnerability he found allows anyone to post on someone's wall.
Anonymous Hacks UK Government Site in Response to ...
Google: UK privacy laws don't apply to us, we're A...
LastPass Vulnerability Left IE Passwords Exposed, ...
Android under siege from 100,000-strong malware ho...
PRISM: China to investigate IBM, Oracle and EMC fo...
Pakistani Hackers Defaced Indian Minister personal...
Edward Snowden documents show NSA broke privacy ru...
Snowden's father contacts son via internet: lawyer...
WikiLeaks Released 3.6 gigabytes of encrypted insu...
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Facebook Exploit august 2013,hacker Post's on Zuck...
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Windigo Hijacks 25,000 Servers to Spew Out Spam, Malware
Attackers infected and seized control of over 25,000 Unix servers to create a massive spam and malware distribution platform, ESET said. Linux and Unix administrators need to immediately check if their servers are among the victims.
The gang behind the attack campaign uses the infected servers to steal credentials, distribute spam and malware, and redirect users to malicious sites. The infected servers send 35 million spam messages each day, and redirect half a million Web visitors to malicious sites daily, said Pierre-Marc Bureau, a security intelligence program manager at ESET. The researchers believe the campaign, dubbed Operation Windigo, has hijacked over 25,000 servers in the past two-and-a-half years. The group currently has 10,000 servers under their control, Bureau said.
ESET released a technical paper with more details about the campaign, and included a simple ssh command which administrators can use to figure out if their servers have been hijacked. If that happens to be the case, administrators should re-install the operating system on the infected server and change all credentials ever used to log into the machine. Since Windigo harvested credentials, administrators should assume all passwords and private OpenSSH keys used on that machine are compromised and should be changed, ESET warned. The recommendations apply to both Unix and Linux administrators.
Wiping the machine and re-installing the operating system from scratch may sound a little extreme, but considering that the attackers had stolen administrator credentials, installed backdoors, and had gained remote access to the servers, taking the nuclear option seems necessary.
Attack ElementsWindigo relies on a cocktail of sophisticated malware to hijack and infect the servers, including Linux/Ebury, an OpenSSH backdoor and credential stealer, as well as five other pieces of malware. Over the course of a single weekend, ESET researchers observed more than 1.1 million different IP addresses passing through Windigo's infrastructure before being redirected to malicious sites.
Websites compromised by Windigo in turn infected Windows users with an exploit kit pushing click fraud and spam-sending malware, showed questionable advertisements for dating sites to Mac users, and redirected iPhone users to online porn sites. Well-known organizations such as cPanel and kernel.org were among the victims, although they have cleaned their systems, Bureau said.
Operating systems affected by the spam component include Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, OS X, and even Windows, Bureau said.
Rogue ServersConsidering that three in five of the world's websites are running on Linux servers, Windigo has plenty of potential victims to play with. The backdoor used to compromise the servers was installed manually and exploits poor configuration and security controls, not software vulnerabilities in the operating system, ESET said.
"This number [10,000 servers] is significant if you consider each of these systems has access to significant bandwidth, storage, computing power and memory," said Bureau.
A handful of malware-infected servers can cause a lot more harm than a large botnet of regular computers. Servers generally have better hardware and processing power, and have faster network connections than end-user computers. Recall that the powerful distributed denial of service attacks against various banking websites last year originated from infected Web servers in data centers. If the team behind Windigo ever switches tactics from just using the infrastructure to spread spam and malware to something even nastier, the resulting damage could be significant.
Fake video of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 rescue is ‘callous’ cyber scam
A post promising a video of a plane landing on water has been circulating on Facebook, with a title suggesting that it contains news footage showing the rescue of passengers on board the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 – but the video is a ‘callous’ cyber scam, according to Hoax-Slayer, and in fact shows a plane landing on water in Bali in 2013.
IT Pro Portal reports that one variant of the scam is a ‘video’ titled, “Malaysia Plane MH370 Has Been Spotted Somewhere Near Bermuda Triangle. Shocking Videos Release Today”, and that the video is being used to spread malware. Other reports say that variants of the scam are used to direct users to spread the video via Facebook, and complete bogus surveys, used by cybercriminals to harvest personal details from their victims.
IT Pro Portal points out that the Bermuda Triangle is 10,000 miles from the last point of contact with the flight.
The Epoch Times reports that the images show a plane crash near Bali in Indonesia in 2013, where 100 passengers were rescued after a plane landed on water. In all reported variants of the scam, there is no video to click through to – just surveys designed to steal personal information, or bogus downloads which are in fact malware.
Hoax-Slayer describe the scam as a ‘callous’ variant on a common cybercriminal trick of using posts which promise ‘sensational’ viral videos to harvest personal information or spread malware.
“The image used in the scam post shows a Lion Air passenger plane that crashed into the sea, when landing on Bali in April 2013. While there were some injuries in the crash, there were no fatalities. The picture has no connection whatsoever with flight MH370,” the site reports. “Once they have shared [on Facebook] as requested, users will then be taken to another fake page that supposedly hosts the video. However, a popup ‘Security Check’ window will appear that claims that they must prove that they are human by clicking a link and participating in an online survey or offer. But, no matter how many surveys or offers they complete, they will never get to see the promised video.”
Scammers often target Facebook with copies of viral content – or entirely fake, sensational videos, such as ‘Giant Snake Swallows Zookeeper’, as reported by We Live Security this year.
In many cases, scam videos will install a ‘rogue’ Facebook app to spread rapidly via the network – but as reported here, such scams can, in the worst case scenario, lead to tainted sites which infect users with malware.
Facebook’s ‘Deepface’ photo-matching is nearly as good as human brains
Facebook’s ‘Deepface’ photo-matching software can now ‘recognize’ pairs of human faces with an accuracy just a fraction of a percentage point behind human beings – a huge leap forward in the technology, which some see as having potentially alarming implications for privacy.
Deepface can now match two previously unseen photos of the same face with 97.25% accuracy – humans can do the same with around 97.5% accuracy, a difference which TechCrunch describes as “pretty much on par”.
Facebook uses its current facial recognition software to ‘tag’ people in photos, which is used widely around the world. Although Deepface is a research project, and unrelated to the technology used on the site, it “closes the vast majority of the performance gap” with human beings according to the Facebook researchers behind it (PDF research paper here), and can recognise people regardless of the orientation of their face, lighting conditions and image quality.
Publications such as Stuff magazine describe the technology as “creepy”, saying that were it implemented “in the wild” it should make site users “think twice” about posting images such as “selfies.”
Deepface uses deep learning to leap ahead of current technology – an area of AI which uses networks of simulated brain cells to ‘recognize’ patterns in large datasets, according to MIT’s Technology Review.
Yaniv Taigman of Facebook’s AI team says, “You don’t normally see that sort of improvement. We closely approach human performance.”
The leap forward in performance cuts errors by more than 25% in the accuracy – achieved, Taigman says in Facebook’s brief description of the milestone, by 3D modeling faces, and using a “nine-layer deep neural network” to analyze 120 million parameters. Business Insider describes the process as akin to using the 3D software to turn faces “forward” for comparison.
Deepface was “trained” using a dataset of four million facial images belonging to 4,000 individuals, Taigman says.
“Our method reaches an accuracy of 97.25% on the Labeled Faces in the Wild (LFW) dataset, reducing the error of the current state of the art by more than 25%,” Taigman says, noting that the software is “Closely approaching human-level performance.”
In a paper entitled, Deepface: Closing the Gap to Human-Level Performance in Face Verification, Taigman and his co-authors write, “We believe that this work, which departs from the recent trend of using more features and employing a more powerful metric learning technique, has addressed this challenge, closing the vast majority of this performance gap [as compared with humans],” saying that Deepface can be applied to various population, without regard to pose illumination or image quality.
“Our work demonstrates that coupling a 3D model-based alignment with large capacity feedforward models can effectively learn from many examples to overcome the drawbacks and limitations of previous methods.”
“You have cancer” phishing attack shows how low cybercriminals will go
A “particularly unpleasant” phishing email purporting to be the results of a blood count report showing that the recipient may have cancer is circulating in the UK, claiming to be sent from a government health care organization, and containing an infected attachment claiming to be a blood analysis report.
NICE (the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) has posted a spam warning, saying, “NICE is aware that a spam email is being sent to members of the public regarding cancer test results. Please be assured that this email is not from NICE and we are currently investigating its origin. If you have received the email, do not open the attachments.”
Eduard Kovacs of Softpedia reports that the emails arrive with a subject line IMPORTANT: blood analysis results” and appear to come from the email address, “no_reply@nice.org.uk.”
British anti-fraud organization Action Fraud warns users that the file is “likely to contain malware” and reports that one variant of the email says, “We have been sent a sample of your blood analysis for further research. During the complete blood count (CBC) we have revealed that white blood cells is very low, and unfortunately we have a suspicion of a cancer… We suggest you to print out your CBC test results and interpretations in attachment below and visit your family doctor as soon as possible. Sincerely, Dr.Moon Earnest.”
ESET Senior Research Fellow David Harley describes the phishing attack as “particularly unpleasant” in a blog post, and says, “This is more than spam: it contains an attachment claimed to be a blood count report suggesting that the recipient may have cancer, but in fact it’s a password stealer.”
Harley points out that certain features of the email are unconvincing, and that the criminals rely on users panicking, “Firstly, it’s likely that if you’d given a sample for a blood test you’d remember. However, there’s obviously a chance that some of these messages might reach people who have actually given samples recently, and would be more likely to be panicked into clicking on the malicious attachment. Secondly, NICE is not in the business of doing blood tests: its remit is rather more abstract. But again, the hope is that the victim will be too panicked to check properly.”
Revenue Service breach may have leaked data on 20,000 employees
Personal data for around 20,000 workers for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS), including names, social security numbers and addresses may have been exposed on the internet, after an employee plugged a thumb drive into a computer on an unsecured home network.
The breach affects 20,000 employees and ex-employees who worked in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, the IRS said in a statement. No details about taxpayers, or tax records, were leaked in the breach, according to NBC’s report.
The commissioner of the IRS, John Koskinen, said that an unencrypted thumb drive had been plugged into an unsecured home network, meaning that the information had been potentially available to third parties online, according to news agency Reuters.
Koskinen said that, “At this point we have no direct evidence to indicate that this personal information has been used for identity theft or other inappropriate uses.” Many of the employees affected by the breach no longer work for the IRS, Koskinen said, and the agency would reach out to ex-employees to offer free identity theft monitoring, according to NBC’s report. .
Koskinen said that the drive contained, ”sensitive personnel information, including names, Social Security numbers and addresses, of some employees, former employees and contracted employees.”
ABC News reported that Republican Dave Camp, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said, “In the past, the IRS has released personal taxpayer information to the public, and has not been able to effectively prevent and detect identity theft. This latest report is concerning. The IRS has repeatedly broken the American people’s trust, and the Ways and Means Committee will take a thorough look into this incident.”
Google Glass spyware lets snoopers “see through wearer’s eyes”
Spyware which stealthily takes photographs using Google Glass’s built-in camera and uploads them to a remote server without the user being aware has been demonstrated successfully on the eyepiece – despite Google’s policies explicitly forbidding programs which disable the screen while the camera is in use.
The spyware was designed by two California Polytechnic students, Mike Lady and Kim Paterson, who disguised their program as a note-taking app (albeit with a name that offers a clue to its actual function, Malnotes), and successfully loaded the app, which takes a photo every ten seconds and uploads it to the internet, according to Ars Technica’s report.
Google’s policies forbid programs which take pictures when its wearable Glass eyepieces are turned off – but there is nothing to stop users doing so, Forbes reported.
“The scary thing for us is that while it’s a policy that you can’t turn off the display when you use the camera, there’s nothing that actually prevents you from doing it,” Paterson told Forbes’ Andy Greenberg.
“As someone who owns Glass and wants to install more apps, I’d feel a lot better if it were simply impossible to do that. Policies don’t really protect us.”
The pair were able to upload Malnotes successfully to Google’s Play store, but were unable to sneak the app into the curated MyGlass store for Google Glass, Ars reports. Paterson noted that many Glass apps are currently “sideloaded” – ie not installed via official stores, but installed using developer tools in debug mode – as Glass is still in prototype.
“A lot of Glass developers are just hosting their apps from sites just to let other people try it. It’s sort of a wild-wild west atmosphere since very few apps are being released through the MyGlass store,” Paterson told Forbes. Paterson warned that if a user left Glass unattended, it would be easy to install such software without the wearer even being aware of its presence.
Google’s Glass eyepieces remain a hot topic for privacy advocates. Speaking to Business Insider, Daen de Leon, a software engineer, says that 13 bars and restaurants in San Francisco have an explicit “no Glass” policy, as well as others in Seattle, and Oakland, California.
After an incident where a Google Glass wearer was allegedly assaulted in a bar in Lower Haight for wearing the eyepieces, de Leon spoke to regulars and says that he, “”found her assumption that, as a complete stranger, she could enter a bar and just start recording regular customers without their permission quite disturbing.”
Target breach optioned as Sony feature film
The Target breach, and in particular the role of respected security blogger Brian Krebs in breaking the story, has been optioned as a feature film by Sony. The studio has bought the rights to the New York Times article, “Reporting From the Web’s Underbelly,” which told Krebs’ story in the wake of his exclusive revelations about the data breach at Target.
The Hollywood Reporter writes that the studio envisions the story as a “cyber thriller” set in the “high stakes world” of cybercrime.
Mashable reports that the studio has recruited Richard Wenk, writer of its recent version of The Equalizer, and action sequel The Expendables 2, to write the script.
Krebs’ blog, Krebs on Security, broke the story of the Target breach late last year, revealing that a large number of American debit and credit card details had been leaked from the retailer. The story had been leaked to Krebs, a former reporter at the Washington post, via officials at American credit card issuers.
In February this year, Nicole Perlroth’s profile article for the New York Times offered a portrait of Krebs, describing incidents such as Russian cybercriminals attempting to frame him with heroin purchased from the Silk Road “online drug market” (reported by We Live Security here), and describing how Krebs landed a string of exclusive stories, including several key revelations about the Target breach.
Perlroth described Krebs as, “A former reporter at The Washington Post who taught himself to read Russian while jogging on his treadmill and who blogs with a 12-gauge shotgun by his side.”
Bitcoin fixes Mt Gox theft bug – as exchange staff find 200,000 BTC in ‘forgotten’ wallet
Bitcoin’s developers have released a new version of the software, which includes a long-awaited fix for the “transaction malleability” bug said to have brought down large exchanges such as Mt Gox and Bitstamp.
The new version, called Bitcoin 0.9.0 was revealed by a bitcoin developer in a Tweet, according to ZDNet. The release notes say that the version of Bitcoin Core offers, “Bug fixes and new regression tests to correctly compute the balance of wallets containing double-spent (or mutated) transactions.”
The bug allowed users to alter the unique ID of BTC transactions, before they were confirmed, and thus allegedly steal coins according to ZDNet‘s report. Mt Gox blamed the “transaction malleability” bug for its loss of more than $400m in Bitcoin, and other collapsed banks and exchanges said they had fallen victim to the same bug.
VentureBeat reports that the new version of Bitcoin includes five fixes to prevent fraudulent transactions, with a function which stops “mutated transactions” being relayed, and two more functions which report double-spending and conflicting wallet transactions.
Early in March, Mt Gox admitted that nearly $500 million in bitcoin had “disappeared”, in a statement posted online, blaming abuse of the “transaction malleability” bug in the system.
The exchange, which filed for bankruptcy protection early in March, as reported by We Live Security here, posted a new message to its site on Monday, saying that bitcoins had been “illicitly moved through the abuse of a bug”, and that “Although the complete extent is not yet known, we found that approximately 750,000 bitcoins deposited by users and approximately 100,000 bitcoins belonging to us had disappeared.”
Meanwhile, questions remain over whether investors in Mt Gox will ever be able to reclaim their money. The exchange said this week that it had “found” 200,000 BTC in old wallets, during its bankruptcy procedures.
The Register commented,“That’s good news for creditors inasmuch as it means the exchange is “only” missing about 650,000 Bitcoin, so there’s some prospect of recovering some of their lost currency.”
The site said in a statement, “MtGox Co., Ltd. had certain old format wallets which were used in the past and which, MtGox thought, no longer held any bitcoins. Following the application for commencement of a civil rehabilitation proceeding, these wallets were rescanned and their balance researched. On March 7, 2014, MtGox Co., Ltd. confirmed that an old format wallet which was used prior to June 2011 held a balance of approximately 200,000 BTC (199,999.99 BTC)”
President Obama’s BlackBerry survives assault from Korean Androids
Contrary to reports late last week, the BlackBerry smartphones used by White House staffers and the President are not to be replaced by Android or Windows Phone handsets from Korean manufacturers LG and Samsung.
The Wall Street Journal, quoting unnamed insiders, suggested that while Obama’s own BlackBerry was not under threat, but that smartphones from LG and Samsung were being tested for ‘internal use’. The news story caused a dip in BlackBerry’s stock price – the White House is one of the company’s most high-profile customers.
Few smartphones are as iconic as President Barack Obama’s faithful BlackBerry – he was pictured with it so often during his 2008 Presidential campaign that the New York Times estimated that the “celebrity endorsement” could be worth up to $50 million to the company.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said, according to a report by ABC News, that no change was imminent, but that the White House Communications Agency was testing devices for “other areas of the administration.” The WHCA describses itself as “a one-of-a-kind military unit dedicated to providing premier, worldwide, vital information services and communications support to the president and his staff.”
President Obama was informed that he would have to give up his BlackBerry on taking office, but came to an agreement with intelligence agencies.
Silicon Beat reports that a BlackBerry spokesperson wrote a letter to the Wall Street Journal denying that the White House was considering a move away from BlackBerry handsets. Barbara Tate wrote, “Governments test new technologies frequently, but nevertheless the U.S. government continues to choose BlackBerry for its unmatched security and cost effectiveness. Other vendors such as Samsung and LG still have a long way to go to catch up to meet the government’s stringent requirements and certifications. BlackBerry’s operating system has already received the highest security approvals from the United States, Great Britain and NATO, and our latest operating system, BlackBerry 10, is already certified for high-security users in various NATO countries.”
Both Samsung and LG recently unveiled security software for their higher-end Android handsets, but reports from sites such as The Register suggested that upcoming Windows phones from the companies could be adopted instead by U.S. government agencies. The site reports that Windows Phone handsets recently overtook Android handsets in sales figures in the United States.
Venture Beat reports that BlackBerry, and its new CEO John Chen, are making efforts to ensure that their handsets retain their reputation for security – and their impressive list of state clients. Chen inaugurated a ‘security innovation’ center for the company this year, located in Washington DC. Chen said at the time, “We are committed to working with government and industry experts to solve some of the biggest challenges we face in securing mobile communication The Washington, D.C.-based security innovation center will be focused on creating lasting partnerships that will encourage ongoing dialogue aimed at making better products and policy.”
Hacker crashes Google Play -- twice
A developer said he was testing a vulnerability. But when Google got the service back up and running, he crashed it again.
New Android apps and updates were blocked from appearing in Google's Play Store on Monday, after a hacker attacked Google's app publishing system. It's an outage you may not notice -- until it holds up the next update to Candy Crush, Plants v. Zombies or Clash of Clans. But developers are furious.
The publishing system known as Google's Developer Console first crashed mid-day Sunday. Many app developers still found themselves blocked from uploading to the Google Play Store on Monday. Some developers noted the issue appeared to be resolved on Monday, but another posted in a Google forum, "problem started again."
Meanwhile, Android users don't have access to new apps and updates. Existing apps are still available for download. Google's (GOOG, Fortune 500) Android software powers nearly 80% of the smartphone market.
Ibrahim Balic, a Turkish hacker, claimed responsibility for the attack. He said developer console crashed when he tried to test a vulnerability he discovered.
Balic wrote an app to exploit the flaw, which he expected to fail. But he said he didn't expect it to knock everyone offline as well.
Inside the mind of a hacker
Balic pleaded forgiveness from his online peers.
"I didn't have any malicious aim," he told CNNMoney. "I am so sorry for this damage."
He said the site crashed again when he uploaded the app to Google's publishing system a second time.
"I just wanted to be sure about (the) vulnerability," he said.
Related: Your hackable house
Balic said he notified Google of the issue but has yet to hear back.
On Tuesday, Google said the issue impacted "a subset of developers." The company underscored that the issue did not prevent Android users from downloading existing apps.
Google's press office did not immediately return a request for comment from CNN.
By his own account, this isn't Balic's first joust with smartphone app developers. He claimed to be the intruder behind an attempted hack of Apple's (AAPL, Fortune 500) Developer Center last summer.
Android developers blocked from uploads this week voiced their frustration on Google's site and elsewhere online. They wrote in outage reports from Ireland and Israel to Spain and Russia.
"You really uploaded that thing again?" one posted on Reddit. "Now it will be quite hard to explain that it was accidental..."
But amid the grievances, that poster found space for some advice:
"It's quite something what you did, but I would also get a lawyer to be safe."
Are Nation States Responsible for Evil Traffic Leaving Their Networks?
During recent talks to various audiences, I've mentioned discussions within the United Nations. One point from these discussions involved certain nation states agreeing to modes of behavior in cyber space. I found the document containing these recent statements: A/68/98, Group of Governmental Experts on Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security (pdf). This document is hosted within the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, in the developments in the field of information and telecommunications section.
Fifteen countries were involved in producing this document: Argentina, Australia, Belarus, Canada, China, Egypt, Estonia, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America.
Within the section titled "Recommendations on norms, rules and principles of responsible behaviour by States," I found the following noteworthy:
19. International law, and in particular the Charter of the United Nations, is applicable and is essential to maintaining peace and stability and promoting an open, secure, peaceful and accessible ICT environment...
23. States must meet their international obligations regarding internationally wrongful acts attributable to them. States must not use proxies to commit internationally wrongful acts. States should seek to ensure that their territories are not used by non-State actors for unlawful use of ICTs.
The first statement is important because it "imports" a large body of external law and agreements into the cyber field, for good or ill.
The second statement is important because, if States obey these principles, it has interesting effects upon malicious activity leaving State networks. Collectively these sentences imply that States are responsible for their networks. States can't claim that they are only innocent intrusion victims, and that any malicious activity leaving their State isn't their fault or problem.
Whether States try to meet these obligations, and whether others call them out for not meeting them, is another matter.
Weev Is in Jail Because the Government Doesn't Know What Hacking Is
"I'm flabbergasted that this could be called anything other than a hack," the prosecutor said, addressing a trio of skeptical-looking judges in the US Third District Court of Appeals. The government was restating its case that, by obtaining private email addresses after exploiting a security loophole on AT&T's website and forwarding them to the media, Andrew "weev" Auernheimer had violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Last March, weev, the notorious internet troll who seems to be equally celebrated and reviled, was convicted of accessing a computer without authorization and identity fraud, and sentenced to serve 41 months in prison.
"He had download the entire iOS system on his computer, he had to decrypt it, he had to do all of these things I don't even understand," Assistant US Attorney Glenn Moramarco argued. Here, on a Wednesday morning in Philadelphia, before a packed courtroom, the federal prosecution argued that a hacker should spend three and a half years in prison for committing a crime it couldn't fully comprehend.
Previously, Orin Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University and weev's defense attorney, had argued first and foremost that there was no criminal hacking to speak of. According to Kerr, what weev and Daniel Spitler (who pleaded guilty to avoid jail time) had done while working as an outfit called Goatse Security was entirely legal, even though it embarrassed public officials and some of the country's biggest corporations.
Goatse didn't steal passwords or hack into a server, Kerr argued. Instead, they effectively discovered a major security flaw in AT&T's network. When given the proper query, the telecom's public website would cough up a registered iPad owner's email address.
'He had to decrypt and decode, and do all of these things I don't even understand,' said the prosecutor. Later, he compared weev's deeds to hackers '[blowing] up a nuclear power plant in New Jersey.'
"There is no unauthorized access," Kerr said at the beginning of his appeal. When anyone can access data simply by entering an address onto a browser, "it is effectively public," he said.
Spitler and Auernheimer were able to pull 114,000 email addresses of iPad users—including those of high-profile individuals like Michael Bloomberg, Rahm Emmanuel, and the CEO of the New York Times—essentially by writing code that automatically entered those queries. Instead of quietly notifying Apple and AT&T, however, as security experts typically do, Goatse sent the addreses to Gawker, which published them in redacted form, along with a more detailed explanation of how the breach occurred.
In the courtroom, Kerr was eager to argue why weev's actions didn't violate the CFAA, a 1986 law that has been criticized by law scholars for being too vague and outmoded. But the judges were more interested in examining the issue of venue.
That's because, in an apparently arbitrary decision, the US Justice Department moved Auernheimer's trial to New Jersey, from Arkansas, where he's from. Goatse's exploit had very little to do with New Jersey at all—a small percentage of the obtained email addresses belonged to Jerseyites, but none were ever made public—so Kerr argued that the impact to the state was circumstantial, not pivotal.
There was no reason this trial shouldn't have been held in Hawaii, as a judge later remarked.
"Almost the entire thing was about venue," Tor Ekeland, an attorney who also represents Auernheimer, told me after the trial. "Nothing happened in New Jersey. No victims, no possession." He guessed that the Justice Department had chosen the state because it had a large computer crimes department, or because AT&T's headquarters were there, which proved irrelevant to the case, as he wasn't charged with any crimes against the company.
Some observers said that it appeared that the court may have been considering rejecting the case on grounds of venue, in order to prevent a precedent that enabled computer crimes to be tried anywhere that they had obliquely impacted residents who use the internet, which could potentially be everywhere. Speculation arose that this would be grounds to overturn a weak case without making a direct affront on the CFAA itself. The prosecution stated for the record that neither Auernheimer nor his computer nor Gawker were located in New Jersey.
In its opening statement, the government made an incendiary comparison that seemed to reflect the nature of its understanding of the crime: the prosecution compared Auernheimer's deeds to hackers "[blowing] up a nuclear power plant in New Jersey" in an attempt to illustrate how it was a relevant venue. "It doesn't matter where the server is located."
The judges did not appear to buy the argument.
Weev supporters outside of the courtroom this morning.
After the hearing, the dozens of supporters who'd filled the seats, many who'd made the trek from New York and beyond, filed out of the courtroom. "We have other interesting cases today, you know," one of the judges quipped, to scattered laughter.
Outside the courtroom, Kerr told me he was "cautiously optimistic" about his arguments' reception. He declined any further comment.
Journalists, lawyers, activists, and weev's friends anxiously congregated in the lobby. They generally seemed optimistic about the appeal, though many were also preoccupied with the treatment Auernheimer was receiving inside the prison. He'd been placed in a Secondary Housing Unit, and since last May, has been kept in solitary confinement most days. It was hard to say for certain, but weev's adversarial and anti-authoritarian nature—which continues to find an outlet on Twitter—was suspected to have played a role.
Katelan Foisy, a friend who corresponded with weev through letters, told me his typically exuberant outlook had grown dark.
"I would love to see him get out of solitary. That practice needs to be stopped," she said. "I hope this speeds things along."
Ekeland, his lawyer, also said the prison was isolating weev.
"He says he's sent me ten to twenty letters. I've received one." They're also not allowing him access to books or religious materials, Ekeland said. (Auernheimer is Mormon, though he only practices sporadically.)
The law should apply to everyone equally, not just precious snowflakes.
A couple dozen of his friends and supporters all went to lunch after the hearing, where they exchanged stories and talked politics. A software developer proudly showed me a page on the Encyclopedia Dramatica where he'd been made the target of weev's legendary trolling; it accused him of having ties to the mob and hosting websites with links to child pornography. Justine Tunney, the controversial Occupy Wall Street figure, showed off a little trolling of her own: a White House.gov petition that calls for replacing the federal government with tech companies.
When I asked each about weev, most smiled, almost guiltily.
The common line about weev is that there's no doubt he's done some terrible and distasteful things—the online stalking of a female blogger, the homophobic and anti-Semitic trolling, for instance. But, they say, he shouldn't be serving time for pointing out a flaw that AT&T and Apple left open to the public.
"The law should apply to everyone equally," Deviant Ollam told me, "not just precious snowflakes."
This issue of venue may offer weev a glimmer of hope for a way out of jail, and if it does, it could pave the way to an incrementally more just system for prosecuting computer crimes.
Still, the fundamental flaws of the CFAA looks as if they will remain unaddressed, granting prosecutors far too much power and leeway over digital activists and whistleblowers. The prosecution had compared internet traffic to kidnapping, hacktivism to nuclear terrorism, and admitted to not really grasping why, exactly, they had convicted this man.
As such, it's unlikely that the government would be able to process the complexities inherent in weev's motives and deeds. Sympathy for the internet's best troll was in short supply both outside and behind bars. His supporters understand this.
"Does weev deserve to be in jail? Probably. Yes. But not for this," someone said after the hearing. The table agreed—and these were his friends.
The NSA responds to Edward Snowden’s interview at TED
Richard Ledgett, Deputy Director, NSA, speaks with Chris Anderson via video at TED2014. Photo: Bret Hartman
Rick Ledgett is the deputy director of the National Security Agency. He’s here to give a response to Edward Snowden’s onstage/virtual appearance at TED earlier in the week. (See the talk, Here’s how we take back the Internet.) On Tuesday, the former NSA sysadmin made the case for open government and private lives, arguing that “we don’t have to give up liberty to have security.” Here at TED with his own onstage/virtual appearance, speaking on behalf of both the NSA and the American government, Ledgett responds to questions from TED curator Chris Anderson, who started things off. An edited version of their conversation follows:
Rick, we appreciate you joining us. It’s a strong statement that the NSA was prepared to reach out to show a more open face here. You saw, I think, the talk and the interview Edward Snowden gave here. What did you make of it?
I think it was interesting. We didn’t realize he was going to show up there [the audience laughs], so kudos to you guys for arranging a nice surprise like that. I think a lot of things have come up since Mr. Snowden started disclosing classified information. There were some kernels of truth in there but a lot of extrapolations and half-truths in there. I’m looking forward to helping you address them. This is an important conversation, important and of import. We need to have that be a factor in this conversation. We need to make that happen.
The question a lot of people have: What do you make of Snowden’s motivations for doing what he did? Did he have an alternative way he could have gone?
He absolutely did have alternative ways he could have gone. I actually think that characterizing him as a whistleblower hurts legitimate whistleblowing activities. Someone who works in the NSA, and 35,000 people do who are great citizens, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends and relatives, and they’re all interested in doing the right thing for their country and for our allies internationally. There are a variety of venues to address if folks have a concern. First up, you can go to your supervisor through the supervising chain in the organization. If you’re not comfortable with that, there are inspectors general. In the case of Mr. Snowden, he had the option of the NSA Inspector General, the Navy Inspector General, the Pacific Fleet Inspector General, the Intelligence Committee Inspector General. Any of whom would have kept concerns in classified channels and addressed them. There are also Congressional committees and mechanisms in place. He didn’t do any of that.
[At this point, Chris Anderson calls a halt to the conversation, hoping a break will allow the tech team — which has been scrambling to set up a clear video line between Vancouver and Washington, DC — can fix some of the audio issues, including screechy feedack. As he says, “This is too important not to be able to hear it properly.”] Later, Ledgett takes up where he left off:
I thought that as has been the case in a lot of these discussions, there were some half-truths and distortions in what Edward Snowden said. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to address this. It’s an important national and international discussion that we’re having. It’s important to be informed, and we want to inform with facts, not conjecture and misinformation. I’m happy for the opportunity.
You said Edward Snowden had other avenues for raising concerns. There are a number of comebacks to that: 1. He certainly believes that as a contractor those avenues weren’t available to him; 2. There’s a track record of whistleblowers, such as, say, Thomas Drake, being treated harshly. And thirdly, he wasn’t taking on one specific flaw he discovered but programs approved by all three branches of government. In those circumstances, couldn’t you argue that what he did was reasonable?
No, I don’t agree with that. The actions he took were inappropriate because of the fact that he put people’s lives at risks in the long run. I know there’s been a lot of talk by Edward Snowden and journalists who say the things disclosed did not put national security or people at risk. That is categorically not true. They actually do. There’s also an amazing arrogance to the idea that he knows better than the framers of the Constitution how government should work, should be designed and work with the separation of powers. The executive and legislative branches have to work together, they have to balance each other, and then the judicial branch oversees that whole process. That’s extremely arrogant on his part.
Do you have a specific example of how he put lives at risk?
In the things he disclosed. The NSA is a capabilities-based organization. When we have foreign intelligence targets, legitimate things of interest — the terrorist is the iconic example but that also includes human traffickers, drug traffickers, people trying to build advanced weaponry or deliver systems for them — those capabilities are applied in very discrete and measured and controlled ways. So the unconstrained disclosure of those capabilities mean the targets see it and recognize it and move away from our ability to have insight into what they’re doing. Then we are at greater risk because we don’t see the threats coming and we might be vulnerable. We have seen targets in terrorism, in the nation state area, smugglers, who have moved away from our ability to have insight into what they’re doing. The net effect of that is that our people overseas in dangerous places, our military, our diplomats, our allies in similar situations, face a greater risk.
So you’re saying that your access to information has been closed down. One concern is that the nature of its access was not legitimate in the first place. Describe to us the Bullrun program, in which it’s alleged that the NSA deliberately weakened security to get access.
Legitimate foreign targets use the global telecommunications system, and let me say it’s a great system, it’s the most complex system devised by man. It’s a wonderful thing. It’s also used by those working against us and our allies. And in working against them I ned the capability to go after them. If we could make it so that all the bad guys used the same corner of the internet, if they all used badguy.com, that would be awesome, we could concentrate our capabilities there. That would be awesome. That’s not what happens. They’re trying to hide from the government’s ability to isolate and interdict their actions. We have to swim in the same space.
The NSA has two missions. The first is the signals and intelligence mission about which sadly we read so much in the press. The second is the information and assurance mission, to protect the security of the United States. That’s the communications the president uses, the communications we use to control nuclear weapons, the communications we use with our allies. We make recommendations on those standards — and we use the same standards. We are invested in making sure those communications are secure for their intended purposes.
It seems like when it comes to the Internet, any strategy is fair game if it improves America’s safety. I think that’s why there’s such a divide of opinion. People think very differently about the Internet; it’s a momentous invention of humanity on a par with the Gutenberg press. It’s the bringer of knowledge to all; the connecter of knowledge of all. It’s viewed in idealistic terms and when seen through that lens, what the NSA has done is the equivalent of the Germans inserting a device in printing press to reveal what people bought or read. Do you see how that feels outrageous?
I do understand that and I share that view of the utility of the Internet. But this is bigger than the Internet. This is a big chunk of the global telecommunications system. People have legitimate concerns about the balance between transparency and secrecy. It’s couched as privacy and national security, but I don’t think that’s the right framing. It’s really transparency and secrecy. That’s the national and international conversation we’re having to let people participate in an informed way.
There are things we need to be transparent about, our authorities, processes, our oversight, who we are. We at the NSA have not done a good job of that, and that’s part of the reason why this has been so sensational. We’re “Never Say Anything,” I’ve seen there’s takeoffs of our logo of an eagle with headphones around it — that’s the public characterization of our work. We need to be more transparent, but what we don’t need to be transparent about, because it’s bad to expose them, are the operations and capabilities that allow the people we’re working against, the bad guys, to counter those.
Isn’t it also bad to deal a body blow to the American companies that have essentially given the world the Internet services that matter?
It is. Companies are in as tough position as are we. We compel companies to provide information, just like every nation in world does. Every industrialized nation has a lawful intercept program compelling companies to provide information, and companies comply with those programs as they do in Russia, the UK, China, India or France, in any country you choose to name. The fact that these revelations have been broadly characterized as “you can’t trust Company A because your privacy is suspect with them” is only accurate in that it’s accurate with every other company in the world dealing with those countries in the world. It’s been marketed by countries, including some ally countries, that you can’t trust the US but “you can trust our telecoms because we’re safe.” They’re using that to counter the very large technology edge US companies have in the cloud.
You’re sitting there with the American flag behind you. The American Constitution guarantees against unnecessary search and seizure. Is there a right to privacy?
Of course there is. We devote inordinate, I shouldn’t say that, I should say appropriate time and effort to ensure we protect that privacy and beyond that the privacy of citizens around the world, not just Americans. We’re all on the same network. I use a particular internet email service that is the number-one email service of choice of terrorists. I’m right beside them in email space on the Internet. We need to pick that apart and find the information that’s relevant. In doing so, we’re going to necessarily encounter Americans and innocent foreign citizens going about their business. And when you find it, because you’re certain to find it, here’s how to protect it. We have minimization procedures approved by the Attorney General that are constitutionally based. And for citizens of the world going about their lawful business on a daily basis, the President laid out new protections in a January 17th speech. Absolutely folks have the right to privacy.
What about foreigners using American companies’ Internet services?
They do too. The only way we are able to compel one of those companies to provide us information is when it falls into one of three categories, that this particular person is associated with counterterrorism or proliferation or another intelligence target.
A lot of information you’ve obtained has been metadata, not necessarily words, but it’s who people wrote to when and so forth. It’s been argued that metadata is more invasive than core data. In core data you present yourself as you want to be presented. With metadata who knows conclusions drawn. What do you make of that?
I don’t really understand that argument. Metadata is important for a few reasons. It’s information that lets you find connections that people are trying to hide. So when a terrorist is corresponding with someone who’s not known to us but is supporting terrorist activities or violating sanctions, or is trying to hide activity because it’s because illicit, metadata lets you connect that. The alternative is less efficient and much more invasive to privacy, it’d be a giant collection of content. Metadata is privacy enhancing. We don’t grind out metadata profiles of average people. If you’re not connected to an intelligence target, you’re not of interest to us. [At that, a man at the back of the auditorium says clearly, "Thank you."]
Where would you place terrorism in terms of threats to Americans overall?
Terrorism is still number one. We have never been in a time where there are more places where things are going badly and forming the petri dish where terrorists can take advantage of a lack of governance. An old boss of mine, Tom Fargo, refers to “arcs of instability.” And you have a lot of them in the world right now. In Syria there’s a civil war and a massive number of foreign fighters flooding in there to learn to be terrorists. These are westerners with passports to European countries or the US. They are learning to do jihad and they have expressed intent to go out and do that in their home countries. Iraq is suffering from a high level of sectarian violence; it’s a breeding ground for violence. In the horn of Africa there’s lots of weak governance which forms a breeding ground for terrorist activities. Number two is cyberthreat, in three ways. One way is probably the most common way people have heard of and that’s the theft of IP. Basically foreign countries are stealing companies’ secrets and providing them to state enterprises or enterprises connected with government, which allows them to leapfrog technology or win business intelligence. That is hugely costly and several nation-states are doing it. Number three is distributed denial of service attacks, and there has been a spate of those against the US financial sector since 2012. That’s a nation-state doing so as semi-anonymous reprisal. And the last is destructive attacks, which concern me the most. In 2012 at Saudi Aremco, a Wiper-style virus took out thousands of computers. In March 2013, a South Korean attack attributed in the press to North Korea took out thousands of computers. Those are on the rise; we see people expressing interest in those capabilities.
A lot of people look at the risk and the numbers and don’t understand the belief that terrorism is still a threat. If you don’t include 9/11, in the last 30-40 years, 500 Americans have died of terrorism, mostly from homegrown terrorirsts. The chance of being killed of terrorism is less than being killed by lightning. Of course, nuclear or bioterrorism acts would change those numbers. Is that the point?
Two things. The reason there hasn’t been a major attack in the US since 9/11 is not an accident. That’s hard work we’ve done and folks in the military have done and allies around world have done. You’ve heard the numbers: 54 terrorist attacks were stopped. 25 of them were in Europe, 18 occurred in just three countries, some of them our allies, some of whom are beating the heck out of us over the NSA programs. But that’s not an accident, that’s hard work, that’s us finding intelligence through law enforcement, through cooperation and sometimes through military action. But your idea of nuclear or biothreat is not at all far-fetched. A number of groups have expressed the desire to obtain those capabilities and are working toward that.
So there were 54 incidents, but it’s been suggested that as few as zero of them were revealed because of the controversial programs Mr. Snowden revealed. They were revealed through other forms of intelligence. It’s almost like you’re looking for a needle in a haystack, and yet the controversial programs simply add hay to stack.
No. There are two programs typically implicated in that discussion. One is the Section 215 program, the other one is Section 702, the Fisa Amendment Act, popularly known as the Prism program. The Section 215 program is only relevant to threats directed against the US. There have been a dozen threats where that was implicated. You’ll see people say publicly there’s no “but for” case, no “but for that, the threat would have happened.” That indicates a lack of understanding of how investigations actually work. If you think about a television murder mystery, they start with the body and work to solve crime. We’re starting well before then, before the bodies, to figure out who the people are and what they’re trying to do. That involves a massive amount of information. Think of it as a mosaic; it’s hard to say which is the most important piece of a mosaic.
In 42 of those events, the Prism program was hugely relevant and material in contributing to stopping those attacks.
Edward Snowden said that terrorism provides almost an emotional cover for action. It allows the initiation of these programs to give powers an organization like yours couldn’t otherwise have. Is there internal debate about this?
Yes. We debate these things all the time. Discussion goes on in the executive branch and within the NSA and intelligence community about what’s right, what’s proportionate, what’s the right thing to do. These programs have been authorized by two Presidents, two political parties, by Congress twice and by federal judges 16 times. It’s not the NSA running off and doing these things. This is a legitimate activity of the US government, as agreed to by all branches of the government.
Yet when Congress discovered things that were being done, many were completely shocked. Is that not a legitimate reaction? Did they know exactly what you were doing?
Congress is a big body. In the lower house there are 535 of them and they change out frequently. The NSA provided all relevant information to the oversight committees; the dissemination of information through Congress is something they manage. I would say that Congress members had the opportunity to make themselves aware, and a significant number of them, those assigned oversight responsibility, did have oversight. And you have chairs of those committees say that in public.
You mentioned them previously: cyberattacks are a huge concern. Is there a tradeoff between strategies? In weakening encryption to find the bad guys, might you open the door to cyberattack?
Two things. One, you said weakened encryption, I didn’t. The other is that the NSA has both those missions. We’re heavily biased towards defense. The vulnerabilities we find in the majority of cases we disclose to those responsible for manufacturing or developing products. We’re working on a proposal to be transparent and publish reports in the same way Internet companies can publish reports. We want to be more transparent. We eat our own dogfood, we use the products we recommend. It’s in our interest to keep our communications protected in the way other people’s need to be.
After his talk, Edward Snowden was wandering the halls here. I heard a number of people ask, and he was very complimentary about the people at the NSA, saying that it’s a impassioned group of employees who are seeking to do right thing. The problems have come from badly conceived policies. He came over reasonably and calmly. He didn’t come across as a crazy man. Even if you disagree with how, does the fact that he opened debate matter?
I think the discussion is an important one to have. I do not like the way he did it; there were a number of other ways to do it that would not have endangered our people and people of other nations by losing visibility into what our adversaries are doing. But I do think it’s an important conversation.
There seems to be some disagreement over giving him amnesty. Your boss has said that would be a terrible example to others, that we can’t negotiate with someone who broke the law in that way. Yet you’ve been quoted as saying that if he can prove he surrendered all his documents, then a deal could be considered. Where do you stand?
Yes, 60 Minutes took a part of what I said … What I actually said in response to a question about entertaining a discussion of mitigating action against Mr. Snowden was that yes, it’s worth a conversation. The Attorney General of the US and the president have talked about this, and I defer to the Attorney General as this is his lane. There is a strong tradition in American jurisprudence of having discussions with people charged with crimes as it befits the government to get something out of that. There’s always room for discussion; I’m not presupposing any outcome.
It seems like he has things to offer the US, and perhaps you and others can use his insights to put things right and figure out smarter policy way forward for the future. Has that been entertained?
That’s out of my lane. That’s a Department of Justice discussion. I’ll defer to them.
So the other day I asked Edward Snowden for his idea worth spreading. What would be yours?
Learn the facts. This is a really important conversation that impacts not just the NSA or the government, but you and the Internet companies. The issue of privacy and personal data is much bigger than government. So don’t rely on headlines or soundbites, or on one-sided conversations, That’s an idea worth spreading. We wear badges here, and the lanyard of those people who do crypto-analytic work says “look at the data.” So that’s my idea worth spreading: look at the data.
Google encrypts all Gmail traffic to protect users from PRISM spooks
Google has begun encrypting all Gmail communications in a bid to protect its customers from prying intelligence agencies and cyber criminals.
Gmail security engineering lead Nicolas Lidzborski, announced that all Gmail messages will now be run through an encrypted Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) connection, in a blog post.
"Starting today, Gmail will always use an encrypted HTTPS connection when you check or send email. Gmail has supported HTTPS since the day it launched, and in 2010 we made HTTPS the default," he said.
"Today's change means that no one can listen in on your messages as they go back and forth between you and Gmail's servers – no matter if you're using public WiFi or logging in from your computer, phone or tablet."
HTTPS is a popular internet security protocol that uses digital certificates to authenticate the identity of the web server a computer is communicating with and block man-in-the-middle attacks, for example. The protocol also encrypts any data passing between the server and the computer. Lidzborski said the use of HTTPS will stop intelligence agencies monitoring Gmail users' communications.
"Every single email message you send or receive – 100 percent of them – is encrypted while moving internally. This ensures that your messages are safe not only when they move between you and Gmail's servers, but also as they move between Google's data centres – something we made a top priority after last summer's revelations," he said.
Google is one of many companies known to have been targeted by the NSA during PRISM. News of the PRISM campaign broke earlier this year when whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked classified documents to the press, proving the NSA siphoned vast amounts of customer data from numerous technology companies.
Google has since worked to improve its security services to allay its customers' fears. The firm began encrypting its search data using the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol earlier in March.
Snowden listed encryption as a key way for companies to protect their customers from NSA spying during a privacy discussion at the SXSW conference in Texas earlier in March.
Despite the positive move, the use of HTTPS does not necessairly mean Gmail users are 100 percent protected from intelligence agencies such as the NSA. It is still unclear whether the NSA used hacking methods to collect data from companies such as Google without their knowledge or if it simply used Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requests.
FISA requests are specific court orders that force US-based companies to hand data to the NSA. They include a gagging clause that blocks companies from disclosing key information about their involvement to the public.
NSA general counsel Rajesh De said the businesses involved were fully aware of what metadata was being collected during a hearing chaired by the US Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board earlier this week. If true the NSA could still collect Gmail customer data from Google using FISA requests.
Turkey blocks Twitter but users find workarounds
Twitter appears to be blocked in Turkey as the prime minister attempts to clamp down on unrest in the country. However, users are flouting the ban, with Twitter itself publicising tactics to ensure messages can get through to the site.
Reuters reported that people in Turkey attempting to access Twitter were met with a statement from its telecoms regulator citing court orders that now prevent access to the site, under the orders of prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
“Twitter has been blocked as a preventive measure in order to prevent future damage to our citizens as a last resort,” the statement reportedly said.
The attempt to block access has been met with widespread protest, with European Commission vice president Neelie Kroes claiming it was nothing more than censorship.
In another odd twist on the situation, the president of Turkey Abdullah Gül took to Twitter to say the prime minister is wrong to try and implement the ban.
The incidents underline the power of social media platforms and the concern they cause leaders in many nations. Many governments attempted to stop communications tools such as Twitter and Facebook, as well as text messages, from being used during unrest in the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.
The UK government even considered blocking such tools in the aftermath of the riots that hit the UK in the summer of 2011, although these plans appear to have cooled over time.
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Brian Wilson Is Pitching Better Than You Think He Is
Mike Petriello 08/13/2014 Brian Wilson 576 Comments
The Dodgers have been a lot of fun to watch lately, haven’t they? Despite a bit of a hiccup in Milwaukee over the weekend, they have a comfortable six-game lead in the NL West and the best playoff odds in the league. It helps that the Giants have been unable to get out of their own way, but only one team, the A’s, can boast of more wins, though both the Angels and the Orioles (!) have better winning percentages because they’ve played fewer games. For the first time in a while, the controversies — where’s Joc Pederson! Where will Matt Kemp be! Is there a center fielder? How banged-up is Hanley Ramirez today? What’s Alex Guerrero‘s status? …and so on — seem like they’re on the side of the road. The lineup, Ramirez’ latest DL stint aside, is more or less set. Kemp has looked like his old self. Yasiel Puig has been a capable center fielder.
Even Roberto Hernandez and Kevin Correia pitched in, though I’m not certain that either can continue to do so. But for today, things are good, so let’s look at one of the things that fans still think isn’t: Brian Wilson. A 4.66 ERA is ugly, and while you know my feelings on ERA for relievers, a 4.19 FIP and 4.05 xFIP doesn’t really do much to help. He’s still missing bats, but he’s missing the plate, too. Of the 359 pitchers with at least 30 innings thrown, only three have a higher BB% than Wilson’s 14.4.
None of that is good, and I won’t pretend that it is. If you still get uneasy seeing him in a big spot, that’s totally fair. But what I at least want to do today is at least make the case that it’s unfair for Wilson to be lumped into the Chris Perez level of awful, as I think too many still perceive him as. I’ll admit that what I’m about to do is to split a small sample size into a smaller sample size, and that’s always going to be flawed. Of course, 10 of the 20 earned runs he’s allowed this year came in just three appearances; he’s allowed 10 in the other 43, so any kind of bad game is going to impact a short-inning reliever’s ERA for quite a while. Bear with me here, anyway. The point is less about reviewing what he’s done and setting expectations for what he can be.
Remember just how terribly the season started for Wilson. After a scoreless appearance in Australia, he blew the domestic opener, then immediately went on the 15-day DL with irritation in his right elbow. When he returned, he pitched seven April games, imploding in one against Philadelphia, allowing 14 baserunners while striking out only four. May was a little better, but only somewhat. While he at least got strikeouts — 16 in 12.2 innings — he also continued to have walk issues (10) and was hit hard, giving up a .255 /.387/.412 line. At one point, on May 14 against the Marlins, he struggled to top 90 mph, and even Don Mattingly admitted some concern:
You couldn’t see the velocity out there,” he said after Wednesday’s game. “Some of those are 88-89, stuff like that, even less. It does concern us a little bit, but then toward the end of the inning, he’s dialing it up. The other day he comes out, it’s 88-90. By the end of the inning he’s throwing 96. But there are concerns.
This is all setup. Here’s the upshot. Mattingly made those comments on May 15:
Since then, Wilson has a 2.05 ERA / 2.64 FIP
You could attribute the rebound to Mattingly’s comments, though that would be silly, foolish and without any actual connection. You could say that it’s because Wilson himself admitted that he’d spent weeks of the spring quietly trying to pitch through discomfort, brought on by an attempt to be ready for the unusually early foreign start to the season, and in the process managed to trash the first two months of the years trying to get right. There seems to be some validity to that. You could also point out this: Wilson is simply throwing different pitches now.
See that orange line? That’s a curveball. He threw it zero times in April; now it’s the pitch he’s using more than anything but his cutter. If you prefer percentages, it’s up from 0 (April) to 2.85 (May) to 7.14 (June) to 11.96 (July) to 27.37 (August). It’s coming at the expense of his fourseam and sinker; again, small samples here, but the sinker wasn’t doing much for him, responsible for eight hits, four walks and only two strikeouts. So far, he’s thrown the curve 59 times and allowed one walk, one single, and hit one. He’s come close to throwing it more just in the first half of August alone than he had in his entire career prior to 2014.
I haven’t been able to find any published stories along the lines of A.J. Ellis suggesting that Josh Beckett throw his curve more often, and this isn’t the same as saying that Wilson’s curve is suddenly an elite new weapon. Likely, Wilson’s success is a combination of multiple factors, like getting his arm into the shape it didn’t seem to be earlier in the year, like improving his control — 14/3 K/BB since the All-Star break — and by giving hitters something new to think about that they’d never had to worry about before. That doesn’t mean that the unbelievably dominant Wilson of late 2013 is back. It does mean that we shouldn’t place undue importance on easily explainable issues from four months ago. Those things factor into his overall 2014 numbers; they may not tell you much about what Wilson is right now.
About Mike Petriello
Mike writes about lots of baseball in lots of places, and right now that place is MLB.com.
@mike_petriello
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Next Scott Schebler’s impressive play might add to the outfield logjam
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Obama faces enormous stakes as Iran talks go down to wire
by Jordan Fabian
http://dubowitz.pundicity.com/16790/obama-faces-enormous-stakes-as-iran-talks-go-down
"It's a big bet that this regime after a nuclear deal is going to change its behavior and I disagree fundamentally that it will," said Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation of Defense of Democracies.
He and other critics believe the Obama administration has conceded too much and that the deal will leave Iran with enough nuclear capability to develop a weapon.
A nuclear-armed Iran would have disastrous consequences for the U.S. It would enflame crises in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq — where Iranian-backed groups are involved in fighting — and it could spark Iran's Sunni rivals, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, to develop nuclear weapons of their own as a deterrent.
Such a scenario would add ammunition to those who argue Obama misplayed the Arab Spring, chiefly by failing to act more forcefully in Syria's civil war.
"If there is no deal, it may be better for the president's legacy than if there is a deal at this point," Dubowitz said.
It could be years until a potential deal can truly be judged.
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Directed by Jose Padilha
Starring Joel Kinnaman, Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton and Samuel L. Jackson
Rated PG-13
It’s pretty easy to determine if a reboot film is a financial success. For the film to be considered an artistic success, however, it has a little more to prove:
• Is there a pressing reason for it to be made, or is it just a money grab?
• Does it bring something new to the table, or is it just a modern rehash of the original work?
• Does it stand on its own as a film, or does it require the original to make sense?
The 2014 version of RoboCop actually does better than might be expected on those points. It stands on its own rather well; if you’re familiar with the original, there are nice little elements sprinkled in for you, but it’s not a requirement. And, with the age of drone strikes and more and more automated weapons becoming available, the role of the human in military situations is a question on people’s minds now; that situation didn’t really exist for the original 1987 film.
The danger for a reboot of a well-known film, however, is the comparisons that will inevitably be drawn between it and the original. This is where the 2014 film falls a little short. There’s something about the 1987 film that has withstood the test of time. Unlike some other films of that era, if you discount some of the hairstyles, the film doesn’t really seem 27 years old. I don’t know if the 2014 film is going to have the same longevity.
The film stars Joel Kinnaman as Alex Murphy, a Detroit cop who runs afoul of the wrong gangster and winds up very nearly dead as a result. OmniCorp, a multinational corporation specializing in urban pacification robots and weaponry, has been looking for a way to branch out into peacekeeping on United States soil, something hindered by the fact that there’s a law stating that automated policing is illegal in the U.S. OmniCorp CEO Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton) has figured out how to do an end-run around the law by putting a man in the robot to ease his way into the lucrative U.S. marketplace, and, since Murphy is in need of a new prosthetic everything, sees his chance with the Detroit officer.
One of the things the 1987 film had going for it was the social satire that dripped from it, showing its exaggerated version of the near future. Its hyperviolent view of Detroit and projection of rampant materialism was as gleeful as it was disturbingly accurate (really, compare the 6000 SUX and it’s 8.2 MPG to the Hummer H2). This film doesn’t really go in for that kind of satire; instead of humor, it goes for a more realistic worldview. The muckraking of Pat Novak (Samuel L. Jackson) seems over the top, but it’s a logical extension of FOX News, CNN or MSNBC programming.
Also, if this film is trying to say that taking humanity out of the equation of urban warfare/extreme policing is wrong, it doesn’t really accomplish that. In the scenarios shown (including the urban pacification of Tehran, which we apparently have gone all “Operation Freedom Storm” on at some point), the robotic technology actually works pretty well. Suicide bombers don’t take anyone’s lives except their own, and the corruption of human police officers proves to be a real issue. They’ve even got the ED-209 issues from the original films ironed out. If it wasn’t for some corporate greed, it’s not really a bad system as presented here.
One of the improvements the new film has is the sympathetic character of Dr. Dennett Norton (Gary Oldman), the main architect of the next cybernetic technology. Oldman gives the movie a moral center on the corporate end, which grounds the movie, keeping OmniCorp from just being completely cartoon-evil.
It also raises some interesting questions when it’s found that the cybernetic systems are confused by the changing brain chemistry brought on by highly emotional states. In the original film, there was a question of if there was anything human left of Murphy; this film asks the question of if a human and a machine work together, and if so, which one is (or should be) dominant.
So, does the film work? Yes. It’s an entertaining idea, the effects are outstanding (a scene where the RoboCop armor is pulled away to reveal what’s left of Murphy’s humanity is at once horrific and fascinating), and it has something to say on the question of the role of humanity and free will in an increasingly computerized society. I’m glad I saw it. However, I don’t think people are still going to be talking about it 27 years from now.
Thoughts on RoboCop
• It bugged me in the trailers, and it still bugged me in the film — Murphy kept his right hand. While that’s probably good from a “still want to feel human” standpoint, from an “armored machine of justice,” it could be a drawback. If I were a bad guy with any wherewithal, I’d be aiming for that hand or his lower jaw (which is also exposed). I’m not saying they should have lopped it off, but still — give the guy a glove or gauntlet or something.
• I’ve gone on record on my own podcast (http://toweroftechnobabble.com/?p=4314) that I pretty much swore off of films because of bad experiences with rude audiences. I figured that RoboCop would be loud enough, though, that if, for instance, someone behind me sounded like they were using nasal spray throughout the entire film, it wouldn’t be a problem. I was almost right.
• Also, guy who sat behind me, we all caught the “I’d buy that for a dollar” line that was in the original film, but thanks for pointing it out loudly, in case we missed it.
• The guy playing Mattox is Jackie Earle Haley, the same guy who played, among other roles, Rorschach in Watchmen. Maybe it’s just me, but I can never place him until the credits roll, probably because he reminds me of the grown up version of Danny Bonaduce, only with talent.
(This review first appeared at http://moviemeltdown.bravesites.com/entries/general/RoboCop)
Tags: movie reviewrobocop
Next “To Catch a Yeti” – Spotlight on the Soul
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Common Work-Related Musculoskeletal Injuries
What Are Musculoskeletal Disorders?
What Are Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders (WMSD)?
What Are the Risk Factors for WMSDs?
How Common Are MSDs?
Musculoskeletal disorders include a group of conditions that involve the nerves, tendons, muscles, and supporting structures such as intervertebral discs. They represent a wide range of disorders, which can differ in severity from mild periodic symptoms to severe chronic and debilitating conditions. Examples include carpal tunnel syndrome, tenosynovitis, tension neck syndrome, and low back pain.
Work Related Musculoskeletal Disorders are musculoskeletal disorders caused or made worse by the work environment. WMSDs can cause severe and debilitating symptoms such as pain, numbness, and tingling; reduced worker productivity; lost time from work; temporary or permanent disability; inability to perform job tasks; and an increase in workers compensation costs. Musculoskeletal disorders are often confused with ergonomics. Ergonomics is the science of fitting workplace conditions and job demands to the capabilities of workers. In other words, musculoskeletal disorders are the problem and ergonomics is a solution.
Repetitive, forceful, or prolonged exertions of the hands; frequent or heavy lifting, pushing, pulling, or carrying of heavy objects; prolonged awkward postures; and vibration contribute to WMSDs. Jobs or working conditions that combine risk factors will increase the risk for musculoskeletal problems. The level of risk depends on how long a worker is exposed to these conditions, how often they are exposed, and the level of exposure.
Musculoskeletal disorders of any cause are among the most prevalent medical problems, affecting 7% of the population and accounting for 14% of physician visits and 19% of hospital stays. When looking specifically at work-related musculoskeletal disorders, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports that in 1995, 62% (308,000) of all illness cases were due to disorders associated with repeated trauma. This figure does not include back injuries. BLS also reports that the number of cases of repeated trauma has increased significantly, rising from 23,800 cases in 1972 to 332,000 cases in 1994-a fourteenfold increase. In 1995 the number of cases decreased by 7% to 308,000 reported cases, but this number still exceeds the number of cases in any year prior to 1994. When looking specifically at cases involving days away from work, for which more detailed information is available, BLS reports that in 1994, approximately 32% or 705,800 cases were the result of overexertion or repetitive motion. This figure includes back injuries.
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Table of contents of the issue
Guidelines to the presentation of manuscripts
Manuscripts editing procedure
Scientific Journal “Issues of National and Federative Relations”. Issue 2 (21), 2013.
JUBILEE GREETINGS
ISSUES OF IMPLEMENTATION OF THE STRATEGY OF THE STATE NATIONAL POLICY OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION FOR THE PERIOD UP TO YEAR 2025
Composition of the working group on the implementation of the Strategy of the State National Policy of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2025 of the Russian Presidential Council on the Inter-Ethnic Relations
Meeting of the Russian Presidential Council for Interethnic Relations February 19, 2013, Moscow
Materials of the Permanent Research and Methodological Seminar “Russian State under the Conditions of Globalization” on the topic “Strategy of the State National Policy of the Russian Federation: Theoretical Issues and Practical Deeds”
Mikhaylov V.A. Russia’ Strategy of the State National Policy: Theory and Practice
Drobizheva L.M. On the Russia’s Strategy of the State National Policy
Pain E.A. Issues Connected with the Implementation of Russia’ Strategy of the State National Policy in the System of Public Administration
Zorin V.Yu. Russia’s Strategy of the State National Policy: Traditionalism and New Approaches to the Strengthening of Unity of the Russia’s Multiethnic People (Russian Nation)
HUMANITARIAN ASPECTS OF ETHNO-NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Vlasov V.I. On the Russian Dimension of Political Culture
Boltenkova L.F., Stepanov V.V. On the System of Moral and Spiritual Upbringing of the Youth
Nigmatullina T.A. Formation of the Potential of the Youth in New System of Social and Cultural Coordinates
Gaiduk V.V., Smirnova K.I. Ethno-political Conflicts in the Post-Soviet Area
Saveliev V.V. Conceptual Foundation of the National Policy in the Russian Federation
Varsonofiev V.V. Ethno-confessional Military Units as the Most Important Mechanism for the Formation of National Ideology: Historic Experience and Perspectives
Muzakaev D.A. Features of the Today Chechen Ethno-culture
FEDERATIVE RELATIONS AND REGIONAL POLICY
Medvedev N.P. Regional Policy of the Modern State: Theory and Practice
Geleranskiy P.S. Today Stage in the Regulation of Federative Relations
Iskuzhin R.K. Democratic Transit of Russian Federalism: Foreign States’ Experience
Soloviev D.S. Influence of Ethno-religious Factor on the Modern Model of Relations between the Federal and Regional Powers
Gammaev T.G. Ethno-political Separatism as a Threat to Russia’s National Security
POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS AND PROCESSES
Ternovaya L.O. Traditional arts and politics in a global world
Каshaev M.V. On the Issue of Optimizing Russian Presidential State Policy: in Search of a Toolkit
Altinbaeva L.T. Reformation of the Constitution of the Russian Federation: Political Preconditions
Patrusheva N.S. Role of the Multiparty System in the Formation of the Civil Society
Our authors № 2-2013
V.A. MIKHAYLOV DSc (History), Chief of the National and Federative Department of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration
RUSSIA’ STRATEGY OF THE STATE NATIONAL POLICY: THEORY AND PRACTICE
In this article, developed on the basis of presentation at the seminar devoted to the discussion of the new Russia’ Strategy of the State National Policy, the author substantiates the expediency of its adoption and analyses key points of this new Strategy, as well as proposes amendments aimed at its perfection.
Key words: Strategy of the State National Policy of the Russian Federation, Russian nation, ideology, patriotism, state sovereignty.
L.М. DROBIZHEVA DSc (history), professor, Head of the Centre for the Research of Interethnic Relations of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, member of the Russian Presidential Council for Interethnic Relations, member of the working group for the implementation of the Russia’ Strategy of the State National Policy
ON THE RUSSIA’S STRATEGY OF THE STATE NATIONAL POLICY
In this article developed on the basis of the author’s presentation at the meeting of the working group for the implementation of the Strategy of the State National Policy of the Russian Federation, the author presents her analysis of the today state of interethnic relations reflected in the Strategy. The author specially draws attention to the notion of “tolerance” and proposes a new notion of “interethnic harmony”.
Key words: Strategy of the State National Policy, tolerance, interethnic harmony, interethnic relations.
E.А. PAIN DSc (political sciences), professor, chair of politics and political analysis and chair of applied politology of the National Research University Higher School of Economics
ISSUES CONNECTED WITH THE IMPLEMENTATION OF RUSSIA’ STRATEGY OF THE STATE NATIONAL POLICY IN THE SYSTEM OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
This article is based on the author’s presentation at the seminar devoted to the implementation of Russia’ Strategy of the State National Policy. The author pays special attention to the issues of the Strategy’s implementation in the system of public administration.
Key words: Strategy of the State National Policy, public administration, nation, state, civil society, implementation.
V.Yu. ZORIN DSc (political sciences), professor, Deputy Director of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, member of the Russian Presidential Council for Interethnic Relations
RUSSIA’S STRATEGY OF THE STATE NATIONAL POLICY: TRADITIONALISM AND NEW APPROACHES TO THE STRENGTHENING OF UNITY OF THE RUSSIA’S MULTIETHNIC PEOPLE (RUSSIAN NATION)
In this article, the author analyses new Strategy of the State National Policy of the Russian Federation. He stresses its strong and weak points and evaluates it depending on the efficiency of implementation of measures proposed in it.
Key words: strategy, national policy, people, state, efficiency.
V.I. VLASOV DSc (law), Professor at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration
ON THE RUSSIAN DIMENSION OF POLITICAL CULTURE
In his article, the author considers the notion of political culture and analyses its various versions and interpretations, its content and structure, as well as interconnection between political culture and political situation in the country.
Key words: political culture, politics, government, law, morals, structure, content, Russia.
L.F. BOLTENKOVA DSc (law), Professor at the National and Federative Relations Department of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration
V.V. STEPANOV working for a PhD degree in political sciences at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration
ON THE SYSTEM OF MORAL AND SPIRITUAL UPBRINGING OF THE YOUTH
The task set by the author in his article is to describe certain elements of the system of the moral and spiritual upbringing of the youth and at the same time give definitions of relevant notions.
Key words: youth, system, moral and spiritual upbringing.
Т.А. NIGMATULLINA PhD (history), Director of Bashkir Institute of Social Technologies, working for the doctorate degree at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration
FORMATION OF THE POTENTIAL OF THE YOUTH IN NEW SYSTEM OF SOCIAL AND CULTURAL COORDINATES
Political realities of the recent years have laid bare the issue of the youth growing activity evident at various levels and characterized by sharp imperatives in respect of bodies of power and existing public institutions and poorly regulated by the operative political instruments. The government attitude towards youth is being transformed largely under the influence of multiple factors, among them: geopolitical factors, the country’s stability on the international arena, stability of the national, cultural and confessional situations, as well as social and economic growth. Aggregation of these factors or rather their disharmony results in the growth of protest activity that swung up in the first decade of the 2000s on the political map of the former USSR and primarily in Georgia, Ukraine and Kirgizia and proved that the striking force of “colored revolutions” is youth. During this period, a great potential of passionarity was rapidly formed in the consciousness of the young generation capable of spontaneous or regulated strong outbursts of its forces and impulses within the coordinates of their country’s political space.
Key words: youth, politics, government regulation, culture, society, power.
V.V. GAIDUK DSc (political science), Professor, Head of politology chair, Bashkir State University
K.I. SMIRNOVA Psycologist of the Psycological service Bashkir Institute of Social Tecnologies
ETHNO-POLITICAL CONFLICTS IN THE POST-SOVIET AREA
In the article, the author reveals the deep contradictions between cultural and anthropological models of collective identities in the Russian society and notes that ethno-political conflicts in Russia are attributes of profound ethno-cultural transformations.
Key words: ethno-political conflict, transformations, crisis, post-Soviet area, identity, political culture.
V.V. SAVELIEV DSc (philosophy), Professor, Department of National and Federal Relations, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Honored Worker in the Area of Culture, Full Member of the International Academy of Noosphere (Sustainable Development) (IANSD)
CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATION OF THE NATIONAL POLICY IN THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
In his article, the author analyses issues related to the creation of the theory of national federative relations focused on the development of conceptual foundation and strategy of national policy.
Key words: national policy, federative relations, concept, strategy, interaction, state, nation, civilization, identity, diversity.
V.V. VARSONOFIEV PhD (political science)
ETHNO-CONFESSIONAL MILITARY UNITS AS THE MOST IMPORTANT MECHANISM FOR THE FORMATION OF NATIONAL IDEOLOGY: HISTORIC EXPERIENCE AND PERSPECTIVES
Formation of national ideology in the Russian military construction has always been problematic and has been rather efficiently resolved through various means. Its content today is most complex from the military and political, social and economic points of view and is primarily caused by the lack of the government’s coordination in the formation of outlooks of the future country defenders and practically the defenders themselves. As a result, we witness widening differences between the outlooks of different soldiers, inter-ethnic and religious contradictions, including, those among kinsmen from different tribes or families, non-manual relations and ethnic crimes. The author in her article describes peculiarities and perspectives of formation of the national ideology through the formation of ethno-confessional military units.
Key words: national ideology, ethno-confessional military units, national formations, national guard, ethno-confessional peculiarities of the military, ethno-confessional stability in the army, nationals officer cadre, nationals officer training schools.
D.A. MUZAKAEV post-graduate student, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration
FEATURES OF THE TODAY CHECHEN ETHNO-CULTURE
In the article the author considers the contents of the Chechen Republican government policy in the field of culture and follows its transformation during the period from the year 2000 till today. The author analyses the results of the government new policy in the cultural sphere that provides, among other things, an all-round modernization of the material and technical facilities of the artistic and culture institutions.
Key words: government policy, culture, modernization, development, federal program, government support, the Chechen Republic.
N.P. MEDVEDEV DSc (political science), Professor at the Russian Academy of People’s Economy and Administrative Service under the Russian President and at the Peoples’ Friendship University
REGIONAL POLICY OF THE MODERN STATE: THEORY AND PRACTICE
In his article the author analyses features of the regional policy implementation in the Russian Federation and the EU. By comparing the regional policy models in the Russian Federation and the EU countries, he reveals the differences in its implementation arrangements and comes to the conclusion that, as a part of an open state concept, it is possible to apply the basic principles of the European regional development policy within the CIS boundaries, as well as those of the united Russia-Byelorussia state.
Key words: region, regional policy, concept, model, principle, state power efficiency, the Russian Federation, the European Union.
P.S. GELERANSKIY PhD (political science), doctoral candidate at the National and Federative Relations Department of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration
TODAY STAGE IN THE REGULATION OF FEDERATIVE RELATIONS
The article analyses the new stage in the distribution of responsibilities between the federal and regional authorities, as well as local self-government bodies of power. Two Presidents of the Russian Federation: V.V. Putin and D.A. Medvedev more than once spoke about the necessity to decentralize and re-distribute the powers. The author mentions the Concept of Federative Reform developed in 2002 by a special Presidential Commission headed by D.N. Kozak. The article touches upon planned amendments and proposed lines of development that were stated by D.N. Kozak and D.A. Medvedev. The author supports the idea of expediency of a transfer of powers to the subjects of the Russian Federation in the mid- and long perspectives, such a transfer would permit the subjects of the Russian Federation to increase the volume of revenues to their budgets.
Key words: authorities, distribution of powers, federal bodies of power, regional bodies of power, local self-government, centralization, decentralization, federative reform, fiscal capacity, democratic state, federative development, federative relations, administration, regional administration, public administration, commission, concept.
R.К. ISKUZHIN PhD (law), working for a doctorate degree at the IPAM Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration
DEMOCRATIC TRANSIT OF RUSSIAN FEDERALISM: FOREIGN STATES’ EXPERIENCE
There are 193 countries in the world to-day, they differ by their social and economic characteristics, by their political institutions and by many other parameters. Modern states are also characterized by a great diversity of political regimes, among which we can single out not only “classic” democratic or authoritarian states, but also hybrid political regimes.
Key words: federalism, regime, hybrid, democracy, authoritarian, structure, administrative and territorial unity, transformation.
D.S. SOLOVIEV post-graduate student, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration
INFLUENCE OF ETHNO-RELIGIOUS FACTOR ON THE MODERN MODEL OF RELATIONS BETWEEN THE FEDERAL AND REGIONAL POWERS
In his article, the author studies modern model of interaction between the federal and regional powers. When discussing transformation of this interaction, the author pays attention to the influence of ethno-religious factor on this process. This tendency is primarily evident in the North Caucasus regions. The author in his article analyses mechanisms through which the ethno-religious factor influences interaction between the federal and regional powers and makes an attempt to find ways for minimizing such influence.
Key words: state, subjects of the Russian Federation, political power, federal and regional powers, region, federative relations, ethno-religious factor, mechanism, influence, management, effectiveness.
Т. GAMMAEV post-graduate student, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration
ETHNO-POLITICAL SEPARATISM AS A THREAT TO RUSSIA’S NATIONAL SECURITY
Under the present day conditions, the security of the Russian Federation is to a greater degree determined not by the external, but by the internal factors. In this situation, the most acute internal threat for Russia is the threat of regions’ separatism. In his article, the author analyses the issues of ensuring national security and the influence on this process of ethno-political separatism, which, in the author’s opinion, represents a great danger for the country’s integrity. The author demonstrates principal factors of regional disintegration.
Key words: ethno-political separatism, region, national and regional security, inter-regional interaction, conflict, factor, regional policy.
L.O. TERNOVAYA DSc (history), Professor at the department of sociology and management of the Moscow Automobile and Road Technical University (MADI)
TRADITIONAL ARTS AND POLITICS IN A GLOBAL WORLD
This paper highlights the relationship of traditional and modern art, disclosed the specifics of the traditional arts, which are common to the peoples of various countries and regions. Disclosed the reasons of interest in traditional art and shows its influence on political life.
Key words: traditional art, identity, ethnicity, indigenous people.
М.V. КASHAEV assistant professor of the chair of state law, Institute of Law, Bashkir State University
ON THE ISSUE OF OPTIMIZING RUSSIAN PRESIDENTIAL STATE POLICY: IN SEARCH OF A TOOLKIT
Correction, modernization, improvement of any phenomenon with the view of raising its efficiency is usually described by the word “optimization”. The article considers various options for optimizing Russian presidential state policy.
Key words: state policy, optimization, Russian President, system of power division.
L.Т. ALTINBAEVA post-graduate student at the chair of state law at the Law School of the Bashkir State University
REFORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION: POLITICAL PRECONDITIONS
The article analyses the most important ideological and political issues of the Russian constitutionalism and determines the degree of their influence on the formation of basic directions of the country’s constitutional development, it also considers procedural issues connected with the reformation of the Constitution of the Russian Federation.
Key words: constitutional law, constitution, fundamental law, reformation, form, content, economics, politics, ideology, preconditions.
N.S. PATRUSHEVA researcher, Research Institute of Military History of the General Stuff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation
ROLE OF THE MULTIPARTY SYSTEM IN THE FORMATION OF THE CIVIL SOCIETY
In her article, the author analyses the process of formation of the multiparty system in Russia and foreign countries. She also reveals the influence of the multiparty system on the formation of the civil society.
Key words: party, party systems, multiparty system, history, evolution, civil society.
Wednesday, 17 July 2019 Template designed by LernVid.com Achamel
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The overarching aim of the Bologna Process is to create a European Higher Education Area (EHEA) based on international co-operation and academic exchange that is attractive to European students and staff as well as to students and staff from other parts of the world.
The envisaged European Higher Education Area will
facilitate mobility of students, graduates and higher education staff;
prepare students for their future careers and for life as active citizens in democratic societies, and support their personal development;
offer broad access to high-quality higher education, based on democratic principles and academic freedom.
The Bologna Process is named after the Bologna Declaration, which was signed in the Italian city of Bologna on 19 June 1999 by ministers in charge of higher education from 29 European countries. Today, the Process unites 48 countries – all party to the European Cultural Convention and committed to the goals of the European Higher Education Area. An important characteristic of the Bologna Process – and key to its success – is that it also involves European Commission, Council of Europe and UNESCO-CEPES, as well as representatives of higher education institutions, students, staff, employers and quality assurance agencies.
With the Budapest-Vienna Declaration of March, 2010 came the creation of a European Higher Education Area, designed to ensure, pre comparable, compatible and coherent systems of higher education in Europe. The creation of the EHEA meant the culmination of the main aim of the Bologna Process. Consequently, since 2010, the next decade of the Process will be aimed at consolidating the EHEA and thus the current EHEA permanent website will play a key role in this process of intense internal and external communication.
Compendium of Projects 2011-13
The compendium of National Teams of Bologna experts’ projects (2011-2013) has been published on the Executive Agency.
Ireland: Progress to date
Irish Bologna Experts
The purpose of the National Teams of Bologna Experts is to provide a pool of expertise in certain areas (Bologna action lines; Lifelong learning strategy as part of the Lisbon strategy for growth and jobs) to promote and enhance progress toward higher education reform. The National Teams will make sure that the relevant actors involved in Higher Education on a national level will benefit from the pan-European nature of these reforms.
Irish Bologna Experts (July 2011-December 2013)
Dr. Eileen Buckley-Dhoot, Academic Director, Dublin Business School
Dr. Michael Hannon, Registrar, Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology
Dr. Frank McMahon, former Director of Academic Affairs, Dublin Institute of Technology
Professor Sarah Moore, Dean of Teaching and Learning, University of Limerick
Colm Murphy, Deputy President, Union of Students in Ireland
Professor Bairbre Redmond, Vice-Principal for Teaching and Learning, University College Dublin
Dr. Norma Ryan, Director, Quality Promotion Unit, University College Cork
International Seminar, London 18-19 November 2010
Ireland was one of six countries to participate in a UK organised seminar on the theme of “Recognition and the Bologna Process through engagement with Employers” held in Croydon, London in November 2010.
The Seminar is one of a series of Actions funded by the European Commission to bring together Erasmus National Agencies and Bologna Experts from a number of countries to discuss, in depth, themes arising from the Bologna Process, to increase understanding and to assist dissemination, not only in the Higher Education sector but in the wider community.
This Seminar focused on ‘Recognition’, which is a central theme within the Bologna Process. It explored relations and interaction between Higher Education and employers in order
to develop greater mutual understanding and more effective communication;
to identify significant differences as well as shared objectives in the development of curricula
to promote a more explicit approach to the articulation of learning outcomes, skills and competences
to improve the information provided about these to a wider public.
Participants came from six countries – Estonia, Germany, Finland, Ireland, Slovenia, and the UK – and consisted of Bologna Experts, employers’ organisations, students, representatives of National Agencies and NARICs. In total there were 28 participants.
The Europass Diploma Supplement is issued to graduates of higher education institutions along with their parchment and transcripts of results. The Diploma Supplement provides additional information regarding the award which is not available on the official certificate such as the skills and competences acquired, the level of the qualification and the results gained, and entry requirements and access opportunities to the next level of education etc. This makes it more easily understood, especially for employers and institutions outside the issuing country. The Europass Diploma Supplement was developed jointly by UNESCO and the Council of Europe.
EQF Newsletter
QQI
QQI (Quality and Qualifications Ireland) is a state agency established by the Quality Assurance and Qualifications (Education and Training) Act 2012 with a board appointed by the Minister for Education and Skills.
Its functions are an almagamation of those previously carried out by the Further Education and Training Awards Council (FETAC); the Higher Education and Training Awards Council (HETAC); the Irish Universities Quality Board (IUQB) and the National Qualifications Authority of Ireland (NQAI).
These include, but are not limited to:
The maintainance of the ten-level NFQ (National Framework of Qualifications).
Functioning as the awarding body and set standards for awards we make in the NFQ.
Validating education and training programmes and making extensive awards in the Further Education and Training sector, including in the Education and Training Boards.
Providing advice on the recognition of foreign qualifications in Ireland and on the recognition of Irish qualifications abroad.
Reviewing the effectiveness of quality assurance in further and higher education providers in Ireland.
Acting as the authorising body for the use of an International Education Mark (IEM) for providers.
Weblink: Quality and Qualifications Ireland
NAIRTL
NAIRTL – the National Academy for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning is a SIF funded collaborative project between University College Cork (lead partner), Cork Institute of Technology, National University of Ireland Galway, Trinity College Dublin and Waterford Institute of Technology
The National Academy works with Irish higher education institutions to develop and implement policy and practices aimed at enhancing the student learning experience at both undergraduate and graduate level. The Academy supports institutions through investigation and dissemination of national and international examples and models of good practice.
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City & Culture Tours of Florence, Italy
City & Culture Tours of Florence
Medieval Florence: Dante Alighieri (3 Hours)
Get to know Dante and the Divine Comedy with a fascinating look at his 13th-century Florentine world.
Tower houses, warring factions, plagues, floods, intrigue, power, money and poetry: this is Dante’s Florence. Our walk takes us into this world and into some of the Sommo Poeta’s haunts, including Santa Croce, the Badia Fiorentina, Dante’s “house” and church, Torre della Castagna, Palazzo Portinari, Torre dei Donati and the Baptistery. Along the way, we will read passages from the Divine Comedy and try to immerse ourselves in Dante’s world and poetry. The suggested itinerary is three hours and the tour price excludes entrance fees to the various museums.
Charitable Florence (3 hours)
A survey of some of Florence’s most unique artistic and socio-cultural spaces from the medieval and Renaissance periods including Brunelleschi’s Ospedale degli Innocenti.
Florence has a centuries-long tradition of Christian confraternities providing social services to the city’s disenfranchised. For wealthy citizens concerned about the future of their souls, confraternities provided an excellent opportunity to expiate or do penance for their sins. This visit begins at the Museum of the Misericordia—the city’s oldest continuous charitable organization—before moving to the Bigallo Museum, which houses an ancient depiction of the city dating to the 14th century. We then visit Oratory of San Martino where Domenico Ghirlandaio’s assistants frescoed scenes of the Seven Works of Mercy for the charitable confraternity of the Buonomini. These frescoes depict evocative images of the everyday life of Florence’s “shame-faced poor” within the context of the confraternity’s dedication to Christian charity. We will then progress to Piazza Santissima Annunziata, home to an important 15th century “buca”—a confraternity dedicated to prayer, social work, and even entertainment. The visit will end at the most imposing and famous example of Florentine charity, the Ospedale degli Innocenti, an orphanage financed by the Silk Guild and designed by Filippo Brunelleschi in the early 1400s.
The Oltrarno: History + Artisans (3 hours)
Get up close and personal with Florence’s artisan culture—from the 15th century right up to the present.
The “other side” of the Arno has a rich tradition of art and artisan craftsmanship. This walk combines visits to workshops including restoration studios, calligraphers, jewelry designers, shoe makers and much more. Along the way we will visit churches like Santa Felicita, Santo Spirito, San Felice and Santa Maria del Carmine to discuss revolutionary masterpieces by Giotto, Michelangelo, Pontormo and Masaccio. This walk very much depends on personal interests and is a made to measure itinerary that suits each individual group.
Renaissance Homes: Palazzo Davanzati, Museo Horne + Medici Palace
Explore the spaces once inhabited by some of Florence’s most illustrious families to see how they lived and celebrated life.
Visiting the domestic spaces of Medieval and Renaissance Florence is an excellent opportunity to learn more about the daily life and rituals during these periods. Palazzo Davanzati, Museo Horne and the Medici Palace offer platforms for discussing the role of each family member in the domestic, civic and political sphere and how each contributed to the functioning of a stable society. As in contemporary times, the life cycle was punctuated by occasions to celebrate: marriages, births and baptisms played a particularly central role in the perpetuation of a civic society. During a visit to one of these museums will discuss the role that art, architecture, politics, literature, gender and values played in the creation and maintenance of society primarily through consideration of various objects such as birth salvers, wedding chests and devotional and highly symbolic narrative images.
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Fait Diver: Things Go Better With Pope
Could it be that His holiness has gotten a clue?
Pope Francis faulted the Roman Catholic church for focusing too much on gays, abortion and contraception, saying the church has become “obsessed” with those issues to the detriment of its larger mission to be “home for all,” according to an extensive new interview published Thursday.
The church can share its views on homosexuality, abortion and other issues, but should not “interfere spiritually” with the lives gays and lesbians, the pope added in the interview, which was published in La Civilta Cattolica, a Rome-based Jesuit journal.
Don’t interfere with me and I won’t interfere with you.
And stop fucking those altar boys!
“We have to find a new balance, otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel,” Francis said in the interview.
“The church has sometimes locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules,’ Francis said. “The people of God want pastors, not clergy acting like bureaucrats or government officials.”
No shit, Sherlock!
The 12,000-word interview ranges widely, touching upon the pope’s personal faith, the role of women and nuns in the church, Latin Mass and even the pope’s favorite artists.
“He’s very open honest and candid like we have not seen in a pope before. He critiques people who focus too much on tradition, who want to go to time in the past that does not exist anymore,” said Fr. James Martin of America Magazine, which published an English translation of the interview. “He reminds people that thinking with the church, in obedience, does not just mean thinking with the hierarchy, that church is a lot bigger than its hierarchy.”
Size issues eh? No surprise there.
In the interview, Francis does not come out in support of gay marriage, abortion rights or contraception, saying that church positions on those issues are “clear,” but he added that the “the proclamation of the saving love of God comes before moral and religious imperatives.”
“A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality,” he said to Jesuit priest Fr. Antonio Spadaro, who conducted the interview for La Civilta Cattolica. “I replied with another question: ‘Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider the person.”
The comments on gays and lesbians follow up on remarks Francis made aboard the papal airplane in July when asked about gay priests. “Who am I to judge?” the pope then said, in a quote that made international front-page headlines. In Thursday’s interview, Francis clarified that those comments were about all gay people and not only priests.
Thanks for the clarification, Franny!
Clearly His Holiness knows the Church has lost and is trying to gracefully regroup. It seems quite obvious that the Church can believe what it wants. But insisting that evryone on earth be obsessed with abortion and the LGBT to the exclusion of everything else is a non-starter
Francis, 76, also touched upon where he falls within the political and theological spectrum of Catholics. Because of what he said was a purposeful avoidance of talking about sexuality and reproductive issues during the first six months of his papacy, some critics have said the pope has shifted from being more outspoken on conservative issues when he was a Jesuit province superior in Argentina and later was the Archbishop of Buenos Aires. The pope, who was appointed to the jesuit leadership position when he was 36, said his youthful lack of experience made him too authoritarian of a leader.
“But I have never been a right-winger,” he said.
Apparently not.
But wait — there’s more!
WHAT ABOUT THE ROLE OF WOMEN?
Pope Francis has previously called for greater study of the role of women in the church, although he has ruled out women’s ordination. He went further in this interview, saying women must be involved in top decision-making matters.
_”The feminine genius is needed wherever we make important decisions. The challenge today is this: to think about the specific place of women also in those places where the authority of the church is exercised.”
HOW GREAT ARE THOSE NUNS?
Nuns working in hospitals took care of Francis when he lost most of one lung to an infection in his early 20s.
_ “I am alive because of one of them. When I went through my lung disease at the hospital, the doctor gave me penicillin and streptomycin in certain doses. The sister who was on duty tripled my doses because she was daringly astute; she knew what to do because she was with ill people all day. The doctor, who really was a good one, lived in his laboratory; the sister lived on the frontier and was in dialogue with it every day.”
Even nicer. Now get your Bishops and other prelates to stop beating up on them.
AND WHO ARE HIS FAVORITE ARTISTS?
_”`La Strada,’ by Fellini, is the movie that perhaps I loved the most. I identify with this movie, in which there is an implicit reference to St. Francis.”
_”I have read The Betrothed, by Alessandro Manzoni, three times, and I have it now on my table because I want to read it again. Manzoni gave me so much. When I was a child, my grandmother taught me by heart the beginning of The Betrothed: `That branch of Lake Como that turns off to the south between two unbroken chains of mountains…’”
Among the great painters, I admire Caravaggio; his paintings speak to me.”
But also Chagall, with his `White Crucifixion.’
Among musicians I love Mozart, of course. The `Et incarnatus est’ from his Mass in C minor is matchless; it lifts you to God!”
And here to help with that lift – Lenny!
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USC Digital Folklore Archives / Posts Tagged ‘Philippines’
Filipino Ensisit,
Tags: Duwende, Ensisit, Filipino creatures, filipino folklore, Filipino legends, Philippines
Residence: California
Performance Date: 5/1/2019
The informant is a 26-year-old male of Filipino descent. He will be referred to as DY. DY and his family lived in Hawaii for a time, and he currently resides in California. His piece of folklore comes from a story shared by a family member and is described in the main piece in his own words:
Main piece:
Ensisit are these little dwarf people in the Philippines that live under the ground and in the forests. They would travel around on banana leaves. I remember being told as a kid that they would hide in the trees and were typically seen as healers and they were very select at choosing who would share in this gift with them. My mom told me how my grandma would leave in the middle the night to be with them and people would typically go to her for help whenever they were sick, because they know that she was given the gift. Although the Ensisit do heal, they are very territorial and if you do anything to damage their little houses, you would fall ill. My cousin went to the Philippines when we were younger and was playing outside when she got sick out of nowhere and my family believed it was because she stepped on one of their houses so my family went through this whole ordeal where they placed offerings out as a sign of forgiveness in hopes that they would take back whatever they gave my cousin and it ended up working.
The folklore was told to him when he was younger by a cousin who experienced the event firsthand. DY finds the story very interesting but doesn’t know whether he believes in them or not since he was not there to experience it himself.
This piece of folklore makes me think about the creation of these creatures to explain the unexplainable. DY’s cousin got sick while playing outside. The sickness seemed to have come out of nowhere which the family could not explain. Their conclusion was that the child must have upset the Ensisit which in turn caused the sickness. The family then left offerings for the creatures to ask for forgiveness and remove the sickness, which worked. This then perpetuates the belief in the creatures when in fact, their child could have gotten over the sickness naturally. I was unable to find stories about creatures called Ensisit, however, creatures similar to this are called Duwende. They are described as little gnome creatures that live in the trees and sometimes in the walls of houses and can be very mischievous. In the Philippines, families will often leave offerings outside their home, so they won’t be angry with them. It’s interesting that these creatures are called different things as I have another informant who calls them Matanda sa punso. These are also like the gnomes, usually male, and live on ant hills.
Collected by Samantha Borchard
Posted Sunday, 12th of May 2019 at 08:01:18 PM
Circumcisions are Cheaper in the Philippines
Tags: Circumcision, filipino, Philippines, Tagalog
Nationality: Filipino-American
Residence: Central Valley, California
This friend of mine is one of the sweetest guys I know. He’s quiet, but has a great sense of humor. One day, late at night, he blurted out, “is it normal that I was circumcised in the fifth grade?”. I knew I needed it for my folklore project. Most of the background information is contained in the transcript below.
The following was recorded during a group interview with 4 other of our friends in the common area of a 6-person USC Village apartment.
“What is there to talk about? I guess you guys are my friends… so… eh? I don’t know if it’s like a cultural thing here, but in the Philippines it’s really looked down upon if you’re not circumcised, like you’re just kind of like a dipshit, you know? You get made fun of. So then like it’s kind of like a rite of passage thing – which is really strange – that like somewhere around like, um, I don’t know like end of elementary school to middle school. You, like you should do it, you know? Yeah, so then, um, we had like a Philippines vacation and my dad was like, ‘oh yeah, you should do it’ cause it’s cheaper in the Philippines, so then I was like, ‘okay, I’ll do it dad’. And I was like really scared. It was just, I don’t know. It was really weird. And then, okay. My dad would explain what would happen and I’d get so scared. Because like, ‘oh, there are scissors involved’. Hahahahaha. People in the Philippines can get superstitious that you’d get infected if you did it too young or something, so you wait. Also, because the healthcare system there is really bad, so they’re afraid that like babies will get sick and die if you do it then. Anyways, then. Um, uh, I’ll just jump to when it happened, because it was really scary. I was just really scared and I kind of just let it happen. But, basically when I went there, it was like- it was really strange.
“Like I said, the Philippines healthcare is really bad, so they didn’t knock me out or anything. I was awake when it happened. Um, yeah, hahaha. They put me in the room, and my dad’s just outside. And the doctor – like I’m lying there, and it feels like a really bare room, like probably no bigger than this room, and it was really strange, and it was just a lot of lights and stuff, and it didn’t even really feel like a proper.. like… surgical place. There were just some beds and stuff, and needles and everything. So, like um, the doctor… the doctor dude he gets a towel and is like, ‘oh, I’m gonna put this over your head. Because you’re gonna be traumatized if you see what happens. You know? So they blindfold me pretty much, as it happens, and then he pretty much walks me through in like Tagalog – which is Filipino – what’s gonna happen. I don’t even remember much of it, I know I didn’t pass out. But like, they definitely numbed me in that area, you know? No needles going anywhere. They just, I don’t know, stuck a needle around your … groin? Area? Basically, the entire time, I couldn’t really feel – or like I couldn’t feel any pain, but I could definitely feel … things moving around. And like, being cut off. Just saying, and it was really strange. And it was just a lot of pressure, until like, afterward. Um, and I just remember going, ‘whoa, it’s not that bloody’, when they took the towel off because there wasn’t that much blood. And it was just really strange. And it took like two weeks to heal. And that’s all I remember. There were stitches that like, melted off. Because that’s like medicine. It’s not really a Filipino tradition – I don’t know if they do it so much anymore cause like, the Philippines has been getting a lot better, since back then. This was fourth or fifth grade. It was just kind of interesting. I don’t know how old I was, I don’t want to remember hahahaha.
“You know that Twilight Zone episode? Eye of the Beholder? I was kind of like that. Except there was no pig on the end, yeah. It wasn’t that bad. Just a lot of gauze and pills.”
This piece really sheds some light on the overlap between modern medicine and folk medicine. Circumcision is an ancient tradition, however the advent of modern medicine has propelled it further into the mainstream. This friend of mine describes how even to this day, modern Filipino circumcision are influenced by folk belief in that it is considered bad luck to get it down as a baby. Later, he mentioned to me how the timing of the circumcision (around the age of 9 or 10) was also meant to be a sort of ritual celebration of adulthood, although his family did not really celebrate it. Rather, they viewed it more as something that just happens without imparting a significance related to maturity.
Collected by bstout@usc.edu
Aswang
Tags: Monster, Philippines
Performance Date: February 12, 2017
Pauline is an international student from the Philippines. She is studying Chemical Engineering in the United States, and she plans to return to the Philippines once she graduates and receives her B.S. in Chemical Engineering. Her hobbies are watching anime, eating delicious food, and taking naps.
Original Script
Alright, so there’s this creature in Philippine culture. It’s called the Aswang, so it’s basically like the Filipino version of a vampire. So like it’s a shapeshifter like during the day it’s a normal human and it can talk to other people and you can’t tell it’s an Aswang, but then at night it transforms into this really ugly monster. And then, what it likes to do is like it likes to look for pregnant women and then it like sucks out the fetus and eats it. That’s what its food is. And then it also likes to eat little kids. And it likes to eat like their livers and their hearts. So yeah, so that’s the Aswang and they make this really ugly sound like, “Eahhh.” And then it like tries to delude you so like the louder the noise is the farther away the aswang is. So like when it’s really near you, you can’t hear anything so you can’t tell that it’s there. And basically, to lure it away, you need to hang like garlic on your door like for the vampire. Or like you put like salt or something on your door.
Background Information about the Performance from the Informant
She heard about this creature from her parents when she was small. They tried to get her to sleep by warning her that the Aswang would kidnap and eat her if she does not.
Context of the Performance
I interviewed the informant in a study room at Parkside IRC.
The Aswang, a carnivorous, shapeshifting monster in Filipino folklore, is the most feared amongst the mythological creatures of the Philippines. Especially popular in the southern areas of Luzon, areas of Mindanao, and the Visayas, the Aswang has gained regional names, such as “bayot,” “kling-kling,” and “tik-tik.” This creature has endured centuries, told by mothers to their children as warnings to avoid walking the streets at night. The Aswang had also been used to explain events relating to grave robberies, child kidnappings, and other bizarre incidents.
My Thoughts about the Performance
Hearing about this myth reminded me of the stories I heard about the Bogeyman. Both creatures, amongst the many others in various cultures, are used by adults to frighten children into exhibiting good behavior. Parents would tell their children that if they misbehave, a certain monster would take them. It seems that these Aswang variants are universal, common to the folklore of several countries.
Collected by Sarah Cheung
Posted Sunday, 30th of April 2017 at 07:45:26 PM
A Death in the Family (Philippines)
Tags: Philippines, Signs from the dead
Nationality: Filipino-British
Residence: Philippines / England
Informant: Natasha is a 19 year old girl who grew up in Bangladesh but attended high school in Manila, Philippines and now lives in England as a college student. Her mother is Filipina and her father is British.
Original script: “Okay so my parents met in the Philippines whilst my Dad was working there, but at the time since my Dad was so busy with work and was constantly being called in on the weekends, both my Mum and my Dad would get frustrated at the little amount of time they got to spend with each other. Seeing as though my Mum was rarely with my Dad on the weekends she would often use the opportunity to go see her grandfather who was quite ill during this period, so she’d come along to take care of him as well as bring him medicine. Over time my Dad was quite frustrated with not being with Mum and in a slightly selfish manner was irritated with the amount of time she was dedicating to her grandfather. He then decided to take the initiative and plan a weekend away and so my Mum agreed and they went off. One night in their hotel my parents were lying down in bed and as they are laying there a huge black moth- which both of my parents say to this day was the biggest moth they had ever seen- flies into the room and lands on the wall facing my parents. Immediately my Mum senses and tells my Dad that something feels wrong and both feel very unsettled. 10 minutes later my Mum receives a phone call from her family telling her that her grandfather has sadly passed away. My Mum believes that the moth was a symbol of death and was warning her that her Grandfather was passing. At Filipino funerals it is common for them to be open casket. As my Mum approaches the casket she finds herself crying and blaming herself for being irresponsible and not being there to take care of him. As she apologizes over his body she says her last goodbye by kissing him on his cheek. Now one of the weirdest part of the story is what happens next. To this day my Mum swears that after she kissed him on the cheek her Grandfather cracked a small smile. After all of the events that have happened and the guilt she felt before, she now felt like all was ok as she believes this was a sign of his forgiveness. The end.”
Thoughts about the piece: This story is a great exemplification of how a person’s belief system can be shaped by people, in this case Natasha’s parents. Parents can be a huge influence on their children’s belief systems- most especially in early life where they are likely the single biggest influence. The way that Natasha’s parents believe so strongly in the presence of a supernatural being in this story, most especially her Mother, has definitely influenced the way that Natasha perceives things. To an outsider looking in, you may just think that the moth was a coincidence and that the Grandfather smiling is just something that her Mother convinced herself of in a moment of grief to try to overcome it. However, the fact that this took place before Natasha was born, that she has been told this story countless times since she was very young, and that her mother is someone who she trusts deeply are all factors which shape Natasha’s belief and consequently the way in which she tells the story. She has a deep emotional connection to the story and thus, she tells it as an absolute occurrence.
Something else to note is the Filipino culture that peeks through the story. Filipinos are generally very family oriented and they also have very strong belief in ghosts and superstition. The fact that Natasha’s father is British and was initially skeptical about the whole moth situation and did not look as much into it as her Mother but now completely believes in the supernatural aspect of the story shows how possibly being immersed in Filipino culture and such could have altered his belief system.
Collected by Andrea Preysler
Posted Sunday, 9th of April 2017 at 10:27:34 PM
Bloody Mary (All-Boys School in the Philippines)
Tags: All-Boys School, Bloody Mary, Catholic school, Philippines
Other language(s): Tagalog
Residence: Manila, Philippines / California, USA
Performance Date: April 3, 2017
Informant: Enrique is a 19-year-old boy, born and raised in Manila, Philippines who now attends college in California. South Ridge (the school in his story) is a Catholic all-boys school in Manila which he attended from kindergarten through until 7th grade.
Original script:
Informant: So when I went to South Ridge, [all boys school in Manila, Philippines] there was a super scary bathroom on the top floor of the school. No one ever used this bathroom because there was a rumor that someone had died inside the bathroom years ago. On special occasions, our classes would have sleep overs at school and during one of these sleep overs, one of the older batches went up to that bathroom in the middle of the night. The rumor goes that if you say Bloody Mary in front of the mirror in that bathroom four times, Bloody Mary actually shows up. So when one of the guys that decided to go into that bathroom did the ritual, she actually appeared and when he left the bathroom, he was covered in cuts and scratches.
Interviewer: Do you know what Bloody Mary has to do with the guy that had died in the bathroom?
Informant: She was apparently the one who killed him.
Thoughts about the piece: It is extremely interesting that the Bloody Mary ritual would occur at a local all-boys school in the Philippines. Especially considering the context that we discussed it in during class wherein we saw that the ritual is most popular among pre-pubescent girls usually in Western countries. We took this to be part of girls growing up as womanhood is bloody, thus, girls are basically looking into their future (by spinning and looking into the mirror) and trying to understand it by performing the ritual. I too attended school in the Philippines however it was an international school with many American and European students- here too I noticed that only girls would take part in the Bloody Mary ritual. Thus, it is intriguing that this would be such a big sensation (seeing as how no one wanted to use the bathroom because they all know what had happened there) at a local, Catholic all-boys school.
Something else that it interesting about this version of the story is that Bloody Mary actually physically harms the people that perform the ritual whereas usually, you are said to simply see an image of her in the mirror.
Posted Thursday, 6th of April 2017 at 06:42:23 AM
Balete Drive (Ghost Story/Legend from the Philippines)
Tags: Balete Drive, Balete trees, ghost story, legend, Manila, Philippines
Nationality: Filipino - (Chinese)
Other language(s): Mandarin, Tagalog, Hokkien
Performance Date: Friday April 22nd, 2016
S is a 21-year-old Filipino woman. She is currently majoring in Business Administration at the University of Southern California. She grew up in the Philippines and therefore identifies as Filipino, however, she also identifies as Chinese. S speaks English, Mandarin, Tagalog and Hokkien, the last being two of many languages specific to the Philippines.
S: There’s a lot of ghost stories from like the Philippines. Like there’s this one street in the Philippines, it’s called Balete Drive.
Me: Can you spell that?
S: B-a-l-e-t-e. Balete. It’s in Manila and ’cause I guess it got it’s name from like all the, ’cause it a kind of tree, so then there’s like a whole bunch of like tree in like that specific street, and no one ever wants to pass through there ’cause it’s just so fricken scary. And they say like in those trees, each specific tree, like there’s like this thing that lives up there and like it smokes and like…
Me: Is there like an actual story that goes with it, or is it just kind of a…
S: I can’t, I’m not exactly sure like what’s the origin, but I just know that there’s just a weird scary creature up there. Yeah, I don’t know, I mean, it’s pretty popular though.
Me: So you just don’t pass on that street?
S: Yeah, we just don’t go though that street. Because it’s too scary. I don’t know. But see that’s the thing, like we have so many ghost stories and just like ghost, like yeah, there’s like too many. There are many different kinds. But like I don’t think you should share that, or like search that, it might freak you out. Like once you start googling and see pictures of it, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Yeah, so maybe not.
S describes a street, Balete Drive, in Manila that is said to be haunted. She says that there are things that live in the Balete trees that are so prominent on the street and that they haunt Balete Drive and they smoke and are generally just scary to think about. It is obvious that she is still scared of this road and that she, even as an adult, will not go walk on that street for fear of the creatures of legend that are said to haunt it. She warns not to go on that street as well as not to even look it up because it would be scary. Even talking about it made her a bit uncomfortable, even though she does not know the origin and the story behind the legend, it still scares her and has a lot of influence on her.
Collected by sgcampbe
Posted Thursday, 28th of April 2016 at 03:10:07 AM
Duwende
Tags: Philippines, Tricksters
Nationality: American/Filipino
Performance Date: 04/27/15
The informant is a fellow student and a good friend. While going out for smoothies, she shared her Filipino culture with me.
Informant: “Basically, what it is, it’s like a troll, that is kind of mischievous or it’s nice. And they’re like really short… Kind of dwarf-looking creatures. They’re mischievous in the fact that… My grandma told me that they kind of like steal your property. Or not steal it, but take your property and wait for you to find it, and they won’t give it back to you until they feel like it. That’s how they’re mischievous.”
Me: “But they’re not dangerous?”
Informant: “They’re not dangerous, no. They’re just kind of mischievous. And then like, to make… A lot of people in the Philippines, they want to make sure that those Duwende are pleased, so they’ll leave food out in their yard and stuff, so that they’re pleased and stuff like that. Basically, the number one thing is that you don’t want to piss them off, or else they will do more mischievous stuff to you.”
Me: “A lot of pranks and things?”
Informant: “Yeah, a lot of pranks. They’re definitely not bad-bad, but they’re pretty, like, like kids. They’re childish.”
Me: “And are they called The Duwende? Or-”
Informant: “Just Duwende.”
Me: “Oh ok, so it’s kind of like their name. And they’re teeny people?”
Informant: “Yeah, they’re tiny.”
Me: “Sounds kind of like the Menehune in Hawaii.”
Informant: “Yeah! Well I don’t know, I’ve heard of it, but…”
Me: “Tricksters?”
Informant: “Yeah, tricksters. Definitely!”
Background & Analysis
The informant’s grandma had told her this legend/superstition, and she is from the Philippines although currently lives in America. The grandma learned this from her own family, and while the informant doesn’t know whether or not her grandma had ever encountered the Duwende, the grandma knows of people who have run into these creatures a long time ago, before her own time. From what the informant understands, the Duwende are specific to the Philippines, but can be found on multiple islands. On Visaya, there is supposedly a larger population of Duwende, but she is not sure why because she isn’t Visayan. The informant is also unsure how popular this legend is in the area that her family is from, which is Ilocos. The lessons to be taken away from this legend would be to have patience, be nice, and do good deeds which will ultimately be rewarded.
As I mentioned in the interview, the Duwende sound a lot like the trickster version of the Menehune in Hawaii. Normally, they are characterized as mischievous and taunting, but if you get on their wrong side, they can be dangerous. Since both Hawaii and the Philippines are archipelagos, it makes one wonder whether Menehune and Duwende have similar origins.
*For another version of this legend, see <http://www.bakitwhy.com/articles/supernatural-series-duwende>
Collected by Miel Krauss
Posted Saturday, 9th of May 2015 at 05:41:30 AM
Tags: Demon, Monster, Philippines, shape shifter
Informant: “This is like evil. So basically what it is, it’s like… It’s kind of like a shape-shifter. Like it takes on a human form during the day, and at night it takes on a monstrous form of either a bat, a bird, a rat, or something… Something that’s vicious, you know?”
Me: “Wait, did you say monster during the night? Or just and animal”
Informant: “A monstrous animal-like, animalistic… Yeah, not like a monster, it could be a bat, it could be a rat, uh… a bird… Some vicious creature. And in the day it take son this human form an it’s disguised. And what it does, is at night it feeds on human bodies. Or like, it wakes up humans in the middle of the night and they eat their flesh. And they kind of, they have this thing that they do where they feed human flesh to humans, so that they’re like manipulated.”
Me: “Does that turn them into Aswang as well?”
Informant: “Yeah, yeah. Yes.”
Me: “Ah, ok. So they like sneak into peoples’ houses?”
Informant: “Yeah, they sneak into peoples’, or they wake them up when they’re sleeping. I’m not sure if they actually turn them into Aswang, but they definitely feed on the humans. And they’re kind of like demonic, violent, evil creatures that you should be careful of. I don’t know if there’s any prevention, like… That you have to block your doors is all I know.”
Me: “But who do they target specifically?”
Informant: “Anyone.”
Me: “Anyone? So, like, how do you avoid them? You don’t know?”
Informant: “I don’t know how to avoid. Like, my grandma never told me. They just feed on anyone.”
Me: “Okay, but are they like, uncommon attacks?”
Informant: “I don’t know that part, just that they attack random people.”
Me: “And has she seen one?”
Informant: (shakes head) “I think it’s just a legend.”
The informant’s grandma learned about these creatures through oral tradition, and the legend is not particular to any island or culture specifically in the Philippines. The informant also doesn’t believe the Aswang are real, especially because it’s known as a creature that comes in the middle of the night and eats your family. She believes if it were real, there would be some sort or prevention or protection methods against them. For the informant, the lesson of this legend would be to lock your doors at night and not go wandering around at midnight, lest something bad happen. All of the informant’s family members know about this legend and other popular ones as well, since it’s been around for a long time and is so widespread.
What seems to be the trend with legends, is that you can always pull a lesson or a message out of them once you are able to look past the creepy, scary stuff. In this case, the lesson could be something as simple as keeping your doors locked at night, or watching out for those who would try to hurt or take advantage of you.
How Pineapples Came to Be
Tags: daughter, fruit, mother, Philippines, pineapple
Occupation: AV technician
Residence: southern California
Performance Date: 29 April 2014
My informant (A) is currently an AV technician. He grew up in Quezon City in the Philippines for the first 13 years of his life before moving with his family to San Francisco, California for a year and then moving down to southern California, where he has stayed every since. He first heard the story about how pineapples came to be from his mother when he was around six years old. The story is also used in reading books for children when they are learning to read in the Philippines. His mom and aunt told him this story to frighten him into behaving when he was a child, and he has since told the story to his younger sisters and a few other people when casually talking. The story is paraphrased below:
“There was a mom and daughter in the Philippines long ago. The daughter’s name was Piña. Piña constantly lost things and, instead of even trying to look for the things by herself, she would just ask her mom to find them. The mother was really busy because she had to work in the fields all day, but the mom still helped her daughter find the things she kept losing. One day the mom could not find her hat, which she needed when she was working in the fields to keep the sun out of her eyes. The mom asked Piña to help her find the hat because she had to hurry or she would be late to the fields. Piña replied ‘Nanay [the word for mom], I don’t where the hat is. I’m busy.’ The mom told Piña that she really needed help, so Piña finally got up and walked around pretending to look for the hat. She didn’t actually look for the hat and then told her mom that she couldn’t find it. The mom got really frustrated and then she found the hat, which wasn’t that hard to find and Piña should have seen it when she was looking. The mom got really mad and said ‘Piña, I hope you grow 1000 eyes so that you can find things.” Then the mom went to the fields and spent all day working in the fields. When she got back to the house, she asked Piña to make dinner, but Piña wasn’t there. The mom looked and looked but she couldn’t find her. Days and weeks and months go by, and still the mom can’t find Piña and gets very worried. After a while, the mom starts seeing weird plants that look like they have 1000 eyes. The mom realized that Piña had turned into these plants. These little plants are pineapples, and that’s how pineapples came to the Philippines.” (Note that Piña is the word for pineapple).
This tale seems to serve two purposes. One is that it explains how the pineapple came to the Philippines, which only happened in the 19th century, which is probably why this story is necessary to explain why they are a relatively recent addition to the fruits normally found in the Philippines. The other is a more practical purpose, which is a way for parents to scare their kids into doing stuff from themselves or risk turning into a pineapple. This is probably why it is continually told to children. My informant spelled out the name Piña for me, and he used the Spanish spelling instead of the Filipino one (pinya), even though he used the Filipino word for mom (nanay). This is also interesting because the Spanish introduced the pineapple to the Philippines.
This story touches on the tension between the older and younger generations, and the how physically hard the lives of women are.
Collected by Amanda Lewis
Posted Friday, 16th of May 2014 at 05:40:44 PM
Aeta’s Revenge
Tags: Aeta, Philippines, volcano eruption
Occupation: Retail Branch Manager
Residence: Yucaipa, CA
Steven “Ricky” Phillips was the son of a military family. They moved around from base to base quite a bit. He lived in the Philippines for a number of years before moving to The United States of America. His father was in the Air Force and met his mother in the Philippines while stationed at the Clark Air Base. Ricky currently resides in Yucaipa, CA with his wife and two daughters. He is a Branch Manager for JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A.
My mother is from the Philippines, but it wasn’t until I was 9 years old when I first lived there. My father was in the US Air Force and was assigned to Clark Air Base. I wasn’t a stranger to natural disasters at this point. I’ve already experience earthquakes, tornadoes, and typhoons. So I didn’t think twice about the 7.7 earthquake that changed not only my life, but the lives of many others and the world in general.
For the months following, I heard of a local tribe living around Mt Pinatubo claiming that their diety, Namalyadi, was angry. At the time, I was too young to understand their story. It wasn’t until later in life when I researched this story and discovered corporations had been logging and oil diggings in and around the then dormant volcano.
Fast forward a year later. I could walk outside my front door, walk just a few steps and turn to my left. Clouds of sulfur began filling the air. The amplified smell of a sewer was an inescapable aroma. Add constant ash falling on the ground, your car, and home. The tribe known as the Aeta was right. Namalyadi had demonstrated his anger and power as his control of the 500 year dormant Mt Pinatubo causes it to erupt, causing an almost degree Fahrenheit drop in temperature globally and increase in ozone depletion. It became the second largest eruption in its century. The spirit of the Aeta tribe literally blew its top. Combined with a typhoon, it caused many deaths, injuries, illnesses, and rendered many more homeless. Not too bad for a diety.
Collected by Keesha Cuthbert
Posted Wednesday, 15th of May 2013 at 06:48:49 PM
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Has America really underinvested in science education?
By Alex Berezow and Hank Campbell, Special to CNN
Editor’s note: Alex Berezow is the editor of RealClearScience. Hank Campbell is founder of Science 2.0. They are authors of the forthcoming book Science Left Behind. The views expressed are their own.
On Global Public Square last month, Fareed Zakaria made the case that the U.S. economy is struggling in part due to poor investment in science. He based this conclusion on two claims: First, that federal research and development (R&D) investment has declined over the past several years and, second, that American students have fallen behind in science education.
The first claim, while true, only tells part of the story. As we discuss in the upcoming Science Left Behind, American R&D investment has been relatively consistent for the past 30 years, never dropping below 2.3 percent of GDP. Though the federal portion of U.S. R&D investment has fallen during this period, the private sector has actually picked up the slack. Indeed, the most recent estimate for 2012 shows that the U.S. will spend approximately 2.85 percent of its GDP on R&D.
How does this compare with other countries? Japan (3.48 percent), Germany (2.87 percent) and South Korea (3.45 percent) outspent the United States in R&D when it is measured as a percentage of GDP. But these numbers are misleading because they fail to recognize the proper context – that is, the sheer enormity of the U.S. economy. Though the U.S. “merely” spends 2.85 percent of its GDP on R&D, in absolute terms, that’s $436 billion – more than all of Europe combined. In fact, if all of the world’s R&D money was placed in a giant pot, nearly one out of every three dollars would come from the U.S.
Zakaria invokes international standardized test scores to support his second claim that young American students are falling behind. However, American students haven’t really fallen behind – they never did well on international standardized tests in the first place.
In 1964, U.S. students participated in the First International Math Study. How did they do? Not well. They placed 11th out of 12. In 2009, American students had math scores placing them 25th out of 34 countries in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) exam. This sent education lobbyists on a quest for more funding, even though the U.S. already spends $91,700 per pupil from kindergarten through 12th grade (behind only Switzerland, which still placed only 8th in math).
Despite poor performance on standardized test scores, the United States has led the world in Nobel Prizes and is widely recognized as the indisputable leader in higher education and scientific output. American education teaches kids how to think, not how to take standardized tests. And importantly, smart immigrants keep flocking to the United States, largely because of education.
Zakaria’s concern is understandable because everybody wants a more educated society, but there’s little evidence that creating more scientists will actually help get the economy back on track. Careers in academia are extremely difficult to find, as any post-doctoral researcher will testify. For instance, only 14 percent of biology PhD’s obtain an academic position within five years. For engineering, it’s 15 percent. Even in the field with the most success, the social sciences, less than half of PhD’s find an academic job within five years.
And the most depressing statistic: More than 5,000 janitors in the U.S. have PhD’s.
Much of the existing evidence instead indicates that America has too many highly educated people, and simply not enough jobs for them to fill. Because of this, The Economist recently concluded that earning a PhD may often be a waste of time.
Obviously the solution isn’t less education. But education itself is not a magic bullet, and we simply can’t turn every person into a scientist. Science is difficult and jobs are limited. Perhaps a better strategy would be to modify America’s immigration policy. We should continue to open our doors to foreign students who want to learn at the best schools in the world. But we should stop making student visas easy to get while making work visas after they are educated difficult to acquire. That legacy of protectionism results in the world’s best and brightest being forced to return home to compete against us.
Making America a more welcoming country for motivated immigrants is what made us great – and will continue to do so in the future.
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Jim West, PGA Director of Golf Operations
Jim West, PGA is the Director of Golf Operations at Tellico Village. Jim has been with Tellico Village since December of 2002 and is responsible for all aspects of the golf experience including pro shop operations, golf course maintenance operations and golf marketing. Jim’s direct reports include the golf professional staff and the head golf course superintendents at each course.
Jim is a Quarter Century Member of the PGA of America and has achieved a high level of success at nearly every type of golf facility including high volume daily fee courses, large-scale resort facilities, multi-course/multi-state management companies and exclusive private clubs in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. Jim’s hard work and dedication to the game of golf have earned him numerous awards with the PGA of America, including:
2014 Tennessee Section PGA Golf Professional of the Year – the highest honor the PGA of America bestows on a working Club Professional whose total contributions to the game best exemplify the complete PGA Professional.
2015 & 2016 Tennessee Section PGA Horton Smith Award – for continuing contributions to developing and enhancing educational programs.
2017 Tennessee Section PGA Bill Strausbaugh Award – for distinguished service in mentoring fellow professionals, integrity and character reflecting positively on the profession and outstanding involvement in charitable and community activities.
Jim also serves as Vice President of the Tennessee Section PGA and also serves on the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Golf Foundation. When Jim isn’t at one of the golf courses, he enjoys motorcycle road racing, boating, tennis, and especially Tennessee Football. Jim and his wife Nikki reside in West Knoxville and have a 23-year old daughter, Katherine, who is attending Pharmacy School at the University of Tennessee.
Jeff Harrington, PGA
Jeff Harrington was introduced to the game of golf at the early age of 5 by his father, Jay Harrington, a lifelong PGA Member and Club Professional. He spent his childhood days going to the golf course with his father, helping out with daily golf shop activities, and playing golf from sun up to sun down. Jeff was recruited to play college golf at Lees McCrae University and went on to finish his college career at Appalachian State. He earned membership in the PGA in 1987 and worked as an Assistant Professional at various golf clubs in North and South Carolina as well as Ohio. In 1991, Jeff was hired as the Head Golf Professional at the DeBordieu Club in Pawleys Island, South Carolina where he served for 12 years prior to moving to the Tellico Lake area. Jeff joined the Tellico Village Golf Professional staff in 2012 and currently is the Head Golf Professional at Kahite.
Passing on the knowledge he has learned from a lifetime of golf is his passion and in his spare time he enjoys playing guitar, fitness and watching Cincinnati Bengals football.
Adam Jacob, PGA Toqua Golf Course Professional
Adam Jacob grew up in New Berlin, Wisconsin and began playing golf at the age fifteen. He played golf through high school and lettered his junior and senior year. After high school, Adam attended college at Ferris State University where he did multiple golf internships at facilities such as Whistling Straights in Kohler, WI, West Brook Country Club in Mansfield, OH, and Mission Hills Country Club in Palm Springs, CA. After graduating from Ferris State University in May 2003 with a degree in Marketing and Golf Management, Adam took his first assistant golf professional position at Tellico Village. Less than a year later, Adam completed his PGA work and became a PGA Member. Adam enjoys working with all the Tellico Village leagues and taking part helping to grow the game of golf in the Village.
Adam and his wife Liz have two energetic children, and when he’s not on the golf course, he is spending time with his family and exploring beautiful East Tennessee.
Adam recently was awarded the Richard Eller Growth of the Game award from the Knoxville PGA Chapter. This award is designed to recognize the Tennessee PGA golf professionals for their outstanding and continuing contributions to the Growth of the Game. Criteria includes:
Establishment of player development programs
Increase in rounds of golf at facility(ies)
Promotion of golf to all sectors of players
Leadership in the area of Growth of the Game
Participation in national growth initiative programs and activities
Casey Flenniken, First Assistant Golf Professional
Casey Flenniken is the 1st Assistant Golf Professional at Tellico Village. Casey began at Tellico Village in early 2016 and is responsible for assisting with daily pro shop operations, working with men’s and women’s leagues and conducting group and individual golf instruction for all skill levels.
Casey is an east Tennessee native and a graduate of Tennessee Wesleyan College in Athens, Tennessee. While at Tennessee Wesleyan, Casey was a highly decorated collegiate golfer: AAC 1st Team All Conference 2008-2011, PING All-American 2010, 2011, AAC Team South Member 2011, AAC Conference Player of the Year 2008. After turning professional in 2012, Casey continued his success on and off the course, competing at the national level of the PGA Assistant’s Championship in 2012 and earning the coveted 2015, 2016, and 2017 Tennessee Section PGA Assistant Professional of the Year Award and the 2015 Tennessee Section PGA Assistant Player of the Year Award. 2017 Knoxville Open Participant. Casey will be participating in the 2018 PGA Professional National Championship.
Casey’s friendly, outgoing personality coupled with his love for golf and people make him an excellent addition to the award-winning golf professional staff at Tellico Village.
Chris Sykes-Golf Superintendent
Chris Sykes holds a B.S. in Crop and Soil Environmental Sciences with an emphasis on Turfgrass Management from Virginia Tech, where he was a member of the golf team. Before Coming to Tellico Village, Chris worked for two years at The Honor’s Course in Ooltewah, Tennessee. In November of 19971, Chris became Golf Course Superintendent of Cherokee Country Club (a David Ross Course in Knoxville, Tennessee). Chris was hired in April, 2011 to be the Superintendent of the Toqua Championship Golf Course. Recognized as one of the top Turfgrass experts in Tennessee, Chris’ expertise and hard work have significantly contributed to the quality and playability of this outstanding golf course. Chris lives in the Knoxville area with his wife, Nicole, and three wonderful children. In addition to his family, his passions are physical fitness and his golf course.
Chris has been on the Turf Grass Association Board of Directors for 3 years and won the Environmental Stewardship Award given by the Turf Grass Association at Toqua. He is the head of the Education Committee and created, as well as participated, in the mock trial at the Tennessee Turf Grass Association annual meeting. The trial debated the pros and cons between Bermuda and Bentgrass.
Sykes is also heavily involved in volunteering. In 2017, he started the golf program at Tate’s School of Discovery in Knoxville. In addition to this, he also volunteers and supports the First Tee programs and facilities. Chris also coaches the middle school boys golf team at Christian Academy of Knoxville and guided the team to a district win, as well as a second place finish in the region this year. He previously coached the girls softball team at CAK for 7 years. Chris has served as a coach for 50 seasons in various sports and is a mainstay in the East Tennessee sporting community. Chris is truly a valuable asset to many.
Wells McClure-Golf Superintendent
Wells McClure was born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. During his teenage years, Wells had a successful lawn and landscaping business that would be the beginning of his turf career. Wells has always had a love for the outdoors, most notably hunting, kayaking, and hiking. Wells attended the University of Tennessee where he received his bachelor’s degree in Plant Sciences with a concentration in Turfgrass Management. While a student, he worked on multiple internships including working for the University of Tennessee Turfgrass Research Department, for Rarity Point during it’s construction, and for Gettysvue Country Club. Following graduation, Wells moved to Virginia where he was an assistant at two courses (Cannon Ridge and Mattapoint Springs). Wells was the assistant at Toqua for one year before being asked to act as the interim supervisor at Tanasi. Based on this performance, he was promoted to Golf Course Superintendent in August, 2012. He is excited about continuing to improve Tanasi and building his life and family in East Tennessee.
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Paul LeClerc
Former Director of the New York Public Library
Co-editor of the first edition of Lettres d'André Morellet
President & CEO, and Professor of French
Hunter College, The City University of New York
Provost & Vice-President for Academic Affairs, and Professor of French
Baruch College, The City University of New York
University Dean for Academic Affairs, then Acting Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs
The City University of New York
Instructor in French, then Assistant Professor of French
Union College, Schenectady, New York
Ph.D. in French literature at Columbia University
◊ people
◊ publishers
◊ institutions
Digital Voltaire
Festschrift for Paul LeClerc
Served by ee-cloud-a
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Andrew McGregor, co-founder of Graphation Film Festival.
Consorting with robots and zombies
What do you get when you put together robots, zombies and comic books?
How about a film festival?
The Graphation Film Festival showcased a selection of short films about zombies, robots, robot-like humans, zombie-like mummies and other life-forms on the fringes of society last month.
Thanks to Carnegie Mellon grad and former Pittsburgh resident George A. Romero, zombies are closely identified with Steeltown, so close-by suburban Oakmont’s Oaks Theater was the perfect venue to celebrate the not-quite-alive.
The festival followed a similar event organizers Andrew McGregor and Josiah Golojuh hosted in the Los Angeles area. The idea: promote new filmmakers and adapt their works into comic books – a twist on the current Hollywood idea of taking comics and turning them into movies.
There’s a lot of talent out there, said Golojuh, and Graphation is simply trying to get filmmakers some exposure. (McGregor and Golojuh, filmmakers who met at the University of Southern California, aren’t averse to a little exposure themselves.)
“We want to create awareness for these filmmakers,” he said. “They’ve sweated and bled over their works, and we want to let people see them.”
Some of the shorts have earned recognition and awards at other festivals – Jesse Griffith’s “Cockpit: The Rule of Engagement,” starring “RoboCop’s” Ronny Cox, is an audience favorite – and many are available online, but more exposure never hurts.
Among the festival’s highlights were “The Curse,” a love story between a mummy and archeologist told with marionettes and backed by Josh Ritter’s wistful music; “The Man Who Knew How to Fly,” a stylized story about a 1920s office drone based on a story by Karel Capek (who coined the word “robot”); “The Machine,” an ominous parable with Terry Gilliam-esque touches about a power-mad robot; and “Goodsam and Max,” which manages to combine elements of “Mad Max,” “A Boy and His Dog,” old Westerns and black comedy in creating the tale of a hot babe and her cigar-chewing teddy bear in pursuit of “rats.”
Not all the films were fiction. “Nobody Dies When It’s Sunny,” a documentary by Niles Harrison, follows around a mortuary driver as he picks up bodies – at least one of which he recognizes from his days as a drug addict; and Jonathan Minard’s “Moonrush,” a work-in-progress, chronicles the progress in sending a privately funded mission to the moon and focuses on roboticist Red Whittaker.
Though many Hollywood films look at robots as malevolent forces – with zombies rating even lower - “Moonrush” director Minard is more optimistic about the future.
“They’ll be part of our everyday lives,” even more so than they are now, he said, only growing more social with time.
Exhibit A for robot sociability was a live performance by roboticist Heather Knight and her pal Data, a robot that has been programmed to tell jokes and – to the delight of the Oakmont audience – danced to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” Knight founded the Robot Film Festival, which brought the robot-themed films to Pittsburgh.
McGregor, dressed nattily in a bright, swirly-patterned French-cuffed shirt and plaid vest, believes that robots, zombies and humans can live together in peace. Robots, in particular, don’t have to be fearsome overlords; they can be useful tools, able to assist the elderly or go places we can’t.
“Technology is only limited by people’s imaginations,” he said.
Posted by Todd Leopold
Filed under: Fandom
Eddie Dartez
ackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records. His contributions to music, dance, and fashion, along with his publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades. The eighth child of the Jackson family, he debuted on the professional music scene along with his brothers as a member of The Jackson 5 in 1964, and began his solo career in 1971. In the early 1980s, Jackson became the dominant figure in popular music. The music videos for his songs, including those of "Beat It," "Billie Jean," and "Thriller," were credited with breaking down racial barriers and transforming the medium into an art form and promotional tool. `-*`
<http://www.caramoan.ph
July 10, 2013 at 12:59 am |
Cougar Dating Information
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Hanmer Springs Hotels
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April 19, 2012 at 10:02 am |
tinhorn
to tea party express: stop taking the money i've put into social security! i will need it later to buy more comic books when i retire. my other retirement fund will actually be able to pay my bills.
A Dweeb
Seriously Troll Party Express – did you forget that you're reading a blog titled "Geek Out?" None of us would be reading this blog (you included) if we weren't already all dweebs. The point of the article is to celebrate the dweebs who have had the vision and drive to turn their dweeby pursuits into a paycheck. Without dweebs like that, we'd have no art, no culture, no entertainment, and definitely no internet/Geek Blog/comments section.
So take your jealous self-hatred somewhere else.
I think they are firmly out of their Mom's basements, they are making art and serving the world by striving to make it an ever so slightly more beautiful place.
Tea Party Express
Go back to work dweebs. Get outta mom's basement and earn a paycheck.
Is It Lonely Up There On Your Pedestal?
^^Funny how you have the time to make such an ignorant comment on an article that wasnt even in the headlines, so that means you clicked on it and read the whole thing...so whos the "dweeb" now? So how about you get out of YOUR mom's basement and not tear down other people's lifestyles because you are unhappy with your own. FAIL.
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Published on 14th May 2019
MTN Cameroon has secured 48% share of the country's telecommunications market, ahead of rivals Orange Cameroun, Nexttel and Camtel.
Representatives of the company said for the first time in four years, revenue has grown for the second consecutive quarter, enabling the company to consolidate the recovery of its performance curve that began at the end of 2018.
MTN Cameroon chief executive officer Hendrik Kasteel attributed the growth to a strategy more focused on customer satisfaction, to a significant improvement in the quality of the network and a more stable regulatory environment.
He also cited the strong acceleration in data sales and mobile money service (MoMo) revenues, with 500,000 new MTN MoMo accounts opened in Q1 2019.
However, the company continues to be impacted by ongoing socio-political conflict in the English-speaking (Northwest & Southwest) regions of the country.
In October 2018 Massey Njiti Bongang, Corporate Communications Manager at MTN Cameroon, said that "a total of 206 MTN sites have been vandalised since April 2018 and/or down because of difficulties to access them for maintenance for reasons of insecurity, making the network coverage poor or almost inexistent in some areas in the North West and South West Regions."
In July that year the Cameroon Private-sector Investors and Employers Association (GICAM) said telcos in these regions had experienced a FCFA 1-billion monthly deficit in turnover as well as equipment to the value of FCFA 300-million destroyed.
Of 618 antennas and transmission sites in these regions, 114 were fully or partially destroyed as of 31 July 2018, the Association had reported.
Despite the challenges, the company has registered over one million new subscribers in Q1 2019, taking its customer base to 8.7 million as at 31 March 2019.
"We are proud to be back on the growth path and grateful to our customers for their ever-increasing confidence in MTN. Their satisfaction is at the heart of our strategy. We will continue to work hard to make their lives ever brighter with innovative, simple and affordable solutions that meet their communication needs," said Kasteel.
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January 24, 2008: Judge Orders Written Report on Destruction of CIA Videotapes
US District Judge Richard Roberts says that CIA interrogation videotapes may have been relevant to a case before him and orders the administration to explain why they were destroyed in 2005, and also to say whether other evidence was destroyed. The government has three weeks to produce the report, as the judge thinks the tapes may have been relevant to the case of Guantanamo detainee Hani Abdullah. The charges against Abdullah are based, at least in part, on information obtained from militant leader Abu Zubaida, who was shown on the tapes and was subjected to waterboarding and other “enhanced techniques” (see Spring-Late 2002 and Mid-May 2002 and After). The report also has to explain what the government has done to preserve evidence since Roberts issued an order in July 2005 not to destroy it, what it is doing now, and whether any other potentially relevant evidence has been destroyed. [Associated Press, 1/24/2008]
Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Hani Abdullah, Richard W. Roberts
Category Tags: Destruction of CIA Tapes, High Value Detainees, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics
January 29, 2008: US Predator Drone Kills Al-Qaeda Leader in Pakistan’s Tribal Region
Abu Laith al-Libi. [Source: Associated Press]The US fires a missile from a Predator drone at a house in North Waziristan, in Pakistan’s tribal region. The missile reportedly kills about 13 people. Some of them are said to be militants, and US officials will later confirm that one of those killed is al-Qaeda leader Abu Laith al-Libi. He is considered a top field commander and a liaison between al-Qaeda and the Taliban. [Newsweek, 3/22/2008; Washington Post, 3/27/2008] He is relatively unknown to the public, but in September 2007, the Washington Post profiled him as about one of a dozen of the most important current al-Qaeda leaders. He also survived a US rocket attack in June 2007. [Washington Post, 9/8/2007]
Entity Tags: Abu Laith al-Libi
Category Tags: Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, Key Captures and Deaths, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11, Drone Use in Pakistan / Afghanistan
January 30, 2008: MSNBC Finds over One Quarter of 9/11 Commission Report Endnotes Cite Dubious Detainee Interrogations
MSNBC counts the number of endnotes in the 9/11 Commission report that cite detainee interrogations and finds that more than a quarter of them—441 out of over 1,700—do so. It is widely believed that the detainees were tortured while in US custody, and that statements made under torture are unreliable. One of the detainees, alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, whose interrogations are mentioned hundreds of times in the report (see After January 2004), was extensively waterboarded (see Shortly After February 29 or March 1, 2003), and a CIA manager said that up to 90 percent of the information he provided under questioning was unreliable (see August 6, 2007). The endnotes often give the sources of the information contained in the main text. MSNBC comments: “The analysis shows that much of what was reported about the planning and execution of the terror attacks on New York and Washington was derived from the interrogations of high-ranking al-Qaeda operatives. Each had been subjected to ‘enhanced interrogation techniques.’ Some were even subjected to waterboarding.” In addition, many of the endnotes that cite detainee interrogations are for the report’s “most critical chapters”—five, six, and seven—which cover the planning of the attacks and the hijackers’ time in the US. In total, the Commission relied on more than 100 CIA interrogation reports. Its Executive Director Philip Zelikow admits that “quite a bit, if not most” of its information on the 9/11 conspiracy “did come from the interrogations.” Karen Greenberg, director of the Center for Law and Security at New York University’s School of Law, says, “It calls into question how we were willing to use these interrogations to construct the narrative.” [MSNBC, 1/30/2008]
Entity Tags: Center for Law and Security, 9/11 Commission, MSNBC, Philip Zelikow, Karen Greenberg
Late January 2008: Spanish Criminal Case Reveals French Intelligence Had Informant in Al-Qaeda Safe Haven
On January 16, 2007, a young man known as Asim arrives in Barcelona. He had recently been living in the Pakistani tribal region of Waziristan as an informant for French intelligence. He comes to Barcelona to inform on a group of Pakistanis living in that town who spent time in Pakistani training camps and allegedly are planning a series of suicide attacks in Spain and possibly other European countries. He is posing as one of the suicide bombers. Fearing that an attack is imminent, Spanish authorities arrest most of the suspects three days later (see January 19, 2008). But the Spanish decide that they don’t have enough physical evidence to successfully prosecute the arrested suspects, and they turn Asim into a protected witness for the prosecution. The New York Times will comment, “the case has caused diplomatic friction among investigators. Spain’s handling of the French informant has enraged officials at France’s intelligence agencies and eroded trust between the countries, French and other European officials said. The informant’s value as a source was destroyed when he was made a prosecution witness and the contents of his statements were leaked to the news media.” Asim’s case contradicts the commonly held notion that intelligence agencies have been unable to penetrate al-Qaeda’s central command (see March 20, 2008). But many questions remain. It is unclear when he first penetrated Waziristan as an informant, how much time he spent there, and how high level his al-Qaeda contacts there were. [New York Times, 2/10/2008]
Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, Asim
Category Tags: Other Possible Moles or Informants, Al-Qaeda in Spain, Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region
January 31, 2008: Civil Liberties Organization Says Abuse of Detainees ‘Undermines Credibility’ of 9/11 Commission Report
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), an organization dedicated to the protection of civil liberties, releases a statement saying it is “outraged” by revelations about the extent to which the 9/11 Commission report was based on statements from detainees who are said to have been tortured. After MSNBC finds that over a quarter of the report’s endnotes cite detainee interrogations (see January 30, 2008), CCR President Michael Ratner says: “If the Commission suspected there was torture, they should have realized that as a matter of law, evidence derived from torture is not reliable, in part because of the possibility of false confession…at the very least, they should have added caveats to all those references (note: the Commission’s report does contain one caveat related to two chapters—see After January 2004). The Commission’s heavy reliance on tainted sources reinforces the notion that we as a nation have not yet come to terms with the reality that the US engaged in torture. Until we do so, we undermine our credibility in the eyes of the world as a nation of hypocrites.” [Center for Constitutional Rights, 1/31/2008]
Entity Tags: 9/11 Commission, Michael Ratner, Center for Constitutional Rights
Category Tags: 9/11 Commission, 9/11 Investigations
February 2008: Considerable Video Footage of 9/11 Hijackers Remains Unreleased
Hani Hanjour (left) and Majed Moqed (right) captured by surveillance video on September 5, 2001. [Source: FBI]An FBI timeline of the 9/11 hijackers’ activities compiled in late 2001 and released this month indicates that considerable video footage of the hijackers has yet to be released. Most of the footage appears to come from surveillance video discovered after the 9/11 attacks. So far, the only known footage made public has been two video stills of Hani Hanjour and Majed Moqed using an ATM machine, one still each of Waleed Alshehri and Satam Al Suqami, several stills of Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari in Portland the night before 9/11 (see September 10, 2001), and a few more stills and footage of several hijackers in airports on the morning of 9/11 (see (Between 5:45 a.m. and 5:53 a.m.) September 11, 2001 and (7:15 a.m.-7:18 a.m.) September 11, 2001). But the FBI’s timeline reveals video footage that has never even been publicly hinted at:
Mohamed Atta used an ATM in Palm Beach, Florida, on July 19, 2001.
Salem Alhazmi and Ahmed Alghamdi used an ATM in Alexandria, Virginia, on August 2.
Hanjour and Mojed used a Kinko’s for half an hour in College Park, Maryland, on August 10.
Moqed and Nawaf Alhazmi shopped at an Exxon gas station in Joppa, Maryland, on August 28.
Waleed and Wail Alshehri wandered around a Target store in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on September 4.
Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari were in a Florida bank lobby on September 4, and the audio of Atta calling Saudi Arabia was even recorded in the process.
Fayez Ahmed Banihammad used an ATM on September 7 in Deerfield Beach, Florida.
Salem Alhazmi was at the Falls Church DMV on September 7. Low quality surveillance video at the Milner Hotel in Boston showed Marwan Alshehhi and possibly Mohand Alshehri on multiple occasions in the days just before 9/11.
Ziad Jarrah and possibly Saeed Alghamdi were videotaped using a Kinko’s for about an hour near Newark on September 10. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001 ]
Additionally, an FBI document will later be made public that indicates there is footage of Saeed Alghamdi entering the Marriott Hotel at the Newark International Airport on September 8, carrying a black roll along bag (he will not have any checked luggage on 9/11).
This same document indicates Ziad Jarrah is also seen on videotape shortly after midnight on September 8 at the same Marriott Hotel, making credit card and cash payments for two hotel rooms. He is accompanied by two young men, who most likely are Saeed Alghamdi and Ahmed Alnami. [Investigative Services Division, FBI Headquarters, 4/19/2002]
Entity Tags: Saeed Alghamdi, Wail Alshehri, Waleed Alshehri, Ziad Jarrah, Salem Alhazmi, Nawaf Alhazmi, Mohamed Atta, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Abdulaziz Alomari, Mohand Alshehri, Ahmed Alghamdi, Fayez Ahmed Banihammad, Ahmed Alnami, Marwan Alshehhi
Category Tags: Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta, Hani Hanjour, Ziad Jarrah, Other 9/11 Hijackers, FBI 9/11 Investigation, 9/11 Investigations
February 2008: Ex-US Soldier from Bosnia War Emerges as Al-Qaeda Leader in Somalia
Abu Mansoor al-Amriki. [Source: Al-Jazeera]A militant in a video message released this month has an interesting background. The message supports Shabab, one of two radical Islamic groups fighting for power in war-torn Somalia. According to a US intelligence source, the militant in the video, Abu Mansoor al-Amriki, is an ex-US soldier who fought in Bosnia in the early 1990s. No US soldiers officially fought in the Bosnia war, but about a dozen Muslim ex-US Special Forces soldiers fought in Bosnia and trained al-Qaeda and other mujaheddin forces there around 1993 (see December 1992-June 1993). At the time, the US military and Saudi government apparently had an interest in sending Muslim ex-Special Forces there (see December 1992-June 1993 and December 1992). Mansoor is said to be a high-ranking member of al-Qaeda’s East Africa leadership, and is a lead trainer for Somali insurgent forces. Although he only appears on video wearing a face mask, it is clear that he is Caucasian. [Middle East Times, 2/28/2008]
Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Shabab, Abu Mansoor al-Amriki
Category Tags: Al-Qaeda in Balkans, Alleged Al-Qaeda Media Statements
February 4, 2008: Willie Nelson Questions Official 9/11 Story
Willie Nelson. [Source: Adam Bielawski / Photorazzi]Renowned country singer and songwriter Willie Nelson publicly questions the official account of what happened on September 11. Appearing on Alex Jones’s talk radio show, Nelson suggests the World Trade Center was brought down with explosives. He says, “I saw those towers fall and I’ve seen an implosion in Las Vegas, there’s too much similarities between the two.” Referring to WTC 7, which fell in the afternoon of 9/11 though no plane hit it, he says: “I saw the building fall that didn’t get hit by nothing. So, how naive are we, you know, what do they think we’ll go for?” [KVUE News, 2/4/2008; Associated Press, 2/5/2008] Nelson has previously engaged in political activism, such as raising money for small family farmers and writing a song protesting the Iraq war. [Reuters, 1/1/2004; Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 1/19/2004]
Entity Tags: Willie Nelson
Category Tags: US Government and 9/11 Criticism
February 4, 2008: Seattle Post-Intelligencer Calls for New 9/11 Inquiry
The editorial board of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer calls for a new inquiry into 9/11, as it believes the 9/11 Commission’s investigation may have been compromised. The call is due to a new book by New York Times journalist Philip Shenon, The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Commission. The book highlights the close relationship between 9/11 Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow and the White House, in particular National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, as well as an attempt he made to connect Iraq to al-Qaeda. The Post-Intelligencer writes of Zelikow that “[s]omeone with an apparent deference for the White House should not have been trusted with such a valued task.” It comments, “If bulletproof, the book prompts us to add one more thing to our to-do list for the next administration: Pressure it to charge a panel of independent experts to write a real, nonpartisan report on the attacks.” [Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 2/4/2008]
Entity Tags: Condoleezza Rice, Bush administration (43), Philip Shenon, Philip Zelikow, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 9/11 Commission
February 11, 2008: Pentagon Intends to Try Six Alleged 9/11 Conspirators, Will Seek Death Penalty
The Defense Department announces that it is bringing death penalty charges against six high-value enemy detainees currently being held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. The six, all charged with involvement in the 9/11 attacks, will be tried under the much-criticized military tribunal system (see October 17, 2006) implemented by the Bush administration. They are:
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a Pakistani who claims responsibility for 31 terrorist attacks and plots, is believed to have masterminded the 9/11 attacks, and claims he beheaded Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl (see January 31, 2002). Mohammed was subjected to harsh interrogation tactics by the CIA, including waterboarding.
Ali Adbul Aziz Ali, Mohammed’s nephew and cousin of jailed Islamist terrorist Ramzi Yousef. He is accused of facilitating the attacks by sending $120,000 to US-based terrorists, and helping nine of the hijackers enter the US.
Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, accused of being a link between al-Qaeda and the 9/11 hijackers. Bin al-Shibh is accused of helping some of the hijackers obtain flight training.
Khallad bin Attash, who has admitted planning the attack on the USS Cole (see October 12, 2000) and is accused of running an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. He claims to have helped in the bombing of the US embassy in Kenya (see 10:35-10:39 a.m., August 7, 1998).
Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, accused of being a financier of the 9/11 attacks, providing the hijackers with cash, clothing, credit cards, and traveller’s checks.
Mohamed al-Khatani, another man accused of being a “20th hijacker;” al-Khatani was stopped by immigration officials at Orlando Airport while trying to enter the US. He was captured in Afghanistan.
Many experts see the trials as part of an election-year effort by the Bush administration to demonstrate its commitment to fighting terrorism, and many predict a surge of anti-American sentiment in the Middle East and throughout the Islamic world. Some believe that the Bush administration is using the trials to enhance the political fortunes of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who has made the US battle against al-Qaeda a centerpiece of his campaign. “What we are looking at is a series of show trials by the Bush administration that are really devoid of any due process considerations,” says Vincent Warren, the executive director head of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents many Guantanamo detainees. “Rather than playing politics the Bush administration should be seeking speedy and fair trials. These are trials that are going to be based on torture as confessions as well as secret evidence. There is no way that this can be said to be fair especially as the death penalty could be an outcome.”
Treatment of Detainees an Issue - While the involvement of the six detainees in the 9/11 attacks is hardly disputed, many questions surround their treatment at Guantanamo and various secret “black sites” used to house and interrogate terror suspects out of the public eye. Questions are being raised about the decision to try the six men concurrently instead of separately, about the decision to seek the death penalty, and, most controversially, the admissibility of information and evidence against the six that may have been gathered by the use of torture.
Details of Forthcoming Tribunals - While the charges are being announced now, Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann, the Pentagon official supervising the case, acknowledges that it could be months before the cases actually begin, and years before any possible executions would be carried out. Hartmann promises the trials will be “as completely open as possible,” with lawyers and journalists present in the courtroom unless classified information is being presented. Additionally, the six defendants will be considered innocent until proven guilty, and the defendants’ lawyers will be given “every stitch of evidence” against their clients.
'Kangaroo Court' - British lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, who has worked with “enemy combatants” at Guantanamo, believes nothing of what Hartmann says. The procedures are little more than a “kangaroo court,” Stafford Smith says, and adds, “Anyone can see the hypocrisy of espousing human rights, then trampling on them.” Despite Hartmann’s assurances, it is anything but clear just what rights the six defendants will actually have. [Independent, 2/12/2008] The charges against al-Khahtani are dropped several months later (see May 13, 2008).
Entity Tags: Vincent Warren, US Department of Defense, Khallad bin Attash, Daniel Pearl, Clive Stafford Smith, John McCain, Mohamed al-Khatani, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Thomas Hartmann, Center for Constitutional Rights, Ramzi Yousef, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Bush administration (43), Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Al-Qaeda
Category Tags: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Al-Qaeda in Germany, 1998 US Embassy Bombings, 2000 USS Cole Bombing, High Value Detainees, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics, Ramzi Bin Al-Shibh, 9/11 Related Criminal Proceedings
February 18, 2008: Moroccan Police Raid Islamist Militant Group Led by Belgian Government Informant
Moroccan police arrest 35 people for involvement in a radical militant group led by an informant for the Belgian government. Over the next several weeks, it will gradually be leaked to the media that the arrested leader of the group, Abdelkader Belliraj, has worked for Belgian intelligence and possibly the CIA since at least 2000 (see February 29, 2008). Belliraj holds both Belgian and Moroccan citizenship and is a Shiite. His unnamed group has both Shiite and Sunni Muslim links, and is linked to Islamist militant groups like al-Qaeda as well as to traditional organized crime. Others arrested in Morocco with Belliraj include local politicians, businessmen, a police commander and Hezbollah television station correspondent. A large stockpile of weapons is found in police raids, including assault rifles, machine guns, and detonators. Two days after the raids, the small Islamist party al-Badil al-Hadari is officially dissolved after several of those arrested are found to have links to the party, including the party’s secretary general. The Moroccan government claims Belliraj’s group was planning a series of political assassinations in Morocco. [Los Angeles Times, 2/27/2008; Terrorism Focus, 3/4/2008]
Entity Tags: Abdelkader Belliraj
Category Tags: Other Possible Moles or Informants, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11
February 18, 2008: Opposition Parties Triumph in Pakistan’s Parliamentary Elections; Musharraf Remains President but Is Greatly Weakened
Pakistan holds parliamentary elections, and opposition parties are the overwhelming winners. President Pervez Musharraf does not lose his presidency, as he was reelected by the National Assembly several months earlier (see October 6, 2007). However, his party, Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q), loses control of the National Assembly, enabling the opposition parties to select their own prime minister a short time later. Much power will now shift to the position of prime minister, which had been completely overshadowed by Musharraf and his presidency since he took power in a coup in 1999 (see October 12, 1999). The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) wins 120 seats. The PPP was led by Benazir Bhutto until her recent assassination, and is now led by her husband, Asif Ali Zardari. The Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), the party led by former primer minister Nawaz Sharif, gets 90. Musharraf’s PML-Q only wins 51 seats. Surprisingly, the Islamic parties are almost completely wiped out. The alliance of Islamic parties, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), did well and won two provincial elections in the last election in 2002, but this time it only wins six seats. A secular and moderate party, the Awami National Party, wins in the North-West Frontier Province, taking control from the MMA and forming the new provincial government there. No single party holds a majority, but the PPP immediately announces a coalition with Sharif’s PML-N party, shutting Musharraf’s PML-Q party out. Musharraf once had 80 percent popularity ratings in polls, but after many recent controversial moves, including declaring a state of emergency for over a month to stay in power (see November 3-December 15, 2007), his popularity rating is down to about 20 percent. [Rashid, 2008, pp. 390-391] One month later, the coalition selects a relatively unknown figure, Yousaf Raza Gillani, to be the new prime minister (see March 22-25, 2008).
Entity Tags: Benazir Bhutto, Awami National Party, Pakistan People’s Party, Pervez Musharraf, Asif Ali Zardari, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, Pakistan Muslim League-Q, Pakistan Muslim League-N, Nawaz Sharif
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI
February 22, 2008: Attorney General and Director of National Intelligence Attribute Failure to Exploit Yemen Hub Calls to 1981 Executive Order
Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell write to Silvestre Reyes, the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, about their desire to see the Protect America Act renewed. In the letter, they mention the failure to exploit NSA intercepts of calls between the 9/11 hijackers in the US and al-Qaeda’s main global communications hub, which apparently had the potential to thwart the 9/11 plot (see Early 2000-Summer 2001). They write: “[O]ne of the September 11th hijackers communicated with a known overseas terrorist facility while he was living in the United States. Because that collection was conducted under Executive Order 12333, the intelligence community could not identify the domestic end of the communication prior to September 11, 2001, when it could have stopped that attack.” [US Department of Justice and Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 2/28/2008 ] Executive Order 12333 became law in 1981 and governed general activities by the US intelligence community. [US President, 12/4/1981] The order did allow the NSA to disseminate information about US persons to law enforcement officials in the event of an impending terrorist act. [US Congress: House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, 4/12/2000] The letter does not give more detailed reasons why Mukasey and McConnell think the NSA could not have traced the calls and informed the FBI of the two hijackers’ presence in the US (see (Spring 2000)). [US Department of Justice and Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 2/28/2008 ] Similar incorrect statements have been made by numerous intelligence officials since December 2005, when the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program was revealed (see December 17, 2005).
Entity Tags: National Security Agency, Michael Mukasey, Mike McConnell, Silvestre Reyes
Category Tags: Alhazmi and Almihdhar, Remote Surveillance, Yemen Hub
February 23, 2008: Wanted US Citizen Gives Public Speech in Yemen and Remains Free Despite $5 Million Reward for His Arrest
Jaber Elbaneh’s appearance in court. [Source: Associated Press / Mohammed al-Qadhi.]Jaber Elbaneh, an Islamist militant wanted by the US, comes out of hiding to appear in court in Yemen, but is not arrested. Elbaneh, a US citizen and whose family came from Yemen, had lived in Lackawanna, New York, before the 9/11 attacks. He went to Afghanistan to train at an al-Qaeda training camp along with about six other men from Lackawanna, but while the others dropped out and returned to the US, Elbaneh never returned (see April-August 2001). He moved to Yemen. The Yemeni government says he also helped plan the 2002 attack on the oil tanker Limburg off Yemen’s coast (see October 6, 2002). He was arrested there in 2004 after being charged in the US for attending the training camp. He was sentenced to ten years in prison, but in February 2006, he and 22 other suspected al-Qaeda operatives escaped from a high-security Yemeni prison (see February 3, 2006). The US offered $5 million for information leading to his arrest. Elbaneh was then implicated in a September 2006 bombing in Yemen that took place several days before national elections (see September 15, 2006). Some suggest the bombers may have colluded with the government to use the bombing to successfully help Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh win reelection. Elbaneh was convicted, but allowed to stay at home under a loose form of house arrest. Given the outstanding $5 million reward for him, Elbaneh appears to surprise everyone by appearing in court where his conviction in the 2006 bombing was being appealed. Furthermore, he gives a speech proclaiming his innocence. He says that after his prison escape, he surrendered directly to President Saleh in May 2007, who absolved him of any jail time. The New York Times comments: “Perhaps the greatest mystery surrounding [Elbaneh] is his decision to appear in court… The Yemeni government has generally instructed the jihadists with whom it arranges amnesty to avoid the news media and keep low profiles. But Mr. Elbaneh deliberately spoke out in a public setting, with journalists present, and named the president in his brief tirade.” [Reuters, 2/27/2008; New York Times, 3/1/2008]
Entity Tags: Jaber Elbaneh, Ali Abdallah Saleh
Category Tags: Yemeni Militant Collusion, "Lackawanna Six"
February 27, 2008: Report: US Finally Decides Imam to 9/11 Hijackers Is Linked to Al-Qaeda
The Washington Post reports that US intelligence has finally determined that Anwar al-Awlaki is linked to al-Qaeda. Al-Awlaki was an imam at two different mosques attended by hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi, Khalid Almihdhar, and Hani Hanjour, and he has been suspected of assisting the 9/11 plot. An anonymous US counterterrorism official tells the Post, “There is good reason to believe Anwar al-Awlaki has been involved in very serious terrorist activities since leaving the United States [after 9/11], including plotting attacks against America and our allies.” However, the US apparently did not ask Yemen to extradite him when he was arrested there in 2006, because there was no pending legal case against him. He continues to reside in Yemen and apparently still has not been charged with any crime. [Washington Post, 2/27/2008] In December 2007, just two months before this article, the US approved the release of al-Awlaki in Yemen, apparently because there still was no pending legal case against him (see Early September 2006-December 2007). He also does not appear to be on any public wanted list.
Entity Tags: Anwar al-Awlaki, Al-Qaeda
Category Tags: FBI 9/11 Investigation, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11, Possible Hijacker Associates in US, 9/11 Investigations, Anwar Al-Awlaki
February 28, 2008: US Predator Drone Kills at Least 12 in Pakistan
A missile fired from a US Predator drone kills at least 12 people in Pakistan. The missile hits a house in the village of Kaloosha, near the Afghan border. Some suspected militants are reportedly killed, but details are scanty. [BBC, 3/16/2008; Washington Post, 3/27/2008]
Category Tags: Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11, Drone Use in Pakistan / Afghanistan
February 29, 2008: Director of National Intelligence McConnell Says Afghan Government Is Losing Control
Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell testifies before Congress that the security situation in Afghanistan is “deteriorating.” He estimates that the official Afghan government led by Hamid Karzai controls only about 30 percent of Afghanistan, while the Taliban controls 10 percent and the rest is controlled by various tribes and warlords. He says that the key to the Taliban’s success “is the opportunity for safe haven in Pakistan.” Karzai’s government denies McConnell’s claims. However, various think tank reports echo McConnell’s conclusions. One report headed by former NATO commander Gen. James L. Jones concludes that “urgent changes” are immediately required to “prevent Afghanistan becoming a failed state.” [Guardian, 2/29/2008]
Entity Tags: Taliban, Hamid Karzai, James L. Jones, Mike McConnell
Timeline Tags: War in Afghanistan
Category Tags: Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, Afghanistan
February 29, 2008: Arrested Leader of Moroccan Militant Group Revealed to Be Belgian Informant with Possible CIA Links
Abdelkader Belliraj. [Source: Agence France-Presse]The Belgian media reports that Abdelkader Belliraj, a dual Belgian-Moroccan citizen arrested in Morocco earlier in the month, is actually a long-time informant for Belgium’s internal security service, State Security. [Agence France-Presse, 2/29/2008; Los Angeles Times, 8/24/2008] The Belgian government initially denies the charges but soon tacitly admits them when the head of State Security, Alain Winants, complains about the leak of the “highly classified” status of Belliraj several days later. Agence France-Presse reports that although the “accusations were at first met with scepticism in Belgium, authorities now consider them credible.” Belliraj has been personally involved in armed robberies and murders dating back to the 1980s, and has links to al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and other Islamist militant groups. It remains unclear if Belliraj was committing all his crimes with the approval of Belgian officials or if he may have been duping them to some degree. One anonymous Belgian police official speculates: “How could he travel freely since the 1980s from Belgium to various terrorist hot-beds around the world? There are two possibilities: either he worked for a secret service or else the State Security is full of idiots.” [Agence France-Presse, 3/11/2008] On Belgian newspaper claims that at the same time he was a paid Belgian informant since 2000, “It’s almost certain that at the same time he worked for another foreign secret service, possibly the French DGSE or American CIA.” [Het Laatste News, 3/4/2008] Another major Belgian newspaper, De Morgen, claims that Belliraj had both French and US intelligence links while working with Belgium too. [Maghreb Arabe Presse, 3/4/2008]
Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, Abdelkader Belliraj, Alain Winants, State Security (of Belgium)
Spring 2008: CIA Director Told about Al-Qaeda Assassination and Capture Program
CIA Director Michael Hayden and his top aides are told about one aspect of an agency program to capture and assassinate al-Qaeda leaders. The program was proposed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and has been under development at the agency for years, although it has not yet become operational (see Shortly After September 17, 2001). Details of what Hayden is told are unclear, although he is told about plans that involve gathering sensitive information in a foreign country. Hayden orders that the operation be scaled back and that Congress be notified if the plans become more fully developed. However, Congress is not informed before Hayden’s successor cancels the program (see June 23, 2009). [New York Times, 7/14/2009]
March 6, 2008: US Agents Arrest Al-Qaeda-Linked Arms Dealer Victor Bout in Thailand
Victor Bout in handcuffs in Thailand on the day of his arrest. [Source: Associated Press]Victor Bout, the world’s biggest illegal arms dealer, is arrested in Thailand. The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had set up a sting operation to nab Bout. For months, DEA agents posed as members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a militant group linked to drug trafficking and organized crime. DEA agents and Thai police meet Bout at the five-star Sofitel Silom Hotel in Bangkok, supposedly to finalize an arms deal, and immediately arrest him and his bodyguards. According to a Thai police officer, Bout does not resist arrest but merely says, “The game is over.” A relatively new DEA task force is behind Bout’s arrest, even as news reports indicate Bout’s fleet of aircraft has been shipping supplies to the US military in Iraq in recent years. The DEA agents posed as arms dealers working for FARC but went after Bout because of evidence that he had been involved in drug smuggling as well. Bout faces up to 10 years in prison in Thailand for taking part in illegal weapons deals there. US officials are also seeking Bout’s extradition to the US so he can face more charges. Bout is a Russian citizen and has been based in Russia in recent years, but the Russian government has decided against seeking his extradition. Mother Jones comments, “Willing to work for anyone, Bout’s business divorced itself from any political, philosophical, or moral constraint. It delivered military cargo with equal enthusiasm to terrorists, guerrilla insurgents, rebel warlords, embattled dictatorships, legitimate businesses, humanitarian aid groups, and sovereign governments, including the United States” (see Late April 2003-2007). He also worked with the Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked groups (see Summer 2002 and Late July 2006). Experts note that Bout’s network has been unique in providing a full range of smuggling services and it is unlikely it will survive without him. [Mother Jones, 3/16/2006]
Entity Tags: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Drug Enforcement Administration, Victor Bout
Category Tags: Victor Bout, Drugs, Key Captures and Deaths, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11
March 14, 2008: Alleged Al-Qaeda Leader Sent to Guantanamo, Declared ‘High Value’ Prisoner
Alleged al-Qaeda leader Muhammad Rahim al-Afghani is transferred to the US-run prison in Guantanamo, Cuba, and officially declared a “high value” prisoner. Rahim was captured in Lahore, Pakistan, by local forces in July 2007 (see July 2007) and then was held in a secret CIA prison until his transfer to Guantanamo (see Late July 2007-March 14, 2008).
Why Is Rahim Considered Important? - Rahim is just the 16th person the US government has declared a “high value” prisoner. Fourteen prisoners were given that label when they were transferred from secret CIA prisons to Guantanamo in September 2006 (see September 6, 2006 and September 2-3, 2006). The 15th was Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, who was held by the CIA in autumn 2006 and sent to Guantanamo in April 2007 (see Autumn 2006-Late April 2007). [Los Angeles Times, 3/15/2008] Although there had been reports in Pakistan about Rahim shortly after his arrest, virtually nothing was known about him until his transfer to Guantanamo. [Asian News International, 8/2/2007] He may have experienced extreme sleep deprivation during CIA interrogations (see August and November 2007).
Hayden's Memo - There still are no published photographs of him. At the same time Rahim is sent to Guantanamo, CIA Director Michael Hayden issues a memo to CIA employees explaining Rahim’s alleged importance. Hayden calls Rahim a “tough, seasoned jihadist” with “high-level contacts,” and claims his arrest “was a blow to more than one terrorist network. He gave aid to al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and other anti-coalition militants.” According to Hayden, Rahim sought chemicals for an attack on US forces in Afghanistan and tried to recruit people who had access to US military facilities there. He helped prepare Tora Bora as a hideout in 2001, and then helped al-Qaeda operatives flee the area when US forces overran it in late 2001. But perhaps most importantly, Rahim had become one of Osama bin Laden’s most trusted facilitators and translators in the years prior to Rahim’s arrest. [Los Angeles Times, 3/15/2008; New York Times, 3/15/2008]
Entity Tags: Muhammad Rahim al-Afghani, Al-Qaeda, Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, Central Intelligence Agency, Osama bin Laden, Michael Hayden
Category Tags: High Value Detainees
March 16, 2008: US Predator Drone Kills at Least 16 in Pakistan
A missile fired from a US Predator drone kills at least 16 people in Pakistan. The missile hits a house in the village of Toog in South Waziristan, part of Pakistan’s tribal region where al-Qaeda leaders are believed to be residing. The house is said to belong to an unnamed militant leader, and several militants are reportedly killed. However, details are scanty. [BBC, 3/16/2008; Newsweek, 3/22/2008]
March 18, 2008: WTC Developer Wants over $12 Billion Damages for 9/11
It is revealed that Larry Silverstein, the developer of Ground Zero, is seeking $12.3 billion in damages from airlines and airport security companies for the attacks on 9/11. Silverstein sought the damages in a claim filed in 2004, alleging that the companies failed to prevent the hijackers from taking over the planes that destroyed the World Trade Center buildings. The size of his claim was previously unknown, but is now revealed at a status conference in the US District Court in Manhattan. [New York Times, 3/27/2008] Of the $12.3 billion sought, $8.4 billion would be to replace the property destroyed in the attacks, and the other $3.9 billion would cover lost income and expenses associated with renting the new buildings. Companies named in the suit include American Airlines, United Airlines, Continental Airlines, Boeing, and the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport), which manages Logan Airport in Boston, from where the two planes that hit the WTC took off. [CNN, 3/27/2008] Silverstein’s case is consolidated with similar, earlier lawsuits by other property owners and some families of 9/11 victims. Silverstein is by far the biggest of the claimants. A lawyer for the airlines says that if Silverstein wins, it could push the total claims beyond the amount of insurance the airlines and security companies have available. Silverstein, the CEO and president of Silverstein Properties, only signed the 99-year lease on the World Trade Center six weeks before 9/11 (see July 24, 2001). He has already won nearly $4.6 billion in insurance payments stemming from the attacks (see May 23, 2007). [New York Times, 3/27/2008; NY1 News, 3/28/2008]
Entity Tags: Boeing Company, Continental Airlines, American Airlines, Massachusetts Port Authority, United Airlines, Larry Silverstein
Category Tags: 9/11 Related Lawsuits
March 19, 2008: Alleged Audio Recording of Bin Laden Claims Publication of Cartoon Showing Muhammad Worse than Bombing Civilians
A new audio recording is released, allegedly from al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. The voice on the tape directs the message to “the intelligent ones in the European Union” and discusses a cartoon said to be offensive to Muslims—showing the prophet Muhammed with a bomb in his turban—that was recently re-printed by all major Danish newspapers. The tape, which criticises US-led bombing of “those modest mud villages which have collapsed onto our women and children,” says that the “morals of fighting” should be observed in conflict, but the west has abandoned them, “even if you hold aloft its slogans in theory.” However, the publication of the cartoon and other similar ones is worse than bombing innocent civilians: “Although our tragedy in your killing of our women and children is a very great one, it paled when you went overboard in your unbelief and freed yourselves of the etiquettes of dispute and fighting and went to the extent of publishing these insulting drawings. This is the greater and more serious tragedy, and reckoning for it will be more severe.” The voice also claims that, despite the publication, “you haven’t seen any reaction from the one and a half billion Muslims.” [Council on Foreign Relations, 3/19/2008] In actual fact, when the cartoons were first published there were protests around the world in which dozens were killed, and Danish diplomatic offices were destroyed in two cities. [BBC, 3/20/2008] The voice argues that the cartoons should not have been published under freedom of expression, as US troops in Europe are not subject to European law, and, according to the voice, those who question the amount of Jews killed in the holocaust are suppressed. In addition, when the King of Saudi Arabia told Britain to stop its investigation of the corrupt al-Yamamah deal, British Prime Minister Tony Blair complied. [Council on Foreign Relations, 3/19/2008] The message comes on the fifth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq (see March 19, 2003). [BBC, 3/20/2008] However, the man thought to be bin Laden makes no mention of Iraq on the tape. [Council on Foreign Relations, 3/19/2008] The audio message is released in video form with a graphic showing a still image of bin Laden holding an AK-47 and bearing the logo of as-Sahab, al-Qaeda’s media wing. There is a written translation of the message in English. It is unclear when the message, released by posting at an Islamist website, was recorded. [BBC, 3/20/2008]
Entity Tags: As-Sahab, Osama bin Laden
Category Tags: Osama Bin Laden, Alleged Al-Qaeda Media Statements
March 20, 2008: Washington Post Promotes Myth that Intelligence Agencies Have Failed to Penetrate Al-Qaeda
The Washington Post publishes a front page story promoting the myth that al-Qaeda has never been effectively penetrated by intelligence agencies. The article by Craig Whitlock is titled After a Decade at War With West, Al-Qaeda Still Impervious to Spies. It states that “al-Qaeda’s core organization in Pakistan and Afghanistan has so far proved impervious to damaging leaks.” It quotes Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA’s bin Laden unit, who says that from 1992 until November 2004 (when he left the CIA), “[the CIA] worked side by side with the Egyptians, the Jordanians—the very best Arab intelligence services—and they didn’t recruit a single person who could report on al-Qaeda.” The article seems to be a reaction to the case of Abdelkader Belliraj, which was publicly exposed several weeks earlier, when Belliraj was arrested in Morocco (see February 18, 2008 and February 29, 2008). The article notes that Belliraj was a Belgian government informant and important Islamist militant leader who had al-Qaeda links for years and met with al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan (see 2001). Belliraj’s case seemingly undercuts the thrust of the article, but the rest of the article mostly quotes a series of anonymous intelligence officials who say penetrating al-Qaeda would be next to impossible. [Washington Post, 3/20/2008] Whitlock’s article ignores numerous reports that al-Qaeda has repeatedly been penetrated by the CIA and other intelligence agencies. For instance:
In 2002, US News and World Report reported, “Once thought nearly impossible to penetrate, al-Qaeda is proving no tougher a target than the KGB or the Mafia—closed societies that took the US government years to get inside.” An unnamed US intelligence official said: “We’re getting names, the different camps they trained at, the hierarchy, the infighting. It’s very promising” (see September 22, 2002).
In 2004, author Ronald Kessler wrote, “Often, the CIA used operatives from Arab intelligence services like those of Jordan, Syria, Egypt, and other countries to infiltrate bin Laden’s organization.” He quoted a longtime CIA officer who said, “Egyptians, Jordanians, [and] Palestinians penetrated the bin Laden organization for us. It’s B.S. that we didn’t” (see Before September 11, 2001).
In 2006, journalist Ron Suskind reported that by late 2002, the CIA had developed “a source from within Pakistan who was tied tightly into al-Qaeda management.” He also noted that other informants had been recruited since 9/11, and commented, “It has been generally acknowledged that the United States does not have any significant human sources… inside al-Qaeda. That is not true” (see Late 2002).
In a 2007 book, former CIA Director George Tenet claimed that the CIA had over 100 assets in Afghanistan by 9/11 (see Before September 11, 2001). He also claimed that “a group of assets from a Middle Eastern service” sharing information with the CIA penetrated al-Qaeda, and some of them penetrated al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan before 9/11 (see Early September 2001).
In February 2008, the New York Times reported that French intelligence had an informant that penetrated al-Qaeda’s safe haven in Pakistan’s tribal region (see Late January 2008).
Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Craig Whitlock, Michael Scheuer, Abdelkader Belliraj
Category Tags: Other Possible Moles or Informants, Media
March 20, 2008: Bin Laden Allegedly Releases New Tape
A man thought to be Osama bin Laden releases a new audio message urging Muslims to join the insurgency in Iraq, as this is the “nearest jihad battlefield to support our people in Palestine.” The message comes one day after the previous communication thought to be from bin Laden (see March 19, 2008) and just over five years after the invasion of Iraq (see March 19, 2003). According to the person thought to be bin Laden, “Palestine cannot be retaken by negotiations and dialogue, but with fire and iron,” and Arab leaders were complicit in Israeli attacks on Gaza. “The people of the blessed land should sense the great favour God has bestowed upon them and do what they should do to support their mujahideen brothers in Iraq,” the speaker says. “It is a great opportunity and a major duty for my brothers the Palestinian emigrants [in Arab countries], between whom and jihad on the plains of Jerusalem a barrier has been built.” [BBC, 3/20/2008]
Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden
March 22-25, 2008: Victors of Pakistan’s Parliamentary Elections Pick New Prime Minister, Effectively Sidelining President Musharraf
President Musharraf swearing in Yousaf Raza Gillani as Pakistan’s latest prime minister. [Source: Agence France-Presse - Getty Images] (click image to enlarge)In parliamentary elections in February 2008, a coalition of opposition parties led by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) took effective political control from President Pervez Musharraf, although Musharraf remains president (see February 18, 2008). On March 22, the leader of the PPP, Asif Ali Zardari, picks Yousaf Raza Gillani to become Pakistan’s new prime minister. Gillani assumes the position in a ceremony on March 25. Zardari is the husband of the recently assassinated and very popular Benazir Bhutto. He reportedly wants the prime minister position for himself, but he is not yet eligible for it as he does not hold a seat in parliament. Gillani is a relatively unknown low-key party stalwart. The New York Times comments that Gillani’s selection seems a “prelude to a drive by Mr. Zardari to take the job himself in the next few months.” [New York Times, 3/23/2008] Within hours of becoming prime minister, Gillani frees the judges that had been placed under house arrest during Musharraf’s state of emergency several months before (see November 3-December 15, 2007). He frees Supreme Court head Iftikhar Chaudhry, the 13 other Supreme Court judges, and 48 High Court judges who refused to sign a loyalty oath. [New York Times, 3/25/2008]
Entity Tags: Yousaf Raza Gillani, Pakistan People’s Party, Asif Ali Zardari, Iftikhar Chaudhry, Pervez Musharraf
March 23, 2008: Al-Zawahiri Releases New Audio Tape Calling for Revenge for Gaza Raids
Al-Qaeda second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri releases a new audio tape calling for attacks on Israeli and Western targets to avenge recent Israeli raids on the Gaza Strip. The tape is released by posting to the Internet and produced by al-Qaeda’s media arm, As-Sahab. “O Muslims. Today is your day. Hit the interest of the Jews and the Americans and all those who participated in the aggression against Muslims,” says al-Zawahiri. “Monitor the targets, collect the money, prepare the hardware, plan accurately, and then attack.” Al-Zawahiri adds, “No one can say today that we should fight the Jews in Palestine only,” and calls for Muslims to support Palestinians in the Gaza Strip against Israel. Demonstrations only serve to let off steam, he says, so Palestinians should focus on armed struggle. “Let them know that they would bleed for every dollar they spend on killing Muslims,” he says. “They cannot… insult our prophet and support Israel, and expect to live in peace in their countries.” Al-Zawahiri also accuses Arab leaders of colluding with the US and Israel in blockading Palestinians in Gaza. “The satanic alliance shows us its ugliness and how low it is, an alliance of the crusaders and the Jews and with them [Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak, and [Saudi Arabia’s ruling] Saud family, and the son of al-Hussein [Jordan’s King Abdullah].” [Reuters, 3/24/2008]
Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, As-Sahab
Category Tags: Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Alleged Al-Qaeda Media Statements
March 24, 2008: Soon-to-Be UN Official Wants Investigation of Possible Neoconservative Role in 9/11
Richard Falk. [Source: Richard Lord / World Council of Churches]Days before being selected for a United Nations Human Rights Council post, retired international law professor Richard Falk says he wants an official commission to investigate the role neoconservatives may have played in the 9/11 attacks. [New York Sun, 4/9/2008] Falk is professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University. [London Times, 4/15/2008] In a radio interview, he says: “It is possibly true that especially the neoconservatives thought there was a situation in the country and in the world where something had to happen to wake up the American people.… All we can say is there is a lot of grounds for suspicion, there should be an official investigation of the sort the 9/11 Commission did not engage in and that the failure to do these things is cheating the American people and in some sense the people of the world of a greater confidence in what really happened than they presently possess.” Two days later, on March 26, Falk will be appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to a newly created position to report on human rights in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. [New York Sun, 4/9/2008] In 2004, he wrote the foreword to The New Pearl Harbor by David Ray Griffin, a book that put forward evidence that the Bush administration may have orchestrated the 9/11 attacks or deliberately allowed them to happen (see March 1, 2004). [Griffin, 2004, pp. vii-x; New York Sun, 4/9/2008] Falk also contributed a chapter to the book, co-edited by Griffin, 9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out. [Griffin and Scott, 2006, pp. 117-127; London Times, 4/15/2008]
Entity Tags: Richard Falk
March 24, 2008: US Effort to Fight Financing of Terrorism Is ‘Foundering’
A front page article in the Los Angeles Times reports that the US effort to fight the financing of terrorism is “foundering.” Insiders complain that the Bush administration’s efforts are stumbling over legal difficulties, interagency fighting, and disagreements with allied nations. Michael Jacobson, a recently retired senior adviser in the Treasury Department’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, says, “The international cooperation and focus is dropping, the farther we get from 9/11.” The Times notes that “Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and other key nations have not taken the necessary steps to crack down on terrorist financing or suspect money flowing across their borders.” Designations of terrorist financiers has slowed to a “trickle.” Militant groups are also using methods that are harder to trace, including sending money by donkey or mule. Robert Grenier, recently retired director of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center, says the US has exaggerated the successes of financial enforcement: “There’s been a lot of work done on it, a lot of focus. But as a method for identifying and capturing terrorists, it has not been significant.” [Los Angeles Times, 3/24/2008]
Entity Tags: Robert Grenier, US Department of the Treasury, Counterterrorist Center, Michael Jacobson
Category Tags: Terrorism Financing, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics
March 27, 2008: Attorney General Makes Puzzling Claim about Pre-9/11 Communication Intercept
Attorney General Michael Mukasey makes an apparent reference to the intercepts of the 9/11 hijackers’ calls by the NSA before the attacks in a speech pleading for extra surveillance powers. Mukasey says: “[Officials] shouldn’t need a warrant when somebody with a phone in Iraq picks up a phone and calls somebody in the United States because that’s the call that we may really want to know about. And before 9/11, that’s the call that we didn’t know about. We knew that there has been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn’t know precisely where it went.” [FORA(.tv), 3/27/2008; New York Sun, 3/28/2008] According to a Justice Department response to a query about the speech, this appears to be a reference to the Yemen hub, an al-Qaeda communications facility previously alluded to by Mukasey in a similar context (see February 22, 2008). [Salon, 4/4/2008] However, the hub was in Yemen, not Afghanistan and, although it acted as a safe house, it was primarily a communications hub (see Early 2000-Summer 2001). In addition, the NSA did not intercept one call between it and the 9/11 hijackers in the US, but several, involving both Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, not just one of the hijackers (see Spring-Summer 2000, Mid-October 2000-Summer 2001, and (August 2001)). Nevertheless, the NSA failed to inform the FBI the hub was calling the US (see (Spring 2000)). (Note: it is possible Mukasey is not talking about the Yemen hub in this speech, but some other intercept genuinely from an al-Qaeda safe house in Afghanistan—for example a call between lead hijacker Mohamed Atta in the US and alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who may have been in Afghanistan when such call was intercepted by the NSA (see Summer 2001 and September 10, 2001). However, several administration officials have made references similar to Mukasey’s about the Yemen hub since the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program was revealed (see December 17, 2005).)
Entity Tags: Michael Mukasey
Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline, Civil Liberties
March 29, 2008: Media Confused over Attorney General Mukasey’s New Claim of Afghan Intercept before 9/11
Some media outlets pick up on a claim made by Attorney General Michael Mukasey on March 27, 2008, when he said that the US intercepted a call to a 9/11 hijacker in the US from an al-Qaeda safe house in Afghanistan (see March 27, 2008). This was possibly a garbled reference to an al-Qaeda hub in Yemen (see Early 2000-Summer 2001) mentioned by several administration officials since the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping story was exposed (see December 17, 2005). The San Francisco Chronicle notes that Mukasey “did not explain why the government, if it knew of telephone calls from suspected foreign terrorists, hadn’t sought a wiretapping warrant from a court established by Congress to authorize terrorist surveillance, or hadn’t monitored all such calls without a warrant for 72 hours as allowed by law.” [San Francisco Chronicle, 3/28/2008] Salon commentator and former civil rights litigator Glenn Greenwald will attack Mukasey over the story, commenting, “These are multiple falsehoods here, and independently, this whole claim makes no sense.” [Salon, 3/29/2008; Salon, 4/4/2008]
9/11 Commission Comment - In response to a query from Greenwald, former 9/11 Commission executive director Philip Zelikow comments: “Not sure of course what [Mukasey] had in mind, although the most important signals intelligence leads related to our report… was not of this character. If, as he says, the [US government] didn’t know where the call went in the US, neither did we.” [Salon, 4/3/2008] (Note: the 9/11 Commission report may actually contain two cryptic references to what Mukasey is talking about (see Summer 2002-Summer 2004).) [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 87-88, 222] Former 9/11 Commission vice chairman Lee Hamilton initially refuses to comment, but later says: “I am unfamiliar with the telephone call that Attorney General Mukasey cited in his appearance in San Francisco on March 27. The 9/11 Commission did not receive any information pertaining to its occurrence.” [Salon, 4/3/2008; Salon, 4/8/2008]
Other Media - The topic will also be covered by Raw Story and mentioned by MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, who also attacks Mukasey: “What? The government knew about some phone call from a safe house in Afghanistan into the US about 9/11? Before 9/11?” He adds: “Either the attorney general just admitted that the government for which he works is guilty of malfeasant complicity in the 9/11 attacks, or he’s lying. I’m betting on lying.” [Raw Story, 4/1/2008; MSNBC, 4/1/2008; Raw Story, 4/3/2008] The story is also picked up by CBS commentator Kevin Drum, who appears to be unaware that information about some NSA intercepts of the hijackers’ calls was first made public by the Congressional Inquiry five years previously. However, Drum comments: “[T]his deserves some followup from the press. Mukasey has spoken about this in public, so if he’s claiming that FISA prevented us from intercepting a key call before 9/11 he also needs to defend that in public.” [CBS, 4/3/2008; CBS, 4/4/2008] A group of Congressmen also formally asks the Justice Department for an explanation of the matter (see April 3, 2008).
Entity Tags: Michael Mukasey, Kevin Drum, Lee Hamilton, Philip Zelikow, US Department of Justice, Glenn Greenwald, Keith Olbermann
Category Tags: Yemen Hub, Role of Philip Zelikow, 9/11 Commission, 9/11 Investigations
April 2, 2008: Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura Rejects Official Account of 9/11
Jesse Ventura. [Source: Publicity photo]Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura declares that he believes the World Trade Center was destroyed with explosives, and says he regrets not asking more questions about the 9/11 attacks when he was governor. The former professional wrestler, who served as Minnesota governor from 1999 to 2003, appears on the Alex Jones Show, a syndicated radio program. He says that, based on his demolition training as a Navy SEAL, a visit to Ground Zero a few weeks after 9/11, and watching slow motion video of the collapses, he believes the Twin Towers fell due to controlled demolition. Describing the collapse of WTC Building 7, he says: “How could this building just implode into its own footprint five hours later? That’s my first question.… The 9/11 Commission didn’t even devote one page to that in their big volume of investigation.” [Associated Press, 1/5/2008; Associated Press, 4/3/2008; MinnPost, 4/3/2008] Ventura also raises questions about 9/11 in his new book, Don’t Start the Revolution Without Me! He writes: “My doubts about the official story have grown steadily over the last couple of years.… I wondered, why did President Bush put up roadblocks for two years to any type of investigation? If you have nothing to hide, you shouldn’t care whether or not a commission looks into what happened.… It seemed our government wasn’t reacting like an innocent victim, but like they were guilty of, or about, something.” [Ventura and Russell, 2008, pp. 209]
Entity Tags: Jesse Ventura
April 2, 2008: Al-Zawahiri Issues First Part of Responses to Questions from Public
Al-Qaeda second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri issues a 90-minute audiotape with the first part of responses to questions solicited from the public and journalists (see December 19, 2007). In the replies, he rejects criticism of attacks by al-Qaeda’s followers that have killed thousands of people, maintaining al-Qaeda does not kill innocent people. “We haven’t killed the innocents, not in Baghdad, nor in Morocco, nor in Algeria, nor anywhere else,” says al-Zawahiri. “If there is any innocent who was killed in the mujahedeen’s operations, then it was either an unintentional error or out of necessity.” [Associated Press, 4/2/2008] The second part of the responses will be issued later in the month (see April 17, 2008).
Entity Tags: Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda
April 2, 2008: Republican Congressman Will Not Back Government Financing for Treatment of Emergency Responders: Government Can’t ‘Do This Every Single Time a Similar Situation Happens’
Darrell Issa. [Source: Washington Post]Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) says during a House subcommittee meeting that he does not understand why the federal government should pay any more money to assist 9/11 emergency responders who have become ill after working at Ground Zero. Hundreds of firefighters, police officers, and paramedics have become ill, some terminally so, from exposure to smoke and toxins released in the collapse of the World Trade Center; the subcommittee is considering whether to reinstate federal funding for the 9/11 victims’ fund. Minutes after a retired New York City police officer, Michael Valentin, speaks of the serious health problems he has suffered since responding to the attacks, Issa says: “I have to ask why… the firefighters who went there and everyone in the City of New York needs to come to the federal government… How much money has the federal government put out post-9/11, including the buckets of $10 and $20 billion we just threw at the State and the City of New York versus how much has been paid out by the City and the State of New York?… It’s very simple: I can’t vote for additional money for New York if I can’t see why it would be appropriate to do this every single time a similar situation happens, which quite frankly includes any urban terrorist. It doesn’t have to be somebody from al-Qaeda. It can be someone who decides that they don’t like animal testing at one of our pharmaceutical facilities.” The attacks on the World Trade Center did not involve a dirty bomb or chemical weapons, Issa notes. “It simply was an aircraft, residue of the aircraft and residue of the materials used to build this building,” he adds. Issa’s colleague, Anthony Weiner (D-NY), is visibly enraged at Issa’s comments, replying, “The notion that this is the City of New York asking for more money because we were the point of attack on this country is absurd and insulting…. There are people every single day, bit by bit by bit, who are dying from that attack.” [Newsday, 4/1/2008; New York Post, 4/2/2008] A day later, Issa will retreat from the harshest of his comments after enduring a withering barrage of criticism (see April 3, 2008).
Entity Tags: Darrell E. Issa, Michael Valentin, Anthony D. Weiner
Category Tags: Internal US Security After 9/11
April 3, 2008: Congressman Issa Retreats from Refusal to Fund 9/11 Victims’ Fund
Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) tries to back away from his comments from the day before, where he disparaged New York City first responders who are now suffering long-term disabilities and illnesses stemming from the 9/11 attacks (see April 2, 2008).
Firestorm of Criticism - Frank Fraone, a California fire chief who led a 67-man crew at Ground Zero after the collapse of the World Trade Center, says: “That is a pretty distorted view of things. Whether they’re a couple of planes or a couple of missiles, they still did the same damage.” Republican colleague Peter King (R-NY) notes: “New York was attacked by al-Qaeda. It doesn’t have to be attacked by Congress.… I’m really surprised by Darrell Issa. It showed such a cavalier dismissal of what happened to New York. It’s wrong and inexcusable.” 9/11 victim’s relative Lorie Van Auken calls Issa’s comments “cruel and heartless.” She adds: “It’s really discouraging. People stepped up and did the right thing. They sacrificed themselves and now a lot of people are getting really horrible illnesses.”
Partial Withdrawal - Issa withdraws some of his earlier statements, now saying, “I want to make clear that I strongly support help for victims who suffered physical injury as a result of an attack on America, including support from Congress and the federal government.” Yet he refuses to withdraw his comments that the 9/11 attacks were little more than unremarkable plane crashes unworthy of any federal financial response. He now says that he only “asked tough questions about the expenditures.” Health officials estimate that it could cost up to $1 billion to properly care for survivors of 9/11 suffering from physical and emotional disabilities. A new bill to fund that care is being prepared for House debate. [New York Daily News, 4/3/2008; New York Post, 4/3/2008] A New York Daily News op-ed accuses Issa of “demeaning 9/11” and calls his remarks “callous in the extreme.” [New York Daily News, 4/3/2008]
Entity Tags: Lorie Van Auken, Peter T. King, Frank Fraone, Darrell E. Issa
April 3, 2008: Congressmen Ask Attorney General Mukasey to Explain Pre-9/11 Hijacker Intercept Comments
A group of congressmen led by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) asks for an explanation of a recent statement by Attorney General Michael Mukasey about a pre-9/11 NSA intercept of a call to the 9/11 hijackers in the US (see March 27, 2008 and March 29, 2008). The group calls Mukasey’s statement “disturbing” and says it “appears to suggest a fundamental misunderstanding of the federal government’s existing surveillance authority to combat terrorism, as well as possible malfeasance by the government prior to 9/11.” Mukasey had implied that the law prior to 9/11 did not allow the call to be traced, but the congressmen state: “[I]f the administration had known of such communications from suspected terrorists, they could and should have been intercepted based on existing FISA law.… [A]s of 9/11 FISA specifically authorized such surveillance on an emergency basis without a warrant for a 48 hour period.” They ask Mukasey to clarify his comments. The congressmen also ask about a secret Justice Department memo regarding the president’s powers in wartime in the US (see April 1, 2008). [Raw Story, 4/3/2008]
Entity Tags: John Conyers, Michael Mukasey
Category Tags: Yemen Hub
April 8, 2008: Engineering Journal Publishes Scientific Challenge to Government Account of WTC Destruction
For the first time, a scientific journal publishes a letter by scientists who think the World Trade Center buildings were destroyed by explosives, rather than impact damage and fire. The letter, cautiously entitled “Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction,” is published in the Open Civil Engineering Journal. The lead author is Steven E. Jones, a physicist formerly at Brigham Young University. The abstract says: “Reports by FEMA and NIST lay out the official account of the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001. In this Letter, we wish to set a foundation for productive discussion and understanding by focusing on those areas where we find common ground with FEMA and NIST, while at the same time countering several popular myths about the WTC collapses.” [Open Civil Engineering Journal, 4/8/2008; Deseret News, 5/3/2008] However, unlike the vast majority of journals, the Open Civil Engineering Journal charges authors to publish their articles or letters in it. [Open Civil Engineering Journal, 2007]
Entity Tags: National Institute of Standards and Technology, Steven E. Jones, Federal Emergency Management Agency
Category Tags: WTC Investigation, 9/11 Investigations
April 10, 2008: US Unable to Send More Troops to Afghanistan Due to Commitments in Iraq
The US is unable to find more troops to send to Afghaninstan, due to the war in Iraq. On April 10, 2008, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen tells a Congressional committee: “I’m deeply concerned. In this economy of force operation, we do what we can. Requirements exist that we simply cannot fill and won’t likely be able to fill until conditions improve in Iraq.” The US would like to send 7,000 more troops to Afghanistan to fight the growing Taliban resistance there, but the US is unwilling to divert forces from Iraq due to renewed violence there, and NATO allies remain unwilling to send more troops as well. A study by the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office, a group funded by the European Commission, reports that there were 704 insurgent attacks causing 463 civilian deaths from January through March of 2008, compared with 424 attacks causing 264 civilian deaths during the same months in 2007. US officials privately admit that their estimates are similar. [McClatchy Newspapers, 4/15/2008]
Entity Tags: Michael Mullen
Category Tags: Iraq War Impact on Counterterrorism, Afghanistan
April 10, 2008: Defense Secretary Says US Is Fighting in Afghanistan Today Partly Because of Mistakes Made during 1980s Soviet-Afghan War
Speaking before a public hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says, “We were attacked from Afghanistan in 2001 and we are at war in Afghanistan today in no small measure because of mistakes this government made—mistakes I, among others, made—in the end game of the anti-Soviet war there some 20 years ago.” [US Department of Defense, 4/10/2008]
Entity Tags: Robert M. Gates
Category Tags: Soviet-Afghan War
April 11, 2008: President Bush Admits to Knowing of High-Level Approvals of Torture
President Bush admits he knew about his National Security Council Principals Committee’s discussion and approval of harsh interrogation methods against certain terror suspects (see April 2002 and After). Earlier reports had noted that the Principals—a group of top White House officials led by then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice—had deliberately kept Bush “out of the loop” in order for him to maintain “deniability.” Bush tells a reporter: “Well, we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people. And yes, I’m aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved.” Bush says that the news of those meetings to consider extreme interrogation methods was not “startling.” He admitted as far back as 2006 that such techniques were being used by the CIA (see September 6, 2006). But only now does the news of such direct involvement by Bush’s top officials become public knowledge. The Principals approved the waterboarding of several terror suspects, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (see Shortly After February 29 or March 1, 2003 and March 10, 2007); Bush defends the use of such extreme measures against Mohammed, saying: “We had legal opinions that enabled us to do it. And no, I didn’t have any problem at all trying to find out what Khalid Shaikh Mohammed knew.… I think it’s very important for the American people to understand who Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was. He was the person who ordered the suicide attack—I mean, the 9/11 attacks.” [ABC News, 4/11/2008] Bush’s admission is no surprise. The day before Bush makes his remarks, law professor Jonathan Turley said: “We really don’t have much of a question about the president’s role here. He’s never denied that he was fully informed of these measures. He, in fact, early on in his presidency—he seemed to brag that they were using harsh and tough methods. And I don’t think there’s any doubt that he was aware of this. The doubt is simply whether anybody cares enough to do anything about it.” [MSNBC, 4/10/2008]
Entity Tags: George W. Bush, Central Intelligence Agency, Condoleezza Rice, Jonathan Turley, National Security Council, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed
Timeline Tags: Torture of US Captives, 9/11 Timeline, Civil Liberties
Category Tags: High Value Detainees, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed
April 17, 2008: Al-Zawahiri Posts Audio Replies to Questions, Says Rumor Israel behind 9/11 Started by Iran
Al-Qaeda second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri issues a second set of responses to questions solicited by al-Qaeda in December 2007 (see December 19, 2007 and April 2, 2008). [NEFA Foundation, 4/17/2008 ; Associated Press, 4/22/2008; Associated Press, 4/23/2008] The response comes in a two-hour audio recording posted to an Islamic website and accompanied by the logo of As-Sahab, al-Qaeda’s media arm. Al-Zawahiri’s comments include:
The theory that Israel carried out the September 11 attacks is false and was started by Iran and its proxy Hezbollah, through the Al-Manar television station. “The purpose of this lie is clear—[to suggest] that there are no heroes among the Sunnis who can hurt America as no [one] else did in history. Iranian media snapped up this lie and repeated it,” he says. “Iran’s aim here is also clear—to cover up its involvement with America in invading the homes of Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq.” In recent audio recordings, al-Zawahiri has accused Iran of seeking to extend its power in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and through Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The insurgent umbrella group Islamic Nation of Iraq led by al-Qaeda is “the primary force opposing the crusaders and challenging Iranian ambitions” in Iraq.
In response to a question about whether al-Qaeda plans to attack Western countries involved in Iraq, he replies: “My answer is: Yes! We think that any country that has joined aggression on Muslims must be deterred.”
This includes Japan, which pulled its non-combat troops out of Iraq in 2006, because “Japan provided help under the banner of the crusader coalition… therefore it participated in the crusader campaign against the lands of Islam.”
Global warming reflects “how criminal, brutal, and greedy the Western crusader world is, with America at the top.” However, global warming will “make the world more sympathetic to and understanding of the Muslims’ jihad against the aggressor America.”
There are no women in al-Qaeda, although “the women of the mujaheddin are playing a heroic role in taking care of their houses and sons.”
The Taliban have taken over 95 percent of Afghanistan and are sweeping Pakistan as well. “The crusaders and their agents in Pakistan and Afghanistan are starting to fall,” al-Zawahiri adds.
It is against Islamic religious law for any Muslim to live permanently in a Western country because in doing so they would “have permanent stay there under the laws of the infidels.” [Associated Press, 4/22/2008; Associated Press, 4/23/2008]
Al-Zawahiri also singles out some countries for threats, such as Denmark, saying: “Denmark has done her utmost to demonstrate her hostility towards the Muslims by repeatedly dishonoring our Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him salvation. I admonish and incite every Muslim who is able to do so to cause damage to Denmark in order to show your support for our Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him salvation, and to defend his esteemed honor.” [NEFA Foundation, 4/17/2008 ] Al-Qaeda will attack the Danish embassy in Pakistan six weeks later. [Jyllands-Posten, 6/2/2008]
Entity Tags: As-Sahab, Al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri
April 17, 2008: Iranian President Ahmadinejad Casts Doubt on 9/11 Official Story
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declares: “Four or five years ago, a suspicious event occurred in New York. A building collapsed and they said that 3,000 people had been killed but never published their names.… Under this pretext, [the US] attacked Afghanistan and Iraq and since then, a million people have been killed only in Iraq.” [Ha'aretz, 4/17/2008]
Entity Tags: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
April 17, 2008: Former Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Says 9/11 Attacks and Iraq War Good for Israel
Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells an audience at Bar Ilan university in Israel that the 9/11 attacks were beneficial for Israel. “We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq. […] [The attacks] swung American public opinion in our favor.” [Ha'aretz, 4/17/2008]
Entity Tags: Benjamin Netanyahu
Category Tags: Iraq War Impact on Counterterrorism, Israel
April 18, 2008: Al-Zawahiri Said to Mark Fifth Anniversary of Iraq Invasion with New Tape
A man thought to be al-Qaeda’s second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri releases a 16-minute audio tape around five years after the US and others invaded Iraq. The man calls on Islamist fighters to turn Iraq into a “fortress of Islam,” and says the establishment of a greater Islamic state is “the most important” duty of every Muslim. The tape contains references to recent events—testimony by US General David Petraeus to Congress and a strike by textile workers in Egypt. The man is also critical of Iran for siding with the US against Sunni Arabs in Iraq. [Guardian, 4/18/2008]
Entity Tags: Ayman al-Zawahiri
April 21, 2008: Indonesia Finally Declares Jemaah Islamiyah an Illegal Organization
An Indonesian court officially declares Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) an illegal organization. JI is believed to be al-Qaeda’s main affiliate in Southeast Asia. The Indonesian government had previously refused to ban JI, even though it supported a United Nations ban on JI shortly after the 2002 Bali bombings (see October 12, 2002 and October 24, 2002). This court decision takes place during a trial of two high-ranking JI leaders, Zarkasih and Abu Dujana, both of whom were arrested the year before. Both are sentenced to 15 years in prison for supporting terrorist activities. Counterterrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna calls the decision “a huge victory against terrorism.” He adds: “This will have a direct impact on the leadership of JI, the most lethal terrorist group in Southeast Asia. Unless a terrorist was about to commit an attack, or had committed an attack, the Indonesian police couldn’t arrest them. Today if anyone is distributing propaganda and that person is linked to JI, that person can be arrested.” [Sydney Morning Herald, 4/22/2008]
Entity Tags: Zarkasih, Jemaah Islamiyah, Abu Dujana, Rohan Gunaratna
Category Tags: Al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia, 2002 Bali Bombings
April 27, 2008: Afghan President Karzai Survives Assassination Attempt; Pakistani ISI Blamed
Hamid Karzai on parade, April 27, 2008. [Source: massoud_hossaini_afp_getty]On April 27, 2008, there is an attempted assassination of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, as assailants fire guns and mortars towards him, scores of senior officials, and foreign diplomats during a military parade in downtown Kabul. Karzai escapes unharmed, but three Afghans are killed, including a member of parliament. Two months later, Afghanistan’s intelligence agency accuses the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence agency, of organizing the assassination. The agency claims that phone calls from the cell phones of those arrested show a Pakistan link. Investigators suspect one assassin tried to call his supervisor in Pakistan from a nearby hotel to ask for instructions because he could not get a clear shot at Karzai from the hotel window. Investigators believe Jalaluddin Haqqani, a Taliban leader based in the Pakistani tribal region of Waziristan with long-time ISI ties, instigated the plot. Karzai’s spokesman makes the same accusation against the ISI more obliquely, “Evidence shows the hallmark of a particular foreign intelligence agency which we believe was behind this attack.” [Agence France-Presse, 6/25/2008; Washington Post, 6/27/2008]
Entity Tags: Hamid Karzai, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Jalaluddin Haqqani, National Directorate of Security (Afghanistan)
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, Afghanistan
May 2008: US Intelligence Allegedly Hears Head of Pakistani Military Call Taliban Leader ‘Strategic Asset’
According to a later book by New York Times reporter David Sanger, in May 2008, US intelligence records General Ashfaq Kayani, head of Pakistan’s military, referring to militant leader Jalaluddin Haqqani as “a strategic asset.” Haqqani heads a group of militants in Waziristan, in Pakistan’s tribal region, that is known as the Haqqani network. It is considered a semi-independent branch of the Taliban. The surveillance was ordered to confirm suspicions that the Pakistani military is still secretly supporting the Taliban, even though the US gives aid to help fight the Taliban. The transcript of Kayani’s comments is passed to Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell. US intelligence will later intercept calls from Pakistani military units to Haqqani, warning him of an imminent Pakistani military operation in the tribal region designed to make it appear to the US that Pakistan is taking action against militant groups. An unnamed source will later explain, “It was something like, ‘Hey, we’re going to hit your place in a few days, so if anyone important is there, you might want to tell them to scram.’” Further US surveillance will reveal a plot between the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence agency, and Haqqani to bomb the Indian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan (see July 7, 2008). Pakistani officials deny they are supporting Haqqani. [London Times, 2/17/2009] An unnamed senior Pakistani intelligence official also called Haqqani an asset in 2006 (see 2006).
Entity Tags: Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Taliban, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Haqqani Network, Jalaluddin Haqqani, Mike McConnell, US intelligence
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, 2008 Kabul Indian Embassy Bombing
May 1, 2008: US Missile Strike Kills Al-Qaeda-Linked Leader in Somalia
Aden Hashi Ayro. [Source: Intelcenter / Associated Press]A US missile strike kills Aden Hashi Ayro, the alleged head of al-Qaeda’s operations in Somalia. Ayro and up to ten others are killed in the region of Dusamareeb, an area a few hundred miles north of the capital of Mogadishu. The strike is said to be the fifth US attack in Somalia since Ethiopia invaded Somalia in December 2006 with US support (see December 24, 2006-January 2007). Ayro is said to have attended an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in the late 1990s. Then he returned to Somalia in 2003 and quickly rose up the ranks of al-Shabab, the military arm of the Islamic Court Union. He is said to be in charge of al-Qaeda’s operations there, although he is not a formal member of al-Qaeda. He was reportedly behind the scattered deaths of some foreigners in Somalia between 2003 and 2005. But despite this death, in recent months militant groups such as al-Shabab have been gaining ground against Somalia’s weak transitional government and the occupying Ethiopian troops keeping it in power. [Washington Post, 5/1/2008; Time, 5/2/2008]
Entity Tags: Shabab, Islamic Courts Union, Aden Hashi Ayro
Category Tags: Key Captures and Deaths
May 3, 2008: Demolition of WTC Building 7 Suggests Official Complicity, Says Arizona State Senator
Karen S. Johnson. [Source: Publicity photo]Arizona state senator Karen S. Johnson, a Republican, says she suspects a government conspiracy and calls for a new investigation into 9/11. Calling attention to the unexplained collapse of WTC Building 7, she writes: “Why, for example, did Building 7 collapse? It wasn’t hit by a plane, as the towers were. The 9/11 Commission Report completely ignores Building 7. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) report discounts fire as a cause and concludes that the reasons for the collapse of Building 7 are unknown and require further research. But when FEMA issued this report, it already cleared the site and disposed of the dust and steel (evidence from a crime scene), thus possibly committing a felony and complicating any ‘further research.’ The National Institute of Standards and Technology, a federal agency, which evaluated the collapse of the towers, has yet to issue its report on Building 7. ‘We’ve had trouble getting a handle on Building 7,’ said the acting director of their Building and Fire Research Lab. Yet a number of private-sector engineers, architects, and demolition experts have not had that problem. They think Building 7 came down by controlled demolition. The building collapsed suddenly, straight down, at nearly free-fall speed. People heard the explosions, and saw the squibs and the characteristic billowing clouds of pulverized concrete so unique to demolitions. There is no reason to think that Building 7 came down for any other reason than explosive demolition.” [Arizona Republic, 5/3/2008]
Entity Tags: Karen S. Johnson
May 4, 2008: All USS Cole Bombing Suspects in Yemen Remain Free
A front-page Washington Post story reveals that, eight years after al-Qaeda bombed the USS Cole just off the coast of Yemen and killed 17 US soldiers (see October 12, 2000), “all the defendants convicted in the attack have escaped from prison or been freed by Yemeni officials.”
Two Key Suspects Keep Slipping from Yemeni Prisons - For instance, Jamal al-Badawi, a Yemeni and key organizer of the bombing, broke out of Yemeni prisons twice and then was secretly released in 2007 (see April 11, 2003-March 2004, February 3, 2006 and October 17-29, 2007). The Yemeni government jailed him again after the US threatened to cut aid to the country, but apparently he continues to freely come and go from his prison cell. US officials have demanded the right to perform random inspections to make sure he stays jailed. Another key Cole suspect, Fahad al-Quso, also escaped from a Yemeni prison and then was secretly released in 2007 (see May 2007). Yemen has refused to extradite al-Badawi and al-Quso to the US, where they have been indicted for the Cole bombing. FBI Director Robert Mueller flew to Yemen in April 2008 to personally appeal to Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh to extradite the two men. However, Saleh has refused, citing a constitutional ban on extraditing its citizens. Other Cole suspects have been freed after short prison terms in Yemen, and at least two went on to commit suicide attacks in Iraq.
US Unwilling to Try Two Suspects in Its Custody - Two more key suspects, Khallad bin Attash and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, were captured by US forces and have been transferred to the US-run Guantanamo prison. Al-Nashiri is considered the mastermind of the Cole bombing, but the US made the decision not to indict either of them because pending criminal charges could have forced the CIA or the Pentagon to give up custody of the men. Al-Quso, bin Attash, and al-Nashiri all attended a key 2000 al-Qaeda summit in Malaysia where the 9/11 attacks were discussed (see January 5-8, 2000).
'The Forgotten Attack' - A week after the Cole bombing, President Bill Clinton vowed to hunt down the plotters and promised, “Justice will prevail.” But less than a month after the bombing, George W. Bush was elected president. Roger Cressey, a former counterterrorism official in the Clinton and Bush administrations who helped oversee the White House’s response to the Cole bombing, says, “During the first part of the Bush administration, no one was willing to take ownership of this. It didn’t happen on their watch. It was the forgotten attack.”
'Back to Square One' - Former FBI agent Ali Soufan, a lead investigator into the bombing, complains, “After we worked day and night to bring justice to the victims and prove that these Qaeda operatives were responsible, we’re back to square one. Do they have laws over there or not? It’s really frustrating what’s happening.” The Post comments, “Basic questions remain about which individuals and countries played a role in the assault on the Cole.”
Possible Government Complicity - One anonymous senior Yemeni official tells the Post that al-Badawi and other al-Qaeda members have had a long relationship with Yemen’s intelligence agencies and have targeted political opponents in the past. For instance, in 2006, an al-Qaeda suicide attack in Yemen came just days before elections there, and Saleh tried to link one of the figures involved to the opposition party, helping Saleh win reelection (see September 15, 2006). Furthermore, there is evidence that figures within the Yemeni government were involved in the Cole bombing (see After October 12, 2000), and that the government also protected key bombers such as al-Nashiri in the months before and after the bombings (see April 2000 and Shortly After October 12, 2000).
Bush Unwilling to Meet with Victims' Relatives - Relatives of the soldiers killed in the bombing have attempted to meet with President Bush to press for more action, to no avail. John P. Clodtfelter Jr., whose son died on the Cole, says, “I was just flat told that he wouldn’t meet with us. Before him, President Clinton promised we’d go out and get these people, and of course we never did. I’m sorry, but it’s just like the lives of American servicemen aren’t that important.” [Washington Post, 5/4/2008]
Entity Tags: John P. Clodtfelter Jr., Ali Soufan, Ali Abdallah Saleh, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Fahad al-Quso, Jamal al-Badawi, William Jefferson (“Bill”) Clinton, Yemen, Khallad bin Attash, Roger Cressey, Robert S. Mueller III, George W. Bush
Category Tags: 2000 USS Cole Bombing, Yemeni Militant Collusion, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11
May 13, 2008: Alleged ‘20th Hijacker’ Will Not Be Charged by Military Tribunal for Role in 9/11 Attacks
The US military dismisses charges against Mohammed al-Khatani. In February 2008, al-Khatani was part of a small group of detainees held at the Guantanamo prison charged before a military tribunal with involvement in the 9/11 attacks (see February 11, 2008). Al-Khatani is said to be the would-be “20th hijacker” who was refused entry to the US in August 2001 (see August 4, 2001). However, he was later captured and subjected to months of torture at Guantanamo (see August 8, 2002-January 15, 2003). The Pentagon official who announces the dismissal of charges against him, Convening Authority Susan Crawford, gives no explanation. The charges are dismissed “without prejudice,” which means they could be reinstated at any time. However, many believe that the charges against him are dismissed because of the torture he underwent, as well as the fact that he appears to have only been a unsuccessful low-level figure in the plot. [New York Times, 5/14/2008] In 2006, MSNBC predicted that he would never face trial due to the way he was tortured (see October 26, 2006). However, he still remains imprisoned at Guantanamo. In January 2009, Crawford will confirm that she dismissed the case against al-Khatani because he was indeed tortured (see January 14, 2009). She will say that the treatment suffered by al-Khatani “did shock me,” and will continue: “I was upset by it. I was embarrassed by it. If we tolerate this and allow it, then how can we object when our servicemen and women, or others in foreign service, are captured and subjected to the same techniques? How can we complain? Where is our moral authority to complain? Well, we may have lost it.” Crawford will lay much of the blame for al-Khatani being tortured at the feet of then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. “A lot of this happened on his watch,” she will say. [Washington Post, 1/14/2009]
Entity Tags: Donald Rumsfeld, Mohamed al-Khatani, Susan Crawford
Category Tags: High Value Detainees, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics
May 13, 2008: Bush Says Electing a Democrat as President May Lead to Another 9/11 Attack
President Bush says that the election of a Democrat in 2008 might lead to another 9/11-like attack on the US. Reporter Mike Allen asks: “I wonder if you—various people and various candidates talk about pulling out next year. If we were to pull out of Iraq next year, what’s the worst that could happen, what’s the doomsday scenario?” Bush replies, “Doomsday scenario of course is that extremists throughout the Middle East would be emboldened, which would eventually lead to another attack on the United States.” After making this statement, Bush repeats several statements that he has been making for years: Iraq “just happens to be” part of the global war on terror, Iraq “is the place where al-Qaeda and other extremists have made their stand,” and terrorists “can’t stand to live in a free society, that’s why they try to fight free societies.” [Associated Press, 5/13/2008] MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann calls Bush’s claim “ludicrous, infuriating, holier-than-thou and… bone-headedly wrong,” and says, “Terrorism inside Iraq is your creation, Mr. Bush.” [MSNBC, 5/14/2008]
Entity Tags: Mike Allen, Al-Qaeda, George W. Bush, Keith Olbermann
May 14, 2008: Predator Strike Kills Al-Qaeda Leader in Pakistan’s Tribal Region
Damadola Strike in May 2008. [Source: Mohammed Sajjad Associated Press]A missile fired from a US Predator drone reportedly kills al-Qaeda leader Abu Suleiman al-Jazairi. He and 15 others are killed in the strike on a house in the village of Damadola in Pakistan’s tribal region. The house is said to belong to former Taliban defense minister Maulvi Obaidullah, and members of Obaidullah’s family, including women and children, are thought to be among the dead. Al-Jazairi is said to be a trainer and explosives expert, and involved in planning attacks in Europe. Damadola has been hit by drones twice before (see January 13, 2006 and October 30, 2006). Al-Jazairi was little known in the media prior to the strike. [New York Times, 5/16/2008; Observer, 6/1/2008] Obaidullah apparently is not killed. He had been imprisoned in Pakistan since 2003, and had been released several days before as part of a swap for Pakistani Ambassador to Afghanistan Tariq Azizuddin, who had been kidnapped in February. [PAN, 5/20/2008]
Entity Tags: Tariq Azizuddin, Maulvi Obaidullah, Abu Suleiman al-Jazairi
Category Tags: Key Captures and Deaths, Pakistan and the ISI, Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, Drone Use in Pakistan / Afghanistan, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11
May 16, 2008: Bin Laden Possibly Releases Audio Message about Palestine
A new audio message is released by a man thought to be Osama bin Laden. In the message, which lasts about nine minutes and is posted to a website commonly used by al-Qaeda, the speaker calls on Muslims to continue the fight to liberate Palestinian land. The speaker pledges to continue fighting the Israelis and not give up “a single inch of Palestine,” adding that the Palestinian cause is the most important factor driving al-Qaeda’s war with the West. The tape’s release comes around the time of Israel’s 60th anniversary, when US President Bush is in Israel to attend the anniversary celebrations [BBC, 5/16/2008]
May 18, 2008: Bin Laden Possibly Releases Message about Israel and Gaza
A man thought to be Osama bin Laden releases an audio tape calling on Muslim fighters to help end the Israeli blockade of Gaza. In the tape, released by posting on the Internet, the speaker says it is the duty of every Muslim to fight the “oppressive closure.” The tape is released two days after the previous one (see May 16, 2008), on the day US President Bush ends a visit to the Middle East. [Sky News, 5/18/2008]
June 4, 2008: Al-Zawahiri Releases New Audio Tape Marking Anniversary of Six-Day War
Al-Qaeda second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri releases a new audio tape criticizing his native Egypt for not opening up its border to Palestinians. The 11-minute tape is released by posting to the Internet to mark the 41st anniversary of the Six-Day War between Israel and some of its Arab neighbors. “The brother from Gaza is refused entry [by Egypt], while an Israeli tourist is allowed to enter without a visa,” says al-Zawahiri, calling for an end to Israel’s economic blockade of the Gaza Strip. He also terms Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his troops “criminal traitors” for perpetuating the siege of Gaza. “Salvation of the Muslim nation is through the march of its sons on the path of jihad,” he adds. [Al Jazeera, 5/5/2008]
June 6, 2008: Reporter: Afghanistan, Pakistani Terrorism ‘Far More Serious Threat[s] for US National Security than Iraq’
In a panel discussion hosted by PBS’s Bill Moyers, journalist Jonathan Landay, discussing the US war in Afghanistan, notes that the vast majority of media coverage has been granted to the Iraq occupation. The war in Afghanistan is largely forgotten by the media, or merely rolled into Iraq coverage. Landay notes that Afghanistan is “a far more serious threat for US national security than Iraq is.” Similarly, the media rarely reports on the dire terrorist threats centered in the tribal areas of Pakistan. “[T]his is a black hole virtually which the United States is deeply involved in that we don’t see a lot of meaningful, I mean, in-depth coverage of,” he says. [PBS, 6/6/2008]
Entity Tags: Public Broadcasting System, Bill Moyers, Jonathan Landay
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Afghanistan, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics
June 22, 2008: Article: Pakistani Border Forces Helping Taliban Attack US Troops in Afghanistan
Members of the Frontier Corps near Shakai, in the region of South Waziristan, in August 2004. [Source: Kamran Wazir / Reuters / Corbis]The British newspaper The Observer reports that the Frontier Corps, a Pakistani government paramilitary force operating in Pakistan’s tribal regions near the border with Afghanistan, sometimes join in attacks on US-led forces in Afghanistan. The article alleges there are “box loads” of after-action reports compiled after armed clashes near the border, detailing the Frontier Corps working with the Taliban and other allied militants. Some attacks are launched so close to Frontier Corps outposts that Pakistani cooperation with the Taliban is assumed. There has been a dramatic increase in cross-border incidents compared to the same time the year before. An anonymous US official says: “The United States and NATO have substantial information on this problem. It’s taking place at a variety of places along the border with the Frontier Corps giving direct and indirect assistance. I’m not saying it is everyone. There are some parts that have been quite helpful… but if you have seen the after-action reports of their involvement in attacks along the Afghan border you would appreciate the problem.” The US government continues to downplay such incidents, worried about its relationship with the Pakistani government. A NATO spokesman says: “The real concern is that the extremists in Pakistan are getting safe havens to rest, recuperate and retool in Pakistan and come across the border. The concerns have been conveyed to the Pakistan authorities.” [Observer, 6/22/2008]
Entity Tags: Frontier Corps, Taliban
Late June 2008: US Intelligence Allegedly Discovers ISI and Taliban Faction Are Planning Spectacular Bombing in Afghanistan
US intelligence allegedly discovers that the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence agency, and a faction of the Taliban are planning a spectacular bombing somewhere in Afghanistan. US intelligence is intercepting Pakistani government communications in an attempt to find out if the Pakistani government is still supporting militants fights US soldiers in Afghanistan. Communications intercepts already revealed an active link between the Pakistani government and the Haqqani network, a semi-autonomous branch of the Taliban headed by Jalaluddin Haqqani (see May 2008). According to a later book by New York Times reporter David Sanger, new intercepts at this time show that the ISI is working to carry out a spectacular bombing in Afghanistan. But apparently, the exact target is not known. Two weeks later, the Indian Embassy in Kabul will be bombed (see July 7, 2008). Afterwards, the US will accuse the ISI and the Haqqani network of plotting the bombing, mostly based on these intercepts from before the bombing (see July 28, 2008 and August 1, 2008). [London Times, 2/17/2009]
Entity Tags: Jalaluddin Haqqani, Haqqani Network, Taliban, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, US intelligence
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, 2008 Kabul Indian Embassy Bombing, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11
June 28, 2008: Justice Department’s Investigation of CIA’s Destruction of Torture Videotapes Is Proceeding Slowly
Newsweek reports that the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into the CIA’s destruction of video of the torture of al-Qaeda leaders Abu Zubaida and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri is continuing, but proceeding slowly. Federal prosecutor John Durham has recently filed a federal court affidavit that states he is examining whether anyone “obstructed justice, made false statements, or acted in contempt of court or Congress in connection with the destruction of the videotapes.” He is specifically attempting to determine if the destruction violated any judge’s order. But progress is slow, and the investigation is likely to take six months or more, which means any criminal charges will probably come after the November 2008 presidential elections. Two sources close to former intelligence officials who are potential key witnesses in the case say these officials have not been summoned to give grand jury testimony. One of them has not even been questioned by the FBI yet. [Newsweek, 6/28/2008] Attorney General Michael Mukasey appointed Durham to head the investigation in January 2008 (see January 2, 2008).
Entity Tags: John Durham, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Central Intelligence Agency, US Department of Justice, Abu Zubaida
Category Tags: Destruction of CIA Tapes
June 30, 2008: Al-Nashiri to Be Tried at Military Tribunal for Cole Bombing, Could Be Sentenced to Death
The Defense Department announces that it is charging al-Qaeda leader Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri with “organizing and directing” the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000 (see October 12, 2000) and will seek the death penalty. Al-Nashiri was captured in 2002 (see Early October 2002), held and tortured in secret CIA prisons until 2006 (see (November 2002)), and then transferred to Defense Department custody at the Guantanamo prison (see September 2-3, 2006). He will be tried there in a military tribunal. Al-Nashiri told a hearing at Guantanamo in 2007 that he confessed a role in the Cole bombing, but only because he was tortured by US interrogators (see March 10-April 15, 2007). CIA Director Michael Hayden has conceded that al-Nashiri was subjected to waterboarding. [Associated Press, 6/30/2008] Khallad bin Attash, who is being held at Guantanamo with al-Nashiri and other al-Qaeda leaders, allegedly had a major role in the Cole bombing, but he is not charged. Presumably this is because he has already been charged for a role in the 9/11 attacks.
Entity Tags: Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Khallad bin Attash, US Department of Defense
Category Tags: 2000 USS Cole Bombing, High Value Detainees
June 30, 2008: New York Times: US Policy Fight Al-Qaeda’s Pakistan Safe Haven Is ‘Drifting,’ Plagued by Mistakes and Lack of Strategy
The New York Times publishes a long front-page analysis of the policy disputes and mistakes that have bogged down US efforts to combat al-Qaeda’s safe haven in Pakistan’s tribal region. The article reveals that the US effort has often been “undermined by bitter disagreements within the Bush administration and within the CIA, including about whether American commandos should launch ground raids inside the tribal areas.… [B]y most accounts, the administration failed to develop a comprehensive plan to address the militant problem there, and never resolved the disagreements between warring agencies that undermined efforts to fashion any coherent strategy.” Richard Armitage, deputy secretary of state for President Bush’s first term and the administration’s point person for Pakistan, says, “We’re just kind of drifting.” Pakistan’s policy as led by President Pervez Musharraf has also been adrift and/or ineffective: “Western military officials say Mr. Musharraf was instead often distracted by his own political problems, and effectively allowed militants to regroup by brokering peace agreements with them.” The Times concludes, “Just as it had on the day before 9/11, al-Qaeda now has a band of terrorist camps from which to plan and train for attacks against Western targets, including the United States.” The camps are smaller than the ones used prior to 9/11, but one retired CIA officer estimates that as many as 2,000 militants train in them at any given time, up from several hundred in 2005. “Leading terrorism experts have warned that it is only a matter of time before a major terrorist attack planned in the mountains of Pakistan is carried out on American soil.” [New York Times, 6/30/2008]
Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Richard Armitage, Pervez Musharraf, Bush administration (43)
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics
July 1, 2008: Polish Intelligence Warns Taliban Plan to Attack Indian Embassy in Kabul
Polish intelligence warns India and the US that the Taliban are likely to attack the Indian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. The embassy will be bombed one week later, killing 54 (see July 7, 2008). The document giving the warning is entitled, “Threat Report… Threat to Indian Embassy.” It is based on information received one day earlier. It states, “Taliban are planning to carry out an attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul.” It goes on to describe how a suicide bomber plans to use a stolen Afghan government car and stolen uniform to get past security. The document will be publicly leaked in 2010 as part of a massive WikiLeaks release of US documents relating to the US war in Afghanistan. [Press Trust of India, 7/27/2010] It is unclear how or where Polish intelligence got this information. US intelligence apparently learns around this time that the Taliban and ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence agency, are planning a spectacular bombing somewhere in Afghanistan (see Late June 2008). However, it appears that India acts on at least one of the warnings, because the Indian ambassador to Afghanistan will later say that India took extra security measures in the weeks before the bombings because “we were expecting trouble.” Most importantly, sand-filled blast barriers are placed around the main embassy building. That, plus the quick action of security guards, will prevent the bomber from getting closer to the building, and thus reduce the number of lives lost. [Associated Press, 7/9/2008]
Entity Tags: Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Taliban, Poland
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, 2008 Kabul Indian Embassy Bombing, Afghanistan, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11
July 1, 2008: CIA Veteran Challenges Claim that Harsh Interrogations Have ‘Saved Thousands of Americans’
Milt Bearden, a retired 30-year CIA veteran who served as senior manager for clandestine operations, writes: “The [Bush] administration’s claims of having ‘saved thousands of Americans’ can be dismissed out of hand because credible evidence has never been offered—not even an authoritative leak of any major terrorist operation interdicted based on information gathered from these interrogations in the past seven years. All the public gets is repeated references to Jose Padilla (see June 10, 2002), the Lackawanna Six (see April-August 2001), the Liberty Seven (see June 23, 2006), and the Library Tower operation in Los Angeles (see October 2001-February 2002). If those slapstick episodes are the true character of the threat, then maybe we’ll be okay after all. When challenged on the lack of a game-changing example of a derailed operation, administration officials usually say that the need to protect sources and methods prevents revealing just how enhanced interrogation techniques have saved so many thousands of Americans. But it is irresponsible for any administration not to tell a credible story that would convince critics at home and abroad that this torture has served some useful purpose.” Bearden suggests that the CIA might have been permanently “broken” by its use of torture, and that some US officials will likely face the threat of being arrested overseas on torture charges for years to come. [Washington Independent, 7/1/2008]
Entity Tags: Milt Bearden, Central Intelligence Agency
July 7, 2008: Suicide Bombing on Indian Embassy in Kabul Kills 54; Afghan and Indian Governments Blame ISI and Taliban
A suicide bombing at the Indian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, kills 54 people and injures 140 others. The main target appears to be a diplomatic convoy that had just entered the embassy gate, directly followed by the suicide truck. Among the dead are two senior Indian diplomats, including the military attaché, Brigadier Ravi Mehta. Many of those killed are people standing in line waiting for visas. [London Times, 8/3/2008] The Indian government received at least one warning about an attack on the embassy, and it took extra security precautions that helped reduce the loss of lives (see July 1, 2008). The Afghan interior ministry quickly asserts that the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence agency, helped the Taliban with the attack. A presidential spokesman states at a news conference, “The sophistication of this attack and the kind of material that was used in it, the specific targeting, everything has the hallmarks of a particular intelligence agency that has conducted similar terrorist acts inside Afghanistan in the past.” The Afghan government has asserted that the ISI is responsible for other attacks in Afghanistan, including an attempted assassination of President Hamid Karzai in late April 2008 (see April 27, 2008). The Indian government also quickly blames the ISI and the Taliban. [Financial Times, 7/8/2008; Taipei Times, 7/9/2008] The Taliban deny involvement in the attack, but the New York Times notes that the Taliban usually deny involvement in attacks with a large number of civilian casualties. [New York Times, 7/8/2008] Less than a month later, US intelligence will accuse the ISI of helping a Taliban-linked militant network led by Jalaluddin Haqqani to plan the bombing (see August 1, 2008). President Bush will even directly threaten Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani with serious consequences if another attack is linked to the ISI (see July 28, 2008).
Entity Tags: Ravi Mehta, Jalaluddin Haqqani, Haqqani Network, Taliban, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, 2008 Kabul Indian Embassy Bombing, Afghanistan
July 14, 2008: Pakistani Taliban Impose Strict Islamic Law in Tribal Region of Mohmand
Tehrik-i-Taliban, a group of Pakistani militants linked to the Taliban, declares the imposition of Sharia law (strict Islamic judicial code) in the Mohmand tribal area in Pakistan. Islamic courts have been established in the four regions of Mohmand, and the group has established similar courts already in the adjacent region of Bajaur. [Dawn (Karachi), 7/15/2008]
Entity Tags: Tehrik-i-Taliban
Category Tags: Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region
July 17, 2008: Alleged Female Al-Qaeda Sleeper Agent Arrested in Afghanistan
Aafia Siddique in Afghan custody on July 17, 2008. [Source: Associated Press]Aafia Siddiqui, a female Pakistani neuroscientist and alleged al-Qaeda operative, is arrested by Afghan police in the town of Ghazni, Afghanistan. Police reportedly also find bomb-making instructions, substances in bottles and jars, and papers describing US landmarks. There are conflicting accounts about what happens next:
US Government's Version - The next day, a group of US agents come to visit her, but she is being held unsecured in a room, hiding behind a curtain. One of the US agents puts his rifle down. She allegedly picks up the rifle to shoot at the group. She shoots twice and misses, while a US agent shoots back and hits her at least once. [CNN, 8/4/2008; Reuters, 8/5/2008]
Afghan Police Version - According to Reuters, “Afghan police in Ghazni however, [tell] a different story.” They claim that they find Siddiqui in Ghazni after reports of her behaving suspiciously. They find maps of the town, including one of the governor’s house, and arrest her and a teenage boy. US troops then request that she be handed over to them, but Afghan police refuse, according to a senior police officer there. US soldiers then disarm the Afghan police at which point Siddiqui approaches the US soldiers complaining of mistreatment by the police. The US soldiers, under the impression that she could have explosives and would attack them as a suicide bomber, shoot her and take her away. The boy remains in Afghan police custody. [Reuters, 8/5/2008]
She is extradited to the US a couple of weeks later, where she is due to stand trial for attempting to murder the US agents. Siddiqui had lived and studied in the US for many years. She was in Pakistan in March 2003 when it was announced that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed had been arrested. She disappeared several days later (see Late September 2001-March 2003). The FBI issued an alert for her arrest, alleging that she had been an al-Qaeda sleeper agent in the US. There has been speculation that she had been secretly arrested by the US or Pakistan, and what happened to her since 2003 still remains a mystery. [CNN, 8/4/2008]
Entity Tags: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Aafia Siddiqui
Category Tags: Afghanistan, Key Captures and Deaths
July 25, 2008: Al-Qaeda Linked Suicide Bombing in Yemen Kills Four
Ahmed al-Mashjari (right) with unidentified associate, in propaganda video. [Source: Public domain]A suicide bomber named Ahmed al-Mashjari crashes a van full of explosives into a government security headquarters in the eastern province of Hadramaut in Yemen. Four are killed, including a Yemeni soldier. The al-Qaeda affiliate Soldiers of Yemen Brigades takes credit for the bombing, calling al-Mashjari a “heroic martyr.” The Yemeni government is said to have a tacit agreement whereby al-Qaeda operatives are left alone and in return they do not attack targets within Yemen. But Nadia al-Sakkaf, editor of the Yemen Times, says: “There was a deal [with the jihadis] but it’s not working any more. Now there are just fanatics who want to be hired by al-Qaeda, people who have come back from Iraq or Afghanistan and have no skills, who are not integrated into society and have no education. They are brainwashed. Jihad is all they know.” [Yemen News Agency, 7/27/2008; Guardian, 7/30/2008]
Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Ahmed al-Mashjari
Category Tags: Yemeni Militant Collusion, Alleged Al-Qaeda Linked Attacks
July 28, 2008: US Drone Strike Kills Al-Qaeda Leader Midhat Mursi in Pakistan’s Tribal Region
A US drone strike kills al-Qaeda leader Midhat Mursi (a.k.a. Abu Khabab al-Masri). He is one of six people killed in the strike on a compound in South Waziristan, in Pakistan’s tribal region. Mursi, an Egyptian, was considered a poisons and explosives expert, and was accused of training the suicide bombers in the 2000 USS Cole bombing. He also is believed to have run the Darunta training camp in eastern Afghanistan until it was abandoned during the US invasion in late 2001. The US had put a $5 million bounty on him. A statement by al-Qaeda leader Mustafa Abu al-Yazid posted on the Internet about a week later will confirm his death. [Associated Press, 8/3/2008]
Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, US Military, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, Midhat Mursi
Category Tags: Key Captures and Deaths, Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, Drone Use in Pakistan / Afghanistan
July 28, 2008: President Bush Privately Accuses ISI of Helping Islamist Militants; Issues Ultimatum
Yousaf Raza Gillani. [Source: Public Domain]Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gillani, visits the US and meets with President George Bush in Washington, D.C. Bush privately confronts Gillani with evidence that the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence agency, has been helping the Taliban and al-Qaeda. US intelligence has long suspected that Pakistan has been playing a “double game,” accepting over a billion dollars of US aid per year meant to help finance Pakistan’s fight with Islamic militants, but at the same time training and funding those militants, who often go on to fight US soldiers in Afghanistan. The London Times reports that Gillani “was left in no doubt that the Bush administration had lost patience with the ISI’s alleged double game.” Bush allegedly warned that if one more attack in Afghanistan or elsewhere were traced back to Pakistan, the US would take “serious action.” The key evidence is that US intelligence claims to have intercepted communications showing that the ISI helped plan a militant attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, earlier in the month (see July 7, 2008). US officials will leak this story of ISI involvement to the New York Times several days after Bush’s meeting with Gillani (see August 1, 2008). Gillani also meets with CIA Director Michael Hayden, who confronts him with a dossier on ISI support for the Taliban. Pakistanis officials will claim they were shocked at the “grilling” they received. One Pakistani official who came to the US with Gillani will say, “They were very hot on the ISI. Very hot. When we asked them for more information, Bush laughed and said, ‘When we share information with your guys, the bad guys always run away’.” When the story of Bush’s confrontation with Gillani is leaked to the press, Pakistani officials categorically deny any link between the ISI and militants in Afghanistan. But senior British intelligence and government officials have also told the Pakistanis in recent days that they are convinced the ISI was involved in the embassy bombing. This is believed to be the first time the US has openly confronted Pakistan since a warning given several days after 9/11 (see September 13-15, 2001). The US is said to be particularly concerned with the ISI’s links to Jalaluddin Haqqani, who runs a militant network that the US believes was involved in the bombing. And the US is worries about links between the ISI and Lashkar-e-Toiba, a Pakistan-based militant group that is said to have been behind a recent attack against US forces in Afghanistan that killed nine. [London Times, 8/3/2008]
Entity Tags: Yousaf Raza Gillani, Jalaluddin Haqqani, Al-Qaeda, George W. Bush, US intelligence, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Taliban, Michael Hayden
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, 2008 Kabul Indian Embassy Bombing, Afghanistan, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics
August 1, 2008: Pakistani Official Admits that Some in ISI Still Support Taliban, then Backtracks
Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s information minister, admits to journalists that the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence agency, still contains pro-Taliban operatives. She says, “We need to identify these people and weed them out.” However, she later changes her statement, claiming that the problems were in the past and there will be no purge. [London Times, 8/3/2008] Her comment comes right as US intelligence accuses the ISI of involvement in a recent bombing of the Indian embassy in Afghanistan (see July 7, 2008 and August 1, 2008).
Entity Tags: Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Sherry Rehman, Taliban
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Afghanistan, 2008 Kabul Indian Embassy Bombing
August 1, 2008: US Intelligence Officials Claim ISI Helped Islamic Militants Bomb Indian Embassy in Afghanistan
The New York Times reports that US intelligence agencies have concluded that the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence agency, helped plan the July 7, 2008, bombing of India’s embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. The attack was initially blamed on al-Qaeda-linked Islamist militants, and 54 people were killed (see July 7, 2008). It is said US intelligence intercepted communications between ISI officers and militants who took part in the attack. The communications were intercepted before the bombing, but apparently were not specific enough to stop the attack. Anonymous US officials would not specifically tell the Times what kind of assistance the ISI gave the bombers. However, it was noted that the ISI officers involved were not renegades, suggesting their actions could have been authorized by superiors. [New York Times, 8/1/2008] The US also claims to have arrested an ISI officer inside Afghanistan, apparently for a role in the attack, but who this person is and what their role exactly allegedly was remains unclear. India and Pakistan have been traditional enemies, and Pakistan is concerned about India’s influence in Afghanistan. Many Western intelligence officials have long suspected that the ISI gets aid from the US and its allies and then uses this support to help the militants the US is fighting. However, solid proof has been hard to find. However, one British official tells the London Times, “The Indian embassy bombing seems to have finally provided it. This is the smoking gun we’ve all been looking for.” [London Times, 8/3/2008] One State Department official similarly says of the bombing evidence, “It confirmed some suspicions that I think were widely held. It was sort of this ‘a-ha’ moment. There was a sense that there was finally direct proof.” US officials believe that the embassy bombing was probably carried out by members of a network led by Jalaluddin Haqqani, who in turn has close alliances with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. US officials also say there is new evidence that ISI officials are increasingly providing militants with details about the US military campaign against them. In some cases, this has allowed militants to avoid US missile strikes in Pakistan. [New York Times, 8/1/2008] Several days before these accusations against the ISI were leaked to the press, British and US officials privately confronted Pakistani officials about the charges. President Bush even directly threatened Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani with serious consequences if another attack were linked to the ISI (see July 28, 2008).
Entity Tags: Jalaluddin Haqqani, US Department of State, US intelligence, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Afghanistan, 2008 Kabul Indian Embassy Bombing, Pakistani ISI Links to 9/11
August 2, 2008: Al-Qaeda Leader Fazul Narrowly Escapes Capture in Kenya
Pages from two passports seized in the raid. Both show pictures of Fazul but have different names. [Source: East African Standard]An al-Qaeda leader named Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, (a.k.a. Haroun Fazul), narrowly escapes capture in Kenya. The US government claims that Fazul had important roles in the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania (see 10:35-10:39 a.m., August 7, 1998) and the 2002 hotel bombing in Mombasa, Kenya (see November 28, 2002). Fazul was indicted for the embassy bombings before 9/11, and there is a $5 million reward for him. On August 2, 2008, Kenyan police raid a house in Malindi, a town on Kenya’s coast. Two passports bearing Fazul’s picture but different names are found, as well as his laptop computer. A Kenyan newspaper reports that a local police officer may have tipped off Fazul about the raid minutes before it took place. A half-eaten meal is discovered in the house, and the television is still on, leading police to believe that he ran out of the house just before they arrived. Three Kenyans are arrested and charged with helping to hide him. He reportedly narrowly escaped a US air strike in Somalia in 2007 (see December 24, 2006-January 2007), as well as a police raid in Kenya in 2003. [CNN, 8/4/2008; East African Standard, 8/5/2008] He will be killed in Somalia in 2011 (see June 10, 2011).
Entity Tags: Fazul Abdullah Mohammed
Category Tags: 1998 US Embassy Bombings, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11
August 4, 2008: Scientific Journal Article Claims Presence of Thermite Could Explain Environmental Anomalies at WTC Ground Zero
Explosives on a chip [Source: Gary Meek/Georgia Institute of Technology]According to an article published in The Environmentalist, a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Springer Netherlands, air quality data collected by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) at Ground Zero support the hypothesis that cutting charges made with thermite were used to demolish the World Trade Center. The article by authors (and 9/11 truth activists) Kevin Ryan, James Gourley, and Steven Jones says the presence of thermite would best explain three major documented anomalies: [Ryan, Gourley, and Jones, 8/4/2008]
1) The Persistence of Fires at Ground Zero - As has been extensively reported, the rubble at Ground Zero continued to burn for months after 9/11, despite rain as well as firefighters’ use of large quantities of water and of the chemical fire suppressant Pyrocool. [New York Times, 11/19/2001] There is also eyewitness and photographic evidence of molten metal (see September 12, 2001-February 2002) and of explosions accompanied by white dust clouds. The book Aftermath: World Trade Center Archive by photographer Joel Meyerowitz shows a picture of such an explosion taking place on November 8, 2001. [Meyerowitz, 2006, pp. 178] Another photography books by NYPD officer John Botte also shows a picture of smoke emerging from the pile at Ground Zero and explains: “Occasionally, a huge flame would shoot out from the middle of the pile, sounding like a blow torch, as it did here.” [Botte, 2006, pp. 48-49]
2) Spikes of Certain Chemicals in the Air - EPA data shows that several spikes of chemical products of combustion, called volatile organic chemicals (VOC), occurred in October and November 2001, and in February 2002. According to the authors, these spikes indicate “abrupt, violent fires.”
3) The Presence of 1,3-Diphenylpropane - A third anomaly was the presence of large quantities of 1,3-diphenylpropane (1,3-DPP) in the air, a chemical that had not been found in previous structure fires. An EPA scientist told Newsday, “We’ve never observed it in any sampling we’ve ever done.” [Newsday, 9/14/2003]
A possible explanation would be the presence of novel “energetic nanocomposites” which include 1,3-DPP, according to scientific articles reviewed by Ryan et al. Such materials are “amenable to spray-on applications.” A 2002 report said: “The energetic coating dries to give a nice adherent film. Preliminary experiments indicate that films of the hybrid material are self-propagating when ignited by thermal stimulus.” [Ryan, Gourley, and Jones, 8/4/2008] The main center for nanocomposites research is Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). An October 2000 article in a LLNL publication provided an introduction to the research conducted there: “Energetic nanocomposites have a fuel component and an oxidizer component mixed together. […] In one such material (termed a thermite pyrotechnic), iron oxide gel reacts with metallic aluminum particles to release an enormous amount of heat. ‘These reactions typically produce temperatures in excess of 3,500 degrees Celsius’ says [LLNL researcher Randy] Simpson.” [Science & Technology Review, 10/2000] The authors conclude that “[t]he presence of energetic materials, specifically energetic nanocomposites, at [Ground Zero], has the potential to explain much of the unusual environmental data seen at the WTC. Thermite […] is such a pyrotechnic mixture that cannot be easily extinguished and is a common component of energetic nanocomposites.… [T]he detection of 1,3-DPP at the WTC supports this hypothesis. Finally, the spikes in VOCs, detected by EPA on specific dates, are more readily explained as a result of short-lived, violent fires caused by energetic materials.” [Ryan, Gourley, and Jones, 8/4/2008]
Entity Tags: Steven E. Jones, James R. Gourley, Environmental Protection Agency, Kevin Ryan
August 10, 2008: Al-Zawahiri Releases New Audio Message in English
Al-Qaeda second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri releases a new audio tape about Pakistan on which he speaks English. This is the first recording he has released in English, a language al-Zawahiri says he chose because he wants to speak directly to the Pakistani people, but cannot speak Urdu, the predominant language there. The message, produced by al-Qaeda’s media arm As-Sahab, is aired by the ARY One World news network, but is apparently not made available anywhere else on the Internet. On the tape, al-Zawahiri lists a series of grievances he has against the Pakistani government and US involvement there, as well as relating his own personal experiences living in Pakistan. [ABC News, 8/10/2008]
Entity Tags: Al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri
August 18, 2008: Threatened with Impeachment, Pakistani President Musharraf Resigns
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf announces his resignation. Opposition to Musharraf’s rule had been slowly growing, especially since he declared a state of emergency in late 2007 to remain in power (see November 3-December 15, 2007) following a controversial reelection (see October 6, 2007). In early 2008, opposition parties united and won parliamentary elections (see February 18, 2008). The opposition then chose Yousaf Raza Gillani as the new prime minister, and Gillani took away much of Musharraf’s power (see March 22-25, 2008). The opposition parties united again to start impeachment hearings against Musharraf for his state of emergency and other claimed abuses of power. His resignation speech came hours after the opposition finalized its charges against him and prepared to launch an impeachment trial. Musharraf claims he could have defeated the charges, but he wanted to spare the country the conflict caused by the trial. Gillani remains prime minister, and the Speaker of the Pakistani Senate, Muhammad Mian Sumroo, automatically takes over as caretaker president. [BBC, 8/18/2008]
Entity Tags: Muhammad Mian Sumroo, Yousaf Raza Gillani, Pervez Musharraf
Timeline Tags: US International Relations, War in Afghanistan
Shortly After August 18, 2008: New US Policy Increases Drone Attacks in Pakistan; No Longer Asks Permission from Pakistan First
The US dramatically increases the number of CIA drone attacks on Islamist militant targets in Pakistan, and no longer relies on permission from the Pakistani government before striking. Bush administration officials had been increasingly concerned about al-Qaeda’s resurgence in Pakistan’s tribal region. A 2006 peace deal between Islamist militants and the Pakistani government gave al-Qaeda and other militant groups a chance to recover from earlier pressures (see September 5, 2006). However, the Bush administration had close ties with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who did not want more aggressive US action. But Musharraf resigns on August 18, 2008 (see August 18, 2008), and within days, President Bush signs a secret new policy.
More Drone Strikes - From August 31, 2008, until late March 2009, the CIA carries out at least 38 drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal region. By contrast there were only 10 known drone strikes in 2006 and 2007 combined. There were three strikes in 2006, seven strikes in 2007, and 36 in 2008 (all but seven of those took place after Musharraf resigned in August). Drone capabilities and intelligence collection has improved, but the change mainly has to do with politics. A former CIA official who oversaw Predator drone operations in Pakistan will later say: “We had the data all along. Finally we took off the gloves.”
Permission No Longer Needed - Additionally, the US no longer requires the Pakistani government’s permission before ordering a drone strike. US officials had suspected that many of their targets were tipped off by the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence agency. Now this is no longer a concern. Getting permission from Pakistan could take a day or more. Sometimes this caused the CIA to lose track of its target (see for instance 2006). [Los Angeles Times, 3/22/2009]
Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Al-Qaeda, Bush administration (43), Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Pervez Musharraf, George W. Bush
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, Hunt for Bin Laden in Pakistan, Drone Use in Pakistan / Afghanistan
August 21, 2008: NIST Releases Draft Final Report on WTC 7 Collapse
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) releases a draft version of the final report of its investigation of the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7, the 47-story skyscraper which collapsed late in the afternoon of 9/11 (see (5:20 p.m.) September 11, 2001). [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/21/2008] The report describes NIST’s conclusions on how fires that followed the impact of debris from the north WTC tower’s collapse resulted in the eventual collapse of WTC 7. It evaluates the emergency response and building evacuation procedures, and provides 13 recommendations for construction of buildings in the future, and improved procedures and practices. [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/2008, pp. xiii ] Some of the report’s key findings are:
NIST describes its theory of what caused WTC 7 to collapse: “The probable collapse sequence… was initiated by the buckling of a critical interior column.… This column had become unsupported over nine stories after initial local fire-induced damage led to a cascade of local floor failures. The buckling of this column led to a vertical progression of floor failures up to the roof and to the buckling of adjacent interior columns to the south of the critical column. An east-to-west horizontal progression of interior column buckling followed, due to loss of lateral support to adjacent columns, forces exerted by falling debris, and load redistribution from other buckled columns. The exterior columns then buckled as the failed building core moved downward, redistributing its loads to the exterior columns. Global collapse occurred as the entire building above the buckled region moved downward as a single unit.” [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/2008, pp. xxxii ]
The collapse of WTC 7 “represents the first known instance of the total collapse of a tall building primarily due to fires. The collapse could not have been prevented without controlling the fires before most of the combustible building contents were consumed.” [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/2008, pp. 43 ]
The fires in WTC 7 “were ignited as a result of the impact of debris from the collapse of WTC 1, which was approximately 370 ft to the south.… The fires were ignited on at least 10 floors; however, only the fires on floors 7 through 9 and 11 through 13 grew and lasted until the time of the building collapse.” [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/2008, pp. xxxi-xxxii ]
“Even without the initial structural damage caused by debris impact from the collapse of WTC 1, WTC 7 would have collapsed from fires having the same characteristics as those experienced on September 11, 2001.” [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/2008, pp. 44 ]
“Had a water supply for the automatic sprinkler system been available and had the sprinkler system operated as designed, it is likely that fires in WTC 7 would have been controlled and the collapse prevented.” [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/2008, pp. 43 ]
Other skyscrapers had previously survived comparable fires. “The fires in WTC 7 were similar to those that have occurred previously in several tall buildings (One New York Plaza, 1970, First Interstate Bank, 1988, and One Meridian Plaza, 1991) where the automatic sprinklers did not function or were not present. However, because of differences between their structural designs and that of WTC 7, these three buildings did not collapse.” [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/2008, pp. 43 ]
NIST found that “temperatures did not exceed 300°C in the core or perimeter columns in WTC 7,” including the three interior columns that NIST says were the first to buckle in the collapse. “None of these columns were significantly weakened by elevated temperatures.” [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/2008, pp. 49-50 ]
NIST says it found “no evidence to suggest that WTC 7 was not designed in a manner generally consistent with applicable building codes and standards.” [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/2008, pp. 53 ]
The report concludes that neither explosives nor fuel oil fires fed by diesel tanks in WTC 7 played any role in the collapse (see August 21, 2008 and August 21, 2008). [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/2008, pp. 44-45 ]
However, the report points out that WTC 7 “and the records kept within it were destroyed, and the remains of all the WTC buildings were disposed of before congressional action and funding was available for this investigation to begin. As a result, there are some facts that could not be discerned, and thus there are uncertainties in this accounting. Nonetheless, NIST was able to gather sufficient evidence and documentation to conduct a full investigation upon which to reach firm findings and recommendations.” [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/2008, pp. xxxi ]
NIST released a progress report in June 2004, which had included its “working hypothesis” at that time for the collapse of WTC 7 (see June 18, 2004). [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 6/18/2004] After suggestions are made by members of the public in response to the current draft report, NIST will release the finished version of the report in November 2008, which includes the same major findings and recommendations as the draft version (see November 20, 2008). [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 11/20/2008]
Entity Tags: World Trade Center, National Institute of Standards and Technology
August 21, 2008: Critics Unconvinced by NIST’s Claim that Explosives Not Used to Bring Down WTC 7
After the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announces the results of its investigation into the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7, some critics dispute its explanation for the collapse and question its apparent debunking of claims that explosives were used to demolish the building. The 47-story tower collapsed late in the afternoon of 9/11, even though no plane hit it (see (5:20 p.m.) September 11, 2001). Some have argued that fire and the falling debris from the Twin Towers’ collapses should not have brought down such a large steel and concrete structure. [Associated Press, 8/21/2008]
NIST Lacks 'the Expertise on Explosives' - James Quintiere, a professor of fire protection engineering at the University of Maryland who previously worked as the chief of NIST’s fire science and engineering division, says that NIST does not “have the expertise on explosives, so I don’t know how they came to that conclusion,” that explosives did not cause the collapse. However, Quintiere says he never personally believed explosives were involved. [Los Angeles Times, 8/22/2008] Richard Gage, a California architect and leader of a group called Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, complains, “How much longer do we have to endure the cover-up of how Building 7 was destroyed?” The New York Times points out that “the collapse of 7 World Trade Center—home at the time to branch offices of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Secret Service, and the Giuliani administration’s emergency operations center—is cited in hundreds of Web sites and books as perhaps the most compelling evidence that an insider secretly planted explosives, intentionally destroying the tower.” [New York Times, 8/21/2008]
NIST Presentation - At a presentation of its findings earlier in the day, NIST announced that, in its three-year study of the collapse, it found no evidence showing explosives were used to bring the building down. [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/21/2008; National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/21/2008] During his summary of the findings of NIST’s WTC 7 investigation (see August 21, 2008), lead investigator Shyam Sunder said, “We did not find any evidence that explosives were used to bring the building down.” [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/21/2008]
'No Witness Reports' of Loud Explosions - In the draft version of its final report on the collapse, which is released on this day (see August 21, 2008), NIST explains: “Blast from the smallest charge capable of failing a critical column… would have resulted in a sound level of 130 dB to 140 dB at a distance of at least half a mile if unobstructed by surrounding buildings.… This sound level is consistent with standing next to a jet plane engine and more than ten times louder than being in front of the speakers at a rock concert. There were no witness reports of such a loud noise, nor was such a noise heard on the audio tracks of video recordings of the WTC 7 collapse.” [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/2008, pp. 44-45 ]
NIST Rules out Thermite - Skeptics have argued that an incendiary material called thermite was used to bring down WTC 7 (see August 4, 2008), and this would not necessarily have created such a loud explosive boom. [New York Times, 8/21/2008] But in a fact sheet published on this day, NIST responds: “To apply thermite to a large steel column, approximately 0.13 lb of thermite would be needed to heat and melt each pound of steel. For a steel column that weighs approximately 1,000 lbs. per foot, at least 100 lbs. of thermite would need to be placed around the column, ignited, and remain in contact with the vertical steel surface as the thermite reaction took place. This is for one column… presumably, more than one column would have been prepared with thermite, if this approach were to be used. It is unlikely that 100 lbs. of thermite, or more, could have been carried into WTC 7 and placed around columns without being detected, either prior to Sept. 11 or during that day.” [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/21/2008] Sunder says that investigators therefore decided not to use their computer model to evaluate whether a thermite-fueled fire might have brought down WTC 7. Pointing to the omission, one skeptic says, “It is very difficult to find what you are not looking for.” [New York Times, 8/21/2008] In a 2006 fact sheet, NIST in fact admitted it “did not test for the residue” of explosives or thermite in the remaining structural steel from the WTC collapses (see August 30, 2006). [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/30/2006] And, as the New York Times notes, “Adding to the suspicion is the fact that in the rush to clean up the site, almost all of the steel remains of the tower were disposed of, leaving investigators in later years with little forensic evidence” (see Shortly After September 11, 2001 and September 12-October 2001). [New York Times, 8/21/2008]
Extensive Preparations for Demolition - NIST’s new fact sheet also points out: “For [WTC 7] to have been prepared for intentional demolition, walls and/or column enclosures and fireproofing would have to be removed and replaced without being detected. Preparing a column includes steps such as cutting sections with torches, which produces noxious and odorous fumes. Intentional demolition usually requires applying explosive charges to most, if not all, interior columns, not just one or a limited set of columns in a building.” [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/21/2008]
Entity Tags: Richard Gage, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Shyam Sunder, World Trade Center, James Quintiere
August 21, 2008: NIST Rules out Diesel Tanks in Collapse of WTC 7
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) publicly rejects the theory that diesel fuel tanks installed in World Trade Center Building 7 played any role in the 47-story tower’s collapse, late in the afternoon of 9/11. This is clearly set out in a question-and-answer factsheet published on this day, together with an announcement of NIST’s draft report on the building’s collapse (see August 21, 2008 and August 21, 2008). The factsheet asks, “Did fuel oil systems in WTC 7 contribute to its collapse?” The answer is “No…. The worst-case scenarios associated with fires… could not have been sustained long enough, could not have generated sufficient heat to weaken critical interior columns, and/or would have produced large amounts of visible smoke from the lower floors, which were not observed.” [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/21/2008; New York Times, 8/21/2008] These findings are echoed in the draft version of its final report on the collapse. [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/2008, pp. xxxii ] WTC 7 had three emergency power systems, all of which ran on diesel fuel. The systems contained two 12,000 gallon fuel tanks and two 6,000 gallon tanks located beneath the building’s loading docks, and another 6,000 gallon tank on its first floor. There were also 275 gallon tanks on the fifth, seventh, and eighth floors, and a 50 gallon tank on the ninth floor. [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/21/2008] It has previously been suggested that diesel stored in these tanks might have contributed to fires that led to WTC 7’s collapse (see March 2, 2002). [New York Times, 3/2/2002] This possibility was proposed in the final report of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) investigation of the WTC collapses, published in May 2002 (see May 1, 2002). [Federal Emergency Management Agency, 5/1/2002, pp. 5-28 - 5-29] But in his summary of the findings of NIST’s three-year study of WTC 7, lead investigator Shyam Sunder says the building’s collapse was “not due to fires from the substantial amount of diesel fuel stored in the building.” [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/21/2008]
Entity Tags: World Trade Center, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Shyam Sunder
August 21, 2008: NIST Announces Conclusions of WTC 7 Investigation, Presents New Theory for Collapse
NIST lead investigator Shyam Sunder answering questions about NIST’s three-year study of the collapse of WTC 7. [Source: Don Berkemeyer / National Institute of Standards and Technology]The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announces the findings of its study of the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7, and says the 47-story tower fell late in the afternoon of 9/11 primarily due to fires. [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/21/2008; National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/21/2008] NIST releases its findings as part of a 915-page report, which is the result of three years’ work by over 50 federal investigators and a dozen contractors (see August 21, 2008). [New York Times, 8/21/2008]
Collapse Is 'No Longer a Mystery' - In a news conference at NIST’s headquarters in Gaithersburg, Maryland, lead investigator Shyam Sunder admits: “[W]e knew from the beginning of our study that understanding what happened to Building 7 on 9/11 would be difficult. It did not fit any textbook description that you could readily point to and say, yes, that’s why the building failed.” But, he says, “[T]he reason for the collapse of World Trade Center 7 is no longer a mystery.” [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/21/2008; New York Times, 8/21/2008]
'New Phenomenon' Caused Collapse - Sunder says the “critical factor” that initiated the collapse was “thermal expansion of long-span floor systems located in the east side of the building,” and adds that NIST’s study “has identified thermal expansion as a new phenomenon that can cause structural collapse. For the first time we have shown that fire can induce a progressive collapse.”
Collapse Sequence - Sunder describes the sequence of events NIST believes led to the collapse of WTC 7. He says debris from the collapse of the north WTC tower “started fires on at least 10 floors of the building. The fires burned out of control on six of these 10 floors for about seven hours. The city water main had been cut by the collapse of the two WTC towers, so the sprinklers in Building 7 did not function for much of the bottom half of the building.” He continues: “Fires on floors 7 through 9 and 11 through 13 were particularly severe.… Eventually, a girder on floor 13 lost its connection to a critical interior column.” Floor 13 collapsed, beginning a cascade of floor failures down to the fifth floor. “With the support of these floors gone, column 79 buckled, which initiated the fire-induced progressive collapse of the building.… This in turn caused the failure of nearby columns 80 and 81 and floor failures up to the roof line.… As the roof line begins to fall adjacent columns buckle as well. In quick succession, the remaining interior columns failed from east to west across WTC 7, until the entire core began moving downward. Finally, the remaining outer shell or façade of the building fell.”
NIST Created 'Virtual WTC 7' Model - Sunder says that NIST reached its conclusions about the collapse “by reconstructing the entire building, beam by beam, column by column, connection by connection into a computer model, a virtual WTC 7 building. We then filled that virtual building with as much detail as possible about exactly what types of furnishings were on each floor. Then we set fire to those virtual offices on the floors where video and other visual evidence told us the fires burned.” The investigators “used a well-validated computer program developed at NIST, for studying the growth and spread of fires, to calculate temperatures throughout the building.… And we used well-established data on the properties of structural steel, the sprayed fire resistive material or fireproofing, and other building materials to determine how those temperatures affected the structure.”
Explosives Not Used - Sunder says that the investigators “did not find any evidence that explosives were used to bring the building down” (see August 21, 2008), nor was the collapse “due to fires from the substantial amount of diesel fuel stored in the building” (see August 21, 2008). NIST commenced its investigation of the WTC collapses in 2002 (see August 21, 2002) and issued its findings on the collapses of the Twin Towers in October 2005 (see October 26, 2005). Since then it has been focused on WTC 7. [Government Computer News, 8/21/2008; National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/21/2008]
Final Report to Be Released - After suggestions are made by members of the public in response to its current report, NIST will release a finished version of the same report in November 2008, thereby completing its WTC investigation (see November 20, 2008). [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 11/20/2008]
August 23, 2008: Pakistani Prime Minister Gillani Publicly Opposes US Drone Strikes, Privately Allows Them
US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson sends a diplomatic cable back to the US reporting on recent discussions she had with Pakistani leaders. In the cable, she discusses a meeting with Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani. The issue of when the next US drone strike in Pakistan’s tribal region would be politically feasible came up. According to the cable, Gillani said: “I don’t care if they do it as long as they get the right people. We’ll protest in the National Assembly and then ignore it.” The cable will later be released by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. [Christian Science Monitor, 12/1/2010; Dawn (Karachi), 12/2/2010]
Entity Tags: Yousaf Raza Gillani, Anne W. Patterson
August 28, 2008: President Bush Extends National Emergency Declared after 9/11
In his last full year in office, President Bush announces that he is again renewing the national emergency he proclaimed in response to the 9/11 attacks (see September 14, 2001). Bush issues a notice that states: “Because the terrorist threat continues, the national emergency declared on September 14, 2001, and the powers and authorities adopted to deal with that emergency, must continue in effect beyond September 14, 2008. Therefore, I am continuing in effect for an additional year the national emergency I declared on September 14, 2001, with respect to the terrorist threat.” [White House, 8/28/2008] The national emergency has been renewed on a yearly basis since 2001. [US President, 9/16/2002; White House, 9/10/2004; White House, 9/8/2005; White House, 9/5/2006; White House, 9/12/2007]
Category Tags: Counterterrorism Policy/Politics, Internal US Security After 9/11
September 2008: After First Classified Briefing, Obama Is Convinced Bin Laden Is Hiding in Pakistan
As the Democratic Party’s nominee for US president, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) is given his first classified intelligence briefing. The briefing includes information on the hunt for Osama bin Laden. An unnamed senior official will later say that Obama already is under the impression that bin Laden has to be hiding in Pakistan, and the briefing solidifies that view. The official says, “What I remember in terms of the aftermath of that briefing and into the transition was just how much the focus became on Pakistan.” [Reuters, 5/12/2011]
Entity Tags: Osama bin Laden, US intelligence, Barack Obama
Timeline Tags: War in Afghanistan, 2008 Elections
Category Tags: Hunt for Bin Laden in Pakistan
September-December 2008: US Special Forces Unwittingly Train Less than One Mile from Bin Laden’s Abbottabad Hideout
From September to December 2008, a team of US Special Forces trainers is based in Abbottabad, Pakistan, ironically less than one mile from the compound Osama bin Laden is hiding in at the time. The trainers are in Abbottabad as part of an unpublicized mission to train Pakistani Frontier Corps forces. The training takes place in Kakul Military Academy, Pakistan’s equivalent of the US’s famous West Point military academy. The training is later moved to Warsak, Pakistan. [Radio Free Europe, 5/6/2011; Washington Post, 5/11/2011]
Entity Tags: Osama bin Laden, US Special Forces, Kakul Military Academy
September 8, 2008: Al-Zawahiri Releases New Video Accusing Iran and US of Collaboration
Al-Qaeda second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri releases a video accusing Iran of collaborating with the United States. Excerpts of the video are played on the Qatar-based pan-Arabic TV channel Al Jazeera, but apparently not posted to the websites usually used for disseminating such videos. Al-Zawahiri says Tehran is “cooperating with the Americans in occupying Iraq and Afghanistan,” and denounces the Iranians for recognizing the two governments. “Not even one Shiite authority—whether in Iraq or elsewhere—has issued a fatwa [religious edict] obligating jihad and taking up of arms against the American crusader invaders in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he adds. The video also features clips of al-Qaeda operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia. [Los Angeles Times, 9/9/2008]
Entity Tags: Al Jazeera, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda
September 8, 2008: Member of European Parliament Calls for International Tribunal to Investigate 9/11
Giulietto Chiesa, a prominent Italian journalist who is also a member of the European Parliament, calls for an international tribunal to probe the events of 9/11. Chiesa makes his appeal in Berlin where he is to show his documentary Zero: An Investigation of 9/11, which argues that the US government’s account cannot be true. He says: “If feelings were strong enough a positive result could be obtained, but it would not happen immediately. So far it’s been the US administration that has won the information fight and obtained their result—unfortunately. Our task is to inform millions of people of the true situation. Everybody should be involved in this struggle with a tribunal or commission helping once we win approval for the idea.” Chiesa was a correspondent in Moscow for many years (see June 16, 1999). He announces that his film will be shown on Russian television (see September 12, 2008). [Deutsche Presse-Agentur (Hamburg), 9/8/2008]
Entity Tags: Giulietto Chiesa
September 8, 2008: US Drone Attack Fails to Assassinate Taliban Leaders Linked to ISI
Jalaluddin Haqqani. [Source: New York Times]A US drone attack targets the Haqqani network in the tribal region of Pakistan. Pakistani officials will say that five missiles kill 23 people and wound 18 more. The missiles hit a compound in North Waziristan run by Sirajuddin Haqqani, the son of Jalaluddin Haqqani. It appears they are targeted, since family members arrived at the compound just a half hour before. However, neither Haqqani network leader is killed. Officials say one of Jalaluddin Haqqani’s two wives, his sister, sister-in-law, and eight of his grandchildren are killed. The Haqqani network is considered a semi-autonomous part of the Taliban. The US believes the Haqqani network has been involved in recent attacks in Afghanistan, including the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul (see July 7, 2008) and a failed assassination attempt against Afghan President Hamid Karzai (see April 27, 2008). The Haqqani network is widely believed to be closely linked to the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence agency. [New York Times, 9/10/2008]
Entity Tags: Jalaluddin Haqqani, US Military, Sirajuddin Haqqani, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Haqqani Network
Category Tags: Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, 2008 Kabul Indian Embassy Bombing, Afghanistan, Drone Use in Pakistan / Afghanistan, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11
September 9, 2008: New Metal Research May Explain WTC Collapses, Scientist Says
’Iron atoms in steel: Black balls show irregularities that disrupt magnetic fields, weakening steel.’ [Source: BBC]Sergei Dudarev, a scientist with Britain’s Atomic Energy Agency, says that newly-discovered properties of steel could explain why the World Trade Center towers collapsed. Dr. Dudarev researches steel that can withstand the extreme temperatures inside a nuclear fusion reactor. He says that at about 500° Celsius, a temperature often reached in building fires, tiny irregularities in the structure of steel can cause a softening of the metal, although that is still far below the melting point. Dudarev says: “The steel didn’t melt, it just became soft. It is an unusual state and the temperatures in the Twin Towers were high enough to cause it because the thermal insulation was knocked off the girders through the impact with the aircraft.” [Guardian, 9/9/2008; BBC News, 9/10/2008; Independent, 9/10/2008; ABC Radio National (Australia), 9/20/2008]
Entity Tags: Sergei Dudarev
September 9, 2008: Zardari Becomes New President of Pakistan after Quick Election
Asif Ali Zardari, the husband of assassinated former leader Benazir Bhutto, becomes president of Pakistan. Pervez Musharraf resigned as president the previous month after growing pressure suggested he could be impeached (see August 18, 2008). A three-week election campaign quickly followed, and Zardari easily won the election (an electoral college vote, not a general election). Zardari’s elections completes Pakistan’s return to civilian rule after Musharraf seized power in a military coup nine years earlier. [Guardian, 9/9/2008]
"Mr. Ten Percent" - Zardari has a troubled history of numerous corruption allegations. His popular nickname, “Mr. Ten Percent,” refers to the widespread belief in Pakistan that he took a cut from many business deals when his wife Bhutto was prime minister of Pakistan twice in the 1990s. He spent 11 years in prison on corruption charges, although he was never actually convicted of a crime. Bhutto seemed poised for a return to power, but when she was assassinated in late 2007, Zardari essentially took her place as head of her political party, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). Supporters say he has matured during his years in prison. [Wall Street Journal, 9/5/2008]
Entity Tags: Pakistan People’s Party, Benazir Bhutto, Pervez Musharraf, Asif Ali Zardari
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region
September 10, 2008: US May Have Committed 9/11 Attacks, Says Former Syrian Minister
Mahdi Dakhlallah, a former Syrian minister of information, writes in the newspaper Teshreen that the US may have orchestrated the 9/11 attacks to justify the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. “These plans were ready and prepared [in advance]—and all that was needed was to find a pretext to begin their immediate implementation.… No one believes that it was possible to invade Afghanistan and Iraq in the same way and so fast had it not been for the 9/11 attacks. That’s how it always is: the end justifies the means.” [Jerusalem Post, 9/11/2008; Middle East Media Research Institute, 9/11/2008]
Entity Tags: Mahdi Dakhlallah
September 12, 2008: 9/11 Documentary Shown on Russian Television Is Praised by Panel Members
Russia’s Channel One broadcasts Zero: An Investigation into 9/11, a documentary made by the Italian journalist Giulietto Chiesa that disputes the US government’s account of the 9/11 attacks, followed by a discussion between various Russian and foreign personalities. While some panel members defend the US government’s account, others reject it and praise the film. Vitaly Tretyakov, the former editor in chief of Nezavisimaya Gazeta, a major daily newspaper, calls the 9/11 Commission’s report “fiction” and says he could not believe that a small group of terrorists could have masterminded the attacks. Another journalist, Mikhail Leontyev, who is a Channel One presenter and editor in chief of Profil magazine, also expresses disbelief: “A certain organization committed a totally extraordinary act from the point of view of its coordination. Allegedly, this organization still exists, it continues fighting and killing people; it is keeping the US army in two countries in the world and, at the same time, there has not been a single [terrorist] act on the territory of the United States since.” He also says that the alleged organizers were controlled by US intelligence: “all the people who are regarded as the fictitious or real organizers of this [terrorist] act, all these people were controlled by the American special services.” The collapse of the World Trade Center is also discussed. Ashot Tamrazyan, the director of the Risks and Security of Buildings research center, says his organization had created a model and carried out many tests that had shown that the Twin Towers could not have collapsed unless there were other contributing factors. Robert Bridge, the editor in chief of the Moscow News, an English-language newspaper, says he does not believe Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon because of the lack of debris: “In any plane crash there are remains left. There is luggage, there are seats, etc.… Why did this plane crash so differently from any other crash we have seen?” Vladimir Dezhurov, a cosmonaut who observed the 9/11 events from the International Space Station, also questions the Pentagon crash (see (Between 10:00 and 11:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). He says an air crash always leaves debris behind. [Francesco Tre and Franco Fracassi, 2008; BBC Monitoring, 9/12/2008] Commenting on the broadcast, a Weekly Standard article entitled “The Russian Government Warms Up to 9/11 Conspiracy Theories” says that the Kremlin is promoting 9/11 skepticism to stoke anti-Americanism (see also November 2, 2008). [Weekly Standard, 10/13/2008]
Entity Tags: Giulietto Chiesa, Vladimir Dezhurov
September 19, 2008: Martyr Video of 9/11 Hijacker Is Released Too Late for 9/11 Anniversary
Ahmed Alghamdi in his martyr video. [Source: Public domain]Al-Qaeda releases a martyr video of 9/11 hijacker Ahmed Alghamdi. In the ten-minute video, in Arabic with English subtitles, Alghamdi says, “There are many proofs which clarify and encourage martyrdom operations. They are one of the ways of massacring the enemies of Allah, so you must carry them out.” The video was most likely recorded in Afghanistan in March 2001, at the same time most of the other hijackers recorded martyr videos (see (December 2000-March 2001)). This is the seventh one released. [Sun, 9/22/2008] Alghamdi’s speech is part of a 90-minute video featuring speeches by al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri and others. Al-Qaeda promised through the Internet to release the video in time for the 9/11 anniversary, as it did with other 9/11 hijacker videos each year, but the video appears one week late. Some counterterrorism experts say the delay could be a sign that al-Qaeda’s propaganda efforts are faltering. [Associated Press, 9/19/2008; Sun-Herald (Sydney), 9/21/2008] Al-Qaeda will not release any hijacker videos in 2009 or 2010.
Entity Tags: Ahmed Alghamdi, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda
Category Tags: Other 9/11 Hijackers, Alleged Al-Qaeda Media Statements
September 21, 2008: Remains of 13 Hijackers Still in US Custody
The New York Times reports that the FBI and the New York City medical examiner’s office have identified the remains of 13 of the 9/11 hijackers. The remains are still in their custody because no one has claimed them (see Summer 2002). The FBI holds the remains of the nine hijackers who took over Flight 77 and Flight 93, which were recovered from the Pentagon and Shanksville crash sites. The identity of the remains was established indirectly. First, investigators identified the victims using DNA profiles provided by relatives. Those remains that could not be matched to any profile were assumed to belong to the hijackers. The New York City medical examiner’s office also has the remains of four hijackers recovered from the World Trade Center site. A DNA profile for each of the 10 hijackers who took part in the New York attacks was established by the FBI from recovered personal items, such as luggage and cigarette butts left in a rental car. The FBI then supplied these profiles to the medical examiner’s office but without naming them. Therefore, the examiner’s office could only match the four recovered sets of remains but could not identify them by name. Both the FBI and the medical examiner’s office refuse to disclose where exactly the remains are being kept. [New York Times, 9/21/2008; Newsweek, 1/12/2009]
Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Medical Examiner’s Office, New York City
Category Tags: FBI 9/11 Investigation, 9/11 Investigations
September 30, 2008: Pakistan Replaces ISI Director Due to US Pressure, but Pro-Militant Policy Remains
ISI Director Nadeem Taj is replaced by Ahmad Shuja Pasha. [Daily Times (Lahore), 9/30/2008] One day ago, it was reported that the US was intensely pressuring Taj and two of his assistants to resign from the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence agency, because of alleged “double-dealing” with militants. Taj became ISI head only a year ago (see 2007). [Australian, 9/29/2008] In March 2009, the New York Times will report that shortly after Asif Ali Zardari became president of Pakistan in September 2008 (see September 9, 2008), he faced accusations by the US that the ISI helped the militants bomb the Indian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan (see July 7, 2008 and July 28, 2008). Zardari promised that the ISI would be “handled” and anyone working with militants would be fired. This apparently led to the replacement of Taj and his assistants. The Indian embassy bombing occurred during Taj’s brief time as ISI director. However, the Times will also report that many US and even Pakistani officials have since complained that the ISI’s support for militants remains as strong as ever (see March 26, 2009). [New York Times, 3/26/2009] In October 2001, the US also successfully pressured Pakistan to replace its ISI director and several others because of their support for Islamist militants, only to see the replacements continue the same policy of supporting militants (see October 8, 2001).
Entity Tags: Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Nadeem Taj, Asif Ali Zardari, Ahmad Shuja Pasha
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, 2008 Kabul Indian Embassy Bombing, Counterterrorism Policy/Politics
Shortly Before October 1, 2008: FBI Denies Permission for Television Interview of Agents about Key Failure before 9/11
The FBI attempts to prevent two agents who were involved in a key pre-9/11 failure from talking about it in a television interview. The agents, Doug Miller and Mark Rossini, were on loan to Alec Station, the CIA’s bin Laden unit, before 9/11. They were involved in the deliberate blocking of a cable to the FBI saying that 9/11 hijacker Khalid Almihdhar had a US visa (see 9:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. January 5, 2000) and later, under pressure, falsely claimed not to remember anything about it when interviewed by the Justice Department’s inspector general (see (February 12, 2004)). The FBI allowed Miller and Rossini to be interviewed by author James Bamford for a book and they told him they helped block the cable on the orders of a female CIA officer known only as “Michael” and the station’s deputy chief, Tom Wilshire. However, when Bamford wants them to repeat their stories for a PBS documentary he is making, the FBI initially says yes, but then retracts its approval, saying the bureau “doesn’t want to stir up old conflicts with the CIA.” [Congressional Quarterly, 10/1/2008] However, Rossini will actually appear in the documentary, although Miller will not. [PBS, 2/3/2009]
Entity Tags: James Bamford, Mark Rossini, Doug Miller, Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Category Tags: Alhazmi and Almihdhar, CIA Hiding Alhazmi & Almihdhar, 9/11 Investigations, Other 9/11 Investigations
October 3, 2008: Reporter Says Bin Laden Is Living in Pakistani Villa, Not a Cave; Source Is US Intelligence Officer
Christiane Amanpour on “Real Time With Bill Maher” on October 3, 2008. [Source: Real Time with Bill Maher]ABC News reporter Christiane Amanpour says that Osama bin Laden is living in a villa in Pakistan, not in a cave. She makes these comments as a guest on HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher. She says: “I just talked to somebody very knowledgeable… [who] thinks that [bin Laden is] in a villa, a nice comfortable villa… in Pakistan. Not a cave.” After bin Laden’s death in an urban compound in May 2011 (see May 2, 2011), Amanpour will explain that she’d heard the information a short time earlier from a “US intelligence officer who had recently left a top position.” [ABC News, 5/3/2011]
Entity Tags: Christiane Amanpour, Osama bin Laden, US intelligence
Category Tags: Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, Hunt for Bin Laden in Pakistan
October 13, 2008: Pakistan Denies Role in Kabul Embassy Bombing, but Admits Link to ‘Bad Guys’ Who May Have Done It
Mahmud Ali Durrani, Pakistan’s national security adviser, visits India and meets with Indian officials. He tells them that neither the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence agency, nor any other part of the Pakistani government had a role in the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, earlier this year (see July 7, 2008). The Indian government and other governments have blamed the ISI working with the Taliban for the bombing (see August 1, 2008). However, Durrani does admit, “We have some contacts with bad guys and perhaps one of them did it.” This comment is not made publicly, but it is mentioned in a US State Department cable about the meeting that is leaked by WikiLeaks in 2011. According to the cable, Durrani later repeats the comment to a US official. [Hindu, 5/20/2011]
Entity Tags: Mahmud Ali Durrani, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence
Category Tags: Pakistan and the ISI, Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, 2008 Kabul Indian Embassy Bombing, Afghanistan
October 16, 2008: US Drone Strike Kills Al-Qaeda Leader Khalid Habib in Pakistan’s Tribal Region
A CIA drone kills al-Qaeda leader Khalid Habib. The drone strike hits the village of Taparghai, South Waziristan, in Pakistan’s tribal region. The CIA claims that Habib, an Egyptian, is the group’s fourth-ranking leader. Four people are said to be killed. It is said Habib became al-Qaeda’s chief of operations for the tribal region after Abu Ubaida al-Masri died from hepatitis around January 2008. [New York Times, 10/17/2008; Asia Times, 10/29/2008] Little had been previously reported on Habib. But in early 2007, a New York Times article listed him as one of a handful of important new al-Qaeda leaders, and the FBI called him “one of the five or six most capable, most experienced terrorists in the world.” [CBS News, 3/15/2007; New York Times, 4/2/2007] A drone strike failed to kill Habib in 2006 (see 2006).
Entity Tags: Khalid Habib, Abu Ubaida al-Masri, Al-Qaeda, Central Intelligence Agency
Category Tags: Key Captures and Deaths, Haven in Pakistan Tribal Region, Drone Use in Pakistan / Afghanistan, Counterterrorism Action After 9/11
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Bullet Joe Simpson New York Americans 1929
Bullet Joe Simpson, Bullet Joe Simpson Bio, Bullet Joe Simpson Biography, Harold Edward Joseph Simpson, New York Americans, New York Americans History, 1929 New York Americans, 1929, 1929 IsHockey, 1929 Ice Hockey, 1929 Hokej, 1929 Hockey, 1929 Hockey Sur Glace, 1929 EisHockey
Uploaded By: PRESIDENT on May 4th, 2017
Harold Edward Joseph "Bullet Joe" Simpson - Born August 13, 1893 in Selkirk, Manitoba – Died December 25, 1973 n Coral Gables, Florida was a Canadian Professional Ice Hockey defenceman who played for the Edmonton Eskimos and New York Americans -
Simpson was nicknamed "Bullet" because of very fast skating ability -
Simpson started his career in the Canadian west. He learned the sport of ice Hockey on a frozen slough, near his house, during the early 1900s. As Bullet Joe once stated, Manitoba Avenue ran east and west in the middle of Selkirk. The boys living in the north end were the northern team and those south of Manitoba Avenue made up the southern team.
After graduating from the Selkirk Fishermen Juniors, Simpson played senior ice hockey with the Winnipeg Victorias of the NHA in 1914–15.
Prior to enlisting in the Canadian Army for World War I he captained the 1916 Allan Cup Champions 61st Battalion Team of Winnipeg. During the war he served with the 43rd Cameron Highlanders and his unit held part of the British front alongside a battalion commanded by Major Winston Churchill. Bullet Joe was wounded twice during the war, once at the Battle of the Somme, and once at Amiens. He received the Medal of Military Valour.
Simpson returned home in February 1919 having achieved the rank of lieutenant. He was in time to play in the last four games of the ice Hockey season for his home town, Selkirk Fisherman Seniors of the Manitoba Seniors League. He started again for the Seniors the following year.
In 1920, at 5'10" and 175 pounds, this right-handed defenceman's break came in a Winnipeg pool room when Kenny MacKenzie of the Big 4's Edmonton Eskimos offered Bullet $3,000 to turn professional. Upon hearing the offer, he chalked his cue and replied that if MacKenzie could sell the deal to his father then Edmonton would have themselves an ice Hockey player. Edmonton got their player and Bullet headed off to join the Eskimos in 1920, signing as a free agent on November 4.
In 1921–22, he won a Western Hockey League first team all-star berth. He was named to the first team on three occasions and to the second team once. At that time, Newsy Lalonde called Bullet Joe Simpson the greatest living Hockey player. His end-to-end rushes were legendary and without comparison.
When the Western Hockey League ceased operations at the end of the 1924–25 season, Simpson's contract was purchased by the New York Americans of the National Hockey League. Bullet Joe Simpson, John Morrison and Roy Rickey] were traded September 18, 1925 for $10,000.
Bullet played six seasons with the Amerks and in 1931 took on the role of team coach for three years. He later managed the New Haven and Minneapolis teams.
Simpson moved to Florida in 1938 to promote ice Hockey. He later suffered a heart attack that kept him inactive for two years. Another retired ice Hockey player and Floridian came to his aid. Art Coulter hired him to work at the Coulter White's hardware store in Coral Gables Florida, a position he held until 1965
Bullet Joe Simpson was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1963.
In 1975, Simpson was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame.
In 1994, the Marine Museum of Manitoba in Selkirk restored a 1963 flat-bottomed freighter which is now on display and renamed the Harold Bullet Joe Simpson.
Sourced from ClassicAuctions.net.
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Through a Carvellas Eye
By Hometown Pasadena
Artist Kate Carvellas creates assemblages and paints.
We are in awe of her productivity.
And, she has an intriguing eye…
Kate Carvellas, in her own words:
I am a self-taught artist who lives and creates in Pasadena, CA. In 2004, I found myself in need of an artistic outlet. I began creating two-dimensional thematic montages using imagery from various magazines and clip art sources. With further exploration and a new-found confidence, I began to pursue a different direction, creating, original, three dimensional collages. In 2007 I began exploring the creative world of mixed media and assemblage and fell in love with both of these media. In 2014 I started exploring the unlimited potential of abstract painting. Creating work purely from my own mind, without borrowing images or objects to bring the work to life, has been an exhilarating experience.
The Journey’s Just Begun
I now find great joy working in abstract painting and assemblage. In 2008 I began reading up on the history of painting and assemblage, and found inspiration in the work of artists such as Salvador Dali, Joseph Cornell and Kurt Schwitters: and more recently, the paintings of Wassily Kandinsky and Joan Miro. Watching the documentary “The Radiant Child” about the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat had a deep impact on me and I strive to create work, not in his style, but that that has the freedom and spontaneity of his.
In 2012 I had the great pleasure of seeing the exhibit “Wonderland – The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States.” This exhibit profoundly affected me and I found kindred spirits in Louise Nevelson, Frida Kahlo and Remedios Varo and the work they have created.
The Greens of Summer
Exhibit Highlights
2014 – Received Best in Show 3rd place ribbon from Mat Gleason for the “FRESH” exhibit at Southbay Contemporary/Zask Gallery.
Received “Special Recognition” for “Fragmented” and “Life’s Masquerade” from Upstream People Gallery’s “9th Annual Faces Online Art Exhibit.”
Received Awards of Merit at the “53rd Bold Expressions International Art Exhibit” in Carmichael, California for “Will You Still Need Me” and “Through the Looking Grass.”
Two pieces (“Process” and “Three”) were chosen to be a part of The Central California Art Association & Mistlin Gallery’s 57th Annual Spring Art Show.
See more of Kate’s work at ArtworkByKateCarvellas.com.
Symbols Stamps Stryations
Floating Above the Plane
The final painting…
ArtworkByKateCarvellas.com
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'The Beach Bum' (2019) Review: A Film So Lucid, So Beautiful and So Elusive All The More
By: Steve Pulaski Harmony Korine is a force to be reckoned with, and the...
'Serenity' Trailer: Matthew McConaughey And Anne Hathaway Are Back Together
When Serenity hits theaters in 2019, it won't be the first time that Matthew McConaughey and Anne...
'White Boy Rick' (2018) Review: True Story Of Richard Wershe Jr.
By: Steve Pulaski White Boy Rick tells the true story of Richard Wershe Jr, who,...
Gold (2016) Review
A great performance at its center let down by a terribly lopsided story by...
Sing (2016) Review
"Sing features an amiable cast of characters with familiar voices" by Steve Pulaski After...
Kubo and the Two Strings (2016) Review
"May be the finest looking animated film of the year" by Steve Pulaski Laika...
Free State of Jones (2016) Review
"A beautifully told and captured story" by Steve Pulaski The opening scenes of Free...
Interstellar (Review)
"Interstellar's crowning achievement, besides its special effects work, is its human-centeredness, keeping the...
Interstellar (Review) (II)
"At first glance, this seems like a rehash of 1997's Contact, directed by Robert...
True Detective (TV Show)
“The opening episode sets the tone of the show, with us learning to get...
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AUSTRALIA’S JORDAN MERCER AND LINCOLN DEWS WIN GOLD MEDALS IN THE TECHNICAL PADDLEBOARD RACES
Men’s and Women’s Technical Race Gold Medalists, Australia’s Lincoln Dews (left) and Jordan Mercer (right). Photo: ISA/Romero
All finalists for the Men’s and Women’s SUP Surfing, Women’s SUP Technical Race, and Team Relays have been decided for the final day of competition at the ISA World SUP and Paddleboard Championship
In an action packed day, Australia’s Jordan Mercer and Lincoln Dews were crowned today as the Women’s and Men’s Paddleboard Technical Race Champions, during the 5th Day of the 2013 ISA World StandUp Paddle and Paddleboard Championship.
In another beautiful day with perfect weather and wave conditions at Miraflores’ La Pampilla Beach, in Lima, all finalists have been decided for the Men’s and Women’s SUP Surfing, Women’s SUP Technical Race, and Team Relays..
“Congratulations to today’s medalists,” remarked ISA President Fernando Aguerre. “The SUP Surfers and Racers, and Paddleboarders put on a great show in the amazing conditions at La Pampilla. Tomorrow will be a very exciting day where the rest of the Surfing and Racing divisions will have champions and culminate with the crowning of the Team Champion and winner of the Club Waikiki-Peru Team Trophy. Good luck to all of the competitors in the Finals. I will be watching the event live in our webcast.”
The day started with the last heats of SUP Surfing, in both Men’s and Women’s Qualifying and Repechage rounds. The big upset of the day was the elimination of the 3-time ASP Longboard World Champion Colin McPhillips (USA, 10.04) during heat 1 of Men’s Repechage 6, who was eliminated by the local Peru National Team member, Tamil Martino (14.53) and Justin Holland (AUS, 12.04), who advanced to the final. Martino applied all of his local knowledge of the waves at La Pampilla, managing to get two good waves that gave him advantage over his contenders.
The standout in the SUP Surfing heats was Sean Poynter (USA), who surfed in Qualify Round 5 and obtained the highest single wave score of the day, 9.17, and the highest total points, 16.27, while defeating 2012’s Gold Medalist Antoine Delpero (FRA, 12.6), Jose Gomez (PER, 9.97), and Beau Nixon (AUS, 9.33).
Spain’s Iballa Ruano, also put on a great performance during the Qualify Round 3 earning 15.44, defeating Nicole Pacelli (BRA, 11.83), Shakira Westdrop (AUS, 9.0) and the local star Brissa Malaga (PER, 6.4).
After the SUP Surfing Heats, the Women’s Technical SUP Racing Semifinal took place, which was led by Australia’s Angela Jackson with a time of 31 minutes, 08 seconds, followed by Olivia Piana (FRA) in second with a time of 31:44, Barbara Brasil (BRA) in third with a time of 33:37, and Shannon Bell (CAN) in fourth with a time of 34:31.
Then, it was the turn of the Women’s Technical Paddleboard racers, where Jordan Mercer (AUS) with a time of 31:55 defended her 2012 Gold Medal. In a great fashion, the young Mercer was able to overcome difficult sea conditions to defeat the other nine competitors from around the world and clinch her second Gold Medal in a row, having won the Long Distance Race Gold earlier in the week.
In second place arrived Anna Notten from South Africa with a time of 32:09; in third place was Rocio Larrañaga (PER) with a time of 35:40, and in fourth place was Shannon Bell (CAN) with a time of 35:54, a tremendous feat as Bell was in her second race of the day.
In the Men’s Technical Paddleboard Race, the Aussies dominated by taking first and second place. Lincoln Dews arrived in first place with a time of 25.33 minutes, followed by his teammate Brad Gaul (AUS) with a time of 26.11 minutes, earning the Gold and Silver Medals respectively and valuable points for Team Australia.
USA’s Sean Poynter was the Men’s SUP Surfing standout of the day, earning the day’s highest single wave score of 9.17 and a total heat score of 16.27. Photo: ISA/Gonzales
Ryan Butcher (RSA) got the Bronze Medal with his third place and a time of 26:54, and Luiz Escudero (PER) got the Copper Medal after arriving to the finish line in fourth with a time of 26:56.
Tomorrow the Grand Finals will be held with the Women up first at 8am followed by the Men at 8:25am. All the World Champions will be crowned during the Awards Ceremony immediately after the Team Relay Race Final.
The Men’s SUP Surfing Final will feature Sean Poynter (USA), Antoine Delpero (FRA), Beau Nixon (AUS) and Tamil Marino (PER).
The Women’s SUP Surfing Final will feature Iballa Ruana (SPA), Nicole Pacelli (BRA), Shakira Westdorp (AUS), and Caroline Angibaud (FRA)
Tune in at 7:40am with the daily morning show featuring the Peruvian National SUP and Paddleboard Team. Watch all the action on www.isawsuppc.com
Friday, 7:40am Peru
Friday, 4:40am West Coast USA
Friday, 1:40pm Western Europe
Friday, 11:40pm Sydney, Australia
Calculate the time for all other areas
AUSTRALIA WINS BACK-TO-BACK TEAM GOLD MEDAL AT THE 2013 ISA WORLD SUP AND PADDLEBOARD CHAMPIONSHIP
SOLID SWELL AND CLEAR SKIES FOR DAY 4 OF THE 2013 ISA WORLD SUP AND PADDLEBOARD CHAMPIONSHIP
BUILDING SWELL AND DENSE FOG GREETS THE BEST SUP SURFERS IN THE WORLD
ISA BRINGS BACK THE ORIGINAL EDUARDO ARENA WORLD CHAMPION TROPHY
AUSTRALIANS SWEEP THE LONG DISTANCE RACES IN A WILD DAY OF COMPETITION
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The Beast from the Depths of Chaos: Astro-Mythology & the Bush Gang
by Jennifer Van Bergen Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2004 at 3:11 PM
jvb000@earthlink.net
With all that the Bush administration does or does not do, it is remarkable that no one in the progressive community has yet bothered to do an astrological analysis of the charts of its key members. Here, therefore, I remedy this appalling failure on the part of the progressive press. Whether you believe in astrology or not, this analysis should provide you with some interesting insights into the characters of and relationships between the members of the Bush crew.
pale-horse.jpg, image/jpeg, 286x361
I have focused here primarily on the effects of two planets: Pluto and Saturn, between the charts of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld (and to a lesser extent, Ashcroft).[1] Remarkably, there are an extraordinary number of Pluto and Saturn contacts between them.[2] Mythological Meanings of Saturn & Pluto Even if you are not knowledgeable about astrology, you may know about the mythological meanings of the Greek gods. Pluto was the god of the Underworld. Pluto, “also known as the prince of darkness, governs the kingdom of the dead.”[3] #file_1# While the planet Pluto is a tiny body and its existence was not confirmed until 1930, taking about 250 years to circle around the Sun, it is considered to be the ruling planet of the sign of Scorpio, which has been a recognized astrological sign for thousands of years.[4] It’s a reasonable assignment, since the theme of both Pluto and Scorpio is the cycle of birth and death. Pluto’s father was Saturn, also called Kronos, the keeper of Time. Saturn, the second largest planet in the solar system, taking almost 30 years to orbit the Sun, is the most remote of the seven visible planets. It was discovered in the 19th century. According to Greek mythology, Saturn overthrew his father, Uranus, by castrating him, and then ate his children, among whom were Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto. #file_2# Jupiter, who was rescued by his mother, Rhea, made Uranus disgorge all of the other children.[5] Jupiter then exiled Saturn to Italy, where Janus gave him a home. There, Saturn “introduced such widespread prosperity that his reign was remembered as ‘the Golden Age,’” and the Romans celebrated this era each year at the end of December, with a festival known as “Saturnalia.”[6] The interplay, thus, of Pluto and Saturn is rich with deep archetypal meaning. Pluto contacts are often ignored by astrologers as being “generational influences,” but as astrologer Liz Greene says, “if one takes into account Pluto’s association with certain collective psychic energies, he has potentially a very powerful effect on individual man since each person must make his own pact with these collective energies.”[7] In my experience, close Pluto contacts between the “personal planets”[8] within the chart of an individual indicates some highly unhealthy and destructive propensities. A Saturn/Pluto combination is one of the deepest and darkest. I have found this combination more than any other in the charts of serial killers,[9] as well as in those of persons with multiple personality disorder, who are not criminals but whose basic sense of self has been shattered by severe early traumas. It seems as though Saturn/Pluto can work either to break the spirit or irretrievably harden it. While a number of the members of the Bush crew contain separate internal hard Pluto or Saturn aspects in their charts,[10] none of them contain internal Saturn-to-Pluto contacts. However, remarkably, the charts of Bush, Rumsfeld, and Cheney contain numerous Pluto/Saturn contacts between them: that is, Pluto in one person’s chart connects to Saturn in another person’s chart, or to (personal) planets in various combinations. Pluto/Saturn contacts are not often found between colleagues, since the contacts “will generally precipitate an immediate power struggle” in which “both people can sense that it is desperately important who wins this battle because it will decide who in the end controls the relationship.”[11] But if Saturn and Pluto pair up, such contacts indicate, to put it simply, a criminal enterprise, each person providing a prop to one or more other person’s darkest ambitions and pursuits. As Liz Greene says, “Pluto is Saturn’s only real friend in the planetary hierarchy, although, as the saying goes, with a friend such as this, one has no need of enemies.”[12] The Gates to the Burning Ground: The Dark Saturn/Pluto Bond #file_3# Greene writes: The usual quality . . . with a Saturn-Pluto contact is obsessiveness. There often seems to be a carefully organized and deliberate movement toward some self-destructive experience . . .[13] Where Saturn/Pluto contacts occur within an individual’s chart, the person will be drawn towards such behaviors of his own accord. Where such contacts occur between two people’s charts, the planets will join energies and create a self-fulfilling loop, not subject to outside interference or correction. As Greene explains, Saturn and Pluto have several things in common: they both “have an association with darkness, with destruction, and with the figure of Lucifer, the Dark Prince, or the Beast who symbolizes the depths of chaos.”[14] Pluto represents transformation, but of a devastating kind. While Pluto may lead to transformation, it is always through some process of destruction. In other words, Plutonian transformation occurs out of the bones and ashes of destruction. The Nazi “purification” of Germany was a destructive transformative Plutonian process. When Pluto joins with Saturn, the result is ominous. Greene notes that “Saturn guards the entry to Pluto’s realm for it is the [Saturnian] collapse of external values which leads eventually to the burning ground” that Pluto symbolizes.[15] Bush’s s administration, more than any other in the history of the United States, manifests the collapse of external values (such as those which are traditionally Saturnian: the rule of law, and those traditionally Aquarian: civil liberties)[16] and the seemingly irreversible progress down the dark road to “the burning ground” of war. While Saturn considers itself as a protector, Pluto provides the impetus and the subject: death, terrorism, war. Thus, war/terror (on terrorism) in the name of self-protection. Saturn/Pluto contacts “exaggerate and amplify experience so that it is blown up to mythological proportions [where] [s]omething of the magical or fated quality of collective experience creeps in.”[17] Several members of the Bush crew have touted a sense of this fated quality, declaring their missions to be from God.[18] The Leo placements of Pluto in the charts of Bush and Cheney increase this sense of self-importance or greatness and the need to dominate. The several Cancer Suns (Bush and Rumsfeld) tie the sense of identity (Sun) to the home[land] (Cancer). The fated quality of Saturn/Pluto also occurs within the Bush/Rumsfeld relationship. Rumsfeld’s Sun/Pluto conjunction is tightly bracketed by Bush’s Sun and Saturn in Cancer, with Rumsfeld’s Pluto within a few degrees of Bush’s Saturn. The contact creates a strong sense that the relationship was destined. It is a powerful bond, not easily broken, as is shown by Bush’s unwillingness to ask Rumsfeld to resign after the Abu Ghraib revelations. Saturn (Bush) has a tolerance for or even awe of the acts (torture) Pluto (Rumsfeld) takes responsibility for. Both Saturn and Pluto are “transpersonal” planets, belonging to the outer rings of the solar system. They often involve areas outside of conscious awareness. Saturn/Pluto “seems intent upon driving the conscious [persons] into the burning ground with or without conscious consent and without help.”[19] Or, as Greene says at another point, the individuals “may be fully aware of [the] obsessive movement [of the contact] yet may not be able to control it.”[20] When persons with internal Saturn/Pluto combinations resist the destructive pull of these energies, pretending that things are fine, lessons of pain and relinquishment increase. Ultimately, in order for Saturn/Pluto contacts to transform into something positive and productive, they must disintegrate what they create. Out of the ashes of destruction rises the Phoenix. People with Saturn/Pluto connections believe deeply in the rise of this Phoenix from the ashes. It’s Armageddon, the Apocalypse, the Rapture. But the price for anyone within the reach of persons with such connections is far too great. Life itself may be brutally sacrificed. In the end, persons who share a Saturn/Pluto contact will either stay far away from each other out of a subliminal awareness of the destructive forces they engender together, or, if their own personal charts drive them to covet the power of such forces, as Bush’s and Rumsfeld’s do, they will attract each other and work together to the destruction of others. Bush & Rumsfeld Rumsfeld’s chart shows that he is ruthless, relentless, sadistic, brutal, and “will drastically eliminate the unnecessary in his vision.”[21] His Sun/Pluto conjunction, ruthless in itself, is squared to Uranus, which is a dangerous placement. Again, astrologers often view Pluto/Uranus contacts as “generational” and therefore undeserving of analysis. But in Rumsfeld’s chart, the planet of identity, the Sun, is in contact with both of these outer planets: Pluto’s dark forces and the Uranian need to be free of restrictions to pursue his experiments and innovations, no matter what, tied into his sense of self (Sun). In other words, this man is destructive and will not be stopped. His very identity is at stake. Bush’s chart shows ruthlessness as well. His chart contains a triple conjunction between Mercury, Pluto, and Venus in Leo. This combines the sign of rulership and power (Leo) with the planets of thought (Mercury) and relationship (Venus) with the forces of darkness and destruction (Pluto).[22] Rumsfeld’s Mercury is also conjunct the position of these three planets in Bush’s chart, contributing his intellect to Bush’s witch’s brew. The Saturn/Pluto contacts between Rumsfeld’s and Bush’s charts only increases the brutality in either chart. Or, put yet another way, their own personal brutality contributes to and feeds the brutal acts they commit together. But this is not all. The contact between Rumsfeld’s and Bush’s Suns and their respective Pluto and Saturn connects the forces of identity and creation (Sun) in the sign of the home[land] (Cancer) with death, destruction, loss, deep pain, and grief (Pluto/Saturn). In other words, the connection provides a bridge for the energies of both Suns and the dark forces of Pluto/Saturn, fostering a massive amount of energy. Where these exist within an individual’s chart (which is not the case here), the individual will feel these things internally, but where they are found as contacts between the charts of two persons, those who are subject to, in the care of, or under the authority of those persons are in extreme danger. Where those two persons hold the keys to a superpower, the danger is worldwide. In sum, in all the charts considered in this article, Saturn is operating destructively in various combinations with Pluto and other planets that contribute to the malignant mix. The only solution to this destructive set-piece is its dissolution and isolation of its elements. In other words, these men must not be put back into office. [1] Birthdates: George W. Bush, Jr. – July 6, 1946, 7:26 AM EDT, New Haven, CT; Donald Rumsfeld – July 9, 1932, 5:40 PM CST, Chicago, IL; Dick Cheney – January 30, 1941, 7:30 PM CST, Lincoln, NE; John Ashcroft, May 9, 1942, time unknown, Chicago, IL. Charts at www.stariq.com. [2] Bush & Rumsfeld have Sun to Sun/Pluto contacts, Mercury to Mercury/Pluto/Venus, Jupiter to Venus/Pluto/Mercury, Saturn/Venus to Mercury/Pluto/Venus. Cheney contributes an Aquarian Sun to the Pluto (Leo/Cancer) combinations, which create Sun to Mercury/Pluto/Venus. Ashcroft adds Pluto/Chiron to the Mercury/Pluto/Venus mix. Rumsfeld’s Saturn in Aquarius is opposite Bush’s Mercury/Pluto/Venus in Leo and trine (120 degrees) Bush’s Neptune in Libra. It is also conjunct Cheney’s Sun in Aquarius (and opposite Cheney’s Pluto in Leo). Ashcroft’s Mars in Cancer is quincunx (150 degrees) to Rumsfeld’s Saturn. Ashcroft’s Saturn is conjunct Rumsfeld’s Mars in Gemini. [3] Solange de Mailly Nesle, Astrology: History, Symbols and Signs (Leon Amiel Publisher, 1981) 165. [4] The Chaldeans of Assyria in the Middle East are usually considered the first to divide the sky into the twelve sections reflecting the calendrical relationship between the Sun and Moon. This was over 5000 years ago. Martin Seymour-Smith, The New Astrologer (Macmillan, 1981) 12. See also, Francis Hitching¸ Earth Magic (Morrow & Co., 1977) 271-75 (Argues that the builders of Stonehenge and other megalithic sites in Great Britain – of approximately the same era as the Chaldeans -- “knew and practiced the principles of astrology . . . long before the system was formalized by the Egyptians or the Greeks.”) The signs were developed out of the constellations. According to Parkers’ Astrology, “there is evidence that the ‘modern’ zodiac was in place long before the birth of Christ.” Julia & Derek Parker, Parkers’ Astrology: The Essential Guide to using Astrology in Your Daily Life (Dorling Kindersley, Inc., 1991) 18. [5] Nesle at 177. [6] Id In Roman mythology, Janus was the god of gates and doorways, depicted with two faces looking in opposite directions. Janus and Saturn are often viewed as the same god.. [7] Liz Greene, Saturn: A New Look at an Old Devil (Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1976) 188. [8] By close contacts, I mean between Pluto and any of the inner, “personal” planets, such as the Sun, Moon, Venus, Mercury, or Mars. [9] Ted Bundy had a Saturn/Pluto conjunction in Leo. Hitler had a Saturn (in Leo) square to an incredible Venus/Moon/Mercury/Mars/Neptune/Pluto rolling cascade conjunction across Taurus & Gemini. Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber, has Pluto in Leo sextile to Saturn/Sun/Uranus in Gemini. The Gainesville Killer, Danny Rolling, who is still on Death Row, has a Saturn/Sun (Scorpio/Gemini) quincunx & a Pluto/Moon (Leo/Pisces) quincunx. [10] Hard aspects are squares (90 degrees), quincunxes (150 degrees) and oppositions (180 degrees). Conjunctions (0-10 degrees) can also sometimes be hard. Hard aspects bring out the worst energies of the planets involved. An aspect is an angle of arc between two planets around the circle of the chart that represents the plane of the ecliptic, or the apparent path of the Sun around the Earth. Favorable aspects are generally trines (120 degrees), sextiles (60 degrees), and sometimes conjunctions. How aspects are used by individuals, however, varies tremendously. [11] Greene at 191. [12] Id. at 141. [13] Id. at 142. Greene here writes about internal contacts. [14] Id at 141. [15] Id. [16] Aquarius figures in both Rumsfeld’s and Cheney’s charts. [17] Id. at 142. [18] The hard Jupiter influence in some of these contacts also increases fanatical religious propensities. Bush, Cheney, and Ashcroft all have hard Jupiter aspects. Ashcroft has a Jupiter/Neptune square: confused in his judgment, prone to religious fervor, difficulty distinguishing real from unreal. Bush and Cheney have Sun/Jupiter squares (an aspect shared with Fidel Castro), which indicate religious excess, tendency to exaggerate, poor judgment, and unrealistic expectations. Rumsfeld has a Jupiter/Uranus/Pluto combination: rebellious, radical thinker, fanatical, critical, pious, recklessly and innovatively brutal. See Seymour-Smith, The New Astrologer (cited above at footnote 4) at 147-48. Also see generally, James Braha, How to Be a Great Astrologer: The Planetary Aspects Explained (Hermetician Press, 1992). [19] Id. at 143. [20] Id. at 142. (About individual contacts.) [21] Seymour-Smith at 147. [22] Pluto in Leo is about abuse of power. Pluto went into Leo in 1938 and was progressing into it through WWII. It remained in Leo for twenty years, longer than it usually remains in a sign, through the Cold War. Of course, not all people born in those years abuse power. This depends on what contacts the Leo-Pluto makes in the individual’s chart.
Saturn Eating His Children
kronos_20by_20goya.gif, image/png, 167x257
Death Dance
death_dance.jpg, image/jpeg, 398x282
by absolutely Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2004 at 4:04 PM
"it is remarkable that no one in the progressive community has yet bothered to do an astrological analysis of the charts of its key members. "
You couldn't be more correct. It IS amazing that no one in this assinine bunch has yet bothered to indulge in one of the more inane and silly of all the ridiculous beliefs touted here that astrology is.
Thanks for covering that base. More ammo for well needed ridicule.
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10 Mountains You Can Actually Climb
By Emily Davies-Robinson
What better way to see the sites but from up top? Many of us would love to be able to scale a mountain like Everest or K2. The unfortunate part is that not all of us are in good enough physical shape to be able to climb these legendary mountains. There are however, many smaller mountains for the rest of us. Here are a few.
Rumor has it that Mount Fuji is the most frequently-climbed mountain in the world. With an elevation of 12,388 feet, it’s also Japan’s tallest summit. Located on Honshu Island, Mount Fuji’s official climbing season only lasts from July to August, with many amateur and expert hikers alike flocking for its world famous sunrise and sunsets.
Half-Dome, USA
At 8,835 feet high, the views across Yosemite from Half-Dome, are some of the most magnificent in the United States. It is considered one of North America’s most stunning rock formations. One of the most famous parts of this hike is the ascent up the cables. The two metal cables allow hikers to climb 400 feet to the summit without hiking equipment.
Mount Olympus, Greece
Mount Olympus is one of Greece’s most famous landmarks. Not only is it Greece’s highest mountains, but it is also known for being a home for the gods. The good news is that you don’t need to have the strength of Zeus to climb up it. It’ll take two days to reach the highest peak of Mytikas, starting at the town of Prionia.
Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania
It may be surprising, but there are some peaks on this famous African mountain that are accessible for even the most novice climbers. The lowest peak, a dormant volcano Shira, is 13,000 feet high. The easiest of Kilimanjaro’s routes is the Marangu itinerary which takes approximately 5 days and features huts along the route for hikers to stay along the trek. These huts provide lots of opportunities to rest up during this long trek.
Ben Nevis, Scotland
The United Kingdom’s tallest mountain is actually not that high. At only 3,900 feet high, crowds flock to the mountain to climb (or walk) the Mountain Track. Although it may not be as high as many Alpine Mountains, it is positioned on a northerly latitude and has climate similar to many Arctic regions. Climbers can expect a variety of weather changes so layers are a must!
Mount Blanc, France
Don’t be intimidated by the highest summit in Western Europe. Scaling a 14,000 ft. mountain might seem like a tall order, but a cable car will take you most of the way up the mountain (complete with bar service!) Don’t get too comfortable though, you’ll have to scale the final 3,000 feet yourself.
Mount Evans, USA
Mount Evans is one of the easiest of Colorado’s 54 summits to climb and is one of only two of the 54 that you can drive up. Located only 60 miles from Denver, Mount Evans makes a great day trip for the whole family.
Mount Kosciuszko, Australia
At 7,310 feet high, Mount Kosciuszko has the claim to fame of the highest mountain Down Under. Visit during Australia’s summer months for some leisurely hiking or during the winter months to enjoy the area’s ski resorts.
Cotopaxi, Ecuador
While it may not be the most difficult mountain to climb, the biggest challenge associated with climbing Cotopaxi is acclimatizing to the thin air and unpredictable weather characteristic of the region. The climb up Cotopaxi takes approximately four days and offers many ideal spots for climbers to set up camp and enjoy the stunning views of the national park that surrounds the peak.
Mt. Elbrus, Russia
At 18,510 feet tall, Mt. Elbrus is the tallest mountain in all of Russia. Don’t worry, you aren’t required to climb the whole way up. A chairlift takes visitors up to the starting point of 12,500 feet. The hike is fairly untechnical and can be attempted by beginner hikers. Just watch out for the high altitude and extreme weather.
Comment on 10 Mountains You Can Actually Climb
Scenic Places In The USA: Awe Inspiring Waterfalls
You won’t 'Adam and Eve' This: Cockney Rhyming Slang for your London Trip
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Iran suicide bomber kills 2 outside police station, state media reports
Updated 7:52 AM ET, Thu December 6, 2018
(CNN) - A Toyota van loaded with explosives tried to ram the police headquarters in Iran's southeastern port city of Chabahar, killing two police officers and the attacker, Iran's state-run IRNA agency reported Thursday.
The suicide bomber blew himself up at around 9:55 local time on Thursday. Three of the 28 people injured in the attack are in grave condition, according to Mohammad Naseh, a chief medic at an emergency center in the city quoted by IRNA.
State media also reported shooting in the vicinity of the attack.
The Chabahar attack is the first suspected terror attack in Iran since gunmen attacked a military parade in the southwestern city of Ahvaz in September, killing at least 29 people and wounding more than 70 others.
Developing story -- more to come.
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The People's Republic of Moldova
We're just over two weeks out from the referendum on reintroducing direct voting for the president of the Republic. Large parts of the rusophile left have announced that they will boycott the poll. The official reasons are that (a) they believe the AIE will use the result to avoid calling new parliamentary elections, and (b) a 'parliamentary' system is more democratic than a 'presidential' one. The unofficial reason for the boycott is that, with Voronin out of play, they don't have a candidate capable of winning the vote.
The communist's first claim has some merit. There are parts of the AIE (e.g. Urecheanu's Moldova Noastra) which would like to hold fresh elections so as to have a chance to rebuild their slumping political fortunes first. Other parts, notably the Liberal Democrats, want to have an election as soon as possible to capitalise on a surge in their popularity. In general terms, it would make sense for a pro-western government to wait until spring before holding fresh elections - better to go the people on a sunny April day than to hold an election in the depths of winter a week or so after the Russians have cut off the gas....
The second claim is scandal-mongering. Certainly we do not want a polictical system in which all power is focussed in the hands of the President, but changing the way he/she is elected will not change the his/her constitutional powers and so will have no direct bearing on whether Moldova is a parliamentary or presidential republic. At best it will increase the moral standing of the president who will now enjoy a direct mandate from the people rather than the confidence of just sixty-one deputies.
The Communists claim that, if Moldova directly elects its President, it will be an oddity in a Europe where Presidents are genearally elected by Parliament. There is some truth there, however there are some significant exceptions (e.g. France and (nominally) Russia) where the president is directly elected. What the communists fail to point out, however, is that Presidents elected by Parliaments are usually figureheads and have very little executive power given to them by their constitutions.
Where the president has some substantive executive power (as is the case in Moldova), it stands to reason that he/she requires a direct and substantial mandate direct from the people. It is unreasonable for the commander in chief and defender of the constitution to be appointed by as few as sixty-one people. It is unreasonable for someone who is responsible for national security to enjoy the support of only a small group of politicians rather than the people as a whole.
In reality, what we need to construct in Moldova is neither a presidential republic nor a parliamentary one. What we need, in fact is a 'people's republic' (in the true sense of that phrase rather than the one abused over the years by the Chinese and North Koreans).
The basic idea behind a people's republic is that all institutions of state would in some way be truly accountable to the people of Moldova. A directly elected president. A constiutional court whose judges could be voted down by a super-majority in a referendum. A parliament elected in constituencies as well as in party lists. A constitution which mandates referendums as the means for taking certain important decisions.
There is a view floating around (and very popular among self-perpetuating elites) that ordinary people are too stupid or too ill-informed to be trusted with decision-making. That job should be left to (far wiser) elected representatives.
I don't buy it. Switzerland has been holding referendums for years, and they are a natural and important part of the political system. The Swiss take an interest in these votes and make sure that they are well-informed ahead of participating. There is no good reason why, after a few years of settling in, it shouldn't be the same in Moldova.
Long live the people's republic!
Posted by Zimbru at 1:06 PM
Sky6@Angel's1 August 23, 2010 at 6:36 AM
Join the dots
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Russell Crowe was hesitant to sign up for Roger Ailes biopic
Russell Crowe was reluctant to portray disgraced TV mogul Roger Ailes onscreen because there was nothing appealing about his reputation as the head of Fox News.
The Gladiator star's knowledge of Ailes' background was largely limited to the latter part of his life, including his resignation from the right-wing cable news network in 2016 amid allegations of sexual misconduct, and his death in 2017, aged 77, but it was only when he decided to give the script for The Loudest Voice a chance that he discovered there was so much more material he could work with.
"I didn't think I was interested in (playing) Roger Ailes," Crowe admitted on U.S. breakfast show Today. "I knew him from the frame of Fox News, and I probably knew about (him) being an advisor to three presidents, but that was really all I knew."
"It was the quality of the writing that made me then start to look into who Ailes was," he continued, "and then to find out that he was the executive producer of The Mike Douglas Show (1960s U.S. talk show) at the age of 26, that he'd risen already to a position that was quite powerful in television, when television was still really relatively new... I was like, 'Who is this guy? This guy is like a soothsayer, he can see the future.'"
The Loudest Voice, which focuses on the last 10 years of Ailes' life, boasts an all-star cast, with Crowe joined by Sienna Miller, Seth MacFarlane, Annabelle Wallis, and Naomi Watts, among others.
The limited series, based on Gabriel Sherman's bestselling book The Loudest Voice in the Room, debuts in the U.S. on Sunday (30Jun19).
It's not the only new project about Ailes - director Jay Roach is also developing a biopic about the producer, with John Lithgow as Ailes, alongside Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie, Charlize Theron, and Malcolm McDowell as Rupert Murdoch.
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SIZA – UNSEEN & UNKNOWN. 100 sketches on Álvaro Siza's legacy
28/02/2019. Exhibition. Tchoban Foundation [Berlin] Germany 20.02 > 26.05.2019
metalocus, RAMIRO PEREZ TOLEDO
The Tchoban Foundation Museum for Architectural Drawing hosts Siza - Unseen and Unknown, an exhibition of 100 sketches from Álvaro Siza's most personal archive, in addition to small collections of close friends and family. Opened on February 20th, it will be on display until May 26th, 2019.
Church of Santa Maria del Rosario, 1999. Rome, Italy ©Álvaro Siza
Portrait of Álvaro Siza by his wife, Maria Antónia Siza. 1970-73 ©Maria Antónia Siza
IBA Competitions - Schlesisches Tor and Kulturforum, Berlin. 1983 ©Álvaro Siza
De Punkt and De Komma Social Housing, 1986. The Hague, Netherlands ©Álvaro Siza
Faculty of Architecture, 1987. Porto Portugal ©Álvaro Siza
New Orleans Towers, 2003. Rotterdam, Netherlands ©Álvaro Siza
China Design Museum, 2012. Hangzhou, China ©Álvaro Siza
Ramos Pinto House, 2000. Francelos, Portugal ©Álvaro Leite Siza
Unknown, 2018 ©Henrique Siza
Universiade _97 Sports Complex, 1994. Palermo, Italy ©Álvaro Siza
Siza - Unseen and Unknown. Exhibition poster
Álvaro Siza was born in 1933, on the same year that the Bauhaus closed its doors. He is perhaps the last living modernist or, at the very least, the most significant voice to carry out the unfinished modernist project all the way into the 21st century.
Siza – Unseen and Unknown showcases this continuity through 100 sketches, as well as its unavoidable contradictions. These drawings are from his most personal archive, in addition to small collections of close friends and family. Hence, they focus not only on the professional legacy but also on the family one, where Maria Antónia Siza (1940-1973) takes center stage. His wife will draw him, he will draw her and the loving embrace of the human body will be transversal to architecture, art, life.
Quite fittingly, Juhani Pallasma told Álvaro Siza last year that architecture is such an impure and complex thing, that speaking about it is like speaking about the theory of life... In many ways, the Bernini folds of Maria Antónia’s cloths and hairs develop in Siza’s own ink lines and this anthropomorphic research goes on long after her death, at just thirty two years old. Those bodies will grow increasingly more abstract, like the Venus de Milo, losing its arms and becoming something more – where the Hellenic sacred feminine is ever-present.
Those limbs multiply and turn back into architecture and geometry in their son’s work, Álvaro Leite Siza (1962). Father and son labor independently on related themes, themes of mythology and religion, intertwining figures that reveal the importance of family. The future is now in the hands of a grandson, Henrique Siza (1992), and his architectural studies in Berlin. Looming in the city are the silhouettes of the masters that became the backdrop of Álvaro Siza’s first international proposals (1976-1990), namely the Schlesisches Tor Residential Complex and the Kulturforum.
The Bonjour Tristesse, as it was nicknamed, revisits Berlinesque modernity through the curved corners of Poelzig's S. Adam Department Store or Mendelsohn's Mossehaus, while the Kulturforum, not far from the ashes of an ever-changing Potsdamer Platz, attempts to articulate the pieces of Scharoun and Mies like a glorious puzzle. Nowadays, beyond the, Internationale Bauausstellung (IBA) the Kulturforum has an empty core while Berlin is filled with glass buildings – Glas being the pen-name of Bruno Taut. Siza’s epitaph for Berlin is unexpectedly truer in the end: “The Taut City”.
Trapped by an unwanted title as “the architect of participation” – after the Portuguese Carnation Revolution (1974) –, Álvaro Siza will be invited to redevelop the Schilderswijk-West district (1983-93), in The Hague, and to design the new Faculty of Architecture (1984-96), in Porto. The familial camaraderie of peers and collaborative interactions of students, combined with the white rendering of the Neues Bauen, are evocative of the Bauhausian carefree avant-garde. The School of Porto, as it is now known, proves that the last true modernist is also the ultimate mannerist, reconnecting the complexity of modern vocabularies with classical canons.
Continuity, contradiction and hybridization play with his subconscious. The unknown Sports Complex for the 1997 Universiade, in Palermo, approaches the materiality of amphitheaters, coliseums and bullfighting arenas – a vastly underrated urban redevelopment, like many of Siza’s international interventions. Another example would be his return to the Netherlands, in 2002. Reclaiming the skyline of Rotterdam’s harbor, a city in constant expansion and reinvention, he suggests twin-towers yet only one was erected.
The New Orleans Tower was clad in stone, unlike the curtain-wall that one normally associates with skyscrapers or the iconic Gropius facade in Dessau. It seems serendipitous that one would celebrate the Bauhaus centennial less than a year after Álvaro Siza inaugurated his Chinese Design Museum (2012-18), in Hangzhou, built around a permanent Bauhaus collection. Starting that museum on the same year that he fractured his right arm, it is an unwaveringt estament to his philosophical cornerstone – hand drawings.
Over the course of several meetings, we became increasingly interested in a group of folders labeled as “Unidentified Projects”. We managed to identify some of them. Others are still just loose ideas, designs that never were but could have been. A few sneaked their way into the final selection, but this was never destined to be a monographic exhibition on Siza and his family – impossible due to the sheer scale of that enterprise and because its main character is still active, in continuous production. Nonetheless, a totalizing methodology is sublimated in the works, a legacy which is perfectly summed up by Longfellow’s poem “The Builders”: architects of Fate that work the walls of Time with great care, even the unseen parts, for the Gods see everywhere.
The exhibition is curated by Architect António Choupina with Dr.h.c. Kristin Feireriss.
Tchoban Foundation. Museum for Architectural Drawing
Founded in 2009 by the passionate draftsman and collector of architectural drawings, Sergei Tchoban, the Tchoban Foundation with its substantial collection serves as a place of research into the history and nature of the architectural drawing. An extensive on-site library focussing on the field is open to experts and interested visitors alike. The overall aim of the foundation, in this digital age, is to bring the fantastic and emotionally-charged worlds of architectural drawing closer to a wider public through exhibitions.
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From February 20th to May 26th, 2019
Álvaro Joaquim Melo Siza Vieira was born in Matosinhos (near Porto), in 1933. From 1949-55 he studied at the School of Architecture, University of Porto. His first built project was finished in 1954. From 1955-58 he was collaborator of Arch. Fernando Távora. He taught at the School of Architecture (ESBAP) from 1966-69 and was appointed Professor of "Construction" in 1976. He was a Visiting Professor at the Ècole Polythéchnique of Lausanne, the University of Pennsylvania, Los Andes University of Bogotá and the Graduate School of Design of Harvard University; he taught at the School of Architecture of Porto (jubilate in 2003).
He is the author of many projects such as: the Boa Nova Tea House and Restaurant; 1200 dwellings built in Malagueira, Évora; the Superior School of Education in Setúbal, the new School of Architecture in Porto; the Library of Aveiro University; the Museum of Modern Art in Porto; the Church and Parochial Centre in Marco de Canavezes; the Pavilion of Portugal for EXPO '98 and the Pavilion of Portugal in Hannover 2000 (with Souto de Moura); the dwelling and offices complex of “Terraços de Bragança” in Lisbon; and he has rebuilt the burnt area of Chiado in Lisbon since 1988, including the projects for some buildings like Castro e Melo, Grandella, Chiado Stores, and others.
He has been coordinated the plan of Schilderswijk's recuperation in The Hague, Holland, since 1985, which finished in 89; in 1995 he finished the project for blocs 6-7-8 in Ceramique Terrein, Maastricht.
In Spain he has completed the projects for the Meteorological Centre of Villa Olimpica in Barcelona; the Museum of Contemporary Art of Galicia and the Faculty of Information Sciences in Santiago de Compostela; the Rectorate of the Alicante University; Zaida building – offices, commercial and dwelling complex in Granada; Sportive Complex Cornellà de L’lobregat in Barcelona.
Cultural Centre and auditorium for the Ibere Camargo Foundation in Brazil; Municipal Centre of Rosario in Argentina; lodging-house in the Plan of Recuperation and Transformation of Cidade Velha in Cap Vert; Serpentine Pavillion (2005) with Eduardo Souto Moura; Museum of Modern Art of Naples in Italy; Anyang Pavilion in South Korea (with Carlos Castanheira); Mimesis Museum in South Korea (with Carlos Castanheira); are to be mentioned.
He has participated in several lectures and conferences in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Norway, Holland, Switzerland, Austria, England, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Japan, Canada, United States, Romania, Greece, South Korea and Sweden.
Having been invited to participate in international competitions, he won the first place in Schlesisches Tor, Kreuzberg, Berlin (now built), at the recuperation of Campo di Marte in Venice (1985) and at the renewal of Casino and Café Winkler, Salzburg (1986); Cultural Centre for the La Defensa, Madrid (with José Paulo Santos) (1988/89); J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, California (with Peter Testa) (1993); Pietà Rondanini Room, Sforzesco Castell, Milan (1999); Special Plan Recoletos-Prado, Madrid (with Juan Miguel Hernandez Leon e Carlos Riaño) (2002); Toledo Hospital (Sánchez-Horneros office) (2003); “Atrio de la Alhambra” in Spain (with Juan Domingo Santos)(2010); “Parco delle Cave”, Lecce in Italy (with Carlos Castanheira) (2010).
He has participated in the competitions for Expo 92 in Sevilla, Spain (with Eduardo Souto de Moura and Adalberto Dias) (1986); for "Un Progetto per Siena", Italy (with José Paulo Santos) (1988); the Cultural Centre La Defensa in Madrid, Spain (1988/89); the Bibliothèque of France in Paris (1989/90), the Helsinki Museum (with Souto de Moura) (1992-93); Flamenco City of Xerez de la Frontera, Spain (with Juan Miguel Hernandez Leon) (2003).
From 1982 to 2010 has won many different awards and have been assigned with Medals of Cultural Merit from many country around the world. Doctor "Honoris Causa" in various European and International universities.
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Science; "Honorary Fellow" of the Royal Institute of British Architects; AIA/American Institute of Architects; Académie d'Architecture de France and European Academy of Sciences and Arts; Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts; IAA/International Academy of Architecture; American Academy of Arts and Letters.
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Cultural Centre
Firefighters, Rescue
Firemen, Rescue
IN-TREATMENT
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METALOCUS-Classics
MINIM-DWELLING
Prayer centers
REMODELING-RENOVATION
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Archive {{ activeCatName }}
Auditorium Theatre by Álvaro Siza Vieira and Aresta and G.O.P.
04/02/2016 - [Llinars del Vallès, Barcelona] Spain - metalocus, INÉS LALUETA
Siza x Siza. Questions in the air
21/11/2015 - CHRONICLE OF AN EVENING WITH SIZA. Academia de las Bellas Artes de San Fernando [MAD] Spain - metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
Álvaro Siza. Viagem sem Programa
30/06/2014 - Reissue - metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
Álvaro Siza. Complete Works 1952-2013
23/04/2013 - Book. TASCHEN - metalocus, INÉS LALUETA
Santo Tirso Fire Station by Álvaro Siza Vieira
19/02/2013 - [Santo Tirso] Portugal - metalocus, INÉS LALUETA
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Ontario first won Anne’s heart when she captained the Scottish team in the 1981 Women’s World Championships. Prior to that, Anne had come to Toronto as part of a Standard Life sponsored Scottish team tour during which she won the Judy Traviss North American Open.
Her prowess on the squash courts was matched only by her commitment to and passion for growing and promoting the game of squash. She ran for the Board of Directors of Squash Ontario in 1984 and soon became its President. After she completed her term, she successfully ran for the Squash Canada Board. She served as Vice President and then for 8 years as the President.
She was a respected and forceful voice for Canadian squash at the World and Pan American squash levels. Anne was WSF Regional Vice President for Pan America and represented the WSF at PASO meetings at which the bid for squash’s inclusion in the Pan American Games succeeded. She went on to provide the technical leadership for the first Pan American Games squash event. When she left Squash Canada, she was elected Vice President of the World Squash Federation. She was Chair of the WSF Medical and Rules and Referees Committees while serving as WSF Vice President. She was responsible for the WSF member nations approval of the Canadian developed antidoping policy and the use eyeguards for Junior World Championships. After leaving the WSF she was consulted to review the WSF Refereeing program.
Anne led the two most influential squash associations in Canada – Squash Ontario and Squash Canada and she is highly regarded and respected as a builder of the game. She was awarded the W. Stewart Brauns award by the USSRA for her substantial administrative contribution to the game of squash. Anne also boasts an incredible playing record of 30 National, Ontario and World titles in singles, hardball, women’s doubles and mixed doubles.
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Will the switch to electric vehicles cause the UK to blow a fuse?
Just how prepared is the UK for the new Government policy of phasing out petrol and diesel cars by 2040? According to this article in the Daily Telegraph, there is still some way to go.
They say that electric car owners have been warned that if they attempt to boil a kettle while charging their car it will blow the fuse:
The National Grid have expressed concerns that an average size 3.5kW battery charger would take 19 hours to fully charge a car battery, even when it is 25 per cent full.
A “thought piece” document obtained by the Financial Times warned that a more powerful 11kW device would still take six hours to charge a car battery and during that time, the use of everyday items such as kettles and ovens would blow the fuse.
“The average household is supplied with single phase electricity and is fitted with a main fuse of 60-80 amps,” the National Grid said.
“If one were to use an above average power charger, say 11kW, this would require 48 amps. When using such a charger it would mean that you could not use other high demand electrical items... without tripping the house's main fuse.”
The National Grid went on to say that most electric cars will require a battery capacity of 90 kilowatt hours (kWh) to make journeys of around 300 miles. It suggests that the ability to travel longer distances without stopping to recharge will be a “must have” if motorists are to abandon petrol or diesel cars.
We await the UK Government investment needed to counter these concerns and to fulfil the vision they have set out.
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Bringing the Bexiteers into the real world
For too long now the chief cheerleaders for taking the UK out of the EU have been in denial, seeking to fool us that we can leave fairly cheaply and have lots of cash left over to invest in public services. The public acknowledgement by the UK Government that this is not the case will hopefully bring a new sense of realism to this debate.
As the Guardian reports, the UK has finally bowed to EU demands on the Brexit divorce bill in a move that could result in the us paying £50bn to Brussels, in an attempt to get France and Germany to agree to move negotiations to trade.
They say that the bill could total £53bn to £58bn, although EU officials are not discussing numbers and the British government will fight hard to bring the total down. They add that both sides are trying to avoid talking numbers to help the British government deal with the potentially toxic political fallout.
Inevitable as this was, the size of this bill was denied by leavers during the referendum campaign. They led people to believe that exiting the EU would be a simple task with massive financial benefits for the country.
The truth is that not only will the NHS not get the promised £350m a week but we will be paying heavily to leave an institution that massively benefits us and our economy, losing jobs and prosperity in the process.
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World News - Guantanamo suicides a 'PR move'
A top US official has described the suicides of three detainees at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a "good PR move to draw attention". Colleen Graffy told the BBC the deaths were part of a strategy and "a tactic to further the jihadi cause", but taking their own lives was unnecessary. But lawyers say the men who hanged themselves had been driven by despair. A military investigation into the deaths is under way, amid growing calls for the centre to be moved or closed. Speaking to the BBC's Newshour programme, Ms Graffy, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, said the three men did not value their lives nor the lives of those around them. Or maybe they looked at what was happening to them and others and did what they thought was the best way to end their suffering and that of others. Let’s put our Lying leaders who caused all this in the same place, and see how they like it. Now that would be a Good PR move for America ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk
Wal-Mart sued over Fendi copies
Luxury goods firm LVMH has sued Wal-Mart, claiming the world's largest retailer is selling illegal copies of its Fendi-brand products in some shops. According to the lawsuit, Wal-Mart is selling fake handbags, wallets and key chains at Sam's Club stores in states including New York and California. LVMH complained that the Fendi goods were being sold as "genuine" at prices that were discounted as much as 70%. Wal-Mart did not make an immediate comment in response to the lawsuit. An increasing number of high-end designer companies are turning to the courts in an effort to stem a rising tide of cheaper counterfeit products that are hurting their sales and denting their brand image. Why people buy something just because it has a designer name paying outrageous prices when a good produce without the foolish fashion name is much cheaper escapes me. Maybe they think everyone looks at the label and swoons with envy? Me, I just think they are foolish ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5068838.stm
Hamas Says Referendum on State `Might Rip Apart' Palestinians
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismael Hania said a referendum called by his rival President Mahmoud Abbas on forming a state alongside Israel ``might rip the Palestinians apart.'' A ``serious constructive dialogue would be much better than the referendum,'' Hania told reporters after a three-hour meeting with Abbas last night. They are scheduled to meet again today as Abbas seeks to gain Hamas agreement on holding the vote. Abbas called the referendum yesterday after almost two weeks of dialogue with the militant Hamas movement failed to reach an agreement on a common stance over Israel. Abbas, whose Fatah faction supports talks with Israel, shares control of the Palestinian Authority government with Hamas, which refuses to recognize the Jewish state. Hania is leader of the Hamas political party in addition to being the Palestinian Authority prime minister....
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=apFy1A8LzalA&refer=home
Judge may decide if eavesdropping is legal
The National Security Agency's domestic spying program faces its first legal challenge in a case that could decide if the White House is allowed to order eavesdropping without a court order. Oral arguments are set for Monday at U.S. District Court in Detroit at which the ACLU will ask Judge Anna Diggs Taylor to declare the spying unconstitutional and order it halted. The case goes to the heart of the larger national debate about whether President Bush has assumed too much power in his declared war on terrorism. ush said he authorized NSA intercepts soon after the September 11 attacks, allowing the NSA to monitor the international phone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens without first obtaining warrants if in pursuit of al Qaeda suspects. What their not telling you is they are already spying on all communications regardless of the phony excuses, and they want everyone from the postman to your next door neighbor report anyone they suspect of anything. ...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060611/pl_nm/security_eavesdropping_dc
Nuremberg protest over Iran visit
Demonstrations are due to take place in Nuremberg on Sunday ahead of a World Cup match in which Iran faces Mexico. The Iranian vice-president is attending the match and protests have been announced by the local Jewish community as well as Iranian exile groups. One of the biggest fears the Germans have for the World Cup is that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will come here to watch his team play. His comments casting doubt on the Holocaust caused outrage in Germany. This match is serving as a focus for protests against him, even though he is only sent his deputy, Vice-President Mohammed Aliabadi. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5068514.stm
Afghan president: Tribal fighters will help battle Taliban
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Sunday that his government will recruit local tribesmen to fight the biggest increase in Taliban violence in years. A U.S.-led coalition soldier and seven Afghan civilians were killed in the latest violence in the country's south — which has been hardest-hit by the surge in insurgent attacks. Speaking to a group of tribal elders from eastern Afghanistan, Karzai said he did not want to form militias that could clash with rival tribes. "We just want to strengthen the districts to safeguard them from terrorist attack," he said. The president said tribal recruits would strengthen police ranks across the south, and would take their orders from the government. ...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-06-11-afghanistan_x.htm?csp=34
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Home BUSINESS America’s Tapestry wants to take on Europe in luxury fashion stakes
America’s Tapestry wants to take on Europe in luxury fashion stakes
Coach CEO Victor Luis has spent billions acquiring brands such as Kate Spade and is out to turn the recently rebranded Tapestry Group into the US version of his former firm – Louis Vuitton owner LVMH, writes Kim Bhasin
Tapestry will have to spend billions more to acquire additional brands if the company is to fulfil the promise of becoming an American luxury conglomerate
Among the fashion labels owned by Coach owner Tapestry is Kate Spade
The new 700,000- square-foot headquarters of Coach is a state-of-the-art campus in one of New York’s newest skyscrapers. Showrooms along a 15-story atrium look out over tourists walking the High Line, the elevated railroad track-turned-park, and terraces on the 23rd floor poke out from a dine-in cafe that offers sushi and sandwiches. There’s even a special chicken wing bar for staffers who don’t want the usual lunch fare.
A lot of work remains to be done, though. The building occupies the southeast corner of the city’s new $20bn Hudson Yards complex, and cranes have loomed around the 52-story glass tower since the brand moved in two years ago. Even now, the buzz of jackhammers and welding machines greet Coach’s 1,200 or so employees each morning as they enter their pristine new office.
Inside, a similarly radical restructuring is underway. Sales at Coach are just starting to recover after a disastrous three-year stretch from 2012 to 2015, when the label shed $928m (€798bn), or more than 18pc, of its annual revenue. During that time, shares plummeted more than 62pc, from an all-time high of $77.28 to $28.93.
To restore the fading fashion house, the plan is to turn it into America’s answer to European luxury conglomerates such as Kering and LVMH, which run wide-ranging portfolios of brands.
LVMH, the world’s largest luxury company at nearly $50bn in annual revenue, owns everything from Louis Vuitton clothing and Veuve Cliquot Champagne to Guerlain perfumes, TAG Heuer watches, and Sephora cosmetics.
The man steering this strategy, perched in a corner office high above the Hudson River, is taking a page out of his former boss’s playbook. Victor Luis, a 52-year-old executive, ran two divisions at LVMH before joining Coach: fashion label Givenchy in Japan and Baccarat crystal glassware in the US. An immigrant from São Miguel, a little Portuguese island in the Atlantic, he has a master’s degree in international economics and, from the looks of it, a PhD in swagger.
Since his promotion to the top job in January 2014, Luis has announced two acquisitions: a $574m deal for women’s shoemaker Stuart Weitzman and, last July, $2.4bn for Kate Spade, one of the brand’s nemeses. He announced layoffs, culled about a third of his domestic store fleet, and hired replacements for several high-level executives, including former brand chiefs Craig Leavitt and Wendy Kahn. He eliminated the Jack Spade menswear business. He has also severely cut down on promotional activity, such as flash sales and discounted merchandise, purposely hurting sales in the hope that it would wean customers off lower-priced fare.
Perhaps the most controversial announcement, at least for the millions of shoppers who buy Coach’s bags and wallets, occurred last autumn, when Luis gave the 77-year-old fashion house a new corporate name: Tapestry Inc. The move signals that Luis is looking to reposition the company as an American LVMH, one that has evolved beyond “core fashion”.
This year’s performance has been much better, with the stock up about 18pc this year to $52.03 through Tuesday’s close. Coach, Tapestry’s biggest business at more than $4bn, is coming off a strong 12-month run, with same-store sales, a key metric for the retail industry, turning positive over the holiday season last year. “The biggest question mark for us – and for me – was how much time do these things take?” Luis says. “Anxiousness? Short-term concern? Absolutely.”
It wasn’t always like this. Coach was known as an originator of what’s called “affordable luxury”. The company began in 1941 as a leather goods workshop in New York that sold only men’s goods: bags, wallets, flask-holders. It didn’t sell women’s handbags until Lillian and Miles Cahn bought the factory 20 years later. Some of the label’s oldest pieces are still stored in its archive, deep in the labyrinth of its headquarters. They’re relics that designers now use to jog their creativity.
Many of those bags were designed by Bonnie Cashin, who was hired in 1962 and is considered a pioneer of women’s sportswear. In her 12 years there, she transformed Coach from leather shop to fashion house. Her shoulder bags with interchangeable straps, bucket bags and clutches became mainstays, and her signature brass turn lock, which was inspired by the toggles on the roof of her convertible, is still used on many of the brand’s styles today.
In 1985, the Cahns sold the company to the Sara Lee Corp, a now-defunct consumer goods conglomerate, and Coach expanded quickly. It hit $100m in sales by 1989 and made longtime executive Lew Frankfort its president. Appointed CEO in 1995, he spent the next 19 years turning Coach into a multibillion-dollar global luxury powerhouse. Head designer Reed Krakoff became a fashion superstar, thanks to runway-worthy leather goods that could also be sold to the masses – at much lower prices than European peers could offer. When Sara Lee spun off its leather goods business in 2000, Coach had just surpassed the half-billion mark in annual revenue.
Krakoff’s most lasting contribution came in 2001, when the label released a line of bags covered in interlocking Cs, a design that coincided with the very beginning of fashion’s logo craze: Abercrombie & Fitch had its logo tees, Gap had its logo sweatshirts, and Coach had its logo bags. The print was applied to premium leather satchels, as well as to its cheap nylon tote bags. In a little over a decade, Coach would grow into one of the world’s largest handbag labels, peaking at nearly $5.1bn.
Frankfort and Krakoff left Coach in 2014. The company said that the CEO’s departure was part of a long-term succession plan and that it didn’t require an interim chief for the transition.
Frankfort took a role as an executive-in-residence at private-equity firm Sycamore Partners. Krakoff, too, left before Coach had found a replacement. (He is now the creative head of US jeweller Tiffany & Co.)
Luis spent eight years under their leadership and watched the empire they built come crashing down, in a very literal sense.
Coach’s old industrial building, at 516 West 34th St, has since been taken down. One executive kept a brick as a souvenir.
Six months after Luis became CEO, executives held an investor day to reveal their turnaround plans. It would get worse before it gets better, they said. A 2014 company-wide memo asked not to panic, even though sales would be down more than 20pc for the quarter. “That’s not a pretty number,” says Luis. “Even if you know it’s coming, it never feels good.”
On the bottom floor of Tapestry’s new headquarters, seamstresses and leatherworkers sit at sewing machines, churning out sample clutches and hobo bags among spools of bonded leather and rubber fleece. Upstairs, a squad of designers sketch at high desks, surrounded by sheets of fabric. Pin-up boards line the merchandising floor, a vast menu of styles for a brand that sells thousands of different products.
On the 19th floor is the glossy C-suite. Senior management has experienced near-total turnover under Luis, and new faces now run the company’s global supply chain, finance, international business development, and technology. All three of Tapestry’s labels have new top executives, each recruited from outside the company. Kate Spade is run by fashion veteran Anna Bakst, who came over from Michael Kors in late March. In April, Stuart Weitzman announced that its new boss was Eraldo Poletto, the former head of Italian fashion house Salvatore Ferragamo.
Coach CEO Joshua Schulman, who joined from Neiman Marcus Group last June, is the company’s longest-tenured brand chief. The former president of posh department store Bergdorf Goodman speaks conceptually about Coach’s “brand DNA” (a label’s most distinctive attributes), the impact of “omnichannel commerce” (selling seamlessly both online and in stores), and where each new handbag line fits into his theoretical product “pyramid” (higher margin items with a smaller market at the top; lower ones with a bigger market at the bottom).
Coach has begun to diversify its offerings beyond handbags.
It started selling ready-to-wear apparel, and it plans to expand into new product categories and grow its menswear selection, which accounts for about 20pc of the business. Its merchandise now includes outerwear, jewellry, watches, scarves, and fragrances. Schulman is open to expanding into home décor and other segments, when the time comes.
“Elevate” is a word that Coach executives use on a near-constant basis, whether it’s elevated product, elevated price points, or an elevated brand. The average price of a Coach handbag was once under $300. Now, according to Schulman, the sweet spot for price is from $300 to $500. The Rogue, at $795, is Coach’s most expensive line of handbags. Made from glove-tanned pebble leather, it has detachable straps and suede lining and can also come in bold patterns and embellishments. It was designed with die-cut snakeskin tea roses and priced at an elevated $1,500 in the recent season.
In February, the brand welcomed celebrities and influencers to a runway show for Coach 1941, an upscale offshoot of its main brand, designed by creative head Stuart Vevers. “He’s taken the brand in directions that it had never been,” says Schulman. The catwalk itself was more abstract art than clothing showcase, presented as an eerie forest full of video monitors gone haywire. As the show closed, lights dimmed and strobes pulsed as the models hurried through the set. You couldn’t see the clothes at all – not that it mattered. This was about artistic credibility.
“Maybe a shopper who buys a Fendi or a Dior might come in and buy Coach apparel or Coach footwear, because it does now have a luxury point of view,” says Erinn Murphy, an analyst at Piper Jaffray. “That customer would have never bought a logo-oriented Coach tote from seven or eight years ago.” Tapestry’s other brands remain in recovery from a variety of ailments. Stuart Weitzman’s business largely relies on two styles: an over-the-knee, super-tall boot called the ‘5050’ and a line of minimalist ‘Nudist’ sandals with a delicate ankle strap.
But if consumers aren’t wooed with compelling versions of those franchises for one season, it can mean disaster. Earlier this year, the shoemaker ran into production delays with new styles, forcing the company to admit that the issue will persist through next winter. On top of that, Tapestry ousted Stuart Weitzman’s creative director, Giovanni Morelli, in May, citing issues with his “behaviour”.
With $1.4bn in annual revenue when it was acquired, Kate Spade had different problems, primarily that it had torpedoed its own brand with constant online flash sales. As a more youthful, less serious brand, it sells sneakers covered in rose gold glitter, jacquard dresses in multi-colour daisies, and giant, heart-shaped hoop earrings. But the label’s whimsical items were often too strange for luxury shoppers unwilling to shell out $300 on bags that looked, for example, like a giant cat’s head. Weak traffic at its outlet stores forced the brand to offer deeper discounts. Even worse, several seasons of inventory missteps hindered stores that failed to stock enough of the merchandise that people actually wanted.
Sales at Kate Spade fell 3pc in the last period – its sixth-straight negative quarter – but that qualified as good news since it still beat analysts’ estimates, sending the stock up as much as 11pc.
In June, fashion designer Kate Valentine, better known as Kate Spade and co-founder of the label, died in an apparent suicide at her Manhattan apartment. Grieving fans had an “immediate heartfelt response” to the news, executives said, and shoppers bought up products bearing her name.
At first, Tapestry estimated it would see from $30 to $35m in savings from the Kate Spade integration. Next year, it expects to hit from $100 to $115m. Analysts see Kate Spade’s growth potential as an attractive opportunity, if its new owner is willing to shrink first and keep enduring months of bad results as it reduces flash sales. “If they have the discipline to see this through, then the reality is they’ll emerge better off at the end of the tunnel,” says Simeon Siegel, an analyst at Nomura’s Instinet. “It’s important to understand what was the healthy sales versus what was the extra dollar that management wanted to grab.”
But if the company is to fulfil the promise of becoming an American luxury conglomerate, Tapestry will eventually have to spend billions more to acquire additional brands. Luis insists that the company must first fix Kate Spade before resuming the hunt. When it’s time, though, the company will be looking for labels in accessories, footwear, apparel, and outerwear to add to its offerings.
And he has no plans to stop at things you wear. “We’re very focused on our planning horizon, which tends to be three to five years, but that doesn’t mean there’s no opportunity for Tapestry, as a house of brands, to evolve well beyond the core fashion categories,” he says. “The opportunities are endless.”
In analysts’ and media reports during the past year, numerous brand names have been mentioned as potential acquisition targets: Burberry, Britain’s largest luxury label, as well as Barbour, Mulberry, and Longchamp, the French accessories brand. Italy has its share of attractive targets, too, such as Furla handbags and Canali tailoring. PVH, owner of Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein, is the closest thing to an existing American fashion multi-brand house, and it could potentially be in the mix as a buyer. But PVH is considered more a mid-range apparel seller than a glitzy luxury group.
Tapestry’s American competition won’t be so easily left behind. Last November, Michael Kors bought shoe label Jimmy Choo for $1.2bn, its first foray outside its legacy brand.
Famous for its ‘Sex and the City’ stilettos that Sarah Jessica Parker loved so much, the pumps can cost $600 to $1,200 or more, making Choo higher-end than its new owner is. The addition gives Kors a strong foothold in footwear as the handbag war spills into shoes and clothing. At the time, Michael Kors CEO John Idol said the acquisition signalled the start of new strategy: to build an international group of luxury brands. (Bloomberg)
Indo Business
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US Supreme Court Requires Recognition of Marriage Equality
Max Harris - 26th June 2015
Justice Kennedy says that both the Due Process and Equal Protection dimensions of the Fourteenth Amendment underpin the majority’s conclusion.
The US Supreme Court has ruled, in Obergefell, by a 5-4 majority, that the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution requires States to license same-sex marriage, and to recognise same-sex marriages from other States. The judgment will inevitably attract much attention and discussion, and it is useful to provide a quick summary of the Court’s opinions as a basis for debate.
Justice Anthony Kennedy (the sometimes conservative justice, who often casts a deciding swing vote) has written the judgment for the five-judge majority. In his opinion, he discusses the centrality of marriage, going back to Confucius and Cicero. He states that underlying reasons of principle and tradition mean that the right to marry, protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, should be extended to same-sex couples. Marriage, he says, is about autonomy, a two-person union, the safeguarding of children and family, and other benefits (including in relation to taxation and healthcare) – and all these reasons apply to same-sex couples. Current marriage laws impose stigma and injury on same-sex couples, and counter-arguments (about the effect on opposite-sex couples and the need for more public debate) are unpersuasive. When rights are violated, there should be redress. Justice Kennedy says that both the Due Process and Equal Protection dimensions of the Fourteenth Amendment underpin the majority’s conclusion.
The main dissent (in which two other conservative justices joined), penned by Chief Justice John Roberts, emphasises that decisions about same-sex marriage should be left to legislatures, especially because same-sex marriage changes what the Chief Justice says is the traditional understanding of marriage: a union between a man and a woman. Chief Justice Roberts compares the Court’s same-sex marriage decision to Lochner v New York, a 1905 decision in which the Supreme Court struck down a law imposing a limit on working hours because it was said to restrict liberty. He adds that same-sex marriage cannot be justified on privacy grounds (though this argument is not relied upon by the majority), and says that in some ways the decision might justify “plural marriage”. He ends his judgment by saying that courts cannot foresee all consequences of their decisions, and that in this case there may be harmful consequences for religious liberty.
There are further individual dissents from three conservative justices: Justice Antonin Scalia, Justice Clarence Thomas, and Justice Samuel Alito. Justice Scalia, in characteristically colourful language, proclaims that the majority decision (which he later calls “pretentious” and “egotistic”) is a threat to American democracy. The current Supreme Court justices are not representative, says Justice Scalia – he even notes that they all attended Harvard or Yale, and observes that there are no evangelical Christians or Protestants on the Court. Justice Thomas emphasises that the majority’s conception of liberty is misguided, and focuses on freedom to government entitlements, rather than freedom from the government. He says that dignity is a relevant concept, but that dignity is innate, and cannot be bestowed by government. Further, he argues that the majority decision harms political and religious liberty. Justice Alito adds that the majority’s decision further undermines the “frayed” idea that marriage protects procreation.
The Justice Kennedy majority decision contributes to rights jurisprudence through its references to the importance of identity, liberty, and equality. Some aspects of this decision will be questioned – at one point, Justice Kennedy says that rights can “rise … from a better informed understanding of how constitutional imperatives define a liberty that remains urgent in our own era”, a statement that could well be criticised for offering a shaky (or at least, shakily expressed) foundation for rights. But there are also important statements in his judgment about dignity and the evolving understanding of fundamental interests under the Fourteenth Amendment, which will be commended and could prove significant for future rights-based litigation under the American Constitution. His observation that “new dimensions of freedom become apparent to new generations, often through perspectives that begin in pleas or protests …” is likely to be much quoted in the media and by activists. The Justice Thomas dissent may also provide some surprising food for thought for rights advocates: his support for the concept of dignity, albeit a cramped version of dignity, may well be used as a tool by progressive litigants in future cases.
In some ways, the twists and turn in this decision are unsurprising. The minority focuses on the proper role of a court like the US Supreme Court, and the need for judicial self-restraint; the majority emphasises the importance of interests such as equality and liberty. But the result will be welcomed by marriage equality activists and advocates. Whilst there will be undoubted opposition to today’s judgment, for many the judgment will be seen as a triumph of strategic litigation (involving well-chosen petitioners), a triumph of careful argument, and perhaps – if we might for a moment echo the rhetoric of the Justice Kennedy majority judgment – a triumph of love.
Max Harris is an Examination Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. He is an Associate Director of the Oxford Human Rights Hub, a researcher for Free Speech Debate, and a member of the New Economy Organisers Network.
Max Harris ‘US Supreme Court Requires Recognition of Marriage Equality’ (OxHRH Blog, 26 June 2015) <http://humanrights.dev3.oneltd.eu/us-supreme-court-requires-recognition-of-marriage-equality/> [Date of Access]
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Law & Rules
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1991-2: Guidelines for Claiming Matchable Contributions from 1991 Special Election as Matchable Contributions for 1991 Primary and General Elections
An opinion has been requested by a candidate participating in the Campaign Finance Program ("Program"), established by the New York City Campaign Finance Act ("Act"), in a special election to fill a City Council vacancy. The candidate presents the following questions:
1) Has a candidate, who has met the threshold requirement for qualifying for public matching funds in a 1991 special election, also thereby met the threshold for the 1991 primary and general elections for the same Council seat?
2) May an uncontested special election candidate claim public matching funds in the 1991 primary and general elections for matchable contributions raised for the special election?
1) To be eligible for public matching funds, a candidate in the Program must raise a threshold dollar amount of matchable contributions. New York City Administrative Code §3-703(1) (j), (2) (a) 1. A candidate who has met the threshold in a "primary election" for an office covered by the Act is "deemed to have met the threshold... for such office in any other election held in the same calendar year." Administrative Code §3-703(2) (b). (Emphasis added.) No such provision is made for candidates meeting the threshold in a special election.
A special election, and a primary and general election, are completely separate procedures for choosing a candidate to fill an elective office. A primary election is merely one step (party nomination) in the process of electing a candidate to office in the general election. In contrast, in a non-partisan special election to fill a vacancy in the City Council, held pursuant to New York City Charter §25(b), a candidate's nomination and election is concluded in a single election. A candidate's legal qualification to be on the ballot in a special election has no bearing on whether the candidate will meet the legal requirements to be on the ballot again in the following primary or general election.
The Act's threshold requirements recognize that the special election and the primary and general election processes are entirely separate. The purpose of the threshold is to show that a candidate has significant public support. Candidates who have demonstrated this support by meeting the threshold in a primary election need not make the demonstration again in the following general election because the primary is part of the process for electing the candidate in the general election. The financial support the candidate received in the special election, however, was for an election to office held at a different time, perhaps months or years before the next primary election. This previous support is not indicative of current support in the primary or general election, in which new candidates may have emerged and in which voters will be considering filling the office for a full term.
The Act also contains different definitions for the "matchable contributions" that comprise the special election threshold and those that comprise the primary and general election threshold. Contributions of up to one thousand dollars may be applied toward the primary and general election threshold, while the special election threshold may include only contributions of up to five hundred dollars. See Administrative Code §3-702(3) 2.
Furthermore, special election candidates who choose to join the Program must do so by a special deadline and agree to be bound by its legal requirements only for the special election. Administrative Code §3-703(1) (c) (iii). In contrast, a different deadline applies to candidates joining the Program for the primary and general elections, Administrative Code §3-703(1) (c) (i), (ii), and these candidates are automatically bound by Program requirements in both the primary and general elections. Administrative Code §3-703(3).
A candidate who met the threshold for a special election, and who subsequently joins the Program for the following primary and general elections, must therefore reach a separate threshold in order to qualify for public matching funds in those elections.
2) "Surplus funds" are defined as the "unspent funds held by a candidate and his or her authorized committees after an election." Campaign Finance Board Rule 1-02. Campaign Finance Board rules allow a candidate to spend surplus funds in a subsequent election in which the candidate is participating in the Program, subject to certain limitations. See Campaign Finance Board Rule 1-07. A participant may not, however, claim surplus funds that are attributed to previous contributions as matchable contributions. Campaign Finance Board Rule 1-07(f).
The matchable contribution definition, as noted above, distinguishes contributions for a special election from primary and general election contributions3. With respect to the primary and general elections, a prior special election is a previous election for which a surplus funds calculation must be performed pursuant to Rule 1-07(a), if the candidate joins the Program for the primary and general elections. See also Rule 1-02, defining "surplus funds." In the case of a candidate who participated in the Program in the special election and wishes to spend surplus funds in the primary and general elections, the Board will attribute the surplus funds left over from the special election to previous contributions and other receipts. Rule 1-07(b). This attribution permits the candidate to spend the surplus funds subject to the Act's contribution limits. Rule 1-07(d). Because attributed surplus funds from the special election are not contributions actually made for the primary and general elections, however, these funds may not be claimed as matchable contributions in the primary and general elections. Administrative Code §3-702(3); Rule 1-07(e).
NEW YORK CITY CAMPAIGN FINANCE BOARD
1 Although this section refers to the threshold "in a primary or general election", the legislative intent is clear that special election candidates must meet the same threshold eligibility requirements.
2 A primary election candidate who fails to join for the primary election is precluded from joining for the general election. Administrative Code §3-703(4).
3 This distinction between primary and general election, and special election, contributions is also made in the Act's contribution limits, Administrative Code §3-703(1) (f), and the rules requiring separate bank accounts. Rule 2-06(b),(d).
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How to plan a peaceful protest or occupation in the U.S.
Protest Planning
Occupation Protests
G8/ NATO
Human Rights Defenders Risks
by Susan Basko
I was recently asked to assist in an international Consultation of Human Rights Defenders. In the consultation, we were making recommendations for the protection of people who are seen as Human Rights Defenders. I was asked to participate in the consultation because I actively defend the Human Rights of association, assembly, protest, speech, press, media, and technological use of media (such as live streaming, wifi, etc). The consultation was conducted by ODIHR (Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights) of OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe). There are 57 OSCE participating nations, and the U.S. is one of them. The Recommendations will be published in 2014. I have been invited to assist OSCE ODIHR with several major activities over the past couple years, based on my assistance to protest planners and media activists in the US. and worldwide. I distributed the consultation form to many others in the U.S.
Once the Recommendations have been compiled, they will reflect trends of risks that are faced by those who defend Human Rights. The OSCE has 57 participating States from Europe, Central Asia and North America: Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Holy See, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, fYR Macedonia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, and Uzbekistan.
BELOW I AM POSTING MY REPLIES TO THE QUESTIONS. The compiled Recommendations from the 57 nations will be available some time in 2014. I could have spent my entire reply on the shocking hate launched at me by disturbed sociopaths on twitter, but decided those sort of attacks by people with that type of social/ mental disorder are likely to be covered by others.
I feel greatly honored to be invited to assist in improving society within the 57 nations. My experiences with OSCE over the past two years have been meaningful and important. There is a great connectedness and commonality nation to nation between those of us protecting Human Rights. There is an energy of truth and goodness that can be felt when these people gather.
Question 1: Risks, threats and challenges
Which are the specific risks, threats and challenges you (or your organization) face as a result of your human rights work?
Please provide a brief summary of the specific risks, threats and challenges (e.g. physical and verbal attacks and threats, legal persecution and harassment, restrictive NGO legislation, restrictions to freedom of expression, assembly and association etc.) you or your organization experiences and you consider should ideally be addressed in the OSCE/ODIHR Recommendation. If available, please also provide concrete examples of incidents or documented cases of abuses you/your organization faced. Please do not exceed the given word limit. For further details about specific incidents or cases you may want to include references to published documents or materials if available.
In your response, please also include if you or others belong to a group of human rights defenders that is at particular risk and whether you see specific gender-related challenges in relation to your work and the risks and obstacles you face.
Summary: Description of main risks, threats and challenges you/your organization face/s [MAXIMUM 700 WORDS]
(e.g. physical and verbal attacks and threats; lack of effective remedies and impunity; legal persecution and harassment, criminalization, defamation campaigns; restrictive NGO legislation, obstacles in receipt of funding, burdensome administrative requirements and informal pressure; restrictions to freedom of expression, assembly and association; surveillance and undue interferences in private life; restrictions on freedom of movement and access to carry out human rights monitoring and reporting; lack of opportunity for participation in public affairs; impediments to access and communicate with international bodies and reprisals; etc.):
Answering on behalf of self as lawyer and many organizations and individuals to whom I give assistance:
1) Activists are having Child pornography emailed to them in tricky ways, to set them up for legal troubles and prosecution. It is unknown who is doing this, probably individuals outside the government. Govt needs to be aware of this practice and beware of prosecuting. There is one known prosecution at this time of media activist in North Carolina.
2) The U.S. government is sending National Security Letters to activists and freezing assets. The NSLs state that the person or organization or someone else is under investigation, cooperation is demanded, and not even the letter can be revealed. I am not allowed to give details, but I am aware of several of these that have had the effect of stopping participation.
3) The U.S. government and its contractors are using Twitter personas to stalk, harass, belittle and demean others. This is obvious to regular twitter users and has a chilling effect.
4) U.S. government is prosecuting journalist Barrett Brown for posting a link online to materials that were hacked. Raises dangerous practice of prosecuting people for posting links and puts HUGE damper on press freedom and communication freedom. This is a giant issue and entire US and world should be in opposition to this prosecution. Brown was writing about US govt using private companies for surveillance and linked to online info about the companies. Indictment has about 12 counts for one link with potential of decades in prison.
Specific examples of incidents and documented abuses (please add references to published materials as may be required) [MAXIMUM 400 WORDS]:
1) Activists being emailed child pornography to set them up for prosecution:
Happened to Luke Rudkowski, Dan Johnson, Stewart Rhodes, and about 12 other people that I am aware of as a lawyer. There is one known federal prosecution based on possession of a Child porn image, of a man who is a media activist. Case is federal and in Middle District of North Carolina, but I am not at liberty to write the man’s name yet, but it is a fed case on pacer.gov
Info and Video about Dan Johnson et al:
http://subliminalridge.blogspot.com/2013/07/child-porn-emailed-to-activists-to-try.html
Info on Luke Rudkowski:
http://subliminalridge.blogspot.com/2013/07/attempt-to-set-up-journalist-with.html
2) National Security Letters: By law, cannot give details. But I am aware:
http://subliminalridge.blogspot.com/2013/11/national-security-letters-help.html
3) Persona Mgmt: http://occupypeace.blogspot.com/2011/12/fake-profiles-used-for-spying.html
4) Barrett Brown prosecuted for posting a link:
http://subliminalridge.blogspot.com/2012/12/barrett-brown-charged-with-posting-link.htm
Question 2: Recommendations
Based on the protection gaps and needs identified above: What measures should OSCE participating States take in order to strengthen the protection of human rights defenders and guarantee an enabling environment conducive of their work, both domestically as well as across the region?
If relevant specify by which state actors (e.g. government, regional and local authorities, public officials) the measure(s) should be taken. Also include: (a) what specific mechanisms and procedures participating States should put in place domestically to guarantee the protection of human rights defenders (recommendations concerning domestic processes/mechanisms for implementation); and (b) what participating States should do to support the protection of human rights defenders and promote an enabling environment in third countries (recommendations concerning protection of human rights defenders abroad).
Measures participating States should take in order to strengthen the protection of human rights defenders and guarantee an enabling environment conducive to their work, including recommendations concerning (a) domestic processes/mechanisms for implementation; and (b) protection of human rights defenders abroad.
[MAXIMUM 1000 WORDS]
1) Governments and people and organizations should be made aware of this new practice of tricking people into downloading Child pornography images onto their computers in order to set them up for later legal troubles. Some of the images are being sent embedded in pdf files. Governments should set up a specific and obvious protocol for anyone to whom this has happened. Awareness, education, training.
2) The U.S. practice of sending National Security Letters in what appears to be a misuse of their purpose should be addressed. The NSLs are supposed to be used for important anti-terrorism purposes and are now being used to thwart protesters, media, etc. Awareness, education, training, legal challenges.
3) Practice of using social media for COINTELPRO and harassment of activists should be forbidden.
4) Governments should be barred from prosecuting the use of links/ hyperlinks by anyone online, including activists, journalists, independent media, researchers, or ANYONE. Links should not be treated as a wrongdoing or crime in any way.
You have rights if ICE is at your door.
Protesting through acts of violence is no longer protesting; it is demanding action from fear. Peaceful protest shows respect for everyone.
- Mahatma Ghandi
People Like These :
Where You Can Protest in Chicago
You have rights if ICE is at your door
Arrested at a Protest:
How to Plan for It
Legal Info: Sidewalk Chalk and Los Angeles
Unlawful Assembly at Protest: Legal Info
Top 7 Things That Get People Arrested at a Protest
aka How to Not Get Arrested
Chicago NATO Summit Protests
Permits for Protest Marches
How to Avoid Entrapment
Protests: International Standards 2016
How to Run a Protest
How to Run a Protest - 10 Easy Steps
How to Run a Protest - Basics
Family-Friendly Protests
International Protest Standards 2016.
Occupy Peace -
How to Run a Peaceful Protest.
SUE BASKO,
Lawyer for Indie Music, Video, Journalism, Film, Websites, Design, and more.
CONTACT ME EASILY by EMAIL:
suebaskomusic@gmail.com
@suebasko TWITTER
@pacempacem TWITTER
MUSIC and MEDIA LAW BLOG
SUBLIMINAL RIDGE essays
Occupy Peace Protest Law
Occupy Symposium
Copyright @ Susan Basko
Photos by Erik Fisher
Aaron Kuehn
Recent TABLE OF CONTENTS
!41. You have rights if ICE is at your door
140. Close the Camps protests July 2
139. Presidents Day Protests 2019
138. Families Belong Together Protest Rallies Nationwide
137. Masks and Bandannas at Protests
136. High School Protest Rights
135. Counter-Protesters or Counter-Demonstrators
134. Why School Walkouts are Elitist
133. March for Our Lives to End School Shootings: How to Plan a Protest
132. Planning Against Terrorism in Protests
131. Update: Where you can protest in Chicago
130. Punch a Nazi? 10 reasons why not
129. Protests: International Standards 2016
128. Questions about Protests
127. Deray Sued by Cop for Incitement: Far-Fetched
126. How to Run a Protest: Basics
125. Barrett Brown's Plan to Overthrow the Government
123. Ukraine Protest Support
122. Basic Venue Safety for Festivals, Concerts, Protests, Parties
119. NATO3: What Mo and Gloves Did Wrong
118. Human Rights Defenders Risks
116. David Coombs re Pvt Manning - CA and WA
112. National Security Letters: Help!
111. How to Plan a Million Mask March
109. Cyberstalking: Illinois
How to Gear Up for a Protest
"How to Gear Up for a Protest"
by Gerry Mak
on the Hope&Fear website.
Sue Basko is quoted extensively.
Lots of good info and a fun read.
Worldwide Readers
Occupy Peace has readers from United States, Russia, Canada, Mexico, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Germany, Australia, Ireland, France, Iceland, Netherlands, Switzerland, Czech Republic, India, Sweden, Malaysia, Gibraltar, South Korea, Finland, Sri Lanka, Morocco, Brazil, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, Austria, Latvia, Austria, Morocco, Colombia, Italy, Spain, United Arab Emirates, Poland, Myanmar (Burma), Taiwan, China, Iceland, Trinidad and Tobago, Iraq, Mozambique, Portugal, Algeria, Kuwait, Japan, Kuwait, Greece, New Zealand, and more.
Thank you all so much.
Please spread the links. -- Sue
Theme images by enot-poloskun. Powered by Blogger.
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California Jailed a Man for Life for Stealing Beer Mugs. Meet the Woman Who Fought for His Freedom
Stanford's Three Strikes Project provides legal representation to convicts serving life sentences under California's Three Strikes law. Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Susan Champion believes that three strikes shouldn't mean you're out.
Susan Champion found her first client in 2009. She was an enthusiastic student at Stanford Law School, and he was serving a life sentence in a California state prison. The crime that put him away for life? Three relatively minor thefts.
High on meth, he used a key hidden under a mat to sneak into his mother’s house and steal her VCR player, wanting to sell it for more drugs. Strike one.
He did his time. Got sober. But soon after he got out of the pen, he relapsed. On the waiting list for a bed at a rehab facility, he was homeless, sleeping outside in the bushes. One day, the police picked him up at a bus stop and found items in his backpack that had been reported missing in a daytime break-in. Strike two.
After being released from prison a second time, he committed a third burglary, stealing beer steins from someone’s commercial storage unit and trying to sell them at a flea market. Strike three.
Under California’s Three Strikes sentencing law, “persistent offenders” at the time had to be incarcerated for 25 years to life if a third felony was preceded by two crimes that were “serious or violent,” even if the last felony didn’t meet those criteria. Because of the stringent rule, this man was sentenced to life in prison without parole, simply for swiping a few mugs.
Champion submitted a habeas corpus petition (a motion asking the courts to review his detention) on her client’s behalf to determine if life for stealing beer glasses counted as cruel and unusual punishment. She won the case, convincing the judge that his sentence had been disproportional to the crime. Since then, she’s stayed on at Stanford to help many more like him through the law school’s Three Strikes Project.
The Three Strikes Project is currently the only legal organization in California working to reverse excessive sentences for minor crimes. Michael Romano, a law school professor and the program’s director, realized the need for services like it while clerking for the Ninth Circuit Court: Since there’s no right to legal counsel for habeas corpus petitions, convicts were sending in handwritten documents to his court, pleading with justices to take another look at their case. Since the project was institutionalized as one of Stanford’s 11 legal clinics in 2006, more than 1,000 inmates have sent letters to the school asking for pro bono assistance. The clinic currently represents 25 individuals and has already freed or reduced prison sentences for dozens more. So far, Champion, Romano and their students haven’t lost a case. Each time, they’ve convinced a judge to immediately release the prisoner or commute the lengthy sentence.
Champion became a lawyer late in life — at age 40 — to fight systemic injustice, like the Three Strikes Law’s misguided “one-size-fits-all” approach or jailing of the mentally ill. After working for years in a hospital that catered to the formerly incarcerated, non-English speakers, mentally ill and others “dealing with incredibly challenging circumstances,” Champion planned to study the intersection of mental health and criminal justice. But after her first year of law school was spent in required classes that focused on contracts and civil procedure, “stuff that doesn’t seem relevant to anything, let alone social justice issues,” Champion wondered if she’d made the right choice.
A job at the San Francisco district attorney’s office while still in school led her to focus directly on sentencing. In preliminary hearings — an early part of a case during which the judge decides if there’s enough evidence for a trial — Champion “saw a parade of poor black people. They were the only people coming in and out. It was just so stark and heartbreaking to see that’s what we’re doing with people who could be leading productive lives.” When California’s Three Strikes law appeared on the ballot, it promised “to keep murderers, rapists and child molesters behind bars, where they belong,” but those were not the people that Champion saw filling the courtroom.
In the early 1990s, the bill that initially proposed Three Strikes languished in Sacramento — until a horrific murder spurred a frantic campaign to crack down on crime. In October 1993, Polly Klaas, a 12-year-old with dimpled cheeks and a fondness for floral-print dresses, was abducted from her home in Petaluma, a small farm town in Sonoma County. Richard Allen Davis, a career criminal whose rap sheet included kidnapping and assault, broke into the three-bedroom home during a slumber party, bound and gagged two other girls and kidnapped Klaas while her mother slept nearby. Two months later, police found Klaas’s body on a trash pile adjacent to a freeway off-ramp, badly decomposed. Before Davis was convicted, legislators passed a slew of tough reforms, including Three Strikes. The measure was approved by a ballot initiative, winning approval from 72 percent of voters.
Since then, California’s Three Strikes Law — the first and harshest mandatory sentencing guideline of its kind — has been responsible for sending 46,000 inmates to prison for 25 years to life within the first decade since it passed in 1994, a government analysis found. Together, these “strikers” made up roughly one-quarter of California’s already overcrowded prison population.
Twenty years later, the need for change was also voiced through popular approval. In collaboration with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Romano and Champion helped draft the text of a statewide ballot measure (Proposition 36) to modify the law. The Three Strikes Reform Act captured more than two-thirds of the vote. Surprisingly, voters weren’t persuaded by arguments about the cost of prison as much as the law’s inherent unfairness, Champion says, referencing internal polls. As written, the original law could assign the same harsh penalty to the psychotic kidnapper whose crimes escalated to murders as the guy who faltered by stealing golf clubs, a disparity that seemed particularly unfair to voters, especially when it meant the difference between life in notorious San Quentin versus a few months at the local jail. “They thought an injustice had been done. What they thought they’d voted for in 1994 was not what they’d seen result. In fact, quite a few of our clients’ families voted for Three Strikes and would tell me after they never would have voted for it if they knew it would put someone like their loved one away when they might have just had a drug problem.”
Adding to the law’s insults was the fact that within California’s penal code, certain crimes are classified as “wobblers” meaning that people who commit them can either be charged with a misdemeanor or a felony, depending on the district attorney’s judgment. Because the third of the three strikes could have been applied to any felony — not merely a serious or violent one — a prosecutor could jail someone for life for a crime that might have been charged as a misdemeanor elsewhere in the state. With the passage of Prop 36, judges regained discretion over sentencing, so that the punishment would fit the crime, not public hysteria or prosecutors’ ambitions. It’s part of the reason why after the reform passed, hundreds of prisoners from “tough-on-crime” strongholds like Orange, San Bernardino and Kern Counties were eligible to have their cases reviewed, while only three from liberal San Francisco qualified.
The spike in crime that opponents of Prop 36 predicted never came to pass. Of 2,000 former lifers released under the reform, only 4.7 percent have re-offended (over an 18-month period, on average) — far below California’s usual recidivism rate of 45.2 percent over a one-year period and 56.9 percent over two years. Additionally, the change in the law made 3,000 second-strikers who’d been incarcerated for a third non-violent, non-serious offense eligible to appeal their sentence to a judge. There are still 700 cases pending (mostly in Los Angeles), Champion says, but those who have been released have largely kept out of trouble. Only one in 20 reoffended, and those were largely for theft or drug charges.
“I hope the enduring lesson is that people are not hopeless recidivists,” Romano tells the New York Times. “Those who remain dangerous should be kept behind bars. But there are many people in prison who are no threat to public safety.”
Champion will tell you her clients are no angels. Unlike the famed Innocence Project, which uses DNA testing to exonerate the wrongfully convicted, Champion says her colleague “Mike [Romano] calls us the Guilty Project. It’s true, we never claim that our clients are innocent, that’s never the basis of our argument,” she says. The prisoners broke the law — three times, at least — but her work is proving that slamming the convicts behind bars isn’t the solution.
They may not be saints, but they’re not monsters either.
California Michael Roman Prop 36 recidivism Stanford Susan Champion Three Strikes Project
In a Single Year, This Determined Arkansas Woman Helped 2,000 Ex-Felons Find Full-Time Jobs
In These Prisons, Former Offenders Find Healing in Theatre Arts
A Prison With No Walls
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Honeoye Strawberry
Fragaria 'Honeoye'
Honeoye Strawberry fruit
Honeoye Strawberry flowers
Other Names: Garden Strawberry
Group/Class: June-Bearing
Flavorful, high yielding fruit; one of the best for freezing; watch for the runners that spread; can plant in hanging baskets and containers too; extremely hardy
Edible Qualities
Honeoye Strawberry is a perennial that is typically grown for its edible qualities. It produces large cherry red heart-shaped berries which are usually ready for picking from late spring to early summer. This variety is considered a 'June-bearing' type of strawberry, which means that it produces one big crop of fruit at the same time. The berries have a sweet taste and a firm texture.
The berries are most often used in the following ways:
Fresh Eating
Features & Attributes
Honeoye Strawberry features dainty white daisy flowers with yellow eyes along the stems in mid spring. Its tomentose round compound leaves remain green in colour throughout the season. It features an abundance of magnificent cherry red berries in early summer.
This is an open herbaceous perennial with a spreading, ground-hugging habit of growth. Its relatively fine texture sets it apart from other garden plants with less refined foliage. This is a high maintenance plant that will require regular care and upkeep, and should not require much pruning, except when necessary, such as to remove dieback. It is a good choice for attracting birds and bees to your yard, but is not particularly attractive to deer who tend to leave it alone in favor of tastier treats. Gardeners should be aware of the following characteristic(s) that may warrant special consideration;
Aside from its primary use as an edible, Honeoye Strawberry is sutiable for the following landscape applications;
Orchard/Edible Landscaping
Honeoye Strawberry will grow to be about 10 inches tall at maturity, with a spread of 18 inches. It grows at a fast rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for approximately 10 years. This is a self-pollinating variety, so it doesn't require a second plant nearby to set fruit.
This plant is typically grown in a designated edibles garden. It does best in full sun to partial shade. It does best in average to evenly moist conditions, but will not tolerate standing water. It is particular about its soil conditions, with a strong preference for rich, alkaline soils. It is somewhat tolerant of urban pollution. Consider applying a thick mulch around the root zone in both summer and winter to conserve soil moisture and protect it in exposed locations or colder microclimates. This particular variety is an interspecific hybrid. It can be propagated by division; however, as a cultivated variety, be aware that it may be subject to certain restrictions or prohibitions on propagation.
Honeoye Strawberry is a good choice for the edible garden, but it is also well-suited for use in outdoor pots and containers. Because of its spreading habit of growth, it is ideally suited for use as a 'spiller' in the 'spiller-thriller-filler' container combination; plant it near the edges where it can spill gracefully over the pot. Note that when growing plants in outdoor containers and baskets, they may require more frequent waterings than they would in the yard or garden. Be aware that in our climate, most plants cannot be expected to survive the winter if left in containers outdoors, and this plant is no exception. Contact our store for more information on how to protect it over the winter months.
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Edinburgh Indie Bands on Spotify
Posted by afront in Spotify · 0 Comment
Although born in London, I’ve lived in Edinburgh most of my life and now call it home. Scotland’s capital city is steeped in history and has been home to many famous residents: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sean Connery and JK Rowling to name a few. Edinburgh is home to the annual Edinburgh Festival and Festival Fringe, when thousands of comedians, actors, musicians, dancers, circus performers and artists come and put on shows and events for the month of August. Edinburgh’s own music scene is good, although it’s dwarfed by the scene in Glasgow. Nonetheless, there are still lots of great bands from Edinburgh: here are some of my favourites.
Isa & The Filthy Tongues – Dark Passenger
Isa & The Filthy Tongues were formed from the ashes of Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie (see below) with the addition of American singer Stacey Chavis. Their dark indie sound should appeal to fans of The Pixies, The Killers and Blondie. I was at the album launch for Dark Passenger last month so I’m especially pleased to see it on Spotify. Highlights include New Town Killers (used on the movie soundtrack of the same name), City of Roses, and Busshelter – featuring a brilliantly local Irvine Welsh-style story read by Richard Jobson.
Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie – The River Sessions / The Day Of Storms
Before Isa & The Filthy Tongues there was Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie, an indie rock band who in the early 1990s were huge in Edinburgh but never managed to translate this acclaim to national success. When Glasgow’s Deacon Blue and Wet Wet Wet were getting all the acclaim, it was the Mackenzies who for me were the true rock stars. Their lyrics courted controversy (with songs about rape, AIDS, and masturbation), but many songs were about Edinburgh: Goodwill City, Calton Hill, and Deacon Brodie to name a few. With over half-a-dozen albums released, only one – this live double-album – is currently on Spotify.
The Proclaimers – Notes & Rhymes
Probably Edinburgh’s most famous band, the Reid twins have had considerable success in their 20-odd year history performing as The Proclaimers. They’ve featured on many Hollywood movie soundtracks, can be heard on the P.A. every time Hibs football club play at home, and recently had a No. 1 hit single (a re-recording of “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” for Comic Relief). Spotify has most of their albums, including last year’s release Notes & Rhymes.
The Shop Assistants – Will Anything Happen
The C86 scene was coined to include all the indie jangly guitar bands of the mid to late 80s. My favourites were Edinburgh band The Shop Assistants, whose one-and-only album is thankfully on Spotify. I went to university with one of “the shoppies” so they have a special place in my heart; I only wish they’d stayed together for a second album.
Ballboy – I Worked On The Ships
The Shop Assistants were favoured by the BBC’s Long and Peel, and ballboy are another Edinburgh indie band who have recorded several Peel sessions. One of my ex’s put me onto them and I instantly liked their style and playful lyrics (not to mention some wonderful song titles such as “You Can’t Spend Your Whole Life Hanging Around With Arseholes” and “All The Records On The Radio Are Shite“). Most ballboy albums are on Spotify, including this one from 2008.
Other Edinburgh bands include:
Boards of Canada (not on Spotify)
Edinburgh photo by LordWoolamaloo aka byronv2.
Tags: auld reekie, independent, scotland
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According to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), ‘biologics’ means ‘any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to make or modify products or processes for specific use’. Related fields are bioengineering, biomedical engineering, biomanufacturing, molecular engineering. The application of patent law to biotechnological inventions has to deal with a number of particularities. Are biological materials mere ‘discoveries’, and therefore not patentable or man-made ‘inventions’? Limitations to patent rights, in particular a research and experimental use exception, have been considered important for innovation.
Biologics, Case Law, EPC, Procedure
Dosage Regimen – Objection to Member EBoA, European Patent Office (EPO Enlarged Board of Appeal), 15 September 2009
Bart van Weezenbeek/ September 15, 2009 March 7, 2016
1. According to the EPC, the right to object to a member of a Board of Appeal or of the Enlarged Board of Appeal is reserved to the party to the proceedings who suspects partiality in such a member. 2. It remains nevertheless that pursuant to Article 4(1) RPEBA, if the Enlarged Board of Appeal…
Added matter, Biologics, Case Law, Disclaimer, EPC, Exceptions to patentability
Perfused microtissue/MIT, European Patent Office (EPO Board of Appeal), 04 September 2009
Following decision G 1/03, the Board concluded that a disclaimer that is used to remove subject-matter falling under the prohibition of Article 53(a) EPC in combination with Rule 28(c) EPC, is allowable. The full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law.
Biologics, Case Law, Extent of Protection, Scope of protection, United Kingdom
Napp v. Ratiopharm, Court of Appeal Civil Division (Court of Appeal Civil Division), 01 April 2009
Robert Burrows/ April 1, 2009
The Court of Appeal has overturned the High Court’s finding of non-infringement, holding Napp’s divisional patents, relating to controlled release formulations of a painkiller called oxycodone, to be valid and infringed by Ratiopharm’s and Sandoz’s ‘Cimex’ product. The Court of Appeal’s finding of infringement contrasts with decisions in Germany where the German designation of the…
Biologics, Case Law, EPC, Opposition
Sequence analysis/MEDICAL BIOSYSTEMS, European Patent Office (EPO Board of Appeal), 23 March 2009
Bart van Weezenbeek/ March 23, 2009
When the transitional provisions for EPC 2000 are silent, the Board has to establish which legal text is applicable. In that case the Board has to take into account that it is undesirable to use both different versions of the EPC over a prolonged period of time and that there is no indication that the…
Amendments, Biologics, Case Law, Extent of Protection, Netherlands
Boston Scientific v. Medinol, Supreme Court (Hoge Raad), 06 March 2009
Peter Burgers (Brinkhof)/ March 6, 2009
The Dutch Supreme Court stated that the patentee still has an interest in this supreme appeal proceeding after amendment of the patent pursuant to Articles 105a-c EPC 2000 subsequent to coming into force of EPC 2000 and the Appeals Court’s decision to nullify the patent. Although the Appeals Court in subsequent proceedings should take the…
Biologics, Case Law, Sufficiency of disclosure, United Kingdom, Validity
Lundbeck v. Generics, Court of Appeal Civil Division (House of Lords of England and Wales), 25 February 2009
Brian Cordery (Bristows)/ February 25, 2009
The patent in suit contains claims for the (+)enantiomer of citalopram and a method for its resolution from the racemate (the diol method). The Defendants appealed a decision of the Court of Appeal arguing that the patent was insufficient because it effectively claimed the (+)enantiomer made by any method whereas the specification only disclosed two…
Biologics, Case Law, Employee invention, United Kingdom
Kelly & Ors v. GE Healthcare, High Court of England and Wales (Patents Court) (High Court of England and Wales (Patents Court)), 11 February 2009
Sam Tuxford/ February 11, 2009
Two research scientists, involved with the synthesis of a compound which formed the basis of a patented heart imaging agent, brought what is the first ever successful action under Section 40 of the Patents Act 1977, arguing that the patents are of outstanding benefit to their employer, and as such, they are entitled to a…
Biologics, Case Law, Industrial application, Netherlands, Validity
Sahajanand v. Angiotech, Court of Appeal The Hague (Gerechtshof Den Haag), 27 January 2009
Peter Burgers (Brinkhof)/ January 27, 2009
In this judgment the Court of Appeal considers the appellant’s claim for invalidation of the patent inadmissible as he did not call the co-proprietor of the patent to join the proceedings. While considered valid on substantive grounds, the claim in question needs to be rephrased to fulfill the industrial applicability. As nullity of the patent…
Biologics, Case Law, EPC, Sufficiency of disclosure
CSL Behring v. Common Services Agency – insufficiency, European Patent Office (Appeals Court), 23 January 2009
Mark Einerhand/ January 23, 2009
The degree of effectiveness of the invention (here: the removal of prion proteins) is an issue related to the technical problem solved by the invention. This is to be considered when assessing inventive step, and is thus not relevant for sufficiency of disclosure. As the invention is sufficiently disclosed in the specification, the fact that…
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It gathers more than a hundred Totana neighbors affected by the route of the power line to a meeting (11/11/2015)
The Department of Planning and Environment have called for the 150 residents of this town affected by the route of the power line projected towards Totana Aledo, whose meeting will take place tomorrow, November 12 at the cultural center "La Prison "from 20:00 hours.
The line crosses about 15 kilometers through the town of Totana and project for the construction of a photovoltaic plant in the hamlet Lorca Zarcilla Ramos, for which it is intended to execute the infrastructure surrounding the municipalities of Lorca, Aledo and Totana.
According to sources in the Department of Planning, this is an aerial power line of 400 kilovolts built to drain the energy from the solar power plant at the substation next to the industrial park "The Saladar".
This plant projected proceeds from the private initiative that promotes the company "Gestamp-Andaltia" and can cross housing, intensive irrigated crops, farm buildings, sidewalks, trails, archaeological sites and so on.
The route of this line affects delugares vicinity of great cultural, scenic and environmental interest as the site of La Bastida enTotana and the Strait of Arboleja in Aledo.
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Phantoms vs Fire [Interview # 201]
1) You have a sound which is mostly electronic but has these Oriental tones in it and at times I would also call it vaporwave and 8bit. How do you generally describe your music to people?
It's funny that you mention that because I've always had a hard time categorizing music, including my own. So I usually describe my stuff as a mix of electronica and orchestral with some vaporwave and ambient. I love the mixture of acoustic/organic and electronic/synthetic instruments.
2) - Your music has a sound which is relaxing, yet also rather intense. How did that come about, seeing as those are different spectrums?
I believe two things explain these variations in my songs. I've always had this weird habit of writing story outlines. They are not full books or poems, just story outlines. And I also dream of composing soundtracks for movies, TV, video games, etc. It's something that I'd love to do. So, most of the time I compose thinking of transitions of imaginary scenes from some of my story outlines. I visualize a movement from quiet scenes to tense, sad, epic scenes etc. Something like that.
3) Who are some of your biggest musical influences?
Max Richter, Radiohead, Gustavo Santaolalla, Trent Reznor, Daft Punk's Tron Legacy Soundtrack (yeah, I love that). Ennio Morricone also comes to mind.
4) I like to think music tells me a story as I listen to the various sounds and as I read after listening to "Swim", you had a rather specific idea in mind for the story which the songs would tell. Do you feel that often times an instrumental piece of music can form a better narrative than one with lyrics?
I think instrumental music gives you more freedom to imagine a story yourself (or not worry about any story, if that's the case). Sometimes lyrics tell you a detailed story, other times they give you a vague idea so you can complete the story in your head or you can associate it with something that happened in your life. I think non-instrumental music is good for both describing stories and conveying emotions, whilst instrumental music is great for conveying emotions. In my case, the story came first and helped me to write the music. However, I prefer to convey emotions (and hopefully I'm doing that right) and let the listener imagine whatever they want.
5) There is a version of "Swim" called "Swim (Deeper)" which contains two added songs- "Breathing" and "Underwater". What was the decision like to leave those songs off of the album originally and then go back and put them on ultimately?
I thought that "Breathing" and "Underwater" fit the theme and style of the album, but I had already released "Swim" when I wrote these two songs, and some people had already bought the full album. So I thought it would be unfair to them if I simply took down the first version and then uploaded the new one. It'd be like saying "hey, thanks for buying the album. You won't have these two songs though. Maybe buy again?". Luckily, the only people who had bought the complete album did it through Bandcamp, so I sent them the two new songs.
6) Would you ever consider releasing your music on cassette?
Definitely! In fact, Burning Witches Records (https://burningallwitches.bandcamp.com) is going to release 'Swim' on cassette later this year.
7) You have a song called "VHS Hypnosis" and since artists have created works with VHS tapes in the last few years, would you ever consider an album of sorts that would be on VHS and have accompanying visuals?
Man, that would be awesome! I think music lovers listen to music in any format available and enjoy the sound textures that each format offers. So yeah, I'd love to have the opportunity to do that.
8) What is it like being from Italy? What is the music scene like there?
Well, I'm from Brazil actually, but have been living in Italy since last year. In Italy, life seems to move more slowly and I like that. I'm not sure I'd be able to faithfully describe the Italian music scene, but there's A LOT of hip-hop and rap on the radio right now. And there's this guy called Francesco Motta whose album "La Fine dei Vent’Anni" I like a lot.
9) Phantoms are like ghosts, so fire couldn't burn them. But a phantom couldn't really haunt a fire, so in the idea of Phantoms vs. Fire, who wins?
Good question. Ghosts win because if you throw yourself into the fire you'll eventually become a ghost. Then, at some point, the fire will go out and ghosts can't light a fire. In the end, there would be no more fire. Obviously, you could say "but I don't intend to throw myself into the fire". Sure, but you'll die someday. So, more ghosts and less fire. Fire will never win.
Anyway, when I thought of the name I thought of phantoms being like thoughts and memories whilst fire represents actions. A constant struggle between your thoughts and your actions. Something like that.
10) Final thoughts, shout outs, etc... ??
First of all, thank you very much for the opportunity!
I'd also like to thank Ilya from ihrtn.net. He's awesome. And Shauna McLarnon for being great at what she does.
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Reality Check: Will the UK pay a €60bn ‘divorce bill’? – BBC News
By on March 27, 2017 No Comment
The claim: The UK’s “divorce bill” from the European Union could be as high as €60bn (£52bn).
Reality Check verdict: Yes, it could. Is that likely to be the final figure? Almost certainly not. The battle over the money will begin with legal arguments but will end with hard-nosed politics.
To get to any potential figure you have to work out a value for all the EU’s liabilities – the money it owes – at the point that the UK is likely to leave.
Then you subtract the value of the EU’s assets, and decide what percentage of the balance is the responsibility of the UK.
One way of calculating this percentage is to use the UK’s average share of EU budget contributions, which is roughly 12%.
Alternatively, the European Commission might argue that the UK’s share should reflect the size of its economy, which gives a figure closer to 15%.
The commission’s negotiating team has made no public comment on how it intends to calculate the cost of the divorce agreement, but there is certainly a way to get to a figure of €60bn.
Some officials have said this is likely to be the initial figure that the commission will put on the negotiating table.
If they do put forward that figure, the biggest part of the bill would be made up of the UK’s share of what is known as the reste a liquider (RAL), which is, in effect, the EU’s credit card bill.
This is money that has already been committed by the EU, for which the bills have not yet been paid.
By the end of 2018, it is estimated, the RAL will be more than €240bn, so the UK’s share would be substantial.
Another large chunk of the potential bill is made up of money due to be spent over the next few years, much of it on big infrastructure projects in poorer EU countries.
In the commission’s view, the UK has already made a legally binding promise to fund this investment, even if it happens after the UK has left.
The third big item on the agenda is the cost of pension benefits for EU officials.
The current total liability is €63.8bn, and the commission will expect the UK to pay its share.
Nice wine cellar
But if the UK has to take its share of liabilities, it is also entitled to a share of the EU’s various assets, which were worth €153.7bn at the end of 2015.
Some of those could be used to offset the liabilities, including EU buildings, satellites, and even a rather nice wine cellar.
Some Brexit supporters, not in government, say that the UK should pay nothing, and they point to legal opinion that backs them up.
A House of Lords report concluded that Article 50 allowed the UK to leave the EU without being liable for outstanding financial obligations under the EU budget.
And the campaign group Lawyers for Britain argues that it is hard to see any credible basis upon which the UK would be obliged to make net payments towards EU pensions or ongoing budget programmes.
Instead, it says, the UK should seek the return of money it has paid to the European Investment Bank, which is worth €9bn.
All the figures in the divorce negotiations are likely to be contentious and contested.
The figure of €60bn may be politically unrealistic, but the rest of the EU will not agree a deal under which the UK walks away without paying anything.
The UK could, of course, leave without any deal, although that would probably mean everyone ending up in court.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond has said: “If we do have any bills that fall to be paid we will obviously deal with them in the proper way.”
If compromise can be achieved, and if payment of the bill were to be spread over many years (as pensions become payable for example), the amounts involved may not be that significant economically.
But this is an issue that has the potential to cause bitter political fights.
Read more from Reality Check
Reality Check: Will the UK pay a €60bn ‘divorce bill’? – BBC News added by on March 27, 2017
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Another Successful SpaceX Launch ... Canada's RADARSAT Constellation from Vandenberg AFB
Rising majestically from the fog bank surrounding Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, the SpaceX Dragon launch vehicle has successfully pushed Canada's latest Radarsat satellite into orbit.
The repurposed SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle lifts off with the Canadian Radarsat Constellation payload from Vandenberg AFB in California. Image is courtesy of SpaceX.
In addition, the Dragon's stage one plowed back through the fog, accompanied by a sonic boom, and landed securely on SpaceX's Landing Zone 4 (LZ-4) at Vandenberg. Falcon 9’s first stage for launch of this RADARSAT Constellation Mission previously supported Crew Dragon’s first demonstration mission in March of 2019.
The RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM) is the evolution of the RADARSAT Program and builds on Canada’s expertise in Earth Observation (EO) from space. It consists of three identical C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) EO satellites.
Built by MDA, a Maxar company, the three-satellite configuration of the RCM will provide daily revisits of Canada's vast territory and maritime approaches, including the Arctic up to four times a day, as well as daily access to any point of 90 percent of the world's surface. The RCM will support the Government of Canada in delivering responsive and cost-effective services to meet Canadian needs in areas such as maritime surveillance, ecosystem and climate change monitoring as well as helping disaster relief efforts.
In example...
The RCM will help create precise sea ice maps of Canada’s oceans and the Great Lakes to facilitate navigation and commercial maritime transportation. Each satellite also carries an Automatic Identification System receiver, allowing improved detection and tracking of vessels of interest.
The highly accurate data collected by RCM will enable farmers to maximize crop yields while reducing energy consumption and the use of potential pollutants.
Like RADARSAT-2, the RCM will support relief efforts by providing images of areas affected by disasters to help organize emergency response efforts and protect the local population.
The Falcon 9 liftoff continues on course from Vandenberg AFB. Image is courtesy of SpaceX.
SpaceX’s Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base has a long history dating back to the early 1960s. Originally an Atlas launch pad activated in 1962, SLC-4E was in active use until its last Titan IV launching in 2005.
The Falcon 9 first stage rocket's landing burn through the fog to settle back on the pad at Vandenberg AFB. Images are courtesy of SpaceX.
SpaceX’s groundbreaking was in July of 2011 and extensive modifications and reconstruction of the launch pad were completed 17 months later. SLC-4E consists of a concrete launch pad/apron and a flame exhaust duct. Surrounding the pad are RP-1 and liquid oxygen storage tanks and an integration hangar.
Before launch, Falcon 9’s stages, fairing and the mission payload are housed inside the hangar. A crane/lift system moves Falcon 9 into a transporter erector system and the fairing and its payload are mated to the rocket. The vehicle is rolled from the hangar to the launch pad shortly before launch to minimize exposure to the elements.
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BLIND GUARDIAN's
BLIND GUARDIAN's recently-issued "And Then There Was Silence" CD single, the first single to be issued through Century Media Records in more than a decade of operation in North America, debuted on the US Soundscan singles sales chart at #171, with top 40 debuts in Cleveland, Seattle and Denver all without the benefit of commercial ...
Brad Gillis Starts Work On New Solo CD!
Former OZZY OSBOURNE and current NIGHT RANGER guitarist Brad Gillis is currently at Spirit Wind Studios recording his third solo CD, which should see the light of day in the spring. Meanwhile Italy's Frontiers Records has officially released the European version of the axeman's last effort, entitled Alligator. ...
BROWN Perform Gig Of Epic Proportions!
North Carolina's BROWN, featuring former C.O.C. drummer Reed Mullin (who plays guitar and sings lead in the new band) and producer John Custer (i.e. C.O.C., DAG, CRY OF LOVE), performed a showcase gig for Epic Records on Tuesday, December 11th at Lincoln Theater in Raleigh. ...
Ex-THE 3RD AND THE MORTAL Singer Inks New Solo Deal!
Former THE 3RD AND THE MORTAL goddess of beauty Kari Ruesltten has signed with Sweden's GMR Music Group and will release her long-awaited third solo album (the first two were issued through Sony Music Norway) in late March through the Peach Music sub-label. As yet-untitled, the follow-up to 1998's Mesmerized is being mixed by Lars ...
CHILDREN OF BODOM Seek New Label!
Finland's CHILDREN OF BODOM are currently seeking a new record deal following their recent split with the Spinefarm label. Once a new deal has been secured, the group will enter the studio to record the upcoming CD, which is tentatively due in late 2002. ...
B/C: An OVERKILL/SAVATAGE Collaboration!
B/C is the provisional band name for the new project of OVERKILL vocalist Bobby Blitz Ellsworth and SAVATAGE guitarist Chris Caffery, who have reportedly completed work on a four-track demo that is said to rock powerfully. No details about a forthcoming album release have yet been divulged. More information as it becomes available. ...
Sweden's SLOWGATE Ink Deal With GMR Music!
Sweden's GMR Music have inked a deal with Boden's SLOWGATE, an “extreme thrash metal band” who will issue their debut album, entitled Force Of The Unknown, through the Extremity sub-label in February. SLOWGATE features in its ranks former MANNINYA BLADE guitarist Nicke Johansson, who also handled the vocals on the first HEXENHAUS album, entitled A ...
Ex-JUDAS PRIEST Men Reunite In New Band!
Former JUDAS PRIEST frontman Al Atkins has joined forces with ex-JUDAS PRIEST drummer Dave Holland in a new group that also features in its ranks original DEF LEPPARD guitarist Pete Willis. The band's line-up is completed by bassist Bruno Stapenhill and guitarist Paul May. ...
Archive News Dec 06, 2001
The “MAJOR announcement” regarding the band's guitarist search that LIMP BIZKIT frontman Fred Durst had promised to make via his appearance by phone on yesterday's Total Request Live had turned out to be not much of an announcement at all. Besides plugging the group's new remix album, entitled New Old Songs, Durst ...
METALLICA are taking a break for the holidays, but will return to the studio in January with a view towards releasing a new studio album next fall, according to statements attributed to the band's management and their publicist by MTV.com. While frontman James Hetfield spent time in rehab for alcoholism and “other ...
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User:Erastus/On the Outside Looking
< User:Erastus
Revision as of 13:59, 14 February 2009 by ShadowWolf (Talk | contribs) ({{universe}} now auto-generates the category link)
Paradise story universe
On the Outside, Looking...
Author: Erastus Centaur
A life-changing moment may be small, but it may be the case that it only looks small in the moment. I'm sure Mark would dispute how small the moment was since he was in the center of it and I was standing outside. But the changes included me soon enough.
I would like to introduce Mark as my husband because for all practical purposes he is. But while there are a couple states that allow gay marriage in 2010 there were none in 2000. Besides, we live in Michigan, which wrote its gay marriage ban into its constitution. As much as I like to rant about this injustice, I have a different of story to tell.
By August of 2000 I had known Mark for five years and it had been three years since our private commitment ceremony. I knew that when something bothered him he usually took off in his car and it would do no good to go after him. He would return in time, rarely more than two hours, and sometimes he would even tell me about it. So, when he headed out the door one morning in the middle of the month with a brief, "Need some air," I figured it was one of those times. He had just recovered from a rare summer bout of flu and I'm sure he was also feeing a hefty dose of cabin fever. I didn't worry.
Until he didn't come home that evening. I was to the point of wondering about the procedures of filing a missing person report when he called. "Hi dear." Before I could respond to his greeting he went on. "I'm in Chicago. I'm OK. Be home in a couple days. Can't talk more now. Sorry for being abrupt. Love, you." And he hung up.
That was strange.
I had no idea why he would drive all the way to Chicago on a whim since the trip was five hours from Ann Arbor where we lived. He wasn't known for bizarre behavior. Even so, I trusted him. I knew the best thing to do was simply wait for him to return.
But when he did return a few days later I could only describe his story as bizarre.
I was in the front yard when he drove up in the late afternoon. He got out of his car with a rather sheepish expression, came over and hugged me, and said, "Toby, my love, this is going to sound really crazy. Especially since what I'm about to say won't match with what you see. Let's get some lemonade and sit on the deck."
"Not beer?" I asked.
There was a faint glimmer of a smile. "Though it is a good day for that I don't want you to blame my story on drunkenness. Lemonade will do."
He was silent while I mixed concentrate and water and he readied glasses and ice. Once we were seated in the back yard, icy glasses in hand and the pitcher within reach, he continued his story. "I debated all they way home whether to tell you any of this since it will appear to you that nothing has changed. But you will notice little things and you need to understand them."
Mark was being his usually analytical self, which allowed him to avoid talking about whatever he wanted to say. For a brief moment I thought he had found another lover and was leaving me. I dismissed that when he said it would be little things. I merely waited for him to continue.
He sighed and said, "I've become part Clydesdale."
I reached over and patted his abs. "You've always been my Clydesdale, dear. You're such a stud."
He kissed me, rather carefully I thought, trying to make sure our noses didn't bump, something he hadn't worried about since our fourth date. He then said, "I don't mean the slang term. I mean the horse. By some strange process I've acquired the fur, head, tail, and hooves of a Clydesdale horse." He held up a hand. "Yeah, I know you can't see it. Whether it is a hallucination on my part or yours could be debated without resolution, though I am well aware I'm on the short end of the argument. You would have grounds to commit me to an institution and there were times in the last few days I would have agreed and gone willingly. But I decided life can go on pretty much as it has, though if my behavior, rather than just this story, gets crazy you have my permission to drag me off to the little padded room."
He took a moment to drain his glass and refill it. "Perhaps I should start with why I left a few days ago." I nodded, but otherwise stayed quiet. "I really did need some air that day. I was finally feeling good again, but the whole house had begun to stink." He patted my arm. "This is not a comment on your housekeeping skills -- or mine, for that matter -- but on the growing sensitivity of my nose. A sick person simply doesn't smell good." He took another sip and continued.
Mark's Story
When I left the house it was more of a desire to leave than actually go anywhere -- as it usually is -- so I suppose it was only by chance I was heading towards Dexter. The air conditioning smelled too mechanical, so in spite of the heat I put the windows down. Once I got out of town I was surprised how wonderful the countryside smelled, and I relaxed.
Once in Dexter I decided to head over to I-94 and just cruise for a while. I was heading west again when I glanced down and saw white fur on my hands and brown fur on my arms. About then my head decided to reshape. I stopped -- being off the road anyway -- and got out and leaned against the car. My feet chose that time to become hooves. I pulled my shoes off and dropped them on the passenger seat through the open window. When the pain subsided enough for me to move I panicked. I jumped into the car and started speeding.
I don't know if it was better to have been in Michigan or Ohio at the time. I'm sure the Ohio police would have stopped me before I got to 75 miles per hour and I would have felt safer in retrospect, but I was up to 110 and had gone a good distance before flashing lights behind me got my attention.
I handed over my registration and license and the cop made a show of comparing me to my photo. I hadn't gotten a good look at myself yet but I knew from the way my nose stuck out there was no way I looked like that picture, no matter how bad it was. But the cop seemed satisfied. "You don't see anything wrong?" I asked.
"Other than going 40 miles per hour over the speed limit and not wearing shoes? No. Put your shoes back on and stop trying to kill yourself." He gave me a hefty ticket and was gone. I looked like a freak and he saw nothing?
As I approached the Indiana border -- like I said I had gone a good distance -- at a safer speed I passed the Michigan Welcome Center in the rest area for the traffic coming into Michigan. I clearly saw standing close to the parking area a human sheep, a guy with curving horns.
I doubted what I saw, of course, but just had to investigate. I got off at the next exit, joined the eastbound traffic, and rolled into the rest area. I practically ran over Mister Sheep and I'm sure I looked ridiculous gaping at him. "You're a … a … sheep!" I stammered.
"Hello, Clyde. Good to meet you. I'm Don. Why don't you park your car and join me for lunch. I'm here to help the newly changed, such as yourself."
"Clyde? My name's Mark. And how did you know I had just been changed?"
"Mark, then. Forgive me. The name was an easy handle for someone who looks like a Clydesdale horse. The clues to your recent change are actually quite visible, such as shoes and the speeding ticket on the seat beside you. Panic is a frequent reaction."
"Oh," was all I could manage. I felt like I was blushing. I wondered if he could see it.
Don said, "There is a trick with shoes once you've changed. Though it looks like your hooves won't fit in them they will go on and then disappear." I looked at him. "Even stranger," he continued, "pretend to pluck at the shoelaces and they reappear so you can take them off. I'll explain more later. But I suggest you put them on before using the men's room." I complied while giving Don a look to suggest he was crazy. He ignored it. Amazingly, the shoes went on.
I used the restroom and that's where I got a good look at myself. Brown fur, white feathering over hooves, horsey face, and … a tail.
Most of the men in and out of the restroom ignored me, except the guy at the next sink, who said, "You act like you've never seen your own face before." There was no way to explain that I hadn't.
It was only Don whispering "Easy now. You've got help," that kept me from going bonkers in public.
I followed Don to a picnic table a ways from the pavilion. He had a good vegetarian spread laid out. I was surprised how delicious it looked.
"It looks like you were expecting me," I said.
"Not exactly. though I was hoping someone like you would see me. Standing in a highway rest stop is a way of being visible to those newly changed like you who need help."
"So, what happened to me?" I asked.
"Other than the obvious -- that you are now part Clydesdale -- I have no idea." He held up his hand. "However, I will be glad to share with you what I do know."
He went on to tell me the earliest known change happened in 1987. As far as anyone could tell the number appeared to double every August. Don had changed back in 1995 which, if the doubling theory was correct, meant there were only 250 changed at that time and eight thousand now. Most of the changed appeared to be centered around Chicago. In another 20 years he figured the total worldwide population would be changed. In the meantime, those not affected would not be able to see the change. How that worked, he had no idea, though some were talking about the Matrix movie that came out last year that both of us decided to skip because it looked so weird.
He took me on into Chicago to meet The Club there. I'll say only that the visit kept me sane. Their practical approach to their situation and their network of support was refreshing, but it took a couple days before I was convinced of it. I didn't call home simply because there was nothing believable I could have said over the phone.
"So what now?" I asked.
"We go on with our lives," said Mark. "I still love you and still want to be your life partner. Whatever happens we can deal with it together."
"You're not going to insist I believe this story, are you? You're not going to be in my face about it?"
Mark laughed. "You sound like your Uncle Simon." I stared at him. "He use the same phrase when we told him we were a couple. It seems my change is as invisible to you as your orientation is to your uncle. No, I'm not going to insist you believe me. That was something I learned from The Club in Chicago. But, I have changed. If you see differences in what I do, this is likely the reason."
Over the next days and weeks I did see differences.
The first was that evening when he said he was now vegetarian. This was Mark, the guy who loved his steak and the backyard grill. He said meat no longer looked appetizing and the bit he had eaten over the previous few days had caused considerable abdominal distress. So Mark prepared dinner and agreed to be the head chef until I learned how to create healthy and tasty vegetarian meals.
That night I found that I tended to roll up against Mark as we slept and I felt more secure when I did. He was a very comforting presence. The next night Mark felt ready for sex, though he was afraid he might hurt me. I can't say I felt anything different, but I found the experience to be much more satisfying than before.
The next weekend he went through his half of the closet. He said that he needed to create tail holes in his jeans and shorts even though once they were on I couldn't see the hole. He couldn't just rip the back seam because that would look like a ripped seam. He turned all his t-shirts and pullover sweaters over to me because they were not going to make it over his head. Much to his dismay (and mine) he would have to get a supply of clothing with some type of fastener down the front. No more wet t-shirts at the pool.
Whenever he thought he could get away with it he went barefoot. I never again saw him wearing socks, shoes, or slippers in the house no matter how cold the floor got. He started keeping socks and shoes by the door to remind him to put them on when he went out.
The clincher happened on a day we went to the park. I carefully lathered on sunscreen, then handed the bottle to Mark.
"Don't need it," he said.
"Don't you remember what happened to your fair skin the last time we forgot to pack sunscreen? I don't want you to get skin cancer the way your mother did."
"I have fur now. Sunscreen would only make a mess of it." I wiggled the bottle in front of him. "Really," he insisted. "I don't need it anymore."
I sighed heavily and put the bottle away. I then made a big show of reapplying it four hours later.
But at the end of the day he was just as pale as when he stepped out of the car that morning. I was convinced he had fur I couldn't detect. But no matter how much he had changed it was still clear that he loved me and I loved him. He didn't demand I acknowledge what I could not see and I loved even his eccentricities.
By the time I noticed Mark never trimmed his beard, which never seemed to grow, I understood why that was. About the same time he changed his hair style. He trimmed the hair on his forehead -- his forelocks, he said -- and let the rest grow down to his shoulders. He would brush it carefully to hang over the right side.
That September Mark took me to what he called a furry convention in St. Louis. A large number of the participants wore elaborate animal costumes or had their faces intricately painted to represent their totems. A small number, maybe forty-five of those who didn't wear a costume were changed like himself. He introduced me to Don the sheep, then pointed out to me (not that I could confirm it) a bear, deer, otter, raccoon, cougar, coyote, bison, and mustang. And those were the ones I remember. Most were members of The Club. Mark said the convention was a way for the long-term members of the community to help the newly changed come to terms with their new forms and do it under a publicly acknowledged cover.
Not being changed myself, I was strongly discouraged from attending a few of their sessions. I wandered the booths that sold costumes and costume pieces, that had artists who specialized in "anthro" images, and booksellers who featured anthro novels and comics.
Mark found me just as I was fastening a horse tail under my shirt. He tugged it playfully and said in a soft husky voice, "Nice choice!" I pulled him over to one of the artists and pointed to a painting on the side of his booth that showed a zebra that stood on two legs wearing skimpy shorts with a spear in his hands and an African cap on his head. "Is that what you look like?" I asked.
"Yeah, pretty much, other than I'm Clydesdale, not zebra," Mark responded. "Would you like to me to commission a portrait?"
"That's the general idea." We had already tried to take a photo of Mark. I saw in the photo what I saw with my eyes. The same was true for him. Having a photo that showed different things to each person didn't make any more sense than what we saw directly.
So Mark stepped over to the desk at the front of the booth to talk to the artist. The man was just old enough to no longer be called a kid yet he had already acquired a low tolerance for the youthful exuberance that paid his bills. "Chet Yaldara?" asked Mark.
"Yeah?"
"What would it cost me to for an image like that zebra except of a Clydesdale horse?"
Chet pulled a loose-leaf binder between them, turned a few pages, then flipped it around to show Mark. "Like that? As is, let's see…" He named a price.
"Close, but not quite," said Mark. "I'd want you to leave off the hat, make him a little taller and slimmer, a bit more muscular, and a narrower blaze."
"Wouldn't you like to draw it yourself?" said Chet with a bit of tartness.
Mark shrugged. "Drawing is one thing I'm not good at. And I want this to be an accurate portrait."
"Are you one of those people who thinks he's been changed into some animal?"
I saw Mark about to get defensive then realize it would do no good. "Yeah, I want to show my friend," he gestured in my direction, "the new me."
"Then you want an original work." Chet named a price considerably higher than for the image in the book. Mark choked on a rebuttal but nodded. I suspected Chet had this thing against the changed and was scamming Mark. I thought that to be odd since the guy made his living selling artwork to people in animal costumes.
"Then we need to get the description into the contract and get it signed. I've had too many people conveniently forget to pay me after I send the artwork, so payment is in advance. Credit cards strongly encouraged so if I default you have some leverage."
When the painting came a month later, Mark studied it closely. "Yep, this is me," he finally said as he showed it to me. He had an expectant smile on his face.
It was my turn to study it in detail, glancing between it and him. The artist was quite good and I got a good sense of the figure it showed. This is my love? Could I make love to that? As strong and handsome as the image was, I had my doubts.
Mark picked up on my thoughts. His smile faded and an eyebrow arched.
I set the painting on the table and gave him a loving look from head to toe and back again. "I like what I see right here."
"But it's no longer me."
"We could argue that for a long time, my love. Let's enjoy what we've got."
Mark hung it in a prominent position in the family room.
In mid September two years after Mark's change he got a long phone call. He came into the back yard carrying a pitcher of lemonade and two glasses. I gratefully took a break from pruning the wisteria vine.
"That was The Club in Chicago. They have an important request for us," Mark said.
"Us? Not you?"
"Yes, us. A ten-year-old boy showed up at The Club two days ago saying his parents kicked him out." I winced. "Don suspects the boy ran away from home, but at this point the distinction is moot. The boy knew about The Club from his change last month. He's now part cougar. It seems the boy insisted his parents acknowledge his new form and his parents just as firmly insisted such a strange imagination had no place in their home. They couldn't even bring themselves to say, 'Fine, you're part cougar. Now eat your dinner.' It all came to a boil when his mother found he had cut a hole in his school slacks for his tail. The boy said he had cut the hole before the last time he wore them and neither parent had seen the hole while he was wearing them. They hauled the kid off to a shrink who didn't have any more tolerance for delusions than the parents and the proposed course of treatment scared the hell out of the boy. It sounded a lot like homosexual reparative therapy and we've heard what that does to a guy. Don said the situation could have been a lot worse. Though the parents could not see the claws on their boy's fingers, those claws could have done real damage if he had used them on someone."
I winced again. "And how do we fit into this story?"
"The Club wants to know if we're willing to adopt the boy."
"Why us? Most people, hell, most states, have a problem with kids being adopted by a gay couple."
"First of all, with only 32 thousand changed in the world it is rare for both couples to be changed. In couples where only one has changed the human partner seems to have a hard time with having a changed partner or the one who is changed leaves for another similarly changed. Many relationships don't survive and those that do would have a hard time with a changed child. We seem to be one of the few bright exceptions.
"We've met the committee that runs The Club. They know how stable we are and know you would be able to handle something you can't see. We know what it's like to be on the wrong end of bigotry and know how to not be bigots to someone else, especially to a kid."
"It is good to hear they put so much trust in us," I said. "It's been a while since we talked about adopting a family. This sounds like it is time to actually do it."
Mark smiled. We hugged. "I'll call them back," he said.
Two days later we went to Chicago to pick up Dylan. He was a sullen kid. I could understand his mood, having been ejected from a loving home and not knowing if this guy and horse would work out. "Hi, Dylan. I'm Toby and this horsie guy is Mark. We'd like to be your fathers. Having a cougar for a son sounds like a fine idea to me."
At that he gave a glimmer of a smile. He asked, "You understand things you can't see?"
"You bet," I replied. "There's things about me that other people can't see. For instance, some people just can't see how much I love Daddy Mark. My love is somehow invisible to them. So what if you have a tail. A cougar is strong and fearless and I can see that even if I can't see the fur." The smile grew.
Once back in Ann Arbor Mark told Dylan, "Daddy Toby can't see your claws in the same way your first parents couldn't see your tail. Since I know you don't want to hurt him, even by accident, I think we need to slide some protectors over them. The other option is to cut off the claws and I don't think a cougar would want that." Dylan gave an "I suppose" shrug and allowed Mark to install the protectors. The little black triangles appeared to me to be at the tips of his fingers.
The following Monday I took Dylan to school. We had sufficient paperwork from The Club to make registration go smoothly and I was soon on my way to work.
Two hours later the principal called and I hurried back to the school, arriving just before Mark. Kids always tease the newcomer to find, I'm sure, what kind of stuff he's made of, to see where he fits in the 10-year-old-boy social pecking order. Dylan's claw protectors were the obvious target. Dylan didn't help matters any by claiming to be part cougar and needing them to protect the other boys from his claws. I was pleased the kid was level-headed enough not to demonstrate the claws on some boy's face, but he did pull out a piece of paper and proceed to slash it with an unprotected claw. I could guess the other boys' expressions in seeing a rip in the paper grow as Dylan ran a bare fingertip along it.
That got the teacher's attention real fast. She hauled Dylan to the principal's office and he called us. We were told, with Dylan present, that while the principal couldn't see the claws, he could see the protectors and figured they were there for a reason. He didn't know how Dylan managed it, but he didn't need to know. The protectors had to come off and the claws clipped, at least until Dylan graduated from his school system.
Mark called The Club about how to trim claws, then dashed off to the pet store down the street while the rest of us waited. He soon was back with claw clippers for dogs, though he didn't tell Dylan that. Mark said, "Sorry, sport, we must do it." He then one-by-one pulled off the protector and clipped the claw under it, carefully collecting the pieces. He gave Dylan a hug and laid the ten claws on the principal's desk. I was astonished that I could see them and raised eyebrows in Mark's direction, who only shrugged. Mark held up a piece of paper and asked Dylan to scratch it. There was no rip.
The principal thanked us for being so understanding and sent Dylan back to class and us back to our jobs.
On the way out I asked Mark, "What species is that principal?"
"Human. Why ask?"
"That means he saw Dylan as a human." Mark nodded. "So why didn't he freak out when you put ten feline claw tips on his desk?"
"I have no idea," said Mark as he stopped to look at me. "Though I suspect an elementary school teacher has seen stuff even weirder than that and as long as the students are safe he's happy."
The teasing stopped and Dylan actually rose fairly high in the pecking order. The other boys granted him the nickname -- a positive name is a sure sign of peer approval -- of "Coog."
Mark and I didn't worry about the legal matters or Dylan's former family. A year later we showed up in the proper courtroom in Chicago with Dylan to make the adoption final. According to Dylan our lawyer was a moose and the judge was a bison.
That same trip we took home Ruben, a raccoon, newly changed and in need of a new home. The kid was only seven.
One of the first things Ruben said to me was, "Why do you look over my head when you talk to me?" I thought I was looking him in the eye.
I knew enough about being around the changed that when I turned to Mark I placed my hand at the same level as Ruben's head, but not on it. "I take it Ruben isn't this tall?"
Mark said, "Nope, he's shorter," and held his hand five inches directly below mine.
"Ah," I said. It took me a while to get the knack of looking at Ruben's chin when I talked to him.
Mark worried about predator-prey issues between the two boys but Dylan quickly decided that Ruben was more fun as a brother than as something to chase.
The following year, 2004, we collected another boy, Austin, a sullen 13 year old otter, and two girls, Zoe, a 9 year old brown bear, and Melanie, an 8 year old Dalmatian.
This time it was clear to both Mark and myself as well as to The Club where this was headed. They built a large house with ten bedrooms for us and made both of us employees of The Club. We gladly left our day jobs to be full-time parents.
I took cooking lessons sponsored through The Club and a good deal of my day was spent in the kitchen. I had to be the cook because Mark was no longer able, due to the stench, he said, of cooking the mostly meat diet Coog and Melanie needed. Mark and Ruben were vegetarian while Austin and Zoe liked seafood with their fruits and vegetables. Menus had to be carefully planned.
Our annual vacations to "furry" conventions, both regional and national had already become family traditions. That year they began to be major undertakings. That was also the year when we first found a changed artist to create portraits of the family so I could see how they appeared to themselves. The series of paintings were hung surrounding the original one of Mark to document how our family grew.
We added to our family every year. Diego, a coyote, and Rose, an antelope, just in 2005. That same year I started teaching each child how to cook for themselves and teach Austin how to cook for everyone.
Every August around the middle of the month Mark watched me for any signs of illness. He knew I tried to bluff may way through any illness to keep going, to keep my home in order and my children fed. But two weeks of persistent "How you feeling?" could annoy joust about everyone. He was almost delighted when I caught a summer cold in 2006 that was severe enough to send me to bed. I appreciated the way he doted on me though it got to be unnerving when he would stand beside me and study my face. He was quite disappointed when I stayed stubbornly human once I was well.
In 2008, our twelfth child Terry, a ferret, was given to us and proved to be the most challenging. The first challenge was the poor child was only 18 months old, several years younger than what we had dealt with before.
The second challenge was that though Mark and Don continued to use female pronouns when I changed the diaper I found Terry was a little boy. There was no mistake when that little fountain went off and I had a mess to clean up.
"Didn't anyone bother to check before deciding that Terry was a girl?" I said, pointing to the evidence before closing up another fresh diaper.
"Oh, we checked, all right," said Don. "Terry is definitely female now." I caught that word but before I could do more than stare at Don he continued, "But she changed genders when she became part ferret. Sometimes it happens." He shrugged. "I guess we're fortunate she has one of those genderless names."
Mark responded before I could. "So while I see Terry as a girl, Toby sees her as a boy?"
"Yup, that's it," said Don. "It also means the unchanged world will see her as a boy. You will have to dress her in boy clothes, or at least asexual clothes, or deal with the world that has a hard time with gender misfits."
"Is this going to be a problem?" asked Mark, looking at me.
"Honey, You and I are already gender misfits. Terry needs a home. We can provide one. We'll just have to teach everyone how to be careful with pronouns."
Don said, "This may only be a short term problem. According to our research, with the way the number of changed appears to double every year the entire world population will be changed by 2020, about the time Terry becomes a teenager. Until then it may be possible to raise a tomboy. Whatever is preventing you from seeing us as we are may end a few years before then."
Mark was looking at me strange smile. "What?" I said.
"It means," he said, "at least by 2020 and perhaps even before you will cease being the holdout in the family."
My next summer illness wasn't until 2010. This one was a doozy and there was no way I was going to bluff through it. Care of our fourteen children fell to Mark and our oldest two, Coog, then 18, and Austin, then 19 and no longer sullen. Mark, damn him, was almost gleeful at my misfortune.
I awoke one morning a few days later feeling much better, but assaulted by odors. Mark had been right all those years ago -- sick people don't smell good. I rolled over to give my lover a kiss before getting out of bed and got quite a shock. There was a horse in my bed!
Mark awoke to the sound of the sheets rustling with my reaction. "Ah," he said, "you can see the real me!"
After a few deep breaths to calm myself I could tell the figure beside me did look a lot like the portraits in the family room. "Mark?" was all I could manage.
"Yes, my love. It's me." The voice didn't sound like him. "Welcome to the furry side."
That prompted me to look at myself. I still had toes and bare skin, so I gave him a questioning look.
"It will come soon." He got up and stuck his head out the door, keeping most of his naked body behind it, and called softly, "Coog?" I heard a reply from the room across the hall and soon another door opened. "He saw me."
I heard a voice respond, "Cool!" That was Coog?
"No, you can't watch," Mark said. "Please get Austin to start breakfast for the other kids and bring something up here for us."
"Meat? No meat?" asked Coog.
"Don't know yet. Bring a variety."
Mark shut the door and turned around. I took a good look at him, which he allowed with a smile. Wow, he looked hot! Especially that tail! I had never had this kind of reaction to the portraits.
He saw my reaction and said, "We should wait until your change is complete. I wouldn't want you to become disoriented in the middle of it." But he did come over and wrap his furry arms around me.
I felt a strong something, not quite pain, on top of my head between my ears. I reached up to touch the spot and brushed ears that stuck out by several inches. I paused to feel them in wonder for a moment, but soon another sensation on top of my head urged my fingers higher. I felt two large bumps protruding through the scalp.
"I can't say I'm an expert on these things," said Mark, "but it looks like you are becoming some kind of deer. A good thing because I think antlers are hot!"
I grinned and kissed him. "Happy to oblige."
There was a knock at our door and a voice called out, "Breakfast."
Mark retrieved the tray and set it on the dresser. The eggs and sausage didn't smell appetizing but the oatmeal smelled wonderful. However, I only got a few bites before things began to happen quickly. I felt my jaw pull out and I sat abruptly as my toes cramped. My skin tingled all over as fur began to grow.
I felt a moment of panic and Mark's arms were around me again. He pulled me to my feet saying, "It's actually better to be walking as your feet change." He kept talking while my body continued to shift and tingle. "I'm so pleased you are joining the rest of the family, that you will be able to see us as we really are. A blended body is actually quite wonderful and you'll be able to adapt in no time. Besides, you'll have me with you." He glanced at the top of my head and at the head of the bed. "Though it looks like we'll have to pull the bed away from the wall."
The strange sensations subsided. "Come on, let's see the new you." He guided me to the bathroom and its full-length mirror. I stepped gingerly on new hooves. What I saw astonished and pleased me. A buck stood there with a six-point rack, big ears, an impressive muzzle, soft brown fur with a white muzzle and throat, lighter fur on the back of slender hands that had thick nails, a strong body, legs that tapered to dainty hooves, and a small tail.
I was again overwhelmed by odors, many of which were not pleasant. Mark saw my expression and said, "I suspect you smell your own sickness. Let's go meet the family and I'll send Coog up to clean."
At Mark's suggestion I put on shorts but left off the shirt. I held tight to Mark as we descended the stairs. I could hear the blur of voices from around our huge kitchen table, though none of the voices sounded quite familiar. As we entered the room a cheer went up and I sagged against Mark.
As I suspect happens in any family, especially large ones, each person tends to sit at the same place for every meal. It is a way for the parents to tell which child is missing and a way to make sure the older ones are well positioned to help the younger ones. Having Coog and Austin take the middle position on each side and the other kids filling in as they always do helped me a great deal right then. While I knew the species of all of my kids from the family portraits it took great mental effort to associate names with the live bodies before me.
Breakfast could wait. I circled the table slowly hugging each child, getting a good look at them, and breathing in their scent. Halfway around the table I passed my seat and glanced to the opposite end where Mark sat. He had a contented smile on his face. His family -- our family -- was now whole. I completed my circuit with all of them watching and gave Mark a kiss and a hug.
A couple months later at the fall furry convention I could finally attend the sessions for the newly changed. And, of course, we had to document the current state of the family again for the family room wall. This time we could do it with a photograph.
Retrieved from "https://shifti.org/index.php?title=User:Erastus/On_the_Outside_Looking&oldid=10157"
Erastus Centaur
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Members of the Department:
Mr Ryan Horner
Mrs Katheryn Mc Alister
Mrs Ann-Louise Kirby
Ms Josephine Bradley
Mrs Orla Gallagher
Miss Jennifer Griffin
Ms Ruth Byrne
Miss Rachael Thompson
St Columb’s College Citizenship programme follows a pattern of development to enhance knowledge, skills and values. Year 8 looks at Diversity and Interdependence, Year 9 deals with Equality and Justice and Year 10 concentrates on Human Rights, Social Responsibility and Active Participation.
The Year 8 and Year 9 programme is delivered through interactive i books whilst the Year 10 curriculum is delivered through interactive workbooks, involving a lot discussion and teamwork activities, inviting pupils to be open, enthusiastic and committed through active learning methodologies. A selection of Year 10 Citizenship classes complete Derry City Council's, ‘Prejudice Face On’ project, focusing on good relations issues, exploring sensitive areas such as prejudice, stereotyping, racism and homophobia, employing interactive exercises and ICT. The project culminates in a cluster day, whereby all participating schools come together, presenting their views on the project through an interactive presentation.
Citizenship at Key Stage 4 is delivered in a number of ways, including a collapsed timetable day for all Year 11 where NGOs develop citizenship issues through workshops, the work of fundraising and charity awareness.
At post-16, ‘Youth Initiative’ works closely with pupils throughout the year, holding workshops in St Columb’s, helping our pupils deepen their respect and understanding for other cultures and traditions. A selection of pupils complete ‘Schools Together and Reconciliation Training,’ receiving a recognised Open College Network Level 2 accreditation. This helps our boys establish many cross-community friendships, experience new cultures and become very active in our schools and local communities. A selection of pupils are involved in the Erasmus International Exchange Project, travelling to Italy with Italian students in a once in a lifetime opportunity. Their experiences include participating in European Parliament scenarios, representing different political viewpoints such as the Liberals, Socialists, Conservatives and Eurosceptics.
St Columb’s is also involved in the ‘Global Learning Programme,’ starting our journey in 2015, further promoting ‘Education for a Fair and Sustainable World’ amongst pupils. Young people today are growing up in a rapidly changing and increasingly globalised world. They have a great interest in learning more about the world around them. The Global Learning Programme ensures this interest is nurtured and developed in the classroom. Over the next three years, hundreds of schools in Northern Ireland will be able to take part in the GLP to the benefit of thousands of pupils and we are proud to say that we were the first school to receive Level 1 status in this area.
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Past Priests II
The biograhical sketches below are excerpted from the book
"CATHOLIC PRIESTS OF THE DIOCESE OF WILMINGTON;
A JUBILEE YEAR 2000 COMMEMORATION"
by Rev. Thomas J. Peterman.
1927--1929.......James J. Kehoe (at Galena)
James Joseph Kehoe was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 8, 1897, a son of Patrick and Mary (Nettleton) Kehoe. He attended Annunciation Parochial School. Upon graduation in 1911, he began studies for the priesthood with the Josephite Fathers of Baltimore. He completed his classical studies at Epiphany College in 1920 and his philosophy course at St. Joseph's Seminary in 1922.He pursued theological studies at St. John's Seminary, Little Rock, Arkansas; Kenrick Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri; and St. Bonaventure's Seminary, Allegany, New York. He was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of Leavenworth by Bishop John Shahan, rector of the Catholic University, at the Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul in Philadelphia on June 6, 1925. He was assigned to Blessed Sacrament Parish in Kansas City, Kansas.
In December of 1925, to be near his aged parents, he came to the Diocese of Wilmington, and served as assistant pastor at St. Mary's and at St. Patrick's, Wilmington. He was pastor of St. Dennis' Church, Galena, Maryland from 1927 to 1929. Until 1937, he served in the Dioceses of Trenton and Brooklyn. Then he was appointed pastor of Sacred Heart Parish, Sebetha, Kansas. On March 1, 1940, he became a chaplain in the United States Army. When the war ended in 1945, he was appointed pastor of St. Joseph's, Wathena, Kansas. He died suddenly on May 7, 1948, 50 years of age, and 23 years a priest. Solemn Requiem Mass was offered May 14, 1948, by Monsignor Edward Cahill, at the Church of Our Lady of Good Counsel, Moorestown, New Jersey. Monsignor Joseph McIntyre preached the funeral sermon. Interment was made in Calvary Cemetery, Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
In January 1929, he was appointed pastor of St. Dennis Church, Galena, Maryland, but in the same year he was transferred as pastor to St. Joseph's, Middletown, where he served for the next 27 years. There he was also in charge of Old Bohemia Church, near Warwick, Maryland, of which St. Joseph's had formerly been a mission. On June 28, 1956, he was appointed pastor of St. Paul's Church, Wimington. During his pastorate there, he directed the completion of the parochial school and the constuction of a new rectory. He was a brilliant scholar, especially in the classics. He died in Wilmington General Hospital, on Sunday, November 17, 1963. He was 63 years of age, and 36 years a priest.
1929--1929.......John H. Walsh (at Galena)
John Howard Walsh was born in Newark, New Jersey, on April 9, 1900, a son of Edward and Mary (Murphy) Walsh. He attended St. Aloysius Parochial School, and East Side High School, Newark. Then he enrolled in Seton Hall College, South Orange, New Jersey where he graduated after a brilliant scholastic career. He then undertook studies for the priesthood at St. Francis Seminary, Lorretta, Pennsylvania. He was ordained at St. Peter's Cathedral, Wilmington, by Bishop Edmond FitzMaurice, on April 16, 1927. He was assigned assistant pastor at St. Peter's Cathedral, Wilmington. In June 1928, he was transferred as assistant pastor to St. John's Church, Milford.
1929--1943.......John M. Walsh (at Galena)
John M. Walsh was born in Wilmington, Delaware, on October 7, 1882, a son of John and Ellen Walsh. His early education was received at St. Paul's Parochial School, Wilmington, and at Wilmington High School. After graduation he entered St. Joseph's Preparatory School, Philadelphia, and then St. Charles College, Ellicott City, Maryland. He completed his studies for the priesthood at St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, and was ordained a priest by Cardinal James Gibbons on June 21, 1911, in the Cathedral of the Assumption, Baltimore. He began his priestly life with several months' service as assistant pastor of St. Peter's Cathedral, Wilmington. In 1912, he was appointed assistant pastor at SS. Peter and Paul Church, Easton, Maryland. From 1914 to 1929 he served as the fourth pastor of St. Mary's Parish, Cambridge, Maryland, where he was exceptionally well liked by Catholics and Protestants alike. In 1925, he made a trip to Ireland and continental Europe, and was received in audience by Pope Pius XI in Rome.
In 1929, Father Walsh was appointed pastor of St. Dennis Parish, Galena, Maryland, where he served the next 14 years. During his pastorate at Galena, a new stone church was constructed largely due to the generosity of John J. Raskob. After a month's illness, he died of a heart ailment at St. Francis' Hospital, Wilmington, on Sunday, May 30, 1943. He was 60 years of age; 32 years a priest. Bishop Edmond FitzMaurice celebrated Pontifical Requiem Mass at St. Anthony's Church, Wilmington, on June 4, 1943. Very Rev. Dr. Francis Tucker in the eulogy lauded him for his loyal obedience and service throughout his career. Interment was made at Cathedral Cemetery, Wilmington.
1943--1956.......Edward M. Leinheiser (at Galena)
Edward Martin Leinheiser was born in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, on August 21, 1904, a son of Francis and Agnes (Ritzell) Leinheiser. He received his early education at St. John the Baptist School in Pottsville. He undertook studies for the priesthood at the Pontifical College Josephinium, Worthington, Ohio. He was ordained for the Diocese of Wilmington on May 29, 1930, at the Cathedral in Columbus, Ohio, by Bishop James J. Hartley. His first assignment was as assistant pastor to St. Peter's Church, New Castle, Delaware. In 1936 he was appointed pastor of Immaculate Conception Church, Marydel, and at the same time chaplain to the Benedictine Sisters at St. Gertrude's Priory, Ridgely, Maryland.
On June 29, 1943, Father Leinheiser became pastor of St. Dennis Church, Galena, Maryland, where he served for thirteen years. On June 28, 1956, he was transferred as pastor to Holy Rosary Church, Claymont, Delaware. In his twelve years there he built a six classroom addition to Holy Rosary School, and in 1960 completed a new church. On September 6, 1968, he was transferred as pastor to St. Matthew's Church, Woodcrest. On May 21, 1974, he retired for reasons of health. He died at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on January 31, 1976, at age 71, and 46 years a priest. A concelebrated Mass of Christian Burial was offered by Bishop Thomas J. Mardaga at St. Matthew's Church on February 4, 1976. Interrment was made at All Saint's Cemetery, Wilmington, Delaware.
1956--1970.......Joseph C. Horgan (at Galena)
Joseph Cornelius Horgan was born in Wilmington, Delaware, on August 24, 1913, a son of Cornelius and Margaret (Kelleher) Horgan. He received his early education at St. Mary's School, and Salesianum School, Wilmington. He began studies for the priesthood at St. Charles College, Catonsville, Maryland. He took his philosophical and theological studies at St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore. He was ordained on June 7, 1941 at St. Anthony's Church, Wilmington, by Bishop Edmond FitzMaurice. He was first assigned as assistant pastor to Sacred Heart Church, Chestertown, Maryland. After six months there, he was transferred to St. John's Church, Milford, Delaware, where he spent one and one-half years as assistant. From 1943 to 1948 he served as chaplain to St. Gertrude's Monastery, Ridgely, Maryland. He was transferred to St. Patrick's Church, Wilmington, where he spent three years. in 1951, he was appointed pastor to St. Charles Parish, Cape Charles, Virginia.
In 1956, Father Horgan was appointed pastor of St. Dennis Church, Galena, Maryland, where he began the construction of a religious education center. In 1970, at the age of 57 he was appointed chaplain of the Little Sisters of the Poor, Wilmington, Delaware. He retired in 1978, and lived at the Vianney House, Wilmington. He died on July 18, 1998, 84 years of age, and 57 years a priest. A concelebrated Mass was offered on July 23, 1998, by Bishop Michael Saltarelli, at St. John the Beloved Church, Wilmington. Interment was made in All Saints Cemetery, Wilmington.
1970--1976.......James Willard Lutz (at Galena)
James Willard Lutz was born in Wilmington, Delaware, on February 2, 1913, a son of Robert and Anna (Brainard) Lutz. He received his early education at St. Patrick's School, and Salesianum School, Wilmington. He began studies for the priesthood at St. Charle's College, Catonsville, Maryland. He took his theological studies at North American College, Rome, Italy, returning to the United States in his last year for reasons of health and threat of a world war. He was ordained at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, D.C., on May 30, 1939, by Bishop John McNamara. His first assignment was as assistant pastor at St. Peter's Cathedral, Wilmington, Delaware. When the United States entered World War II, he became a naval chaplain. When the war ended, he returned to St. Peter's Cathedral, and served there until December 1948, when he was transferred as assistant pastor to St. Ann's Church, Wilmington. In 1950, he became assistant pastor at Holy Rosary Church, Claymont, Delaware. In June 1958, he was appointed pastor of St. Christopher's Church on Kent Island, Chester, Maryland. In October 1960, he was assigned as founding pastor of St. Catherine of Siena Parish, Wilmington.
In May 1970, he became pastor of St. Dennis Church, Galena, Maryland.
There he completed the educational building and hall. He died unexpectedly on April 26, 1976, at 63 years of age, and 37 years a priest. A concelebrated Mass was celebrated by Bishop Thomas J. Mardaga at St. Catherine of Siena Church, Wilmington, on April 28 and at St. Dennis Church on April 29, 1976. Interment was made in Cathedral Cemetery, Wilmington, Delaware.
1976--1979.......Alex F Gorski (at Galena)
Alex Gorski was born in Wilmington, Delaware, on January 24, 1915, a son of Frank and Hedwig (Smulski) Gorski. He received his early education at St. Hedwig's School, Wilmington, and Salesianum School, Wilmington. He began his studies for the priesthood at SS. Cyril and Methodius Seminary, Orchard Lake, Michigan. He took his theological studies at St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, and was ordained to the priesthood at St. Mary's Seminary Chapel by Bishop John J. McNamara on November 17, 1943. He was first assigned as assistant pastor at St. Mary's Church, Wilmington. On December 30, 1943, he was transferred as assistant pastor to Francis de Sales Church, Salisbury, Maryland. On January 18, 1946, he was transferred as assistant pastor to St. Helena's Church, Bellefonte. On April 22, 1948, he was transferred as assistant pastor to St. Paul's Church, Wilmington. On May 23, 1948, he was released by the diocese to the United States Navy. He served as chaplain seven years, attaining the rank of Lieutenant Commander. On December 12, 1959, he returned to Wilmington to serve as diocesan director of the Catholic Youth Organization. At the same time he was appointed administrator of St. Patrick's Parish, Wilmington. On June 9, 1962, he was appointed pastor of St. Stanislaus Kotska Church, Wilmington. On September 6, 1968, he became pastor of St. John the Beloved Church, Sherwood Park. On May 21, 1970, he was transferred as pastor to St. Francis de Sales, Salisbury, Maryland, where he supervised the building of a new rectory.
On June 2, 1976, Father Gorski became pastor of St. Dennis Church, Galena, Maryland. On June 13, 1979, he again became pastor of St. Stanislaus Church, Wilmington. From there he was transferred as pastor of St. Hedwig's Church, Wilmington. In June, 1992, he resigned the pastorate to continue to live as senior priest at St. Hedwig's Church. That same year he retired and now lives in Wilmington, Delaware.
1979--1982.......Russell Perkins (at Galena)
Russell Hedley Perkins was born in Rome, New York, on May 15, 1926, a son of Russell H. and Victoria (Marschalk) Perkins. He received his early education at Eastside Public High School, Paterson, New Jersey, and Ramsey High School, Ramsey, New Jersey. In his junior year he became a Catholic at St. Paul's Church, Ramsey, New Jersey. In his senior year he attended Seton Hall Preparatory Seminary, South Orange, New Jersey. After attending Seton Hall University, he entered the Order of the Most Holy Trinity at St. John of Matha, Hyattsville, Maryland. He returned to Seton Hall and graduated in 1953, with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry. In 1954, he entered St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, graduating four years later with a licentiate in Sacred Theology. He was ordained on May 31, 1958, at the Cathedral of St. Peter, Wilmington, by Bishop Edward Schlotterbach, O.S.F.S. He was first assigned to St. Edmond's Church, Rehobeth Beach, Delaware, for the summer. In September 1958, he was transferred to St. John's-Holy Angles Parish, Newark, Delaware. In March 1959, he became associate pastor of St. Paul's, Wilmington, where he began the ministry to the Hispanics. He was sent to Puerto Rico in 1962 to learn Spanish and and to do field work, and returned to St. Paul's, Wilmington. In June 1967, he was transferred to St. Mary of the Assumption, Hockessin, Delaware. He was appointed pastor of St. Joseph's Church, Middletown, Delaware, in September 1969. In 1978 he became pastor of Sacred Heart Church, Chestertown, Maryland.
In May 1979, Father Perkins was appointed pastor of St. Dennis Church, Galena, Maryland. In 1982, he became pastor of St. Ann's Church, Wilmington. In 1985, he was a resident of Corpus Christi Church, Elsmere, Delaware. In January 1987, he was appointed administrator of St. Mary's Star of the Sea, Ocean City, Maryland. He was appointed pastor of St. Polycarp's, Smyrna, Delaware. He retired from there on July 28, 1995, and lived in Manteo, North Carolina until his death on March 2, 2002. After a Mass of Christian Burial at St. Polycarp's Church, Smyrna, Delaware, he was interred at Mary Rest Cemetery in Darlington, New Jersey
1993-1994........Christopher P. Plokhooy
Christopher Henry Plokhooy was born in Wallington, New Jersey, on July 12, 1925, a son of Christopher H. and Mary (Gary) Plokhooy. He received his early education at Clifton Public Elementary and Clifton Public High School, Wallington, New Jersey. After high school he entered the United States Navy and served on the U.S.S. Alabama in the North Atlantic and South Pacific during World War II. At age 22, he began studies for the priesthood at Mother of the Saviour Seminary, Blackwood, New Jersey. He took philosophical and theological studies at Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey, and at St. Vincent's Seminary, Latrobe, Pennsylvania. He was ordained for the Diocese of Wilmington on May 23, 1959, at St. Peter's Cathedral, Wilmington, by Bishop Michael W. Hyle. He was first assigned as associate pastor of St. Peter's Church, New Castle, Delaware. In 1961, he was transferred as associate pastor to St. Elizabeth's Church, Wilmington. In 1963, he became associate pastor of St. Peter's Church, New Castle, Delaware. in 1968, he transferred as associate pastor to Holy Cross Church, Dover, Delaware. In November 1971, he became associate pastor of St. John's-Holy Angels Parish, Newark, Delaware. In 1972, he was appointed pastor of Immaculate Conception Church, Marydel, Maryland. In 1975, he became pastor of St. Thomas Church, Wilmington. In 1977, he was appointed pastor of Holy Name of Jesus Church, Pocomoke, Maryland. In 1979, he was assigned to Holy Family Church, Newark, Delaware. In 1984, he became associate pastor to St. Helena's Church, Bellefonte. In 1987 he became associate pastor of St. Matthew's Church, Woodcrest. In 1993 he was appointed pastor of Immaculate Conception Church, Marydel, Maryland. In 1993 Father Plokhooy became pastor of St. Dennis Church, Galena, Maryland. He retired in 1995 and lives at Vianney House, Home for Retired Priests, Wilmington, Delaware.
1994........2006 Thomas J. Peterman
The Reverend Thomas J. Peterman,V.F. was the 22nd pastor of St. Dennis Church.
Born in Dover, Delaware, on April 28, 1931, a son of Albert and Catherine (McCaffery) Peterman, he attended Milford Elementary School. He then attended high school at Charles Minor Seminary, Catonsville, Maryland. While in Baltimore he studied piano and organ at Peabody Conservatory. After graduating from St. Mary's College, Baltimore, he took theological studies at the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.
He was ordained at St. John's Church, Milford, Delaware, on June 1, 1957 by Bishop Hubert J. Cartwright. He was first appointed associate pastor at Corpus Christi Church, Elsmere, Delaware.
In 1962 Father Peterman was transferred to Holy Cross Church, Dover, Delaware and was appointed principal of the high school there.
In 1966, he was transferred to St. Elizabeth Church, Wilmington, Delaware, and was appointed principal of the high school there.
In 1970 he became pastor of Good Shepherd Church, Perryville, Maryland.
In 1974 he was named pastor of Mary Magdelene Church, Sharpley, Wilmington, Delaware.
In 1983 he was transferred as pastor to Holy Cross Church, Dover, Delaware.
In 1985 he received a doctorate in American Catholic History from the Catholic University of America.
He served as pastor of Sacred Heart Church, Chestertown, Maryland, from 1987 until 1994 when he was transferred as pastor to St. Dennis Church, Galena, Maryland.
Father Peterman has served on the diocesan pastoral commission, has been president of the Priests' Senate, for 22 years was organist at Priests' retreats and funerals, and he served on the music committee of the Liturgical Commission. He is past dean of the Eastern Shore Deanery and is now a member of the Priests' Senate.
He was coordinator of the diocesan observance of the United States Bicentennial program "Liberty and Justice For All," and has served as chairman of the committee for the diocesan observance of Jubilee 2000.
While at St. Dennis, Father Peterman electronified the church bell, erected a new church sign, secured and installed a Muller pipe organ for the church, and has put St. Dennis on the internet. He has also instituted two Masses in Spanish to accommodate new Hispanic parishioners.
Father Peterman was also the charter Chaplain of the Father George Villiger Council 12612 of the Knights of Columbus.
A special project of Father Peterman's during the Jubilee 2000 celebration was a history exhibit depicting "20 Centuries of Catholic History". The content of the exhibit included art work posters featuring scenes from each century, and write-ups on Church related events in each century, including the lives of major saints. A brief history of the some of the parishes in the Diocese of Wilmington were also included. The exhibit was displayed at St. Dennis and a few other parishes and was featured at the Exihibition Hall in Ocean City, Maryland, during the Diocesan-wide celebration of Jubilee 2000.
Father Peterman retired on June 19, 2006 after 49 years a priest. He owns a home in Newark, Delaware.
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First POST: Climate Changes
BY Micah L. Sifry | Tuesday, September 23 2014
Google is going to end its relationship with the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council, finally giving in to the #DontFundEvil campaign led by Forecast the Facts. Speaking on the Diane Rehm radio show in Washington, DC, Google's chairman Eric Schmidt said, ""Well, the company has a very strong view that we should make decisions in politics based on facts—what a shock. And the facts of climate change are not in question anymore. Everyone understands climate change is occurring, and the people who oppose it are really hurting our children and our grandchildren and making the world a much worse place. And so we should not be aligned with such people—they're just, they're just literally lying."
Related? Apple CEO Tim Cook says his company doesn't accept the idea that "there's a trade-off between the economy and the environment" and "the long-term consequences of not addressing the environment are huge."
Our Jessica McKenzie on "How Network-Centric Organizing Made the People's Climate March."
Why spend so much time researching and writing about digital connectivity? Zeynep Tufekci's answer, which she ties to the challenge of global climate and economic crises, may surprise you.
Longtime digital politics observer David Karpf notes the expansion of DailyKos from being "a community blog into a more complex digitally-mediated political organization" and says that we should stop referring to a concept known as "the blogosphere." I agree, but first we will have to get everyone to stop referring to posts as "blogs."
Social news pioneer Andy Carvin, who is now at First Look Media, is hiring journalists to "embed themselves as hosts and producers on various social media platforms."
How the New York Times' cyber-security reporter Nicole Perloth protects her own communications.
MayDay PAC is asking people to make 30-second videos focused on the corrupting influence of money in politics, with the winning submission potentially being aired on TV. It's a throwback to MoveOn's "Bush in 30 Seconds" contest from 2004.
The annual Code for America civic tech summit begins today at 2:30 PDT, and main hall talks will be livestreamed here.
#dontfundevil
andy carvin
Bush in 30 Seconds
Code for America
Diane Rehm
First Look Media
Jessica McKenzie
MayDay PAC
network-centric organizing
Nicole Perloth
Zeynep Tufekci
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who is happy ?
She completed her graduation in commerce,well, that was the easiest thing that her parents wanted from her, now they can find a suitable boy for her, for whom she can cook for her entire life, from whatever she had learned in her graduation. She had no choice earlier to chose a different field, she was in no position to chose science, her grades ensured that fact, though, she was good in English and literature, and she might have taken arts. But, in India, arts is for those who have very poor grades and who have no choice left.
Her parents wanted her to take commerce, as it was the typical degree for the bio-data. And they were right, she finally got married, and not because of the degree, though the degree was needed to tell the relatives that their daughter is educated, but she actually got married because she looked pretty enough for the boy, and also the boy’s family thought that she could serve their family and keep its name for years to come.
Everyone was happy when the marriage was happening, all was good.
A few years after the marriage, her husband was shouting at her badly, she was crying. She accidentally caught him talking to some girl earlier, and hence he was shouting to defend himself, actually there was nothing left to defend. She informed her parents about it and they said it is your own matter, deal with it.
He cleared his college, the marks were not good. Actually he was never really interested in studies. Not even a single subject gathered his interest. But he passed, as he was not so dumb. He knew how to score with the minimum resources.
His parents never really worried, they never bothered about his grades, they had enough money. After a few years, they chose a girl for him, she was nice looking, and within a few months he got married.
He was a good dancer though, but he never really thought of it as a career. After marriage he was finding trouble to open up with his wife, as he still was not sure about his own life, also, her wife also was not bothered.
He never really wanted to marry, but his parents were forcing him, and he never had the courage to go against them.
One day when he went for his dance class, he saw a girl, she was dancing beautifully. The teacher introduced them with each other. They started meeting daily, in and out of the class. And soon, they fell for each other. When he was talking to her on the phone his wife caught him.
They both kept fighting for days, and one day they finally shared the truth with each other. They admitted the fact that both of them never really wanted the marriage.
But then who wanted it?
Of course their parents.
For their happiness obviously.
But who was happy?
They thought about it and finally got divorced.
Their parents were not supportive. They had ego issues, because if they wanted their happiness then they would have supported them. But their ego surpassed the love by just a little margin, but that was enough for them to lose their minds.
Both of them went in different directions of their own.
It doesn’t matter, whatever happens, it is life, but further on whatever decision they will take will be their own, that doesn’t mean that they will not consider their parents, but by taking decisions only will they learn and grow. And they will be happy even if they don’t succeed because they will be doing what they want.
And ultimately the parents will be happy seeing their children happy….
Oblivion.
0 thoughts on “who is happy ?”
iamgraceaji says:
Very true! Peace of mind is so necessary. ..i wish every individual should be allowed to live on their terms. Why must the society impose themselves upon us…hope we change our mentality. ..
Yes indeed…you are right..
Sakshi Gour says:
Yep! Parents eventually want to see their children happy.. more than anything else.. 🙂
Hope we get the courage to follow what we really want to do.. 🙂
Yes..true..because it is easier said than done..
Shreyana
The reality that’s some cultures are so stuck in tradition a societal norms is sad. One is able to see in this piece how what the parents thought was right because it was how things were always done, didn’t end up happy for anyone. I’m glad in the end the couple talked and worked things out so they could divorce. Forcing them together, thinking it was good, was ever a wise idea.
I had a friend in high school named Priya. Priya’s parents told her if she didn’t take Engineering in University, they would marry her off immediately. We all felt so bad for her. Like your character, there were other subject areas Priya was good at but as with this culture, maths, sciences, business etc we’re deemed more important than art and culture. It’s sad, not to see they value in these areas of education too.
Very revealing piece in how in some areas of the world women have it very difficult still. Even men to some degree.
Yes you said the truth. And this problem is like cancer, there seems to be no cure, everything has been tried, but people just don’t want to get out of their ignorance. It is very frustrating sometimes. But one has to keep on trying.
Madhavi Singh says:
The truth of life beautifully portrayed.
Although, there was a part of me who wanted to keep reading. Maybe out of curiosity to know what happens next. 🙂
Yes…you are right…but I ended it there because I wanted to sound real..happy endings generally make people think that it is all filmy and it doesn’t happen in real life..but I do believe in them because they do end up like that…will think if I could write a part 4..
Thank you so so much for visiting..
The curiosity here is of “How will the story end? Is it a happy ending or a sad, heartbreaking ending?”
You wrote it well. Good luck for your future posts.
It is happy for sure…i have never seen a sad ending in my life..it all eventually turns out to be good..what do you think?
Previous post Every thing is comprehensible…
Next post Through the dark….
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N64 The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (USA) "low%" in 1:59:01.88 by omgatree6 & Eumeus14.
MKV file via BitTorrent (Modern HQ) (size: 396.79 MB, length: 2:05:40)
MP4 file via BitTorrent (Compatibility) (size: 461.47 MB, length: 2:05:40)
- Low% completion
- Uses death to save time
- Uses a game restart sequence
- Heavy glitch abuse
- Heavy luck manipulation
- Genre: Adventure
In the direct sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Link is back to being a lone boy without a fairy. One day, he is attacked by Skull Kid and his two fairies, Tatl and Tael, and they steal his ocarina. After pursuing Skull Kid, he is transformed into a Deku Scrub. Link continues pursuing Skull Kid all the way to the Clock Town (now with the help of Tatl the fairy, a more 'in yo face' version of Navi).
The authors beat the game collecting as few items as possible, showcasing a variety of different tricks unique to this run (which can be found in the submission notes, along with other details).
If you want to see the game beaten as fast as possible, you can do so here.
Note: There are encodes of higher resolution in the discussion thread.
Added N64 The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (USA) "low%" by omgatree6 & Eumeus14 in 1:59:01.88 (2018-02-08)
Added N64 The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (USA) by MrGrunz in 1:29:32.02 (2011-08-04)
- obsoletes N64 The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (USA) by Mukki in 2:14:03.08 (2007-09-23)
[1851] N64 The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (USA) by MrGrunz in 1:29:32.02
[2139] GBA The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (USA) "Palace of Four Swords" by Tompa & Yuzuhara_3 in 05:16.73
[3127] GBC The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages (USA) by Scorpianman42 in 1:20:44.32
[1963] GBC The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons (USA) by Swordless Link & Tompa in 1:25:57.22
[1269] SNES The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (USA) by Tompa in 1:16:11.05
[2076] GB The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (USA v1.0) by bobmario511 in 03:48.55
[1319] NES The Legend of Zelda: Outlands (USA PRG0) by Baxter in 18:54.9
[3232] NES The Legend of Zelda (USA PRG0) by Lord Tom in 22:17.53
[2021] GB The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (USA v1.0) "playaround" by bobmario511 in 40:22.78
[2508] NES The Legend of Zelda (USA PRG0) "all items" by TASeditor in 32:16.98
[1205] NES The Legend of Zelda (USA PRG0) "2nd quest" by Baxter & Morrison in 24:59.83
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Bryant Jennings
By TeamEverlast Aug 14, 2015 No Comments
Professional Record: 22-2 (11 KO’s)
Weight: Heavyweight
Stance: Orthodox
Residences: Philadelphia, PA USA
Birthplace: Philadelphia, PA USA
In 2012, Bryant earned a 10-round unanimous decision over fellow prospect Maurice Byarm (13-0-1), of Washington, DC., on Jan. 21 at the Asylum Arena in South Philadelphia on the NBC Sports Network Fight Night opening card. Neither fighter had gone beyond six rounds before the bout, he took the bout on five days’ notice.
He then fought his first name opponent in the former WBO heavyweight champion Siarhei Liakhovich on March 24, 2012. The fight took place at Aviator Sports Complex, Brooklyn, New York and was televised on NBC Sports. Jennings controlled the fight with his jab and power punches. He won the fight by TKO at the end of round nine.
Jennings then faced Steve Collins (25-1) on June 16, 2012 at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. The fight was co-main event as part of NBC Sports Fight Night event, including Tomasz Adamek vs. Eddie Chambers. He won by unanimous decision after 10 rounds. On September 8, 2012 he won after only 35 seconds, knocking out Chris Koval. The fight took place at the Prudential Center, Newark, New Jersey.
Jennings faced Bowie Topou on December 9, 2012 at McGonigle Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The fight was aired on NBC Sports Fight Night. Jennings was knocked down in round 3, but quickly got back up and won in round 5; knocking out Topou 1 minute and 37 seconds in the round. He progressed to 16-0 and retains his title as the USBA Heavyweight Champion. He beat high-rank contender Mike Perez to earn title shot as mandatory challenger, No.1 WBC contender.
Jennings lost to undefeated heavyweight Luis Ortiz for the interim WBA World heavyweight title.
In 2017, he won by TKO against Daniel Martz on the Crawford VS Indongo card and by TKO again on 12/9/17.
He started 2018 with another KO in February.
Jennings is a great addition to #TeamEverlast, and we are truly excited for the future holds.
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Agency Spotlight
AND TALENT
Helping Honor America’s Veterans
Veterans Day in America is more than a day on the calendar; it’s a showing of sincere gratitude toward to the men and women who served in the military. It’s an important time for Pilot Flying J, who not only employs many of those who served, but was founded by a veteran of the Korean War.
To honor Veterans Day 2018, Pilot Flying J turned to RSMG for assistance in executing a promotion involving its JR Motorsports NASCAR program. Its No. 5 car, driven by Michael Annett, was to be adorned with a special patriotic paint scheme in the final three Xfinity Series races of the season.>
RSMG’s graphics design team produced a red, white and blue, star-spangled livery that made its on-track debut in Fort Worth on Nov. 3, in advance of the following week’s Veterans Day observation.
Additionally, RSMG’s at-track staff entertained three veterans and their guests, selected at random via Annett’s Twitter account, on the race days featuring the Veterans Day paint scheme. Those special guests received a prize package that included a VIP tour, a meeting with Annett and a seat, during the race, atop the JR Motorsports pit box for an experience that can’t be bought or easily replicated.
The promotion garnered a strong response from NASCAR’s fan base, which profiles as avid military supporters, and allowed Pilot Flying J a wholly American opportunity to honor the military men and women they hold dear.
Turning a Logistical Challenge into a Pleasant Dream
On July 21, TMC Transportation held the ribbon-cutting ceremony of its state-of-the-art Brownsburg, Indiana terminal. In an attempt to ingratiate themselves with the Brownsburg community and the professional drivers under their employ, they wanted a grand opening unique, memorable and above all, fun.
Tapping into their relationship with NASCAR powerhouse JR Motorsports, TMC invited Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and Michael Annett, respectively the owner and driver of the No. 5 TMC Chevrolet, as celebrity guests for the special occasion. It was an idea that would garner tremendous fanfare, but with fanfare comes… fans, lots of them.
“Our biggest challenge was the scale of the event,” said TMC public relations manager Justyn Hardy. “We really didn’t know just how many people would want to take part.”
RSMG helped Hardy and TMC plan for the unknown.
An event of this magnitude, with celebrity guests, can seem daunting, but the correct logistical strategy works wonders. With RSMG’s event activation expertise, the crowd of roughly 500 people filtered in and out of the meet-and-greet queue in a timely fashion and was entertained to an open Q&A session moderated by Sirius XM Radio’s Pat Patterson. RSMG coordinated the delivery of the No. 5 TMC show car, providing an up-close look at a NASCAR racecar.
The end result’s worth, for TMC, was invaluable.
“Pride. Pride is the biggest word we at TMC used to describe the event,” said Hardy. “To host something massive like this, our employees felt they were a part of something special.
“RSMG provided us reassurance,” Hardy continued. “Everything was smooth, manageable and felt comfortable. The experience they have with events like this gave us reassurance going into the event and the result was one in which we can take pride.”
Assisting with a Client’s Career Transition
Brent Metcalf’s storied wrestling career, one that saw a pair of NCAA championships and a wildly successful international record, had come to an end. What now? At age 30, his days as one of the nation’s best freestyle wrestlers were over, but his value to the sport he loved and window for earning potential were not. He turned to RSMG for help in seeking options that would best utilize his strengths and provided a lucrative future.
RSMG found, negotiated and secured a new home for Metcalf: the Cyclone-Regional Training Center (C-RTC) in Iowa. There, Metcalf could share the knowledge amassed through his time competing at the highest levels of amateur wrestling with the next generation of wrestlers.
The C-RTC uses the Iowa State University wrestling room and serves elite-level postgraduate resident athletes, as well as younger wrestlers from high school through college. Metcalf also serves as an assistant under legendary ISU head coach Kevin Dresser.
For athletes, “retirement” doesn’t mean the end; it signifies a new beginning, one Metcalf now has with the assistance of his friends at RSMG.
North Carolina Office - 704.360.9201 | Iowa Office - 515.274.5638
© Copyright 2019 Rising Star Management Group
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« Ribbon Cutting for Dix Hills Fire Deptartment Training Facility
Fire Destroys Playground at Woodhull Intermediate School »
Carol Kane at Cinema Arts Centre Reception with Music
By Village Tattler, on May 30th, 2014
Carol Kane in Clutter, a movie filmed on Long Island and Brooklyn. When County Health Inspectors give the Bradfords one week to clean their dangerously hoarded family home, long-buried resentments, fears, and grief begin to come to the surface, forcing the entire family to face what it is they value most in life. Photo Credit: Filmbuffs.
Beloved CAROL KANE will be live at Cinema Arts Centre on June 9, at 7:30 p.m. for a reception with music, interview, and Q&A about her role in CLUTTER, http://www.clutterthemovie.com/, a movie filmed in the Long Island suburbs. PAUL MARCARELLI, screenwriter, will appear at the Cinema with Kane. There will be Live Music after the reception by Guitarist Mike Soloway. For more information about the event at the Cinema, go to http://www.cinemaartscentre.org/event/carol-kane-in-person-with-her-newest-film-clutter/
Filmed on LI (the “Five Towns”) and Brooklyn, CLUTTER takes up where the popular TV Reality “Hoarding” horror stories leave off , with a quirkily, heartbreaking but also funny story (directed by Diane Crespo and written by Paul Marcarelli, producer of I AM DIVINE). CLUTTER is about a strange apparition of The Virgin Mary in a garage door stain- and the effects of clutter on the children: JOSHUA LEONARD (BLAIR WITCHh star etc); LISA LYONNE (SLUMS OF BEVELY HILLS – and Charles Busch’s DIE MOMMMIE DIE! ) as a punk eye-patched jailbird daughter; and HALLEY FEIFFER, lost in the clutter like a scared fledgling (Jule’s daughter, lead in HE’s WAY MORE FAMOUS THAN YOU, THE SQUID AND THE WHALE” THE MESSENGER with Woody Harrelson, and soon to be acting with Mark Ruffalo.)
CAROL KANE, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001406/ who starred in Broadway’s WICKED from 2005-2009, also played Andy Kaufman’s girlfriend “Simka” on TAXI with that peculiar teeny-squeaky accent from an un-named country. She was also nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for HESTER STREET. And appeared with Woody Allen in ANNIE HALL and in the following films: CARNAL KNOWLEDGE, DOG DAY AFTERNOON, WHEN A STRANGER CALLS, THE PRINCESS BRIDE, and ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES.
CAROL KANE has also appeared on Television in GIRLS as well as LAW AND ORDER, SVU; UGLY BETTY; MONK; andTWO-AND-A-HALF MEN, among other shows.
May 30th, 2014 | Category: Arts, Huntington Village
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> From Past
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What > Events • Arts • Communities • Conflict • Cultures • Death • Domestic • Dynasties • Education • Exploration • Health • Industries • Institutions • Issues • Kids • Law • Miscellaneous • Nature • Philosophy • Politics • Religion • Science • Sports • Reference
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15 of 541 items
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14000 MYA
BIG BANG : Formation of the Universe
The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model for the earliest known periods of the universe and its subsequent large-scale evolution. It states that the Universe was in a very high density state and then expanded. If the known l...
4600 MYA
Earth, 3rd Planet from the Sun
Earth is the third planet from the Sun. It is the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets. It is sometimes referred to as the world or the Blu...
300 MYA - 200 MYA
Pangaea, Supercontinent
Pangaea or Pangea was a supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras. It formed approximately 300 million years ago and then began to break apart after about 100 million years. Unlike the present Earth, much...
3 MYA
Lucy, Australopithecus, Found 1974
Lucy is the common name of AL 288-1, the 40% complete Australopithecus afarensis skeleton discovered on November 30, 1974 by the International Afar Research Expedition (IARE; director: Maurice Taieb, co-directors: Donald Johanson and Yves C...
400000 BC
Neanderthals, Subspecies of Homo Sapiens
Neanderthals were archaic humans that became extinct about 40,000 years ago. They seem to have appeared in Europe and later expanded into Southwest, Central and Northern Asia. There, they left hundreds of stone tool assemblages. Almost all...
Control of Fire by Early Humans
The control of fire by early humans was a turning point in the cultural aspect of human evolution that allowed humans to cook food and obtain warmth and protection. Making fire also allowed the expansion of human activity into the dark and...
40000 BC
The Lion Man Of Hohlenstein Stadel - 1939
The Löwenmensch figurine or Lion man of the Hohlenstein Stadel is a very early prehistoric sculpture that was discovered in the Hohlenstein-Stadel, a German cave in 1939. The lion-headed figurine, alternately called (by its German names) Lö...
Cave paintings, Parietal Art
Cave paintings (also known as "parietal art") are painted drawings on cave walls or ceilings, mainly of prehistoric origin, dated to some 40,000 years ago (around 38,000 BCE) in Eurasia. The exact purpose of the Paleolithic cave paintings i...
Ishango Bone, Mathematical Tool - 1960
The Ishango bone is a bone tool, dated to the Upper Paleolithic era, about 18000 to 20000 BC. It is a dark brown length of bone, the fibula of a baboon, with a sharp piece of quartz affixed to one end, perhaps for engraving or writing. It w...
9000 BC
Göbekli Tepe, Turkey
Göbekli Tepe (Turkish: Potbelly Hill) is a Neolithic hilltop sanctuary erected at the top of a mountain ridge in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey, some 15 kilometers (9 mi) northeast of the town of Sanliurfa (formerly Urfa / Edess...
Egyptian Hieroglyphs
Egyptian hieroglyphs was a formal writing system used by the ancient Egyptians that contained a combination of logographic and alphabetic elements. Egyptians used cursive hieroglyphs for religious literature on papyrus and wood. Less forma...
Megalithic Temples of Malta
The Megalithic Temples of Malta are several prehistoric temples, some of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, built during three distinct time periods approximately between 3600 BC and 700 BC on the island country of Malta. They have been...
Invention of the Wheel
Evidence of wheeled vehicles appears from the second half of the 4th millennium BC, near-simultaneously in Mesopotamia (Sumerian civilization), the Northern Caucasus (Maykop culture) and Central Europe, so that the question of which culture...
Cuneiform Script, Earliest Writing System
Cuneiform script is the earliest known writing system in the world. Cuneiform writing emerged in the Sumerian civilization of southern Iraq around the 34th century BC during the middle Uruk period, beginning as a pictographic system of wr...
Krishna, The Supreme Being
Krishna is a major Hindu deity worshiped in a variety of different perspectives. Krishna is recognised as the Svayam Bhagavan in his own right or as the complete/absolute incarnation of Lord Vishnu. Krishna is one of the most widely revered...
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Purim? What’s That?
The Authors Mimi L’Engle ‘18, A & E Editor
Published online April 24, 2016 2:48am
It’s true that most everyone in America knows about Easter: there’s the Easter Bunny, the egg hunts, and the actual religious significance. But what about the Jewish holiday that every year lands only a few days away from Easter? Being a Jew myself, I decided that it might be a good idea to share some of my knowledge about the holiday: Purim.
The tradition is that when the story of Purim is told, the audience cheers when the name Mordecai (Whoo!) is said, and “Boo’s” for the name Haman. The story goes that there once was a man named Haman (Boo!), vizier to the king of the Persian Empire, who was planning to kill all the Jews in Persia. But, according to the Scroll of Esther (in Hebrew, the megillah), his plans were thwarted by Mordecai (Whoo!) and Esther, two Jews. Esther, adopted by her cousin Mordecai (Whoo!), grew up to be a beautiful lady, and was brought to the house of the King of Persia. The king loved her and made her queen, not knowing that she was a Jew. When Mordecai (Whoo!) learned that Haman (Boo!) had vowed to kill every last Jew in the empire, he convinced Esther to go talk to the king. She did, telling the king not to kill all of her people, and the king listened. The Jews were once again saved, and Haman (Boo!) was sent to the gallows.
We Jews like to have our own food and celebrations for Purim, just as Christians do for Easter. Like many other Jewish holidays, Purim is the celebration of the saving of the Jewish people. After the story is told along with some prayers and usually a talk by the Rabbi, everyone goes to celebrate. Celebrations include hamantaschen and carnivals. Google hamantaschen, and you’ll see that they’re little triangular cookies filled with fruit. For the carnival, at my temple this means buying raffle tickets, dressing in costume to resemble the people from the story of Purim, and then playing games (like the bean-bag toss) and eating food and candy. Besides Chanukah (AKA the holiday of chocolate coins, potato latkes, and presents), Purim comes pretty close to being the holiday every Jewish little kid loves—I mean, who doesn’t love dressing up and playing games?
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The Project is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and does not endorse the views of this publication.
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Did the CIA ruin classical music for the masses?
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As both a classically trained musician and an audiophile, the 1950s and 1960s was something of a golden age of recorded music.
It was at this time that some of the most remarkable conductors of the 20th century were invited to make recordings on new stereophonic technology, whose sonic qualities equal and in some cases surpass that available in the 21st century. Marketed to eager consumers in the west on super hi-fidelity reel-to-reel tapes or more commonly high quality stereophonic LPs, it was something of a renaissance for classical music listeners. Whilst nothing can equal the magnitude of a powerful live performance, some of the recordings of this era came very close.
It should be said that in the same era, in the Soviet Union, Melodiya Records were churning out masterful symphonic recordings as well, though most only became easily obtainable in the West, many decades later.
This was of course popular culture, and European and Russian classical music was as readily consumed as vocal music, pop and easy listening.
But behind the scenes, something more sinister was happening. Behind what seemed to be the perfect marriage between ageless and peerless music and new shiny stereophonic recording and listening equipment, there were dark forces at work which would ultimately destroy this renaissance. The dark forces in question were those of the CIA.
I have already written about how the CIA funded exhibitions of radical art, often from left-wing visual artists in the 1950s. It was around the same time they became involved in music.
I’d like to begin this tale not in America but in the Soviet Union, specifically in 1948 where the Soviet Communist Party’s ideologist Andrei Zhdanov issued a now infamous decree proscribing ‘formalism’ in the arts. In music, this meant that atonality, dissonance and anything thought to be driven by structure rather than meaning was considered to be counter-revolutionary and removed from the hearts and minds of the people.
Among those proscribed by Zhdanov were Prokofiev, Shostakovich and my favourite 20th century composer Aram Khachaturian. Zhdanov’s decree was effectively rescinded in 1953 and the composers, especially Khachaturian (who composed the anthem of Soviet Armenia) were re-embraced by Soviet society.
However, the spirit of the decree remained. Soviet music was supposed to be accessible to people without musical training in the same way that in the 18th and 19th century Beethoven was listened to and loved by people ranging from aristocracy to the illiterate (both musically and in terms of written language).
Put simply, it was an anti-elitist attitude towards the arts, in terms not only of distribution but also content.
The CIA had other ideas.
In order to make American culture appear freer and more open than the Soviet culture, in 1950 the CIA established the Congress for Cultural Freedom, an organisation which would promote the most radical art of the western world, art so radical that most people in the West didn’t particularly care for it. One might cynically say it was more Operation Paganini than it was Operation Gladio.
Out were composers whose melodies everyone implicitly knows, and in came atonal music, dissonant music poly-rhythmic music.
I personally listen to all of it from Beethoven to Stockhausen, so I write this without fear or favour. But I must say, if one wants to attract a general audience, I should think Tchaikovsky’s 6th or Beethoven’s 9th have wider appeal than Pierre Henry stabbing a tape recorder with a pencil (yes, it sounds more or less as you think it would do).
The CCF organised concerts throughout the world featuring the mostly atonal music of the so-called Second Viennese School including composers like Schoenberg, Berg, Webern and latterly Hindemith – in other words the composers whose records never sold much in the free market place compared with the likes of Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms and Mozart.
So the CIA, in promoting ‘the American way’, were actually promoting music that most people in America shunned. Instead most people actually preferred the accessible orchestral music promoted by the democratic Soviet ideal! You really couldn’t make this stuff up.
What happened along the way however is that those who came of age under the CCF grew up to be music teachers, academics, critics and music writers.
By the 1970s, there was an idea in the West, and particularly in America (it came much later to Western Europe and was a deeply divisive concept in West Germany) that if one liked Beethoven one was ‘old fashioned’, if one liked Tchaikovsky one was ‘simplistic’, and if – heaven forbid – one liked Khachaturian, one was ‘ill informed’.
Such an attitude takes away all the joy of music, something which ought to be a very individual experience.
So much for freedom of choice in the wild, wild, West.
The result is that many in the West have never got a chance to realise what classical music actually is. It is many things. Just as pop music ranges from the listenable and in my view brilliant Beatles to the turgid filth on today’s pop stations; so too does classical music range from the majesty of Bruckner and Tchaikovsky, to the often impenetrable sounds of Stockhausen or John Cage.
Not content just to ruin nations. The CIA have had their role in destroying culture, including Western culture…or was Beethoven a Putin agent after all?
CIA western culture Congress for Cultural Freedom Classical Music Soviet culture atonality Zhdanov Decree
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NASA’S HUNTING PROBE SET TO SEARCH FOR ALIEN LIFE
By AFP on March 30, 2018
NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which will hunt for planets that have the potential to harbour alien life, is set to launch on April 16 from the US.
The satellite is undergoing final preparations in Florida, US. For final launch preparations, the spacecraft will be fuelled and encapsulated within the payload fairing of its SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
“We expect TESS will discover a number of planets whose atmospheric compositions, which hold potential clues to the presence of life, could be precisely measured by future observers,” said George Ricker, TESS principal investigator.
On March 15, the spacecraft passed a review that confirmed it was ready for launch.
TESS will launch from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
With the help of a gravitational assist from the Moon, the spacecraft will settle into a 13.7-day orbit around Earth. Sixty days after launch, and following tests of its instruments, the satellite will begin its initial two-year mission.
Four wide-field cameras will give TESS a field-of-view that covers 85 per cent of our entire sky. Within this vast visual perspective, the sky has been divided into 26 sectors that TESS will observe one by one.
The first year of observations will map the 13 sectors encompassing the southern sky, and the second year will map the 13 sectors of the northern sky.
The spacecraft will be looking for a phenomenon known as a transit, where a planet passes in front of its star, causing a periodic and regular dip in the star’s brightness.
NASA’s Kepler spacecraft used the same method to spot more than 2,600 confirmed exoplanets, most of them orbiting faint stars 300 to 3,000 light-years away.
“We learned from Kepler that there are more planets than stars in our sky, and now TESS will open our eyes to the variety of planets around some of the closest stars,” said Paul Hertz, Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters.
“TESS will cast a wider net than ever before for enigmatic worlds whose properties can be probed by NASA’s upcoming James Webb Space Telescope and other missions,” Hertz said.
TESS will concentrate on stars less than 300 light-years away and 30 to 100 times brighter than Kepler’s targets.
The brightness of these target stars will allow researchers to use spectroscopy, the study of the absorption and emission of light, to determine a planet’s mass, density and atmospheric composition.
Water, and other key molecules, in its atmosphere can give us hints about a planets’ capacity to harbour life.
“TESS is opening a door for a whole new kind of study,” said Stephen Rinehart, TESS project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in the US which manages the mission.
“We’re going to be able study individual planets and start talking about the differences between planets. The targets TESS finds are going to be fantastic subjects for research for decades to come. It’s the beginning of a new era of exoplanet research,” said Rinehart.
Through the TESS Guest Investigator Programme, the worldwide scientific community will be able to participate in investigations outside of TESS’s core mission, enhancing and maximising the science return from the mission in areas ranging from exoplanet characterisation to stellar astrophysics and solar system science.
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About ususrthethinklabnet2018-07-10T10:16:02+00:00
The Thinklab
The Thinklab is a film production company incorporated in 2006 in Madrid that specializes in film production, 3D animation and Visual Effects. Although diverse in the choice of topics, The Thinklab produces films that try to create an impact in society, voicing concerns about the environment, society, politics and the events that are shaping our world today.
Our short term goal is to be able to become a reference in global film markets, through high quality, universally appealing films that have a potential to be distributed worldwide. We are currently working on a slate of high quality yet cost effective 3D animated feature films which will start production in 2018.
The first of them was «DEEP», a feature film distributed worldwide in challenging markets such as the USA, China and Japan, to name a few but will eventually reach more than 80 countries and that employed 250 professionals during the 2 years of production.
We have also just completed the political drama «Palestine» and are currently developing the animated features «Evolution», a screwball comedy featuring lots of funny furry creatures and humans, «Inspector Sun”, a film noir set in the 1920s in a world of insects and «Metal Heroes «, a rock music comedy. Recent works include «Fluffs!» a 3D animated TV series recently created for the Disney Channel, the feature documentary «My Beautiful Dacia» and «Dissection of a Storm», a short film qualified for the Oscars.
We have also just completed the political drama «Palestine» and are currently developing the animated features «Evolution», a screwball comedy featuring lots of funny furry creatures and humans, «Inspector Sun”, a film noir set in the 1920s in a world of insects and «Metal Heroes «, a rock music comedy.
Recent works include «Fluffs!» a 3D animated TV series recently created for the Disney Channel, the feature documentary «My Beautiful Dacia» and «Dissection of a Storm», a short film qualified for the Oscars.
info@thethinklab.com
You are in About us. The Thinklab is a film production and digital services company in Madrid. info@thethinklab.com
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Arts & Entertainment, News
Frederick Flute Choir to Host 30th Anniversary Concert
by Gina Gallucci-White • April 26, 2019 • 0 Comments
Photo | Submitted
The Frederick Flute Choir, directed by Jennings A. Glenn, will present a gala concert celebrating their 30th season on
Sunday, May 5, 3 p.m. at the historic Evangelical Lutheran Church, 31 E. Church St. in downtown Frederick.
Thirty years ago, Norma Kelsey, then a music teacher for Frederick County Public Schools, received a memo asking if she would want to participate in a new flute choir forming in Frederick.
“I remember thinking ‘This sounds like fun,’” the Urbana resident said. “It gave all of us an opportunity to play in a serious group like an orchestra but unlike an orchestra we would be playing most of the time. Usually in an orchestra there are lots of times when the flutes just sit there, and there is only room for two or three flutists in the orchestra because that’s how the composers write the music whereas in a flute choir you are playing pretty much all the time. I just thought this just really fits the bill. I was delighted to join.”
Kelsey was one of six people to join in 1989 and has remained in the choir ever since. “I think that making music with other musicians who enjoy it so much is very important, and we are all friends,” she said.
To celebrate their 30th anniversary, the group will be hosting a concert at 3 p.m. on May 5 at Evangelical Lutheran Church in Frederick. There will be donation boxes there to support Children of Incarcerated Parents Partnership—Frederick.
Currently made up of 16 members who range in age from mid-20s to mid-70s, the choir will play a wide variety of pieces including “Memories of East Tennessee in the 1940s” by Austin Allen Scott, “Blue Train” and “Songs of the Ocean” both by Ryohei Hirose, and “Golliwog’s Cake Walk” by Claude Debussy. “The pieces are basically the music that we have played over the years that we have really come to love,” said choir founder Jennings Glenn.
The event will also feature three other groups made up of current and former members. Four of the six founding members are still in the choir but will be joined by the two other founders to play Gustaf Holst’s “The Jig from the St. Paul Suite.” The low flute choir, made up of alto, contrabass and bass flutes, will be playing two selections, and the final group will feature current and former members playing patriotic songs called the “American Flute Salute.”
“If you would have said then (in 1989 that) you guys are still going to be doing this 30 years from now, I would have laughed at them,” Glenn said. “… Flute choirs were beginning to grow and expand nationwide in terms of having quality music written for them back in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, and it has just exploded since then nationwide.”
Kelsey was first drawn to the flute as a child. Growing up in Boston, her parents would take her and her sister to see the Boston Pops at Symphony Hall. “I just loved the piccolo,” she said. “I found out you can’t really just start on the piccolo. You have to start on the flute. I started studying the flute and eventually I didn’t really like the piccolo as much, so I never really studied the piccolo. I stuck with the regular flute.”
With a love of music and a desire to share melodies with children, she became a music teacher and taught for many years in FCPS including Urbana, Walkersville and Glade elementary schools before retiring. Kelsey stayed with the group for so long because of her love of playing. “The music that we do is challenging and it is aesthetically pleasing,” she said.
Glenn, who is in his 70s, has been playing the flute since seventh grade and holds a master’s degree in flute performance from the University of Tennessee. In 1989, he was hired to teach at the Arts and Communications Academy at Gov. Thomas Johnson High School. “Instrumental folks (know that) if we don’t have something to prepare for, we don’t practice,” he said. So, he decided to start the flute choir knowing “if I don’t find some other folks to play with, I am not going to do any more playing.”
Most members are local to the county but some travel from as far away as Carlisle and Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, and Stevensville, Virginia. Individuals must try out to become members and practices are held once a week on Wednesdays in Frederick from September to May.
Because the choir has grown over the years, Glenn now directs the choir instead of playing. “Everybody is equal,” he said. “I move the parts around so all the players get to play. Nobody always plays first flute. Nobody always plays fifth flute. Everybody gets a chance, and they love it.”
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Home » Celebrities » Richard Brake Wiki: Married, Wife, Gay, Family, Net Worth
Richard Brake Wiki: Married, Wife, Gay, Family, Net Worth
Published On: 25 Apr, 2018
Richard Brake is an American actor best known for appearing in the American fantasy drama television series, Game Of Thrones where he played the role of The Night King during season four and five. His slicked-back hair has been his trademark, which gained the recognition in the media. Richard also appears frequently in Sci-Fi and horror movies where he often plays a sinister character.
Richard Towards The Stardom
Richard debuted his acting career in the year 1993 by appearing in an episode of the comedy series Jeeves and Wooster. He played some supporting roles in a few low-budget films. In the year 2003, he landed his first role on a major civil war film Cold Mountain. From 2004 to 2017, he appeared in numerous TV series and movies including Batman Begins, Doom, Good Day for It, Bitter Harvest, Transporter: The Series and Supernatural.
Richard's notable character is of The Night King in Games Of Thrones in 2014 and 2015. In 2018, he played in the TV series, The Royals. He is currently engaged in the filming of Feedback and Payne & Redemption. He is also in the pre-production of the 2019 movie Hit where he will portray Wrath.
How Much Is Richard's Net Worth?
The actor has played in several American movies and TV series including the blockbuster show Game Of Thrones. He has won Best Supporting Actor in Fright Meter Awards in 2016 and has got nominated for four awards including Fangoria Chainsaw Awards and BloodGuts UK Horror Awards.
Currently, he is working on the movie Feedback and Payne & Redemption. He is also in the post-production of the film The Dare and The Sisters Brothers. Featuring in various movies and being engaged in different roles, the actor is earning a handsome salary by which he may have accumulated the net worth in great figures.
Insight Of His Personal Life
The Game of Thrones' actor was married to Rachel, and the duo is blessed with two kids. Their first son, Ryan Brake was born in the year 1999. Three years after the birth of their first kid, they welcomed their second son, Henry Blake, on 20 August 2002. Well, the actor is not so often spotted with Rachel in the public events.
Richard Brake with his two sons Ryan Brake and Henry Brake (Photo: Instagram)
However, he used to mention about his wife in some of the social media posts and interviews. Back in May of 2009, Richard mentioned about his wife on Twitter telling that his wife just told him to go to bed.
As per wiki sources, the pair has already parted their ways, and the actor hasn't opened up about the reasons behind his divorce with estranged wife, Rachel.
Is Richard Gay?
Richard is one of the close friends of the English actor Eddie Marsan. They met back in 1988 in a drama school at Academy of the Science of Acting and Directing situated in London. Richard and Eddie were in different classes, and despite that, they created their friendship. Eventually, their closeness led people to suspect their sexuality.
Richard and Eddie frequently talked about their relationship on social media. Back on 25 June 2013, Eddie posted on Twitter saying that they would have already got married if they were gay. Prior that, when Eddie marked his 11th wedding anniversary on 1 June 2013 on Twitter, Richard jokingly commented stating that he thought Eddie was married to him. Though the duo has been bantering all over social media, they aren't gay.
Richard was born on 30 November 1964 as Richard Colin Brake in Great Britain. He is a native of Ystrad Mynach, Hengoed, Wales, and carries Welsh American nationality. As per wiki, he grew up in North Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee. In 1967, his family emigrated from South Wales to Atlanta, Georgia. The actor has a height of 1.88 m (6' 2"). He graduated from Duke University in North Carolina.
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/ en / continent / englishuganda
Official language Swahili and English
Capital Kampala
Population 35 millions
Currency Ugandan shilling
Hujambo, welcome to Uganda, the country in East Africa!
Uganda lies in the heart of Africa. With 241 038 km², it is almost two thirds of the size of Germany.
Uganda is surrounded by five countries: Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Uganda has no access to the sea, but it has enough water, as it lies on Lake Victoria, the largest lake in Africa. The Great Rift Valley runs through the country- it was formed 35 million years ago when the Arabian Plate and the African Plate split apart, resulting in mountain ranges, walleys and lakes. Lower down in the rift valley lie the Edward and Albert Lakes. The Murchison Falls in the west of the country plunge several hundred metres down.
Uganda – a Country between Savanna and Rainforest
The north of the country is dry and infertile. But the further south you go, the more natural beauty you can see. In Uganda, the savanna of eastern Africa merges with the rainforest of central Africa, resulting in a large variety of plants and animals. Uganda lies near the equator, but it has a central European climate as a large portion of the country lies on a high plateau. During the day, temperatures reach between 25°C and 35°C and drop to between 12°C and 18°C during the night. Due to this mild climate, in former times many Europeans used to travel to Uganda.
Lake Victoria covers an area as large as Bavaria, around 68 000 km². Three countries border the lake: Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. No other lake in the world feeds as many people- around 30 million people live off the lake. Unfortunately, reservoirs and dams on the lake have resulted in the water level sinking. Water hyacinths are also polluting the water. They were brought in from Latin-America to create ornamental pools, but now they are spreading unchecked. The lake also has to cope with another invader - the Nile perch. The fast-growing fish was brought in 50 years ago to achieve a higher fish yield, but the Nile perch eats too many of the indigenous fish. However, Lake Victora is still a special lake. It is relatively young, only a million years old, making it about as young as the human species. Our ancestors probably also bathed in Lake Victoria. It is a laboratory for evolution - the emergence of biodiversity can be witnessed in the lake. For example, cichlids. They evolved within 10 000 years, from only a few ancestors, into 500 different kinds of cichlids. Today, however, there are hardly any of these colourful fish left as they are devoured by the Nile perch.
Did you know? On the northern banks of Lake Victoria in 1862, John Speke discovered the outlet of a river. This discovery led to the headwaters of the Nile. The longest river in the world flows 6500 km from Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean Sea.
Snow-covered Mountains in the Middle of Africa
The highest point in the country is the Margherita Peak (5110m). It lies in the snow-covered Rwenzori Mountain Range, which runs along the border to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The mountain range is on the edge of the Great Rift Valley. The Mountain Range was declared a National Reserve, to conserve the landscape and rare animal kingdom.
Uganda's Mountain Forests – a Magic World with Monster Plants
Even Alice in Wonderland would marvel at the flora in the Rwenzori Mountains . More than 20,000 plant species grow here. Note-worthy are the lobelia. They grow up to 10 feet! Wandering through the mountains in Uganda is like wandering through fairy-tale land filled with monster flowers. Even the heather grows gigantically. Briar can grow over 10 meters in height.
Kampala is the capital city of Uganda. It lies in the Kingdom of Buganda, near Lake Victoria. Parliament and the seat of government are here. The city has one and half million inhabitants. Entebbe Airport lies near the source of the Nile. Kampala was established two hundred years ago by the British. They built a fort and a city quickly formed around it. In the Baganda language, Kampala means ‘hills of the antelope‘, as the Buganda kings had antelope which they tamed and allowed to graze on the hills.
Uganda is the youngest country in the world, as measured by the age of its inhabitants. The average age is 15 years. Many different Bantu folk groups live in the area, like the Baganda, and Ankola. The mountain and herder folk live in the north.
The majority of the people in Uganda are Catholica or Anglican, but many still practise their African beliefs. Kiswahili is the language most people speak, but English is the official language.
Almost all young people in Uganda have a primary school education. Classes often consist of seventy pupils, and the classrooms are so crowded that school desks can‘t be set up for all children. School starts at eight and all students wear a uniform. The children learn quite the same subjects than you do in your school: English, mathematics, science, social studies and sports. In the break, a lunch is cooked in the school kitchen for all children, for example, maize porridge with beans. In the afternoon, classes last till 5 PM. Before the children can go home, they have to clean the classrooms. Only then does their free time begin.
Games Children play in Uganda
Despite all the work and the difficult living conditions, the children in Uganda are very cheerful. They like to sing and dance or play sports. The boys usually play football and the girls netball, which is a team sport similar to basketball. Uganda is known for its beautiful childrens‘ choirs. Many parents can’t afford to purchase toys for their children. Therefore, the young ones make their own toys. From bottle caps they can quickly create a game of skill, cars are built from milk cartons and dolls from banana skins. Plastic bags are crumpled with banana leaves and fiber residues to make a football
The majority of the people lives from agriculture. The families cultivate their fields and what they don't consume they sell on the markets. The state receives the most income from the export of agricultural products like coffee, tea, vanilla and cotton. On the riverbanks and Lake Victoria, many people live from fishing.
In the years after gaining its independence, Uganda was one of the most industrially developed countries of East Africa. Due to many armed conflicts, the population became poorer and poorer. Although Uganda’s economic performance has improved since early 1999, only a few people benefit from it. Many children work on industrially operated plantations.
Uganda lies in the center of trails which many animals roam. Therefore, the country has a large animal kingdom. Unfortunately, the animal population is shrinking due to ruthless poaching. Conservationists only began protecting the wildlife at the beginning of this millennium. Ngamba Island is a large island covered with dense rainforest on Lake Victoria. Here a sanctuary for orphaned chimps was created.
The name Uganda can be traced back to the kingdom of Buganda, the most important kingdom between the Victoria Lake and the Kafu River. Four different kingdoms reigned in the region before herders from the north-east pushed their way in the 17th century. They called themselves Hima and Tutsi. On the northern bank of the Vitctoria Lake, they established a kingdom and began to intermingle with the Bantu folk who already lived there. They gained their wealth through the slave and ivory trade, which was coveted by the Arabians. The gravesites of the Buganda kings is located in Kasubi. Today, it is one of the World Heritage Sites.
Celebrations and Festivities
In the past, Uganda celebrated many festivals - Christian festivals and festivals from the local African beliefs. In northern Uganda, where civil war raged for a long time, many festivals didn’t take place. However, since the government and the rebels have signed a peace treaty, hope has sprouted. This is a great reason for the girls and women in northern Uganda to celebrate.
Uganda Today
In 1991, Uganda became a presidential republic with a parliament. The people of Uganda hoped that the new president Yoweri Museveni would bring peace to the country, but his government was totalitarian and only his party decided on politics. Some folk groups weren’t happy with this. They formed rebel groups, one of them called the “Lords of Resistance. The rebels fought against the government troops; they kidnapped children, and trained them to be soldiers. The “Lords of Resistance” are seen as one of the most brutal rebel groups in the world. After a century of being oppressed by the colonialists and a long civil war, the Ugandan want to live in peace. They insist political power be shared by a few parties and given to more people. The rebels then wouldn’t have a reason any more to fight. The people simply want to go about their business, and watch their children grow up in a safe environment.
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A Night at the Opera in VPA’s First Full Scale Operatic Production
Written by Red Bank Regional High School District
Vocal Majors Perform Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Medium, Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas
Little Silver, NJ - The Red Bank Regional (RBR) Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) Vocal Majors will perform a pair of operas-- Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Medium, and Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas presented consecutively on Tuesday, May 1, and Wednesday, May 2. All performances begin at 7PM in the Red Bank Regional High Theatre located at 101 Ridge Road, Little Silver, NJ. Tickets are $10 and $5 for students and senior citizens. Tickets may be purchased at the door or by calling 732-842-8000, ext. 227. Large groups are welcome.
Pictured - Katherine Robinson of Shrewsbury portraying Belinda looks on as Dido, portrayed by Evangeline Athanasiou, Red Bank, confronts Aeneas, played by Patrick Martini of Union Beach, in Henry Purcell’s Opera Dido and Aeneas,. The Opera is one of a pair of operas RBR’s VPA presents it is first full scale operatic production. Miss Athanasiou is recognized as the state’s top operatic high school singer.
Starring as Dido in Dido and Aeneas is New Jersey Governor School Opera winner and top New Jersey high school operatic singer Evangeline Athanasiou of Red Bank. Miss Athanasiou has won many other accolades and scholarships. She will be attending the prestigious Boston Conservatory of Music where she will continue to study and perform her craft. Rounding out the cast in Dido Aeneas are: Patrick Martini, Union Beach; Katherine Robinson, Shrewsbury; and Shurmila Dhar, Little Silver. Staring in The Medium are: Erin Murphy, Millstone, Madelyn Monoghan, Little Silver; Christopher Dubrow, Shrewsbury; Lauren Staub, Avon; Vincent Martini, Union Beach; Gabriella Concepcion, Hazlet.
The pair of operas represents the first full scale operatic production presented by the RBR VPA.
Opera director and VPA teacher Kristopher Zook comments, “This is an ambitious project for high school singers, and for some the first opera they have ever attempted, but our talented students are up to the task.”
Mr. Zook wanted something new to stretch his students’ abilities. The vocal majors are a part of the acclaimed RBR Academy of Visual & Performing Arts, and are no stranger to classical singing or opera.
He explains, “We do a tremendous cross-section of musical genres and languages over the high school career of our students. Operatic repertoire that is accessible to young voices is a part of our curriculum. Until now, we have performed them in recital or in isolated scenes.”
The productions are the culmination of a year-long thematic unit that has included a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Opera, as well as guest artists who work professionally in classical voice.
These two one-act shows were selected for several reasons: The 1689 Henry Purcell opera was the first opera written in English, and is a manageable one-hour long instead of the standard opera length of two or three hours. It is also a tragic love story that resonates well with teenagers. The Medium is a similar length, but composed in 1946, effectively giving audiences the running time of a full show, but bookends of musical styles.
Additionally, the two pieces fit perfectly on the heels of the recent school musical, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum because their tragic plots balance the levity of that production. Additionally, this same group of students will be offering a choral concert on Thursday, May 24 entitled “Comedy and Tragedy.” In this concert they will perform the P.D.Q. Bach cantata, Knock, Knock, P.D.Q. Bach Oratorio, Oedipus Tex, and John Rutter’s Requiem.
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Recently,there has been a lot on television and in the newspapers about the wearing of the 'niqab' or Muslim veil. This is the type of veil that covers most of the face -- sometimes the eyes and the forehead are not covered, though most of the women I have seen wearing the niqab show only their eyes.
Some countries, including France, have banned the wearing of this veil in public places. This has lead to certain groups of making threats of violence against those countries. In Britain I have been surprised at the number of people -- at least those shown on television -- both members of the debate forums and those in the audience -- who believe that if women want to wear the veil they should be allowed to wear it. The people I am talking about are what some would call 'real British people' meaning 'white' and Anglo-Saxon.
Personally, my instinct when I see women attired in black Muslim dress and completely covered from head to toe is to recoil. But then I am pretty much a feminist and for me it goes against too much of what I believe women have had to fight against, have had to endure to gain their rightful place -- at least in western culture. And I wonder why those who would wear such a garment would choose to live in our world. Of course, many times the answer is that these are British women, born and bred who have fallen in love with a Muslim man and converted to his faith and so chosen this path. And so they are participating in their democratic right as a British citizen. The point being that it isn't always foreigners who make this choice. I do not have a problem with head scarves, or with the burqa -- if women choose that form of attire, far be it for me to object to that.
The authorities are now in a quandary about how to handle the questions that arise from this 'right'. A woman has been told that when she testifies before a jury she must uncover her face so that the jurors can see her when she testifies. Another woman was told that she could not teach her children with a veil covering her face -- she lost her job.
One woman wrote about wearing the full Muslim dress, that is the burqa and the full veil, to work and abandoned the idea because co-workers avoided her. This, is the crux of the matter for me. For me it represents a wish to 'separate' oneself from our culture -- more than anything else we judge others by how we see their faces. For all you know, as I am sitting here, I could be wearing a burqa and veil but because my 'veil' is the Internet, it is perfectly acceptable -- but 'face-to-face', in our culture, we want to see for ourselves -- the voice is not enough.
The judge decided that the jury had a right to see a woman's face because it was necessary in order to make a fair judgement. But it has occurred to me that if this woman had worn a veil all her life would taking it off place her at a disadvantage because she did not have the experience of being so exposed to people. But then if you live in a foreign culture, sometimes you just have to go with the flow...
There could also be arguments that this form of dress holds security risks -- how do you really know it's a woman hidden beneath that garb and not some wicked man!
Labels: choice, Muslim dress, Niqab
joeh 18 September, 2013 18:46
The problem is, of course, that if a Muslim man sees any part of a woman at all he becomes so sexually aroused that he can not control himself...and they call us immoral!
Sometimes, though, Joeh, I look at how western women dress and think they could do with the cover-up -- and not necessarily because anyone would be aroused!!
John Gray 18 September, 2013 21:12
My opinion tends to vasilate
I am still uncertain what I actually feel about the veil
As does mine, John.
Joanne Noragon 18 September, 2013 21:35
I believe any woman who wants to subject herself to this mode is entitled. I believe it is perfectly acceptable to present oneself to a foreign world this way. I believe if the niqab, or any part of the costume interferes with participating in the adopted society, choices must be made by the person under the veil. Participate or retreat. No whining.
Once while eating at a restaurant at JFK Airport I noticed an Arab family seated at the table next to mine--- a man, his wife and two little boys. They were all eating fried chicken. Have you ever seen a woman covered from head to toe trying to eat chicken? Of course the man and boys were in western clothing and had no trouble at all.
Honestly, I wouldn't know whether to laugh or cry...
I have a hard time understanding why any woman would cover herself like that, but then again, I wasn't raised that way. It seems like it would be so difficult to maneuver!
I also have a hard time 'understanding' -- but I am trying to see the other point of view (I had to stop myself from writing 'what's behind it all'!)
Rob-bear 19 September, 2013 09:34
My tendency is to question why we want to tell people how to dress. It's like male politicians making family planning rules for women, as if women didn't know how to manage their lives. We're having a problem with this whole thing about how to dress in Quebec, one of Canada's provinces. Are people so insecure in themselves that they have to make others dress a certain way before they can feel safe?
Blessings and Bear hugs.
You ask a very good question, Rob-bear -- it's the crux of the matter, I think...
Tom Stephenson 19 September, 2013 11:27
The teacher who was sacked for wearing a veil was rightly sacked - one situation where you do not have to cover your face (as far as I understand) is amongst innocent children.
Veils have only been insisted upon by Moslem men for about 100 years. Although modesty is a requirement for all people in most religions - including Christianity - I don't think there is anything in the Koran about covering your face.
You are not allowed to enter a bank in this country whilst wearing a crash helmet or Mickey Mouse mask, so other than stop women from banking for themselves, I don't think they should be allowed to wear burkas in banks either.
I think that people should be allowed to wear whatever they like, but I still feel outraged when I see fat men in Nike sports gear.
And white socks with sandals! Absolutely outrageous!
I think that many young and rebellious women like to wear a niqab simply because it does make people recoil and comment. Some may be forced, but others see it as a sign of strength. I agree with you that it makes its wearer seem separate and special but above all separate.
There was a very interesting article in yesterday's Times by a woman who wore the veil for a couple of days to try to see it from 'the other side of the veil'. Very interesting to read about how difficult and uncomfortable it has been for her -- both physically and mentally.
Suldog 20 September, 2013 23:03
I'm of the school that says do whatever you want so long as it harms nobody else. In that regard, it takes a loose definition of "harm" sometimes. And I believe most religious practice takes the position that it is preferable to save someone else even if you have to die a little (I'm no expert on Islam, so I say that with a bit of a question.)
Anyway, when we're talking about a court case that could affect someone else's life, definitely uncover your face. If you need to be identified because your identification can save others time and trouble, it is incumbent upon you to be ready to identify yourself. But nobody should ever feel the need to dress in a way that makes others comfortable at risk of your immortal soul. Of course, you have to be willing to suffer the consequences, too. If you choose to dress in an unconventional way, you have to expect unconventional treatment and learn to live with it. That's also part of the bargain, the societal compact, no?
I agree with you, Sully. I think banning it is more harmful to the democratic ideal than allowing it. But, as you say, consequences must be accepted...
Joanne summed up my attitude perfectly. I have no problem with an adult woman choosing to wear the niqab if she wants to, though I can't help thinking the all-enveloping burkha, with netting across the eyes, must make the outside world seem a very odd place to the wearer. What I do object to is the idea of women or girls being compelled to cover their faces in a Western society. Freedom of choice is the important thing.
However that freedom of choice cannot go against the law of the land or the duty of a citizen, which is why the judge's decision and that of the school are important. It's a minefield....
"minefield" is a good word here...
Dear Broad, as Perpetua and you said, "this is a minefield." I haven't done any definitive thinking about this and obviously I need to. For eight years, I wore a habit and head gear that covered my head, but not my face. The religious/nun's habit evolved over time, but it began because the women who started the order/convents wore what was being worn by their culture. It was only as time passed that the habit because "odd" in society. Of course, the addition of rosary beads and crosses made a difference also.
But as a woman in the United States where women have had to fight for rights that men assume to be only theirs, I so value the freedoms that I enjoy and I wonder if taking off the veil for Muslim women would represent the first letting go of belief. Would it be the hatchet that would cut through all the subjugation of women in the Muslim culture?
I need to think a lot more about this. Thank you for getting me started. Peace.
I thought about what it was like for nuns in the old days with the old habits -- they were so like what we see today -- though I suspect the wimple and other parts of the habit were more constricting than the rather loose fitting burqa and niqab -- It is, indeed a conundrum to consider -- the liberation so many women have fought for versus the 'right' of women to be subjugated. Bizarre is the world sometimes!
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"He Called Them Forward"
After Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles ordained the nation's largest priesthood class for the year -- 12 candidates for the nation's largest diocese -- earlier today in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, a friend in attendance sent the following brief:
[Mahony] reminisced about the one thing the seminary never prepared him for all those years ago: that God is the God of surprises. He then reviewed his priestly life and spoke of each surprise and how God gave him just what he needed not only to endure but even to grow more joyful. The cardinal seemed to reveal the wellsprings that he has tapped into, especially during the abuse crisis, when he said that the most important lesson he ever learned about prayer was from Sister Wendy Beckett: "The essential act of prayer is to stand unprotected before God."
My highlight was when, before the final blessings, the cardinal asked for a stack of the prayer cards for priestly vocations (distributed and prayed throughout the archdiocese). He then stood and asked if there were any young men in the congregation who had been moved enough by the ordination to feel that they might be being called then and there. He called them forward and at least twenty young men came down into the sanctuary. We applauded. The cardinal welcomed each one and gave them the prayer and said that all would stand and pray this prayer for them. We all applauded again and then we prayed.
Then the cardinal suggested to the newly ordained that, at the end of their first Masses of Thanksgiving, they should make the same invitation because “the grace of vocation flows powerfully at the time of ordinations.”
...and may it do so not just in LA ...and not just for the call to orders, but for every vocation that exists within these walls.
In those immortal words from Dunwoodie, friends, "What is God whispering to you?"
PHOTOS: Sr Nancy Munro CSJ/The Tidings
In the Northeast, "Grand Closing" Continues
At this weekend's Masses in the diocese of Allentown, the next great wave of Northeastern reconfiguration has begun rolling out.
According to early estimates from the six-county church in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley, the rounds of closings and mergers -- slated to begin in mid-July and run through 2010 -- will see the 275,000-member diocese slash close to 50 of its 151 parishes.
At St. Patrick's in McAdoo, congregants cried at the news. At St. Andrew in Catasauqua, they collectively sighed. And at St. Joseph's in Mahanoy City, they applauded.
Catholics attending Mass tonight and Sunday are finding out the fates of their parishes as priests announce which churches are closing and which will survive an anxiously-awaited restructuring of the Allentown Diocese.
The Diocese has not said how many churches will close and is expected to issue a news release of the details Sunday.
"Thank God, the tension is over," Monsignor Anthony F. Wassel told parishioners at St. Joseph's, which is remaining open but being merged with five other churches into a new parish called Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. "We're going to be one parish."
The changes are likely to affect most church-going Catholics in the area as buildings close, parishes merge, and priests -- even at some unaffected parishes -- are transferred.
"You should consider yourselves to be the founders of your new parish as your grandparents and great-grandparents were founders of this parish," Allentown Bishop Edward P. Cullen wrote in letters read at affected parishes.
Fewer priests and declining numbers of parishioners in some areas have prompted the closures. Small ethnic churches and parishes in Carbon and Schuylkill counties are expected to be especially hard hit. Parishes with weak finances and infrastructure also are vulnerable.
Necessitated by decades of significant demographic shift, a future of even fewer priests, and a present of Mass attendance that, in many places, borders on the abysmal, the long-awaited Allentown changes (accompanied by a significant reshuffle of its active clergy, along with a notable number of retirements) are but the latest realignment undertaken in what's become the faded flagship of the Stateside church.
In recent years, among others, the abuse-battered Boston archdiocese shuttered 67 parishes in 2004, New York moved on a relatively pain-free elimination of 31 parishes in 2006 (whilst opening five new churches in its growing northern suburbs, and expanding several others), the diocese of Camden revealed plans to cut its number of parishes from 124 to 66 (keeping several non-parish churches open as auxiliary worship sites) in early April, and this weekend, the Buffalo diocese is completing its announcement of the closing of 77 "weekend sites" (read: parishes).
From the latter, a diocesan YouTube features Bishop Edward Kmiec talks up the changes:
It might not be pretty, folks -- church -- but it's got a name: reality. And for too long in this part of the world, it's either been avoided, or dismissed as some sort of delusional "negativity."
It's not always an easy thing to accept, but it gives us something to work for, and something to build anew.
Remember, the ones who came before us and began the project in this place two centuries ago -- whether traversing hills on horseback or walking miles in dirt to get to a ramshackle church or a Mass-hosting home on the sporadic Sundays a cleric was relatively nearby, or both -- had it way tougher... persecution and prejudice included.
Far be it from us to act or feel more indignant, entitled or "worthy" than they... all we've been is way more spoilt.
PHOTO: Kellie Manier/Allentown Morning Call
Golden Ted
This afternoon, 50 years to the day of his priestly ordination, Washington's Cardinal Theodore McCarrick will mark the milestone with a public Mass in DC's Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.
If the record's any indicator, the man is one of the most-accomplished Stateside prelates of the post-Conciliar era -- his tour of duty's seen him serve as secretary to the Cardinal-Archbishop of New York, dean of students at CUA and president of the Catholic University of Puerto Rico, auxiliary bishop of his hometown, founding ordinary of Metuchen, archbishop first of Newark, then in the nation's capital, always doubling up his plate with a boatload of other commitments, as if the day jobs alone weren't demanding enough.
But whether his audience has been heads of state or disaster victims on the road, grade-schoolers or Tim Russert at home, those who know him well and admired him from afar have always cited the cardinal's sense of simplicity and modesty -- the famous homespun kindness -- as his defining quality. Along the way, it raised untold millions for the help the church, the neediest and the common good, earned widespread affection, esteem and credibility in the public square... and, of course, brought the Pope to New Jersey... and Our Lady of Kazan to the Vatican.
Needless to say, the heights have been quite high. For most others, they'd be dizzying. But not even these could keep the prelate known to everyone from reporters to donors to his aides as "Uncle Ted" from keeping close to the ground, still buying his jackets from a Hertz Rent-a-Car closeout sale (the company's patches still sewn in the liner), shirking the French cuffs in favor of his beloved tab shirt and sweater-vest, heading out on the first plane to be present for victims of natural disasters the world over with help and consolation, or even -- as his confreres went into lockdown mode over the first waves of the abuse crisis -- pulling a couple dusty folding chairs off a stack to sit down with a reporter and talk frankly about the scandals on-record.
He's allegedly been "retired" these last two years, but for the Ted, that just means he's been freed to take on his longtime moonlighting gigs -- diplomat, humanitarian, fund-raiser, policy-wonk, pilgrim -- full-time.
Asking after the cardinal's schedule shortly after his return from a week in Greenland a couple months back, a friend heard him rattling off commitments: a Red Mass in New Hampshire, two weeks in India and Nepal, a stop in Rome on the way home. But still, he knew he couldn't miss Monday morning at the USCCB plenary, the time when the body's "seniores" -- the retired bishops -- are traditionally introduced.
"If you miss that," he said, "they think you're dead."
They'd make an exception in his case, but he made it anyway. And, sure enough, a couple minutes into the coffee break, he was on the road again.
The Canons say that, both collectively and individually, the cardinals are "especially" entrusted with "the daily care of the universal church." And, well, you'd be hard-pressed to find another among the bunch who takes the charge as seriously as the seaman's son who never knew his Dad; the slight, unimposing figure whose embrace over a half-century ended up spanning the globe.
As his global family gathers 'round in the capital, the jubliarian reminisced in the pages of DC's Catholic Standard:
The cardinal speaks in family terms of the man he asked to preach at his anniversary Mass, his successor leading the Archdiocese of Washington, Archbishop Donald Wuerl. "He's been a very gracious brother," he said.
And joining Cardinal McCarrick at the Mass will be many men that he calls his "sons" - the priests and bishops he has ordained over the years and remains close with. Since being ordained a bishop 31 years ago, he has ordained more than 320 priests and 12 bishops.
"One of the reasons the Lord has blessed us with vocations is, we all realize we're a family," he said, adding that he always tried to get to know each of his seminarians personally before he ordained them.
Fifty years later, he can smile about his own ordination day, but it wasn't so funny back in May 1958. "A disaster happened at the seminary the day before," he said, remembering that about one-half of the 32 men about to be ordained priests for the Archdiocese of New York fell deathly ill the day before, probably from food poisoning. The night prayers of the men about to be ordained took on special meaning, as the sound of ambulances could be heard at the seminary during the night.
"I was fine, thank God! Of the 32 to be ordained, some looked like death warmed over. Everybody got through," Cardinal McCarrick remembered, adding, "I was afraid when they prostrated (during the ordination), they wouldn't get up." The men were ordained that day by New York Cardinal Francis Spellman.
Humorous memories aside, moments from his ordination and the subsequent ordinations he presided at remain special to him.
He remembers at his ordination when his name was called, and he responded in Latin, "Ad sum."
"You say, 'here I am,' 'ad sum.' Now they say, 'present.' That's the real call. That's the vocation. I'm here to serve, to do whatever. That's a special moment (in the ceremony)," he said.
Lying prostrate reminds the man about to be ordained a priest that he is giving himself totally to the Lord, Cardinal McCarrick said. "I'm here because I want to give you (God) everything."
A famous prayer from St. Ignatius of Loyola remains among his favorites:
"Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding
"You have given all to me.
"Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
That is enough for me."
Interviewed recently at Redemptoris Mater, the mission seminary in Hyattsville that he established for the Archdiocese of Washington and where he lives in his retirement, Cardinal McCarrick said he experiences God's love every day. "I'm amazed at the goodness of God, the mercy of God. Here I am, 50 years a priest."
After his ordination, he dreamed of being a parish priest, but God had other plans for him, he said. "In 50 years (since) I've been ordained, I've only had two years of parish work," he said. As a young priest, he even turned down a Rome assignment, because he thought it would take him from parish work. "There's an old saying, 'If you want to make God smile, make plans!'"...
The cardinal said his greatest surprise in his 50 years as a priest has been to see "how good God is. A priest is able to see the goodness of God in awesome ways."
When he retired in the summer of 2006, Cardinal McCarrick said he prayed that he could continue to do three things:
¥ to work for peace in Jerusalem and the Holy Land, where he continues to visit four or five times a year, working with religious leaders in that effort;
¥ to help with dialogue between Islam and the Catholic Church, which he said is "so important for peace in the world, and for the future of the world;"
¥ and to continue to serve the poor, work that he continues as a board member for Catholic Relief Services, traveling around the world on that agency's behalf. "The poor have been such extraordinary examples in my life," he said, noting he experienced the poor as a young bishop in Harlem and he witnesses the plight of immigrant families today as a retired archbishop. "These are people so close to the Lord," he said of the poor.
On his Golden Anniversary and always, God love the Eminent Jubilarian -- now and forever, our Ted.
PHOTOS: Washington Catholic Standard(1); Paul Morse/The White House(2); David Ryan/Boston Globe(3)
The Heart of a Bishop
As ordination or installation homilies go, the one given by Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput OFM Cap. at today's liturgy elevating his new auxiliary, Bishop James Conley, might just set a new record for brevity -- a page and a half, all told.
But what it lacks in length, it makes up for in oomph.
Here, the fulltext:
As I was preparing my thoughts on the readings for today, I heard from a friend whose latest child was just born with Trisomy 18.
Trisomy 18 is a genetic condition with very serious mental and physical side effects. Most of the children born with it don't survive for very long. For many families it can be a very hard experience. But what struck me about my friend and his wife was not how burdened they were by the news -- but just the opposite.
It's as if someone had punched a hole in the wall of their everyday family life, and instead of fear or bitterness, out poured a river of unselfish and indiscriminate and unexplainable love. My friend and his wife love their new daughter not in spite of the child's flaws or in spite of the short time she will be with them, but because these things make every moment more precious. I'm not even sure they're aware of how deeply they love their little girl, because you have to be on the outside of that kind of love looking in to really see how intense and beautiful it is.
This is the kind of love Bishop Conley will be called to today. The lance of a Roman soldier punched a hole in the sacred heart of Jesus, and out poured the love that gave birth to our faith and to our Church. Bishop Conley is called to have his own heart pierced so that God's love can pour out for the weak, the poor, the hungry, the unborn and all his people. The heart of a bishop is no longer his own. It belongs to Jesus Christ. It should burn with the love of a husband for his local Church; a brother for his priests and deacons, and a father for his people and those consecrated in religious life.
The love of mothers and fathers is both instinctive and deliberate. It's instinctive in the sense that sometimes it makes no sense at all. It's irrational. There's no "gain" in loving a child who, by the measure of the world, is a failure or defective. The love of a parent is also deliberate in the sense that a mother and father will use all of their skill and all of their intelligence, and sacrifice nearly everything they have, to try secure the safety and happiness of that same wounded child.
This is how we need to read Deuteronomy today. This is what Scripture means when it says that the "Lord has set his heart on you and chose you," even though Israel is the smallest of all nations and completely unworthy of God's attention. There is no "rational" basis for God's choice of Israel -- or his choice of us. The only motive for God's love is His own interior identity, the tenderness of a father's heart; a father who treasures his children simply because he does. As St. John says in today's epistle, "God is love," and the nature of love is to give itself away radically. When Christians say that "God is love," we don't merely mean that God loves His people "a whole lot," but rather that God Himself is the essence of love, a relationship of love, from all eternity.
Christian life comes from the nature of God Himself. We believe in one God who is three Persons sharing one nature. This foundational belief is not just an exercise in theology. It's central to Catholic life. The Trinity gives a framework to all Christian thought and action. For Catholics, God is a living community of love -- Father, Son and Holy Spirit-and in creating us, God intends us to take part in that same community of mutual giving. All of Christian life comes down to sharing in the exchange of love within the heart of the Trinity, and then offering that love to others in our relationships.
Pope John Paul II once wrote that love is the "fundamental and innate vocation" of every human being. This vocation -- or "calling" -- is the heart of the Christian faith. We are created by the God who is the source of love itself; a God who loved the world so deeply that He sent his only Son to redeem it.
In other words, we were made by Love, to receive love ourselves, and to show love to God and to others. That's why we're here. That's our purpose.
Love always has implications that translate into actions. "Love" is a small word, but for Christians, it always unpacks into a lot of other words: truth, repentance, forgiveness, mercy, charity, humility, courage, justice. These are action words, all of them, including truth, because in accepting Jesus Christ, Scripture says that we will know the truth, and the truth will make us free (Jn 8:32) -- not necessarily comfortable or respected; but free in the real sense of the word: able to see and do what's right. Our freedom is meant to be used in the service of others. And that's why working to defend the poor, the homeless, the disabled, the unborn child, the immigrant, the infirm and the elderly is always, always an act of Christian freedom.
Through your episcopal ordination, Bishop Conley, you are to be an icon of God's radical love through your teaching, your leadership and your fatherly tenderness to God's people.
In the Gospel today, Jesus says, "I give praise to you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, you have revealed them to little ones." Jesus himself is the first among "the little ones" to whom the Father reveals the "hidden thing" that guarantees all human happiness. The hidden thing is this: The more fully you give yourself away in love, the more fully God's love replenishes itself - and you -- with greater love. As God loves his Son; as Christ loves his Church; as my friend and his wife love their imperfect but beautiful little girl; so you are called to love God's people: unconditionally.
"Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light." As we continue our celebration of the Mass, we ask God's blessing on Bishop Conley that he will love and lead God's people with a "a bishop's heart," the heart of a father, the heart of Christ himself, who is love incarnate and the Word of God made flesh.
Obama's "Pastor Disaster," Catholic Edition
After a torrent of press coverage over an uber-political outburst attacking Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton by Fr Michael Pfleger -- the longtime Chicago activist pastor -- from the pulpit of the Windy City's Trinity United Church of Christ (Barack Obama's church) last weekend, the city's archbishop (and USCCB president) Cardinal Francis George has released a statement within the hour saying that "to avoid months of turmoil in the church, Fr. Pfleger has promised me that he will not enter into campaigning, will not publicly mention any candidate by name and will abide by the discipline common to all Catholic priests.
"The Catholic Church does not endorse political candidates," George said. "Consequently, while a priest must speak to political issues that are also moral, he may not endorse candidates nor engage in partisan campaigning." The cardinal added that while "words can be differently interpreted, Fr. Pfleger’s remarks about Senator Clinton are both partisan and amount to a personal attack. I regret that deeply."
No stranger to controversial comments -- at a neighborhood rally this time last year, Pfleger pledged to cheers that his community would "snuff out" a gun store owner and legislators who opposed gun control measures -- Obama said late yesterday he was "deeply disappointed" by the priest's "divisive, backward-looking rhetoric."
A close friend of the likely Democratic nominee's former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and of the Illinois senator, Pfleger was reported to have resigned from a campaign-backed "Catholics for Obama" committee earlier this month.
SVILUPPO: From the archives, a visit to Pfleger's church (with Mass) by Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan...
The Boom, Lowered
Lest any doubt remained, a decree (fulltext) released yesterday from the CDF announced formally that the parties directly involved in a woman's attempt to be ordained incur latae sententiae (read: automatic) excommunication:
"Both the one who attempts to confer a sacred order on a woman, and the woman who attempts to receive a sacred order, incur an excommunication 'latae sententiae,'" or automatically, said a decree from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The brief "General Decree Regarding the Delict of Attempted Sacred Ordination of a Woman" was published on the front page of the May 30 edition of L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper. It said it "comes into force immediately."
U.S. Cardinal William J. Levada, prefect of the congregation, who signed the decree, said it was published "in order to protect the nature and validity" of the sacrament of holy orders.
While only a handful of cases of the attempted ordination of women occur each year, the ceremonies themselves are given widespread publicity as are the decrees of excommunication that have been pronounced by the bishop of the place where the ceremonies are held.
Dominican Father Augustine Di Noia, undersecretary of the doctrinal congregation, told Catholic News Service May 30 that the decree explicitly applies what canon law says about the offense of attempting to enact a sacrament.
"The problem is not that all of a sudden there was a tsunami of attempted ordinations of women," Father Di Noia said, but that the Code of Canon Law and the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches "never anticipated that such a thing would happen."
The decree was needed "for the good of the church and to ensure bishops have a common way of responding" when such ceremonies are held in their dioceses, he said.
Father Di Noia said the decree makes clear the fact that the people directly involved in an attempted ordination of a woman excommunicate themselves automatically; it is not a penalty imposed by the local bishop or the universal church.
Since the excommunication is not imposed, there is no possibility of appeal, he said: "The only recourse is repentance.
"The church has said it is authorized to ordain only baptized men and in that way is following the example of Christ," he said.
Meanwhile, amid what its prefect (US Cardinal William Levada) termed "the contumacy of schism," the congregation has likewise upheld the excommunications levied by Archbishop Raymond Burke of St Louis against the board of the breakaway St Stanislaus parish, which had hired its own priest after the board elected to call its own shots.
With a background of the St Stan's situation, Burke announced the decision in his column for today's St Louis Review:
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith gives two reasons for its decisions. The first reason is the failure of the members of the Board of Directors to observe the time limits set by law for the presentation and pursuit of a recourse, and their negligence in fulfilling what is formally required to pursue a recourse.
The second reason is the evident fact that the members of the Board of Directors of Saint Stanislaus Kostka Corporation have committed the delict of schism and persist in the delict. As the letter of the Congregation explains, the Board of Directors have made what was Saint Stanislaus Kostka Parish, a parish of the Roman Catholic Church, into "an independent entity capable of appointing its own clergy apart from the hierarchy of the Church." The letter observes how the former Saint Stanislaus Kostka Parish was gradually "removed from the jurisdiction of the local Ordinary." In other words, the actions of the members of the Board of Directors demonstrate their refusal to submit themselves to the legitimate authority of the Church (cf. can. 751).
The decision of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith makes clear that the actions of the Board of Directors have broken communion with the universal Church. Frequently, especially in the communications media, the difficulties of the Board of Directors have been presented as a disagreement with me as Archbishop of St. Louis and have been reduced to a personal conflict between them and myself. As their pastor, I have been obliged to call them to reconciliation and repentance for the good of the salvation of their souls and the good of the whole Church. In doing so, I have acted in accord with what the teaching and discipline of the Catholic Church require. My actions have nothing to do with any personal conflict but, rather, with the integrity of the Catholic faith and its practice, which I have the solemn responsibility to safeguard and promote.
Clearly, the finding of the Congregation is most serious for the members of the Board of Directors of Saint Stanislaus Kostka Corporation. It touches upon the eternal salvation of their souls. For the Congregation, and also for me, the matter is of the deepest pastoral concern. The Congregation, therefore, indicates two possible responses of the members of the Board of Directors.
If the members of the Board of Directors believe the decision of the Congregation is unjust, then they may appeal the decision to Ordinary Session of the Cardinals and Bishops who are members of the Congregation, which takes place each Wednesday, Feria IV in Latin, within thirty "useful days" from the day on which they receive a copy of the Congregation's letter. In Church law, the "useful time" which a person has to exercise a right does not run when the person is unaware or is unable to act (can. 201, §2).
The other possible response of the Board of Directors is to withdraw from the state of schism, in which they have placed themselves, and to be reconciled with the Church. As the Congregation points out, reconciliation with the Church necessarily includes repentance for the grave harm which their schismatic actions have caused to individual souls and to the whole Church.
The decision of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith asks that I, as Archbishop of St. Louis, assist the members of the Board of Directors of Saint Stanislaus Kostka Corporation to accept its decision and offer them, on the Congregation's behalf, "special pastoral care and kindness." I have been and continue to be committed to the reconciliation of the members of the Board of Directors with the Roman Catholic Church. From the beginning, extraordinary efforts have been made by the Archdiocese of St. Louis to keep Saint Stanislaus Kostka Corporation within the communion of the Church. I will continue those efforts.
What is clear, however, is that reconciliation can only take place through the acceptance of the Church's teaching and discipline, in its integrity, which we all are held, in obedience, to accept and follow. Reconciliation, in the present case, must be a return to the recognition of the legitimate authority of the Church's pastors, that is, the Holy Father, the Archbishop of St. Louis, and the parish priest.
From the Rooftops
From Toronto, the Mediafest talk of the president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli:
Our message is always the same -- Jesus of Nazareth must always be at the heart of our proclamation -- but how we present him to a changing world and how we communicate his message needs to be continually reformulated and adapted to the moment and the context.
Seven years ago, the Holy Father, John Paul II, issued a message for World Communications Day on the theme: "Preach From the Housetops: The Gospel in the Age of Global Communication." In it, he notes: "In all cultures and at all times -- certainly in the midst of today's global transformations -- people ask the same basic questions about the meaning of life: Who am I? Where have I come from and where am I going? Why is there evil? What is there after this life?
"And in every age the Church offers the one ultimately satisfying answer to the deepest questions of the human heart -- Jesus Christ himself, 'who fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his high calling.' Therefore, the voice of Christians can never fall silent, for the Lord has entrusted to us the word of salvation for which every human heart longs. The Gospel offers the pearl of great price for which all are searching."
It is clear then, that the Church must use all the resources at its disposal and in the best ways possible to reach out to all people through the communications media, and especially to those searching for meaning. At the same time, we must never lose sight of the importance of the witness of personal example and one to one communication.
In the Acts of the Apostles, there is the account of the Deacon Philip who asked the Ethiopian he met on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza: "Do you understand what you are reading?" And the Ethiopian answered him: "How can I, unless someone guides me?" Philip then spoke about Jesus in response to his questions about the messianic Lamb, as announced in the prophet Isaiah's words he was reading.
In the same way, we in the Catholic media should be ready and available to accompany others searching for meaning on their journey in life, and in this way proclaim to them the Good News of Jesus. It is a call to service and to dialogue with the culture in which we find ourselves.
In that passage in the Acts of the Apostles, we also read that the road from Jerusalem to Gaza was a desert route. I think the image of the desert is a powerful metaphor for the emptiness people may feel in their own lives at times, or for the cultural environments in which they live. I would hope that in our own media work and our interpersonal encounters, we can help quench the thirst for meaning in these deserts by being attentive to others and by our willingness to be at the service of culture, leading to the discovery of the salvation that comes to us from Christ.
I am convinced that within the human heart there is a deep yearning for God -- something I like to call a "nostalgia for God." I spoke about this recently at a meeting of European media and public relations experts where I was invited to speak about religion and communication.
I noted that: This feeling is most immediately felt when the human subject confronts the reality of his or her own solitude. It is in moments of solitude that the individual is unable to avoid a consideration of the ultimate questions concerning life and death and the point and purpose of his or her personal existence. It is perhaps for this very reason that so many humans seek to avoid such moments of solitude and are tempted to lose themselves in the world of constant communications and perpetual "busy-ness."
The question that the individual confronts in the depths of his or her own solitude is a question about the very essence of their own existence. In the final analysis, the individual is confronting a question that is not merely the product of his or her own reflection but one that issues from beyond the existence of any one individual. It is this very question that mysteriously grounds the being of the individual.
If we are not attentive to this dimension of human existence, if we are deaf to the echo of the question which reveals itself in a desire for a destiny that can shape human life, we can never establish an authentic human relationship. True communications between humans -- and it is precisely as communicators that we come together -- demands an openness to this basic yearning.
I would like to conclude with words of Pope Benedict XVI in his message for this year's World Communications Day: "Let us ask the Holy Spirit to raise up courageous communicators and authentic witnesses to the truth, faithful to Christ's mandate and enthusiastic for the message of the faith, communicators who will interpret modern cultural needs, committing themselves to approaching the communications age not as a time of alienation and confusion, but as a valuable time for the quest for the truth and for developing communion between persons and peoples."
The theme of this year's convention is "Proclaim It From the Rooftops."
...and the first part of that phrase is?
In the Rockies, Conley Friday Dawns Early
Having passed its halfway point in the fields of Iowa, the Festival Express (17 days, five ordinations, two installations... and a Ted with a Golden Jubilee) now heads Westward... where a little piece of Rome'll be making a cameo appearance at its next destination.
On paper, it might simply be the ordination of an auxiliary bishop of Denver, but tomorrow's rites elevating James Douglas Conley -- longtime Vatican official, beloved pastor in his native Kansas, cult figure, college chaplain, proud citizen of Jayhawks Nation, convert -- to the episcopacy are looking to be the one event of this traveling circuit most eagerly followed by the folks in the Pope's backyard.
For a decade, after all, the 53 year-old bishop-elect worked among them, manning the English desk at the Congregation for Bishops -- a job that led Conley's principal consecrator to crack that the ordinand "has a lot of experience making bishops, but no experience being one." Of course, that'll change after tomorrow's afternoon liturgy at Denver's Cathedral-Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, when the born Presbyterian received into the church when he was 20 becomes, as Archbishop Charles Chaput OFM Cap. put it at a Vespers service earlier tonight, "not only a preacher and teacher of Jesus Christ, but a successor of the Apostles and an icon of Christ Himself."
Given the crush of family, friends and co-workers past and present -- all led by his mother -- attendance in the 800-seat cathedral for tomorrow's Ordination Mass will be by invitation-only. Held in one of the Mile High City's larger churches, tonight's service, however, were open, and at this hour the prayers continue with a public adoration vigil stretching through midnight in the Christ the King Chapel at St John Vianney Seminary.
The long-awaited successor to now-Archbishop Jose Gomez of San Antonio, who was plucked from the Rockies in late 2004, the incoming auxiliary is only the fifth the 400,000 member Colorado fold has received in its 140-year history as a local church. (On Monday, Gomez will preside over his second episcopal ordination: that of his new auxiliary, 41 year-old Oscar Cantu.)
Having chosen John Henry's Newman's motto as his own and with tonight's Vespers opening the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart, Conley's homily tonight intertwined the calendar with his new office, adding in the figure of his historic mentor to boot:
I first encountered the Sacred Heart of Jesus nearly 30 years ago, shortly after my conversion to the Catholic Church. I had just graduated from college and had spent the following winter at a Benedictine monastery in France, trying to figure out just what God wanted me to do with my life. After a wonderful extended pilgrimage with these holy monks of Saint Benedict, two of whom are with us this evening, I had pretty much discerned that I did not have a vocation to be a monk. So I left the monastery to visit and pray at some of the famous Catholic shrines in France.
I had heard about the apparitions of the Sacred Heart to Saint Margaret Mary, and so I set out on foot with backpack in tow, for Paray le Monial. I ended up hitch-hiking most of the way, and I arrived at the little French village in the late afternoon in the pouring rain. I had not made any prior reservations, of course, and so I did the logical thing. I knocked on the door of the Rectory where the parish priest lived. He was a kind old priest, and he told me that there were some empty rooms over in the old seminary which had since closed down.
He gave me a key, and I made my way over to the seminary. I found one of the rooms and changed out of my wet clothes. The room was very old, but it was warm and dry. There was a small wooden desk against one wall, and so I sat down and began to write a letter to my mother.
I pulled out the desk drawer, and the only thing in it was a small crucifix -- this crucifix. I took the crucifix in my hand and turned it over. And there on the back of the crucifix, in French, was engraved a date. The date was June 6, 1878. I thought nothing of it until I realized that the present date was also June 6 -- of 1978, exactly 100 years later to the day, from the date on the back of the crucifix!
I didn’t have a clue as to the date’s significance, but I did know that the crucifix was meant for me – and so I took it with me and have kept that crucifix to this day.
For me, this story from Paray le Monial, the home of the Sacred Heart and the coincidence of the date on the back of the crucifix, was an affirmation that Jesus loved me, that he laid down his life for me and that his guiding hand was with me, even though I didn’t know where he was leading me. It came at a time in my life when I wasn’t sure where to turn to next. It gave me the confidence to forge on, in faith and in trust, knowing that God was watching over me and guiding me and that I was on the right path.
Every time we look at a crucifix or a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we should be convinced that God loves us. He sent his only son who died for us to save us. He continues to draw us into the love of his Sacred Heart. He beckons us to lay down our lives in service to the Lord and to each other.
And this is the vocation of a bishop, to lay down his life, like Jesus the Good Shepherd, for the good of the flock entrusted to his care – to love his people, with the heart of the Good Shepherd.
In doing so, in the words of Saint Paul from tonight’s reading, the bishop sanctifies himself and the church, “making her holy, purifying her in the bath of water by the power of the word, to present himself a glorious church, holy and immaculate, without stain or wrinkle or anything of that sort.”
John Paul II once wrote that while it is an honor to be called to the episcopate, a bishop is not chosen “for having distinguished himself among many others as an outstanding person and Christian... the honor comes from his mission to stand at the heart of the Church as the first in faith, first in love, first in fidelity, and first in service.”
He goes on to say that because of this role: “a bishop is called to personal holiness in a particular way so that the holiness of the Church community entrusted to his care may increase and deepen”....
How does one do this? I have chosen for my episcopal motto “Cor ad cor loquitur” (heart speaks to heart). This isn’t an original quotation. I stole it from my mentor, the Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman, the great 19th century English convert to the Catholic faith. My first encounter with Newman was during my sophomore year in college when I had to write an essay on an English prose writer, and I chose Newman. It wasn’t even a religious essay. My mom typed the paper for me. I’m not sure she remembers that. But it began for me a life-long love affair with Newman that continues to this day. In fact, tomorrow, May 30, will mark the 161st anniversary of Newman’s ordination to the priesthood which took place in Rome on May 30, 1847. For me, this is another sign of Newman’s influence in my life.
But that line, “heart speaks to heart”, was not even original to Newman. He borrowed it for his motto when he was named a cardinal in 1879, from a letter written by the great 17th century spiritual writer and Bishop of Geneva, Saint Francis de Sales.
These words “heart speaks to heart” can first be understood as the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Heart of God, speaking to our heart, calling us to holiness, leading and guiding us to the Father.
But “heart speaks to heart” can also describe a type of pastoral charity where an individual leads another individual to God, through love and kindness. One heart at a time, person to person, heart to heart.
Newman believed that, next to the power of supernatural grace, the greatest influence over the human soul is the example of goodness in another person.
We might think of the people in our own lives who have shaped us the most. Perhaps our parents, a teacher, a priest, a good friend, someone we wanted to emulate. This happens every day. It is through friendship that we are moved to rise above our own weakness, our own vanity and pride, to embrace holiness and virtue, to strive for goodness, truth and beauty. I think we have all experienced this in our lives.
And ultimately, it is the example of love and virtue in Jesus, the friendship of the soul with Christ, that draws us to want to lay down our lives for our beloved, to do great things, to love in a heroic way.
In his address to young people and seminarians at Saint Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, New York, on April 18, Pope Benedict spoke these words to the young people: “I urge you to deepen your friendship with Jesus, the Good Shepherd. Talk heart to heart with him”.
Even though Newman was a great believer in a faith rooted in dogmatic principles, he writes that no one ever died for a proposition, but thousands have laid down their lives for a person, the person of Jesus Christ.
This is what a bishop is called to do, to lay down his life for his flock. Like the good shepherd, a bishop must lay down his life for his people.
In his own reflections on the episcopacy penned earlier this week, Chaput pointed to the figure of the early doctor of the church St Athanasius, known in his time as "Athanasius contra mundum" -- "Athanasius against the world."
"He never gave up," the archbishop wrote. "He always had courage. He had the truth, and the truth won. And in the end, he became one of the best-loved bishops and greatest Doctors of the Church—and the Catholic faith we take for granted today, we owe in part to him.
"That’s the vocation of a bishop. That’s the vocation Bishop-elect Conley will take up on behalf of God’s people. But that’s also the vocation of every Catholic believer fully alive in Jesus Christ."
Assisting the Denver prelate at tomorrow's ordination will be the bishop-elect's boyhood friend, Bishop Paul Coakley of Salina, and Conley's now-former ordinary, Bishop Michael Jackels of Wichita.
The new bishop will celebrate a public Mass of Thanksgiving in the cathedral Sunday morning.
PHOTO: Brian Brainerd/Denver Post
Welcome to Iowa
At his installation Mass today in Des Moines (videosnip/homily), Bishop Richard Pates upstaged Iowa's Catholic lieutenant governor:
[Lt. Gov. Patty] Judge read an introduction with some highlights of Iowa, including the Iowa caucuses. Judge said she and Gov. Chet Culver "welcome your voice in these social and political debates."
"We will work closely with you in the protection of all human rights," the new bishop said. "Particularly the right to life."...
Judge, a Democrat, supports abortion rights. Pates' statement received a standing ovation from the crowd.
After what the wire termed the arena liturgy's lone "discordant note," there was some humor in the intro to Pates' homily:
It is a great consolation to me that I come to the Church of Des Moines as its ninth Bishop. Such lengthy genealogy provides perspective. My predecessor bishops, each in his unique way, has made a difference. Even if I should blow it badly, the Diocese will go on. The 10th, 11th and 12th bishops will just have to work a little harder.
PHOTO: Diocese of Des Moines
In Blessed TO, "Blessed TV!"
This weekend, close to 500 church communicators have gathered in Toronto for the Catholic Media Convention -- the recently-merged annual gathering of ecclesiastical "old media" headlined by the Catholic Press Association. Serving as twin hosts in Canada's media capital -- home to an energetic B16 appointee who's one of the global church's most camera-friendly prelates -- are the national weekly Catholic Register and the first-fruit of TO's 2002 World Youth Day, Salt + Light TV.
As CNS' Jim Lackey blogs away from the event, one of its main speeches was delivered this morning by the director of the Holy See Press Office/supremo of Vatican Radio and CTV, Jesuit Fr Federico Lombardi. The talk was the first major address given in English by the commonly-termed "papal spokesman" who, in his spare time, serves as a top assistant to Jesuit Father-General Adolfo Nicolás... and received an honorary degree from the local Jesuit college earlier in the week (Lombardi's shown above on one of his home-turfs: the Aula or briefing room of the Press Office).
CNSBlog has the fulltext of The Portavoce's extensive talk on "When the Pope Speaks to the World," snipped below:
A few days after the conclusion of an apostolic trip, the three or four people responsible for Vatican media who travelled in the papal entourage, would always be invited to a working lunch with Pope John Paul II and the Monsignor from the Secretariat of State who followed the international print media coverage of the trip. The Pope wanted to know how the trip had been presented in the media. He wanted to reflect with his collaborators on what messages had gotten through and what hadn’t. He wanted to know whether his message had reached the broader public or not.
He did this every single time, even after his one hundredth trip, when one would have thought he already understood how the media function… It was always a pleasant lunch, of course… but it was definitely a working lunch. The Pope knew exactly what he wanted from this kind of meeting and he never let the conversation digress very far from the main issue.
After his election, when Benedict XVI heard about his predecessor’s tradition in this regard, he decided to do the same. So after every voyage we have an informal conversation about how the trip was communicated in the media. This approach impresses me deeply. It says a lot about the two popes’ relationship with the media, about their attention to the media as a dimension of everyday life, about their awareness that the media are fundamental and necessary for spreading any message. It is a peaceful and humble awareness that tries to understand and apply the dynamics of communication in today’s world without fear, without conditioning.
Pope Benedict knows, just as John Paul II did, what he wants to say and what he should say. Neither of them would ever adapt their message, either out of fear or out of love for the media. And both of them truly cared whether or not the message was understood....
During a conversation with a group of German journalists shortly after his trip to Valencia, Spain, for the World Day for Families, one of them asked Pope Benedict why he chose not to mention the fact that the Zapatero government was so aggressive toward the Christian vision of the family. The Pope replied, saying he had only twenty or thirty minutes to give two speeches and that he had chosen to use that time positively to express the beautiful idea of the Christian Family. When there is time for more ample and elaborate discourses, then we need to recall the negative points as well. But it is always necessary to have a criterion, a hierarchy in expressing the Christian proposition. Evidently, that which is positive takes first place. It is no accident that the Pope’s first Encyclical was on Love, the second on Hope. No accident either that his first book was about Jesus, who shows us the face of God.
When he speaks to young people too, right from his homily at the inaugural Mass of his pontificate, Benedict XVI insists that ours is not a religion of prohibitions, of “no’s!” Rather, it is based on the great “yes!” of love. The pedagogy of holiness, the presentation of concrete, attractive models of sanctity, of fulfilled Christian lives, which John Paul II promoted in a very obvious way, and which Benedict XVI continues to promote in a more moderate form, is in this same line.
As communicators, we must not let ourselves be taken in by the myth of a communication that thinks it needs to be polemical in order to be effective. There is good news out there, and there are good examples that can attract attention - Mother Teresa knew how to attract many by the beauty of her charity and holiness.
Of course we must be realistic. We have to know how to recognize and denounce the evils, the risks and the dead ends present in contemporary culture. In this, Benedict XVI is clear and decisive. In this, he refuses to compromise. His critique of relativism, subjectivism, individualism, of materialism and hedonism, is frequent and frank, especially as regards current tendencies in European culture. He is convinced that values are at stake which are extremely important for humanity, for society and the future. He is convinced that the manipulation of life and the distorting of the proper relationship between a man and a woman pose very serious risks for humanity. He is convinced that closure to a transcendent horizon causes us to lose our basic points of reference and he maintains that it is his duty to say so with clarity.
We must be careful though, not to let ourselves be imprisoned in a prevalently negative outlook, as many of the media that have a prejudicially diffident vision of the Church try to do, sometimes intentionally. If our contemporaries perceive us simply as adversaries of the new, we will be cut off from the conversation on which the future will be built.
Once again, it seems to me that the speeches of Benedict XVI during his recent visit to the United States are a particularly effective example of the balance between the positive message and the clear identification of evils, divisions, weaknesses and dangers. The best way is the one that avoids the traps of naïve optimism and those of radical pessimism, which does not believe in the presence and the power of the workings of grace....
As we all know, a crucial point the Pope was expected to address when he came to the United States was that of the clerical sexual abuse crisis. For months, people were asking whether he would say anything at all, how he would deal with the question, whether he would avoid it. It was obvious he couldn’t avoid the subject altogether, since it was a problem that had marked the life of the Church so painfully in recent years. The first public indication that the Pope was going to speak about it came in the interviews given by the Cardinal Secretary of State, Tarcisio Bertone, the week before the Holy Father’s departure. When I collected the questions proposed by journalists travelling on the papal flight, in order to show them to His Holiness, two days before he was to leave for the States, I wasn’t surprised to see that questions regarding the clergy sexual abuse issue were the most often submitted.
Questions proposed by Spanish-language journalists regarding immigration ran a close second. The Pope’s decision to respond during the flight - speaking off-the-cuff in English - surprised even me. His honest and courageous words instantly won him the respect and esteem of countless numbers of people. You all know what happened next. You heard the Pope’s various remarks on the subject. You also remember his meeting with some of the victims and the decision to hold the encounter in the most discreet and respectful manner possible. Though it was private, this gesture completed the Holy Father’s words and made them even more credible. It is a general principle that we ought to keep in mind when considering the effectiveness of communication, a principle in which the Church has long centuries of experience in her liturgy: words and actions complement one another.
It is vitally important to tell the truth with clarity and simplicity. Every ambiguity, every reticence and, worse still, every intentional concealment of the truth, will exact a dear price in the end. The vicissitudes connected to the sexual abuse crisis were the weightiest proof of this. The Pope understood that to heal the wounds of the past there was need for the kind of sincerity that is absolutely devoid of uncertainty. We are all grateful to Pope Benedict for this....
The Church continues to offer us a vision of the good that social communications can perform in the service of society and the human person. The titles of the Church’s documents on the subject are all optimistic: Miranda Prorsus, Inter Mirifica, Communio et Progressio, Aetatis Novae, The Rapid Development….
One evening, John Paul II was participating in a prayer vigil with Roman university students. Together with the Vatican Television Centre we’d organized complicated two-way TV link-ups with several different cities. At one point the Pope exclaimed: “What a wonderful thing this television is! It allows me to talk with my young people in Krakow even when I am here in Rome… Blessed TV!”. I was deeply struck. The Pope taught me to have a positive Christian vision of television, something I usually thought of as a source of various problems and evils! His was a prophetic vision, a vision that sees beyond what things are, and that helps us make them what they should be: in the service of good and of the human person. We must never get discouraged as we perform our service!
Pope John Paul II wrote in his final apostolic letter on communications, “Rapid Development”: “The communicator is not only one who practices his work, but someone who “lives” his work. As communicator, the person transmits a view and, therefore, becomes a witness. Communicators must be witnesses of values that are good for society. Communications and the media become instruments at the service of peace, at the service of the development of human society.”
Let us continue to work together at the service of peace, at the service of the development of human society.
Again, it's well worth a full read.
In what's believed to be a first, B16 sent a message to the Toronto gathering, where the Vatican delegation's being led by Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, the president of the Pontifical Council f0r Social Communications along with his predecessor (the "patriarch" of the Catholic press), Philadelphia's own John Cardinal Foley.
And then, the Italian press lit up with talk that the Pope would himself take to the airwaves....
While the CMC veers Establishment in its membership, a parallel event for Catholic New Media will be taking place in late June in Atlanta.
And someday sooner rather than later, may the two become one.
Reclaiming the Promise
The Mayor of New York might've done the honors for last week's 252nd Commencement of your narrator's alma mater... but in a keen counterpoint to Michael Bloomberg's wisdom from Wall Street and City Hall 102 miles up I-95, the Baccalaureate Address a day prior fell to the River City's most-loved ecclesiastical treasure: Sister of Mercy Mary Scullion, founder and head of Project H.O.M.E. -- the independent agency that, over two decades, has helped cut the city's homeless population in half by giving the poorest of our poor the care, confidence, skills and opportunities to have life to the full, including a home of their own.
It might not be the Big Speech on Franklin Field, but following in the footsteps of Georgetown's famed Augustinian Jim O'Donnell and the late great Jaroslav Pelikan (my beloved professor... one of the kindest, humblest, most luminous souls I've ever been blessed to know... memory eternal), suffice it to say, the Bac Talk is quite the gig to get. And in her turn at the Irvine pulpit, saying that "the promise of America is still unfulfilled, but still beckons," Scullion's master-class drew upon the twin teachings of the Good Lord and the Great Ben (Franklin -- Penn's founder) on the imperative of working toward a truly common good in our own day and on our own turf:
You are beginning a journey that is important, rewarding and complex. It will take you into a world that most often measures the value of a person by his or her productivity alone, while discarding the seemingly unproductive along the way. It is a journey into a society so mesmerized by its view of success that it considers real only that which can be seen and touched and weighed and measured, a society in which human and spiritual values have almost vanished from its consciousness.
As future leaders, you face particular challenges and tough choices. Our society has become largely a culture where even the most lofty professions are often driven by billable hours and well-financed interests. Our legal, financial, political, health and educational systems were established with high ideals: preserving basic democracy and human rights. Yet, largely through the influence of money and power, those ideals degenerate to the point that they are often used to blunt human rights and individual liberties. In the worst cases, these professions are used to promote greater inequities of power and wealth.
The mission of the University of Pennsylvania challenges you to turn the abstract theories that you have learned here into the living, breathing expressions of truth, human dignity and social justice. Your education, your intelligence, your inherent talent should not be sold to the highest bidder and as Virginia Woolf warns, “Do not commit adultery of the brain because it is a much more serious offense than the other.” But rather use your gifts for the advancement of humankind.
My experience has convinced me that the men, women and children who sleep on our city streets are a prophetic presence in our midst; they represent a profound symbol to our society, warning us that something has gone radically wrong.
You may remember the old adage about the canary. “The birds were brought into the mines in cages and hung from support beams near the miners. If the canaries began to fall dead from their perches, the miners would evacuate the mine: deadly coal gas was present. This gas was without smell or taste but it could kill and did. The canaries with their high rates of metabolism would fall before the humans. Their death was an accurate prediction of what would happen to the miners if they remained and if the gas was not pumped out of the mine and replaced with good air.”
In much the same way, homelessness is symptomatic of an advanced disease within. The men, women, and children who are homeless represent the first wave of the sweeping forces that are drastically changing our society and ultimately threatening the larger social fabric.
We need to realize that what is at stake in our response to homelessness is not just the specific circumstances of people who are homeless. It is no less than the very basic health and vitality of our entire community.
Ultimately, the issues homeless and poor people face are our issues: decent, affordable housing; quality education; employment at a livable wage; a health care system that is accessible to all; healthy communities that nurture healthy families; freedom from discrimination.
When we see a person on the street we can no longer pass by and piously say, “There but for the grace of God go I”—but rather “There go I.” As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. challenged us: “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality; tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
Dr. King, speaking at the National Episcopal Cathedral in Washington DC in 1968, in one of his last sermons, offered these reflections on a famous Gospel parable of Lazarus and the rich man: “The rich man didn’t go to hell because he was rich; he didn’t realize that his wealth was his opportunity. It was his opportunity to bridge the gulf that separated him from his brother Lazarus. The rich man went to hell because he passed by Lazarus every day and he never really saw him. He allowed his brother to become invisible ... He sought to be a conscientious objector in the war against poverty. And this can happen to America, the richest nation in the world—and nothing is wrong with wealth—this is America’s opportunity to help bridge the gulf between the haves and the have-nots. The question is whether American will do it. There is nothing new about poverty. What is new is that we now have the techniques and the resources to get rid of poverty. The real question is whether we have the will.”
Think about the world you want to live in … the world you want your children and grandchildren to live in … Is it OK with you that 40% of the teens entering 9th grade this year, will not graduate from high school in four years? Is it OK with you that people are being killed on the streets of Philadelphia in record numbers? Is it OK that our jails are the largest mental health hospitals? Is it OK that 400 to 500 hundred people live on our streets daily and are you OK with the fact that over 1,000 kids are living in city shelters tonight?
The Hebrew Bible was understood as God’s revelations of how the human community was to live. It was the vehicle whereby the community could adjudicate conflict, regulate use of resources, resolve inequities, repair harm, and restore relationships. The whole purpose of the Bible was nothing less than to bring about God’s vision of justice and shalom for the human community and show us how we could live according to God’s will and delight. A particular concern of the Hebrew Bible was to protect widows, orphans, the poor, and any other who did not have power or influence in the community and were subject to exploitation.
Jesus, contrary to much overly simplistic Christian theology, did not overthrow the law, but pointed to the ultimate purpose of the law, which was mercy, justice and compassion. Like the prophets before him, Jesus showed that the law bore God’s special concern for those who were poor, powerless, and socially marginalized. He challenged and condemned those religious authorities who wielded the law for their own aggrandizement and for social control—the very opposite of its purpose.
This past December a woman who worked in Suburban Station lost her job. She lived in a precarious housing situation and shortly after losing her job she became homeless and ended up living on the streets. She lost all of her fingers due to frostbite. After being hospitalized due to frostbite, she left the hospital for the streets in a state of trauma. She sought shelter but all she could find was a place on a couch in a woman’s safe haven. Try eating without fingers and doing the most basic self care. What started out as a serious problem of losing one job turned into a nightmare. It is hard to comprehend the suffering and the urgency that homelessness is until it happens to you or to someone you care about. We have to learn to care again about the common good as Benjamin Franklin did so well.
As I said earlier, the promise of what America can be still beckons. Part of that promise is that we become a truly just and compassionate society, where every person is treated with dignity and respect, where every person is valued and has access to affordable housing, quality education and health care, and the chance to use his or her gifts to make a decent living and contribute to society. We are still far from that promise, but like our forebears who refused to give up on this society, who struggled to end slavery, to enfranchise women, to welcome immigrants, to open up economic opportunity, to dignify labor, to extend political participation — we too will not give up. We too will actively work to fulfill America’s promise of meaningful opportunity for all. We will insist that part of the promise of America is that we commit to ending the scourge of poverty in this land of plenty. We must reclaim Franklin’s deep commitment to the common good, which is at the core of this historic university. As we say at Project HOME, none of us are home until all of us are home. Working to end homelessness and poverty is not an impulse of charity or liberal politics. It is ultimately seeking to heal ourselves and our society as a whole. As Lila Watson, an aboriginal Australian activist says, “If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
Pursue truth, knowledge, justice and compassion. They will take you to new and unexpected places. Trust in God and in a higher power, for our prayer today for you is:
“Glory be to God whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.” Amen.
Citing her as an example of "good news" in a world that needs it, NBC News once profiled Sister Mary as "the nun who won't take 'no' for an answer"....
God love her, and all those among us who've given themselves to the service of "these least ones"... and, of course, as always, "Hurrah for the Red and the Blue" -- my debt to it is never-ending. Literally.
Another day, another event....
This Thursday finds the circuit moving to the heart of the Heartland, as Bishop Richard Pates formally takes the reins of the diocese of Des Moines. Yet while more than 2,500 packed into San Fran's St Mary's Cathedral for yesterday's ordination of Bishop Bill Justice, today's Mass installing the 65 year-old former Twin Cities auxiliary will take place in the 18,000-seat Hy Vee Hall, a local landmark.
Once a cherished aide of the then-Apostolic Delegate Archbishop Jean Jadot for six years back in the 1970s, the ninth head of the Iowa diocese of 91,000 succeeds the beloved Bishop Joseph Charron, who retired early last year due to the effects of an inflammatory rheumatic disorder. In an unusual add-on, attendees at the open-to-all liturgy are being asked to bring a donation of money or food for the poor.
Festivities began earlier tonight with a Vespers service in St Ambrose Cathedral. Homily snip:
On this eve of my installation as the ninth bishop of Des Moines my mood is reflective. It hearkens back to those moments of intimacy that Jesus shared with his close friends on the eve of his death and the birth of the Church when he prayed not only for them but us as well.
On that occasion Jesus spoke of his relationship with the Father and the Spirit and that what he was about was not to end in the here and now. But it was to be extended into eternity. The means of arriving at this desired goal was to remain connected with him and remain in his love. And we manifest love for him by doing what he commanded. His command is to love one another and to remain faithful in unity. If we live in such a way we are assured that the spirit, the very spirit of God dwells in us.
Like Paul, we recognize that all are given gifts for the benefit of all in order that God’s desire – our sharing in his love - might be experienced as widely as possible. Thus, I look forward to exercising ministry with you in the Spirit as Jesus envisioned it....
Constituting the Church of Des Moines are all of us who have been initiated into the life of the Lord Jesus, profess the one faith and are emboldened to strive to be light and salt for the world in which we live. We thus stretch the unity and love that we experience in community to all. May our commitment to this vision intensify in the days ahead.
The Church of Des Moines seeks to be in relation with all, our fellow Christians, all believers, citizens of this city and Iowa, political and business leaders and those who enhance cultural life. Count us as partners in the pursuit of the common good, social justice, the uplifting of the human spirit. Let us work together to fulfill our human potential for the benefit of all.
At the end of Vespers, Pates announced that he had asked Msgr Stephen Orr -- the diocesan administrator during the interregnum and longtime vicar-general before that -- to continue as his second-in-command.
"In his inimitable and appreciated candor," the incoming bishop also noted that Orr responded by saying "I will do whatever you want, but I have been doing this for 16 years – so somewhere along the line you might keep that in mind."
Looking forward for a minute, late next week (i.e. two more ordinations and a Golden Jubilee away) will finally see Day One for the new head of Arkansas' statewide diocese, Bishop-elect Tony Taylor of Little Rock.
The more vesturally-inclined might still be fixated on why his appointment-day press conference saw everybody in house cassocks as opposed to the usual suit-up, but the challenges soon to face the 53 year-old bishop-elect are even more pressing, many driven by a booming Latino influx that's seen Razorback Country's Catholic population more than double over the last decade... not to mention all the little things that tend to pile up after an almost 25-month vacancy of the bishop's chair.
A Rome and Fordham-trained scriptural theologian who led a 95% Hispanic parish in Oklahoma when he got the call, the first Sooner elvated to the episcopacy since 1972 -- when John Sullivan (later bishop of Kansas City-St Joseph) was named to lead Nebraska's diocese of Grand Island -- Taylor will be ordained a week from today in Little Rock's Convention Center by his former ordinary, now metropolitan, Archbishop Eusebius Beltran.
With an eye to next week's events, Arkansas' political weekly gets an impressive jump-start on the coverage with a lengthy profile of the state's seventh bishop:
Taylor's first words to Arkansas, at the announcement of his appointment as bishop, were in Spanish: “El humilde heredará la tierra.” “The humble shall inherit the earth.”
He continued, in English, to explain: “Jesus' preferential love of the poor and marginalized was courageous, not timid, and so must we also be if we are to be his faithful servants.”
Taylor went on to say that, while individual priests in the Arkansas diocese had spoken out about immigration issues, administrators here have generally avoided the issue. That would change, he said, adding: “I certainly speak out very clearly about what the gospel says about human dignity and human rights.”
Last year, Taylor joined the archbishop of Oklahoma City and nine other priests in signing a “pledge of resistance” to Oklahoma's HB 1804, a law that suspends or revokes business licenses of employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants and makes it a felony to transport or shelter them.
In a statement of “defiance” addressed to Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry, the archbishop and priests wrote: “Our faith tradition instructs us to do good to all peoples. There is no exemption clause for those persons who do not have documentation of their citizenship status. We will not show partiality to those who are in need of humanitarian assistance.”
For Taylor, his decision to sign the “pledge of resistance” was never in doubt. “Our lives are not compartmentalized,” he says. “It's not that we have one part of our life that's where we live our faith, and another part that's outside our faith. Our lives are a whole.”
Indeed, the whole of the new bishop's life, since his birth in Texas in 1954, might be seen as preparation for the challenges that now await him in Arkansas.
As the oldest of seven children, he was close to his grandparents, two of whom were converts to Catholicism. His father's mother had been raised a Protestant, and his mother's father was born a Jew.
“Each of them had paid a price for their conversions, in terms of rejection by their families. It made religion not so taken-for-granted in our family.”...
Taylor was ordained in 1980, at the age of 26. Back in Oklahoma he found a growing need for masses said in Spanish, as Anglo parishes there began absorbing new Hispanic members. He learned that the church served not just as a spiritual base, but “as a home” for people separated from their native lands and families.
In the late 1980s, Oklahoma's archbishop interrupted Taylor's pastoral work to send him to Fordham University in the Bronx, to earn a doctorate in biblical theology. Taylor focused his dissertation on the parables Jesus told about the relationships between servants and their masters. In his own life, he says, “I like to tell people that, if Jesus is the shepherd, I'm the sheep dog — at the service of the flock and at the service of the master.”
For the past 19 years, Taylor has served as a pastor in Oklahoma City, first founding a new parish made up mainly of young suburbanites, and most recently, at Sacred Heart, the city's second-oldest parish, a church that had been declining, but which has experienced renewed vitality as its membership has grown and become 95 percent Hispanic.
“The two parishes are different in socio-economic terms,” Taylor says, “but the human element is largely the same. They have the same dreams for their families. They bring similar talents to the community.”
During this time he learned to balance the demands of his priestly life through friendships with other priests and sports. Racquetball became his favorite. A longtime opponent describes Taylor as a fierce and untiring competitor.
In addition to his pastoral duties, Taylor served as vicar of ministries for the archdiocese, a role in which he oversaw personnel issues regarding priests. About a fifth of Oklahoma's Catholic priests are themselves immigrants, having come mainly from India, with a few others from Africa. Most of the foreign-born priests work in smaller, more rural parishes, he says, and many have special needs arising from homesickness and isolation.
Taylor says the situation in Arkansas is similar. Nearly a fifth of the 53 priests serving the Little Rock Diocese also have come from abroad; in this case, however, most are from Africa, and a few from India.
(Forty-four priests from religious orders also serve the diocese, and the clergy are assisted by 95 permanent deacons.)
As a pastor, Taylor believed that the poor and those with the greatest need had the greatest claim on him. As Oklahoma moved towards passing one of the harshest anti-immigrant laws in the country, the “sheep dog” became an outspoken immigrants' advocate.
“The church does not engage in party politics or support candidates,” he explains. “But we do have an obligation to speak the truth as we see it with regard to moral issues. Social issues have an impact on public policy, and that's where politics and morality touch. It's my responsibility to do what I can to make sure that public policy is well informed.
“An example would be that we have certain God-given, inalienable rights as humans that do not come from the state. They come from God, and the state does not have the power to deny them.
“We saw this in the civil rights movement. Rights that come to us as human beings, the state does not have the authority to impede. That's the current issue today in terms of immigration. The state has the authority to establish borders for the common good, but it does not have the authority to prevent the right to immigrate when circumstances require.
“For example: Parents have the obligation to provide for their children, and if they cannot do so in a way that's in keeping with their basic human needs, they have to do so in whatever way they can, and that includes emigration.
“Another thing is that people have a God-given right to participate fully in the life of the community where they live. So people who immigrate must not be relegated to second-class status where they live, where they work, and where their children are being raised. That would argue against having an extended permanent resident situation, rather than a citizenship option.
“These are topics on which the teaching of the church is not ambiguous. My role is to express as clearly as I can what the teaching of Jesus has to say about these and other moral issues. But as far as specific legislative solutions, that's not my role.”
A blogger on a Catholic website, noting that Taylor had chosen Jesus' words “The humble shall inherit the earth” as the motto for his bishopric, wrote: “Sounds like liberation theology to me.” The reference was to a school of Christian thought, popular especially in Latin America, that views Jesus Christ as both Redeemer and Liberator of the oppressed. It regards political activism to achieve justice for the poor as an appropriate part of the Christian mission.
Officials of the Catholic Church have rejected some elements of liberation theology — particularly those that are viewed as reflecting a Marxist ideology. Taylor says he also rejects those ideas.
“Marxist analysis is predicated on a world view that is contrary to the world view of faith,” he says. Though he embraces the belief that “God has a special love for those most in need,” he says he's regarded as being “pretty traditional as far as church teaching goes.”
In that regard, Taylor says he opposes laws that permit abortion and the execution of criminals. Taylor served as priest and confessor for Eric Allen Patton, who was sentenced to death for murdering a woman, Charlene Kauer, in 1994. He was with Patton when he was executed in 2006.
In a sermon delivered three days later, Taylor described the experience of witnessing Patton's death, “a death which occurred on Aug. 29, the day we commemorate the beheading of John the Baptist, another man killed in cold blood by the state, just like Jesus and the two criminals executed on either side of him on Good Friday, 2,000 years ago.”
Early last year, as the Oklahoma legislature neared passage of the law known as HB 1804, Taylor organized a workshop for members of his parish to “let them know what they might expect and dispel false rumors. Initially, there was a lot of fear.”
He adds, “We also reinforced the commitment among parishioners who are citizens to take the concerns of their brothers and sisters with them when they go to vote, and to remind the citizen-children to look at how your parents are treated, so that when you get to be 18, you be sure to vote.”
Some of the parish's Hispanic members did join the flight from Oklahoma that has spurred some efforts to repeal parts of HB 1804 out of concern for industries — especially agriculture — that experienced a resulting shortage of workers.
In Taylor's parish, however, most Hispanic families stayed put, though he says, “I think people have put their affairs in order. They have firmed up who their children should go to if their mom and dad aren't there when they come home from school.”
At his first public appearance as bishop-elect, Taylor said his first reaction to the call informing him of his appointment was, "Oh my gosh!"
What he said was his second thought was a bit more profound: "What's going to happen to my parish?"
As of last report, a horde of buses making the five-hour trip from Sacred Heart to next week's ordination are near-capacity.
PHOTOS: Diocese of Des Moines(1); Diocese of Little Rock(2,3)
Love in Truth
Now slated for an autumn release, while on tour in the Ukraine the "Vice-Pope" Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone SDB offered a word on B16's third encyclical, the long-expected social manifesto being prepared under the working title Caritas in Veritate ("Charity/Love in the Truth"):
In an interview with the APCOM news agency, the Vatican Secretary of State disclosed that the Pope's next encyclical will not be ready for publication before the fall. "The encyclical is still being written," he said.
Cardinal Bertone said that Pope Benedict is also working on the second part of his book Jesus of Nazareth. The Pope typically devotes a substantial portion of his summer vacation to writing projects.
In his encyclical, the cardinal said, Pope Benedict "does not want to repeat obvious truths of Catholic social teaching," but will apply Church teachings to contemporary problems. "I am thinking of globalization and other problems, like the food crisis and climate change," Cardinal Bertone said.
Given the weight and nuance of the subject matter, Benedict has called together a small working group to advise him on the encyclical's preparation and to edit the drafts.
First reported by Il Giornale's Andrea Tornielli last week, the committee includes the Pope's recently-named successor as archbishop of Munich and Freising Reinhard Marx (a specialist in Catholic social teaching), the top two officials of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace -- namely, Cardinal Renato Martino and Bishop Giampaolo Crepaldi -- and Stefano Zamagni, a lay Italian economist.
Tornielli likewise notes the prior anticipated pub-date for the document, which came and went on 1 May.
PHOTO: L'Osservatore Romano
"The Sense of Liberation"
In a recent chat with Our Sunday Visitor, the "Super-Nuncio" Archbishop Pietro Sambi -- shown above on the steps of 3339 Massachusetts with Big Boss -- offered some notable comments on the backstory behind the PopeTrip and B16's approach to the visit's Big Story.
OSV: During his meeting with the U.S. bishops, the pope, quoting Chicago Cardinal Francis George [president of the U.S. bishops' conference], noted that some U.S. bishops had handled badly some of the sexual abuse cases. Many people in the media, who were skeptical before the pope, were very pleased by the trip. But they still thought, "Why haven't any of these bishops who handled cases badly been disciplined in a pubic way?"
How would you respond to a question like that?
Archbishop Sambi: You need to read what is written. The pope quoted a phrase of Cardinal George referring to the past. There is a phrase to the priests in St. Patrick's in New York in which the pope, already responding to this kind of rumor, said to the priests to be in solidarity with their bishops, who will continue to repair the damage created by the sex scandal and to renovate the Church on this aspect.
So the pope did not make a reproach to the bishops of today. He said, according to the phrase of Cardinal George, that, in the past, some bishops have handled this question badly. But he recognized how the bishops of yesterday and the bishop of today are really honest and engaged in solving this problem.
OSV: So maybe those who may have made mistakes in the past recognized their mistakes and are not making those mistakes again?
Archbishop Sambi: Yes. But you have to know that almost the totality of the bishops of today have to face the consequences of mistakes that were made before they were bishops, before they were responsible. And it is not easy to spend so much of your time, of your human and psychological energy, and of the money of the diocese for mistakes that you have not committed.
There's only one example to follow: Jesus assumed on himself the sins that he did not commit, our sins.
OSV: Shortly before Pope Benedict's visit here, you said that "our primary goal with the victims is to help them heal from this very deep hurt that has been imposed on them." How do you think that goal may have been advanced by the meeting the pope had with a group of victims that happened in your home?
Archbishop Sambi: Exactly. I was present.
It was an extremely moving moment, full of emotion from every side. I think that these persons will never forget their meeting with the pope. And after the pope left, I saw on their faces and in their words and in their attitudes the sense of liberation from what they suffered.
What I want to say is this: We're helping these people who really need help -- not those who are trying to gain money with them -- but those who are trying to re-establish their confidence in love, their confidence in life, and their confidence in others and in the Church.
These five persons, as the long list of the many others that I have followed in the same way, in some way, they have found again the joy of living. One of these ladies will be married in the next month.
Noting that he was particularly impressed by Benedict's celebrations of the Eucharist at Nationals Park and Yankee Stadium, the Vatican emissary to the States said that "I receive the impression that when [the Pope] speaks, he would like to disappear so that, through his voice, it would be Christ himself speaking to the people.
"And when the Lord is present on the altar after the consecration, the pope would like to disappear so the people will see Jesus Christ in the midst of them."
The Crown Jewel – Today in The OC, The Church Come...
On Pope's Day, Two Priorities: "Witnesses"... and ...
Day 3: At Last, The Votes
Day 2: The "Lay" of the Land
On The Floor, Deja Vu
Coming Soon: "High Noon," Part 2
Live from "Borys-fest"
Our "Ordinary Joe"
"Our Sorrow and Shame Do Not Define Us"
In the Capital, A "Change of Era"
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#TuesdayBookBlog DAISY JONES AND THE SIX #daisyjonesandthesix by Taylor Jenkins Reid (@tjenkinsreid) Recommended to lovers of Rock & Roll, music, and the 1970s rock scene.
Posted on March 19, 2019 by OlgaNunez 16 Comments
Hi all:
For all of you Rock & Roll lovers, I bring you:
Daisy Jones & The Six: A Novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid.
A gripping novel about the whirlwind rise of an iconic 1970s rock group and their beautiful lead singer, revealing the mystery behind their infamous breakup.
“I devoured Daisy Jones & The Six in a day, falling head over heels for it. Daisy and the band captured my heart.”—Reese Witherspoon (Reese’s Book Club x Hello Sunshine book pick)
Everyone knows DAISY JONES & THE SIX, but nobody knows the reason behind their split at the absolute height of their popularity . . . until now.
Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock ’n’ roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things.
Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road.
Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.
The making of that legend is chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a talented writer who takes her work to a new level with Daisy Jones & The Six, brilliantly capturing a place and time in an utterly distinctive voice.
Praise for Daisy Jones & The Six
“Daisy Jones & The Six is just plain fun from cover to cover. . . . Her characters feel so vividly real, you’ll wish you could stream their albums, YouTube their concerts, and google their wildest moments to see them for yourself.”—HelloGiggles
“Reid’s wit and gift for telling a perfectly paced story make this one of the most enjoyably readable books of the year.”—Nylon
“Reid delivers a stunning story of sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll in the 1960s and ’70s in this expertly wrought novel. Mimicking the style and substance of a tell-all celebrity memoir . . . Reid creates both story line and character gold. The book’s prose is propulsive, original, and often raw.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
https://www.amazon.com/Daisy-Jones-Taylor-Jenkins-Reid-ebook/dp/B07DMZ5YR9/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1786331500/
An Amazon Best Book of March 2019: There is something a little intoxicating about Daisy Jones and the Six. This is the story of a young, captivating singer who came of age in the late 60s/early 70s, all told as an oral history. The Six did not hit the big time until Daisy joined the band as their lead singer, but her presence brought along drama, intrigue, and a variety of tensions between herself and Billy Dunne, the leader of The Six. It’s best not to know too much about this book going into it; instead, allow the transcribed interviews from the band members (they weren’t real, but they seem real), and from those who tagged along during this great fictitious band’s run, to unspool the story for you. –Chris Schluep, Amazon Book Review
“I devoured Daisy Jones & The Six in a day, falling head over heels for it. Taylor Jenkins Reid transported me into the magic of the ’70s music scene in a way I’ll never forget. The characters are beautifully layered and complex. Daisy and the band captured my heart, and they’re sure to capture yours, too.”—Reese Witherspoon
“Reid is a stunning writer whose characters are unforgettable and whose stories are deeply emotional. . . . Her most gripping novel yet.”—Emily Giffin, author of All We Ever Wanted
“Reid’s writing is addictive and all-consuming. Filled with passion, complexity, and fascinating detail, Daisy Jones & The Six felt so real, I had to remind myself that it was fiction.”—Jill Santopolo, author of The Light We Lost
“From the very first page you know this book is something special. Taylor Jenkins Reid brings insight and poetry to a story that’s utterly unique and deeply authentic, one that transports you to world of seventies rock—with all its genius and temptation and creativity—so completely it feels like you’re there.”—Katherine Center, author of How to Walk Away
“Raw, emotive, and addictively voyeuristic, Daisy Jones & The Six is imbued with the same anguished heart that fuels the very best rock ‘n’ roll. Like my favorite albums, this book will live with me for a very long time.”—Steven Rowley, author of Lily and the Octopus
“An explosive, dynamite, down-and-dirty look at a fictional rock band told in an interview style that gives it irresistible surface energy . . . although the real power of this delicious novel is at its tender beating heart. It’s an anthem and a ballad and a marvel.”—Elin Hilderbrand, author of The Perfect Couple
Taylor Jenkins Reid
Taylor Jenkins Reid lives in Los Angeles and is the author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo as well as One True Loves, Maybe in Another Life, and more. Her novels have been named best books of summer by People, US Weekly, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, InStyle, PopSugar, BuzzFeed, Goodreads, and others.
You can follow her on Twitter @tjenkinsreid.
Thanks to NetGalley and to Random House UK, Cornerstone, for providing me an ARC copy of this book that I freely chose to review.
I kept seeing this book pop up all over when it came to recommendations of new releases and that made me curious. I also read that Reese Witherspoon had bought the rights to adapt it into a TV series, and the comments about the book made me think about the movie This Is Spinal Tap, although the musical genre is different (yes, it’s all Rock & Roll, baby) and the story is not intended as a parody, and all that together with the evocative cover, I knew I had to check it out.
This is one of those novels where I was intrigued to read what other reviewers had said, and, curiously enough, one of those where I could see the point of both, those who really loved the book, and also those who hated it. Somehow, I could see the merit on both types of opinions, and it really depends on the kinds of books you enjoy or not. A couple of provisos, here. Many of the reviews talk about the author, and especially refer to one of her previous books, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, which seems to be a well-loved novel, and for people who had loved that book, their expectations were very high, and some found this book too different (some fans of the writer also loved this book, so don’t let that put you off). I haven’t read any of the author’s previous novels, so I cannot help with that. After reading the reviews and this novel, I became curious about her other books, but I come to it without any previous knowledge. The second proviso is that quite a few people compare the ‘fiction’ band at the heart of the story, The Six, that is later joined by Daisy Jones, with Fleetwood Mac (with Daisy Jones then being a stand-in for Stevie Nicks), but I must confess not to know enough about the ins and outs of this band to be able to comment (I was quite young when they were at the height of their popularity, and I never read much about them, although having read a bit about them since, yes, I can see similarities, but I can also see differences). So, if you are a big fan of Fleetwood Mac, you might be more intrigued to read this novel, but you might also hate it. You’ve been warned.
So, what are the comments on both sides that I agree with? The way the story is told will not be to everybody’s taste. This is the story of the band, and of Daisy Jones, pieced together through interviews conducted many years after the band was created, and that makes it very fragmented. It does follow a chronological order, and we get to know about Daisy Jones, and about the Dunne Brothers (Billy and Graham), from before they got into singing, composing, and playing songs, and later on the rest of the members of the band, Camila (Billy’s girlfriend and later wife) and their manager also come into play. These fragments of interviews often refer to the same events, providing the reader different points of view, and sometimes completely different descriptions, but it can cause a disjointed effect, and it will suit some readers but others will hate it. Personally, I found it fun and quite dynamic, but it is true it does not immediately create a picture of what’s going on in one’s head, in the same way as more standard narratives do.
There were also a lot of comments about the characters, and how some of them were one-dimensional and it was difficult to tell them apart. As I have said before, the story starts with the origin of the band (we later learn why), and then we only get to hear from the rest of the members as they join the band or meet the other characters. For me, Pete, Eddie and Warren were not distinctive enough. Yes, Eddie always seemed to have issues with Billy and didn’t like his style of leading the band. Pete had a girlfriend in the East and he would phone her often, and Warren was the drum player, but other than that I’m not sure I got a strong impression of who they were, and when later in the book one of them wanted to leave the band, I realised that I must have been told two of them were brothers already, but because that hadn’t feature prominently anywhere (after all, the interview is about the band, their tours, and their records, and the questions asked are mostly about the time they spent together), it had not registered with me. Camila is talked about a lot, because many of Billy’s songs are about her, and although she seems to represent an old-fashioned model of femininity, the staying-at-home Mom, she gets involved at crucial points, and she has a more important role than one might think when the story starts. I did feel that the female characters were the strongest, and although that did not make them immediately sympathetic and likeable, I thought they were the more complex and the ones I most enjoyed. I liked Karen (I’m not a musician, but I did feel a connection with her) the keyboard player, as well, and she is, perhaps, my favourite character. And I quite liked Daisy’s friend, Simone, also, although she is mostly portrayed as her friend, rather than being an individual in her own right, and that comes in part from her telling Daisy’s story and her role in it rather than giving us much insight into her own character. Although Daisy marries at some point, Simone is more of a steadying influence for her, like Camila is for Billy, than any of the men she meets and talks about in the book. But I agree, the way the story is told does not make for fully rounded characters, although many of the situations will feel familiar to people who have read a lot of biographies of rock & roll bands.
Some reviewers were disappointed by the ending, that perhaps feels more like a whimper than a bang, but I thought it made perfect sense, and yes, there is something I’ve seen described as a twist, that is perhaps not truly a twist, but it helps join everything together and adds a nice touch.
I am not an expert on music, and not a big follower of bands. I have not been to many concerts, although even with that, it is difficult not to have heard or read about the use of drugs, wild parties, hotel rooms trashed by bands on tour, groupies following bands from city to city, and the paraphernalia around the 1970s world of rock & roll music scene. There is plenty of that here, and also of envies, of fights, of creative differences, of the process of composing, creating, and editing an album, down to the shooting of the cover, that will delight people who really love the period and reading about it. Even I, who am not knowledgeable about it, enjoyed it, particularly learning more about the process of creation, although it might not sound authentic to people who truly know it. The writer gives the different characters (at least the main ones) distinct voices, and the lyrics of the songs, that are also included in full at the end, fit perfectly in with the band and its themes, and it made me keen on reading more of the author’s novels.
There is more than R & R to the book, or perhaps some of the themes seem inherently related to it, like drug addiction, family relations, alcoholism, abortion, fatherhood, bringing up children, the role of men and women in the family, child neglect and abuse… Although some of them are only mentioned in passing, we get a fuller picture of others (Daisy is very young when she leaves her parents and starts visiting bars, taking drugs, and engaging in behaviours that would be considered risky at a much older age, and drug and alcohol addiction and its consequences are discussed in detail), and readers must be cautious if they find those subjects upsetting.
I have talked a bit about the characters and said which my favourites are. In some ways, Billy and Graham are the most sympathetic to begin with. Their father abandon them when they are very young, and they work very hard, are talented, and support each other through thick and thin. However, when Billy becomes addicted to drugs and then gets sober and becomes the head of the band, he puts himself and his family first and is not always likeable (even if creatively he sounds interesting). Daisy, on the other hand, sounds at first like a rich-spoiled girl, but her family pays no attention to her, and she is in fact neglected. She is selfish and egotistical as well, but she has no role models or understanding. I liked her attitude, but not her in particular, at least at first, and her behaviour will be alien to most people (although typical of the image we might have in our head about what a rock star would be like). However, the way the story is told gives us the opportunity to read her later reflections and the way she now sees things and how she evaluates much of what she did at the time. And although I didn’t particularly like the Daisy of the period (she is described as a magnet to everybody who met her, but I never had the feeling I would have liked it if I had known her), I came to appreciate the older Daisy and her take on things.
What did I think of the book? I really enjoyed it. It panders to most of our standard images of what the life of a rock & roll band would have been like at that time, but it gives an insight into parts of the process that I found interesting. It also creates some credible female characters that have made their own decisions and fought their own fights, and in the world of music that is not always easy to find. The way of telling the story worked for me, although I know it won’t work for everybody. I highlighted a lot of the story. I share a few examples here, but I’d recommend possible readers to check a sample and get a sense of the narrative style.
Warren: Let me sum up that early tour for you: I was getting laid, Graham was getting high, Eddie was getting drunk, Karen was getting fed up, Pete was getting on the phone to his girl back home, and Billy was all five, at once.
Camila: I think you have to have faith in people before they earn it. Otherwise it’s not faith, right?
Daisy talking about being cornered by a man called Hank: When you’re in a situation like that, when you have a man looming over you, it’s as if every decision you made to lead to that moment —alone with a man you don’t trust— flashes before your eyes. Something tells me men don’t do that same thing. When they are standing there, threatening a woman, I doubt they count every wrong step they made to become the asshole they are. But they should.
Daisy: I used to care when men called me difficult. I really did. Then I stopped. This way is better.
Billy: And Daisy didn’t actually have confidence. She was always good. Confidence is OK being bad, not being okay being good.
Does it deserve the hype? Well, perhaps not for me, but it’s a good read and I can see why it will captivate some readers more than it did me. Oh, and for those who love audiobooks, I’ve read very good reviews of the audio version, and I understand that there is a full cast of narrators and each character is voiced by a different person, so it is worth considering.
If you are a rock & roll fan and enjoy trips down memory lane, especially to the 1970s, I’d recommend this book. And I hope to explore further novels written by the same author.
Thanks to author, publisher, NetGalley, and especially to all of you for reading. If you’ve enjoyed it, remember to like, share, comment, click, review, keep reading and keep smiling!
Posted in Book review, Book reviews, Tuesday Book Blog 1970s, alcoholism, child abuse, drug addiction, historical fiction, interviews, music, Rock and Roll
#Bookreview #colouringbook UZBEKISTAN. AN EXPERIENCE OF CULTURAL TREASURES TO COLOUR by Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva (@penswordbooks). A beautiful gift
#Bookreview GODDESS OF THE RAINBOW by Patrick Brigham. A multitude of stories that make up a feel-good novel in an extraordinary setting.
Written by OlgaNunez
I was born in Barcelona and have lived in the UK for many years now. I'm a writer, translator (English-Spanish and vice-versa) and I'm a medical doctor and worked in Forensic Psychiatry many years. I also have a BA and a PhD in American Literature and Film, and a Masters in Criminology. I've always loved books and apart from writing them I review them often. I write a bit of everything, check my books for more information and my about page for links. My blog is bilingual, English and Spanish.
Hi all: I repeat today with another book by an author I read last year.
Hi all: I bring you a review for a book that I think is a
Hi all. I am participating in a blog tour for an author I read last
Hi all: I’m coming a bit left field with this book. I’m not a big
Sounds interesting Olga. I love your out of the ordinary finds. I’ll pop over to Amazon and check out more. 🙂 x
OlgaNunez says:
Thanks, Debby. I requested it a while back and then it seems to turn up everywhere (New York Times, Goodreads, Bookbub recommendations), so it was a good reminder to read it. I think most rock and roll fans will enjoy it. It’s very quotable as well. Have a great Tuesday!
You too Olga, thanks 🙂
This certainly sounds different, Olga. Not sure it is my sort of thing, though the ‘interview’ style does actually appeal to me.
With your interest in music, I think you might enjoy this one. Have a great Tuesday!
It sounds interesting, Olga, and I quite like the sound of the interview style of telling the story – maybe that’s the journalist in me.
Mary, I think you’ll enjoy this one. The style works quite well for the topic, I must admit. Have a great week!
Fabulous review, Olga! I’m curious to see what Reese Witherspoon does with the adaptation of the book.
Thanks, Jacquie. Yes, so am I. She has a pretty good eye for choosing interesting novels, that’s for sure!
It sounds like an interesting read, Olga.
It is not my usual but I enjoyed it and think people who love music of that era will have fun with it. Thanks, Rob!
I’m currently reading, “Just Kids’ by Patti Smith. She’s brilliant. She describes the same era, when counter-cultural tribes evolved around different genres of music. In 1975-77, we had Donna Summer, Glam Rock, the Eagles, the Sex Pistols, the Bee Gees, the Talking Heads, Devo, and Richard Hell and the Voidoids. It was a great time for music.
It sounds like a great book. Yes, it was a great time for music indeed. Thanks for the recommendation, Rob!
You’re welcome Olga.
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Interview: Timothy J. Jarvis
Timothy J. Jarvis is the author of The Wanderer, which was my choice for weird fiction novel of the year. Below is an interview I conducted with the young author in which he brings his knowledge of the weird to the table to share. Enjoy!
I'd first like to thank you for taking the time to talk to me. What can you tell readers about yourself and your work?
Thanks for interviewing me; it’s a pleasure. Though that’s quite a tough question to open with. Well, in brief biographies I’ve called myself, ‘a writer and scholar with an interest in the antic, the weird, the strange.’ Which is close enough, and though that ‘scholar’ is deliberately archaic, it is true that I’m an academic as well as a writer. I’ve lived in London for a good while, and the city is one of my main inspirations.
In my writing, I attempt to fuse a fustian old Gothic sensibility with a more contemporary pulpish narrative, to bring together various tendrils of weird fiction, and to be jarringly odd: at times horrible, at others cloyingly sentimental, at times tense, at others comically absurd. The Romantic Gothic writer, Charles Robert Maturin, whose Melmoth the Wanderer is a key influence on my book, once wrote, venting his frustration at the critics and theatre managers who wished for him to exercise restraint, to curb his grotesque excesses:
‘I have no power of affecting, no hopes of instructing, no play or other production of mine will ever draw a tear from the eye, or teach a lesson to the Heart, so I wish they would let me do what I am good for, sit down by my magic Cauldron, mix my dark ingredients, see the bubbles work, and the spirits rise, and by the pale and mystic light, I might show them “the best of my delights”.’
While I see much to admire in subtlety, consistency of atmosphere, controlled prose, in the end, like Maturin, I just want to throw everything at the page, see what sticks, then drench it in gore.
The Wanderer is quite a complex narrative for a debut novel, and works out quite well. What made you to decide to write it in the framed narrative format?
Thanks! I partly wanted to go back to the roots of the Gothic, with its found manuscripts and strange tale fragments, and in particular to those later, more complex and antic versions of the tropes, found in books like Melmoth and Jan Potocki’s The Manuscript Found in Saragossa. And some of the most powerful weird tales, from William Hope Hodgson’s The House on the Borderland, to more recent examples, like Caitlín R. Kiernan’s The Red Tree, Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, and Gemma Files’s and Stephen J. Barringer’s ‘each thing i show you is a piece of my death’ (which I reckon one of the most terrifying short stories ever written) have been convoluted found text stories. It’s my sense that complex, many-stranded plot structures are like mazes, in which the reader becomes lost. They also, especially those involving storytelling, threaten contamination; the borders of the text are corroded, the tale seeps out, and the setting in which the reader reads seems just another frame. When the found text’s strange appearance of truth, its suggestion of being more account than story, is added to this, then the effect can be positively nightmarish.
What were the biggest influences on The Wanderer? While reading it there seemed to be many that stood out to me, and a few names readers of weird fiction should pick up on scattered throughout the book. What were you hoping to accomplish with this novel?
As I’ve mentioned, the key influence was Maturin’s strange book of 1820, Melmoth, a novel often considered the very last of the original Gothic mode. Melmoth is very odd text, which brings, to the violence and ‘bad taste’ of the Gothic, a high-Romantic sensibility, and also, more incongruously, the comical, sceptical, and metatextual mood of Renaissance and Enlightenment satire: Rabelais, Cervantes, Swift, Sterne, and Diderot. I hope to set up a similar jarring clash of tones in The Wanderer.
Another important precursor, was Poe’s only longer work, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Poe seems to have hated writing it and to have done so for quite cynical commercial reasons. He was, of course, a master of lyric verse and the powerfully atmospheric short tale, and based his poetics on a unity of effect, but I think those stories of his that leaven the ‘Arabesque’ seriousness, with the impish and ‘grotesque’, his most enthralling. And in Arthur Gordon Pym, a book often criticised as awkward, episodic, unable to sustain a mood, there is much that is grotesque, and downright odd.
Poe’s general disinclination for the novel also led him to attempt to make of it a hoax, and present it as a true travelogue; it seems he thought he could, in this way, ease his financial hardships with the sale of the book, while distancing himself from the potboiler nature of the project. But sometimes it’s parodic, makes its fictionality apparent, and at others, when Poe appears to have had a moment of enthusiasm for the book, a more sublime, philosophical tone predominates. It is a novel of confused motives and disparate moods, and also one in which the world of appearances is a bizarre puzzle, and the numinous lying beneath no less absurd. And I love it for all of these things.
Writing The Wanderer, I was inspired not just by Arthur Gordon Pym itself, but also by what I see as two failed attempts to solve Poe’s enigma: Jules Verne’s The Sphinx of the Ice-Fields and Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness. Both attempt to make of Poe’s chaos some stable order, Verne through tedious scientistic explanation, Lovecraft by aligning the text with the events of his nihilistic cosmos. But Poe’s ridiculous text just sticks its tongue out, scampers about, clubs them to the ground.
This idea of the victory of the absurd led me to put Punch at the heart of the book. Punch is as brutal an example of the Carnivalesque prevailing over reason as can be imagined. I was thinking also of Alfred Jarry’s Pere Ubu, who, like Punch, is a scion of the commedia dell'arte figure of Pulcinella, and is also perhaps a descendant, via Lautréamont’s vile Maldoror, of Melmoth’s.
Arthur Machen’s London tales were also an important influence. In his work, characters may find themselves rounding an ordinary street corner in the middle of the afternoon, only to find themselves confronted with something utterly bizarre. I tried to infuse my book with this sense that you might just happen on something strange and terrible when wandering the city.
I also wished to weave together yarns pulpish, but believable, with threads of theory, to produce a rough and unevenly textured cloth. In this I was inspired by Angela Carter’s extraordinary The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman, a book in which philosophical musings clash with Sadean picaresque. Among the ideas that shaped my book are Vico’s argument that the nature of history is cyclical, Gilles Deleuze’s discussion of writing as a plunge into the abyss, and Eugene Thacker’s horror of philosophy.
There were a number of other key literary inspirations. A notion as to the structure of The Wanderer came from Machen’s The Three Imposters, M.P. Shiel’s The Purple Cloud was a particular influence on my thinking about the desolated world I wished to depict, and from Jorge Luis Borges’s short story, ‘The Immortal’, I took a sense of disaffection and amorality in the undying. I also wanted to find an odd and apt voice for my eternal narrator, and cast about looking for models. I ended up taking quite a bit from Thomas Browne’s prose style, and allusions to Hydriotaphia and The Garden of Cyrus crop up in the book. I also took cues from the digressive nature of Laurence Sterne’s eponymous narrator in Tristram Shandy.
And there was one further influence on the book – eerily, a retrospective one. While editing the book, after completing my first draft, I came across a reference to a novel by Walter Owen, More Things in Heaven…, a book made up of linked narratives about cursed manuscripts, manuscripts that cause readers to spontaneously combust, a book itself supposedly cursed. Intrigued by the seeming resemblance to The Wanderer and undeterred by claims of malign influence, I ordered up More Things in Heaven… at the British Library. On opening it, I felt an eerie shock. The first line of Owen’s work runs: ‘On the 14th July 1935 Mr Cornelius Letherbotham, an English gentleman resident in Buenos Aires, died under extraordinary and distressing circumstances.’ The first line of The Wanderer was (and is): ‘On the 18th December 2010, Simon Peterkin, a British Library archivist and writer of weird tales with a small, if cultic, following, disappeared from his Highgate flat.’ I read on, gripped by a horrid fascination, and discovered more and more correspondences. Then I began dabbling, working more, this time intentional, allusions to More Things in Heaven… into my book.
Then, in the block I lived in at the time, there was a bad fire. No one was hurt, but the building was gutted. I stopped tinkering after that.
I guess my main aims for The Wanderer were to evoke a creeping weird horror, but also to create a riotous clash of tones and modes that would in itself be weird, to move from gruesome violence, to mawkish sentimentality, to the absurd and comic, without any respect for a unity of impression.
Or rather, I should say these would have been my influences, methods, and aims, had I written The Wanderer. But the fact is I found it in the flat of an obscure author of strange stories, Simon Peterkin, after he’d vanished in uncanny circumstances. Initially I thought it a novel by Peterkin, now I’m not sure who wrote it. I merely brought it to publication. And I’m no longer sure that was at all a good idea…
As a reader of the Weird, how would you describe weird fiction to a reader unfamiliar with the genre? What would you describe as essential reading for fans of the weird, both works of antiquity as well as their modern counterparts?
It is my sense the Weird is defined by a slow realisation, which dawns, dread and ineluctable, that things were never what we thought them to be, that they were always already weird. This is the etymology of the word after all; what the Weird shows us is what is, and has always been, fated for us. This is the main way the Weird differs from horror, I think. In horror, things as they are, are attacked by something which slops forth from some rent in reality. This thing may be defeated, or prevail, and the world will return to normal, or all will be changed utterly, but there is always the sense that the horror is something from outside, from beyond, that disrupts the world. In the Weird the world is shown to have been weird all along – we simply had our eyes closed to its weirdness before. Weird therefore lacks narrative climax, but has more subtlety: the true face of the world can inspire dread, but also ecstasy, or evoke both at the same time.
I think there are actually two kinds of weird. The first is the Weird as a true genre, a genre of stories in which, in a broadly realistic setting, a speculative element strips the mantle from the world, shows us its numinous flesh. But I think there is a broader category too, in which the general meaning of the word is present alongside its etymology; weird fiction here is simply what’s weird, what doesn’t sit neatly anywhere, is unsettling. This kind of story also shows us that what we thought we could trust – the stability of a narrative, the consistency of tone, sense and reason – can also be enweirded, betray us.
Because the Weird contains these two possibly categories, it can accommodate the visceral and scalpel-keen horrors of Laird Barron’s The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All, alongside the chilling ecstasies of D.P. Watt’s The Phantasmagorical Imperative, and Anna Tambour’s delightfully delirious Crandolin – to pick at haphazard three brilliant books I’ve recently read, three very different books, but all weird.
My notion of what is essential weird reading is constantly changing, but off the top of my head, aside from those books I’ve already mentioned, here are a few I think really potent examples of the mode. William Beckford’s dark Arabian Nights fantasia, Vathek, is one of the oddest novels of the original Gothic I’ve read, and is certainly deeply weird. Sheridan Le Fanu’s In a Glass Darkly’s linked tales are harrowing and deeply strange. Stefan Grabiński’s tales, in which the occult and the technological are melded, are uniquely haunting. The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington is one of the most consistently bizarre novels of all literature, constantly wrong-footing its reader. Kenneth Patchen’s The Journal of Albion Moonlight is a bizarre odyssey across a surreal USA, reminiscent of some of William Burroughs’s novels, a novel of furious compassion and belligerent pacifism. The mundane strangeness of Shirley Jackson’s short fiction is, for me, utterly compelling. Robert Aickman’s work contains more overt supernatural and surreal elements than Jackson’s, but also conveys the horrible sense of a real that is unreliable, or has been compromised somehow. Eric Basso’s The Beak Doctor is an extraordinarily evocative work of fantastical urban decay. Kōbō Abe’s The Face of Another is a delirious and nightmarish work of philosophical horror. The Course of the Heart, by M. John Harrison is one of the most affecting and devastating novels of all weird fiction. And I find the bleak vision of Thomas Ligotti’s tales always gives a shudder.
As a number of commentators have noted, we seem to be in the midst of a weird renaissance at the moment, and there are a number of recent books that I think have expanded the possibilities of the mode: K.J. Bishop’s The Etched City took the New Weird urban fantasy template and gave it a fin de siècle, decadent mood; Kelly Link’s scintillating stories are bogglingly complex, structurally and generically, but with a real human core to them; Hal Duncan’s work has powerfully queered the mode, and woven in myth and folklore; Reggie Oliver has taken the classic English ghost story and made of it a brutal bludgeon; Mark Valentine’s and John Howard’s Connoisseur stories take the psychic detective tale and infuse it with a revelatory mysticism; John Langan has shown that the weird tale can be made metafictional and playful without sacrificing even a jot of its horror, and Nathan Ballingrud has shown that a spare literary prose style and brilliantly realised characters can be added to the form. And Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy has demonstrated that the weird can cannibalize other genres, be genuinely horrifying and transmutative at the same time, and can deal both with vast concerns and the minutiae of human life.
Does film interest you as well? What films do you think best express the sense of The Weird?
I think the Weird has translated really well into cinema – inventive filmmakers have found powerful visual analogues for the linguistic estrangement of weird fiction. Growing up I watched lots of horror films, particularly relishing ’80s slashers, but it wasn’t till I got to university and watched surrealist classics, such as Luis Buñuel’s Un Chien Andalou and Maya Deren’s At Land, that I realized a film could be strange and unsettling, without being overtly frightening.
David Lynch is a master of using striking visual effects and powerful sound design to enhance the weirdness of his strange, transgressive narratives. They are also utterly tonally inconsistent, rapidly cycling from horror to comedy to melodrama to crime and so on. I think my favourite of his films is probably Inland Empire, though I also love the often underrated Lost Highway, which contains, for me, perhaps the most terrifying moment in all cinema – the protagonist, Fred Madison, meets at a party a mysterious man, who tells him to call home, and when he does so, the mystery man, who still stands before him, picks up…
Other films with a powerful weird sensibility include: Bella Tarr’s Werckmeister Harmonies, a film based on László Krasznahorkai’s novel, The Melancholy of Resistance, which enhances the strangeness of the central premise – a travelling show displaying a stuffed whale and a Machiavellian dwarf comes to town and rioting ensues – by using just 39 shots in its two and a half hour running time; Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker, which takes an already very odd sf novel, Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers, and makes it truly weird by refusing to explain anything and suffusing it with a wan melancholy; The House with the Laughing Windows, directed by Pupi Avati, is a ’70s Italian horror, but is utterly unlike a conventional giallo –muted in its colours and effects, odd and etiolated in its plotting, it’s a captivatingly weird film; Andrzej Żuławski’s Posession is a truly bizarre piece, a harrowing relationship breakdown mixed with highly sexualized Lovecraftian elements, and espionage; Marebito by Takashi Shimizu is a far cry from the director’s Ju-on (The Grudge) films – there is no attempt to explain the speculative elements in supernatural terms, and few jump scares, instead there’s just creeping dread and a plot that mashes together weird influences into an impossible to parse story of manifestations of fear, an underworld beneath Tokyo, and vampire robots; Lars von Trier’s The Kingdom is quite possibly the weirdest TV show ever made, mixing up a number of utterly incongruous elements – a hospital built on cursed ground, a sentimental ghost story, child abuse, silly, and often ribald, comedy, medical drama, the rebirth of a monstrous evil – into something that makes absolutely no sense, but lingers in the mind; and Jessica Hausner’s film, Hotel, which is a masterpiece of restrained terror, taking a series of horror film tropes – a bullied new girl working in a strange hotel in the woods, a cave rumoured to be inhabited by a child-eating witch, another missing girl, whose glasses the protagonist is forced to wear – and inverts, twists them, building up such a cloying tension that a late revelation that a long corridor simply goes nowhere is enough to utterly harrow you.
Can you tell readers about any upcoming project or plans for the future?
I’ve been told that there exists a set of critical notes and an essay about The Wanderer, or a version of it, written by a student of the weird, who has apparently disappeared; I’m trying to track these down, and get to the bottom of the story. I have also been passed a collection of manuscripts that tell a very strange tale of a London under threat from some demonic source, of the tutelary spirits of the city, of the death of the scholar who discovered the texts, and of parallels with the demise of a decadent Belgian poet during the siege of Paris in 1870. I’m trying to see if I can make head nor tail of this before compiling these; I’m kind of hoping I won’t.
Labels: interview, the wanderer, timothy jarvis
Ramsey Campbell February 17, 2015 at 5:40 AM
By gum, there's an impressively erudite writer, and I don't say that just because I share many of his tastes!
Dead blog walking?
Justin Steele March 19, 2015 at 10:38 AM
Anonymous - Nope, just been busy and fell behind. Large review roundup post coming later today, then hopefully I can post at a better pace.
Ramsey- Timothy Jarvis truly knows his weird fiction.
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Part 4 — Assent Voting
Division 1 — General
Definitions in relation to this Part
169 The definitions in Part 3 [Electors and Elections] apply to this Part and, in addition, in this Part:
"assent voting" means voting conducted for a municipality or regional district on a matter referred to in section 170;
"voting area" means an area for which the applicable assent voting is to be conducted.
Assent voting to be conducted in same manner as election
170 (1) This Part applies to the following:
(a) voting on a bylaw or other matter for which assent of the electors is required;
(b) voting on a bylaw or other matter for which the local government is authorized by this or another Act to obtain the assent of the electors, unless otherwise provided by the authorizing enactment;
(c) voting on a referendum under section 336 [referendums regarding regional district services].
(2) Except as otherwise provided, Part 3 [Electors and Elections] applies in relation to
(a) voting referred to in subsection (1) as if the assent voting for the voting area were an election for an election area, and
(b) non-election assent voting advertising as if it were election advertising.
(3) For certainty, Division 18 [Election Offences] of Part 3 applies in relation to assent voting.
How assent of the electors is obtained
171 (1) Unless otherwise provided in this Act, assent of the electors to a bylaw or other matter is obtained only if a majority of the votes counted as valid are in favour of the bylaw or question.
(2) If a bylaw that requires the assent of the electors does not receive that assent, a bylaw for the same purpose may not be submitted to the electors within a period of 6 months from the last submission except with the minister's approval.
Division 2 — Proceedings for Assent Voting
Who may vote at assent voting
172 (1) In order to vote at assent voting, a person must meet both of the following requirements:
(a) the person must meet the qualifications of section 65 as a resident elector, or section 66 as a non-resident property elector, in relation to the voting area for which the assent voting is to be conducted;
(b) the person must be registered in accordance with subsection (2).
(2) To vote at assent voting, a person must
(a) be registered, on or before the date established under subsection (4) (a) if applicable, as an elector of the municipality or electoral area to which the person's qualifications referred to in subsection (1) (a) relate, or
(b) register immediately before voting,
(i) as an elector of the municipality or electoral area to which the person's qualifications referred to in subsection (1) (a) relate, or
(ii) as an elector for the purposes of the assent voting only.
(3) Registration referred to in subsection (2) (b) (ii) is effective only for the assent voting being conducted at that time.
(4) If assent voting is not being held at the same time as an election for a municipality or electoral area in which the assent voting is to be conducted and advance registration for the municipality or electoral area is available under section 71,
(a) the chief election officer must establish a date after which registration as an elector of the municipality or electoral area will not entitle the person to vote at the assent voting and the person must instead register under subsection (2) (b) of this section in order to vote, and
(b) the following sections do not apply to the municipality or electoral area in relation to the assent voting:
(i) section 77 (3), (6) and (7) [list of registered electors];
(ii) section 79 [objection to registration of an elector];
(iii) section 80 [resolving objections].
(5) If subsection (4) applies, at least 6 days but not more than 30 days before the date established under paragraph (a) of that subsection, the chief election officer must give notice in accordance with section 50 [newspaper publication] of
(a) how a person may register in advance, and
(b) the date after which advance registration will not apply for the purposes of the assent voting.
Person may vote only once
173 A person may vote only once on a question submitted for assent voting, even though the voting is conducted in more than one voting area and the person is entitled to vote in relation to more than one voting area.
General voting day for assent voting
174 (1) An authority in or under this or any other Act for the Lieutenant Governor in Council, a minister or the inspector to require a bylaw or other matter to be submitted for assent of the electors includes the authority to set a general voting day for obtaining that assent, subject to the restriction that general voting day must be on a Saturday.
(2) Unless general voting day is set under subsection (1), the chief election officer must set general voting day for assent voting to be on a Saturday in accordance with the following:
(a) in the case of a bylaw that is directed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council, a minister or the inspector to be submitted for the assent of electors, not more than 80 days after the date of the direction;
(b) in the case of a bylaw or other matter for which an alternative approval process was provided, not more than 80 days after the deadline for receiving elector responses under section 86 [alternative approval process] of the Community Charter;
(c) subject to paragraph (b) of this subsection, in the case of a bylaw requiring the approval of the Lieutenant Governor in Council, a minister or the inspector, not more than 80 days after the day of the approval or, if there is more than one approval required, of the last approval;
(d) in the case of other bylaws, not more than 80 days after the day the bylaw receives third reading;
(e) in the case of another matter, not more than 80 days after adoption of the authorizing bylaw or resolution.
Arrangements for assent voting
175 (1) In order for a bylaw under this Part or a bylaw referred to in section 56 [election bylaws] to apply in relation to assent voting, the bylaw must be adopted at least 6 weeks before general voting day for the assent voting.
(2) Unless subsection (3) or (4) applies, voting opportunities for the assent voting are those established under Part 3 [Electors and Elections] for the assent voting.
(3) Voting opportunities in a voting area for assent voting must be the same as those for an election being held at the same time as the assent voting if
(a) the municipality or regional district for which the election is being held is conducting the assent voting for the voting area, and
(b) the voting area for the assent voting is all or part of the election area for the election.
(4) As an exception to section 107 (1) (b) [second advance voting opportunity] for a voting area with a population of more than 5 000, a regional district board may, by bylaw, limit advance voting opportunities to the required advance voting opportunity under section 107 (1) (a) if all the following circumstances apply to the assent voting:
(a) mail ballot voting is available under section 110 (3) (b);
(b) the area specified for the purposes of section 110 (3) (b) includes all of the voting area for the assent voting;
(c) the voting area is part, but not all, of an electoral area;
(d) the assent voting is not being held at the same time as an election for the electoral area.
Notice of assent voting
176 (1) In place of a notice of election under section 99 [notice of election by voting], at least 6 days but not more than 30 days before general voting day for assent voting, the chief election officer must issue a notice of assent voting under this section in accordance with section 50 [newspaper publication].
(2) In addition to subsection (1), throughout the period between the 30th day before general voting day and general voting day, the notice of assent voting
(a) must be available for public inspection in the local government offices, during their regular office hours, of each municipality or regional district in which the assent voting is to be conducted, and
(b) may be made available at other locations and times as the chief election officer considers appropriate.
(3) A notice of voting must include the following information:
(a) the question that is to be voted on;
(b) the voting area;
(c) the qualifications required to be met in order to vote as an elector for the assent voting;
(d) the date of general voting day, the voting places established under section 105 [required general voting opportunities] for that day and the voting hours for those places;
(e) the documents that will be required in order for a person to register as an elector at the time of voting;
(f) [Repealed 2019-5-20.]
(g) if applicable, information required to be included under section 113 (5) [voting division information] regarding municipal voting divisions.
(4) If the assent voting is on a bylaw submitted for the assent of the electors or is authorized by a bylaw, the notice of voting must also include the following:
(a) either a copy of the bylaw or, if approved by the local government, a synopsis of the bylaw in accordance with subsection (5);
(b) if a synopsis of the bylaw is included, a statement that the synopsis is not an interpretation of the bylaw;
(c) the dates, times and places at which the bylaw may be inspected.
(5) A synopsis under subsection (4) (a) must include
(a) in general terms, the intent of the bylaw,
(b) the area that is the subject of the bylaw, and
(c) if applicable, the amount of the borrowing authorized by the bylaw.
(6) If subsection (4) applies, a full copy of the bylaw must be available for inspection by electors
(a) at the local government offices, during their regular office hours, of each municipality or regional district in which the assent voting is to be conducted, and
(b) at each place where voting is conducted.
(7) The notice of voting may also include any other information the chief election officer considers appropriate.
Ballots for assent voting
177 (1) A ballot for assent voting must
(a) indicate the appropriate mark to make a valid vote indicating assent or dissent, and
(b) be in a question form to which the elector may indicate assent or dissent by making the appropriate mark opposite the word "Yes" or the word "No".
(2) Unless otherwise provided under this or another Act, separate ballots must be prepared for each question that is to be voted on.
When counting for assent voting is to be done
178 (1) As an exception to section 133 [when and where counting is to be done], the counting of the vote for assent voting may be held at a later time set by the chief election officer, as long as the ballots are counted before the date of the declaration of the assent voting results under section 146.
(2) If a later time for counting is set under subsection (1), the presiding election official must ensure that the ballots are sealed in ballot boxes in accordance with section 121 and are delivered to the chief election officer with the materials referred to in section 143.
Special procedures if voting is conducted by more than one local government
179 (1) This section applies to assent voting on a regional district bylaw or other regional district matter that is to be conducted by more than one local government.
(2) The regional district board must, by bylaw,
(a) establish the question to be used for all the voting, and
(b) if applicable, set the date for the required advance voting day under section 107 (1) (b) [second advance voting opportunity] for all voting areas other than a voting area referred to in section 175 (3) or (4) [arrangements for assent voting].
(3) Except for a voting area referred to in section 175 (3) [requirements for advance assent voting to be same as for election], the bylaws under sections 106, 108 and 109 [voting opportunities] of a local government other than the regional district board do not apply and, instead, the regional district may, by bylaw, establish voting opportunities under those sections for one or more voting areas for the assent voting.
(4) The regional district board must appoint
(a) a regional voting officer for the assent voting, and
(b) a deputy regional voting officer for the assent voting who, if the regional voting officer is absent or unable to act, must perform the duties and has the powers of the regional voting officer.
(5) The regional voting officer has the following duties and powers:
(a) to arrange for the coordination of the proceedings throughout the regional district;
(b) to set the general voting day for all voting throughout the regional district;
(c) to arrange for the preparation of the ballots for the voting;
(d) to direct the chief election officers for the local governments regarding the form and manner of notices that are required or authorized by this Act regarding the voting;
(e) to make the final determination of assent voting results under section 145 [determination of official election results] and the final declaration of assent voting results under section 146 [declaration of official election results] based on the results determined by the chief election officers of the local governments;
(f) to appoint the scrutineers for the final determination of assent voting results and any judicial recount in accordance with section 184 (4) and (5);
(g) to apply to the minister for an order under section 167 [ministerial orders in special circumstances].
(6) If there is a conflict between this section or an authority under this section and another provision of this Act or an authority under this Act, this section or the authority under it prevails.
Other general matters
180 (1) Notices under this Part may be combined with notices under Part 3 [Electors and Elections], as it applies to elections or to assent voting, as long as the requirements of all applicable sections are met.
(2) Section 159, requiring the publication of election results in the Gazette, does not apply to assent voting.
(3) Regulations under section 168 [election regulations], as it applies to assent voting, may be different for different types of assent voting.
Division 3 — Scrutineers for Assent Voting
Scrutineers for the question and scrutineers against the question
181 (1) Scrutineers for the question in assent voting and scrutineers against the question must be appointed under section 184 if applications in accordance with section 183 are received from persons who wish to volunteer for the positions.
(2) Only persons entitled to vote as electors in the assent voting are entitled to act as scrutineers for the assent voting, but election officials must not be appointed as scrutineers for the assent voting.
(3) Unless a bylaw under subsection (4) applies, only one scrutineer for the question and one scrutineer against the question may be present at each place at which scrutineers are entitled by Part 3 [Electors and Elections] to be present.
(4) A local government may, by bylaw, permit additional scrutineers to be present at proceedings referred to in subsection (3), subject to any restrictions and conditions in the bylaw.
(5) As a limit on the authority under subsection (4), a bylaw under that subsection may not provide for different entitlements for scrutineers for the question and scrutineers against the question.
(6) The absence of a scrutineer from a place where proceedings for assent voting are being conducted does not invalidate anything done in relation to the assent voting.
Notice of applications to volunteer as scrutineer
182 (1) Not more than 30 days before the application period begins, the chief election officer must issue a notice under this section in accordance with section 50 [newspaper publication].
(2) The notice must include the following information:
(b) the dates, times and places at which applications for scrutineers will be received;
(c) how interested persons can obtain information on the requirements and procedures for making an application.
(3) The notice may include any other information the chief election officer considers appropriate.
(4) In addition to subsection (1), from the 6th day before the application period begins until the close of the application period, the notice must be available for public inspection in the local government offices, during their regular office hours, of each municipality or regional district in which the assent voting is being conducted.
Applications to volunteer to act as scrutineer for assent voting
183 (1) The chief election officer must establish a 10-day time period during which applications to act as a scrutineer will be received, in order that appointments may be made before the first voting opportunity.
(2) As an exception to subsection (1), if general voting day for assent voting is the general voting day for an election, the period for receiving applications
(a) may be established under subsection (1), and
(b) if it is not established under subsection (1), is the nomination period referred to in section 84.
(3) An application to act as a scrutineer for assent voting must be signed by the applicant and contain the following information:
(a) the full name of the person applying;
(b) the address to which the person applying wishes to have notices sent;
(c) if required by the chief election officer, a telephone number at which the person applying may be contacted;
(d) a statement that the applicant is entitled to vote as an elector in the assent voting and is entitled to act as a scrutineer for the assent voting;
(e) a statement as to whether the applicant is in favour of the question or opposed to the question;
(f) any other information required to be included by a regulation under subsection (5).
(4) In order to be appointed as a scrutineer, the application to volunteer as a scrutineer must be received by the chief election officer, or a person designated by the chief election officer for this purpose, before the end of the application period under subsection (1).
(5) The Lieutenant Governor in Council may make regulations prescribing information that must be included in an application under this section.
Appointment of scrutineers for assent voting
184 (1) The chief election officer must
(a) on the basis of the applications received in accordance with section 183, appoint applicants in favour of the question as scrutineers for the question and applicants opposed to the question as scrutineers against the question, and
(b) assign scrutineers to each place at which scrutineers are entitled to be present under Part 3 [Electors and Elections].
(2) If the number of applicants on one side of the question is fewer than the maximum allowed under section 181 [scrutineers for the question and scrutineers against the question],
(a) all these applicants must be appointed as scrutineers in accordance with subsection (1) of this section, and
(b) a scrutineer may be assigned to more than one place if the hours or days of the proceedings at which scrutineers are entitled to be present allow this.
(3) If there are more applicants on one side of the question than the maximum allowed under section 181, the following rules apply:
(a) the scrutineers for that side must be determined by lot in accordance with the procedure used in section 117 (a) to (d) [order of names on ballot determined by lot];
(b) the chief election officer must notify all applicants of the date, time and place of the determination by lot and these applicants are entitled to be present;
(c) names are to be drawn until the number of names drawn is equivalent to the number of scrutineers to be appointed;
(d) the persons whose names are drawn must be appointed as scrutineers in accordance with subsection (1) of this section;
(e) in the discretion of the chief election officer, additional names may be drawn of persons who may be appointed if applicants appointed under paragraph (d) of this subsection are unable to act as scrutineers.
(4) In addition to the appointments under subsection (1), one scrutineer for the question and one scrutineer against the question are entitled to be present at the final determination under section 145 of the assent voting and at any judicial recount of the assent voting.
(5) Scrutineers referred to in subsection (4) must be appointed in accordance with the following:
(a) the appointment must be made from among those persons who acted as scrutineers under subsection (1) and who indicate that they wish to be considered for the appointment;
(b) if, for a side of the question, more than one person wishes to be considered for appointment, the choice must be made by lot in accordance with subsection (3).
(6) A scrutineer appointment must
(a) be made in writing,
(b) state the name and address of the person appointed,
(c) state the proceedings to which the scrutineer has been assigned under this section and the dates, times and places where these are to be conducted, and
(d) be signed by the chief election officer.
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Visiting the Lowcountry for Memorial Day? 3 things to know
If you’re visiting the Lowcountry for the Memorial Day weekend, take all the money you’ll save on gas and buy a raincoat.
Yes, there’s a low-pressure system that’s trying to develop out in the Atlantic.
And, yes, Beaufort County could see some rain during the holiday weekend.
But — but! — you’re likely to save over 30 cents per gallon over last year’s prices if current fuel prices hold. And, regardless of the weather, local hotel and resort owners say they aren’t seeing any shortage of reservations.
If you’re still making plans, act quick — rooms are filling up. Take advantage of the cheap gas. Bring a poncho.
Here’s hoping you won’t need it, and here’s three things to know as you plan your trip.
Wet, muggy ... and tropical?
“Unfortunately, it looks relatively wet,” said Jonathan Lamb, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Charleston.
The National Hurricane Center, Lamb said, is monitoring a low-pressure system that, as of Wednesday morning, was out over the northeastern Bahamas. That system could start to affect Beaufort County by Saturday afternoon, he said, and it could remain nearby, off the coast, until Monday.
It could also become a tropical system.
“Depending on how strong it ends up getting, the tides could be higher than normal, which could affect some people out on the beach,” he said. “If it strengthens considerably, there could be some strong winds associated with it.”
Currently, there’s a 40 percent chance of rain from Saturday to Monday, he said. Temperatures will reach the lower 80s and bottom out in the lower 70s.
“It’s going to feel more like an early summertime pattern,” Lamb said, referring to the increased humidity he’s forecasting. “It’s going to be relatively muggy.”
Gas prices rising but better than last year
It cost just under $2.08, on average, for a gallon of regular unleaded gas in the Palmetto State as of Wednesday, according to the American Automobile Association’s website.
On Memorial Day 2015 in South Carolina, you would have paid about $2.42, according to Tiffany Wright, spokesperson for AAA of the Carolinas.
“It’s hard to say what they’ll be in the next couple of days,” Wright said. “I can tell you this: We are on the upward swing. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re up four to five cents as we get into the weekend.”
AAA estimates over 485,000 South Carolina motorists will travel during the holiday weekend — that’s the highest Memorial Day travel volume on record.
Stay a little longer
So what if the holiday weekend’s a washout; some visitors might extend their stays into the following week.
“The average stay is six days,” said Charlie Clark of the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce. “So, while some will come for Memorial Day, others will come for the week.”
Clark said the chamber hasn’t received calls of concern about the weather, and that Memorial Day is “traditionally a sold-out weekend” for the island’s 6,000 homes and villas and 3,000 hotel rooms.
“We’ve seen no change in our booking pattern for the weekend,” said Gail Wargo of the Westin Hilton Head Island Resort and Spa. “The resort is almost entirely full. We expect to be full for the weekend. And as you and I both know, the weather forecast can change on a dime.”
Teresa Manzolillo, of the Hilton Head Marriott Resort and Spa, said the hotel’s 513 rooms were sold out for Friday and Saturday. She anticipates to be sold out Thursday, and only about 70 rooms are left for Sunday.
About 80 percent of visitors to the island arrive by car, Clark said, highlighting a AAA news release that touts the lowest pre-Memorial Day gas prices in the Carolinas in more than a decade. That bodes well for the holiday weekend, she said.
So, too, does a strong first quarter in 2016, Clark said, and a record-setting tourism season last year, when over 2.6 million people visited the island.
Robb Wells, of the Beaufort Regional Chamber of Commerce, said “everybody is close to booked.”
“We anticipate a packed weekend with the annual Gullah Festival,” he said.
The festival, in its 30th year, begins Friday.
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Dr. Michelle Reid leads the NSD student board through an open discussion at the second annual State of Our Schools event. From left: James Johnson (Bothell High School), Audrey Tacey (North Creek High School), Dr. Michelle Reid (superintendent), Cynthia Davis (Woodinville High School), Anisha Chowdhry (Inglemoor High School), Esh Sathiamoorthy (Woodinville High School), TJ Ingersoll (North Creek High School) and Stephanie Clear (Northshore Networks). Madison Miller/staff photo
NSD holds second annual State of Our Schools event
Dr. Michelle Reid updates community on what the district has accomplished over the past year and what’s on the horizon.
by Madison Miller
Wednesday, March 6, 2019 8:30am
Northshore School District (NSD) held its second annual State of Our Schools event on Feb. 27.
Hosted at Northshore Community Church in Kirkland, the event addressed more than 180 attendees — including district leaders, government officials, community partners and students — on what NSD has accomplished in the past year and what initiatives the district is looking toward in the coming year.
NSD superintendent Dr. Michelle Reid opened the event by stating the purpose of the day’s event.
“It’s a time where we can reflect on what we’ve done and where we’ve been and concentrate on the future path,” Reid said. “I want us to imagine the possibilities.”
This year, the district will be celebrating its 60th anniversary. Over the past 60 years, Reid said the district has grown from having 4,686 students in seven schools with 136 teachers. In 2019, there are 23,000 students in 33 schools with 1,500 teachers.
“Since our beginning, we have grown exponentially. This year alone we’ve grown 500 students…and we’re preparing for increased exponential growth in our district,” she said.
To illustrate the growth of the district over the years, Reid compared the children’s book “The Little House” by Virginia Lee Burton to NSD.
“In the book, the little house nearly crumbled underneath the weight of the progress and the growth around it, but not our house,” Reid said. “In the Northshore School District, we have flourished and have taken that growth and have examined the possibilities and we’ve made amazing things happen for our students.”
Reid provided an update to the levy voted in more than a year ago. The approved levy and bond is allowing the district to build a new elementary school near Maltby Road, known as “School 21.” Skyview Middle School and Canyon Creek Middle School will be remodeled with “functional and flexible buildings.” Inglemoor High School will be getting one of the district’s first concert halls in 2021.
“When you aspire to excellence, we raise the ceiling for our young people and we enable them to pursue hopes and dreams that will change our world,” Reid said. “That’s what this district is about.”
In addition to the developments to the district, Reid discussed the district’s diversity and equity work and academic advancements.
The current diversity statistics in the district include 57.2 percent white, 19 percent Asian, 12.6 percent Hispanic/Latino, 8.7 percent two or more races, 3 percent black, 0.3 percent American Indian Alaskan Native and 0.2 percent Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander. The district has a 15.2 percent population on free or reduced-price meals and 14 percent special education.
“In our district we want to answer the question of who gets to be in classes and programs that matter…and the answer is anyone and everyone who meets the standard in Northshore,” Reid said.
To alleviate “systemic barriers,” the district has removed music fees for elementary students so all students can participate in music. The district has also adopted a universal screener administered to all students to qualify for gifted classes and programs.
“The number of students who qualified to receive highly capable services increased from 1,200 in 2016 to 2,300 today. That’s 700 [additional] students,” Reid said. “It’s about each student getting equitable access and us removing systemic barriers for that.”
Following Reid’s presentation, she invited the district’s student board to enter the stage and participate in a table discussion on what changes they would like to see in the district.
Cynthia Davis of Woodinville High School suggested NSD be more accommodating to more cultures and races throughout the district. James Johnson of Bothell High School suggested the district adopt more mental health awareness in schools.
“It’s something that the district has done really well on so far but I think it would be great to have more student-led panels and discussions to increase awareness and provide more tools to students,” he said.
The third annual State of Our Schools will be held next year.
Dr. Michelle Reid addresses over 180 people at the second annual State of Our Schools event on Feb. 27. Madison Miller/staff photo
Former Kenmore resident charged with child rape of daughter
King County murder suspect found after months long search
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U.S. CONFERENCE OF MAYORS STANDS IN SOLIDARITY WITH IMMIGRANTS, URGES IMMIGRATION REFORM
Mayors from more than 60 cities across the country recently joined together to lift their voices in support of immigrants and immigration reform in a 'Cities Day of Immigration Action.'
U.S. Conference of Mayors leaders Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza, Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait and Seattle Mayor Ed Murray hosted a bipartisan press conference call to kick off the Day of Action and highlight the important role of cities in addressing the challenges created by our broken immigration system.
In cities large and small, mayors also hosted events that brought together faith leaders, residents, stakeholders and community based organizations to demonstrate their support for immigrants, share important information about rights and available resources and underscore the value of immigrants to the national economy, as well as local economies.
"Immigration is at the heart of the American story, because people from everywhere have made immeasurable contributions to the diversity, ingenuity, and cultural richness that define who we are.
That is especially true in Los Angeles, and people who have made a home here deserve all the resources and protection their City can provide," said Mayor Garcetti. "No one in Los Angeles should live in fear of being taken from their home, or separated from their family. I will never stop fighting to protect all Angelenos, and making sure they are given the support they need and deserve."
Mayor Tait stressed, "This is not a Democratic issue or a Republican issue or an East coast or West coast issue. It is a bipartisan universal values issue.
I believe as mayors, we have credibility on this issue because we are closest to the issue. We protect rights and ensure safety in our cities, but have to work around a broken system. We are calling for comprehensive immigration reform, stronger borders, the ability of our state and local enforcement to remain focused on community policing, and the ability to implement a framework that enables people of good will to come out of the shadows and fully pursue the American dream."
Mayor Elorza explained the origin of the call. "Today, mayors are standing up for what we believe in and the fundamental values that guide our work. But our efforts on this issue did not begin today. They were born out of the USCM Winter Meeting in January when mayors around the country came together to speak in one voice with a bipartisan resolution."
Elorza continued, "Today, our country is great, not in spite of, but because of our immigrant heritage. As Mayor, I will continue to reassure our immigrant community that they are welcome and appreciated in our city, to support our Dreamers, and to work with my colleagues across the country to advocate for comprehensive immigration reform."
Seattle Mayor Murray underscored the reasons behind the mayors' collective action. "Today, we are standing up for civil rights of all of our residents. Symbolism is important, but action is more important. And we are taking these bold actions today because we believe we have the constitution and the rule of law on our side. Our immigration system is broken for everyone - those working in our hotels, doing our farm work, as well as those working in high-tech industries. Here in Seattle, we recognize that immigrants help to make our local economy stronger, and we know this applies to our national economy as well."
The mayors were joined on the call by their colleagues Austin Mayor Steve Adler, Gresham (OR) Mayor Shane Bemis and Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia who shared their local plans for the Day of Action and discussed the vital contributions that immigrants make to their cities and the nation. Mayors are amplifying their message by using #MayorsStand4All across their social media platforms.
Mayor Adler, who has already had funding withheld from Travis County, said, "We often feel like the epicenter of this issue and we are glad to know we are not alone. Mayors build bridges. We see this as an issue of public safety. Austin enjoys being one of the safest cities in country. Our public safety officials tell us that safety we enjoy is due in part to trust relationship that exists between officers and the community. We are now hearing anecdotally that victims of crime are unwilling to step forward because they are afraid. We are bringing these issues to our community so residents can understand we are working on their behalf."
Mayor Bemis, whose city's population consists of 17% of residents born outside the country said, "There are real-world consequences to the heated and divisive rhetoric we are hearing from the Administration. When our residents are fearful of law enforcement, they are unlikely to call 9-1-1 to report an emergency, or to partner with police when they are the victim of, or witness to, criminal activity. That means suspects will not be brought to justice and our streets will be less safe."
Mayor Garcia shared his personal story of immigration on the call saying, "I had the opportunity to become a citizen at the age of 21. I believe every immigrant deserves an opportunity to give back and I want everyone to have the same opportunity that myself and my family had. Immigrants can also grow up to become mayors."
Mayors are also urging Congress and the Administration to focus on common sense reforms that will fix the nation's broken immigration system in an efficient, effective and compassionate way. At the Conference's Annual Winter Meeting in Washington in January, mayors adopted a resolution calling for enactment of bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform and the continuation of programs that protect the temporary status of Dreamers, and recognizes the social, economic and cultural contributions of immigrant communities nationwide.
Tom Cochran, CEO & executive director of The Conference said, "Today we celebrate what mayors throughout this nation have done to give us strength in our communities. We left our Winter Meeting strong and united with this resolution and I am putting the full force of the nation's mayors
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Complete legal name of a firm, the title by which a formally organized or incorporated firm is known as a legal entity or artificial-person. Shown on the certificate of incorporation (firm's 'birth certificate'), it must be displayed clearly at the firm's legal or registered office, and disclosed on all formal documents such as agreements, checks, and official stationery. To be approved as an acceptable name, it must be distinct from other company names and should not be misleading, offensive, or otherwise illegal. Corporate legislation requires that a company name includes appropriate suffixes (such as corporation, incorporated, limited, private limited, public limited, etc., or their abbreviations) so that the entities dealing with the company know its legal status.
All legal rights and obligations (such as to own property, to sue and be sued) accrue to a firm under its name which may be also be registered as a trademark or servicemark, and may be changed only by a special resolution (requiring three-quarters of the votes) of its stockholders (shareholders). Called also corporate name.
immediate famil...
without prejudi...
private limited...
separation of p...
Shall vs. Will
"Shall" is a word that has certainly come to be replaced in American English language by using the word "will" instead. Often saying "I shall" do something comes off as sounding pretentious or haughty so we replace it with the word "will". Things ... Read more
What is a Limited Liability Company (LLC)?
How to Register a Trademark for a Company Name
A small business that forms an LLC is required to register its name with the secretary of state's office. This prevents other businesses within the same state from registering themselves with the same or a similar sounding name. But there is ... Read more
Public Relations Policies for Social Media
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Arizona Diamondbacks News
News » Articles
Diamondbacks 7, Padres 6
Adam Dunn confessed he had some jitters before taking the field for his home debut with the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Submitted on: 2008-08-20
Dodgers making moves, but missed a key one
The Dodgers' trade additions are great, but it's the guy they let slip away that might haunt them in the end, Ken Rosenthal says.
Brewers taking risky approach with Sabathia
CC Sabathia is near 200 innings, and it's still August.
MEDICAL WATCH: 2B Orlando Hudson (fractured bone and ligament damage in left wrist) went on the 60-day disabled list Aug.
Arizona Diamondbacks Notes, Quotes 2008-08-19
--OF Chris Young has played 105 consecutive games, the longest streak on the D-backs, and he would not have it any other way.
Arizona Diamondbacks Inside Pitch 2008-08-19
Outfielder Chris Young has played every inning of the Diamondbacks' last 105 games entering a home series that begins Tuesday against San Diego, and that is just the way he wants it.
Padres-Diamondbacks Preview 2008-08-18
If the Arizona Diamondbacks are to gain sole possession of first place in the NL West, they'll need to show some improvement at home.
--C Miguel Montero has three home runs in his last 16 at-bats after hitting two in an 11-5 victory over Houston on Saturday, including a grand slam for a career-high five RBIs.
When outfielder Adam Dunn arrived, the Diamondbacks inserted him in the cleanup spot and have watched their offense take off.
Astros' Oswalt limits D-backs to one hit
Roy Oswalt allowed one hit in eight innings and struck out 10, outpitching Randy Johnson in the Houston Astros' 3-0 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Sunday.
Astros' Oswalt limits D-backs to one hit 2008-08-18
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Custom Media Solutions
Canadian Readership
Big-D Construction – Beverley Taylor Sorenson Center for the Arts
Big-D Construction delivers a standout arts center project for Southern Utah University.
By Chris Petersen
As the new home of the Southern Utah Museum of Art and the Utah Shakespeare Festival on the campus of Southern Utah University, the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Center for the Arts will be home to some very impressive productions. Perhaps fittingly, the new facility has been a very impressive production in its own right, and the expertise of Big-D Construction has been instrumental in ensuring that the curtain goes up without a hitch. Vice President and Project Director Jim Allison says the project is a unique addition to the company’s portfolio, and should stand as a testament to the power of public-private partnerships for decades to come.
Officially opening this July, the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Center for the Arts encompasses two city blocks and consists of two new buildings. The new home of the Southern Utah Museum of Art is a 18,000-square-foot single-story building that provides flexible gallery space along with classrooms, art storage space and administrative offices. The new facility for the Utah Shakespeare Festival covers more than 86,000 square feet, including the 900-seat open-air Engelstad Shakespeare Theater, along with rehearsal space, an indoor theater and costume fabrication facilities.
Although building large-scale projects like the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Center for the Arts is nothing new for a contractor as experienced and skilled as Big-D Construction, Allison says the company nevertheless encountered some challenges along the way. Thanks to the company’s skills and know-how, however, Big-D Construction was able to deliver the project in a way that was cost-effective while still living up to the university’s vision.
According to Allison, even though Big-D Construction came in with the lowest bid for the project, its initial estimates for the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Center for the Arts were still a bit more than the university had budgeted for the project. Allison says Big-D’s value-engineering process cut back on some areas of the project and ended up removing about $2 million from the cost of the project while still keeping the quality, which allowed it to move forward.
“Even with all the value-engineering and cost-cutting it still turned out to be a beautiful building, and probably anybody else who walked through it would probably not know we cut anything out unless they were intimately involved with the project,” Allison says.
Big-D Construction’s ability to work within its budget while remaining true to the original vision for the project allowed the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Center for the Arts to retain its most distinctive elements, and perhaps none are as distinctive as the open-air Engelstad Shakespeare Theater. Although the entire Utah Shakespeare Festival facility incorporates the latest in modern theatrical amenities and audio-visual technology, the open-air theater provides a link to the past and provides theatergoers with the opportunity to see Shakespeare’s works in the way his original audiences did.
“It’s really a beautiful building, the main theater,” Allison says. “It’s really cool to go in and see a theater out of doors to watch the plays outdoors. Everybody seems to really enjoy that, it’s just unique.”
Big-D Construction CEO Jack Livingood, son of company founder Dee Livingood, has been a supporter of the Utah Shakespeare Festival for 20 years. Allison says the ribbon-cutting ceremony in July was very emotional for him because it meant the company was partly responsible for ensuring the festival’s future.
The Utah Shakespeare Festival facility is connected via walkways to the Southern Utah Museum of Art facility, which Allison says provides a new type of space for art exhibits on campus. The structural steel building features cast-in-place high-performance concrete panels and curtainwall glass on the exterior. Allison says the construction of the building gives it a sound profile that creates a quiet museum atmosphere.
Another unique aspect of the museum building allows it to be a more flexible space. “It’s got this huge, cantilevered roof that comes out over the West side of the building over the entry plaza, and it’s all covered so they can have small dinners and fundraisers or donor parties, those kinds of things,” Allison says. “It’s something you won’t see anywhere else; it’s very unique.”
Inspired Culture
Projects like the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Center for the Arts can’t come together without a contractor that brings skill and vision to the job site, and that’s what Big-D Construction has done for nearly 50 years. Founded in 1967 after Dee Livingood sold his car for $1,000, the company says its strength is rooted in the values Livingood instilled in it from day one.
“Dee started with almost nothing – very little money, no business experience and no customers,” the company says. “All he had was a big idea about the way things ought to be done. He wanted a company based on equal respect for customers and employees. A company based on honesty and integrity. A company where there is no difference between what is said and what is done.
“Today, [Livingood’s] founding culture continues to inspire us here at Big-D,” the company continues. “We aren’t perfect, but we strive to do the right things. Best of all, our talented teams continue to enjoy the support and freedom to build outstanding careers, with a firm belief that the best chapters of our history have yet to be written.”
Check out our latest edition!
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© 2016 Construction Today Magazine; The Magazine For The People Who Build North America. All Rights Reserved.
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Mon, Feb 24 encore on sale now!
Tickets for February 24 are available now.
National Theatre Live will broadcast the Donmar Warehouse’s production of Coriolanus, Shakespeare’s searing tragedy of political manipulation and revenge, with Tom Hiddleston (The Avengers, War Horse (film), BBC's The Hollow Crown) in the title role and Mark Gatiss (Season's Greetings at the National Theatre, BBC's Sherlock) as Menenius, directed by the Donmar's Artistic Director Josie Rourke.
When an old adversary threatens Rome, the city calls once more on her hero and defender: Coriolanus. But he has enemies at home too. Famine threatens the city, the citizens’ hunger swells to an appetite for change, and on returning from the field Coriolanus must confront the march of realpolitik and the voice of an angry people.
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THE YEAR OF THE STEM CELL
By Sujatha Byravan
GeneWatch: With Bill Frist's support for stem cell research using embryos left over from fertility clinics, we might be looking at a major shift in political support for this kind of research in the United States. This may lead to the Senate's passage of HR 810. If this bill is passed by Congress, what do you think its impact would be on the politics of stem cell research and cloning in the U.S.?
George Annas: I think it will have a major impact, even though it's a very limited bill. It is major because it shows for the first time in the Bush presidency that the Congress disagrees with him about something substantial, and that disagreement is in an area of research that opinion polls consistently show the public wants to pursue. A number of states have decided they are going to encourage this kind of research, as well. This is part of a reaction against the original Bush policy of not funding any embryonic stem cell research on any embryos created after his speech on August 9, 2001. It is also a direct rejection of the ethical foundation of that policy, specifically that taxpayer money should not be spent on anything that conflicts with the moral beliefs of a significant segment of the American population. Of course, limiting human embryonic stem cell research to "spare" IVF embryos is a political, not an ethical or moral, compromise. The moral status of the human embryo does not depend upon how or why it was created in the first place.
Do you think passage of HR 810 would propel other bills forward, for instance, the one introduced by Dianne Feinstein that would ban reproductive cloning?
It's hard to say. The concerns about reproductive (though I prefer the adjective "replicative") cloning don't arise until you actually do somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), and HR 810 would not fund that kind of research at all. If the President doesn't veto this bill, or if his veto is overridden, the next question Congress will have to face is whether to approve federal funding for SCNT, which I do not believe it can or should do without outlawing reproductive cloning, that is, cloning to make a baby.
According to many scientists, embryos left over from IVF clinics may be too old or damaged to be useful in research, and thus more embryos would be needed. Scientists are therefore seeking egg donations from women for stem cell research. What can be done to protect women from the risks associated with multiple egg extraction procedures?
First of all, HR 810 would not allow funding for research using such eggs. It explicitly permits only embryos left over from IVF clinics, and which the couple agrees would not be used for reproduction, for themselves or others. So the potential sources of embryos that can be used for research under the federal bill are actually very limited.
I don't think anyone is convinced that there will be sufficient IVF embryos left over to do the research people want to do today, and, of course, they cannot be used to do SCNT. We are going to have to wait to find out, but there is some data that indicates that many couples are willing to donate their left over, now-frozen, embryos. But there is a difference between that hypothetical question and what these couples will end up doing in real life, so it is still too early to tell whether the number of embryos is going to be sufficient.
California and Massachusetts, two states that recently passed relevant legislation that will encourage SCNT, will need to put in place some system to help ensure that women can donate their eggs without being exploited, and that the procedure is done safely. The Massachusetts legislation explicitly states that women cannot be paid for donating eggs, as a way of avoiding financial coercion on the donors. Many people think that donors will not necessarily have to be paid as an incentive; women who have relatives with diseases that could theoretically be cured or helped by the ultimate products produced by stem cell research would be more than happy to take drugs to super-ovulate for multiple egg extraction procedures. Again, much of this remains to be seen. But, as you said, the issue is how do we protect women who are undergoing a procedure that is not for their benefit in any way, and could be physically harmful to them? At the minimum, each potential donor should have her own personal physician, whose job, of course, is to protect her health and welfare.
Can egg donation, in this case, be defined as an issue of informed consent, considering that there isn't much information to base consent upon?
There are two schools of thought here. On one hand, people claim that multiple egg extraction procedures are not research in the sense that we routinely perform them in IVF clinics for women who want to have babies, or who want to donate eggs to others to be used to have children. On the other hand, there is no good long-term data on the health effects of the drugs used to induce super-ovulation. Though it doesn't look like the risk is extremely high, it raises the following question: if there is any risk at all, how can a physician justify subjecting a woman to that risk, considering (unlike in IVF) she can get no medical benefit at all from the procedure? And considering the short-term prospects of stem cell research (unlike donation to help produce a child), it's unlikely that a sick member of her family could get a medical benefit from such a procedure either. Whether a physician should even perform the procedure purely to help produce eggs for research is a medical ethics issue that has not been sufficiently addressed.
I think proposals to try to figure out other ways to get eggs from women, for example, when they are having their ovaries removed, or during some other procedure that would not expose them to additional risk, make a lot of sense. I think you would need to prove that non-risk alternatives don't work before moving on to recruiting women to be egg donors. Again, this issue only comes up in SCNT research.
Even if Congress supports stem cell research with HR 810, scientists still want to do SCNT as part of research on diseases like juvenile diabetes or Parkinson's. We know that many of the claims about SCNT to cure these diseases are exaggerated, but do you think that there is a way to move forward without supporting religious zealots or corporate interests, by carefully investigating the promise of this technology?
I think there is, but it will be very difficult to do it correctly. One of the biggest problems that we have in the United States is that there is no national public review board, there is no transparency, there is no one place where the scientists who want to do research using human embryos can go to say, "Here is the research I want to do, this is how I'm going to do it, do you think that this is a worthwhile proposal to be supported?" There isn't a body to which one could meaningfully say, "I'm going to do this research in an open enough way to guarantee that none of the embryos I make can be used to make a baby, but they will only be used to make stem cells for research."
Even though I have a lot of respect for the work that went into the Guidelines on Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research that was put out by the Institute of Medicine in April 2005, this is where I think they missed the boat. The group recognized that there should be national standards to guide human embryonic stem cell research, but they ultimately failed to propose a meaningful way to assure this. Although they said there should be some national policy review, they simultaneously said they didn't believe that there should be some national body that would essentially function as a national institutional review board, or IRB, that would have to approve all embryonic stem cell research protocols before they could be undertaken. Instead, they concluded that local, hospital, or corporate review bodies should be used. This is somewhat astonishing since obviously we have no experience in reviewing this area of research at all - at any level. Human embryo research is the most controversial research area in the United States and worldwide, and it would seem that rules for it should be developed and applied in a uniform manner - and this requires a national review process. The very idea that local IRBs (even if specially constituted to just review embryo research) have the expertise, or could even develop the expertise, to approve these types of research is ludicrous on its face.
There is probably a lot of resistance in the Institute of Medicine to suggest a national review board, and it is understandable, especially under the Bush administration. Nonetheless, I think that kind of governance is necessary, whether or not the research is ultimately federally funded.
Given that we don't yet have this kind of regulatory structure in place, do you then think that rejecting SCNT is the only ethical position one can take at this point?
Yes, although I think there is one possible exception to that position. Large states might be able to set up their own statewide review boards and oversight procedures. I don't know if it is going to, but California could certainly put in place procedures that would meet most of the conditions I've set out for SCNT research. The only condition it wouldn't be able to meet is having a national standard for regulation. Nonetheless, the individual states could theoretically work together to develop and adopt what would be de facto national standards. That is to say, if Massachusetts and California, for example, agreed on the same standards and implemented them in a public, statewide review process, that could be acceptable. But without some kind of statewide review, I think that you can't ethically do this kind of research, as there currently simply aren't any widely-accepted standards.
Would regulations on this kind of research include regulation on chimeras?
I would include any kind of research that involves creating (or destroying) human embryos.
Private research institutions, such as Harvard University, or states like California, Massachusetts, and New Jersey are bypassing federal stem cell funding restrictions. What, in your opinion, are the long-term political consequences of this?
First of all, no state, even California, is going to be able to provide sufficient funding for research for any length of time. I just don't think there will be many long-term consequences for states funding stem cell research, because first, they can't afford it, and second, this situation is an artifact of the current federal administration's funding policy.
Nonetheless, the fact that states like California have changed their constitutions, and institutions like Harvard have been able to successfully raise private capital, indicates the erosion of the basic idea that the federal government should be the primary funding - and regulatory - source for very innovative research. Such research should be publicly approved, either through an IRB, or some kind of a scientific and ethical review at the National Institutes of Health. The danger of cutting-edge research, especially research that can be problematic if not done according to high ethical standards, is that it will go into the underground, and essentially secret, private sector. There, it will become akin to classified military research, where no one knows about it until the consequences are unleashed on the world. It's potentially very dangerous.
So are your main concerns about private and state initiatives for stem cell research related to poor regulation and oversight, and private gain from public funding?
Public regulation and fair distribution of benefits are both important. But neither are related exclusively to embryonic stem cell research. The concern about the private benefits from publicly funded research, for example, is a generic one in terms of our inability, in the United States, to have a reasonable system of national health insurance, to distribute the medical fruits of research in a fair and equitable manner. That's not an issue we should be taking out just on embryonic stem cell research, but it is one that needs to be addressed. Nonetheless, we should prohibit restrictive patenting. But the biggest concern is that this research will be done without public accountability because it will almost certainly have a direct impact on not just what we will be able to do, but more importantly about how we think about ourselves as humans, including the meaning of health and life itself.
Would you feel comfortable making a prediction about the status of stem cell research 10 years down the road?
Considering that there is not enough information to make a prediction for one year down the road, I couldn't say I'm comfortable making a prediction for ten. I will say that we will know a lot more next year about what direction we are going in, as we'll know what happened with the proposed legislation at the federal level, and how things are going in Massachusetts under its new stem cell research statute, and whether things in California are moving or are at a standstill. It's going to be a very important year for embryonic stem cell research in the United States.
Is there anything else you would like to add about cloning and stem cell research?
I think it's very important to make the distinction between using human embryos produced by SCNT to make medicine and using them to make babies. If you want to support the former and not the latter (and this is a worldwide consensus position), you are absolutely required to have serious regulatory transparency systems in place, otherwise SCNT research to make medicine will inevitably lead to replicative cloning to make babies. This means, I think, having rules that include the prohibition of creating SCNT embryos by anyone involved in IVF or fertility treatment, doing SCNT research by anyone involved in IVF or fertility treatment, prohibiting the freezing of SCNT embryos - so they cannot be "stockpiled" or transported for possible reproductive use, and, of course, prohibiting any commerce in embryos created by SCNT. The only one of these minimal regulatory prohibitions that is currently agreed upon is the prohibition of commerce, but we will need the others as well if we want to move forward with SCNT research.
Sujatha Byravan is the President of the Council for Responsible Genetics
Race and Genetics
For centuries, human societies have divided population groups into separate races. While there is no scientific basis for this, people unquestioningly accept these classifications as fact.
Other Genetic Issues
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Dialogue21.com Family of Forums > Theology > General Theology
THE OLD TESTAMENT and ME
General Theology The study of god, or gods, concerning life: its origin and its purposes and the metaphysial relevance of "spirits."
RonPrice
Location: George Town Tasmania
The Hebrew Bible, called The Old Testament by Christians, is an extraordinarily difficult sequence of books.1 This difficulty, too easily underestimated, is greater now than it ever was, partly because no contemporary reader, however specialized, shares in the psychology of the original readers and writers of The Bible. The first millennium in which anyone read any of the words in any of the books from 1000 B.C. to the time of Christ or, perhaps more accurately, 600 B.C. to 400 A.D.2
My first memories of The Old Testament come from Bible readings in grade six when I was 11 and my mother reading passages from little booklets from the Unity School of Christianity as early as the mid-1950s. Although some of the quotations had a broad ethical appeal to me even as a boy in my late childhood and early teens, I found the stories abstruse and distant: goats, sheep, tribes, and curious names like Balthazar and Nebuchadnezzar. They all occupied another universe far removed from my little town of 5000 in Ontario in that post-WW2 world of the 1950s. This distance existed then, as it does now, nearly 60 years later.
My individual understanding of The Bible, my biblical interpretations, rely primarily at the age of nearly 70 on my experience of nearly 60 years of intimate association with the Baha’i Faith. My interpretations and those of the Baha’i teachings are provocative, if nothing else. But I have always found there to be a vast distance from the psychic universe of the biblical writers beginning as early as, say, 900 B.C.2 and the contemporary society that is my world. I know I have lots of company; indeed I rarely meet anyone who actually reads The Old Testament any more.
However abstruse the language of biblical prophecy and eschatology, the prophets of The Old Testament, I believe, were given a foreknowledge of the events of our times in their visions, visions which I’m sure they hardly understood themselves. Still, there lies a sure presentation of the times we are living-through, as long as one does not take those prophecies literally. Yahweh's choice of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their descendants as part of the Chosen People story was a permanent decision, intended to prevail into a time without boundaries, into our time.-Ron Price with thanks to Harold Bloom, “Prose and Poetry,” in The New York Times, 17 October, 1982: a review of Dan Jacobson’s THE STORY OF THE STORIES: The Chosen People and Its God, and the final editor, or redactor, after the return from the Babylonian Exile in the 6th century BC, put all the books of The Old Testament into something like their present form.
When this review appeared in The New York Times I had just arrived in Australia’s Northern Territory & the heat of summer was just beginning to make me run for cover to air-conditioning in my office, my home & the cool air of the car....The Old Testament was on my universe’s far-periphery.
There it had always been in heat and cold since those first stories when I was in grade six in that little town in Ontario’s Golden Horseshoe where everyone I knew was Catholic or Jew or Protestant, or nothing; yes, mostly nothing and there they have remained with that Old Testament far removed from everyone’s everyday life. Still… I have time now to try to get into it in this the evening of my life; however, complex and abstruse it may be, I want to make-up for the decades when it had to remain far out on my life’s periphery.
1 Harold Bloom, “Prose and Poetry,” in The New York Times, 17 October, 1982
2 a review of Dan Jacobson’s THE STORY OF THE STORIES: The Chosen People and Its God.
3 See Frank Kermode, “God Speaks Through His Women,” in The New York Times, 23 September 1990
4 a review of Harold Bloom’s The Book of J.
Ron Price
married for 47 years, a teacher for 32, a student for 18, writer and editor for 15, and a Baha'i for 55 (in 2014)
Last edited by AdminGal : 07-21-2013 at 05:03 AM. Reason: Formatting
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The Road to Stonewall: Anita Cornwell
Anita Cornwell had been an out lesbian for more than two decades when Stonewall happened. She had wandered the small streets of Greenwich Village in the 1940s-1950s and had written about her experiences in The Ladder, where she was the first black lesbian to write for the publication. She also wrote about her experiences as a black woman in Negro Digest.
Negro Digest boldly referred to her as a lesbian — groundbreaking in the 1950s. Cornwell was one of the first black lesbian activists many Philadelphia LGBTQ people knew of in the early years, pre-Stonewall. Her presence was a constant over several decades at LGBTQ events.
In her iconic book Black Lesbian in White America, widely noted as the first collection of essays by a black lesbian, Cornwell writes, “During that time, about the only visible Gays were the swaggering butch and the swishing faggot, who were about as welcome in that ‘genteel’ climate of the fifties as a grizzly bear. In fact, I do believe the bear would have had a decided advantage.” She said of lesbians of her era, “We of the fifties (and the forties and on back to when) not only had to operate from the closet but, worse yet, most of us seemed to exist in a vacuum.”
A defiantly staunch feminist and, for a period of time, a lesbian separatist, Cornwell infused her politics into every local and national group to which she belonged. Hers were fierce and seductive politics, framed in a folksy, witty, charming banter that casually insinuated itself into the conversation until everyone was listening only to Anita Cornwell.
No one else was talking, and so she told the complex tale of being a black lesbian in white America. Cornwell was, above all, a raconteur. She told stories from every chapter of her life and every decade of gay and lesbian life. She was a chronicler of her time. And when she spoke, everyone listened.
The population of Greenwood, South Carolina was only 8,700 in 1923 when Cornwell was born there. A third of the population was black, but it was the height of Jim Crow laws and as Cornwell recounted in interviews, it was a time of tremendous poverty fueled by racism, “when integration was a term seen only in the dictionary.”
She told Philadelphia historian Marc Stein that there would have been no knowledge of gayness in that environment — that it was like another century. She said she first became aware she was attracted to women in her teens but didn’t come out until she met other lesbians after college in the late 1940s.
Her family moved to Yeadon, then Philadelphia, when Cornwell was 16 — after she had attended the New York World’s Fair in 1939 with her grandmother.
After graduating with a journalism degree from Temple University in 1948, Cornwell worked for local area newspapers, including the Philadelphia Tribune and the Bulletin. She wrote poetry and essays and published her work in a range of lesbian and feminist publications from 1950-80, among them Feminist Review, Labyrinth, Azalea: A Magazine by Third-World Lesbians and BLACK/OUT — which was published in Philadelphia and edited by Philadelphia gay poet Joe Beam.
Cornwell was a member of Daughters of Bilitis and one of the founding members of the Philadelphia chapter of Radicalesbians.
As Cornwell explained in an interview with Marc Stein, when she was 70, she became involved in lesbian-feminist politics right at the cusp of Stonewall. She said, “Black women have always been feminists. I mean that’s the only way we survived, that we were feminists. See a lot of people think being feminist means you hate men. And straight women hate men more. Most gay women are feminists, to some extent, I think. Well, naturally I was very interested in the women’s movement because that was the only movement that I saw that might include me.”
Philadelphia writer Becky Birtha wrote the foreword to Cornwell’s book, Black Lesbian in White America. She notes that the book offers an acute political analysis of both racial and sexual oppressions. Cornwell was writing about what wasn’t yet known. Her book includes an interview with Audre Lorde, who would become the best-known and most prolific black lesbian feminist essayist of the 20th century.
In her book, Cornwell elucidates how lesbians must address their internalized misogyny as well as their internalized homophobia. It was a revolutionary theory when she first explored it. She wrote, “The thing I find most disturbing regarding womyn in general is the seeming impossibility of their thinking clearly when it comes time to deal with men. Womyn with advanced university degrees often seem utterly unable to dot an i when they are confronted with the realities of man’s barbaric treatment of womyn. To put it bluntly, I find it absolutely terrifying to see just how effective men have been in eradicating womyn’s sense of self, a condition that seems to prevail in at least 90 percent of all womyn all over this male-infected globe.”
Racism was another crucial issue for Cornwell, and she found it embedded in the bar culture where, she said, “We went to one gay bar, which was called Rusty’s, and it was very prejudiced. I could tell they didn’t want us [black lesbians] there.”
Cornwell also addresses racism in the feminist movement but is slightly easier on women. She said, “See, you can’t live in a country that’s racist and not be affected in some manner or other. So naturally they had the same attitudes to some extent that the regular society had. But also there was some willingness to try to change to some extent. Of course there were varying degrees of success and non-success.”
For Cornwell, the focus of her activism always included women and lesbians. She lived most of her years in West Philly on the outskirt of the Penn campus in a series of communes with other women. She spent time at the Women’s Center and read her poetry and fiction throughout the city, at the gay community center and other venues.
Now 95, Cornwell has suffered from dementia for over a decade and lives in a stately nursing home in Germantown. Another longtime lesbian activist, Ahavia Lavana, lived in the same nursing home as Cornwell until she died in November 2018.
In 2011, Lavana posted on Cornwell’s Amazon page, “I have known the author for many years. Anita no longer remembers that she wrote this book, but I got her to sign my copy. She said she had never done this before. But I told her that she had signed many books. So she wrote her name and then thought a moment. Then she said ‘I’m a celebrate!’ I told her that she most certainly is a celebrate and gave her a hug. When she sees me, she knows I know her and smiles at me. Which delights me as mostly she just sits. This is a wonderful book and should be read by any feminist and lesbian.”
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A mix of clouds and sun. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High near 100F. Winds S at 15 to 25 mph..
Partly cloudy skies. Warm and humid. Low 79F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph.
Letter to the Editor: In response to Carter Donahue's opinion piece on Colin Kaepernick
Kyle Funk
This letter to the editor is a response to an opinion column written by Carter Donahue and published Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2016.
To Carter Donahue and the editorial staff at the The Daily Nebraskan:
The rambling incoherence and contradiction of your piece on Colin Kaepernick can be overlooked as the shortcomings of a writer in training. However, your ignorance surrounding a central theme of your article, systemic oppression of African-Americans in the United States, is unacceptably negligent. Even though you contradict yourself at least twice, you do state in an important paragraph that, “When I look from the perspective of our federal law, I don’t see black oppression at all. It doesn’t exist.” My letter is primarily a response to this argument, because I think it merits a clear and utter refutation.
A cursory Google search or a basic understanding of American history would yield some obvious examples of federal laws and state laws meant to oppress black Americans. Such as: Slavery! That is about as oppressive as you can get, and in our constitution it was written that one black person counted as three fifths of one white person. That is textbook racism. You might argue that slavery was a long time ago, and I would argue that 150 years is not a long time, especially in light of the fact that it existed in the colonial U.S. for over two centuries. Either way, slavery only sets the stage for the next obvious example that you neglected to remember.
Jim Crow laws! That’s right, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 that it was legal to segregate whites and blacks as long as they had equal facilities. The famous “separate but equal” ruling. Of course, we all know that in practice the freedoms and facilities enjoyed by the recently emancipated people were not equal. Supporting data for that assertion can be found in abundance.
This egregious and federally legal oppression of African-Americans only began to be rolled back in 1954 with the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. The Board of Education, which led to a trickling integration of public schools. This progress was only possible due to the courageous sacrifices of many social activists. Now, you might argue that 1954 was a long time ago, but then you would be calling my dad old. He is old, but he doesn’t like to be called old. Just like my dad, systemic racism in America is still getting along just fine.
For those of you that paid attention in your U.S. history classes and read the above, I apologize for the repetition, but the author and his editors must be reprimanded for discounting the vast majority of our nation’s history. Oppression of black Americans is still legal today, but it is not as obvious when reading the text of our laws. Instead, look at the indicators of oppression. According to data from the United States Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics (go to the original source if you want to do journalism!), in 2013 black males had a per capita incarceration rate 6.9 times higher than that of white males. According to The Counted (a database on U.S. police killings compiled by The Guardian), African-Americans were killed by police at a per capita rate 2.6 times greater than whites in 2015. According to a recent report from University of Pennsylvania, black K-12 students in southern states are suspended and expelled at disproportionately high rates (Smith and Harper 2015). I don’t even have enough time or space or knowledge to begin discussing racist housing policies after World War II.
It seems perfectly normal for a young aspiring journalist to offer their hot take on the latest trending controversial subject, but this is an institution of higher learning: do your homework. The article is poorly written from a rhetorical perspective because it lacks a coherent structure and the evidence presented is not even relevant to the central argument, which is excessively vague. By far the worst part is that you dismiss centuries of oppression with disturbing ease. Maybe it requires a little more thought for white people to see racism in America, but I imagine it is all too easy for people of color to see it. Please put more thought into your future articles.
Smith, E. J., & Harper, S. R. (2015). Disproportionate impact of K-12 school suspension and expulsion on Black students in southern states. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education.
https://www.gse.upenn.edu/equity/sites/gse.upenn.edu.equity/files/publications/Smith_Harper_Report.pdf
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