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HELP! Engaged to a Moroccan
Reader comment on item: Advice to Non-Muslim Women against Marrying Muslim Men
Submitted by DIDI (Morocco), May 27, 2019 at 00:02
Ok, so while searching for advice on Moroccan men, I came across this site. And reading all of the tragic stories now has me suspicious.. which I should've been anyway, but never would have imagined how deep this ran. NOW, I'm confused and need advice.
Ok, so I'm an American, early 30s. Was on vacation in Europe when I met a Moroccan guy in Italy. Of course, hit it off, they are so gorgeous! He doesn't speak English, luckily we both speak some Italian. So, we exchanged numbers and talked. He initially didn't know I was American, I didn't share this right away. Honestly I didn't realize he wasn't European as he has a very fair complexion. He of course laid on the charm heavily, we chatted while I was there. I broke the news a week later I was leaving and that I was actually American. He broke it off saying he was looking for someone local and doubt his family would approve of an American, this is when he advised me of him being Moroccan, Arabic, and Muslim.
I accepted, got back to the US. but couldn't stop thinking about him. So I called him and asked why he had turned me down just bc I was an American. He explained culture differences, perceptions of Americans, etc. I said we should at least try bc things were going well, my family isn't racist, and love could conquer all. He said he'd talk it over with his family and if they were ok, we could continue. Of course a couple days later, he called and said family would like to eventually meet me, but was ok with the relationship.
So we chatted by video. He called me all the time, even when he was at work. I fell head over feet! Then he loss his job. Again, he called it off saying a man with no job isn't worth marrying. Me being me, called the next day saying I was still interested. Yes I know, stupid of me. He explained he was an illegal immigrant and was not likely to find work so easily. He said I was better off moving on and he was better off searching for a European lady to marry so he wouldn't be on the streets.
Again, I stupidly called him back and said love conquers all and believe we met for a reason. I offered him cash, he refused. I offered to pay for an apartment, he refused. He said he was a man and didn't need anything. So he was homeless for a few months, we talked anytime he could work a little and pay for his cell minutes and could charge the phone. Winter time roles around and he's sleeping outside and gets really ill, he has to be admitted to the hospital. He was so ill he couldn't even speak hardly, so the doctor asked who he wanted to call to help translate, and he said me. So here I was sitting in my office chatting with an Italian doctor who said he's got to get off the streets. I told him I was finding him a place and that was that, I cared for him. I didn't know what the future held, but I was paying rent for a couple months so he could get on his feet. He refused to let rent him a full apartment bc it was too expensive, so he got a room on airbnb for cheap and asked if I could send a little money for food. He was barely eating once a day. So he again called it off bc he felt like I saw him as charity and wouldn't respect him bc he didn't work. And he assumed I must be desperate or a whore to be with a man like him bc women in Morocco paid him no mind bc he was from a poor family.
I'm sure this is part of their scam. But I fell for it. Told him I was a Godly woman, didn't see him as charity, just like helping him bc that is love in America. He seemed amazed by this. He was 40, gorgeous, and never married bc he was poor. He assumed he'd have to wait to find a woman interested, but felt that Allah must've loved him alot bc he sent me. So he asked if I was interested in marriage and kids, I said yes. So he asked if I wanted to live in the US. I said yes. So he invited me to come visit Italy again. So I came for a 2 week visit and rented a cheap place for us. We had a great time, except a couple hiccups. He revealed his jealousy... and proceeded to tell me what I could no longer wear, no longer go, and deleted 90% of my FB pics. Ok, I let it slide bc I knew it was coming with a muslim guy. I video chatted with his entire family, they all seemed to approve. They seemed particularly happy that I was not white and thought we'd make great looking babies. That's when the pressure started. They wanted us married and working on a baby. Why the rush I ask him? He said bc he was already 40 and needed to settle down. He said some of the family was initially hesitant but got on board when the realized I was not white and thought I looked pretty enough to fit in? (?)
So we looked into the fiance visa.. wait times was a year, he said too long for him to be without papers. So he suggested I temporarily move to Europe and we work on 1-2 year residency there, then move to the US later. Ok, that sounded like a good idea as I had wanted to take a couple years break from the mundane corporate life in the US. So I did, after a few hiccups, I got a short term visa to stay but not to work. Which he seems ok with, as long as he can work. So here's where things turn...
We're 2 months away from our planned wedding and some things are bothering me. First off, he has a very bad temper. He warned me, but I wasn't prepared for this. He did slap me 2x already, which the 2nd time I slapped him back. He hasn't done it sense but he was so angry when I slapped him back, we had a huge fight that lasted all night, included him calling it quits, and screaming half the night how he didn't love me anyway just wanted a green card. Mind you, he and I decided to stop using birth control and let it happen naturally if we got pregnant bc he all of a sudden wanted a baby bc the family was pushing it. In this fight he says he only wanted the baby so it would look good for immigration! I couldn't believe the kind, loving, but stubborn man I'd come to love was so hateful! The look in his eyes was so mean but almost comical, he was definitely trying to hurt me. He said he knew he could not trust me, that I wasn't even marriage material and planned on leaving soon as he got his papers bc he'd never love me or the kid, we were just a stepping stone. He said he'd tried to call it quits but I begged him to come back so he did so he could get the visa. I tried to be tough and act like it didn't bother me, so I said fine, tomorrow I'll be leaving back to the US.
So I grabbed a blanket and went to sleep on the couch. His brother called me like normal to chat. As soon as he saw my face he knew something was wrong. I told him what he'd said and that we were done. His brother tells me that he is saying that only to hurt me bc he's upset and treats everyone that way. But deep down he has a good heart and will calm down and apologize tomorrow. I was like how could someone say such hurtful things and I broke down in tears. He overheard my breakdown and came out of the bedroom and instantly started apologizing for saying things he didn't mean. That he was just so hurt that I'd slapped him back he wanted to really hurt me. He said he wouldn't allow me to sleep on the couch and he'd leave that night if I wanted him too. I was so confused, I just fell asleep with him holding em. He apologized and I forgave him. He has not hit me anymore, we talked how this was a very bad thing in Western culture and a man who loves a woman doesn't hit her. He agreed and catches himself. He has loss his temper 2 other times at night which I have to really work to calm him down. The last couple times he packed his stuff and left,only to come back an hour later and apologize. Reminding me he told me from the beginning he has a temper and when he's mad he says hurtful things. And yes, I've seem him treat his family like this too. They seem to be used to it and just let it slide.
So here we are, I just found out I am pregnant last week. He's so happy. The wedding date is set. I went to visit his family in Morocco last month and stayed for 4 weeks. They were all nice... too nice in fact it felt fake. Today he told me he was really, really sorry for how he's treated me and that he wants to work on this. He did ask for me to start covering my body once we're married like traditional Muslim women. He said after we are married, he wants to move (he has a job offer), and for us to start fresh away from family and friends. He said he hasn't been the best person to me, but wants to be the best husband and father. He said he's been very stressed due to how he was raised and trying to balance that with who he wants to be. He said he just wants me and him and our baby to start fresh and not let anyone else interfere or have any say so. He asked that I not discuss our plans or problems with anyone in his or my family bc he doesn't want anyone having a say so, this is our life.
What do you all think, is this all part of the scam? Do you think when he's angry he's truthful? Think maybe he was scamming but wants to change? Help, I'm so confused. I've accused him of scamming, he threw a fit. He reminded me he'd never asked for anything until he was desperate. He is asking me not to work. He wanted to start a family right away. And he called it off many times. He also advised me that if I wanted to wait for him to get established before marriage, he would be ok with that bc he wasn't a scammer. Sure papers to the US would be good but just to visit, he didn't think we could afford to live there now without both of us working and that was out of the question. So what do ya'll think? Anyone have a similar experience?
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Mark my comment as a response to HELP! Engaged to a Moroccan by DIDI
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Revision as of 21:53, 6 March 2009; Brooks Lindsay (Talk | contribs)
(diff) ←Older revision | Current revision | Newer revision→ (diff)
This debate has been stimulated in large part by the Kyoto Protocol, which exempted some developing nations, such as China and India, from the same emissions-reductions obligations as developed countries. The principle underlying Kyoto is known as "common but differentiated responsibilities", which continues as a centerpiece of this debate. China, India, and other developing countries often site this principle, while many developed countries argue that conditions have changed as developing countries have begun to industrialize and pollute more rapidly in recent years.
6. Equality: Is equal per-capita emissions a good objective? | | | |
Developed must protect developing from higher costs of warming The authors of a 2006 UN report warned that rich countries - especially the wealthy Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations - are driving an ecological crisis that will hit the poor hardest. These are nations living near the equator and in low-lying coastal areas most vulnerable to rising seas. This global warming "irony" creates a greater obligation on the part of developed countries to respond, and protect developing countries from the costs of their blind industrialization, mass consumption, and wealth-accumulation.
Developed/developing have common but differentiated responsibilities The Rio Declaration from The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development states - "In view of the different contributions to global environmental degradation, States have common but differentiated responsibilities. The developed countries acknowledge the responsibility that they bear in the international pursuit of sustainable development in view of the pressures their societies place on the global environment and of the technologies and financial resources they command."[3]
Developing country exemptions negate developed country leadership Kyoto Protocol exempted developing countries such as China from meeting certain key emissions standards. The problem is that the new emissions from China would offset all emissions cuts from developed nations. As a result, the world, under Kyoto Protocol, would/will emit roughly the same amount and make little progress to cutting emissions overall. This is unacceptable. Developed countries cannot be expected to lead on climate change under such circumstances.
Developed states emit more; their steps have higher impact. "UN: Rich Nations Must Lead Fight Against Global Warming". eNews. November 27th 2007 - "The United States has a 'unique responsibility' to abide by international agreements on emissions reduction to protect both its economic growth and to prevent catastrophic reversals to progress made in health, education and poverty reduction for the poor. The [UN] report criticized Washington for not imposing nationwide mandatory cuts on industrial emissions. [...] Stating the fact that the world's richest countries are also the biggest carbon emitters, the report said the US has to take the lead by cutting emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 in addition to contributing to a new 86-billion-dollar annual global fund to help poor countries adapt to climate change. [...] The report said the 19 million inhabitants in New York state have a higher carbon footprint than 766 million people living in 50 least developed countries."
"Obligations" miss point; all states need to solve climate change. The idea that some countries are more responsible than others to cut emissions and fight global warming misses the point - global warming is a collective, global problem that can only be successfully combated if every country puts its wits and resources fully behind resolving the crisis. Developed and developing countries are equally responsible to resolving the crisis. Developing nations should swallow their legitimate frustrations with developed nations for causing global warming, and focus their attention on helping form a collective solution. We're all in this together.
Equality: Is equal per-capita emissions a good objective?
Developed emit more per capita; more obligated to cut rate Emissions per capita are much higher in developed countries (20t per capita in the US) compared to developing ones (less than 4t per capita). This means that developed nations are more responsible for causing global warming, more responsible for continuing global warming, and so more obligated to cut emissions and solve the problem. An important point here is that individuals are ultimately responsible for consuming goods and emitting corresponding greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Per capita emissions help capture the fact that wealthy individuals in wealthy states are emitting much more and so more individually responsible for global warming. These relatively wealthy individuals in developed states have, therefore, a greater individual culpability for global warming and responsibility to fight it now and in the future. Because developed states and governments represent these individuals and their greater individual responsibility to fight global warming, developed-state governments are collectively more obligated to fight global warming on behalf of their people.
Argument: Developed are responsible to commit "green" technologies Developed states have more applicable technologies and know-how for the fight on global warming. They are uniquely responsible to commit these resources toward the fight on global warming. They are also responsible to transfer them to developing countries, which cannot effectively fight global warming without these technologies first.
Developed states have responsibility set model of "green" economies. Developing countries are not capable, with their limited resources and know-how to develop, on their own, the best "green" model for their societies. Developed countries have a responsibility to act first and set an example that developing countries can follow.
Developed states are doing everything they can on climate change Developed countries typically are much more energy efficient than developing countries. This is an example of how they are already taking major steps to combat global warming; steps which developing countries are not taking. They have no further obligation beyond these steps.
States should contribute equally to combating climate change. It is true that developed states will contribute more resources and money on absolute terms, simply because their wealthy is greater. But, they have not obligation to contribute more money and resources as a percentage of GDP. This should be roughly equal across all states.
Developing states want lower standards for economic advantage Pete Du Pont. "Bali Who?". Wall Street Journal. December 19, 2007 - "Under cover of fighting global warming, developing countries try to slow America's economy. [...] Developing nations don't want to be limited in any way, and they do want to slow down the economic growth of developed nations so they can gain economically."
China is worst contributor to climate change; has equal obligations In 2006, China's CO2 emissions surpassed those of the US by 8%, according to the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, making it the largest contributor to global warming. This means that, in the era of knowledge regarding the effects of greenhouse emissions on global warming, China has at least an equal responsibility as developed nations to cut emissions.
Developed state demand drives emissions in developing states It is true that China is a manufacturing behemoth, and emitting large quantities of greenhouse gases as a result. But, who is consuming the majority of the goods made in the factories in China that is causing their huge carbon footprint? Developed countries are the chief consumers and drivers of this manufacturing and emissions. They have, therefore, a certain responsibility for the manufacturing and emissions that are occurring in China and India. This is where exemptions for parts of their emissions help compensate for the fact they they alone are not responsible for this manufacturing and emissions - the world is responsible.
Developed outsource manufacturing/emissions to developed. Developed countries frequently outsource manufacturing/emissions to developing countries. For this reason, developed countries should not be treated on equal terms, and developing countries should be given exemptions for the dirty outsourcing for foreign countries. China has complained, on this point, that it is "the place where the US effectively outsources much of its pollution." It has called for joint international responsibility for at least part of China's emissions, and has made public, in Jan 2008, 130 violations of Chinese environmental law committed by multinationals in China. Other developing countries have a similar problem, in which they are accused of polluting too much, when they are merely the manufacturing engine of developed countries that outsource to them.
"What equals effective". Down To Earth Magazine. December 15, 2007
"Taking Responsibility: Why the United States Must Lead the World in Reducing Global Warming Pollution". Pew Charitable Trust. Dec 06, 2007
Pete Du Pont. "Bali Who?". Wall Street Journal. December 19, 2007
"The Principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibilities: Origins and Scope". The World Summit on Sustainable Development, 2002
"Hu urges 'common but differentiated responsibilities'". China Daily. June 8, 2007
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Archiv Infopoint - News slider Top News
Information : Julia Laffranque – Candidate European Ombudsman
27. November 2019 abdarag
Julia Laffranque is since 2011 a judge at the European Court of Human Rights, 2015-2018 Vice-President of II Section, 2013-2016 Chair of the Annual Seminar Committee of the same Court. Since 2018 she is a member of the Scientific Committee of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights.
She was professor of European law at the University of Tartu (2011-2016) and is currently visiting professor. Julia Laffranque was previously a Justice of the Supreme Court of Estonia (member of administrative law and constitutional law chambers) from 2004–2010. Prior to that, she was a European Union law expert, Head of EU law and foreign relations division and later Deputy Secretary General of the Ministry of Justice of Estonia (1996-2004).
She holds a Doctor Iuris (PhD) of Law degree from her alma mater the University of Tartu and LL.M from University of Münster, Germany. She has also studied in Litchfield High School, USA, at the University of Hamburg, researched at the European University-Institute in Florence and at the University of Kiel and held traineeships at the European Commission Legal Service, Justice Ministries of France and Sweden, Conseil d’Etat and Bundesverwaltungsgericht.
Julia Laffranque is the author of a number of textbooks and articles on EU, human rights law and constitutional law, and is one of the authors of amendments to the Estonian Constitution as well as co-author of the commentary of Estonian Constitution. She has published over 100 articles in Estonian, English, German and French in different European and US-American legal journals and was editor of Proceedings of XXV FIDE Congress, 2012. Her main works include law books ”Euroopa Liit ja Euroopa Ühendus: institutsioonid ja õigus (EU and European Communities: institutions and law)”, 1999; co-author of French-Estonian-French Legal Dictionary, 2002; “Õppematerjal kohtunikele: Eelotsuse küsimine Euroopa Kohtult (Textbook for judges: How to Request Preliminary Rulings from the European Court of Justice)”, 2005; “Euroopa Liidu õigussüsteem ja Eesti õiguse koht selles (Legal System of European Union and Estonian law)”, 2006; European Court of Human Rights and Estonian Law, 2017.
Julia Laffranque has been president of the Consultative Council of European Judges of Council of Europe (CCJE) from 2008-2010 and president of the International Federation for European Law (FIDE) 2010-2012. She has also been member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (The Hague). She has been member of the Board of the Estonian Academic Law Society, of the board of the Estonian Lawyers Union and of the policy think-tank PRAXIS. She is member (as alumna), of student organization Filiae Patriae and member of the board of Estonian School in Strasbourg.
Julia Laffranque was awarded the Estonian White Cross, and she is Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite of France. With the CCJE she received “Justice of the World” award. In 2013 she was elected European of the Year by European Movement Estonia. In 2016 she was elected as the best trainer of Estonian judges.
Julia Laffranque speaks Estonian, German, English, French, Finnish and Russian.
Her hobby is amateur acting and theatre; she has been member of Vilde Teater in Estonia and Tagora Theatre in Strasbourg. In 2015 she created Theatre Club of European Court of Human Rights. She also sings in the European Choir of Estonians and has participated at the Estonian Song Festival.
She is married to Rodolphe Laffranque and has three sons.
COURT-#6572771-v1-Médiateur_européen_-_Brochure_D
CV JL Deutsch2019
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Home > Blog > She is planning the first winter ascent of K2!
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She is planning the first winter ascent of K2!
It is the highest mountain in the Karakoram and the second highest on earth after Mount Everest. K2 fascinates mountaineers all over the world. It is the last 8000 peak on earth that has not been summited in winter! Tamara wants to change that now.
An ice axe and friendship
Exped-supported mountaineer Tamara Lunger wants to conquer K2 this winter together with the Romanian alpinist Alex Gavan. "I thought about it a lot and then I called Alex Gavan, who immediately told me that he already knew the reason for my call," Tamara said.
The 34-year-old met Alex in 2014 during her acclimatization phase for K2. At the time, he was climbing the 8051m Broad Peak. Tamara's loan of an ice axe to Alex, who then reached the summit with it, was symbolic of the beginning of a relationship that was both professional and friendly.
Tamara wants to make history
With this possible first ascent of K2, Tamara could not only become the first woman ever to climb an 8000er in winter, but also the first woman in history to climb the same 8000 in two different seasons. In July 2014, at the age of 28, she became the second Italian woman in history to reach the summit of K2 - without oxygen.
On 20 December, Tamara set off on the long journey towards the Himalayas. It is still uncertain exactly when she will return. That depends on the conditions. However, the 34-year-old wants to use the entire winter period until 20 March to make the seemingly impossible possible. The ascent of the mighty K2 will be made without oxygen, on the Via Abruzzi, the route Tamara climbed in 2014.
An ambitious goal
With their expedition, Tamara and Alex have set themselves an ambitious goal. In the last 30 years, dozens of the world's best mountaineers have already tried to conquer K2 in winter, but so far without success.
For Tamara personally, the difficult climb means not only an attempt to solve the so-called "last Himalayan problem", but first and foremost the fulfilment of a personal wish that she has had inside her for a long time. "For weeks I thought about this project and tried to understand if this is my path, my real dream," says Tamara.
On 21 December, Tamara addressed her followers with a video message from the plane, as Tamara would like to share this very special expedition with her community via her social media channels. "I want to show appreciation to my virtual rope team and thank them for the motivation and courage they give me." We will also be reporting on Tamara's time on K2 on Instagram and providing you with updates. We wish them both the best of luck and above all: come back home safe and sound!
About Tamara Lunger
Tamara Lunger was born in 1986 as the daughter of a well-known ski mountaineer in Bolzano and was already on the move in the mountains as a little girl. Although Tamara tried out many sports in her childhood, her passion for the mountains remained unbroken. In 2002 she started ski mountaineering and was already able to celebrate great successes. As a member of the Italian national team, she became national champion in 2006 and 2008 and vice national champion in 2007. In 2007 and 2008, Tamara also won the Pierra Menta, a race competition in ski mountaineering. Soon, however, the now 34-year-old aspired to new challenges in the high mountains. Even at the age of 14, the desire to climb an 8000 peak lay dormant in her.
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In a City of Immigrants, Support for a Middle Path for the Undocumented
July 16, 2010 / 2 comments / 1442 views
Cynthia Otero With Her Son Christian at New York Immigration Reform Rally. (Photo: Cristina DC Pastor)
NEW YORK – In his July 1 speech on immigration, President Obama gave a broad hint of an immigration reform law that would provide a path to legal status for nearly 12 million undocumented immigrants. He declared that immigrants who crossed the U.S. border without papers would not get blanket amnesty, even if “compassion drives this argument,” nor would they be deported en masse, because that would be “logistically impossible and wildly expensive.” Polls show the majority of Americans support changes in immigration policy, but there is no consensus on how do it.
Feet in Two Worlds spoke to a variety of New Yorkers about their views on immigration and their ideas for possible solutions. What emerged in this city of immigrants is a centrist position that echoed the values of fairness, accountability, common sense and the rule of law.
Lower East Side resident Cathy Barna said she would like to see undocumented immigrants come out of hiding, apply for legalization, pay taxes and learn English.
“My brother married a Mexican woman who runs a taco van and is making a nice living doing that. She works very hard. The couple in my neighborhood, the cleaning woman who stocks shelves in the store, they’re all nice people. They came here, work hard so they can have a good life,” said Barna, a manager at a chiropractor’s office. “But we have rules for a reason.”
Barna, whose husband is of Ukrainian descent, said his family and grandparents all learned to speak English. “That’s what needs to be done.”
She is not in favor of the government fining immigrants, saying it would be an added burden to them.
An NYPD officer from Brooklyn said the government should take stock of which immigrants the country needs most and make that the basis for documentation. For example, he would like to see day workers on the priority list.
“Let’s document them, get them apprenticeships as electricians or plumbers, and get them into the unions,” said the officer who declined to give his name. “A lot of them are so skilled, they just don’t have the resources to get training and licensing.” He disagreed with observations that communities with day workers clustered outside Home Depot become a hotbed of crime. “A lot of them are really good people,” he said. The officer said he is not opposed to the government offering amnesty to day laborers and teachers because these are skills the country badly needs.
He was also a strong proponent of border security, because of drug smuggling.
Everyone should be documented and everyone should pay taxes, suggested New School student Kia Lee.
Her idea of legalization involved a probation period during which applicants are screened for possible violation of the law.
“Those that passed on good behavior should be allowed to continue to keep the jobs, family and property that they have accumulated while being here illegally. They have to start the correct paperwork to become citizens the legal way,” said the Astoria, Queens resident.
There has to be accountability, stressed Swedish-born environmentalist and educator Erik Mortensen. He thinks that immigrants must pay fines and learn English as part of the pathway to legal status.
Immigration reform is a universal problem,” said Mortensen, a UN consultant. All parties should aspire to reach agreement first on issues that are easily “solvable and reachable.” He says one of these is for immigrants to learn the language and be culturally functional “as quickly as possible.”
The law, to be truly comprehensive, should apply to LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) families as well, said Tom Tierney of the grassroots advocacy group Out 4 Immigration. He said there are about 36,000 bi-national LGBT families marginalized by current immigration laws. In bi-national relationships, one partner is in the U.S. and the other is in the country of origin because of deportation or awaiting a visa.
“Right now, if you’re a gay or lesbian couple, and you have a marriage license in Connecticut, Vermont or Massachusetts, that license is not federally recognized,” Tierney explained. That means same-sex couples who are married are currently not allowed by law to sponsor their spouses for citizenship. The proposed Uniting American Families Act — sponsored by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D – NY) — seeks to change that. The bill was prompted by the case of lesbian couple Shirley Tan and Jay Mercado, a Filipino-American. Tan, from the Philippines, was threatened with deportation for overstaying a visa. They have two sons.
“I’m in favor of [immigrants] coming forward, learning English, getting back at the end of the line,” Tierney said. But he would like LGBT couples to have the same legalization opportunities as heterosexual couples. “We’re not asking for special treatment.”
Taxi driver Victor Salazar told FI2W he is in favor of granting blanket amnesty for all undocumented immigrants, but the Ecuadoran immigrant said his views do not reflect the prevailing sentiment in Hispanic communities. He argued his objections to Obama’s general plan: making English mandatory would promote “individualism,” border patrols create divisions rather than unite people, and imposing fines would penalize immigrants.
Drugs and immigration, stressed this leader of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, are two separate issues and should be dealt with separately.
“Drug smuggling cannot be solved by making walls,” he said.
New York City is a place where nearly 40 per cent of the population is foreign born, so sympathy for immigrants not surprising. Even Mayor Bloomberg is lobbying for immigration reform with a new coalition of political and business leaders, “Partnership for a New American Economy.” The mayor says that immigrants are crucial for the country’s economic growth, and are hard working people who turn the wheels of the city.
Brooklyn Immigration News Immigration Reform Manhattan New York Queens
immigrants and the economy legalization program New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg sponsoring gay and lesbian partners for U.S. residency Undocumented immigrants
About Cristina DC Pastor
Cristina DC Pastor, a former Fi2W Business and Economics Reporting fellow, is the publisher and editor of The FilAm (TheFilAm.net). Her book, “Scratch the News: Filipino Americans in Our Midst” (Inkwater, 2005), is a celebration of ordinary citizens at the center of extraordinary stories. She is a graduate of The New School.
View all posts by Cristina DC Pastor →
Immigration News Digest – 7/15/10
New York Ethnic Media Gears Up to Cover Fall Campaign
Conecta Arizona Provides a Lifeline to Spanish-Speakers During the Pandemic
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Cuba speaks in Washington on “sonic Maine”
Following his presentation to the United Nations in defense of the Cuban resolution against the U.S. blockade on November 1 (see “The USA lies and isolates itself” 11/2/2017), Cuban Minister of Foreign Relations Bruno Rodríguez traveled to Washington. During two days in the nation’s capital, he met with the National Press Club, members of Congress, and U.S. business leaders, and he visited academic centers.
At the November 2 press conference at the National Press Club, the theme of the alleged acoustic attacks against U.S. diplomatic staff in Havana dominated Rodríguez’s prepared statement and the questions from the press. The affair has had a negative effect on the relations between Cuba and the United States during the last six weeks. The United States has accused Cuba of possibly being the author of the attacks, or at least of not taking adequate measures to protect U.S. diplomatic staff. The United States has reduced significantly its diplomatic staff in Cuba; it has ordered the departure from Washington of seventeen members of the Cuban embassy staff in Washington; and it has advised U.S. travelers that travel to Cuba has potential health risks. At the beginning of the affair, Cuba denied any knowledge of the health incidents involving U.S. embassy staff, and it formed a committee of Cuban specialists and scientists to investigate the affair. The committee has concluded that the accusations of acoustic attacks are nonsensible in technical terms, and that the affair is politically motivated, taking into account the unwillingness of the United States to provide specific information and in other ways to cooperate in the investigation (see “Cuba denies acoustic attacks” 10/12/2017; “Cuba denies acoustic attacks (P.S.)” 10/20/2017).
In his prepared comments, Rodríguez observed that there has been a significant backward movement in the relations between the governments of the United States and Cuba. The first manifestation was the directive issued by President Donald Trump on June 16, when he announced a hardening of the economic, commercial, and financial blockade against Cuba. Since that date, a number of steps have been taken that have negative consequences for bilateral relations; the USA has reduced substantially its embassy staff in Havana; it has expelled seventeen Cuban diplomats from Washington, without justification, with the pretext of alleged incidents with its diplomats in Havana; and it has emitted a warning to travelers in order to dissuade them from visiting Cuba. In addition, a technical meeting on agriculture has been suspended; plans of cooperation in health has been postponed; cultural, sports, and student events have been cancelled, as have trips by dozens of groups of U.S. visitors. “These steps have been accompanied by repeated disrespectful and offensive statements with respect to Cuba by the U.S. President, retaking the hostile rhetoric of the moments of greatest confrontation.”
Concerning the alleged acoustic attacks, the Cuban Minister of Foreign Relations declared:
President Trump and high functionaries of his government have asserted that its diplomats in Havana have been the object of attacks, holding the Cuban government directly responsible, yet they have not been able to present the most minimal evidence to this respect. The measures adopted against Cuba are unjustified and politically motivated, and they are not based on evidence or on the results of investigations. The Cuban government does not have any responsibility in the incidents that are alleged to have affected U.S. diplomats.
Rodríguez notes that, in spite of the lack of cooperation of the United States in investigating the alleged incidents, the Cuban interdisciplinary committee of experts and scientists has arrived to a preliminary conclusion, to wit: “There does not exist any evidence of the occurrence of the alleged incidents nor of the causes and the origin of the health symptoms. . . . Neither are there proofs that these health problems have been caused by an attack of any nature.” He further states: “The United States continues speaking of ‘attacks’ and ‘acoustic attacks,’ . . . even though it is demonstrated by experts that this is not possible, because the diversity of the reported symptoms cannot be due to a single cause, and because there does not exist a known technology that would be able to direct a sonic source selectively against specific persons without affecting others.”
Following the prepared statement by the Cuban Minister, Serena Marshall of ABC News asked, “Are you accusing the United States of inventing these attacks for political purposes?” Rodríguez responded, “I am saying that no attack has occurred, that no deliberate act has occurred, that no specific incident has occurred. If the government of the United States has a contrary opinion, I invite it to present evidence. . . . The possibility that someone has committed deliberate acts against North American personnel accredited in Havana or their families can be excluded absolutely.”
In response to a similar question by Lucía Leal (EFE), the Cuban Minister of Foreign Relations declared:
I can categorically affirm that anyone asserting that there have been attacks, deliberate acts, or specific instances as cause of these health symptoms is deliberately lying. I have said, and I reiterate, that these health problems are being used as a pretext of a political nature, with political objectives, in order to eliminate the progress that has been attained and to damage bilateral relations.
The political objective of U.S. policy with respect to Cuba since 1959 has been the collapse of the revolutionary government, a goal that we today call “regime change.” The strategy has been to suffocate the Cuban economy by means of the economic, commercial, and financial blockade, thus provoking opposition among the people to the revolutionary government. The Obama administration concluded that the strategy had failed, and that it would be more effective to support an expanding middle class and small-scale private enterprises in Cuba, with the expectation that this sector would constitute itself as a political force that would push for changes that would be consistent with U.S. economic interests. Trump wants to return to the strategy of the blockade and the aggressive rhetoric of the worst moments of the USA-Cuba relation.
In spite of the fact that many believe that the blockade has failed and/or that it is not morally justifiable, the return to the blockade strategy by Trump has a certain political logic. A hard line strategy against Cuba is consistent with the hard line against Venezuela, North Korea, and Iran; and with an attitude of disdain toward international organizations and the opinions of other governments of the world, especially those of the Third World. In taking a consistent hard line against Cuba and other “rogue” nations and against international opinion, Trump seeks to forge an alliance of the extreme Right of the Republic Party, the military-industrial complex, and right-wing populism. The “make American strong again” approach has a degree of credibility among a sector of the U.S. public, which also may accept as true the sonic attack allegations against Cuba, as a consequence of the distorted image of Cuba as an authoritarian society that stands opposed to the United States.
The unsubstantiated allegations of acoustic attacks are nonsensical from a technical point of view. In addition, they make no sense from a political point of view, in that Cuba has an interest in the normalization of relations, and it has no reason to engage in such attacks or to tolerate attacks by third parties. They also stand against Cuba’s long-standing pattern of protecting the security of diplomatic personnel, in according with international norms. Therefore, the allegations verge on the absurd, appearing to Cubans to be science fiction, in spite of their possessing a certain logic in a U.S. political context.
Some media of communication in the United States have reported on the alleged sonic attacks as fact, and Senator Marco Rubio has demanded reprisals against Cuba. As a result, the affair reminds some Cuban journalists of the reaction of the United States to the explosion of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana bay in 1898, which killed 266 sailors and officers. Subsequent investigations of the Maine explosion concluded that it was internal, either accidental or an act of sabotage by an unknown person or group. The U.S. government, however, claimed that the explosion was provoked from the exterior of the ship, and it was either an act of Spanish aggression or an act of Cuban sabotage intended to provoke U.S. intervention. The explosion caused an escalation of the bellicose rhetoric in the press, and it was a pretext for initiating military action against Spain, which was a decisive step toward the establishment of a neocolonial republic in Cuba under U.S. domination. Cuban journalists see a similarity between these events of 1898 and today: they both involve an escalation of hostile rhetoric and a justification of aggressive action on the basis of an event of uncertain origin, with the intention of establishing U.S. domination, or at least the appearance of U.S. reassertion of power. Accordingly, Cuban journalists call the affair the “sonic Maine.”
Author: Charles McKelvey
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Active Citizens, Africa, Aid, Armed Conflicts, Civil Society, Civilisations Find Alliances, Development & Aid, Featured, Global, Global Governance, Headlines, Health, Human Rights, Humanitarian Emergencies, IPS UN: Inside the Glasshouse, Middle East & North Africa, Religion, TerraViva United Nations | Analysis
Ebola and ISIS: A Learning Exchange Between U.N. and Faith-based Organisations
By Prof. Azza Karam Reprint | | Print |
Dr. Azza Karam is a Senior Advisor, Culture, at the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).
Scene from an Ebola treatment facility run by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Guéckédou, Guinea. Credit: UN Photo/Ari Gaitanis
NEW YORK, Nov 13 2014 (IPS) - The simultaneity presented by the outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus on one hand and militant barbarism ostensibly in the name of Islam on the other present the international development community – particularly the United Nations and international NGOs – with challenges, as well as opportunities.
At first sight, the two are unrelated phenomena. One appears to be largely focused on the collapse of health services in three countries, and to a lesser extent, on economic and political ramifications thereof.
ISIS claims religion in its very name, ethos and gruesome actions. Can the international humanitarian and development worlds afford to continue to ignore religious dynamics – precisely because of the extent to which their actions challenge human rights-based actions?
The other, i.e., ISIS/ISIL/IS, appears to be a complex basket of geopolitical conflagrations involving a violently militant political Islam, weak governance dynamics, botched uprisings, transnational youth disaffection, arms proliferation — all to name but a few.
So what is the connection and why is this relevant to international development and humanitarian engagement?
In a Strategic Learning Exchange organised by several United Nations bodies, and attended by U.N. development and humanitarian staff, and their counterparts from a number of international faith-based development NGOs, which took place in Turin, Italy last week, the confluence of these challenges was tackled head-on.
The U.N. and faith-based NGO staff present work both in their headquarter organisations as well as on the ground in countries in Africa, Asia, and the Arab region.
In both sets of cases, there are realties of overstretched service providers seeking to respond, in real time, to rising death tolls, collapsing state-run services, and the actual inability to deliver basic necessities to communities struggling to stay alive because of diverse, but nevertheless man-made, barriers.
Some of these are run by those carrying arms and demarcating territories as off limits while those within them are imprisoned, tortured, killed, terrorized, and starved. Other barriers are made of communities hiding their ill and their dead, distrusting and fearing those seeking to help, and anguished over the loss not just of loved ones, but also of care-takers, sources of income, and means of protection.
Disciples of John the Baptist also flee ISIS
OPINION: Ebola, Human Rights and Poverty – Making the Links
OPINION: Fighting ISIS and the Morning After
But there are other barriers which the last few weeks and months have revealed as well, some of which present long-term challenges to institutional and organisational cultures, as well as to the entire ethos of international humanitarianism and development as we know it today.
The response to the Ebola virus, first and foremost, focused on the medical aspects – which was/is urgent and unquestionable.
But it took months before international aid workers realised one of many tipping points in the equation of death and disease transmission: that burial methods were key, and that even though there are manuals which seek to regulate those methods so as to ensure medical safety, there was relatively less attention paid to the combined matter of values, dignity and local cultural practices in such crisis contexts.
Burying the dead in a community touches the very belief systems which give value and meaning to life. How those infected with Ebola were buried had to be tackled in a way that bridged the very legitimate medical health concerns, but also enabled the family and community members to go on living – with some shred of meaningfulness to their already traumatised selves – while not getting infected.
When this particular dilemma was noted, faith leaders have been hastily assembled to advise on burial methods which bridge dignity with safety in these particular circumstances. But the broader and more long-term roles of ‘sensitising’ and bridging the medical-cultural gap between international aid workers, local medical personnel and over-wrought communities have yet to be worked out.
And the opportunity to address this medical-cultural gap (which is not new to development or humanitarian work) extends beyond burials of the dead and medical care for the living, to providing psycho-social support, and ensuring economic livelihoods. In these areas, too, faith-based NGOs have roles to play.
The militancy of ISIS and the repercussions of the war currently being waged both with and against them presents a similar set of cultural challenges to national and international actors.
This cultural feature was reiterated with cases from the same Arab region involving Hizbullah, Hamas, and now ISIS. How to navigate practical roadblocks controlled by parties you are not supposed to be talking to as a matter of principle, and who question the very legitimacy of your mandate, as a matter of practice – precisely because it does not ‘do religion’ and is part of a ‘Western secular agenda’?
Yes, there are manuals and protocols and procedures governing the provision of services and rules of engagement – in compliance with international human rights obligations. Yet, some hard questions are now glaring: should any form of ‘dialogue’ or outreach be possible between those who speak human rights law, and those who wish to speak only of “God’s laws”?
Are there lessons to be learned from prior engagement with (now relatively more mainstream) Hizbullah and Hamas, which may have resulted in a different trajectory for the engagement with ISIS today, perhaps?
Boko Haram’s actions in Nigeria and al-Qaeda’s presence (and elimination of Bin Laden) in Afghanistan have highlighted a link between religious dogma and critical health implications. Unlike with Ebola however, a possible role for faith leaders – and other faith-based humanitarian and development actors – has not been solicited. At least, not openly so.
And yet, could these roles shed some light on the particular ability of some religious actors to maneuver within humanitarian emergencies in these specific circumstances?
Could a clearer appreciation of the potential value-added of faith-based interventions – which have to be distinguished from those of ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, etc. – increase understanding of and dealing with a world view that is costing lives, now and in the future?
And if the international community makes a choice to deal with any religious overtones – and is not capacitated in its current frameworks to do so – whose assistance will be needed to call upon, in which fora and with what means?
There are answers to some of these questions already percolating in several policy-making corridors, inherent in the experience of many cadres working with faith-based/ faith-inspired development NGOs, and academics who have devoted decades of research.
What was clear from the discussions in Turin, and other roundtables on religion and development, is that these questions have to be posed, because the answers belie multiple opportunities.
All opinions expressed belong to the author, and are not representative or descriptive of the positions of any organisation, Member State, Board, staff member or territorial entity.
Edited by Kitty Stapp
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Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)
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Africa, Crime & Justice, Democracy, Gender, Gender Identity, Gender Violence, Global Governance, Headlines, Human Rights, TerraViva United Nations, Women in Politics
Despite Odds, Women Gain Stature in African Politics
By Kwamboka Oyaro Reprint | | Print |
Launch of the African Women Leaders Network in New York. Credit: UN Photos
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 16 2017 (IPS) - Once in a while, Africa produces talented women politicians who, despite the odds, overcome the obstacles that impede their success in the political arena.
Some of the African women who have shattered the glass ceiling include Liberia’s outgoing president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf; former president of Malawi, Joyce Banda; Mauritius’s president, Ameenah Gurib-Fakim; and former interim president of the Central African Republic, Catherine Samba-Panza.
For most African women, however, the political terrain is too rough to navigate. Few make the journey, perceiving that their male colleagues would try to undermine them. In their effort to take up leadership positions, qualified African women can expect to confront gender-based attacks, including being labelled “prostitutes” or “concubines”. Sometimes they are sexually harassed, and they often contend with men seeking sexual favours as preconditions for support.
Propositions from senior male office holders as a precondition for entry into the field are unacceptable, says former Nigerian senator Uche Lilian Ekwunife. She adds that this is a tactic men have used for years to discourage women from entering the political fray.
Ms. Ekwunife recollects her 2011 re-election campaign for Nigeria’s House of Representatives, when her opponent superimposed her head on a naked body and sent the picture to YouTube “just to demean my person.” Luckily, that childish slur backfired, and Ms. Ekwunife easily won the election to the legislative body.
Four years later, when she sought election to the senate in 2015, her experience was less pleasant. Although she was re-elected to become one of six women out of the 109 senators in Nigeria’s upper law-making body, her political journey was short.
The courts nullified her election after she had been in the senate only six months. She believes that her election’s nullification was politically motivated, even though there was the issue of her switching political parties at the last minute.
Ms. Ekwunife’s experience is not unique among women political hopefuls in Africa. For example, just two days after activist Diane Shima Rwigara declared her intention to run for the presidency in Rwanda’s general election in August this year, social media was awash with purported nude pictures of her. Her candidacy was disqualified by election officials.
In neighbouring Uganda, a member of the opposition Zainab Fatuma Naigaga and some male colleagues were arrested on their way to a political rally in October 2015. But it was only Ms. Naigaga who was stripped naked by abusive police officers, while the men were left alone.
In Kenya, MP Millie Odhiambo Mabona was analysing the country’s Security Laws (Amendment) Bill 2014 in Parliament when a commotion on the floor degenerated into a free-for-all brawl.
Ms. Mabona says she was assaulted by two pro-government MPs. “That day I was in a dress and these men kept pulling it up while I pulled it down. They went ahead and tore my panties,” Ms. Mabona told Africa Renewal in an interview.
One of the accused male MPs was quoted in the local dailies, saying, “I slapped her because she wanted to assault the deputy speaker. That was great disrespect.” The MPs later passed the bill on security laws.
Women facing sexual harassment must call the men’s bluff, says Ms. Mabona. “If they threaten me with exposing my sexual encounters, I tell them I would also expose those that I went out with.” Ms. Ekwunife, taking a different tack, says “women need to focus and ignore these distractions.”
Besides issues relating to their bodies and their private lives, African female politicians, most of the time, begin their career in politics later in life, and start from a position of disadvantage of having to balance family and work. They also tend to have less money than their male counterparts to spend on campaign expenses.
Shauna Shames of New Jersey’s Rutgers University-Camden, writing about “Barriers and solutions to increasing women’s political power,” notes that “when money dominates politics, women lose out. With women having persistently lower incomes for many reasons, they are far less likely than men to be in the social and business networks that pour money into political campaigns.”
Major political parties rarely nominate women for elected positions during primaries because of the belief that women stand a slim chance of winning against men. In Kenya, for example, all the leading parties nominated men as presidential candidates for the August 2017 elections.
Sometimes a political party will attempt to curry favour by nominating women, yet will not fully back the female politicians to win elections, explains Ms. Ekwunife.
Women candidates are more vulnerable than their male counterparts to electoral violence, including physical attacks on the candidates themselves, their families or supporters, from the campaigns to election time, says Ms. Mabona.
The Kenyan government pledged to enhance security for women aspirants in the lead-up to the August 2017 general election. The cabinet secretary for interior security, the late Joseph Nkaissery, in June announced the government’s intention to protect women candidates, but also told them to be “tough,” without explaining what he meant, leaving pundits to infer a tacit approval for women to be violent.
Ms. Mabona herself witnessed raw violence early this year during her political party’s fiery primaries in her Mbita Constituency in western Kenya. Her bodyguard was killed and her house was burned down.
Will the ground be level anytime soon for women politicians in Africa? Dismas Mokua, a political analyst with Trintari International, a Nairobi-based public relations firm, says women in Africa have made some impact in politics but could do better. Most societies are patriarchal and don’t expect women to take up leadership positions, explains Mr. Mokua.
“Running for a public office requires resources. A lot of women candidates may not have the requisite finances,” says Mr. Mokua. Against all odds, the time is now for Africa’s visionary female politicians to join politics and change the narrative.
*Africa Renewal is published by the UN’s Department of Public Information.
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Josh Grimm
Walking Dead Finale
by joshgrimm on March 28, 2012
So last week the season final of The Walking Dead aired and, in typical Walking Dead fashion, it was filled with potential but never really delivered. Clearly, there are some obvious solutions that would enhance any episode, such as killing Carl, killing Lori, killing Carl again…
But let’s focus on the specifics. I’m going to fix the episode in two simple steps and lay the groundwork for the next season…while not killing anyone. For reals. Obviously, this is about the season finale, and so if you haven’t seen that episode, here there be spoilers. Also, while I’m looking forward to reading the comic books, I haven’t gotten The Walking Dead Compendium yet, so don’t look for any overlap. Let’s do this.
Separate the Group
One of the main problems of the series is that we don’t know much about any of the characters (and care even less). I’m reminded of Plinkett’s epic reviews of the Star Wars prequels, where he asks fans to describe classic Star Wars characters without referring to their occupations or physical appearances. After describing Han Solo and C-3PO, Plinkett asks these same people to describe Qui-Gon Jinn and Padme Amidala. Not surprisingly, the fans with tons to say about Han and C-3PO were at a loss for words with the prequel characters.
You could do the same thing with the Walking Dead cast. Quick, describe T-Dogg, but you can’t use the term “black.” Describe Carol, but you can’t use the term “mother.” Hell, tell me how many people were living on the farm when Carl was first shot (“Let’s see, there’s Herschel, Maggie…Otis….ummmm…).
Unfortunately, most of the characters we can identify don’t fare much better (describe Lori without using the terms “nag” or “shrill”). Why is this? Well, it’s simple: We don’t know anything about them. One of the best shows ever in terms of character development is LOST. Each week, we spent an episode getting an in-depth look at one character (“This is going to be a Sawyer episode”). Initially, this was so we (the audience) could see how the characters behaved before the crash, which informed the decisions they made on the island.
Eventually, the character flashbacks were less about plot and more because we cared about them. Dead tried this in the “Bloodletting” episode, where Lori had to tell Carl that Rick had been shot (and it gave Carl a chance to chew the scenery), but it was thankfully not attempted again, as it didn’t inform the characters or plot in any way. Overall, we’re expected to pick up character traits and flaws from arguments or half-baked philosophizing about the end of the world. Character development cannot be fixed in a single episode, but the season finale had serious potential. After a rousing display of nighttime gun battles and confusion, it seemed like the finale was off and running…literally.
In all the chaos, the farm posse gets separated into five groups: 1) Hershel, Rick, and *sigh* Carl 2) T-Dog, “Lori,” and Maggie’s sister (remember when we totally thought she committed suicide but she didn’t? Powerful stuff.) 3) Glenn ‘n’ Maggie 4) Andrea (a.k.a.: the real Lori) 5) Darryl and Carol In what is only slightly more likely than actual walking dead, everyone meets up back at the highway, even though this was never designated as the official fallback area and even though everyone seemed to drive for hours in opposite directions. Only Andrea didn’t show and, because they thought she might be dead, five minutes after everyone rolled in, they rolled back out. On the road again.
So what about this? The group gets separated…and stays separated. T-Dog heads for the coast (Lori optional), Glenn and Mags find some isolated shack and discuss whether they want to rejoin anyone, Rick and Hershel kill Carl swap monologues, Daryl and Carol form some sort of elite walker-assassination unit, and Andrea just hangs out being awesome. Honestly, it doesn’t matter what they do. This would give us a chance to actually get some quality time with these characters and figure out what makes them behave the way they do. It would set up the entire third season as the group slowly joins back up, only this time they understand one another better (maybe even forming some unlikely alliances)…and so do we.
Zombie Development
This one is more for me, and honestly I wouldn’t have thought of it if not for a user named Mentat on Fark. I had completely forgotten about it. I’m going to quote at length, as it was an excellent point:
“…My one major beef with this season is that the zombies have become the stereotypical generic shamblers. In the first season, the walkers were more tragic figures. Even though they were dangerous, they were once people just like the survivors and a great effort was made to present them in a softer light.
– Bicycle Girl, pathetically crawling through the grass to god knows where. Rick’s first task once he’s recalibrated, is to extend an act of mercy to this person he doesn’t even know. As she reaches out to him, you’re left to wonder if she’s trying to grab him or begging him to put her down.
– Before chopping up the Alley Zombie and smearing his guts on the survivors, Rick takes a moment to go through the man’s wallet. Wayne Dunlap, Georgia licence. Born 1979. He had $28 in his pocket when he died. And a picture of a pretty girl. It was a nice message to the audience as well as the survivors.
– The little girl zombie, picking up the teddy bear, given Rick one moment of hope that someone survived. – Morgan’s wife also seemed to retain some degree of her humanity. Somewhere deep down inside, she recognized the house and knew there was something in there that she wanted. The scene of her trying the doorknob and looking through the eyehole was haunting and I’m glad it was Rick at the door and not Morgan.
– With Amy, they avoided the “I’m a walker now and I kill you” cliche. Amy’s slow return amplified the tension, but it was the way she came back that worked for me. Instead of just lunging for Andrea, Amy reached up and seemed to caress her hair. You were left with the impression that she might have been trying to communicate with Andrea instead of killing her. They tried that sort of thing on occasion in Season 2. Sophia obviously, and Beth’s mom, though that was ruined by the cliched “Ha! I’m not really dead!” thing.
The zombies this season became the typical generic targets for the sharpshooting survivors who a week before couldn’t hit a swinging tree branch. Minor complaint, I know, but I think that trait they showed in the first season was what set TWD apart from other zombie takes we’ve seen.”
I remember the scene when that zombie woman cyclist (who I don’t think had legs) had pulled herself through the woods and fields into the middle of nowhere. Remember her?
In the words of Ted Mosby, that scene was hauntingly beautiful. This woman was a disgusting sight, and yet we felt sympathy for her. She was clearly trying to get somewhere, but wasn’t hunting anyone or anything. She was wildly determined, and even at the end you weren’t sure if she was overcome by walker instinct or if she was pleading for Rick to end it all.
I would have loved it if one of the zombies had shown some sort of humanity (maybe not during the attack on the farm, but a lone straggler later on). Even a brief moment would have made a substantial difference, and again set the scene for the third season. And yes, Walking Dead writers, I am available for freelance work.
Fix, Review, TV, Walking Dead, Zombie
Copyright © 2014 Josh Grimm. All Rights Reserved.
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FaithNet
Esperanza Hope To Cope: Overcome Negative Thinking & Find Your Happy
by Robin L. Flanigan
The pressure to always feel “happy” can be intense for people with depression and anxiety. But happiness is a journey, not a destination.
No one blurts out “I’m so discontented!” But think about how many times—whether referencing something important or superficial—we lament that we’re unhappy.
We don’t want to simply count our blessings and be satisfied. We want to find deep meaning and a fulfilling purpose in life.
We want to thrive.
“I’d say happiness is a disposition, contentment is a philosophical bearing,” offers New York Times journalist John Leland, author of the bestselling Happiness Is a Choice You Make: Lessons From a Year Among the Oldest Old. “We’re aware of our happiness or its absence. Contentment doesn’t require that we acknowledge it.”
That awareness comes with pressure—especially when we know that happiness is a predictor of health and longevity. And what makes things worse is that the image that gets attached to that pressure isn’t even feasible.
“The word ‘happiness’ is in vogue right now,” says Paul Krismer, founder of the Happiness Experts Company in British Columbia, which uses research from the field of positive psychology to help people and organizations create transformational change. “People are told they should have a big grin on their face, as if they’re skipping through a buttercup meadow on a sunny day, and that’s not realistic for most of us most of the time.”
Especially when depression and anxiety enter the picture. Then it’s easier to ignore the good and focus on the bad. Or not see the good at all. That can turn into a habit leading to cognitive distortions, which are thinking patterns that reinforce negative thoughts or emotions.
Nina A. says she is learning to move toward the “existential discomfort” that accompanies symptoms from her major depressive and generalized anxiety disorders—symptoms that get in the way of her definition of happiness, which is “the freedom to experience life the way I choose.”
“I’m working diligently on it,” says Nina, of upstate New York. “When I feel the discomfort, I lean into it, let it get bigger, and ask myself, ‘How old was I when I first felt this way?’ I’m usually very young. Then I let that part of me know that she’s going to be completely taken care of because I’m grown now and in charge.”
Growing up, Nina wasn’t given tools for dealing with negative emotions, so she developed a lot of social currency around being positive and present for others, though that often suppresses her own needs. Even though she would like to share more about being in a difficult place at times, she tends to try recovering on her own by listening to self-development audiobooks, for example, because she knows that her moods can be distressing for others to hear about.
“And then I end up maybe making it worse,” she says.
Nina recently took a workshop with sociologist and life coach Martha Beck, where she learned a strategy for cultivating happiness—by focusing more on the future than the past.
“It’s when you think about how you want to feel a couple months from now, or in year,” she explains. “You come up with some sort of goal you want to achieve, then go into a meditative state and allow yourself to experience that feeling. Mine is, ‘I’m full of delight and creative energy.’ The idea is that when you sit with happy emotions and let them change your mindset in the present moment, the more you live from this mindset and the more you attract experiences that will support it.”
We don’t ‘arrive’ at happy
While it’s good to have a vision for what the future could hold, try not to set that vision in stone, cautions Richard A. Enander, PhD, a licensed clinical psychologist in Dallas.
We can be “pretty poor judges” of what’s going to make us happy years from now, he says. “By the time we acquire what we thought would make us happy, our wants and desires often have shifted. We’re better off trying to focus on what makes us as happy as can be in the here and now.”
Jeff W. of Toronto, a meditation teacher and co-author of Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics: A 10% Happier How-to Book, agrees that happiness is tied to being in the present moment—a skill that requires “learning how to be open and become more intimate with your own discomfort.”
For Jeff, regular meditation practice helps with his anxiety issues. But he also understands that the classic meditation advice—“Just sit”—is unrealistic for many, so he has developed a system for introducing the practice to hesitant newbies.
First try sitting down and concentrating on your breath; when your mind wanders, bring it back to the breath. If this doesn’t work because your thoughts are racing, “let yourself have that experience without feeding it, without whipping yourself into a frenzy,” he says. “It’s hard, and a subtle skill … but you wind up releasing anxiety over time.” Still not working? A body-oriented psychotherapy approach could help you move past trauma symptoms that may be trapping energy and hindering progress.
We can be “pretty poor judges” of what’s going to make us happy years from now
The objective is to stop chasing after happiness so that when it does come—between the sadness and frustration and other moments that are normal but less desirable—it is undeniably deeper.
“There’s something so heartbreakingly beautiful with the world and all its ups and downs,” Jeff says. “You don’t need to make it into a Disney movie.”
Krismer, author of Whole Person Happiness: How to Be Well in Body, Mind and Spirit, often references a list of 10 key positive emotions developed by Barbara Fredrickson, a psychology professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The emotions are: joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe, and love.
Being able to name these emotions helps us pause and reflect on the numerous positive things that happen on a typical day and usually go unappreciated.
Krismer is another expert who doesn’t view the concept of happiness as a destination, and he believes that asking a person whether they’re happy—even if they seem happy—can backfire.
“As soon as I asked that question, you’d pause and reflect on your life and say, ‘Well, my relationship with my spouse could be better, and I wish my kids would pick up their socks.’ The very question makes us unhappy,” he says. “The target instead should be creating a trajectory over the next weeks and months toward being happier. It’s never about, ‘I arrived at ‘happy’ today and now I’m parked.
“Besides,” he adds, “we’d be a totally messed-up species if were all happy all the time.”
It’s a marathon, not a sprint
Gratitude journals have been celebrated for years as a way to boost happiness.
But research has shown that using a gratitude journal daily or even a few times a week to generalize the good things in your life doesn’t work, because it becomes “stale and ends up desensitizing you to things you’re grateful for, and therefore becomes ineffective,” says Acacia Parks, PhD, chief scientist at Happify, a tech-based self-improvement program.
Instead, she advises, once a week is the “bare minimum spacing” you should have to capture on paper, before bed, three positive events that happened that day. Different things happen to us daily, so recognizing them can’t get stale the way being grateful for your house, or your family, could.
“It’s got to be done regularly, and it takes a few weeks before it kicks in,” notes Parks, who specializes in concrete behavior changes that have been scientifically proven to improve happiness. “But over time you become better at noticing the good things that happen to you.”
And that’s the point—becoming happier takes time and relies on incremental modifications.
“There’s actually no huge change I can think of that brings lasting happiness,” Parks says. “There’s not anything big you can do that’s as effective as small, regular behavior changes.”
Those changes can be monumentally simple, such as savoring anticipation, for instance.
There’s something so heartbreakingly beautiful with the world and all its ups and downs.
Sometimes an experience that conjures up special memories is all it takes to get in touch with a feeling of delight. Those are the times Ben C., a low-key physician from Minnesota, feels the most irrepressibly buoyant.
While on a European vacation with his wife and three children last summer, his oldest daughter was ecstatic to visit the Palace of Versailles in France.
“My response was, ‘Yeah, that’s really nice,’ and she was frustrated that I wasn’t more joyful about it,” he recalls.
But then the family toured the school in Oxford, England, where Ben had spent a semester in college. There were souvenir mugs for sale, graced with the image of a hand-drawn map by one of the school’s most well-known deans.
“I was giddy,” he says. “Afterward my daughter said, ‘Are you kidding me? You were more excited about that mug than Versailles.’ But it brought back so many memories.”
In his daily life, Ben makes an effort to connect in a meaningful way with his family, regardless of whether he’s tired after a long day at work and just wants to be left alone. That’s a good indicator of long-term happiness, according to the Harvard Study of Adult Development, one of the world’s longest studies of adult life. Since the Great Depression, the study has been tracking issues of aging to learn more about what leads to health and happiness. The biggest factor? Close relationships. More than money, fame, social class, IQ, even genes, our relationships protect us the most from life’s grievances.
“Sometimes I act in a way I would act if I were happy, and even if it feels like a chore, in the end I usually wind up feeling happier,” Ben says.
Roadblocks to happiness
For those who wonder whether money can buy happiness, let’s look to Princeton University, where research has shown that there is a connection—to a point. And that point is $75,000 a year. The lower a person’s annual income falls below that benchmark, the unhappier he or she feels. That said, no matter how much more than $75,000 a person makes, there is no greater degree of happiness.
Even so, people often equate being able to buy something—easy enough to do with the click of a button—with a sense of security and gratification, both of which can lead to happiness. In this age of Amazon and Netflix, convenience may give us a small dopamine rush, but it does nothing to promote enduring feelings of joy.
“It’s this immediacy that we want,” observes Craig Chilcott, a licensed clinical professional counselor in Maryland. “But when everything has to be like that, that’s where a lot of suffering comes from. It’s from wanting to have things right now, instead of being comfortable with letting whatever’s there be there for right now.”
With clients who want to move in a healthy way toward experiences that feel important to them and, as a result, ultimately lead to a greater sense of happiness, Chilcott uses a set of cards that describe various values. Clients sort the cards into categories such as “Least Important” and “Most Important.” Chilcott had found them helpful in one of his own therapy sessions.
It’s never about, ‘I arrived at ‘happy’ today and now I’m parked
“It’s not about getting an answer right away,” he says. “It’s about orienting your life in a certain way, one that gives rise to the potential to have more of the experiences you want. Instead of shooting for the feeling, shoot for what would contribute to the feeling.”
Social media doesn’t help because we tend to compare ourselves—and our station in life—with highly curated (and subsequently skewed) versions of people we sometimes only peripherally know. And we spend a lot of time doing it.
That brings us back to Netflix. Conversations these days regularly turn to what shows we’re currently binge-watching.
“The whole ‘guilty pleasure’ narrative didn’t come up in my vernacular until about 10 years ago,” says Parks, adding that people increasingly are spending time doing things they wish they wouldn’t. “We talk about how what we’re doing is totally pointless, and we’re embarrassed by it, but we still do it. And that’s one of the key things interfering with our happiness.”
Maybe it’s because we’re human that we get in our own way—or let outside forces do the job for us.
Even Parks, who researches happiness for a living, can’t always sustain her ideal level of happiness. Conflicts disrupt her schedule; she falls behind on her exercise routine.
“Because I’m so aware of the impact of my own behavior on my happiness, I know that when I’m feeling bad, it’s usually my fault,” she says. “You just have to backstep and start over.”
Read More: 4 Simple Ways To Help You Find Your ‘Happy’
Printed as “The Pursuit of Happiness”, Summer 2018
via Esperanza – Hope To Cope
(This and our other articles are provided by some of our curated resources. We encourage readers to support them and continue to look to these sources in times of need and opportunity.)
Today, NAMI Tulsa is heavily focused on education, support groups, public policy, training, and we have developed lasting relationships with many local, state, and national agencies for the betterment of the care of our mentally ill.
The views expressed in these columns come from independent sources and are not necessarily the position of NAMI Tulsa. We encourage public engagement in the issues and seek good journalistic sources which advance the discussion for an improved society which fosters recovery from mental health challenges.
President Steve Baker
2017 President of NAMI Tulsa.
NAMI Tulsa News
© COPYRIGHT 2015. NAMI Tulsa ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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NSA Composition
Roles and Functions
Provincial Forums
The National Skills Authority is a statutory body that was first established in 1999 in terms of Chapter 2 of the Skills Development Act 1998.
The Skills Development Act 97 of 1998 and Act 37 of 2008 as amended, the Presidential Proclamation No 44 of 2009, Government Gazette Number 32367 and subsequent proclamations (No. 48 of 2009, Government Gazette No. 32387 of 7 July 2009 and No. 531of 2009, Government Gazette Number 32549 of 4 September 2009) assigned the Skills development responsibility under the Minister for Higher Education and Training.
© Copyright 2015 National Skills Authority. All Rights Reserved
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Roles & Functions
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FREE Publisher’s Packet
Cam's Dragon
The story of Cam's Dragon starts in a rather interesting way. One night, I received a call from a lady friend of mine, and she was babysitting a young man, ten, who refused to go to sleep. So in desperation, she called me to tell him a “bedtime story.” I said, “I would be happy to do it.” So she handed the phone to him on speaker, and I started a story of a poor orphan, rescued from the wreckage of a burned-out castle, and how she meet a white dragon in the woods one day, who magically didn't eat her but somehow had been assigned by her mother to be a protector of innocents, instead of fighting for control of land like her brothers black dragons did. And after a short while, not because he was bored but because he had a long day, he finally succumbed to sleep.
But the story fermented in my mind and took hold of almost all of my very thoughts. A white dragon, protector to an orphan waif of unknown origin, except to the dragon. And as the story goes, the waif, now seventeen, becomes friends with the dragon, who had a particular name of Angel.
And as most know of dragon lore, dragon memories go back to the beginning of, as it is said, time, except in this case. And in this case, there is a legend, which perplexes dragons to no end. The story continues with what some would call witches, kings and queens, warriors from faraway lands, and a blind boy named Thomas, who knows more about the legend than dragons. But why and how, only he knows is his secret and yours to ascertain by delving into my creation, Cam's Dragon.
by A. Ben Bacon
In stores now!
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While it is true that the sport of curling dates back to the 15th century, the modernversion (Scottish style) originated in the early 17th century. The oldest Curling Club in North America is Royal Montreal Curling Club (1807). Curling was always played outdoors, usually on frozen lakes, until the 20th century. Curling was a demonstration sport in the Olympics 4 times (1924, 1932, 1992, 1994) before being admitted as a full medal sport in 1998. Canada has more curlers in total than any other country.
Overview of the Sport
Curling is a team sport played on ice. The Olympic medal sport originated in the 1500’s on the lakes and ponds of Northern Europe. The object of the game is for two teams of four players to slide 42-pound granite rocks down a sheet of ice 130 feet long by 15 feet wide. The rocks are delivered toward the centre of a 12-foot diameter target similar to an archery target. The targets are painted into the ice just below the surface at both ends of the sheet of ice, to allow the game to be played back and forth, usually eight or ten times.
Each player throws two rocks toward the target, alternating with the opponent. Rocks travelling down the ice have a tendency to curve or “curl”, hence the name curling. After all sixteen rocks have been thrown the score is determined. Teams score one point for each rock closest to the centre of the house. In each end (similar to an inning in baseball), only one team can score.
A unique part of curling is the concept of sweeping. Players vigorously sweep, or brush, the ice in front of the rock to keep it moving. The friction caused by the sweeping polishes the ice by briefly heating the surface, which makes the rocks travel farther and straighter.
Rules of Curling
Rules of Stick Curling
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Home Posts tagged "unformat"
Tag: unformat
Data Volume Reformatted
An all too common mistake is accidentally reformatting the wrong partition. The extent of the data lost depends upon the file system being used and the volume of data written to the new volume afterwards.
In all cases no further data should be written to the volume, as the only method of retrieving the previous files is through data recovery. Some file system types may give very little chance of recovering data, while some will do minimal damage to the old data, unless new files have been copied to the volume.
System Areas Reinitialised
When a file system is reformatted the system areas are reinitialised, which creates a clean data volume. In file systems such as NTFS and XFS only those system areas necessary to produce a working volume are reset. This allows the majority of files to be recovered from a newly reformatted NTFS and XFS data volume, with extremely high success rates possible for these types of data volume.
For a FAT file system, this includes clearing the File Allocation Tables, which destroys the allocation for all files and directories. Other file systems such as UFS, and Linux Extended volumes, all inodes are deleted in the process, rendering the previous file and directory structure inaccessible. For HFS and HFS Plus data volumes, the default catalog and data extent areas are deleted. While some parts of the catalog may remain, in practical terms, this also renders the previous file system data structure inaccessible.
Writing New Data Files is Destructive
Any new data written to the volume will lead to further damage of vital data structures with the possibility of overwriting file allocation or contents. The more data that is written to the newly formatted volume the higher the level of damage that will occur to the previously stored data files.
Reformatted Data Recovery Options
In the best cases such as a newly reformatted XFS or NTFS data volume an almost complete recovery can be made. However, once data is written to the volume, the level of the data recovery possible is reduced.
However for classic Unix style file systems and HFS Plus data volumes, the file system structures and metadata is lost. The only option available in such situations is a raw data trawl of unused space looking for the start of files with known data signatures. This solution will only be successful for files where the data has been stored contiguously.
Deleted or Partition Expansion Failure
With ever larger hard disk drives available expanding the storage space in a computer is now very commonplace. This includes adding additional drives or swapping drives in a RAID for larger ones through rebuilding the data at each step. The temptation after installing extra storage space is to rearrange data and even change the partitions which existed on other drives.
Caution must be exercised when rearranging the data partitions, as one simple mistake may or misfortune could result in data being lost. Understanding exactly which disks contain what data before you start is important if you are going to delete any partitions. Extending or growing partitions, while a common practise can in some cases cause a volume to become corrupted, also potentially losing data. In both cases, best option is not to run any tools or attempt a recovery yourself, but call in data recovery specialists, such as DiskEng, who can advise you on the best course of action.
Deleted Data Volume
Deleting the wrong data volume is an all too common scenario, but it need not cause a total loss of the files held on that partition. When a data volume or partition is deleted, entries held at the start of the hard disk are clear, allowing that space to be reallocated as free space for new partitions to be created. The data volume is not altered by this action, so it is important not to panic and make a mistake.
In some cases deleting a partition may result in an operating system message about an unused disk, which should be reformatted. Be absolutely sure after deleting a volume that creating a new data volume on this disk is what you require. Reformatting a data volume will destroy important metadata structures from the previous partition, which with some file systems may lead to a total loss or data, or a data trawl as the only viable option.
File systems such as NTFS and XFS can produce excellent data recovery results after the volume has been reformatted, as a few metadata entries are overwritten during the process. Any new data written to a reformatted volume will reduce number of files which can be successfully recovered from the original file system.
Expanding Data Partition Failure
Deleting a volume from a disk and then expanding or growing another partition to use that space is now a common procedure. There are many utilities designed to perform this task, which are robust and efficient. However, misfortunate such as a power failure, system crash or file system corruption of the original volume could lead to situation where this process fails, resulting in corruption, whereby the volume can’t be mounted by the operating system.
If this happens, it is essential not to run any tools to fix the problem, as they may lead to even further corruption for the data, which may result in severe data loss. Expanding a volume is usually a fairly simple process, which requires a few key metadata structures to be altered. If this process fails, it is rare that it will cause corruption severe enough to render the data unrecoverable. The wisest choice is therefore to contact a data recovery company, who have the expertise to recover your data files.
Hard Drive is Running Slowly
There are numerous reasons for a hard drive to start running slowly, ranging from the most serious, due to a hardware issue, through file system issues, to software, virus or operating system problems. It is not always easy to determine the cause of the problem, but the one thing you can’t do is ignore it, as it is unlikely to fix itself.
Hardware Issues Risk Total Failure
Often the first stages of a hardware failure will also be accompanied by unusual sounds. These could be clicking and scraping noises or even an odd high pitched metal sound. The best prepared users will already have all their data backed up, but for those who aren’t, it is important to take notice of these signs before that lead to data loss, and need for data recovery.
By the time you start to notice a slowdown and hear unusual noises, it may already be too late to make a complete backup of your data before a failure occurs. All this said, it is also quite possible for a hard disk to start make some odd noises, but continue to work perfectly for years. However, if your drive starts to make clicking noises, total failure is almost certainly imminent as this is usually a sign of unreadable disk sectors, and hard disk data recovery will be required.
File System and Operating System Issues
The operating system deals with all read and write requests between the computer and the hard disk, but in rare instances it is possible for important system data on the file system to become corrupt, and lead to issues with accessing data held on the drive. If left unchecked, situation can become worse. Such problems could be the result of a system crash, power failure or even a virus infection.
When data is written to a file system, the operating system will usually allocate the first available data blocks, and continue writing in a contiguous chunk, until it finds old data, at which time a new area of used space is required. This leads to fragmentation, and on NTFS which has data compression enable, the background process used to compress the file, can lead to further fragments being created. With multiple processes being run, the chances of fragmentation are also increased. Without regular defragmentation, a drive can end up with even a file of only a few megabytes being spread across many areas of the disk, which will slow down access times.
What Steps to Take
If you value your data, you have a responsibility to ensure the file system is in the best condition possible, such as taking care to not install malware and viruses. Regular defragmentation not only helps the speed of access, but can also increase the chances and quality of data recovery in the event of a failure.
If your drive starts making strange noises, it is important to take action. In the event of clicking noises, we recommend powering down the drive and seek a professional data recovery solution. The operating system is very aggressive in attempts to re-read damaged sectors, which can quickly lead to further damage, which can soon spiral out of control.
Hard Drive Has Been Deleted
A common problem which users suffer is the accidental or malicious, deletion or reformatting of a hard drive partition. When this happens, it is important not to panic and make an ill considered attempt to recover the deleted data, which could compound the issue, even leading to total loss of data.
Partition Only Deleted
The deletion of a partition need not be disastrous, but it is important not to make a further mistake. The use of free do-it-yourself utilities are not guaranteed to recover your data, and in the worst cases could cause damage. This is particularly true when the deleted data volume is a spanned or striped set of partitions. Some users erroneously believe that after the deleting a data volume, they can gain access to the data by recreating the partition, but this leads to the partition being reformatted. Once you make a mistake, do not compound the issue by making a rash decision.
Partition Reformatted
Once a partition has been reformatted, the consequences can be anything from only minor damage, to complete loss of data. Copying data to a newly reformatted partition will compound the issue further, by overwriting important system areas of the volume.
Can I Get My Data Back?
The answer to this question is not simple, as it depends upon a couple of very important factors, such as the file system, and the volume of any data written to it afterwards. Many file systems when they are formatted, overwrite the most important system areas of the volume that are required to allow the retrieval of the old data; this includes many Unix and the HFS+ file systems.
The good news is that for NTFS and XFS file systems, an almost complete recovery of the old data may be possible, although writing new data to the volume will diminish the quality of the results which are possible. This is known as Unformatting, a process which our data recovery software at DiskEng has performed many times with excellent results. FAT file systems can also be Unformatted, but the quality of results is also affected by how much fragmentation was present in the files held on the volume.
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Confirmed: Dalai Lama’s envoy Samdhong Rinpoche visited China
Posted on December 16, 2017 in Articles, Features, Guest Writers, News · 12,427 Views · 144 Comments
The opinion piece below was sent to dorjeshugden.com for publication by Tenzin Monlom. We accept submissions from the public, please send in your articles to [email protected].
By: Tenzin Monlom
It is indeed good news that many media publications have announced the ‘private visit’ to China by His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s emissary Samdhong Rinpoche. As a Tibetan who wishes for the Tibet issue to be resolved during the lifetime of the Dalai Lama, it is important for the Dalai Lama and all Tibetans this visit happened. Of course I will not read too much into this because it is just beginning stages and China is a hard nut to crack, but at least there is a beginning. Since Lobsang Sangay’s term, he has not done anything to activate the talks with China to our chagrin. This is our prime concern. This is the prime job of the so called Tibetan government in Exile or CTA (Central Tibetan Administration) in Dharamsala. Their prime job is to solve the Tibet issue during the lifetime of the Dalai Lama. If the Dalai Lama is not here, heaven forbid, no other leader can unify Tibetans into one nation because the CTA does not groom leaders of international abilities. That is just how Tibetans are. So I have listed out 12 points which I wish to share with everyone.
We all know His Holiness the Dalai Lama wishes to return to Tibet that is why all these years he has remained as a refugee without becoming an Indian citizen. We must help him return to China/Tibet at least for a visit.
Dalai Lama does not want to have independence and wants full Tibetan autonomy under China. So the Tibetans who protest and fight for independence are against the wishes of His Holiness. Tibetans should stop criticizing China and stop protesting against China and start reaching out to make friends. If this is done, it will make it easier for the Dalai Lama to negotiate further through his envoys.
By Tibetans criticizing, degrading and flinging nasty words at China will not hurt China in any way but will irritate them to not negotiate with Dalai Lama regarding Tibet. If you want something from someone, you must be polite. Criticizing China is the same effect as flinging an egg at Mt Kailash to hurt Mt Kailash. No effect.
Even if 6 million Tibetans decide to fight against China, how can they win against 1.2 billion? It is illogical and it will be massacre time. No country in the world will give finances, arms and soldiers to help Tibetans fight China. The United Nations and every country agrees Tibet is a part of China. So fighting for independence is a suicide and a waste of time.
Even great India cannot help the Tibetans get Tibet back from China. India cannot interfere with China’s internal issues and India also agrees with the One China policy and that Tibet belongs to China. So do not pressure the Indian government to help Tibet. Be grateful the Indian government gave a home to the Tibetan refugees for the last nearly 60 years and don’t ask more of India. Tibetans must not be greedy.
Dalai Lama is getting old and he wishes to visit Tibet and the 6 million Tibetans waiting for him. Envoy Samdhong Rinpoche has gone to China not for a holiday, pilgrimage or meeting friends. Impossible. Samdhong Rinpoche is a high profile person who has criticized China for years and there is no way he can simply just go and China wouldn’t issue a visa on his refugee passport. People who criticize China are denied a visa. For Samdhong Rinpoche to go to China must have had the Dalai Lama’s, India’s and China’s permission. The only reason Samdhong Rinpoche is going there is to negotiate a visit to China by the Dalai Lama. If the visit to China works out well, then Dalai Lama may be granted permission to visit Tibet eventually. So at this time we must make sure Dalai Lama visits China as he is ageing very much. “The Wire”, “Tibetan Journal”, “Phayul” and “The Tribune” have all reported Samdhong Rinpoche visited China. CTA’s ‘president’ Lobsang Sangay has confirmed Samdhong Rinpoche’s visit to China as the Dalai Lama’s envoy. So this fact is confirmed. CTA or Tibetan govt likes to keep all this a secret, but Tibetans are well known for not being able to keep secrets.
For nearly 60 years the Dalai Lama cannot visit China/Tibet and all his policies, ideas and methods did not work. Dalai Lama traveled all over the west drumming up support for Tibet to gain independence and it has failed. The western leaders and Japan all are not meeting His Holiness the Dalai Lama anymore as they want business with China. Business with China means billions being poured into their economies. The main concern of all governments is to improve the economies of their nations. Whether we like that or not is not the point. The countries banning the Dalai Lama are increasing. Ironically most of the Buddhist countries like Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Thailand have banned the Dalai Lama and he cannot visit. Maybe many people do not like the fact the Dalai Lama is losing support from governments but that is just the fact. China is rising to become the number one economy and super-power of the world and this will continue till they surpass even the USA. Even the USA are clambering to make friends with China. This trend will increase. USA being friends with Tibet for the last 20-30 years was a feel good factor, but now it does not feel good anymore due to their heavy recession and economic slump. What does the US get in return for helping Tibet? Nothing. Voters want jobs, business, trade and profit and USA leadership must provide this. USA has used military intervention to fight in countries such as Panama and the Middle East where their interests lie. But USA will never use force or military intervention for Tibet and it has never since 1959. USA has provided billions in aid to the Dalai Lama and our regime in Dharamsala but even that is being threatened under the current US president. How long does the world need to assist, aid and give money to Tibetans? When do the Tibetans make our own money and stand up for ourselves as being in India for nearly 60 years? Why are there no world famous secular Tibetan doctors, entertainers, scientists, media personalities, explorers till now coming from the exiled Tibetans in India and from around the world? Because the regime in Dharamsala did not have the foresight to train our people in this but only depended on free aid. The Central Tibetan Administration or CTA as they called the regime in Dharamsala which ‘governs’ the Tibetans in India and influences the Tibetans around the world created a group of people dependent on aid and free money since 1959. Their only focus has been religion as our God-King or Head is a monk namely His Holiness the Dalai Lama. That may have worked until 1959 in Tibet but obviously it will not work now. Being a monk for a leader, he will have no knowledge of developing his nation to that of the secular status of other nations. The proof is in the pudding, hence Tibetans in India after being refugees for 60 years still depend on foreign aid to survive. The hundreds of employees of our CTA regime in Dharamsala receive their salary that comes from the billions in aid from the US government. The Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) in Dharamsala has created a few generations of Tibetans who wait for handouts just like themselves. This is shameful.
By countries being friends with the Dalai Lama and fighting the Tibetan cause will gain nothing for their people. We can talk about China’s human rights violations as much as we want, but we cannot govern our countries according to western views of human rights. Democracy is a concept that needs to be molded to suit each country’s unique situation. The democracy in India is different than that of the UK, USA and Japan. So people need to stop looking at democracy according to western standards because more of us are not westerners. Westerners need to stop imposing their value, democracy, way of life, religion, culture on the rest of the world. Colonialism should come to an end. USA should give America back to the Native American Indians. Alaska should be returned to the Eskimos. Australia should be returned to the Aborigines and so on. Western imperialism has colonized India, many countries in Africa, Hong Kong, Philippines, Vietnam, South America and the list goes on. So westerners and their values should just remain with them. China must evolve their own system of government free of outside intrusions like India did. When India finally fought and won independence from imperial Britain, the British said India cannot govern its own people without Britain. That is western arrogance again. But India did fine and will continue to do fine. India cannot govern India according to British or western standards because India is unique on its own. Same for China. To cry human rights against China is a waste of time. Let China find her own methods without outside interference. Simple.
It is important we allow Dalai Lama’s envoy to further negotiate with China and we assist this along. We should offer words of support, prayers, pujas and good wishes. It is simple, His Holiness the Dalai Lama wishes to visit China and eventually Tibet, so let his wishes come true. He deserves this very much. With regards to the Dorje Shugden issue which needs to be resolved, I find it ironic that Tibetans are ‘not encouraged’ to have associations with China or they are labelled a traitor and therefore segregated. This is the divide and rule tactic of the CTA regime. But now that Samdhong Rinpoche is making relations with China, the rest of us can also do same and to call Dorje Shugden followers derogatory names if they are friendly with China will only jeopardize the negotiations as China is open to all religions and do not discourage Dorje Shugden. The leaders of China are atheists but do not allow religion to divide or segregate people. The CTA regime uses the Dorje Shugden issue to divide and segregate Tibetans since 1996. Furthermore the Independence (Rangzen) seekers within Tibetans have to decide if they are on the Dalai Lama’s side for autonomy (umay-lam) or against Dalai Lama and continue to pursue independence which is not viable. It is important that the Tibetan leadership will stop criticizing China to the media, on lectures and individually and encourage their people to restrain also so the negotiations can go through well.
Lobsang Sangay likes to say that if India will not help Tibetan gain independence from China, what happened to Tibet will happen in India. That is totally impossible in a million years. India is just as powerful, large, armed and intelligent as China. India’s armed forces are just as powerful and extensive as China’s. There is no way this can happen. India’s population is as many as China’s. And India has a working, functional and powerful government. Tibet in 1959 had none of those. Tibet was lost because of bad leadership, lack of exposure, high illiteracy rate, serfdom and the corruption within the government was so deep, it sold its own country off. The Tibetans in exile are the same now. The tiny minuscule ‘government’ of Tibet in Dharamsala is beyond pathetic with their disharmony, greed and corruption. If you want to know more, read Tibetsun (dot) com for all of the Tibetan ‘government’s’ intrigues. Tibetans are disappointed.
India and the world owes nothing to the Tibetans. Tibetans owe India and many countries in the world so much for the help, financial aid, land, safety and citizenship and refuge for nearly 60 years. Tibetans should stop making demands of India and solve their own problems. India and the world did not make Tibet lose their country because Tibetans did it themselves and so they should solve it themselves.
It is good news Samdhong Rinpoche went to China and let’s hope his negotiations will be ongoing and succeed in bringing His Holiness the Dalai Lama to a visit to China and eventually to Tibet. As His Holiness the Dalai Lama visits China and eventually Tibet, this will definitely help in Sino-Indian relations because the Dalai Lama has been a thorn in the side for Sino-Indian relations if the truth is told. If China was harboring an Indian that was considered a separatist in China and giving refuge to hundreds of thousands of his supporters in China, would India be pleased with this? Never mind if Dalai Lama is actually a splittist or separatist but that is how he is viewed by China. So we have to see both sides. Of course I support the Dalai Lama but I have to be pragmatic according to world and China’s political views.
One interesting point to note is the Tibetans and their supporters within India and around the world who seek complete Independence (rangzen) of Tibet from China are silent on this recent visit of Samdhong Rinpoche to China. Dalai Lama wishes to have an autonomy of Tibet within China. There is a faction of Tibetans who claim to be not against the Dalai Lama but are overtly against his middle way policy (umay-lam) of autonomy. To speak against the Dalai Lama in Tibetan society is taboo and will invite segregation, insults and violence. No one is allowed to oppose the Dalai Lama’s views on governance, religion or culture in any way although they call themselves a democracy. So the independence seekers otherwise known as rangzen movement are silent and obviously not happy about this development. They do not agree with Dalai Lama at all. Not a word from them on social media. They have a distorted view that Tibet can be taken from China and become independent again. How is this possible? The best chance for Tibetan culture, religion and way of life to be preserved within Tibet is to become friends with China. Then China will loosen their policies on Tibet in time. The world has agreed Tibet is a part of China and it will remain this way. The rangzen people do not accept this and automatically they place themselves against the Dalai Lama. Samdhong Rinpoche famously said that the rangzen independent movement groups are very dangerous.
The Dalai Lama Wants to Return Home
An article published by “The Wire” on 4th December 2017. Click to enlarge. (Source: https://thewire.in/201726/dalai-lama-india-china-tibet/)
Comments left by various people on “The Wire”. Click to enlarge. (Source: https://thewire.in/201726/dalai-lama-india-china-tibet/)
Click to enlarge. (Source: https://thewire.in/201726/dalai-lama-india-china-tibet/)
Dalai Lama’s Envoy Samdhong Rinpoche Discreetly Visited China
Published 5th December 2017. The Dalai Lama’s personal envoy Samdhong Rinpoche went on a private visit to China. It was suggested in “The Wire” that while Samdhong Rinpoche was in China, it is more likely that he met up with You Quan – the newly-appointed head of the United Front Work Department that oversees Tibetan affairs. It is also said that You Quan is a close associate of President Xi. Click to enlarge. (Source: http://www.tibetanjournal.com/index.php/2017/12/05/dalai-lamas-envoy-samdhong-rinpoche-visited-china/)
Dalai Lama headed to China on a pvt visit?
On 15th December 2017, “The Tribune” published an article titled “Dalai Lama headed to China on pvt visit?”. But not long after that, Tibet.net had asked them to change the title to “Former Tibetan government head visited China recently”. Former head would refer to Samdhong Rinpoche of course. The title can be changed but the fact remain the same that the envoy Samdhong Rinpoche was sent to negotiate with China. The negotiations must be regarding the status of Tibet and a possible visit in the future by the Dalai Lama. For the envoy Samdhong Rinpoche to visit China he would have needed India’s permission, China’s approval and of course sent by Dalai Lama himself. After all, Samdhong Rinpoche holds a refugee passport issued by India and he will need a visa to enter China. A high profile person like him cannot just simply enter China’s immigration undetected. It would be safe to assume Samdhong Rinpoche didn’t visit China, whom he has criticized for decades, to just simply visit a Buddhist site, holiday or meet up with friends. China would not easily grant him a visa for any other purpose as he is considered a dissident. He would have a purpose and a prior agreement with the Chinese government. The fact that Samdhong Rinpoche went to China to have dialogue with the Chinese government still gives hope to an eventual positive development for both sides. Lobsang Sangay has failed miserably during his two terms as head of CTA to secure talks with China and most probably out of desperation the Dalai Lama has sent a fellow monk Samdhong Rinpoche to negotiate with China. The Dalai Lama is ageing and resolution must come about soon. The main purpose of the CTA is to resolve the Tibet issue which is now entering into nearly 60 years unresolved issue. Click to enlarge. (Source: http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation/dalai-lama-headed-to-china-on-pvt-visit/513541.html.)
Cautious Sangay says Samdhong Rinpoche made a “private visit” to China
Published on 15th December 2017. Phayul.com is the mouthpiece of the Tibetan government in exile otherwise known as Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). Phayul.com also picked up the news of Samdhong Rinpoche’s visit to China. The news has spread throughout the Tibetan communities throughout the world giving some sort of hope to the Tibetans. The Tibet issue will not be resolved with the current policies of the CTA regime in Dharamsala. It has been nearly six decades of failure. So they will have to change their tactic to appease China. Tibet is within China and no other nation will be able to ‘rescue’ Tibet or assist in any way. Tibetans must help themselves by negotiating with China. Click to enlarge. (Source: http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=39926&article=Cautious+Sangay+says+Samdhong+Rinpoche+made+a+%E2%80%9Cprivate+visit%E2%80%9D+to+China)
Clarification posted by the CTA on their official Facebook page
Published on 15th December 2017. Tibet.net Facebook page is run by the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) in Dharamsala, North India, also the headquarters of the Dalai Lama. Tibet.net posted to clarify that the reporter of “The Tribune” made a mistake regarding the article and it has been corrected. The mistake is the Dalai Lama did not visit China but his envoy Samdhong Rinpoche went to China for visit to negotiate on behalf of the Dalai Lama. It has been a stalemate in talks between the Dalai Lama’s people and China for over a decade. If the Tibet issue is not settled during the lifetime of the Dalai Lama, it will be difficult to settle because no other Tibetan leader has been groomed to match the political abilities of the Dalai Lama. Click to enlarge.
‘Former Tibetan government head visited China recently’
Published on 14th December 2017. “The Tribune” was asked by the CTA to change the title and content of the article. Thus this is “The Tribune” article after it has been corrected. Samdhong Rinpoche has gone to China after a decade of stalemate to negotiate with China. In the cards are a possible visit of the Dalai Lama to China and eventually Tibet in the future. Click to enlarge. (Source: http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation/dalai-lama-headed-to-china-on-pvt-visit/513541.html)
Further developments: The Tibetan people tricked again
On 4th December 2017, The Wire, a popular Indian news website published a story that lifted the spirits of the Tibetan people around the world. The report, authored by P. Stobdan, announced that the Dalai Lama’s personal envoy, Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche had visited China. This itself is a remarkable milestone given the length of time when a high Tibetan official last went to China on what can only be an official visit regardless of how dressed-down the visit was. As a personal envoy of the Dalai Lama, it would only be natural for Samdhong Rinpoche, who is also ex-Prime Minister of the Central Tibetan Administration (Tibetan leadership in Dharamsala), to be regarded by the Chinese government as a ‘de facto separatist’. This bearing in mind that the Chinese government had over the decades regarded the Dalai Lama as a dangerous ‘separatist’, and that Samdhong Rinpoche himself had spent years encouraging anti-China sentiments. And yet, Samdhong Rinpoche was allowed into China so easily which can only mean that the Chinese government approved the visit.
These factors combine to lead the Tibetan people and their global supporters to conclude that Samdhong Rinpoche’s visit was a precursor to an impending visit by the Dalai Lama. This is big news because visiting China has been a personal wish the Dalai Lama has expressed on many occasions and it would bring great joy to the Tibetan people to see the Dalai Lama fulfilling that dream. In fact, many Tibetans have self-immolated to spur this dream on.
In addition, a Dalai Lama visit would also indicate that the Tibetans in exile might once again be able to see their beloved land, a dream that has spanned more than half a century. At first, many could not believe their ears about the news of Samdhong Rinpoche going to China but then confirmation came from Sikyong Dr Lobsang Sangay, the highest-ranking political official in the Tibetan government. His confirmation, issued through Phayul (essentially the CTA’s mouthpiece), was taken as an authentication of the news. It was official and the Tibetan people’s hopes of returning to their beloved Tibet was reignited after a decade of stagnation. It would have been an opportunity for all Tibetans to unite and fall behind a common goal and for all to put differences aside to achieve the most important goal.
Sadly, on 19th December 2017, a full 15 days after news of Samdhong Rinpoche’s visit first broke, Samdhong Rinpoche crushed this new hope by announcing that he had not visited China and neither was a visit by the Dalai Lama to China likely.
Samdhong Rinpoche’s statement to Phayul.com highlights a number of very important observations:
We see how disrespectful Samdhong Rinpoche, a very senior Tibetan leader, is towards the Tibetan people. He can so insensitively douse the hopes of the Tibetans in an instant. This is after decades of failures and countless false promises made by the Tibetan leadership to its own people. The Tibetan people have trusted the CTA and until today, most have chosen life as a poor refugee with no foreseeable future instead of taking up Indian passports (which many are entitled to), to retain more of their “Tibetaness”. Instead of recognizing that sacrifice, Samdhong led everyone to believe in this new hope for two weeks and then recklessly crushed everyone’s hopes with no explanation or apology.
In fact, why wait for two weeks before correcting an error? One can only imagine that Samdhong Rinpoche waited two weeks because he was actually in China. With its internet firewall, he did not hear about Lobsang Sangay’s confirmation of his visit until he left China two weeks later, and that is when he issued the statement of denial that he had ever travelled there. But during the time he was supposedly not in China, or supposedly in China, how come no one else in Dharamsala noticed the absence or presence of one of the most recognizable faces in Tibetan politics? Surely someone else, for example Samdhong Rinpoche’s staff, would know his movements and also step up and either confirm or deny Samdhong’s whereabouts at the time. How come Lobsang Sangay himself can disregard his envoy counterpart’s whereabouts for such a long period of time, and not know for sure where he is? The fact only Lobsang Sangay and Samdhong Rinpoche are addressing this incident, and fueling more confusion in the Tibetan community, is incredibly suspicious.
How trustworthy is the Tibetan government when two of the highest officials can so seriously err on such a simple matter? If Samdhong Rinpoche did not indeed visit China, how could Sikyong Lobsang Sangay have gotten such basic information wrong? On the other hand, if Lobsang Sangay was correct and Samdhong Rinpoche did visit China, then why would Samdhong Rinpoche tell such a blatant lie in denying his trip? Either Sangay is lying or Samdhong is lying. Whichever one was dishonest about the matter, it is still bad news for the Tibetan people. Either the Tibetan people’s highest elected government official, Lobsang Sangay, who is supposed to lead them into a good future is deceitful. Or Samdhong Rinpoche who is supposed to represent the Dalai Lama, is insidious and sneaky. It is impossible for both Sangay and Samdhong to be right on the same subject and so deception is confirmed.
Both Lobsang Sangay and Samdhong Rinpoche have recently been appointed by the Dalai Lama to be his personal envoys. And this is an incredibly important role because the survival of the Tibetans in exile and the success of their struggle are heavily dependent on the credibility of the Dalai Lama and the trust that the world places on him and his representatives. Not only have we seen now how one or the other is confirmed to be deceptive, but we now also see how easily the two most important persons who represent the Dalai Lama can bungle such critical matters. And this is even before they execute highly sensitive state functions that the Dalai Lama has been performing. Instantly, there is doubt not only of the Dalai Lama’s envoys’ integrity but also their competence.
If Samdhong Rinpoche and Lobsang Sangay cannot even co-ordinate on such a trivial question – where in the world was Samdhong Rinpoche? – how can they individually and together, navigate the tricky and often stormy political oceans? As a matter of fact, how many grave mistakes have they made over the decades that would have robbed the Tibetan people of good chances to win their struggle? These will be mistakes that the Tibetan people will never know about, considering the level of deception that the CTA clearly engages in. How can the Tibetan people rely on these two to continue to win global support of the Tibetan cause and deal with a very powerful China who, over the years, has demonstrated highly sophisticated diplomacy and governance?
Finally, notice how after both Samdhong and Sangay exposed each other in public, there is no effort to repair the situation and instead, the damage has been allowed to fester and grow. Either there is an ongoing rift between the two envoys or they just could not be bothered to provide a coordinated reply to salvage the CTA and Dalai Lama’s reputations.
This bungling is characteristic of the CTA who has drawn more and more criticisms and concerns over the years. Recently we witnessed the spat between Lobsang Sangay and Penpa Tsering, the ex-representative of the Dalai Lama in North America and ex-Speaker of the Tibetan Parliament. The two government leaders behaved like schoolboys and quarreled publicly over the pettiest things. In the process, they exposed how corrupt the CTA actually is, that the Sikyong can direct monies meant for the Tibetan refugees to be treated as he sees fit and clearly in contravention of basic accounting integrity.
If the best of the best of the Tibetan government is of this caliber, is it any wonder what those under them are like and is it any wonder why after 60 years in the wilderness, all the CTA can offer the Tibetan people are hyped up promises instead of clear policies and directions?
It is only common sense that before an investor invests any of his hard-earned money into a company, one of the basic things he must look at is the honesty and competency of the management. An astute investor would never place any money into a company where the top officers are proven to be dishonest, and the entire management have been proven to be incapable of coordinating and repairing costly mistakes and, scarily, not in possession of even the most basic business plan to go by. How much more costly do the investments of the Tibetan people have to be? It is not money that the Tibetan leadership have gambled away but their lives, and the lives and future of a few generations of Tibetans in exile. Call it by any name, Rangzen (independence) or Umaylam (autonomy), a bad investment is just a bad investment.
Report on Dalai Lama’s Possible Visit to China Mistaken: CTA Clarifies
Published on 15th December 2017. The CTA themselves clarify news about the Dalai Lama visiting China, by saying that it was actually Samdhong Rinpoche who went. Now Samdhong Rinpoche says he did not go. So who is lying, Lobsang Sangay and the CTA in confirming the trip or Samdhong Rinpoche in denying it? Click to enlarge (Source: http://www.tibetanjournal.com/index.php/2017/12/15/report-dalai-lamas-possible-visit-china-mistaken-cta/)
A Secret Visit and Sino-Tibetan Dialogue
Published on 19th December 2017. The Diplomat is a reputable online news magazine that covers political and cultural issues, focusing on the Asia-Pacific region. Their report opens with a strong confirmation that Samdhong Rinpoche was indeed in China. Why would The Diplomat stake their reputation on publishing false news that could be so easily disproved by Samdhong Rinpoche showing proof he was somewhere else during the time he is alleged to have been in China? They would not risk their reputation in this way so the message is clear – Samdhong Rinpoche was in China, contrary to his denials. Click to enlarge (Source: https://thediplomat.com/2017/12/a-secret-visit-and-sino-tibetan-dialogue/)
A continuation of The Diplomat article (published 19th December 2017). Click to enlarge (Source: https://thediplomat.com/2017/12/a-secret-visit-and-sino-tibetan-dialogue/)
Neither Dalai Lama Nor Samdhong Have or Planning a China Visit!
Published on 19th December 2017. Now the Tibetan Journal, after publishing multiple reports about Samdhong Rinpoche visiting China, has retracted to say neither lamas visited China recently. How come something as simple and momentous in Tibetan society cannot be delivered clearly and without confusion? It does not reflect well on the leadership. Click to enlarge (Source: http://www.tibetanjournal.com/index.php/2017/12/19/dalai-lama-samdhong-planning-china-visit/)
Samdhong Rinpoche denies visiting China, says no plans for Dalai Lama as well
Published on 19th December 2017. A full 15 days after news first breaks that he went to China, Samdhong Rinpoche finally issues a rebuttal. How come it took him more than two weeks to say anything? Where was he during this time that he could not be informed about the news that was spreading like wildfire all around the world? Click to enlarge (Source: http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=39941&article=Samdhong+Rinpoche+denies+visiting+China%2c+says+no+plans+for+Dalai+Lama+as+well)
Did President Sangay Misinform That Samdhong Rinpoche Visited China?
Published on 20th December 2017. Another article in the Tibetan Journal highlights the confusion that all Tibetans feel about this issue. This type of confusion, animosity, lack of clarity, misinformation and poor coordination is the result of dealing with the Tibetan leadership. Click to enlarge (Source: http://www.tibetanjournal.com/index.php/2017/12/20/president-sangay-misinform-samdhong-rinpoche-visited-china/)
India Always Stood With Tibetans, Tibet Will Also Stay With India: Dalai Lama
Published on 20th December 2017. Again the Tibetan leadership adds to the confusion in Tibetan society. The Dalai Lama recently said that Tibet should be autonomous under Chinese leadership, and that Tibetan development will come from the Chinese. So how does it make sense to say that Tibetans will always stay with India? This actually reflects the lack of a clear strategy regarding the Tibetan situation. And such statements will only upset the Chinese leadership who will wonder what kind of games the Tibetan leadership is playing, when they continue to pledge support for their regional competitor, India. No wonder the Tibetan leadership has not made much progress with regards to the Tibetan situation over the last 60 years. There is no clear direction or message, or strategy. Click to enlarge (Source: http://www.tibetanjournal.com/index.php/2017/12/20/india-always-stood-tibetans-tibet-stay-india/)
Tibet Developments May Put Pressure on India
Published on 7th January 2018. Another article calls attention to Samdhong Rinpoche’s visit to meet with Chinese officials in Kunming. China’s plans to securitize Tibet by building ‘well-off border villages’ along Tibet’s borders and expanding the road network are building pressure on India. Click to enlarge (Source: http://m.rediff.com/news/column/tibet-developments-may-put-pressure-on-india/20180107.htm/)
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Samten Dhundup
The Dalai Lama’s health has been a concern for many around the world, especially for the Tibetan community. It’s really sad to know that the Dalai Lama last year reported and confirmed that he has prostate cancer, and had to undergo radiation treatment for his condition. It is mentioned here on the Dalai Lama’s own website, confirming his ailment.
It was announced at the end of last month that the Dalai Lama canceled all foreign travel for the rest of the year due to age and exhaustion. Last week, the Dalai Lama was rushed to Delhi for a check up and surprisingly declared fit upon his return. Is the Tibetan leadership trying to cover the truth about the Dalai Lama’s state of health because they want to continue to use him to attract donations and support?
Addressing 2000 Tibetans in Boston
Boston, MA, USA – On a bright and breezy morning His Holiness the Dalai Lama drove across Boston today to address a gathering of 2000 Tibetans from the city and up and down the east coast. Backstage he met and comforted the elderly and infirm.
The event began with a representative delivering a citation from the Governor of Massachusetts, another presenting a gift from the Mayor of Boston and the President of the Boston Tibetan Association making his report. His Holiness began,
“I’m here to meet Richie Davidson, so the opportunity arose also to meet all of you. Like Tibetans everywhere, you are keeping the spirit of Tibet alive. We’ve been in exile 58 years. In India we have the CTA. Major monasteries have been re-established and are thriving. Tibetans in exile are scattered all over the world, but wherever we are we form local communities, as you have done here, to preserve our identity and traditions. Those who live in free countries outside Tibet have a responsibility to keep up our spirits to encourage our brothers and sisters in Tibet who remain impressively determined.
“In the face of restrictions on education in Tibetan, their spirit remains strong. But they are not free to do what they want. There is discrimination when Tibetans’ loyalty to their community is regarded with suspicion and labelled splittist, while Chinese loyalty to their community is praised. There needs to be equality.
“Historically Tibet was a free and independent country in the 7th, 8th and 9th centuries, after which it fragmented. What has since held us together is our common religion, culture and language. Today, it’s very important that Tibetans of the Three Provinces remain united. While remaining within the PRC we want genuine autonomy so we can continue to keep our culture, language and traditions alive.”
His Holiness recalled that in 1959 nobody knew what would happen to Tibetans who had become refugees. The priority was finding ways to survive and the Government of India were generous with their help.
“There was a time when Tibetan Buddhism was dismissed as Lamaism as if it was not a proper Buddhist tradition,” His Holiness remarked. “Since we came into exile we have been able to show that it is in fact a pure and complete form of Buddhism. The tradition handed down to us from Nalanda includes profound philosophy and logic, as well as a rich understanding of the workings of the mind and emotions. We have kept this alive for more than 1000 years and now are in a position to draw from it to make a positive contribution to the well-being of humanity.”
“Lately in India I’ve been urging people to study, to develop a sound understanding not content to rely only on faith. In monasteries and nunneries from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh efforts are being made to study. It’s on this basis that Buddhism will last for centuries to come. China was historically a Buddhist country following the Nalanda tradition as we do. What the Chinese lacked was the command of logic and epistemology that we have maintained and a corresponding path of rigorous study.”
“In 7th century, Thönmi Sambhota devised a Tibetan script or improved on what already existed taking the Indian alphabet as a model. In 8th century, Trisong Detsen turned not to China, but to India to invite Shantarakshita to Tibet. Right from the start, he, and following him, his student Kamalashila, established the importance of employing logic and reason. It’s because of this that over the last more than 30 years we have been able to hold fruitful conversations with modern scientists. Scepticism about the mind’s being any more than a function of the brain has given way to an acknowledgment of neuroplasticity, recognition that developing the mind can change the brain.”
“We have a responsibility to uphold this Nalanda tradition that has been handed down to us, not out of attachment, but because it provides us an opportunity to be of service to others. Ensuring that the younger generation have a command of Tibetan ensures that they too have access to it.”
His Holiness concluded his talk by guiding the audience in generating the awakening mind of bodhichitta as they recited the common verse for taking refuge three times:
To the Buddha, Dharma, and the Highest Assembly
Until enlightenment I turn for refuge.
Through the store of wisdom and merit accrued by giving and other virtues
May I achieve Buddhahood to benefit all wandering beings.
After that he gave the transmission of the mantras of the Buddha, Avalokiteshvara, Manjushri, Arya Tara, Hayagriva and so forth and encouraged those gathered to make their lives meaningful.
His Holiness mentioned that in 2015 his physicians found indications of prostate cancer and decided to give him focused radiation treatment instead of surgery last year. This year his recent check-up at the Mayo Clinic has revealed all traces have gone. His Holiness declared that he’s physically healthy, mentally sharp and sleeps well.
After lunch His Holiness joined his old friend and Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, Richie Davidson and business leaders discussing human well-being. He told them that it’s basic human nature to be warm-hearted because our lives depend on having a sense of care for others. But the pressing reason for exploring well-being today is that we find ourselves facing problems that are prompted by anger, self-centredness and intolerance.
“We are all endowed with a biological seed of compassion, but we have to nurture it with intelligence. If we don’t change direction, this century will end up like the one that went before overwhelmed by intimidation, violence and bloodshed. Nobody wants that.
“If something is worth doing, do it. If, in fact, you fail, there’ll be no cause for regret. You can try again. To die without even having tried, will be to die disappointed. We all have opportunities to contribute making a better world; we must seize them with far-sighted vision. I’m encouraged that so many people are becoming interested in the well-being of humanity. This is surely a sign of hope.”
Early tomorrow, His Holiness will fly from Boston to Frankfurt; the first leg of his journey back to India.
https://www.dalailama.com/news/2017/addressing-2000-tibetans-in-boston
LobNam
In 1992, Tai Situ, a regent of the Karma Kagyu lineage recognized a boy as the 17th Karmapa, endorsed by the Tibetan leadership in Dharamsala. This move went against tradition as the Tibetan leadership has NEVER been involved in the recognition of the Karmapas AND it has been the Shamarpa who is traditionally responsible for recognizing the incarnations of the Karmapa.
As a result of the Tibetan leadership’s involvement, a feud arose between the two candidates’ supporters and split the Karma Kagyu lineage into two factions. One group supported the Sharmapa’s candidate; the other group supported Tai Situ’s candidate because he got the endorsement of the Tibetan leadership.
Tai Situ was subsequently banned from entering India from 1994 to 1998 for his alleged pro-China and anti-India activities, after he travelled frequently to Tibet to enthrone his Karmapa candidate at Tsurphu Monastery, which is the traditional seat of the Karmapas in Tibet.
Because of the Tibetan leadership’s validation of one of the candidates, the two Karmapas situation continues to be unresolved today, with many disputes and scandals. This unprecedented strife destroys the harmony and sanctity of the Karma Kagyu school of Buddhism, all because the Tibetan leadership had to get involved and exert its power, even in matters where it has no authority over.
Today, Rumtek Monastery, the main seat of the Karma Kagyu lineage outside Tibet is not known for its sacred relics, but as a focal point for the sectarian tensions and violence because of the Karmapa rivalry, thanks to the Tibetan leadership.
Situ Rinpoche Returns to India
Sanjeev Miglani
A letter from His Holiness the Dalai Lama (September 11, 1998) states:
“Tai Situ Rinpoche is known to me since many years and I can vouch (for him). I have full confidence in him and I believe that Rinpoche has much to offer through his spiritual leadership in the Kagyu Lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. I am therefore happy that Rinpoche has returned to India since recently.”
The following report has been compiled by Norma Levine from an article which appeared in the Himalayan Voice Aug/Sept 1998.
On August 25, 1998, a huge and colourful crowd of monks, nuns and Lamas as well as representatives of the different Tibetan Buddhist sects, and Buddhist organizations gathered at Indira Gandhi International airport to accord a warm and affectionate welcome to HE Tai Situ Rinpoche (who had been banned “due to the persuasion of Sharmapa Lama and his dissident followers”).
Many of the crowd wore traditional dress and were carrying banners and burning incense (List of various delegations below) The Lamas and Rinpoches formed a long line on both sides of the departure lounge of the airport and waited expectantly for over an hour while the flight was delayed, to receive Rinpoche’s blessing. Finally, Rinpoche came out from the airport amidst a round of warm applause. There were tears in the eyes of many Lamas; some even sobbed.
The next day, the Himalayan Buddhist Cultural Association organized a traditional reception and long life prayers for Rinpoche at the impressive Habitat Centre in New Delhi. Chief guest was the Hon. Minister for Urban Affairs, Mr Ram Jethmalani. After lighting lamps and chanting long life prayers, there were speeches from the Chairman of the Himalayan Buddhist Cultural Association, Mr Karma Tobdan, member of the Rajya Sabha from Sikkim, and Dr Ananda Kumar, Professor at Nehru University and Secretary of the Bharat-Tibet Friendship Association. All speakers commented on Rinpoche’s contribution to world peace, specifically his ceaseless battle for the underprivileged, and of the deep faith of the Himalayan people towards him. Guest speaker, Mr Jethmalani apologised on behalf of the Indian Government and claimed it had been a mistake on their part that Rinpoche had been exiled from India.In an emotionally charged speech, he said, “The Buddha is the beacon light and that light will become the shining light of the world” .
At the end of the reception, Tai Situpa was presented with offering scarves and flowers by representatives and Rinpoches from Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, Kalimpong, Darjeeling, Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Delhi etc.
List of Nepalese Buddhist delegations: Dhilyak Monastery, Thrangu Tashi Choling, Nenang Pawo Monastery, Benchen Gompa, Kyodrak Tenyi Gompa, Karma Thinley Gompa, Shechen Tenyi Thargeyling, Karmapa Sewa Sangh Samiti, Him Khar Gompa, Jamgon Labrang, Dege Welfare Ass’n, Yolmo Ass’n, Nangchen Welfare Ass’n, Lingtsang Welfare Ass’n, Deling Dungdrub Society, Ngedon Osel Ling, Swyandbud.
Areas represented: Ladakh, Lahul, Spiti, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Sikkim, Darjeeling, Dharmsala and Bhutan.
The following speech was given by Tai Situ Rinpoche during the reception ceremony held in his honour on the occasion of his return to Sherabling. (published in the Himalayan Voice (II) 3, Aug/Sept 1998 pp. 39-41)
“I am so happy that you have come today, all of you here lead by our chief guest, the minister for religious affairs, all you incarnate Lamas who have willingly taken rebirth for the sake of sentient beings, you abbots adorned with the nine qualities of noble scholars, the sangha who possess the seven qualities of knowledge and liberation, officials of the government of the Tibetan people in Dharamsala, heads of local settlements, the general public, teachers of the schools, heads of the local Indian regions, local public, and people from Sikkim, Ladakh, Kunnu and other Himalayan regions, and private individuals who have made their own way here from Bhutan, Nepal and so on.
If I explain why I am so happy: In brief, if you think of me, I am very low in having the intelligence of a wise person and the experiential realisations of an established saint. However, because of the pure lineage of gurus and the kindness of the unique specialisations of the pure lineage of great minds, I have received the blessings of pratimoksa, bodhisattva and vajrayana vows. In the same way that I have received the blessings of these three traditions of vows, I will strive to maintain their purity, without defect in my practice. In addition to that also, I have a name or title, and in accordance with that title, I must strive to maintain the teachings of the Buddha because of my title as a Buddhist elder. Therefore I strive to serve the welfare of sentient beings as much as I can.
To this purpose, therefore, dusing the past few years, I have been continuously making prayers with a pure heart for the sake of all sentient beings. I pray that there may be no obstructions to the increase of the Buddha’s teachings in the holy land of the noble ones. With regard to my body, however, I didn’t have the chance to be here and fulfill my purpose in India. But now, at this moment, the opportunity has arisen for me to return and serve the purpose of the Buddha’s teachings in India once more. I feel that this is highly meritorious. So I am very happy that you have all come here today on such an occasion and have given me your best wishes, for which I thank you very much.
All of us here are followers of the Buddha. The blessed Buddha first cultivated the thought of enlightenment and then, through his period of training, he accumulated meritorious virtue for three countless aeons. Finally, at the end of this time, he attained pure and perfect enlightenment, and then he taught the immeasurable and unfathomable lower and higher vehicles of the methods to salvation. To his ordinary followers he gave numberless teachings, and to his rare and gifted disciples he gave profound teachings on the secret path of vajrayana. Whoever follows these teachings is a Buddhist. For all of us who have had the chance to enter the vajrayana, it is as if the flower had fallen upon our own deity and this arises as a result of a vast accumulation of virtue from previous lives. This is highly fortunate. However, having attained this opportunity, we should not waste it. Nor should we allow the dharma to decline. We should cause the Dharma to flourish and increase, and whatever Dharma has declined should be restored. This is the duty and responsibility of all those who practise the Dharma. That duty rests on our own shoulders. Therefore I on my part have continuously striven in this matter. Even now I am striving and will continue to strive for this.
As for His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, the sole deity of us Tibetans, he upon whom our flower has fallen and the great object of refuge for all Buddhists in the world, for him too, these are his intentions. The dharma teachings that can help all sentient beings are in our hands. But we did not receive this because we are capable of uplifting all beings, nor did we attain these teachings on our own merits alone, nor because we won them in debate. We hold these teachings due to the blessings of Avalokitesvara, whom we have honoured and worshipped for many lifetimes with body, speech and mind, and our flower has fallen upon him. The spread of Dharma is his intention. In the popular oral tradition there is a saying: ‘One says MANI and mummy at the same time’ (ie Tibetans learn the 6 syllable mantra at their mother’s knee as one of the first things they can say). This is clear proof of our connection with him.
For all these reasons, we should practise these teachings for the sake of peace in the world as the noble Avalokitesvara intends, not merely with our lips but sincerely from the heart. Lay people, also, should have their own appropriate way of acting. If we do all these things distinctly without mistakes, outwardly, inwardly and secretly, we may serve the Buddha well and accomplish much for the sake of all sentient beings and accomplish the intentions of Avalokitesvara, the father of all the Buddhas.
When I speak from that viewpoint, it is highly fortunate for me to be back in India serving the cause of sentient beings and the Buddha-Dharma once more. Here, in the holy land of India, we have the opportunity to accomplish the goals of this and future lives. Speaking for myself, I was born in Tibet but brought up here in India. And the same is true for many of the people here. This is because we have some karmic connection with the holy land of India which has been blessed by the feet of the glorious Buddha. It is a matter of great merit and joy that we have this opportunity to practise Dharma and accomplish our own and others’ welfare throughout this and future lives. Thus we may be able to accomplish the intentions of the noble Avalokitesvara by being in India, a land also blessed by the appearance of Avalokitesvara himself, a land that lies under the shadow of his great compassion.
People of India and the government of India continue to be so kind to us and we think of them with that affection normally reserved for our own parents. They have been so kind as if we were relatives in the same family… (text corruption here)
I am aware of this from the depths of my heart. I am so fortunate to meet you all here today. I am not able to say many vast and profound things to you all just now, because all I can tell you is as much as I know, as far as I can reach with my mind. I have nothing more to say beyond this. In brief, the teachings of the Buddha are to be good at heart. If someone harms you, you should think of him with pity. He is under the sway of harmful emotions and, not observing the law of karma, he is oppressed by strong emotions. ‘May he not suffer as a result. May he become free of the tyranny of the five poisonous afflictions.’ This is what Buddhists should think. So in whatever circumstances you should find yourself in trouble, with family, friends or neighbours, one should cherish bodhicitta and practise it from the heart, not merely mutter it with the mouth. When the noble Avalokitesvara speaks of the path of non-violence and peace, he refers to bodhicitta. These teachings of good heart are the most important teachings of the Buddha. This is the gist of all the holy ones in the lineage, from the primordial Buddha to one’s own root guru. Therefore we should keep all of this within our minds.
I am so happy that we could all meet here today. To all of you I wish good fortune. TASHI DELEGS. I pray that the incarnation of the lord Avalokitesvara may live long. May his life be stable and firm and may his activities increase and spread wide. May the victorious Vajradhara Karmapa live long and may his activities prosper. With regard to him also, I pray that the victorious Karmapa may come to India as soon as possible so that he may be established at Rumtek monastery and his many followers may be able to receive his blessings and advice. This is for the benefit of all sentient beings. I also pray fervently that all of you here may turn your minds towards the Dharma, and that the Dharma may be a proper path, and that this path dispels illusion so that illusion gives rise to transcendental wisdom.”
English translation by Martin Boord and Karma Phunsho, Oxford, November 27, 1998.
http://www.quietmountain.org/links/situ_rinpoche/situ_return.htm
Nakchukha
The West has finally recognized that the Dalai Lama, the icon of universal peace, love, and tolerance, is undoubtedly the driving force behind the discrimination and ostracization of Dorje Shugden practitioners around the world. His ‘government’ in exile, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) led by Lobsang Sangay, advocates the ‘Tibetan way’ of democracy that is ‘unique’ – they give the order, and the Tibetans are to follow without question. The undemocratic way of firing people from their jobs, expelling monks from the monasteries and prohibiting Dorje Shugden practitioners from attending the Dalai Lama’s talks are just some of the ways used to intimidate the Tibetans to do what the CTA wants.
Clearly, the CTA’s democracy and their ‘noble’ Tibetan cause are just a veil that conceals the underlying hypocrisy and abuse of human rights, which is ironic as they are asking China for the same rights. The religious apartheid, segregation, and discrimination continue to be enforced internationally after two decades, just because the Dalai Lama said so.
Dalai Lama preached message of religious tolerance abroad, while ruthlessly persecuting his people at home
April 11, 2018 | Artvoice
In 1996 the Tibetan Government in Exile, under the direct control of the Dalai Lama, issued an official ban on the centuries-old Tibetan Buddhist practice of Dorje Shugden.
Prior to this point Dorje Shugden was widely practised amongst the largest school of Tibetan Buddhism and according to Thupten Wangchen of the Central Tibetan Administration approximately 30% of all Tibetans used to practice this protector Deity.
The Dalai Lama told his government to release an official decree to all Tibetans stating that, “Propitiating Dolgyal [Dorje Shugden] does great harm to the cause of Tibet. It also imperils the life of the Dalai Lama.”
A few days later the Dalai Lama then instructed his government to tell all of its employees, “not to indulge in the propitiation of Shugden.”
This was the beginning of the Dalai Lama’s great purge of Shugden Buddhists from all aspects of mainstream Tibetan society. People were forced to either give up their faith or lose their job.
In 2008 the Dalai Lama forced all monasteries in South India to expel any monks who still refused to give up their practice of Dorje Shugden.
As Rebecca Novick (author and editor of 6 books on Tibetan Buddhism and culture) stated in an article for the Huffington Post, “Shugden practitioners gradually became social pariahs. Shopkeepers refused to sell to them, and landlords refused to rent to them. In 2008 the Tibetan leadership ordered the monasteries in South India to purge their populations of Shugden devotees. Monks who had formerly lived like brothers were now forbidden to talk to one another.”
During this time the Dalai Lama was travelling throughout the West preaching a message of inter-religious tolerance and love, while at home he was ruthlessly persecuting and suppressing his own people.
Rather than speaking out against religious discrimination the vast majority of Western Buddhist organisations actually spoke out in support of such actions. One such group, the German Buddhist Monastic Association (DBO) issued a press release stating, “In any society it is necessary for the protection of freedom of the majority…to exclude [Dorje Shugden] advocates from public institutions.”
The unquestioned acceptance of the Dalai Lama as some kind of perfect being by the media, coupled with the support for his own discrimination and prejudice by groups such as the DBO further emboldened him.
On March 17th 2014 the President of the Dalai Lama’s government, Lobsang Sangay passed a resolution in their Parliament which criminalized all Shugden Buddhists. In the resolution it stated that it, “recognises also the Dolgyal [Dorje Shugden] followers…as criminals in history.”
Just this week Lobsang Sangay delivered the Berman lecture at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. In it he explained the way that democracy works in the Tibetan exile community, “when the Tibetan cabinet makes a decision, they send the notice to Tibetans around the world and it is followed by all, irrespective of the size of the Tibetan community in the place.”
It is clear therefore that since 1996 the Dalai Lama has effectively banned the practice of Dorje Shugden within the Tibetan community. He has expelled people from jobs, monasteries, and even told people directly to leave his teachings if they practice Dorje Shugden.
Can you imagine the headlines if the Dalai Lama banned Jews, Muslims, or Christians from attending any of his public teachings? Why is it acceptable therefore for him to ban Shugden Buddhists?
The Dalai Lama’s persecution of Shugden Buddhists is also evident to prominent Buddhist scholars such as Dr Robert Barnett at Columbia University who said, “As you know, the exile authorities do not accept that there is a ban on Dorje Shugden practice…and does not accept that there is discrimination towards Dorje Shugden practitioners within the exile community…my view is the opposite on both these questions.”
Dr Barnett also stated to the BBC World Service that Dorje Shugden practitioners in the Tibetan exile community have faced persecution as a result of the Dalai Lama’s actions towards them.
Dr Nathan Hill of the SOAS University in London, England also confirmed that discrimination towards Shugden Buddhists has arisen as a result of the Dalai Lama’s actions, “There is absolutely no doubt at all that individuals are discriminated against: they have lost their jobs, they have been told they must not enter restaurants, shops and businesses.”
Even one of the Dalai Lama’s two personal emissaries, Samdhong Rinpoche, tasked with representing him on foreign trips stated, “It seems that there are some who feel we should make some concessions to the Dholgyal [Dorje Shugden] worshipers who are unable to stop the worship so that they could return to the mainstream society.”, adding, “On our part, it is an easy job to come up with a clear demand. That is to ask them to stop the worship of Dholgyal [Dorje Shugden]. On the very day that they stopped the worship, they could readily enter into the old community. If one asks if there is any way by which they could receive acceptance without having to stop the Dholgyal [Dorje Shugden] worship, then, decidedly, the answer is that there is none.”
As recently as March 2017 the Dalai Lama held a prayer session in which he had 170 members of his security department make a pledge to never associate with any Dorje Shugden practitioners which he, “joyfully accepted”.
Clearly the Dalai Lama is the driving force behind the segregation and discrimination of Shugden Buddhists within the Tibetan community. He is acutely aware of the impact of his actions and the suffering they cause within the society he is supposed to cherish and protect. Yet he still expects people to pledge to continue this discrimination. Both of his emissaries, Lobsang Sangay and Samdhong Rinpoche support the criminalization and marginalization of Shugden Buddhists, and yet the Dalai Lama continues to be praised as an icon of peace, love and tolerance.
How much longer can the west turn a blind eye to the suffering of religious apartheid that the Dalai Lama is inflicting on his own people?
https://artvoice.com/2018/04/11/dalai-lama-preached-message-religious-tolerance-abroad-ruthlessly-persecuting-people-home/#.Ws_ujdNuaqB
Dawa Sangpo
Amongst all those who vehemently attack Dorje Shugden practitioners online, one person seems to stand out like a sore thumb – Tenzin Peljor. He is even said to be operating several websites registered under various aliases to negatively influence online discussion regarding the Shugden controversy and sway opinion in his favour. These websites claim to be the premier sources for “authoritative and independent information” on the subject.
It is more than disturbing that a so-called ‘simple’ Buddhist monk is so engrossed in promoting hatred against Dorje Shugden practitioners. Such behaviour is not becoming of a Buddhist monk. His actions caught the attention of arebuddhistsracist.com to investigate further and what they found was appalling. Hidden behind a monk’s robes, the East German Tenzin Peljor has a complex background including involvement with the Stasi; a huge interest in the dynamics of Nazism, dictatorship, totalitarian systems; and Buddhist cults.
The investigation uncovered the hidden agenda behind his websites and his connections with the leadership of the Tibetans in-exile. Apparently, he was hired to ensure that propaganda ostracizing and persecuting Shugden practitioners continues unabated, even to the level of inciting violence on innocent people.
Tenzin Peljor – Disgruntled Monk or CTA Puppet?
Updated, & there is now a further article connected to this subject here.
In researching the issues around the Dalai Lama controversy I was surprised to see the same group of names kept cropping up. There appeared to be a small Dalai Lama fan club that was aggressively promoting its “anti-protest” stance and within that group there was one name that seemed to dominate all their activities – Tenzin Peljor.
I stumbled across Mr Peljor early in my research, or to be more precise I had been directed to several of his websites for “authoritative and independent information” on the subject. It would appear that he has become an “unbiased expert” according to his friends in the group, but what they don’t mention are his close ties to the Dalai Lama and the exile leadership.
They also fail to mention that he has been aggressively campaigning against the protests for over 8 years and that he runs numerous websites registered under different aliases and tries to influence online discussions using several false identities. On further inspection Mr Peljor’s activities are anything but “unbiased and independent”, and more closely resemble those of an activist promoting a specific and clearly defined agenda.
His “independent websites” are listed as resources for journalists by the Tibetan exile leadership, he is promoted to journalists by Tibetan NGOs, he is the media spokesperson for the German Buddhist organisation DBO, and he targets any journalist and publication that portrays the protests in a positive light. For a monk whose main activities are teaching at a Buddhist centre in Berlin he is remarkably active and engaged in this controversy, almost as if it was his full-time job.
As with all the sources I come across in my research I did some background checks to see if he was as independent as he claims and to what degree his presentation of information could be influenced by those it benefits. Scratching the surface of his ‘independent monk’ facade revealed quite a bit more than I had initially suspected.
An ex-NKT Member
Tenzin Peljor is often very up front about his prior involvement with the NKT, after all he uses this as a basis for his credibility when it comes to the protests. He joined the NKT in 1995/96 according to his biography, becoming ordained in 1998 and later disrobing and leaving the group in 2000.
Both Tenzin and the teacher he had in the NKT decided to leave at the same time, after which he continued to be her student. He took ordination again in 2002 in Nepal, but disrobed after only 2 months and began studying with a new teacher from the Rime tradition.
In March 2006 after 4 years in Rime he then took ordination from the Dalai Lama in India, who gave him the name Tenzin Peljor.
It was soon after his ordination, that Mr Peljor began to take an interest in countering the protests. His approach followed much the same modus operandi as the Tibetan government, namely to try and undermine the credibility of the protests by attacking the NKT.
It’s worth noting at this point that prior to the protests the Dalai Lama had no problem with Geshe Kelsang Gyatso or the NKT. He had written the foreword to Geshe Kelsang Gyatso’s book, “Buddhism in the Tibetan Tradition”, and a note of praise in another of his books, “Meaningful to Behold”. It was only after the protests began that the Tibetan exile leadership started to attack Geshe Kelsang Gyatso and smear the NKT, attempting to label it as a cult.
Following his ordination by the Dalai Lama, Tenzin Peljor remained in India and began to assist the Tibetan government (CTA) with their disinformation campaign. He began by editing pages on Wikipedia, rapidly becoming the main editor for the page about the NKT.
His attempts to redefine the NKT on Wikipedia however seem to have been so clumsy that it aroused the suspicion of other editors. In describing Tenzin’s approach one of the Wikipedia editors stated:
“I’m very concerned that the opinions and viewpoints of a relatively small number of individuals is drawn upon as the source material for a large portion of the article, which is representative of the point of view of a single editor who, in his determination to ensure that the article fully describes his own perspective, has dominated the editing process.” (ClockworkSoul, 23rd October 2006)
The Birth of the Survivors
As Tenzin’s campaign to discredit the NKT on Wikipedia was starting to lose ground he then switched tack and focussed his attention towards online Buddhist chat groups, in particular he became very active on a group called e-Sangha. It was on this group that he struck up a friendship with David Cutshaw, a disillusioned ex-NKT member and encouraged him to start a new discussion group.
The group that Tenzin wanted Mr Cutshaw to set up was to be focussed only on the negative aspects of the NKT, it was to be named the “NKT Survivors” group and any pro-NKT messages were to be strictly forbidden. The idea was that the group would encourage people to leave the NKT and only post their negative experiences and opinions of them. Their rules state:
“No NKT members/followers/students are allowed.
If you are happy with the NKT, and have no desire to leave, this group is not for you. If you join anyway trying to post and try to get Yahoo to delete this group, we can only assume you are a troll trying to cause disharmony. Such people will be banned and removed at once from the group.”
Tenzin offered to support David in the creation of the group, but wanted to avoid being directly linked to it as its creator. In this way Tenzin had found the perfect surrogate to continue his online activities against the NKT.
The group was created on May 22nd 2007 and Tenzin was the first person other than David to post on it. He assisted with moderating the group, approving new members, editing its settings, and profile.
At the time of the groups creation Tenzin was still residing within the Tibetan exile community in India, however a few weeks later he was promoted to the position of Resident Monk at Bodhicharya Centre in Berlin. From his new base in Berlin he continued to be central to its development, shaping the “survivors” group and focussing its narrative portraying the NKT as a cult.
After a few months the group appeared to be achieving the goal Tenzin had failed to accomplish the previous year with Wikipedia.
On 31st Dec 2007 he posted to the group stating, “At the New Years Day I will move to Italy, Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa, and pick up a qualified study there for the next 6 years.”, adding, “I will leave the forum at the New Years Day…If there is anybody who feel he can support David’s moderator activities, please let him know privately.”
Instituto Lama Tzong Khapa is a centre of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT) a Tibetan group that follows the Dalai Lama. Clearly the FPMT centre approved of Tenzin’s activities because within 2 months of his arrival there he resumed his activities on the “survivors” group.
Weaving Websites and Alliances
In April 2008 another series of protests began as the Dalai Lama visited the US. In response to these Tenzin created two websites registered under an alias which according to him offered, “fair, neutral, and balanced information regarding NKT and Buddhist cults in general.”
The websites were registered under the false name of Losang Tashi, to an address in Gotha, the town in East Germany where Tenzin was born. In a post on May 21st 2008 to the “survivors” group he said, “maybe we use the power of the many people here and the motivation to protect others (giving fearlesness) by setting up 1-2 websites.”
Rather than offering fair or neutral information both websites were a continuation of his online campaign to undermine the protests by attempting to discredit the NKT. Had his intention been wholesome you would need to ask why a Buddhist monk with vows against lying was using a false name when registering websites?
Then in July 2008 Jamyang Khedrup posted a comment promoting one of Tenzin’s websites under a New York Times article about the protests. What I found interesting was that as I dug deeper into Tenzin’s background I found the same people who have been involved with his campaigning for a long time.
By this point in my research I had already encountered Jamyang Khedrup whilst investigating his involvement with the LamaGate hacking scandal, but I had no idea his involvement with Tenzin stretched as far back as 2008.
The reason I didn’t know Khedrup’s involvement went so far back is because he was posting to the ‘survivors’ group using a false identity. For 6 months in 2008 Khedrup used the name Lobsang Jangchub in numerous posts to the group. Many people responded to his comments addressing him by the name Lobsang. At no time did he ever try to correct them or explain that wasn’t his name.
The fact that both Tenzin and Khedrup were using false identities whilst posting comments to the ‘survivors’ group raises significant questions about the accuracy of other users identities and claims.
Significant discrepancies have already been uncovered with Khedrup’s accounts of his involvement with LamaGate, and here is yet another occasion where his credibility is called into question.
Seeking to expand his sphere of influence beyond his own websites and the “survivors” group Tenzin began to strike up a relationship with Dialogue Ireland, a website which focuses on religious movements. Prior to Tenzin’s involvement his friend, Joanne Clark had also been in touch with them to offer her services as a self-proclaimed”expert” on Tibetan Buddhism.
Tenzin and Joanne’s approach in the Dialogue Ireland forums seemed to follow a pattern of promoting both Tenzin’s websites and the “survivors” group. In his attempt to form a stronger bond with Dialogue Ireland, Tenzin wrote to them explaining his position:
“I am much interested into the dynamics of Nazi, Stasi, dictatorship, totalitarian systems, and I am an admirer of Jay Lifton and Margaret Thaler Singer. I run also a website about the dynamics of Buddhist cults in German language. So we share quite a lot.”
Yet when they tried to ask him questions about his background he became very defensive, refusing to answer them. Tenzin said, “I don’t see any use to answer. My experience recently at DI [Dialogue Ireland] was that whatever I say will be misunderstood or misinterpreted and finally twisted.” adding, “Also I am not interested in any online discussion about me. East German biographies can be complex.”
A common theme in Tenzin’s response to critics is that they are “twisting” the facts, especially when someone is trying to pin him down on a specific point. It’s interesting that Tenzin used to be in the National People’s Army (NPA) in East Germany, which was strongly influenced by the Soviet Armed Forces, working as a radio operator.
His comments about the protests often accuse them of using ‘agitprop’, which is a Soviet style of propaganda, a methodology he would have been all too familiar with from his previous training. Unfortunately he didn’t expand on his “complex” biography, so we don’t know what type of activities he was employed to perform by the NPA, or what areas his training encompassed.
In 2013 Dialogue Ireland started to use Chris Chandler as their expert on Tibetan Buddhism and approached the issue as a problem with Lamaism, rather than just one or two specific traditions. Chris, who had been involved with Tibetan Buddhism for 30 years, raised the issue that Lamaism is a form of Tantric Hinduism. So it was not a question of focussing on the NKT as a cultish form of Buddhism, but was a case of finding the exact same tendencies and attitudes in all forms of Tibetan Buddhism, including those following the Dalai Lama.
Their new outlook limited the degree to which Tenzin could manipulate their website to promote his own agenda and when they began to look into Ringu Tulku Rinpoche, one of Tenzin’s teachers, he disengaged from them completely. (You can read Dialogue Ireland’s article about Tenzin Peljor in full here https://dialogueireland.wordpress.com/2013/07/30/tenzin-peljor-ordained-by-the-dalai-lama-and-connected-to-ringu-tulku/)
By this point Joanne had already left the Dialogue Ireland site, but when she heard that Chris was their new expert she returned with a vengence. As one person said, “She was like someone high on drink, totally under the influence.”
Dialogue Ireland stated:
“However since Chris has been the catalyst for our understanding of Lamaism as the cultist form of Buddhism Joanne has been like a Banshee on our site morning, noon and night. She disagrees with Chris’s analysis but can’t just get up and go. She is now camping on the site.”
A Sudden Increase
Following his failed attempt at using Dialogue Ireland to undermine the NKT, Tenzin Peljor spent the following years expanding the number of his own websites that he could control and direct, rather than having to rely upon others. During this period his group of websites grew from two to eight, and everything was proceeding as normal for him until 2014.
Prior to 2014 the protests generally garnered a relatively small degree of media coverage. Whilst they were mentioned on several newscasts in the mainstream media it was often along the lines of the Tibetan government’s media briefing notes, so the issues behind the protests were rarely covered.
That all changed in Oslo when the Dalai Lama returned to celebrate his Nobel Peace Prize and the media took a greater interest in the protests. This attention seemed to gradually build from one protest to another which prompted a corresponding increase in activity from Tenzin Peljor and his compatriots.
In the 8 months prior to May 2014 there were on average 16 messages a month posted on the “survivors” discussion board, however in May this figure jumped up to 144 messages. The vast majority of them were posted over the days when the protests were taking place in Oslo.
At the same time the “survivors” were asking what they could do to counter the protests the exile leadership were asking the exact same question, and before long the two groups were working hand in hand. The “NKT Survivors” became the “NKT Survivor Activists”, and at the request of people associated with the exile leadership they began a new phase in their campaign to try and discredit the protesters.
One of their first actions involved the creation of a declaration against the protests by ex-members of the NKT. Originally this was presented as coming from Carol McQuire and Tenzin as a spontaneous idea of their own.
On 5th November however Carol admitted that it wasn’t their idea saying, “we were asked to do the declaration, it didn’t come from us, but we thought it was a great idea and agreed to do this as it would help the situation.”, adding, “Once we were asked to join in, we haven’t looked back – it’s been so inspiring working with a load of amazing people”
There was a slight problem with the first version of the declaration though, it included the following text, “We acknowledge there may be some problems within the Tibetan community that need to be addressed”. This had to be removed from subsequent versions of the declaration before the exile leadership would allow it to be put on the CTA’s official website.
In explaining this on his own website Tenzin let slip, “One of the initiators of the declaration wished for a change”, then he presented both the old version and the changed version.
The declaration was then added to the Tibetan government’s official website (Tibet.net) at the very top of the page dedicated to the Dorje Shugden controversy. The significance of its placement should not be underestimated. It appears before any statements from the CTA and the Dalai Lama, which is somewhat unusual for a declaration signed by only 24 ex-NKT members who are supposedly unconnected to the exile leadership.
Despite all the best efforts of Tenzin and the CTA the media was undeterred. They continued to take an interest in the protests and the Dalai Lama found himself facing questions about them during every press conference. The coverage in Hamburg seemed pivotal in that it was both widespread and also became the top news story on Google about the Dalai Lama.
Following Hamburg a new website was created specifically for the media to counteract the protests. It was a website that was designed to be both anonymous, yet have the support of Tibet House in the US. No name was associated with it, no contact details, and it was registered through a domain proxy service, designed to keep the registrant’s details hidden.
At the bottom of the website the disclaimer stated:
“Official Tibet Houses are cultural centers of HH the Dalai Lama, non-profit organizations devoted to the preservation of Tibetan culture. This site appears with their approval since, while not responsible for producing the site or its content, the misrepresentations of Tibetan culture generated by this controversy distort and negatively affect the public perception of Tibetan culture.”
It was all very mysterious and Tenzin Peljor made no mention of the website until someone posted a comment on his website drawing his attention to it. He pretended to know nothing about the website until this comment on October 19th, however he had set one of his own websites to redirect to this new website two days previously, on October 17th.
The mystery deepened when I was discussing some of the controversy with Professor Robert Thurman on the fateful night of the LamaGate incident. It seemed that Professor Thurman was confused about who I am and was convinced that I had suggested to him that he should create the website.
On 30th October Prof. Thurman stated to me that, “we prepared shugdeninfo.com for you @IndyHack”, adding, “We produced this site on your suggestion @IndyHack”
I was a little baffled to say the least. Prof. Thurman was saying quite clearly that he was involved with the creation of the new website (shugdeninfo.com) and yet Tenzin Peljor had redirected his own domain name (shugden.info) to Thurman’s new site. It was too much of a coincidence for me to drop and I was encouraged that there was now a direct link between Thurman and Peljor, albeit a slightly difficult one to prove categorically.
Fortunately Tenzin helped out with that a few weeks later.
When is a Coincidence not a Coincidence?
When you’re dealing with investigations it’s tricky to pin down exact evidence to prove your case – people sometimes lie and when you catch them out they usually refuse to admit it. Often times you also have to deal with associations of probabilities, you look for groupings of supposedly unconnected events that push the boundaries of coincidence.
The fact Prof. Thurman had admitted direct involvement with the shugdeninfo.com website was a welcome and unexpected gift. It went beyond the mere approval of the site by Tibet House US and indicated that he had been directly involved in its creation with one or more other people. The fact that Tenzin was redirecting his domain to the site before anyone had told him about it on his blog was also helpful, as was his pretense not to know about it until that point, but it still wasn’t enough.
Then there was another unexpected gift, Tenzin updated the registration of his domain (shugden.info) through the same anonymous service as shugdeninfo.com and hosted it on the same servers as shugdeninfo.com. Now both domain names had exactly the same settings.
When delving beyond the facade of a ‘simple monk’ or ‘independent expert’ we find that Tenzin Peljor’s background is far from simple or independent.
Here we have someone who in their youth was a Radio Operator in the National People’s Army, and who is familiar with the Soviet style of government propaganda. By his own admission he is, “interested into the dynamics of Nazi, Stasi, dictatorship, totalitarian systems” and has a complex East German biography (including his own Stasi file).
He’s an ex-NKT member, so that would account for his interest in speaking out against them, but there’s a huge gap of 6 years between him leaving the NKT and beginning his online campaign against them, which doesn’t tally. The timing of his campaign seems more closely related to his ordination by the Dalai Lama than his experiences within the NKT.
Moreover his approach to attacking the NKT seems to be in response to their involvement with the protests, rather than being a “survivor”. He began to develop his own websites only in response to the protests in 2008.
Tenzin claims the purpose of his websites are, “to counter the misinformation campaign of the NKT”, yet his own approach appears to be promoting the disinformation campaign of the Tibetan exile leadership. He also created a declaration and canvassed for signatures on it because he was instructed to by people who objected to even the slightest criticism of the Tibetan community.
His new website in response to the media coverage of the protests in 2014 appears to have been created in collaboration with Professor Thurman, who is alleged to have tried to solicit anonymous to hack protesters Twitter accounts (more here). His domain which redirects to the new website is also now hidden behind the same anonymous registration service that Thurman used.
Overall Tenzin Peljor’s campaign against the NKT seems more related to the protests than any negative experiences he had whilst being a member of the group. The level and depth of his involvement over such an extensive time period goes beyond the expected response of a disgruntled “survivor”.
Mr Peljor appears to be an activist who is promoting a clearly defined and well structured campaign. The fact that his campaign started whilst he was living within the Tibetan exile community in India seems to indicate the main influencing factor behind it.
He is well funded and has significant resources and time to invest in this issue that don’t fit with his role as a resident monk at Bodhicharya Centre. For instance at one point he offered to fly to Ireland to discuss his Stasi background when issues about it arose.
The logical conclusion is that Tenzin Peljor is acting in accordance with the wishes of the CTA as one of their de facto agents. The persona he projects as being an ex-NKT “survivor” simply trying to right the wrongs he experienced is nothing other than a smokescreen.
The problem he has with this facade is that it is poorly crafted and badly executed. When exposed to a sustained investigation it crumbles to reveal his close involvement with, and oversight from, the Tibetan exile leadership.
Update – 30th Dec 2014
Today Carol McQuire has publicly accused me of lying and taking advantage of Tenzin’s current ‘absent’ status. In a recent post on social media she said that Tenzin is currently on retreat at Drepung Monastery until April, so she has sprung valiantly to his defense.
Amongst the various inaccuracies in Carol’s post she has likened the timing of this article to, “someone in a boxing ring deliberately hitting a last strike after the whistle has been blown”, claiming it is published at a time when Tenzin is unable to respond to it. This is untrue.
Carol posted her comments a few hours after Tenzin had posted a new article on his blog. Tenzin had also posted a comment on social media about his new article 2 hours prior to Carol’s post. So her claim that Tenzin is somehow absent from this situation is incorrect.
If he is on retreat at Drepung Monastery as claimed then it is a retreat which allows him to continue to work on his blog and social media. As usual with Tenzin and his friends their accounts often crumble when a small degree of scrutiny is applied to them.
She is also incorrect in stating that the initial version of the ex-NKT declaration was posted on the CTA website – Tibet.net. It is only the version which contains no reference to any criticism of the Tibetan community that was ever posted on Tibet.net.
Carol said, “the first version of the declaration was already published on the CTA’s website before the second had even been thought of. How sad that such an enormous theory of political intrigue that IndyHack has developed has quite differing origins.”
Unfortunately for Carol her desperate attempt to try and refute the claims made in my article only destroys her own credibility.
http://www.arebuddhistsracist.com/tenzin_peljor.html
Ngawang Tsering
Professor Robert Thurman’s involvement in #LamaGate is very unbecoming. He even solicited members of Anonymous to hack into legitimate Twitter accounts that he referred to as “Shugden group(s) targeting the Dalai Lama.”
It is amazing that Thurman would risk disgracing the Dalai Lama by committing cybercrime. Hacking is after all a federal crime. His disrespect for the First Amendment of the United States Constitution is dumbfounding. This Amendment is what protects the rights of citizens, including freedom of speech. On top of this, the act of soliciting hackers showcases his malicious intent to cause harm towards the operators of those Twitter accounts.
Why would a professor at Columbia University in New York, the co-founder and president of Tibetan House US, go to the extent of wanting to hire hackers, unless he himself has something to hide?
What is #LamaGate?
#LamaGate refers to the hacking scandal that surrounds the Dalai Lama’s trip to the US in fall 2014. It centres around the Dalai Lama’s most trusted US friend and confidant, Professor Robert Thurman, who allegedly tried to solicit members of Anonymous to engage in computer hacking on his behalf.
On 29th October 2014 Professor Thurman published a tweet (shown below) asking how to get the help of the Anonymous group to “get info out” about certain individuals he wished to target.
In and of itself this may seem like nothing more than a foolish and careless over-reaction on the part of Professor Thurman to the widespread media coverage the Shugden protests had been receiving. Yet when it was pointed out to him that such an action could be considered illegal in the US this didn’t dissuade him from continuing down his chosen path of action.
In the following hours Thurman published a series of tweets identifying specific Twitter accounts to target. He identified each of them as, “key Anti HHDL Shugden Twitter Spam Accounts”, and followed the account name with the tags #anon and #OpShugden.
#OpShugden was devised by another Twitter user (@OpTsampa) who appeared to be working alongside Thurman in his campaign. @OpTsampa also tweeted an offer of 50 BitCoins ($16,967) to anyone who could link the most accounts together that had been identified by Thurman.
Exactly what information Thurman wanted Anonymous members to “get out” of each of the identified accounts is uncertain, although it appears that he was trying to reveal the identities of the owners of the accounts. The only way to get this information would be to gain access to the users accounts without their consent, as such it appears that Thurman was soliciting computer hacking against each of the individually named Twitter accounts.
Why would Professor Thurman solicit hacking?
Throughout his fall tour of the US the Dalai Lama has faced an unprecedented level of media attention about allegations of human rights violations and religious discrimination, as anyone familiar with this site will know. Professor Thurman plays a key role in the dissemination of information against the protesters because of his academic standing and his close friendship with the Dalai Lama. They are so close in fact that the NY Times magazine referred to Thurman as, “the Dalai Lama’s man in America”.
Prior to 29th October, all of the Dalai Lama’s attempts to avoid addressing the issues raised by the protesters had been unsuccessful with the US media. Everywhere the Dalai Lama spoke, protesters gathered and news agencies covered not just the protests, but the issues behind them (see here).
As the time drew closer for the Dalai Lama to appear in New York City, where Thurman is based, the pressure had been increasing on Thurman to do something to counteract the effect of the protests. Under such increasing pressure it appears that he may have taken the highly unusual step of soliciting computer hacking in an attempt to reduce some of the exposure they were getting on Twitter.
It seems that Thurman believed several Twitter accounts were run by one or two individuals, and that by hacking those accounts he would be able to silence them.
Presently the #Lamagate scandal is continuing to increase on a daily basis. On 30th October this website published a guide on how to indict Robert Thurman and on 31st October it ran an Indict-Storm on Twitter, calling for any users who felt violated by Professor Thurman’s actions to report them to the authorities.
During 30th/31st October multiple reports were filed with the NYPD and the FBI asking for them to investigate the allegations against Thurman. Specifically they stated:
“It is alleged that Professor Robert A. Thurman (@BobThurman) did knowingly solicit others to commit computer hacking and provided information to direct said computer hacking against several users of Twitter in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1030 (a) (2).
On October 29th 2014 it is alleged Professor Robert A. Thurman directed computer hackers associated with the ‘Anonymous’ group to hack Twitter’s computer servers and extract information about the following users: @tompotter1945, @TalkingTibet, @wisdomdakini2, and @Vajralight.
I am making a formal complaint about alleged criminal activity by Professor Robert A. Thurman and asking you to investigate whether any criminal activity has taken place.”
Despite this Professor Thurman continues to maintain a public list of Twitter users which he refers to as, “Known Spammers”. Members of this list continue to report suspicious activity on their Twitter accounts.
Given Professor Thurman’s close relationship with the Dalai Lama it is highly likely that he may have known about this course of action. As the management of the Dalai Lama’s visit is also conducted with the US Office of Tibet, now based in Washington DC, it is also highly likely that they were aware of Thurman’s decision to try and recruit Anonymous.
Despite the high profile of this scandal both the US Office of Tibet and the Dalai Lama have so far remained silent, refusing to comment or even acknowledge its existence.
Likewise Columbia University, Professor Thurman’s employers, have refused to acknowledge or comment on the scandal.
Fortunately the Anonymous group are less afraid of speaking publicly on this issue. On 2nd November they issued the following public statement about the scandal addressed principally to Professor Thurman:
“[email protected] we have no position on this currently but can tell you one of Anon’s only central principles is NYPA: Not Your Personal Army”
http://www.arebuddhistsracist.com/lamagate.html
Thubten Palden
It is due to the kindness of the Indian Government that the Dalai Lama and the Tibetans have been living safely in exile. They do not even have to pay a single cent in tax. Some may say it is only fair because the Dalai Lama is not only a refugee but a spiritual leader who speaks about peace and compassion.
If you have followed the Dalai Lama closely, you would have heard of the Dalai Lama’s Charitable Trust. All funds collected during the Dalai Lama’s events and tours go to this single trust. However, recently, questions and doubts were raised by a trustee and it was revealed that the funds were being used like the Dalai Lama’s ‘personal bank account’ even though it was declared a public trust. Severe concerns were raised as to how much of the funds were used to sustain the Dalai Lama’s lifestyle, something that does not conform to the trust’s charitable aims.
This article highlights a very dodgy system that lacks transparency. It is not even clear where the millions of dollars donated to the trust actually go. With the Dalai Lama’s ‘personal emissary’ suspended over allegations of corruption, and a US$1.5 million loan that went ‘missing’ under Sikyong Lobsang Sangay’s administration, will an investigation into the Dalai Lama’s Charitable Trust reveal more dirt on the Tibetan leadership?
Questions Raised on Dalai Lama Charitable Trust
April 14, 2018 Artvoice
By Indy Mack
Throughout his time in exile the Indian Government has allowed the Dalai Lama to live tax-free and turned a blind eye to his audacious international tax avoidance scheme. Many of the profits from his overseas tours are funneled back to India into a fund called, “His Holiness the Dalai Lama Charitable Trust”, and people are told that profits from his events are used for charitable purposes that the Dalai Lama deems appropriate. However many believe that this is not a charitable trust, but opine that is instead the Dalai Lama’s own private trust fund, that according to at least one trustee he treats as “his personal bank account”.
Although its name implies that it is a charitable trust, “His Holiness the Dalai Lama Charitable Trust”, was registered under the Indian Trusts Act in Calcutta in 1964, which could allow a private trust to manage the Dalai Lama’s personal investments, not as a charitable trust. In its opinion Allied Legal, beloveds that “Despite popular belief a Charitable Trust will be registered under the Indian Registration Act not under the Indian Trusts Act.”
Being a charitable trust allows for Millions of dollars of tax avoidance preventing any levy for his public appearances being paid the host the nationt. Furthermore the trust fund is also believed to pay for the Dalai Lama’s own activities and entertainment. Whilst it does make many charitable donations the Dahli Lama seems to also use this fund to indulge his lavish lifestyle such as his 15 Rolex watches, his pastry chef, and his entourage of servants.
Since this mechanism was first discovered the Dalai Lama published a website claiming the trust, “was established…as an irrevocable public trust”, which is untrue. According to R&A Associates, a specialist Indian law firm, “The provisions of the Indian Trusts Act do not apply to Public Trusts”. As the fund was established under the Indian Trusts Act it was created as a private trust, not a public one.
The Dalai Lama also started to publish limited financial records of its activities. However these records don’t reveal the amounts that are used for the Dalai Lama’s own personal activities, they only cover 4 years of expenditures, and are highly condensed.
From the limited records released it’s impossible for the public to tell exactly what the money is being spent on, or to what degree the Dalai Lama personally benefits from the fund. In addition, all of the funds trustees are close subordinates to the Dalai Lama and they follow his exact instructions on how the money is used.
One current trustee of “His Holiness the Dalai Lama Charitable Trust” admitted privately that the Dalai Lama uses the fund as “his personal bank account”. They explained that in Tibet there was a government treasury that belonged to the Dalai Lama and that he sees this as “the same thing”.
They admitted it was common knowledge among all the trustees that after each event overseas the Dalai Lama would be “paid his share of the profits” through the trust. They also stated the Dalai Lama would often demand “a minimum donation” before he would agree to a visit.
The key difference between whether a fund is private or charitable lies in where the money goes. A charitable trust can only use its funds to fulfill its defined charitable aims. Although it can reimburse people who work for it, it cannot use its assets to fund someone’s personal lifestyle. Since “His Holiness the Dalai Lama Charitable Trust” uses some of its funds to pay for the Dalai Lama’s personal living expenses it functions as a private fund. The fact that all of its trustees are under the direct control of the Dalai Lama also raises doubts over its authenticity.
https://artvoice.com/2018/04/14/questions-raised-dalai-lama-charitable-trust/#.WtPG4y5uaM-
Jigme Norbu
The supposedly well-known Buddhist scholar and author Robert Thurman of Columbia University and President of Tibet House US actively engages in hate campaigns online. These are meant to ostracize and discriminate against Dorje Shugden practitioners. He is also known to publically solicit hackers to hack into Twitter accounts that belong to people who do not agree with his views. This is something that is a criminal offense according to US law.
Why would someone like Thurman go to the extent of breaking the law over this? What is he hiding? Could his actions be evidence of a deeper plot to keep Tibetans and Tibetan Buddhists divided, perpetrated by the Tibetan leadership that he works for?
Robert Thurman & Anonymous
(updated)
On October 28th 2014 respected scholar and author Robert Thurman decided to mention me on Twitter and make false and unsupported claims about me. He also tried to add me to a list which he promotes to followers of the Dalai Lama so they can send threatening and offensive tweets to its members. I responded by publishing an open letter to him on 29th October, but what I wasn’t expecting was his vehement and extreme reaction.
Throughout the day there was no response from Professor Thurman, yet things suddenly changed as the evening arrived and he issued a tweet publicly asking for the help of Anonymous.
I was one of the people that Professor Thurman was wanting to target and unearth information about, including my identity. Whilst I have the greatest respect for the ethos of Anonymous, I have never been their focus, nor have I ever considered my work to warrant their focus.
I raised the issue of the legality of publishing such a tweet and the hasty reply from an account that Professor Thurman was working with in his new Anonymous campaign replied that it was just about re-tweets and whois searches.
Of course re-tweets and whois searches are standard practices and certainly not in any way illegal. However the Anonymous group is not renowned for its use of whois, or its social media re-tweeting campaigns.
As @OpTsampa says, “Anyone can backtrace an IP”. So why would they be asking for the help of Anonymous if they only wanted to back-trace IPs and conduct whois searches?
Anonymous is well known as a collective of hackers who engage in electronic civil disobedience (ECD). You don’t ask for the help of Anonymous for re-tweets, you ask for their help for one thing – hacking, which is a federal crime in the US.
Asking for the help of Anonymous is fairly easy on Twitter, you just publish a tweet and insert the call sign “#anon”. Both @OpTsampa and Professor Thurman then engaged in a campaign of publishing tweets identifying Twitter users and encouraging Anonymous members to target them.
If you thought this was maybe a bit of harmless fun from Professor Thurman and his accomplice the next tweet may surprise you.
For those unfamiliar with the Bit Coin currency it’s a virtual currency which enables transactions to be carried out completely anonymously. It is often used when paying for services which are illegal, such as hacking. The value of 50 Bit Coins at the time this tweet was published was $16,967.00.
Offering hackers just under $17,000 to target people on Twitter is not harmless fun. It is a very serious financial offer, and a US federal crime. As this statement from the US Attorneys Office in April 2014 makes clear in the case of Fidel Salinas.
Whilst Salinas was accused of engaging in hacking, it is a criminal offence to solicit federal criminal acts and you can be an accessory to the crimes if you are found to have encouraged or instigated them.
On October 29th 2014 it would appear quite clearly that @OpTsampa and Professor Robert Thurman were not only accomplices in cyber crime, but that they actively engaged in soliciting cyber crime, as defined by the FBI.
The question is why would a Professor at Columbia University in New York, the co-founder and president of Tibet House US, and father of Hollywood star Uma Thurman, be so desperate as to break federal law?
Maybe it was never intended as an attempt to solicit hacking? If so then why did Anonymous themselves issue a formal response through their official Twitter account?
If there is nothing to hide, if the allegations of religious discrimination and human rights violations by the Dalai Lama are unfounded, then why would an eminent professor ask for Anonymous to help?
Why not simply debate the issue and show evidence that refutes or counters the claims?
At the present moment I am taking legal advice regarding filing a complaint with the Internet Crime Complaint Centre (IC3) of the FBI so that they can further investigate Professor Thurman’s role in soliciting cyber crime.
I will keep you posted with updates as this case develops.
*****UPDATE*****
14:30 – 30th October 2014
After having taken legal advice I am in the process of drafting a formal complaint for investigation by the FBI. I am awaiting the FBI’s decision whether it is best to submit the formal complaint through their New York field office, or through IC3.
As the alleged offenses occurred over the Twitter platform it is likely to be an inter-state matter placing it within federal jurisdiction.
I am advised that Professor Thurman is currently aware that he is one of the subjects named in my formal complaint.
***Further Update***
As this is now an ongoing criminal investigation I am unable to add further comments.
http://www.arebuddhistsracist.com/robert_thurman_anonymous.html
Rinchen Wangmo
While the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA; the Tibetan leadership based in Dharamsala) are not capable at all of making a positive difference in the lives of Tibetans in-exile, they are more than capable of blaming others for their failures. They like to call critics and those who challenge their authority “Chinese spies”.
The inept CTA hurls this derogatory blame against virtually everyone to distract from the truth that they have turned the Tibetan cause into a hopeless one; scapegoated Dorje Shugden practitioners; persecuted Lukar Jam and his supporters, as well as Mila Rangzen and others. However, even the Tibetans have grown tired of the CTA’s lame excuses. An increasing number of dissatisfied Tibetans have left the exile communities for greener pastures, some have even returned to China. This is a clear indication of how much the CTA has failed their people and how badly managed it is, despite an overwhelming amount of resources, aid, and goodwill from foreign supporters at their disposal.
The CTA has no intention to fight for the welfare and future of the Tibetan people. All the CTA does is lie, manipulate, abuse its power, discriminate, ostracize, embezzle funds and squander Chatrel money (contributions from Tibetans) to persecute those who do not follow or agree with them. Welcome to the CTA’s version of ‘democracy’.
How the Tibetan government in exile embraced “post-truth” and fake news
Communists, fake news and Chinese spies: the authoritarian’s propaganda playbook of the Dalai Lama runs out of steam…
Tenzin Jigme
Tibetan writer and voice of the absent Tibetan democracy
Apr 14 | 10 min read
The Tibetan government in exile appears to have embraced a simple yet effective tactic when dealing with critics who question its ineffectiveness, alleged suppression of even minor opposition or seeming tolerance of corruption within its ranks: simply accusing them of being spies in the pay of China has to date proved an effective way of forcing those critics to shut up and slink off quietly.
The Central Tibetan Authority (CTA), the government in exile, is responsible for looking after Buddhist communities across India who initially fled their homeland when fleeing from Chinese repression following a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959. Ever since their flight, the common CTA mantra has been to “blame China”, whenever things went wrong.
Those in command at the CTA have levelled the “Chinese spies” charge against virtually everyone who has opposed the body, which has faced numerous accusations of vested interests, corruption and ineptitude in its perceived role of taking care of the 95,000 Tibetan exiles under its authority.
They have even taken issue with the Dorje Shugden devotion, a centuries-old tradition of worship, claiming its practitioners are in league with China to undermine the authority of the Dalai Lama, widely recognised as the spiritual leader of the Tibetan exiles, who has spoken forcefully against the practice. His position on the matter has widely been seen as a de facto ban.
By branding all Dorje Shugden practitioners as “Chinese spies”, the CTA sidesteps some important questions, most strikingly how ostracising those who follow the 350-year-old tradition sits with the Tibetan constitution, and with Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which embodies the concept of religious freedom. It has also left Shugden groups open to the blandishments of the Chinese, who have not been averse to exploiting the rift.
By accusing any and all opponents of being Chinese spies, the CTA has sought to keep alive concerns that were initially justifiable in the aftermath of the community’s flight from Tibet, when the Chinese threat to its very existence was all too real. By doing so, it has sought to mask its own lack of progress in improving the lot of the exiles in its care. Many of these exiles continue to live in precarious conditions and remain virtually stateless, almost 60 years after their displacement and despite international support from several governments and a large number of non-governmental organisations.
China probably does keep a close watch on CTA activities and on sentiment both within Tibet and in the communities in exile, given that Tibet accounts for just over a quarter of China’s total land mass and it is in the country’s interest to ensure stability in the region. But if all the CTA’s accusations were indeed correct, “Chinese spies” would likely outnumber the rest of the population in the Tibetan exile communities.
Cato’s lesson
Already in the 2nd century BC, the Roman senator Cato the Elder had understood that if one repeats an idea often enough, it can eventually gain a foothold in the public conscious. He was to use this understanding to great effect.
Cato had been worried. He saw Carthage, Rome’s powerful Phoenician rival, as a continuing threat to the Roman Empire. Even after the Roman army had defeated Carthage, located in modern-day Tunisia, in the first and second Punic Wars, the city continued to flourish, something Cato found intolerable. Whether relevant to his speeches before the senate or not, Cato would, for a period, end each one with a phrase very roughly translated as “and by the way, I’d just like to add that Carthage must be destroyed”.
In the end, either convinced by Cato’s repetitiveness or just to get him to shut up, the Roman Senate agreed to send its forces under Scipio Aemilianus to wipe Carthage from the face of the earth. The focus on the “Carthage problem” certainly helped divert attention from problems at home — there was plenty of dissatisfaction to go round among Ancient Rome’s slaves and lower classes, who formed the bulk of the empire’s population. This dissatisfaction flared up less than fifteen years later in a slave revolt which shook Rome to her foundations, and which would be followed by two more rebellions, the last led by the fabled slave Spartacus.
Numerous historians point to the sack of Carthage, when Rome destroyed her last great competitor, as the beginning of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.
Even so, Cato’s lesson was not lost on future generations. Unscrupulous would-be autocrats soon learned that if they could focus the attention of the ruled on a common enemy, real or imagined, they might be prepared to forgive their rulers a multitude of sins rather than risk being tarred with the “enemy” brush themselves.
“Post-truth” on the march
Jason Stanley, a professor of philosophy at Yale and the author of How Propaganda Works, published in 2015, says that authoritarian propaganda is a form of communication in which a leader creates a narrative explaining why the problems afflicting certain groups of people have a simple origin and an even simpler solution. Much of the time, the “problems” are of the would-be autocrat’s own invention, he said, a simple expedient to drag the disaffected into his or her camp.
Oxford Dictionaries flagged “post-truth” as 2016’s international word of the year, a concept it defines as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” It was a nod to the Trump presidential campaign and to Brexit, the UK vote to exit the European Union. Both campaigns owed much of their success to their ability in stoking the fears of certain voters, seeking to identify the “danger” posed by immigrants, people of colour or the “dishonest press”, and to completely ignoring any real-world details that might not fit in with their world view.
One example is U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump’s identification of “inner city carnage” as one of the major problems facing Americans today, a demonstrably false claim but one that served to rally his base. Despite the fact that the U.S. murder rate had been in overall decline for some two decades or more, Trump focused on a handful of cities where there had been a spike in violent crime, attributing it to immigrant gangs, convincing his base that the phenomenon was out of control and that only he could solve the problem.
He also alleged the 2016 election would be rigged by millions of illegal votes marshalled by the perfidious Democrats, despite minimal empirical evidence of voter fraud, which had identified fewer than 10 cases of voter impersonation in the previous election. Among other ludicrous claims, Trump’s boast that his election would ensure people would be allowed to say “Happy Christmas” again belied the fact that the conveying of Christmas wishes had never actually been banned.
Prior to his election, Trump had adopted the tactic of accusing any and all of his critics of being purveyors of “fake new” — at least he would have done had he known the word “purveyors”. Since then, he has ably used the occasional factual error in unfavourable press articles as “proof” that every media critic is out to get him, while giving a pass to friendly press such as Fox News, even on the numerous occasions that their purported news stories have been thoroughly debunked.
Since his election, Trump has attacked friend or foe when the mood takes him. He has a well-known tendency of threatening to visit “fire and fury” on anyone who attempts to hold him to account, and of levelling accusations of “fake news” at any news article that dares to imply he isn’t actually the greatest human being in history. Steve Coll wrote in the New Yorker, “fake news” is credible reporting that he (Trump) doesn’t like.”
Incredibly, the mainstream press has generally failed to hold Trump to account for his numerous lies, like those concerning his tax returns which, during the elections, he promised to release as soon as his audit was over; or regarding the press conference he said he would hold to explain how his wife Melania was awarded a green card, usually reserved for people with “special talents” like nuclear physicists or sporting prodigies. He has rarely been asked to explain, on the record, why he failed to deliver on his promises in either case, or numerous others.
For over a year he has continued to say he was willing, nay anxious, to testify to the Mueller investigation into whether he or the Republican party under whose banner he swept to power in the 2016 U.S. elections colluded with the Russians in order to achieve the electoral victory. In the meantime, on the back of legal advice, he has strenuously resisted providing any such testimony, and referred to the growing body of evidence linking numerous close associates and other Republicans to high level Russian operators as… fake news.
Elsewhere, Philippines autocrat Rodrigo Duterte, famous for his machismo and misogyny, deflects by accusing his critics of being gay, paedophiles or drug addicts. In March, he asked the head of the country’s Commission on Human Rights (CHR) if the latter was a paedophile because he had protested the killing of teenagers in the government’s bloody war on drugs, which has already left thousands dead. In the meantime, his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan accuses all his critics, be they politicians, members of the military or journalists, of plotting a coup to take control of Turkey, and throws them all in jail.
Not the internet
Many analysts have blamed the internet, Facebook and Twitter for facilitating the spread of spurious news stories — such as Infowars’ story that Trump’s presidential opponent, Hillary Clinton, was involved in a paedophile ring headquartered in a Washington pizza parlour, the so-called “Pizzagate” affair, or the so-called Uranium One scandal. The latter was thoroughly debunked by Sam Shephard on Fox News, leading several viewers to call for his resignation because they preferred their pro-Trump, anti-everyone-else stories to pass without question, whether true or not.
But Trump, Duterte and others probably learned much about deception, deflection and self-serving propaganda from a past-master at these arts, four times Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi. For twenty years, the Mediaset and Fininvest kingpin, who had made much of his fortune by “convincing” politicians to grease the wheels of his many projects, dodged accusations of corruption, conflicts of interests, tax evasion, and mafia associations by simply denying all the evidence and berating his accusers. His supporters lapped it all up, even when his lies were, on occasion, laid bare.
The great British author George Orwell saw it all coming, of course. In his splendid 1984, written almost seventy years ago, “the Party” (for, like Highlander, there can be only one) maintains its control over the “proles” by reducing all opposition to a simple concept — so-called “thoughtcrime”, or ideas which run contrary to the desired orthodoxy. Anyone guilty of gainsaying this orthodoxy is an enemy, and must be destroyed.
In much the same way Berlusconi’s opponents were “communists” and Trump’s promote “fake news”. The CTA has berated its enemies as “Chinese spies” in much the same way, and with much the same aim — to shut down debate.
For example “Chinese spy” accusation were levelled against the following people the CTA regarded as opponents or threats: all Dorje Shugden monks and lay people for opposing the Dalai Lama’s anti-Constitutional religious ban; against Milla Rangzen, the owner and editor of Tibetan magazine, who is critical of Lobsang Sangay; against Lukar Jam, who was a candidate for the post of CTA’s president in most recent past CTA elections; against Sharchock Cookta who was critical of the CTA and was targeted by the headline: “shocking news: MP Sharchock Cookta Chinese spy suspicion in Tibetan Parliament”; against the head of the Karma Kagyu when they wanted to bring the Buddhist leader under CTA’s excessive control; against Dudjom Rinpoche who was head of the Nyingma sect when he was extremely popular in the 1960’s and was regarded as a threat to the political line of the CTA; against Serkong Tritul Rinpoche who is a successful lama — when he visited Taiwan, the CTA accused him to be a Chinese spy, forgetting the Dalai Lama also visited Taiwan; against all Tibetans who are advocating full independence from China (rangzen) in opposition to the Dalai Lama’s ‘Middle Way’ approach, as was expressed by Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche who was the CTA President before Lobsang Sangay…
But the CTA is fast losing the faith of many Tibetans in exile. In recent years, several have left the exile communities in search of a better life elsewhere — an increasing number of them even choosing to return to China-controlled Tibet when possible — and the numbers are accelerating. Commitment to the Tibetan struggle is weakening as exiles begin to focus on their more mundane needs which the CTA has singularly failed to address despite the time, resources and goodwill at its disposal.
Simplistic accusations tend to lose their power over time. Like the boy who cried wolf, authoritarian propagandists may convince a less critical section of society for a period, but eventually even their most staunch enthusiasts begin to waver when they understand they are being toyed with, and that the autocrat whose pretexts they have so devoutly supported never had any intention of working to satisfy their needs. This is as true for the CTA as for other autocrats and their cohorts.
Even so, for the moment, “post-truth” remains in the ascendant. There is a shorter word for the concept, of course: lies.
https://medium.com/@TenzinJigme59/how-the-tibetan-government-in-exile-embraced-post-truth-and-fake-news-236885b7bcc8
Jamyang Dolma
In most parliaments, ministers discuss policies, budgets and legislation that can make a positive impact for their nation. However, in the Tibetan Parliament in-Exile, they talk about a bunch of postcards critical of their poor leadership. Astounding! That is how they plan to ‘save the world’ and lead the Tibetan people back to Tibet? Their intelligence is simply out of this world. It looks like the postcards were right after all, they are extremely ineffective.
Bhuti Kelsang
After almost 60 years of living in political limbo, the Dalai Lama is now paving the way for his future and that of his fellow Tibetans in-exile. During a recent Thank You India event in Dharamsala, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) President Lobsang Sangay presented the Dalai Lama’s wish to return to Tibet as his “last unfulfilled dream.” Some of the important Indian officials in attendance welcomed this dream and noted their support for the wish to be realized.
However, India has a precarious role to play in pushing for the Dalai Lama’s return to China. India can use the Tibetans to negotiate favourable terms to protect her interests, including the settlement of the Sino-Indian border issues. China’s acknowledgement of Arunachal Pradesh as part of India can be one of those conditions India imposes on the Dalai Lama’s return to the Tibetan Autonomous Region. But the move could back fire, if the Dalai Lama accepts China’s stance that Tibet was never an independent state, but an integral part of China, India may need to concede sections of her northern territory to China. The current border was drawn up between British India and the Tibetan leadership before 1959. If the Dalai Lama was to state that Tibet was never independent, the demarcated border would be moot. The Tibetan leadership would never have had the authority to sign any agreement, nullifying the one that created the border in the first place. Either way, the Dalai Lama and the Tibetans in-exile continue to be a thorn in the relationship between India and China.
The fact that the Tibetan cause was downgraded from one that sought complete independence to one that seeks autonomy is a clear sign that the prospect for a free Tibet is bleak. The CTA has failed. Once the Dalai Lama steps foot on Chinese soil, he would no longer be a ‘refugee’ and Tibet’s fate as a part of China would be completely sealed.
WILL DALAI LAMA RETURN TO CHINA?
Dr. Sangay’s statement has only further confirmed fears among many observers that an influential section among the Tibetan exile leadership is desperate about cobbling up a deal with China on whatever terms. The very first negotiation point in this deal, as already declared by Dr. Sangay, is bound to be the return of Dalai Lama. Leaving Dalai Lama to the mercy of such lobbies will be a national hara-kiri.
Vijay Kranti is a senior journalist, Tibetologist and Chairman, Centre for Himalayan Asia Studies & Engagement (CHASE)
A question which is currently confronting most of Tibet-China watchers and Tibet supporters is, “is Dalai Lama seriously planning to visit or return to Tibet or China?” Three years ago the same question had created ripples when the idea of him visiting China’s famous holy Buddhist shrine of Wutai Shan was discussed loudly both in Beijing as well as in Dharamsala. On Sunday (1st April) again, Dr. Lobsang Sangay, the elected ‘Sikyong’ (the ‘President’ of Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamsala) stunned Tibet and China observers by announcing that time had arrived to fulfill Dalai Lama’s dream of returning to Tibet to ‘reunite with Tibetans’ and to live in Potala, the traditional palace residence of Dalai Lamas in the Tibetan capital Lhasa.
Dr. Sangay was speaking in Dharamshala at the opening function of ‘Thank You India’, the year-long celebrations organized by CTA to commemorate the 60th year of Dalai Lama’s arrival in India and to express Tibetans’ gratitude toward the people and government of India. It was on 3rd April, 1959 when Dalai Lama, the exiled ruler and supreme Buddhist leader of Tibet, arrived in India at the end of a 17-day long daring and grueling escape on foot through snow and mountains to save himself from arrest or killing by the occupying Chinese army in Tibet.
Interestingly these celebrations had already become focus of world attention following New Delhi government’s instructions to its senior bureaucrats and leaders to keep off public events involving Dalai Lama’s personal presence. This sudden toughening of New Delhi’s stand forced the CTA to cancel the main mega event of Dalai Lama in capital’s spacious Thyagraja Stadium. But it is not first time that New Delhi rulers have taken a stand of this kind which appears to be aimed at pleasing Beijing in the wake of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s upcoming visit to China. In October 2007 too, the erstwhile UPA government had issued an identical diktat to its senior leaders and bureaucrats when Dalai Lama was given a civic reception at New Delhi’s India Habitat Centre for being honoured by the US Parliament with America’s highest civic honour — the Congressional Gold Medal (equivalent to Bharat Ratna of India).
According to Dr. Sangay the first dream of Dalai Lama was about seeing blood which, according to Dr. Sangay, turned true when Tibetans faced widespread killings of Tibetan protesters during uprising against the Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1959 and also in later years. The International Commission of Jurists, an affiliate body of erstwhile UNO, claimed that Chinese army killed more than 80 thousand Tibetans to crush the uprising in 1959. As per Dharamsala claims this number of unnatural deaths of Tibetans in Chinese occupied Tibet has crossed 12 lakhs (1.2 million) over past seven decades.
The second dream refers to Dalai Lama meeting ‘people in white’ which, Sangay says, again turned out to be true when Dalai Lama fled Tibet and met Indian leaders like Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru and President Dr. Rajendra Prasad who were known for wearing dazzling white Khadi.
EXPLOITING RELIGIOUS SENTIMENTS?
Citing these two ‘dreams’ of Dalai Lama turning out to be true, Dr. Sangay enthusiastically claimed about a third dream of Dalai Lama which gives an extraordinary political dimension to this statement, especially for coming out of the mouth of the Tibetan leader whom the Dalai Lama has transferred all his political powers through a constitutional amendment. Quoting Dr. Sangay Jyoti Malhotra of the Indian Express reported , “The Dalai Lama’s third dream, Lobsang Sangay said, was of him returning to the Potala palace filled with light and ‘reunited with Tibetan people’… This third dream will also come true by karmic design. We must all make efforts for His Holiness’ dream to return to the Potala palace come true, Sangay added.”
Referring to dreams of an individual may not hold much meaning for outsider observers and analysts. But in a deeply religious society like Tibet where no rule is above the words of Dalai Lama, Dr. Lobsang Sangay’s attempt to present Dalai Lama’s return to Chinese ruled Tibet as the religious leader’s “last unfulfilled dream” and his call to Tibetan people for making this ‘dream’ of Dalai Lama a reality, deserves a closer scrutiny by the Tibetan society, supporters of the Tibetan cause and, above all, the Indian government who have stakes in future of Tibet and its relations with China. This statement becomes extremely meaningful in the light of the fact that it is first time in past six decades that a senior(most) official of Tibetan government in exile has publicly endorsed Beijing’s agenda which is seriously focused at bringing back Dalai Lama to Chinese ruled Tibet before he is dead and the search for his next (15th) reincarnation starts.
PUSHING CHINESE AGENDA
It is noteworthy that in two major contacts between Dharamsala and Beijing, first held during late 1970s and early 1980s and second between 2002-2010 period, Tibetan side branded these meetings as ‘Tibet-China talks’ and ‘dialogue’ but Chinese side made it known public more than once that the visits of Tibetan delegations were ‘private’ in nature and the only subject of discussion was how to pave way for return of Dalai Lama to the ‘great motherland’. If followed in letter or spirit, Dr. Sangay’s plans about Dalai Lama’s return to ‘China’s Tibet’ is simple implementation of Chinese agenda which would mean a permanent closure of the dispute between Tibet and its colonial masters in Beijing.
Knowledgeable sources in MEA as well as India’s intelligence agencies who are keenly watching Dharamsala-Beijing contacts, believe that this announcement of Dr. Sangay has further strained the relations between New Delhi and Dharamshala. These relations have been already undergoing stress caused by a series of developments related to Dharamshala’s secret hobnobbing with Chinese government in recent past. A couple of years ago MEA had a serious brush with CTA, including the private office of the Dalai Lama when it was discovered that a meeting between Dalai Lama and a Chinese leader, holding rank of a minister, was secretly organized in Dharamsala without taking into confidence the MEA or security agencies that are responsible for Dalai Lama’s personal security. Similarly, recent China visit of Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche, the former ‘Prime Minister’ of CTA also did not go down well with MEA.
BOTH SIDES RESPONSIBLE
But it will be too naïve and unkind to Dharamsala if all the blame for such developments is heaped exclusively on CTA or Dalai Lama. It is no secret that over past six decades of Dalai Lama’s presence in India, the MEA has been perpetually as a loss and confused in evolving or adopting a well defined policy on Tibet — not even about the status of Dalai Lama, his activities and the scope of cooperation between him and the Indian government.
India abstained from and refused to support the first two resolutions in 1959 and 1961 in the UNO which condemned China for serious abrogation of human rights in Tibet. Rather, India stopped the rest of world from raising the issue of Tibet in the UNO. But following India-China war of 1962 India voted in favour of the same resolution when it was pressed third time in 1965. Indian representative Rafiq Zakaria’s strong statement against Chinese conduct inside occupied Tibet came as a pleasant surprise to the anti-China lobbies across the world. In later years also there have been many occasions when New Delhi allowed, rather facilitated, Dalai Lama’s visits to Arunachal Pradesh despite strong threats and reactions from China.
INDIRA GANDHI’S INITIATIVE
In the aftermath of 1962 war the Indian government went to the extent of raising an exclusive ‘Special Frontier Force’ (SFF) in the Indian Army which worked directly under the Cabinet Secretariat and has been popularly known as ‘Establishment-22’. In the Bangladesh liberation war during 1970-71 period a sizeable contingent of Tibetan ‘22’ guerrilla soldiers was secretly assigned the job of liberating the Tripura-Chittagong sector. Interestingly, the field operations of this secret contingent were personally supervised by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi herself.
On the day when Prime Minister Narendra Modi took oath in Rashrapati Bhawan in the presence of all heads of state from South Asia except China, the presence of Tibetan Sikyong Dr. Sangay in the VVIP enclosure gave indication that a brand new and different Tibet policy was in the offing. But later developments, especially the latest instructions of the NDA government to ignore ‘Thank You India’ have only confused the observers, and Dalai Lama too.
This sudden announcement by Dr. Sangay calling for Dalai Lama’s return to Chinese controlled Tibet has surprised many observers and institutions who have been keenly watching the Tibet-China-India triangle over past few decades. The uncommon attention that these remarks of the Sekyong has received, has prompted some other seniors in Dharamsala to suggest that it is nothing more than an off the cuff retort to New Delhi’s latest humiliating decision. Responding to my pointed question about Dalai Lama’s personal position on this issue, two prominent Tibetans who sit on two extreme ends of the ongoing political debate among the community disagreed with Dr. Sangay’s agenda.
FAITH IN DALAI LAMA’S WISDOM
Tenzin Tsundue (43) is the most visible and vocal signature of Tibetan ‘Rangzen’ movement, which stands for complete independence for Tibet as opposed to Dalai Lama’s ‘Middle Path’ for ‘genuine autonomy’. He says, “HH (Dalai Lama) is still the boss, not Sikyong. Lobsang Sangay’s showing the face in the media, on stage, being the head of CTA is still nominal and has little meaning. HH calls the shots.” Emphasizing his faith Dalai Lama’s wisdom he says, “please don’t underestimate HH’s political wisdom.”
Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche (81) a senior monk statesman out rightly rejected the idea of any plans to send back Dalai Lama to China or Tibet. Both of them remind that during his countless world tours the Dalai Lama has been always presenting India in a very positive light in his public speeches and one to one discussions with heads of state. Both of them regret that India could have used the international goodwill of Dalai Lama in enhancing its own interests in the world politics. The Dalai Lama has recently nominated Prof. Rinpoche and Dr. Sangay as his personal envoys to take ahead Dharamsala-Beijing ‘dialogue’.
DELHI OR DHARAMSALA — NEITHER CAN AFFORD IT
Whatever be the reality behind the prevailing confusion but one thing is clear. Neither Dalai Lama nor India can afford his slipping into Chinese lap at this delicate moment of Tibetan history. A dramatic decision like this will leave Dalai Lama, Tibet and Tibetan people completely at the mercy of Chinese whose previous record on their promises to Tibet is only too well known. By returning either permanently or even as a ‘pilgrim guest’ of a country (China) whose atrocities made him flee to exile, Dalai Lama will lose his legal and moral qualification as a ‘refugee’.
DALAI LAMA’S LOSS
Tibetan people may be happy to see their ‘Yeshi Norbu’ (meaning Precious-Gem and a common name for Dalai Lama) with their own eyes in their current life time. But this privilege will come at the cost of losing the momentum and courage of standing up against the tyranny for their colonial masters once they see their leader patching up with China. More than 150 Tibetans have committed self immolation inside Tibet against Chinese rule in recent years. The international Tibet support movement which has taken roots across the world over past six decades will die instantly and it cannot be revived in future if China ever goes back on its promises to Dalai Lama. His visit or return will permanently seal the fate of Tibet as an integral part of China and Beijing will get the license of nominating the future Dalai Lamas too.
By segregating the political and religious titles of the institution of Dalai Lama and handing over all his political powers to the elected representatives of Tibetans, the Dalai Lama had already given an endless shelf life to the Tibetan struggle and the institution of Dalai Lama itself. Sadly, his return to China will kill this achievement in its infancy.
INDIA STANDS TO LOSE
For India also, too big things are at stake to sit idle and allow the influential lobbies of Dharamsala to hand over a living Dalai Lama on a platter to China. With the return of Dalai Lama to Tibet or China all chances, whatever remote, of rehabilitating Tibet as a buffer between India and a quarrelsome China would be lost forever. But worst fall out of this Dharamsala-Beijing marriage will be the sudden transformation of the Himalayan states of India from India’s ‘first defence post’ to the Chinese front post of aggression because the local Buddhist populations have deeper religious bonds and relations with the Tibetan Buddhist system and monasteries inside Tibet than with the Indian plains.
INDIAN HARAKIRI ?
Dr. Sangay’s statement has only further confirmed fears among many observers that an influential section among the Tibetan exile leadership is desperate about cobbling up a deal with China on whatever terms. The very first negotiation point in this deal, as already declared by Dr. Sangay, is bound to be the return of Dalai Lama. Leaving Dalai Lama to the mercy of such lobbies will be a national hara-kiri on the part of Indian government. Rather, it would be much wiser for New Delhi to become pro-active on this front. By taking reasonable interest in the Dharamsala-Beijing dialogue New Delhi will not only strengthen Dalai Lama’s hands, but it will also give India enough elbow room to ensure its own interests in any prospective deal remain safe.
For New Delhi to start with, one not-so difficult move can be to publicly acknowledge Dalai Lama’s personal and institutional contributions to the Indian cultural and philosophic though process and to bestow upon him the ‘Bharat Ratna.’ After all, if India can honour friendly foreigners like Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, Nelson Mandela and Mother Teressa with this Bharat-Ratna, then Dalai Lama’s name sound equally, if not more befitting. On the diplomatic front too, such a step will not only enhance the shelf life of Tibetan issue and value of Dalai Lama for India, it will be a very Gandhian and befitting response to China’s aggressive postures against India.
Mr Vijay Kranti can be contacted at [email protected]
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Tibetan Review.
http://www.tibetanreview.net/will-dalai-lama-return-to-china/
More evidence has surfaced regarding His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s Charitable Trust’s dubious activities in India.
The Buddhist Community Centre UK (BCCUK) paid “donations” of £50,000 to the trust for the Dalai Lama’s talk in Aldershot in the UK 3 years ago. This is yet another example against the claim that the Dalai Lama does not charge or receive money for his highly priced and ticketed talks around the world. The other highly infamous case was the US$1 million received for the Dalai Lama’s appearance in Albany in 2009. This actually let to the Dalai Lama’s Trust endorsing the sex-cult leader, Raniere. In addition, a trustee also revealed that the trust is used to transfer profits made from events like this in order to evade tax.
It seems that charities set up in the Dalai Lama’s name show poor levels of accountability, lack transparency in the use of the money raised, and are involved in criminal activity. Millions of dollars are poured into these charities through various Tibetan advocacy groups and foreign NGO’s in an effort to support the ‘Tibetan cause’. It is extremely unethical for these charities to take advantage of the sentiments for Tibetan victims of self-immolations against China, to get money. On top of that they squander the hard-earned cash of donors and treat it like one’s ‘personal bank account’.
Dalai Lama Being Investigated for Possible Tax Fraud
by Indy Hack
Much is made of the Dalai Lama’s noble claim to travel the world teaching Buddhism for free. Each overseas event states explicitly that the Dalai Lama never charges a fee or receives any money, yet the ticket prices don’t match that noble sentiment.
One such event took place in a small town in the UK in 2015. The Dalai Lama visited a Buddhist Community Centre in Aldershot and gave a talk at the local soccer ground with tickets ranging in price from £20-£50, which is quite cheap compared to his US prices. The event was organised by a UK charity, Buddhist Community Centre UK (BCCUK) who claimed they would be, “charging a minimum entrance fee in order to cover the costs of venue and necessary administrations. Any surplus funds raised from the event will be donated to charities.”
Following the event BCCUK made two payments to His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s Charitable Trust in India totaling approximately £50,000.As explained in a previous article, according to trustees of this fund the Dalai Lama uses it as a mechanism to make sure that he is “paid his share of the profits” from overseas events whilst avoiding any tax on them.According to BCCUK’s filings they made donations of £11,149 and £46,365. The filings don’t explain where these donations went and these are the only sums the charity has ever paid out as donations in its entire filing history.
Trustees of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s Charitable Trust confirmed that around the same time they received donations from BCCUK. Although they didn’t receive those exact amounts they did receive approximately £50,000 in total from them.
One trustee who spoke on condition of anonymity explained that the Dalai Lama treats this Trust as “his personal bank account”. It is used to transfer profits from events such as the Dalai Lama’s talk in Aldershot back to India where he can spend them tax-free.
Had BCCUK been aware of this they would have been required to deduct at least £10,000 from this amount and pay it to the UK tax authorities on behalf of the Dalai Lama.
This matter along with all relevant documentation has now been referred to Her Majaesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC), the UK tax authority, to assist with their investigation into the Dalai Lama’s possible tax fraud.
HMRC whilst being unable to comment on the specifics of any particular case have confirmed that they are currently looking into a report of tax evasion by the Dalai Lama.
https://artvoice.com/2018/04/16/dalai-lama-investigated-possible-tax-fraud/#.WteL-IhuZPZ
Kunchok Gyaltsen
China is serious about matters of security. A new website in both Mandarin and English allows members of the public to report incidents which could endanger China’s national security. Nagchu County in the Tibetan Autonomous Region even offers promises of cash rewards for leads on “criminal” activity, including the reporting of organizations or persons advocating “separatism”, and the “abuse of religion, power, and family connections to illegally encroach on property”.
Not only is China stepping up its curbing of national security threats, the legal system is also being improved, providing stronger guarantees for the lawful rights and interests of the public. Earlier this month, China issued a white paper noting that the country adheres to policies on religious freedom, and that China forbids discriminatory behaviour against religion and even ethnicity.
On one hand the Central Tibetan Administration baselessly persecutes Dorje Shugden practitioners as “criminals in history” simple due to their religious beliefs and even blames Shugden practice for the failure of the Tibetan cause. On the other hand, China seems to be sensible when dealing with issues threatening national interests, and does not blame religious practitioners for their woes. Perhaps the Dalai Lama has realised that the Tibetan leadership is useless and that’s the reason why he wants to return to Tibet. China is much better at leadership than the Central Tibetan Administration.
China launches website for citizens to report spies, corrupt bureaucrats
[Tuesday, April 17, 2018 20:59]
DHARAMSHALA, April 16: The Chinese government has launched a website which encourages its citizens to report information on potential threat from foreign agents and their designs to its “sovereignty, territorial integrity and national security” on Sunday.
The newly launched website in Mandarin and English lists 21 reportable activities, including activities “to subvert the state power”, a charge commonly pinned on Tibetans in occupied Tibet. Number of Tibetans have also been charged with colluding with so called separatists in exile, which under the heading of “to dismember the state,” also makes the list of activities deemed reportable.
In what is being referred to as China’s campaign against espionage, users of the website are also encouraged to tip-off foreigners meeting any people within China “who have conducted activities endangering state security or being strongly suspected of doing so.”
Corrupt officials who are known or suspected to be taking bribes have also been encouraged to be reported. President Xi Jinping has launched an aggressive drive against graft since taking office although critics have said that it was also a tool to eliminate political rivals such as Bo Xilai.
Anyone suspected or known to be selling or buying state secrets can be reported in both Chinese and English and may qualify for cash rewards depending upon the level of information reported. While there is no mention of the amount of rewards, the Beijing City National Security Bureau was offering $1,500 to $73,000 for information on spies, the official Beijing Daily reported last April.
The Beijing government has also sought to include its people in the drive against spies and people who are colluding with foreign states. On Sunday, which marked the National Security Education Day, a cartoon with the illustrations, “a friend with a mask”, for questionable behaviour among people, was released.
http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=40359&t=1
Dalai Lama can't speak against Shugden
His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been openly saying he wants to return to Tibet. He has dreams he is in his potala palace with many butterlamps lit and meeting Tibetan people meeting him. Lobsang Sangye says Tibetans should make the Dalai Lama’s dream come true. Members of the Indian govt also says they hope he can go back.The interesting thing is if Dalai Lama goes back to Tibet, he will not be able to speak against Dorje Shugden anymore. Speaking against Dorje Shugden forces people to take sides and segregate. So much disharmony and pain created. The Tibetan leadership have divided their exiled Tibetan communities into two factions due to their illegal ban against Dorje Shugden. Dorje Shugden people are not allowed into Tibetan hospitals, clinics and events since the ban started in 1996. Their children are asked to leave Tibetan schools which was damaging. Dorje Shugden people have suffered tremendous discrimination due to the ban from the Tibetan leadership.
China does not want social disharmony especially in Tibet for whatever reasons. So China does not ban Dorje Shugden but ironically gives religious freedom. Therefore the ban against Dorje Shugden by the Tibetan leadership in exile will not be allowed if Dalai Lama returns to Tibet. In fact, if Dalai Lama and his people want to get on the good side of China to even be considered to visit or return to Tibet, they better stop speaking about Dorje Shugden negatively. The tables have turned. The oppression against Dorje Shugden people have to end now.
Video of His Holiness Dalai Lama expelling monks from monasteries solely because they practice Dorje Shugden. Remember, Dorje Shugden has been practiced in major monasteries for the last 400 years. Dalai Lama in the video says he is happy they are kicked out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTgYWidYw3U
Tenzin Tsundue
USA doesn’t accept Tibetan refugees any more
Since Trump took office, the Tibetan yellow book has not been accepted by the American embassy in Delhi. No matter how strong a Tibetan’s accompanying documents are, the second they present their yellow book to the visa officer, their application is rejected. A friend of mine went to the American embassy himself to confirm this.
He said it’s because the US government knows what the Tibetans have been doing i.e. go to the US and throw away their passports, and apply for asylum / young Tibetan girls overstay and get married to American men / young Tibetan guys overstay and work in restaurants, etc.
As a result, more Tibetans are aiming for Europe which is easier to get into compared to America, but it is not as easy as before. Nowadays, to get to Europe, it costs Rs24 lakh (approximately USD36,255.51). On top of that, they can’t fly directly into Europe anymore and have to go a long, roundabout way.
First, Tibetans get a fake Indian passport and travel to Bangkok. They remain there for 15 days, where they throw away their Indian passport and another agent gets them a Thai passport. They use this to travel to Turkey where they remain for another few days, before traveling to Greece. After spending a few days in Greece, they travel to Spain. Once they’re in Western Europe, it’s easy for them to go anywhere else. Many of them end up in France.
The entire journey takes about one month (whereas in the past they could have flown from India directly to France). Some Tibetans who don’t have enough money to complete the journey, find themselves stuck in Turkey or Greece until they can raise the funds.
Many Tibetans, especially the older ones, are selling their homes in the settlements to fund this journey. If they have enough money, the whole family goes. If they don’t have enough money, they send just their kids. Basically, they have lost hope and confidence in the CTA, and are worried about what will happen when His Holiness the Dalai Lama passes. They feel that Indian government might kick them out, force them to become Indian citizens, etc.
If they can’t get to Europe, then they try Canada, Australia, etc. They will keep trying anywhere until they find a place that will accept them. In the worst case scenario, they go to Nepal because Nepal has more freedom. This is not because the Nepali government gives them more freedom; the Tibetans feel that Nepal has more freedom because it is out of the control of the CTA. Worse comes to worst, if all else fails, then they will apply for Indian citizenship.
Samten Lhamo
It sure looks like both China and India are determined to achieve successful reconciliation, something that will mark a new milestone in the history of India-China relations. This will continue to impede the Tibetan leadership’s attempts to spew anti-China rhetoric and propaganda. India already began its clampdown on the Tibetans in March, when they banned key Tibetan events, including cancelling celebrations marking the Tibetans’ 60 years in exile, which were going to be held in Delhi.
India changed her strategy after recognising that a hard-line approach with China did not work. Rather, there is much more to gain if Asia’s two giants come together for the common goal of mutual benefit. If all goes well, India may even be the one cutting a deal with China to allow the Dalai Lama’s return to Tibet. After all, the Tibetan leadership in-exile have failed miserably in making progress in this regard. Nonetheless, we know for sure that India will no longer tolerate nonsense from Tibetans in-exile that would jeopardize their relations with China any further.
India’s Modi to visit China this week as rapprochement gathers pace
Ben Blanchard
BEIJING (Reuters) – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit China this week for an informal meeting with President Xi Jinping, as efforts at rapprochement gather pace following a testing year in ties between the two giant neighbors.
The Chinese government’s top diplomat, State Councillor Wang Yi, said the two would meet on Friday and Saturday in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
“Our common interests far outweigh our differences. The two countries have no choice other than pursuing everlasting friendship, mutually beneficial cooperation and common development,” Wang told reporters after meeting Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj in Beijing.
“The summit will go a long way towards deepening the mutual trust between the two great neighbors,” he added. “We will make sure that the informal summit will be a complete success and a new milestone in the history of China-India relations.”
Modi has sought to re-set ties after disputes over issues including their disputed border with Tibet and other issues.
The discussion with Wang was to prepare for the informal summit, Swaraj said.
“It will be an important occasion for them (Modi and Xi) to exchange views on bilateral and international matters, from an overarching and long-term perspective with the objective of enhancing mutual communication,” Swaraj said.
The Asian giants were locked in a 73-day military stand-off in a remote, high-altitude stretch of that boundary last year. At one point, soldiers from the two sides threw stones and punches.
The confrontation between the nuclear-armed powers in the Himalayas underscored Indian alarm at China’s expanding security and economic links in South Asia.
China’s ambitious Belt and Road initiative of transport and energy links bypasses India, apart from a corner of the disputed Kashmir region, also claimed by Pakistan, but involves India’s neighbors Sri Lanka, Nepal and the Maldives.Modi’s previously unannounced Wuhan trip is even more unusual in that he will visit China again in June for a summit in Qingdao of the China and Russia-led security grouping, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which India joined last year.
It is almost unheard of for foreign leaders to visit China twice in such close succession. Xi is also extending Modi the rare honor of a meeting outside of Beijing, which almost never happens unless there is a multilateral summit taking place.
Modi’s nationalist government has reversed course on its relationship with Beijing apparently after realizing its hard line on China was not working.
Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who lives in India and who China considers a dangerous separatist, is also facing the cold shoulder.
In March, India issued an unprecedented ban on Tibetans holding a rally with the Dalai Lama in New Delhi to mark the 60th anniversary of the start of the failed uprising against Chinese rule.
Other areas of disagreement remain however between Beijing and New Delhi.
China has blocked India’s membership of a nuclear cartel and it has also been blocking U.N. sanctions against a Pakistan-based militant leader blamed for attacks on India.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-india-xi/indias-modi-to-visit-china-this-week-as-rapprochement-gathers-pace-idUSKBN1HT0G2
Karma bhu
Did His Holiness the Dalai Lama recognize the wrong Karmapa?
The Karmapas and Sharmapas are spiritually inseparable. Both are fellow holders of the 900-year-old Karma Kagyu lineage, a spiritual tradition that predates the lineage of the Dalai Lamas by over 200 years. They are also responsible for the recognition of each other’s reincarnations. However, in 1992, Tai Situ recognized a Karmapa candidate different from the candidate chosen by the Sharmapa. He effectively overrode centuries of tradition amongst the four Karma Kagyu regents. Tai Situ went ahead and enthroned his own candidate without the Sharmapa’s approval, and received the Dalai Lama’s approval. Therefore, the Dalai Lama may have endorsed the wrong Karmapa.
Due to the Dalai Lama’s endorsement, the Tibetan leadership in Dharamsala acknowledged Tai Situ’s candidate, Ogyen Trinley, as the 17th Karmapa, hosting him at the Gelug lineage’s Gyuto Tantric monastery. They even side-lined the Sharmapa’s candidate, Thaye Dorje. The world’s media were also misled to believe that “the Dalai Lama’s Karmapa” is the sole and legitimate candidate for the position. Until today, thanks to the Tibetan leadership, there is no end in sight to the rift that the Karmapa issue caused within the Karma Kagyu tradition. This long-standing feud occurred because of the Tibetan leadership’s political interference in spiritual matters.
Tsering Wangyal
The beginning of the end for Tibetan leadership in India.
The Dalai Lama and Tibetan govt in-exile better be on the alert now. For years they have met politicians, organizations and private individuals while talking negatively about China and painted an ugly picture of China wherever they went to get sympathetic votes and more free aid in dollars. It didn’t work, as the whole world wants to be China’s friend now, even the Indians. Tibet was no Shangrila and the reason they even lost their country back in 1959 was due to their own ineffective and corrupt leadership. It’s their own fault. For the last 60 years living Tax free in India they have still not secured their country back. It shows their lack of abilities and ineptness. Now Prime Minister Modi has landed in China to meet the powerful President Xi. One of the agendas to be discussed is the Dalai Lama and the Tibetans in India. Definitely China will work something out with Modi against the freeloading Tibetan refugees. High time too. Many Indians on social media have called for the Dalai Lama and Tibetans to return home as they have overstayed their welcome in India. Why should India stick their necks out any further for the useless Tibetans? That is how the Indians have rightly complained.
Now with Modi getting closer to China and President Xi, this spells doomsday for the Dalai Lama and the Tibetans. For years the Tibetans have been meddling in Indian politics and insulting China and now the day of reckoning is near. The Tibetan govt in-exile are corrupt, useless, self-serving, schismatic and hateful. For years they have spoken against Dorje Shugden practitioners, segregating them and inciting violence against them in India. Now their karma has returned. The Tibetan govt in-exile likes to call Dorje Shugden pracitioners ‘Chinese spies’ and the funny thing is now the Dalai Lama is nearly begging China to return to Tibet/China. Who is the Chinese spy now?
Now the Dalai Lama and his exiled govt better keep quiet about China and be humble. They better remain silent on the unjust treatment of Dorje Shugden people and ‘allow’ religious freedom. They are losing power and losing support fast. Now the time has come they will have to swallow their own bitter pills they so happily doled out to others previously. Tibetan govt leaders better keep quiet and be humble now. The Tibetan govt in-exile should not have segregated Dorje Shugden people. Now Dorje Shugden people should go and become friends with China and return to Tibet to live also. The Dalai Lama wants to return to Tibet so bad but China does not want him. Too bad. India does not want him either. Too bad. Should have been friends with Dorje Shugden people in order to have more support in the hundreds of thousands. They should not have made trouble. Too bad the Tibetan leadership is so corrupt. So narrow minded, they trampled on their own people’s religious rights. Now we will see who wins. The Tibetan leadership or Dorje Shugden. I have a feeling Dorje Shugden will win.
PM Narendra Modi arrives in China, his goal clear: Bridge the trust deficit
The Chinese President has not hosted any leader in an “informal summit”, which is how the Xi-Modi meeting has been described. In fact, Xi is travelling out of Beijing to central China to spend over two days with the Indian PM, the first time he is extending such a gesture to a visiting foreign leader.
Written by Shubhajit Roy | Wuhan (china) | Updated: April 27, 2018 8:07:29 am
Past midnight Thursday, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed in this picturesque city of lakes, parks and gardens along the Yangtze river, the big question that followed him was this: Can he bridge the trust deficit with China, and its powerful President Xi Jinping?
The answer, The Indian Express has learnt, could possibly lie in a new “modus vivendi”, an arrangement for two conflicting sides to co-exist in peace, that the two leaders will work on over the next two days.
“The modus vivendi, which was reaffirmed and arrived at during (then PM) Rajiv Gandhi’s 1988 visit, has frayed considerably. It has been felt on both sides that it needs to be reframed,” sources told The Indian Express.
Officials feel the 1988 framework to develop bilateral relations in all spheres, while carrying out border negotiations without any use of force, has outlived its utility.
“China has now emerged as a hegemonic power and has been stepping on our toes repeatedly. We are competing with each other everywhere, from South Asia to Africa, from Southeast Asia to Indo-Pacific. There is a realisation that both sides have reached a tipping point,” sources said.
The two leaders have met at least 10 times over the last four years, but this will be their first meeting since Xi has been re-elected, with the Constitutional limit for a presidential term done away with.
“There has been a lack of strategic trust between the two countries, and this summit will be looking at repairing that damage and how to move forward,” sources said.
“Wuhan was recently named China’s happiest city…we hope to give some happy news about the summit,” a Chinese official told The Indian Express.
Modi will meet Xi at about 3 pm Friday at the Hubei provincial museum. The two leaders will head for a one-on-one meeting at the premises and also tour the museum together.
Later, a structured meeting between Modi and Xi, with six officials on each side, will be held at the museum premises. The two sides will then move to the State Guest House, a palatial complex in the heart of the city along the East lake, where the leaders will meet once again accompanied by the officials. Modi and Xi will again meet for dinner at the guest house Friday evening.
This structured delegation-level talks is the first indication that the “informal summit” is being crafted in a calibrated and choreographed manner.
Some of Friday’s meetings will be attended by senior officials, including National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale. But Saturday will see the two leaders meeting mostly in a one-on-one format, including a “lakeside walk” and a “boat-ride”. The leaders will also travel on a ferry, where they will “discuss issues over a cup of tea”.
Ahead of his departure for Wuhan, Modi said, “President Xi and I will exchange views on a range of issues of bilateral and global importance. We will discuss our respective visions and priorities for national development, particularly in the context of the current and future international situation. We will also review developments in India-China relations from a strategic and long-term perspective.”
Sources said the talks will not be on “specific issues” but “the future direction of the relationship”, including concerns and sensitivities such as the China-Pakistan-Economic Corridor, Belt and Road Initiative, listing of Masood Azhar and India’s membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group. From the Chinese perspective, the Tibetan issue and how India handles the refugees are key questions.
Preparatory work on the new arrangement has been taking place since last September, when the two leaders met in Xiamen on the sidelines of the BRICS summit and wanted to talk “in detail”, but could not due to paucity of time.
In Wuhan, Modi was received by Chinese Vice Foreign minister Kong Xuanyou at the airport.
Indicating the mood within the Chinese leadership, a commentary published in China Daily, a media outlet run by the ruling Communist Party of China, carried the headline: “Summit may herald Century of Asia”.
In the piece, Fu Xiaoqiang, research fellow at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, wrote: “Of course, Xi and Modi will also address each other’s concerns, but they are not likely to indulge in strategic distrust and geopolitical competition by ignoring the necessity of strengthening win-win cooperation.”
Incidentally, a part of the Wuhan State Guest House complex houses Mao Zedong’s summer villa by the lake side, which is now open to visitors. Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, has also hosted Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore during his tour of China 94 years ago to engage with writers, poets and intellectuals.
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/narendra-modi-xi-jinping-meeting-pm-china-visit-india-relations-5153506/
Palden
His Holiness on Why a Woman Should Be Very Attractive to Be a Candidate for the 15th Dalai Lama
How come a spiritual leader is commenting on the value of women based on their looks? This is not funny, not intelligent and not politically correct. It is wrong. It is debasing and makes people lose respect for a monk such as Dalai Lama for talking about human beings in this manner.
Tsering Kyi
Well, all the people who was saying China-backed Panchen Lama is fake sure look ridiculous now. They attacked all the Tibetans and supporters who respected the China-backed Panchen Lama calling them all types of dirty and foul names in person and on social media. Calling them China stooges and China paid vulgar names for believing in the China-backed Panchen Lama. Now who looks so ridiculous? Now the Dalai Lama says the China-backed Panchen Lama is good and has a good teacher. If he has a good teacher it means he is turning into a good teacher himself. So he is qualified to teach. The end.
Dalai Lama says the China-backed Panchen Lama is an emanation of the previous Panchen Lama because high lamas can incarnate back as several lamas at the same time. So the Panchen Lama recognized by the Dalai Lama and the China-backed Panchen Lama are both good and both are incarnations of the previous Panchen Lama. How the tables have turned. Now all the people who criticized China-backed Panchen Lama can keep quiet and remember how ridiculous they look now. Listen to what the Dalai Lama says now as of April 2018 about the China-backed Panchen Rinpoche http://video.dorjeshugden.com/videos/11PanchenLamaIsAlive.mp4
The Panchen Lama recognized by Dalai Lama is alive and well also according to Dalai Lama himself.
Sonam Rinchen
Is it time to save the sinking ship that is the Tibetan cause? But wait a minute, the ship has already been sunk for the likes of Mr Ugyen Gyalpo.
Gone are the days when Tibet’s independence was possible, yet Tibetans like Mr Gyalpo are still living in a fantasy, asking the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) to go against the Dalai Lama’s goal of meaningful autonomy for Tibet, and advocate full independence instead. On top of that, he wants India to help Tibet gain its independence, disregarding how these actions would jeopardize India’s relationship with China.
This is the same kind of illogical, self-centred, wishful thinking that caused the Tibetans to lose their country to China by signing the 17-Point Agreement in 1951. Why ask someone to fight for a lost cause? Perhaps Mr Gyalpo was on holiday and did not catch the latest media flurry about the Dalai Lama stating that he is happy for Tibet to be in China. The CTA President Lobsang Sangay even urged Tibetans to make the Dalai Lama’s dream of returning to Tibet come true.
It is time for My Gyalpo and other pro-independence activists to seriously wake up from their self-imposed slumber and plan what they can actually do if and when the Dalai Lama gets the green light to go back to Tibet. Do they want to support the Dalai Lama, their spiritual leader? Or will they betray and abandon him?
Time to save the sinking ship of the Tibetan cause
By Ugyen Gyalpo
NEW YORK, US, 28 April 2018
Gone are the days when Tibetan solidarity was demonstrated through inter-organisational unity, and transparency and teamwork were not conundrums. The architects of endemic ideologies, the clash of mighty egos, and our flawed democracy, a system without multiple parties to represent different voices, has our community deeply divided and entrenched on regional grounds.
A short-circuit motherboard, like that which existed on an imaginary level before His Holiness’ devolution of his political role, that managed different flows of energy and controlled frequencies of differential arrays with a single switch, is surely missing in these rather difficult days of our newly-minted, hard-to-understand, infant democracy.
Every organisation or group has different agendas to put forth, even though the supposedly ultimate goal of solving Tibet’s issue for that matter is unequivocally shared by our same moral obligations. Every organisation in itself has become a marshy pond, where viruses of egocentrism are birthed and thrive. Every organisation and everyone leading them has somehow made islands of isolationist groups of like-minded people.
There is a silent battle of ‘creditworthiness’ brewing within our bureaucracy, and a hunger to ‘monetize’ by the many Tibet Support Groups of the cult-like brand Tibet, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s name has become detrimental to our cause and to the unity that we critically need.
Furthermore, the millions in American aid has intoxicated our movement and has us habituated to seeking monetary help, while losing sight of our goal. And the supposed leader of the free world in the United States, having lost completely the needle of its moral compass, shoves our greater issues silently under the political rug, while we rejoice in their perennial candy aid. Whilst our elected leader impatiently awaits for applause on the issues of such aid, has only added mileage to the charade that exists. It is ever too clear how wolfishly the world led by the US have sidelined the Tibet issue with the changing dynamic and symbiosis and the dominant political clout of China in its newly-found realm.
Just like Africa remains poor because of the surplus Western food that is dumped as ‘humanitarian aid’ into the market, which in turn debilitates and destroys the local farming there and makes them lazy and cyclically dependent, the Tibetan diaspora’s dependence on Western aid is no different. it has trapped them into the eternal hypocrisy of the West and made them complacent and numbingly patient.
The dynamics of what the West could have done some twenty years ago when China was easy to contain, and the empty promises and hypocrisy that exist now through reaffirmation of their help by way of lobbying and institutionalisation of the Tibetan cause, has got us nowhere but to a cycle of regimental renewal of oaths and vacant promises, and deepening of the pockets of those who exploit our cause.
The long-wished-for occasion of China one day crumbling under the weight of their capitalistic boom, which would hopefully propel uts people to yearn for greater rights and freedom guaranteed on democratic grounds that comes along with flowering seeds of prosperity, seems to be dead on arrival ever since President Xi, who seems to be Mao’s incarnate, rewrote the constitution in his own terms and vowed to rule the country indefinitely as a dictator. The likelihood of the collapse of communist China like the former USSR is far from reality now. And so are the chances of any possibility of coming to an agreement on the call for autonomy that Tibetans have been pushing for decades now.
I am not a political analyst nor an expert pundit on geopolitical changes, but my gut instinct tells me that our struggle for freedom should be waged from India of all other places. As of now realizing through this sad awakening, the Tibetan issue has become a case of the leper that no one wants to touch but only sympathise with. We have had enough of world sympathy, and of countries that once supported Tibet kowtowing to China. We should take matters into our own hands now. What we need more than anything is only our own self-help.
Having said that, the era of dependency on Western help and lobbying is a farce. We need to gather support from our natural and genuine automatic half-brother in India. Through the era of leadership of Modi’s courage, we will be able to stand up against the Chinese might in unison. Tibetans are scattered like broken rosary beads all over the world, but since the thread that brings us together is based in India, it’s but natural to wage our campaigns from there.
These last two decades have transformed not just China but India too. Having grown far from their third-world stigma, and now a leader in an emerging economy, India has become a dominant player in world politics as well. Any or all help from our half-brothers, who have given us refuge along with our religion and our script, is what we should look forward to now. India ranks among the world’s top five armed forces. No matter what, China can’t bully India lest they risk an all-out war that neither would want in the real world.
Tibet has evidently been a thorny issue in China-India bilateral relations ever since His Holiness was given refuge. As of late, the diplomatic fall-out from the slippery tongue of CTA’s President that flashed out covert secretive mission by an emissary to China, inadvertently keeping India out of the loop has caused some mistrust within the Indian politburo. India has much to lose if Tibet is ever given genuine autonomy and if China reclaims all of Tibet based on the McMahon line. As of late, India’s snubbing of Tibet and the Dalai Lama’s related programmes and events is evidence of their intentional withdrawal. The only way we Tibetans can earn back India’s hitherto undeniable moral support and trust is if we vehemently change our political course and steer this sinking ship on chartered waves of reclaiming total independence that will reshape the paradigm of where we stand as refugees in the eyes of the Indian government, and where our ultimate goal lies.
It is time that the CTA should reverse its ideology and go back to its original and genuine aim of reclaiming everything we have lost, to follow the shadow of truth of Tibet being once an independent country and nothing more. The only strong answer to China is the reaffirmation of our calls for complete independence. We must send them a strong message that we are not one of their ethnic minorities, but proud Tibetans who once ruled over their subservience.
https://www.tibetsun.com/opinions/2018/04/28/time-to-save-the-sinking-ship-of-the-tibetan-cause
UTsang Kunga
In March 2018, Tibetan protestors gathered near the Tibetan parliament, seeking to impeach Lobsang Sangay because his actions are unjust and akin to those of a dictator. Protestors also questioned his sudden termination of Penpa Tsering, the former Representative of the Office of Tibet in Washington, DC, who was his arch-rival during the 2016 Tibetan election.
But this is not all, Lobsang Sangay’s CV includes a long list of deceitful actions, such as hiding the loan trail of $1.5-million taken by his office from Tibet Fund to purchase a building to house the Office of Tibet in DC. He even ordered the Auditor General to remove any mention of the loan in various financial reports. Lobsang Sangay is also alleged to have sexually assaulted an intern of the International Campaign for Tibet advocacy group. Even before he became the Sikyong (the president of the Central Tibetan Administration), scandals surrounding his actions were rampant. Four years after buying a house near Boston, his US$227,000 mortgage disappeared overnight, one week before he became the president of the CTA. It is no wonder that Tibetans like Pelgyamo express their dissatisfaction by posting sarcastic comments on Lobsang Sangay’s Instagram page.
Yeshi Dorje
The Foreigners Registration Office (FRO) in Dharamsala refusing to accept Tibetan RCs (Registration Certificates) is yet another example of interference by the Central Tibetan Administration. Tibetans need this document to apply for an Indian passport. The CTA does not want to lose its grip on Tibetan refugees, as fewer refugees under their control means less foreign aid. That translates to less money that they can line their own pockets with.
This is not the first time that the CTA has created problems for Tibetans who wish to apply for Indian citizenship. Last July, the CTA ordered all its departments to stop issuing NOC (No Objection Certificates) to Tibetans applying for Indian passports, effectively sabotaging India’s goodwill of offering citizenship to eligible Tibetans. Perhaps that is a reason why many Tibetans are leaving their settlements in India, some of them even returning to Tibet! The CTA’s days as a ‘government’ are numbered, as more and more Tibetans apply for Indian citizenship or leave the CTA’s influence in India altogether.
No obstruction surrendering RC in Dehra Dun: Police
Tibet Sun Newsroom
McLEOD GANJ, India, 27 April 2018
Tibetans living in Dehra Dun can surrender their Registration Certificates (RC) to apply for their passport, according to a communication from the Office of the Superintendent of Police Dehra Dun.
Tibet Sun had learned about Tibetan complaints that the authorities were refusing to accept requests by Tibetans to surrender their RCs, required in order to apply for a passport. Seeking information about the matter, Tibet Sun filed a Right to Information (RTI) application, to which Dehra Dun Superintendent of Police Sarita Dobhal replied refuting the complaints.
The SP said in her reply that they have not refused RC surrender by those Tibetans seeking Indian passport, and they have accepted RCs from seven Tibetans so far.
Tibetans who spoke to Tibet Sun said that the authorities who actually handle the RC surrender at the Foreigners Registration Office (FRO) within the SP Office had told them to bring court orders to be able to surrender their RC.
Following a High Court of Delhi judgment asking the Government of India to issue passport to Tibetans, the Ministry of External Affairs in March 2017 has ordered all passport-issuing authorities to issue passport to those Tibetans who fulfil the requirements as in the Citizenship Act of India.
The RC surrender process has been suspended at the FRO Dharamshala. An official confirmed the same, saying the halt has been in place since two weeks, but didn’t give details as to why they have stopped the process.
He said that it is a temporary matter and that the surrender process will resume soon.
https://www.tibetsun.com/news/2018/04/27/no-obstruction-of-tibetan-rc-surrender-for-passport-dehra-dun-sp
Khampa Bhu
The Dalai Lama Fears that He Might be Expelled from India!
The situation in India is not getting better for the Tibetan government in-exile or the Dalai Lama. Since India is getting closer to China, this trend will not slow down. Whether it is the current Prime Minister Modi, or the next Prime Minister of India making efforts to get close to China, it does not matter because the momentum has started. It benefits both India and China tremendously to be friendly and on good terms with each other. The parasite-like Tibetans leeching off India brings no benefit whatsoever to India and India realizes this sad fact finally. The Dalai Lama and his team in the Tibetan government in-exile have created so many problems externally for India and internally within the Tibetan communities, enough is enough. Tibetans like to use India to irk China. They have done that for decades and now it’s over. The Tibetans have been put in their place. The Indian government has been snubbing the Dalai Lama this year. The Dalai Lama and his cohorts have created tremendous problems, segregation, hatred, and violence towards thousands of Dorje Shugden practitioners, now that karma is coming back. Too bad. The Tibetan leadership is losing support from India, in fact, Modi purposely humiliated the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama and cohorts have less power to create so much schism and trouble now. If you read this article carefully, the Dalai Lama himself has expressed concerns he might be kicked out of India. It has reached this level that the Dalai Lama is unsure of his footing in India now. Too bad.
Aditya Sinha: Paying For Our Bull In A China Shop
May 14, 2018, 07:40 IST | Aditya Sinha
The Dalai Lama’s humiliation, our encircling neighbours and, most crucially, the lack of Modi’s signature bear hug, signify altered relations
In the two days of staged photographs, there is not one photo of Modi hugging Xi, his trademark personalised diplomacy of forcibly embracing other leaders.
One of the better things during the Karnataka Assembly election, no matter who emerges the single largest party tomorrow, was Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s press conference in Bangalore. You may not have seen it on TV. It is on YouTube, however. Rahul again comes across in a light different to the whispers about him during the past two decades, proving how it was all the doing of a well-oiled BJP machine. My favourite part was Rahul’s take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Wuhan in central China for an “informal” summit with President Xi Jinping.
Here’s what he said:
“I expected the PM to go to China as the leader of our country [and] speak to them about Doklam… He didn’t say a word. [He] had a conversation with the Chinese President with no agenda. Are you telling me there’s no agenda? There is an agenda, it’s called Doklam; there is an agenda, it’s called the Maldives; there is an agenda, it’s called Nepal… The agenda is that we’re surrounded on all sides; it’s pretty clear. But you guys don’t like to raise that, I don’t know why.
“Our foreign policy has been completely decimated. And it’s because the PM views foreign policy as an individual exercise. He’s of the impression that he can go have a conversation with the president of China, or he can go have a conversation with the president of Nepal, and everything will magically happen.
“The PM needs to carry his own people with him. Are there any conversations going on with the finance minister, with the defence minister about this type of strategy? No. It’s a one-man show.”
Briefly: China tried to seize the Doklam plateau in Bhutan last year but after a 73-day standoff against our troops, it backed down. It has reportedly since built an infrastructure leading to Doklam. In the Maldives, China is displacing India: President Abdulla Gameen last year welcomed three Chinese warships, and last month hosted the Pakistan army chief. In Nepal, despite Modi’s visit this weekend to promote Janakpur, Sita’s birthplace, as a religious tourism spot, the Nepalese have drifted from us after India’s five-month blockade in 2015 – we were pushing for greater political inclusion of the Madhesis. Modi is a villain for the Nepalese, as evident on social media.
China has seized advantage of India’s pathetic neighbourhood behaviour, and, as Rahul said, has India surrounded. No wonder many think Modi went to beg Xi to keep relations calm in the run-up to the 2019 parliamentary election. That Modi’s governance is election-oriented is no secret. Will the Chinese will play ball? When the two-day “informal” summit ended, the Indian side issued a statement and reportedly urged the Chinese to issue their own. Compare the two and you see a difference: while India mentioned a strategic direction to our respective armies to avoid tension on the Line of Actual Control, China only said the armies would follow past protocols. Joint statements are never easy, but individual statements are a piece of cake.
Modi had to supplicate himself because he cannot afford to go into the 2019 election after a showdown with China. Even a short skirmish will humiliate India. Unlike tension on the Line of Control with Pakistan, which benefits Modi since it can be dovetailed into communal rhetoric, tension with China gives Modi no benefit. Modi cannot help but humour China.
The Chinese were amenable to being humoured since they have now what they wanted in Doklam. China nowadays also wants to be seen as a responsible global power: hence it has nudged North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un into meeting his South Korean counterpart and, next month, with Donald Trump. China has also reached out to Japan, with whom relations are more complicated than with India.
Mainly, it was because Modi agreed to humiliate the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader who has lived in India since 1959. India prohibited its ministers from attending a Dalai Lama function (ironically, to thank India) and asked him to shift it from Delhi to his base in Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh. It was an insult; worse, he privately expressed the fear that he might be expelled.
The Chinese gave us time but they did not give Modi a hug. In the two days of staged photographs, there is not one photo of Modi hugging Xi, his trademark personalised diplomacy of forcibly embracing other leaders. Rahul Gandhi is right: Modi has decimated India’s foreign policy. It’s too bad that this and other aspects of his press conference were ignored by the TV media. But then, after Gujarat, Karnataka has been good practice for him. Modi’s obsession with the 2019 election means that governance will suffer, so Rahul will get more occasions to show the public his mettle.
https://www.mid-day.com/articles/aditya-sinha-paying-for-our-bull-in-a-china-shop/19420166
Tsamduk
More and more Tibetans are expressing their dissatisfaction with the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). This even extends to accusing them of ruling without legal precedence. This is a serious matter as their management of funds, administrative procedures, and even their governing constitution are all flawed. From the simple of choice of words used for the translation of a title, the CTA have exposed the way in which they run their “nationless government” in an egotistical and self-serving manner. The CTA simply do things based on their personal agendas and needs, using the title of democracy as a cover.
Clearly, there is no system of governance for what the CTA do and how they spend the money they gain from people sympathetic to the Tibetan plight, aid from their host and donors from around the world. Since law is at the core of any administration, their underhanded tactic of finding loopholes and bending the rules to suit their individual needs has failed the Tibetan people. As an ex-Senior Fellow of Harvard Law School and a self-proclaimed expert in international human rights law, Sangay deters people’s faith in the integrity of a leader and the legal system, instead of upholding the cause of justice. After the public apology during his swearing in ceremony in 2016 and his firm pledge not to repeat his misconduct, it looks like Sangay is at it again.
The title “President” for Sikyong is not legal
By Sharchok Khukta
McLEOD GANJ, India, 14 May 2018
Since there have been many who have put forth questions regarding the usage of the title “President” in English for “Sikyong”, I will answer in one presentation for all.
It would become a long talk to give answer as regards this. Nonetheless, because, to keep the public in the dark is objected to in a democratic system, I will try to present insight that is complete and not mistaken.
Initially, the exile Tibetan Parliament had established through general consensus that the title “Sikyong” is to be used instead of “Kalon Tripa”. In connection with that a resolution was passed by the members of the 15th Tibetan Parliament-in-exile during the fourth sitting of the second session on 21 September 2012, that “Sikyong” solely is to be used in writing, as phonetically, without the need for using the translation “Political Leader”.
The first stage of this process took place with the publication in 2015 of a compilation of rules and regulations of the exile Tibetan administration by the office of the Parliamentary Secretary of the Tibetan people’s deputies, where it appears on page 181 in Appendix 8 [Zur-hzar nya], of sub-section 3 of article 66 of the electoral rules of the exile Tibetans.
Then, on 26 April 2016, the exile Tibetan administration made the announcement on its official website tibet.net that “when the term ‘sikyong’ is to be translated into English it should be written as “president”, and that has been used up to the present day.
It is the honourable Kashag which says that “it was established [formally decided] that ‘president’ is to be the term to be used,” and the honourable Kashag claim that they had decided thus on the advice of His Holiness Dalai Lama. The Kashag had cited many other reasons, but I will not refer to them at this time. Everyone knows that at that time there was much expression of displeasure regarding this from the public.
In the second stage, as regards the usage “President” there was guidance by His Holiness the Dalai Lama at the reception ceremony accorded to the high-level Representatives’ Committee of the United States, at Tsuklagkhang Temple on 10 May 2017.
The third stage is that the Kashag have, both orally and in writing, said insistently that such guidance by His Holiness the Dalai Lama was as per the provision of Article 1 of the Charter of the Tibetans in exile. I am not able to know whether His Holiness the Dalai Lama has advised thus as the intent of Article 1 of the Charter. I do not consider that to be case, because if there had been the guidance advising “President” to be appropriate for the title of Sikyong, as per Article 1, then even after 25 famous amendments to the Charter such a guidance would have a procedure of discussion in the Parliament, as in the past, a procedure that has been clearly laid out.
It has been laid out in the sub-section 1 and 2 of Article 17 of clause 6 of the rules for procedure of meeting and carrying out of works by the the deputies of the Tibetan Parliament. For example, to cite the sub-section 1: “As per the sub-section 2 of Article 1 of the charter, the Speaker, in discussion with Sikyong, is to set aside time for discussion on the suggestion of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.” But, without going through any recommendation from the Parliament or legal process, the Kashag said that the title in English as “President” has been decided on and designated as such, and they continue to use this title. As such that title has not became legal title. That is stage three.
Then, the fourth stage is that it may be assumed that the Sikyong and the Kashag continue to do so as it is known clearly only by most government service personnel, former and present, and People’s Deputies, former and present. Yet since the public do not know the details, when we put forth questions on the this issue in the Parliament it may be conjectured that it is an electoral grudge. Besides, when the honourable Sikyong also talks of it to the public by attaching it to electoral grudge, we are not able to have at the matter a valid rule by law. Instead everything is stirred here and there into dirty politics, so that eventually when there is too much dwelling on personal name and prestige, the common administration incurs losses.
If things go on like this there is the danger of the collapse of rule by law. From that point of view, for this issue to be clearly sorted out, the Secretaries of Gadhen Phodang must make it clear whether or not that guidance — as per Article 1 of the Charter — was given by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. If it was, since it would be related with the rules, the messages, advice, notice and so on be bestowed to the Parliament, and then whatever is to be established (passed as resolution) by the Parliament when implemented by all the central and regional branches of the administration, it would become concordant with the law.
So that is the issue if explained clearly.
In the end, nowadays at Gangchen Kyishong the administration relies upon one person and makes changes to the Rules; while there are able staff members in all sorts of appointments, through equal qualifications and pledges, and so on; such instances are taking place many times, not just once. In such a situation it appears that there is not sufficient supervision and watching, by the public and writers, of whether or not this Administration — set up with such effort by His Holiness the Dalai Lama — is being administered by rule of law.
I request all to put more effort and power as regarding this issue.
https://www.tibetsun.com/opinions/2018/05/14/the-title-president-for-sikyong-is-not-legal
Jampel
India tightening its grip on the Dalai Lama and Tibetans
The Indian Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has directed Himachal police to tighten its grip on Tibetans meeting His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Those Tibetans without paperwork showing individual identity and establishing legal credentials of their arrival in India will be turned away from seeing the religious leader. Undocumented Tibetans have been arriving in India, usually from Nepal, where they are aided by the Tibetan communities there. India seems to clamping down of Tibetan activity, from cancelling Thank You India events in Delhi and now restricting Tibetans from seeing the Dalai Lama. What else with the Indian government do next?
Norms tightened to meet Dalai Lama
DHARAMSHALA: Following directions from the ministry of home affairs (MHA) in recent past, the Himachal Police government has tightened the norms to meet the Dalai Lama, even for Tibetans coming from Tibet. The move was aimed to ensure the security of the spiritual leader at McLeodganj near here.
Well-placed sources said that there were many Tibetans, including monks, who enter India through the porous border of Nepal to meet the Dalai Lama. The MHA has directed Himachal Police that no one could meet him without having his individual identity established from his documents.
When contacted about this development, Kangra SP Santosh Patial confirmed that a letter had been received in this regard. But he refused to divulge the details of the same. “Police has received a letter and this is for the security of the Tibetan spiritual leader only, which says that we can only allow a person to meet after his individual identity and legal credentials of his arrival to India are established,” he said.
Inquires revealed that the Tibetans generally arrive in Nepal from Tibet. They were received by the refugee centres there and further assistance was provided to them by Indian and Tibetan authorities for their visit to India.”
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/shimla/norms-tightened-to-meet-dalai-lama/articleshow/64485961.cms
Thinley Woeser
Things are going to be very different for Tibetans in India from now on as Sino-Indian relations get warmer by the day. India has vowed to firmly adhere to the one-China policy and ensure Tibet-related issues are handled ‘properly’. This means India will tighten her grip on all Tibetan-related activities. So, the trouble-making Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) better watch themselves and not create further problems that may antagonise China. This is something India will no longer tolerate.
China, India Vow To Strengthen Ties
China and India have extensive common interests and they have far more consensus than differences, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said.
All India | Indo-Asian News Service | Updated: June 06, 2018 17:05 IST
PRETORIA: China and India working together will accelerate their common development and contribute to the progress of human civilization, Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said.
Mr Wang made the remarks on Monday in South Africa’s capital Pretoria during a meeting with Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on the sidelines of the formal meeting of the BRICS Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.
China and India have extensive common interests and they have far more consensus than differences, Mr Wang said.
The two sides should take bilateral relations and people’s fundamental interests as a starting point at all times, properly handle problems and differences and prevent the interests of one party from affecting the overall interest, Mr Wang said.
The two sides should earnestly safeguard peace and tranquillity in the border areas in accordance with the consensus reached by their leaders and avoid taking actions that might complicate and aggravate the situation, Mr Wang said.
China and India should strengthen coordination and play a constructive role in promoting the development of BRICS cooperation, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and other multilateral mechanisms, he said.
Sushma Swaraj said the informal Wuhan meeting between the leaders of India and China enhanced mutual trust between the two countries, strengthened cooperation, made the parties more comfortable with each other and achieved unprecedented success.
She said India will firmly adhere to the one-China policy and properly handle issues involving the core interests of China such asTaiwan and Tibet-related issues.
India and China, as the two largest emerging markets and developing countries, share a common position in safeguarding the international political and economic order and promoting the improvement of global governance, the Indian Minister said.
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/china-india-vow-to-strengthen-ties-1863429
Peljor
Ex-Prime Minister Samdhong Rinpoche caught sleeping in a meeting
The representative of the Dalai Lama and former prime minister of the Tibetan government in-exile Samdhong Rinpoche during an important meeting having a nice sleep. The Tibetan government in-exile are run by people like this who have no control over their body and manners. They only stay awake in the meeting if there is FREE aid money coming their way to line their pockets. Shameful how Samdong Rinpoche is sleeping in the middle of a meeting and he represents the Tibetan government in-exile. This is why after 60 years Tibetan leaders have failed to get Tibet back but blame others for their failures. Shame!
Tsering Drolhma
UNRULY TIBETANS FIGHTING AT DALAI LAMA BIRTHDAY PARTY AGAIN
July 2018-NYC- Tibetans fighting at some birthday celebratory event for His Holiness the Dalai Lama. They set up a throne in the back, place Dalai Lama’s picture, and they fight, push, shout, scream at each other right in front of the throne of Dalai Lama and it’s filmed. That is the level of the Tibetans overall. Tibetans are not gentle, Buddhist, peace-loving, tolerant people as they portray to the world. They are rough, rude, hateful, vengeful, violent, regionalistic, narrow minded and will create trouble wherever they go. Very feudal. They always resort to vulgar words and violence. There are some moderate Tibetans, but on the whole they are very violent people who do not practice Buddhism. The average Tibetan know nothing of Buddhism and do not practice. Buddhism is just a meal ticket for them to get to another country. Their support of Dalai Lama is blind and only to be politically correct and they never practice what he teaches. Disgraceful to see a group of violent Tibetans fighting at a Dalai Lama birthday event. Shameful.☹️
Tibetans are not welcomed wherever they go. Bhutanese kicked them out. Nepal hates Tibetans. India has no more use for the ‘refugee’ Tibetans and their temples made of gold. After 60 years they cannot get their own country back. What a bunch of losers and useless government people they have.
It is about the incident that happened at His Holiness’s birthday celebration in NYC recently July 6, 2018. Some members of Tibetan woman association approached to Parliamentarian Tenpa Yarphel during the ceremony and complained that his comments regarding Nechung was disrespect to the protector and His Holiness. They also said him that he made many Tibetan people sad with his comments. And told him not to do that again in the future. Then Dhondup Tseten stood up and shamelessly touched those women. That incident almost made the ceremony stopped. To keep maintaining the relationship between Tibetan Woman Association and Tibetan Parliament Representative, TWA are asking for an apology letter from Dhondup Tseten for touching their members.
(It is so sad that in the fake democracy of the Tibetan leadership in Dharamsala you cannot say anything against a leader or criticize. Too bad)
July 2018-NYC- Tibetans fighting at some birthday celebratory event for His Holiness the Dalai Lama. They set up a throne in the back, place Dalai Lama’s picture, and they fight, push, shout, scream at each other right in front of the throne of Dalai Lama and it’s filmed. That is the level of the Tibetans overall. Tibetans are not gentle, Buddhist, peace-loving, tolerant people as they portray to the world. They are rough, rude, hateful, vengeful, violent, regionalistic, narrow minded and will create trouble wherever they go. Very feudal. They always resort to vulgar words and violence. There are some moderate Tibetans, but on the whole they are very violent people who do not practice Buddhism. The average Tibetan know nothing of Buddhism and do not practice. Buddhism is just a meal ticket for them to get to another country. Their support of Dalai Lama is blind and only to be politically correct and they never practice what he teaches. Disgraceful to see a group of violent Tibetans fighting at a Dalai Lama birthday event. Shameful.☹
Bonnie Fider
WHY DOES RICHARD GERE AND DALAI LAMA SUPPORT SOGYAL THE DISGUSTING ABUSER?
As long as you are friends with the Dalai Lama, your actions are excusable, no matter how horrendous they may be. Even something as heinous as sexual abuse of over 60 women can be overlooked when the perpetrator is friends with the Dalai Lama namely Sogyal Rinpoche. Why rush to join the chorus of Hollywood voices condemning Harvey Weinstein’s criminality, but remain silent against Sogyal’s exploitation and abuse of women? Richard Gere was vocal in condemning against all the abuses and attacks against women by Harvey Weinstein. But silent on Sogyal Rinpoche. BBC has a full length documentary on Sogyal’s abuses as you can view here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWhIivvmMnk. Yet Richard Gere can take photos with the disgusting and abusive Sogyal. Is it because one group of women are worth protecting and the other are not? If it is not for that reason, then it can only be because Sogyal is the Dalai Lama’s friend. The Dalai Lama’s condemnation against Sogyal is very light and it’s disappointing. I guess since Dalai Lama supported Sogyal so much, he can’t be seen as wrong in doing so. Politics is sad.
Sherab Wangmo
TENMA VERY ANGRY WITH SIKYONG LOBSANG SANGYE AND PENPA TSERING
Tenma deity takes trance of her oracle in Nechung Monastery in Dharamsala, North India. The deity is highly displeased and angry at Sikyong Lobsang Sangye and Penpa Tsering. She is scolding them by waving her arms at them and throwing rice at them. You can see Penpa Tsering shielding himself. These two has always been corrupt and extremely self-serving. Naturally the oracles of the Dalai Lama take trance and are very angry.
Suresh Ratna
SUMAA has been consistent in their efforts to evict Tibetans from Arunachal Pradesh as the Tibetans are known to exploit benefits given to locals. The Central Tibetan Administration, especially their so-called ‘president’ Lobsang Sangay, made the situation worse by rubbing salt in the wound, making a statement that Chief Minister Pema Khandu is an ardent follower of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and a lifelong friend of the Tibetan people. This was right after Khandu announced the adoption of the Tibetan Rehabilitation Policy in Arunachal Pradesh.
Tibetan refugees create a lot of problems for the locals no matter where they are, especially in Arunachal Pradesh. They take the locals’ land and resources without giving anything in return, making the locals furious to the extent that they are now demanding a written undertaking from the Tibetan refugees not to claim Indian citizenship and STC/PRC in Arunachal Pradesh. It is time to impeach Sangay for a better leader to guide and take care of the Tibetans in India before the wrath of locals evict Tibetans from the state or even the country for good.
Self-styled student group in Indian border state calls for Tibetan refugees to be moved to ‘demarcated camps’
[Wednesday, July 11, 2018 18:45]
DHARAMSHALA, July 11: Self-styled group “The Students’ United Movement of All Arunachal” (SUMAA) has reportedly submitted a memorandum to the West Kameng deputy commissioner on Monday, demanding an immediate rollback of the Tibetan Rehabilitation Policy, 2014 within three days against threat of retaliatory action.
The students group has also called for Tibetan refugees to be moved to demarcated camps and revoke trading licences obtained by Tibetan refugees. A written undertaking from the Central Tibetan Administration not to claim Indian citizenship and STC/PRC in Arunachal Pradesh for Tibetans, has also been demanded.
Last year, the same group initiated the “Anti Tibetan Refugee Movement” calling for ousting of Tibetan refugees from the state. Spokesperson of the group has alleged that with the implementation of the TRP 2014, benefits such as MGNREGA, PDS, Indira Awas Yojana, and National Rural Health Mission provided by the Centre for “our people will be snatched away” by the Tibetan refugees.
The group in October 2017 also released a list of all the shops owned by Tibetans with their names in the Capital Complex area threatening that the Tibetans will be targeted individually and “forcefully evicted”.
The Tibetan Rehabilitation Policy assures welfare to Tibetan refugees in India on matters concerning land lease, extending central and state government benefits, relevant papers/trade license/permit for economic activity and legal permit to pursue any professional career such as nursing, teaching, Chartered Accountancy, medicine, engineering etc, depending upon the qualification.
Till date, Karnataka government has been the only state to begin implementation of the policy. In Dec 2016, the Tibetan refugee settlement of Mundgod became the first settlement to be handed over the land lease agreement by Karnataka State.
Arunachal Pradesh has the fourth largest number of Tibetans in India, with four settlements in Tezu, Miao, Tuting, and Tenzingang. However, the number of Tibetan refugees has dwindled to just 7500 with Canada accepting 1000 Tibetan refugees in 2016 and many youths venturing to bigger Indian cities for livelihood. In India, the total number of Tibetan refugees is close to 90,000, according to a 2009 CTA census.
http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=40615
Christie Donald
Hollywood is one of the most influential groups of people who have promoted the mysticism of Buddhist Tantra to the world. Together with the media, they have packaged Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan lamas into a fantasy Utopia, filled with God-like beings who are able to lead people along the quick path to enlightenment.
This propaganda has been widely exploited by the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) to garner support, especially financial aid, for the so-called Tibetan Cause and the Tibetan struggle against Chinese rule. Little does the West, including Richard Gere and the so-called Buddhist Professor Robert Thurman, know that efforts from China to improve the infrastructure and standard of living for the Tibetans in China have created opportunities for Tibetans to grow and be successful. This is something that is rarely seen in exile under the governance of the CTA.
This false image that has been promoted for the past 60 years or so is now slowly fading away as more and more victims come forward, exposing the sexual abuse they have suffered under the hands of Tibetan lamas like Sogyal Rinpoche. The root of the problem is clear, people are greedy and lazy while wanting quick success and attention. Since they get these from the Tibetan lamas like Sogyal, they are willing to accept the exploitation. This is further driven by fear that they would no longer be seen as the privileged ones in the inner circle if they do not clutch at their lamas and be seen showing tremendous devotion to their gurus. With only a superficial knowledge of Buddhism, this cult-like group of Hollywood stars and American politicians like Richard Gere continue to generate respect and love for their skewed version of the “Dharma”, while real Buddhist masters are relegated to the side lines.
This Sexual Abuser Hollywood Doesn’t Want You To See
Feb 28, 2018 | Posted by Christine A. Chandler
Why is the mainstream media ignoring this Elephant in the Room?
Is it because, once they peel the curtain back on this little sexually abusive, predator Lama, Lama Sogyal Rinpoche, best friend of the Dalai Lama and his major benefactor, helping to spread Mindfulness throughout the West, the whole edifice of deception, corruption, cover-ups of institutional sexual abuse, and Shangri-la pretenses will be exposed?
Never mind that these Tibetan lamas have fooled a large part of the Western psychology profession, most all of journalism, and certain parts of academia as well as CEO’s of major corporations. Those who also want to jump on the billion-dollar Mindfulness bandwagon; the first cult technique these Tibetan lamas used to get us to think as a herd.
Perhaps it is also because the news media coverage, for the last twenty-five years, of Saint Dalai Lama, keeper of slaves and life-time serfs less than sixty years ago, is one of the icons of the Hollywood jet-set, certain politicians like Nancy Pelosi, Congressman Tim Ryan, academics, like Uma’s dad- Robert Thurman, and such Hollywood stars, as Richard Gere, Harrison Ford, Scarlett Johansson, Lady Gaga, Madonna, Sharon Stone, the list goes on and on, who will now be seen, not just as enablers of Weinstein, but also of the Tantric cult of Tibetan Lamaism and its Tantra that has infused Hollywood with its amorality and sexual abuse for the last four decades, given it permission for their long history of accepting this behavior as ‘normal.’
It was not so long ago, that Trungpa fooled our sixties generation, with the help of rock and roll stars, and Allen Ginsberg, modern poet extraordinaire of the Howl, and member of NAMBLA. Ginsberg also controlled the narrative of how these Tibetan Lamas were to be seen by the public, for the next forty-plus years.
Marxists have been in collusion with the lamas, as well, for a very long time. As have certain institutions on the right, of the C-Street variety. The Dalai Lama boldly sends messages of being a friend to democracy to every President since his “escape” from China. But declares himself a Marxist in India.
Australian CEOs in the article link above are now questioning the wisdom of having Lama Sogyal of Rigpa, the Dalai Lama’s best friend all these years, who has been their icon for mindfulness meditation at the workplace. They are not willing to cover-up for his sexual abuse and demeaning and degrading of women, his keeping a harem, just as Chogyam Trungpa did but it was ignored, and his Tantra was allowed to spread. Thanks to Hollywood giving him a featured role in Little Buddha with Keanu Reeves.
Isn’t it time we peeled the whole onion back to see part of what’s at the core of this sexual abuse and confusion about right and wrong?
Nancy Pelosi goes to the Dalai Lama for advice, and gets crazier every year; Tim Ryan, groomed to take her place, writes a book about Tantric Mindfulness for a Mindless nation and called: Mindfulness Nation .
Ryan hangs out with Lama Sogyal’s friend, Lama Tsoknyi who is Sogyal’s strongest supporter and pal.
Tim Ryan and Lama Tsoknyi, speak together about Global Warming. Tsoknyi surely helped Ryan write his book and Tim Ryan helps Lama Tsoknyi pretend he is a ‘scientific lama’ who also can bless books to make them understandable and can infuse statues with living mojo inside his cult groups of western followers around the world, and now in Asia, fooling the Han and Chan Buddhists that he is teaching what the Buddha taught when it is Tantra and its institutionalized sexual abuse and Lamaist corruptions.
The occult, crazy-making Tantra of Tibetan Lamas has been infusing Hollywood, Journalism, Academia, Psychology, Third-wave Feminism, and the Entertainment Industry and Left-Wing Politics, for the last forty years. Recently, we have been seeing its results implode as the sexual abuses of celebrities and journalists, politicians makes explosive media news.
Chogyam Trungpa, the Tantric Lama darling of the sixties Drugs, Rock and Roll crowd was the first Tibetan Lama to illegally keep a harem of sexual consorts on American soil. His Regent gave his students AIDS, with unprotected sex, but was never criminally charged. Instead he was allowed to brainwash his students into believing this was ‘openness’ and freedom, on the way to the realization of a non-duality mind. They have reinvented his ‘lineage’ along the coast of Maine, to turn that State back into Massachusetts.
“Democracy was a failed experiment” said Trungpa’s mouthpiece, Ginsberg, who believed a totalitarian dictatorship of Tribal warlords would be so much better.
Time to unpeel the whole onion and get to the core of what has been making the West crazy, immoral and stupid: the civilization jihad that comes with a smiling face and a Lamaist peaceful facade.
https://extibetanbuddhist.com/this-sexual-abuser-hollywood-doesnt-want-you-to-see/
Yoezer
While the government of Nepal has framed a policy to tighten the noose around non-governmental organisations, they have welcomed 30 Chinese NGOs to enter the country. These NGOs will penetrate the country’s social sector at the grassroots level. This is the first time such a large number of Chinese NGOs have entered Nepal at one time. Nepal is increasingly open to Chinese influence, a sign that ties between both countries are strengthening, while India’s influence is being reduced. The time has passed for India’s monopoly to remain uninterrupted in Nepal as opportunities to engage with China are being welcomed.
30 Chinese NGOs all set to work in Nepal
REWATI SAPKOTA
Kathmandu, July 30
At a time when the government has framed a policy to tighten the noose around non-governmental organisations, 30 Chinese NGOs have entered Nepal to penetrate the country’s social sector and the grassroots.
The Social Welfare Council Nepal and China NGO Network for International Exchanges, an umbrella body of Chinese NGOs, have signed a memorandum of understanding to enable Chinese NGOs to work in Nepal. The agreement was signed yesterday between SWCN Member Secretary Dilli Prasad Bhatt and CNIE General Secretary Zhu Rui in the presence of Minister of Women, Children and Senior Citizen Tham Maya Thapa and Chinese Deputy Minister of External Affairs Wang Yajun.
The agreement has paved the way for the first batch of 30 Chinese NGOs to work in Nepal for a period of three years. Their contract will be extended based on the consent of SWCN and CNIE. Representatives of these 30 Chinese NGOs were also present during yesterday’s signing ceremony. They have agreed to work in partnership with local NGOs to implement their programmes and projects.
The Chinese NGOs are eyeing areas such as livelihood, healthcare, education, skill-based training, community development and disaster management. This is the first time such a large number of Chinese NGOs has entered Nepal at one time. The Chinese assistance so far in Nepal has largely been limited to development of infrastructure projects. But the entry of these NGOs indicates China is keen on making its presence felt in Nepal’s social sector and the grassroots, which, till date, have remained domains of the West and countries such as Japan and India.
The MoU signed between SWCN and CNIE states that Chinese NGOs will be mobilised for ‘the benefit of needy Nepalis and to enhance ties between China and Nepal through people-to-people support programmes’.
“The Chinese NGOs will abide by the law of Nepal in its entirety while carrying out development cooperation in Nepal,” says the MoU, adding, “Chinese NGOs will submit programmes to the SWCN to carry out development activities in partnership with Nepali NGOs and SWCN in line with plans and policies of the government of Nepal.”
The MoU was signed at a time when the government has drafted the National Integrity Policy to limit activities of NGOs and INGOs, as some of them were found ‘trying to break communal harmony and proselytising Nepalis’. There were also concerns that high administrative cost of many NGOs and INGOs was preventing money from reaching the real beneficiaries. The policy clearly states that NGOs and INGOs cannot spend more than specified amount under administrative and consultant headings. They will also be barred from working against Nepal’s interests, culture and communal harmony and conducting activities to promote their religious, social or other agenda, adds the policy.
Around 48,000 NGOs are currently registered in Nepal, of which only 1,600 have been receiving funds from INGOs, as per SWCN. The SWCN has directed INGOs and NGOs to spend 60 per cent of the budget to generate tangible results, while the remaining can be used to cover administrative costs and organise training, meetings and seminars.
https://thehimalayantimes.com/nepal/30-chinese-ngos-all-set-to-work-in-nepal/
Jampa Lhundup
The Nikkei Asian Review is a highly reputable news platform. They are not tabloid in any sense of the word. What they publish is reputable and thoroughly reliable. They mention clearly in an article published August 7, 2018 that the Dalai Lama has a terminal illness. The Prime Minister of India knowing this is now conciliatory towards China. He understands that the Dalai Lama cannot be used as a pawn in irritating China any further. Negotiations are progressing that after the passing of Dalai Lama, his government in-exile will close. The end.
India uses rumor of Dalai Lama’s ill health to mend China ties
If Tibetan exile flow is stemmed, Beijing might compromise on territorial claim
YUJI KURONUMA, Nikkei staff writer
August 07, 2018 17:02 JST
DHARAMSALA — Rumors are flying around in this northern Indian city, home to the Tibetan government-in-exile, that the 14th Dalai Lama is suffering from terminal cancer.
With Tibetan exiles deeply worried about the 83-year-old religious leader, the Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been using the situation to take a more conciliatory approach to China. Modi also seems to be lowering the standing of the Tibetan government-in-exile.
Word that the Dalai Lama may be in serious condition has quietly spread. “I have heard that His Holiness is not well,” said Migmar Chodon, a 49-year-old housewife in Dharamsala. “Though I don’t know well about it, I am worried.”
A 27-year-old restaurant employee in the city said, “I have read somewhere that His Holiness is unwell.”
In 1959, Tibetan people rose in revolt in Lhasa, Tibet, which had been occupied by China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army, and the 14th Dalai Lama fled to India. At least 130,000 Tibetans later left their homeland. At present, 85,000 Tibetans live in India, about 8,000 of them in Dharamsala, which hosts the Tibetan government-in-exile and a temple where the 14th Dalai Lama lives.
Rumors about the Dalai Lama suffering from poor health come frequently. The latest one arose in June, when an Indian media company reported that the Dalai Lama was in the “last stage of prostate cancer.” The Dalai Lama’s doctor and the government-in-exile immediately denied the news, and people have tried to remain calm. “I want to believe the words of the doctor,” the restaurant worker said.
The Indian government thinks the terminal cancer report is credible. A government source said “the prostate cancer has spread to his lymph nodes” and that “his life would not be so long” now.
In the past two years, the Dalai Lama has received treatment at a hospital in the U.S. People close to the Dalai Lama worry that word of this was leaked by U.S. authorities. Now the Dalai Lama “will be going to Switzerland for radiotherapy in the month of August,” the source said.
India is using rumors that the Dalai Lama is in poor health to build a more conciliatory relationship with China. In April, during an informal summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Wuhan, China, Modi tried to portray the India-China relationship as improved.
During the meeting, “Modi apprised President Xi of the Dalai Lama’s health and the Indian position on Tibet after his death,” a government source said. “This information from Modi took Xi by surprise, and the two discussed the issue for a long time at the Wuhan summit.”
When the leaders met in 2015 and 2016, they informally discussed a proposal for India to stop accepting new Tibetan exiles after the death of the Dalai Lama in return for China withdrawing its territorial claim on some parts of northern India.
For humanitarian, strategic and other reasons, India has been accepting Tibetan exiles for nearly 60 years. Tibet has been something of a buffer zone between the world’s two most populous countries since shortly after India’s independence in 1947. However, China has strengthened its grip on the Tibet Autonomous Region, and in 2017 new exiles numbered 57, a sharp drop from over 2,000 a decade earlier.
With Tibet’s strategic value waning, India has moderated its stance.
At the behest of the Indian government, the Tibetan government-in-exile last year changed the English name for its sikyong from “prime minister” to “president.” Geshe Lhakdor, director of the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives and for years an interpreter for the 14th Dalai Lama, said the new term denotes the leader of an organization, rather than the leader of a country.
The Indian government is also encouraging Tibetan exiles to acquire Indian citizenship.
A successor to the 14th Dalai Lama will be installed when a person believed to be his reincarnation is found, or will be appointed under a new system, like nomination.
The 15th Dalai Lama will then lead the Tibetan Buddhist world. However, it will be difficult for the successor to take the place of the 14th Dalai Lama, who has international influence as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and is the protector of Tibetan exiles.
The buildings that house the government-in-exile and the temple which is home to the 14th Dalai Lama sit atop a mountain. At the foot of this mountain is the Tibetan Reception Center that Tibetan exiles first visit for registration. It is quiet these days, and very much unoccupied.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-Relations/India-uses-rumor-of-Dalai-Lama-s-ill-health-to-mend-China-ties
Lhakpa Dhendup
What will the all the people around the world and in Tibet do now? Dalai Lama says he is happy that Tibet is a part of China and should remain a part of China. So many Tibetans self-immolated for Tibet to be independent and now Dalai Lama did a 360 degree turn and says he wants to go back to Tibet and China and Tibet should be a part of China. So unbelievable. So many are angry and disappointed.
Tibetans ready to be part of China: Dalai Lama
Organised by the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), the event was a part of “Thank You India – 2018″ held by the Tibetan community across India to mark 60 years of its exile in the country.
Tibetans are ready to be a part of China if guaranteed full rights to preserve their culture, the Dalai Lama said on Friday.
“Tibetans are not asking for independence. We are okay with remaining with the People’s Republic of China, provided we have full rights to preserve our culture,” the 83-year-old spiritual leader said at “Thank You Karnataka” event here in the city.
“Several of Chinese citizens practicing Buddhism are keen on Tibetan Buddhism as it is considered scientific,” the Nobel laureate said.
Born in Taktser hamlet in northeastern Tibet, the Dalai Lama was recognized at the age of two as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso. He fled to India from Tibet after a failed uprising against the Chinese rule in 1959.
China annexed Tibet in 1950, forcing thousands of Tibetans, including monks, to flee the mountain country and settle in India as refugees.
Since then, India has
Dalai Lama should set things right
Dear Dalai Lama,
Since you started the cruel ban against the 350 year Dorje Shugden practice, how has it benefit your Tibetan society and Buddhism in the world? Things have become worse and most educated Tibetans can see this. They don’t speak out not because they don’t see your ban as wrong, but you instill fear in them and not respect. It is like fear of a dictator. I am sorry to say so. Everyone is divided. There is no harmony. Before your ban there was more harmony and unity.
By enacting the ban, you split the monasteries, split so many families, split regions in Tibet apart, split your disciples from you, split your own gurus from you, split Tibetan Buddhism apart. You have created so much disharmony.
It is not democratic what you have done to ban a religion within your community. You always talk of tolerance and acceptance and democracy and yet you do not accept and tolerate something different from your beliefs. When people practice Dorje Shugden you ostracize them, ban them from seeing you, ban them from using Tibetan facilities. You know you have done that. There are videos that capture your speech and prove this point. You even had people expelled from monasteries just because they practice Dorje Shugden. Some of the monks you expelled have been in the monastery for over 40 years. Many older monks shed tears because of this.
Many young educated Tibetans lost confidence in you as they saw the damage the Dorje Shugden ban created and they lose hope. Many have become free thinkers. They reject what you have done. So many people in the west left Buddhism because of the confusion you created with this ban against Dorje Shugden which is immoral.
You could of had millions of people who practice Dorje Shugden to support, love and follow you, but you scared them away. They are hurt and very disappointed. They loved you and respected you deeply before the ban. It has been 60 years and you have failed to get Tibet back. Your biggest failure is not getting Tibet back after 57 years in exile. Now you are begging China to allow you to return to Tibet to the disappointment of thousands of people who fought for a free Tibet believing in you. So many self-immolated for a free Tibet and now you want Tibet to be a part of China with no referendum from Tibetans. Just like a dictator, you decide on your own. It was your government and you that lost Tibet in the first place. Your policies and style of doing things do not benefit Tibet and Buddhism. You have been the sole ruler of Tibet your whole life and you still have not gotten our country of Tibet back for us. Our families and us are separated. Yet you create more pain by creating a ban to further divide people. Please have compassion.
No other Buddhist leader has banned or condemned any religion except for you. It looks very bad. You are a Nobel laureate and this is not fitting of a laureate. You should unite people and not separate them by religious differences.
You said Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi did not do right to the Rohingya people in Myanmar due to religious differences, but you are doing the same thing to the Shugden Buddhists within your own society. There is a parallel in this. You separate the Shugden Buddhists from the others in Tibetan society.
You have lost so many people who would have loved and supported you. You have lost so much support around the world. The Shugden Buddhists who love you number in the millions. When you are fast losing support from governments and private people, it will not do you well to lose more.
After you are passed away in the future, the rift you created between the Dorje Shugden and non-Dorje Shugden people will remain for a while and that will be your legacy. Disharmony. You will be remembered for this. Not as a hero but a disharmony creator.
Dorje Shugden will spread and further grow, but you will be no more as you are a human. No one wishes you bad and in fact we hope you have a long and healthy life, but we have lost so much hope and have so much despair because of you. All the hundreds of Dorje Shugden lamas, tulkus and geshes are maturing and there are hundreds of Dorje Shugden monasteries in Tibet who will not give up Dorje Shugden. You have made a mistake. These hundreds of teachers and teachers to be will spread Dorje Shugden further in the future.
The gurus that gave us Dorje Shugden as a spiritual practice and you have called these holy gurus wrong and they are mistaken in giving us Dorje Shugden. How can you insult our gurus whom we respect so much? If they can be wrong, then you can be wrong. Then all gurus can be wrong. So no one needs to listen to any guru? You have created this trend. It is not healthy. Your own gurus practiced Dorje Shugden their whole lives. Your own gurus were exemplary and highly learned.
Dalai Lama you have created so much pain with this ban against so many people due to religion. You are ageing fast. Are you going to do anything about it or stay stubborn, hard and un-moving. You show a smile and preach peace and harmony wherever you go. But will you do the same to your own people? Please rectify the wrong you have done. Please before it is too late. You can create harmony again or you can pass away in the future with this legacy of peace. May you live long and think carefully and admit what was a mistake in having this unethical ban against Dorje Shugden religion.
Why doesn’t the United States and its allies end Refugee Status for the useless Tibetans? They have been refugees for 60 years now and don’t tell me they still cannot get their lives back in order?
Tibetans really know how to put on a good show and use people, take their money and do nothing in return.
Trump and Allies Seek End to Refugee Status for Millions of Palestinians
In internal emails, Jared Kushner advocated a “sincere effort to disrupt” the U.N.’s relief agency for Palestinians.
BY COLUM LYNCH, ROBBIE GRAMER | AUGUST 3, 2018, 2:12 PM
Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor, has quietly been trying to do away with the U.N. relief agency that has provided food and essential services to millions of Palestinian refugees for decades, according to internal emails obtained by Foreign Policy.
His initiative is part of a broader push by the Trump administration and its allies in Congress to strip these Palestinians of their refugee status in the region and take their issue off the table in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, according to both American and Palestinian officials. At least two bills now making their way through Congress address the issue.
Kushner, whom Trump has charged with solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has been reluctant to speak publicly about any aspect of his Middle East diplomacy. A peace plan he’s been working on with other U.S. officials for some 18 months has been one of Washington’s most closely held documents.
But his position on the refugee issue and his animus toward the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is evident in internal emails written by Kushner and others earlier this year.
“It is important to have an honest and sincere effort to disrupt UNRWA,” Kushner wrote about the agency in one of those emails, dated Jan. 11 and addressed to several other senior officials, including Trump’s Middle East peace envoy, Jason Greenblatt.
“This [agency] perpetuates a status quo, is corrupt, inefficient and doesn’t help peace,” he wrote.
The United States has helped fund UNRWA since it was formed in 1949 to provide relief for Palestinians displaced from their homes following the establishment of the State of Israel and ensuing international war. Previous administrations have viewed the agency as a critical contributor to stability in the region.
But many Israel supporters in the United States today see UNRWA as part of an international infrastructure that has artificially kept the refugee issue alive and kindled hopes among the exiled Palestinians that they might someday return home—a possibility Israel flatly rules out.
Critics of the agency point in particular to its policy of granting refugee status not just to those who fled Mandatory Palestine 70 years ago but to their descendants as well—accounting that puts the refugee population at around 5 million, nearly one-third of whom live in camps across Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and Gaza.
By trying to unwind UNRWA, the Trump administration appears ready to reset the terms of the Palestinian refugee issue in Israel’s favor—as it did on another key issue in December, when Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
In the same January email, Kushner wrote: “Our goal can’t be to keep things stable and as they are. … Sometimes you have to strategically risk breaking things in order to get there.”
Kushner raised the refugee issue with officials in Jordan during a visit to the region in June, along with Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt. According to Palestinian officials, he pressed the Jordan to strip its more than 2 million registered Palestinians of their refugee status so that UNRWA would no longer need to operate there.
“[Kushner said] the resettlement has to take place in the host countries and these governments can do the job that UNRWA was doing,” said Hanan Ashrawi, a member of Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
She said the Trump administration wanted rich Arab Gulf states to cover the costs Jordan might incur in the process.
“They want to take a really irresponsible, dangerous decision and the whole region will suffer,” Ashrawi said.
Saeb Erekat, the Palestinians’ chief negotiator, told reporters in June that Kushner’s delegation had said it was ready to stop funding UNRWA altogether and instead direct the money—$300 million annually—to Jordan and other countries that host Palestinian refugees.
“All this is actually aimed at liquidating the issue of the Palestinian refugees,” hesaid.
The White House declined to comment on the record for this story. A senior executive branch official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said U.S. policy regarding the U.N.’s Palestinian refugee program “has been under frequent evaluation and internal discussion. The administration will announce its policy in due course.”
Jordanian officials in New York and Washington did not respond to queries about the initiative.
Kushner and Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, both proposed ending funding for UNRWA back in January. But the State Department, the Pentagon, and the U.S. intelligence community all opposed the idea, fearing in part that it could fuel violence in the region.
The following week, the State Department announced that that United States would cut the first $125 million installment of its annual payment to UNRWA by more than half, to $60 million.
“UNRWA has been threatening us for six months that if they don’t get a check they will close schools. Nothing has happened,” Kushner wrote in the same email.
State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said at the time that the U.S. had no intention of eliminating funding for Palestinian refugees, and that it was taking time to explore ways to reform UNRWA and to convince other countries to help Washington shoulder the financial burden of aiding the Palestinians.
But the following day, Victoria Coates, a senior advisor to Greenblatt, sent an email to the White House’s national security staff indicating that the White House was mulling a way to eliminate the U.N.’s agency for Palestinian refugees.
“UNRWA should come up with a plan to unwind itself and become part of the UNHCR by the time its charter comes up again in 2019,” Coates wrote.
She noted that the proposal was one of a number of “spitball ideas that I’ve had that are also informed by some thoughts I’ve picked up from Jared, Jason and Nikki.”
Other ideas included a suggestion that the U.N. relief agency be asked to operate on a month-to-month budget and devise “a plan to remove all anti-Semitism from educational materials.”
The ideas seemed to track closely with proposals Israel has been making for some time.
“We believe that UNRWA needs to pass from the world as it is an organization that advocates politically against Israel and perpetuates the Palestinian refugee problem,” said Elad Strohmayer, a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington.
Strohmayer said that Palestinians are the only population that is able to transfer its refugee status down through generations.
The claim, though long advanced by Israel, is not entirely true.
In an internal report from 2015, the State Department noted that the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees “recognizes descendants of refugees as refugees for purposes of their operations.” The report, which was recently declassified, said the descendants of Afghan, Bhutanese, Burmese, Somali, and Tibetan refugees are all recognized by the U.N. as refugees themselves.
Of the roughly 700,000 original Palestinian refugees, only a few tens of thousands are still alive, according to estimates.
The push to deny the status to most Palestinians refugees is also gaining traction in Congress.
Last week, Rep. Doug Lamborn, a Republican from Colorado, introduced a bill that would limit the United States to assisting only the original refugees. Most savings in U.N. contributions would be directed to the U.S. Agency for International Development, the United States’ principal international development agency. But USAID is currently constrained by the Taylor Force Act, which restricts the provision of humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian Authority until it ends a policy of providing aid to families of fallen terrorists.
“Instead of resettling Palestinian refugees displaced as a result of the Arab-Israeli Conflict of 1948, UNRWA provides aid to those they define as Palestinian refugees until there is a solution they deem acceptable to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” Lamborn’s bill states.
“This policy does not help resettle the refugees from 1948 but instead maintains a refugee population in perpetuity.”
A congressional aide familiar with the legislation said its intent isn’t to gut UNRWA funding, but redirect assistance to descendants through USAID.
“The people that are suffering should still get assistance, but through appropriately defined humanitarian channels and aid programs,” the aide said.
Similarly, Sen. James Lankford, (R-Okla.), has drafted legislation that would redirect U.S. funding away from UNRWA and to other local and international agencies.
The bill, which has not yet officially been introduced, would require the U.S. secretary of state certify by 2020 that the United Nations has ended its recognition of Palestinian descendants as refugees.
“The United Nations should provide assistance to the Palestinians in a way that makes clear that the United Nations does not recognize the vast majority of Palestinians currently registered by UNRWA as refugees deserving refugee status,” reads a draft obtained by Foreign Policy.
Previous U.S. administrations have maintained that the vast majority of Palestinian refugees will ultimately have to be absorbed in a new Palestinian state or naturalized in the countries that have hosted them for generations.
But the fate of the refugee issue was expected to be agreed to as part of a comprehensive peace pact that resulted in the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“It’s very clear that the overarching goal here is to eliminate the Palestinian refugees as an issue by defining them out of existence,” said Lara Friedman, the president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace.
“This isn’t going to make peace any easier. It’s going to make it harder.”
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/03/trump-palestinians-israel-refugees-unrwaand-allies-seek-end-to-refugee-status-for-millions-of-palestinians-united-nations-relief-and-works-agency-unrwa-israel-palestine-peace-plan-jared-kushner-greenb/
Supreme Court of India JUSTICE Mr. MARKANDEY KATJU (RETD) writes that Tibet is much better under the Chinese than it was under the lamas who only wanted to make the populace slaves. It was feudal and it will never return to the backwardness again.
Time has come to acknowledge that Tibet has vastly improved under Chinese rule
JUSTICE MARKANDEY KATJU (RETD) | 12 August, 2018
From a terribly poor state hinged on a feudal system, Tibet has modernised and grows faster than the rest of China
This article has been prompted by Jyoti Malhotra’s article in ThePrint ‘Tibetan government quietly changed its PM’s designation. India won’t be unhappy about it‘.
China’s annexation of Tibet in 1959, ousting the Dalai Lama, had attracted it worldwide criticism. The Dalai Lama fled and was granted asylum in India, where he set up a government-in-exile with its headquarters in Dharamshala.
The Chinese claim Tibet on the grounds that it has been part of the country since the Yuan dynasty of the 13th century, which is disputed by the government-in-exile. But let us leave this that matter aside.
The more important question is whether Chinese rule has benefited Tibet.
The answer is that it undoubtedly has. As the Reuters’ Ben Blanchard writes: “Today Tibet is richer and more developed than it has ever been, its people healthier, more literate, better dressed and fed”.
Although Ben goes on to argue that this development masks “a deep sense of unhappiness among many Tibetans”, I will disagree. How can anyone be unhappy if s/he is healthier, better fed and better clothed?
Under the rule of the Dalai Lamas (Buddhist priests), the people of Tibet were terribly poor, almost entirely illiterate, and lived like feudal serfs.
Today, Tibet presents a totally different picture. The illiteracy rate in Tibet has gone down from 95 per cent in the 1950s to 42 per cent in 2000. It has modern schools, universities, engineering and medical colleges, modern hospitals, freeways, supermarkets, fast food restaurants, mobile stores and apartment buildings. The capital Lhasa is like any other modern city.
While the economic growth in the rest of China has slowed down to about 7 per cent, Tibet has had a 10 per cent growth rate in the last two decades.
Tibet has huge mineral wealth, which was only awaiting Chinese technology to be tapped. Nowadays, it has numerous hydro and solar power plants and industries running with Chinese help.
Tibetan literature is flourishing, contrary to claims that the Chinese want to crush Tibetan culture.
Of course, now the lamas cannot treat their people as slaves.
The so-called ‘government-in-exile’, of which Lobsang Sangay claims to be the President, is a fake organisation, funded by foreign countries. They only want to restore the feudal Tibet, ruled by the reactionary lamas, something which will never happen.
The writer is a former judge of the Supreme Court of India
https://theprint.in/opinion/time-has-come-to-acknowledge-that-tibet-has-vastly-improved-under-chinese-rule/97172/
As much as the Dalai Lama wants to return to Tibet and only wants autonomous recognition, does China want them back? Many of the Tibetans still wish for independence (China calls them separatists) and always condemn China. By accepting the Tibetans back in Tibet, it will be a burden to China as they have to monitor the Tibetans even closer to avoid problems created by the separatists.
As it is, look at how much security measurement China has to put in Tibet. Many Tibetans in China are brainwashed by the CTA to make troubles and create social instability in China. For example, the Dorje Shugden ban, even though the ban is imposed outside of China but Tibetans in China also discriminate against the Dorje Shugden followers and it has created some social problems. The Chinese government has no choice but to restrict the entry of foreigners to a certain area in Tibet just to ensure negative influence is kept at its minimal. Or the self-immolation cases, up until today, more than 150 lives were sacrificed for the Tibet cause. And the CTA is encouraging Tibetans to do that.
We have to also know that Lobsang Sangay is very arrogant, he will not want to report to anyone, especially the Chinese officials. He may seem to agree to the Dalai Lama’s Middle Way approach, but he will not want to work on it. The main reason is that he will get nothing if China agrees with the Middle Way approach. He is not competent and not capable, the Chinese government will not give him a position in the government. Knowing this, Lobsang Sangay has to support Rangzen so he has more time to make money for himself before the CTA is dissolved due to the political situation.
Vardaniya
The cracks in Tibetan society are starting to show, and it is now coming to the attention of local Indians who have all but identified the Tibetan leadership as the source of the divisions. According to this author, disunity amongst the Tibetans is now creating problems for Indian law enforcement agencies, and this disunity may culminate in young Tibetans holding silent grudges against their host country. It is incredible that after six decades of generosity from India, Indians are now facing the very real possibility Tibetans can be ungrateful towards India. The Tibetan leadership totally failed to impart positive values upon their exiled community, like gratitude for those kindest to them and the need to repay these kindnesses with real, tangible results. It’s also very unlikely that the Tibetan leadership will now start to do this, after six decades of failing to do so. Indians need to realise this, and see that there is no benefit for their nation to align themselves with the Tibetan leadership, and there never will be.
Tibetan disunity not in India’s interest
John S. Shilshi
Updated: August 7, 2018, 11:00 AM
India is home to the Dalai Lama and an estimated 120,000 Tibetan refugees. Though this humanitarian gesture on India’s part comes at the cost of risking New Delhi’s relations with China, India has never wavered in ensuring that Tibetans live with dignity and respect. Notified settlements across the country were made available so that they can live as independently as possible and practice Tibetan religion and culture. They are also allowed to establish centres of higher learning in Tibetan Buddhism. As a result, several reputed Buddhist institutes came up in Karnataka, and in the Indian Himalayan belt. In what may be termed as a gesture well reciprocated, and because of the respect and influence His Holiness the Dalai Lama commands, the Tibetan diaspora also lived as a peaceful community, rarely creating problems for India’s law enforcement agencies.
The situation, however, changed from 2000 onwards when unity amongst Tibetans suffered some setback due to developments like the Karmapa succession controversy and the controversy over worshiping of Dorje Shugden. In a unique case of politics getting the better of religion, two senior monks of the Karma kargyue sect of Tibetan Buddhism, Tai Situ Rinpoche and late Shamar Rinpoche, developed serious differences after the demise of Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, the 16th Karmapa, in 1981. This animosity ultimately led to emergence of two 17th Karmapa candidates in the early nineties. While Tai Situ Rinpoche identified and recognised UghyanThinley Dorje, late Shamar Rinpoche anointed Thinley Thaye Dorje as his Karmapa candidate. Enthronement of their respective protégés at the Rumtek Monastery in Sikkim, the supreme seat of the Karma Kargue linage, being their primary objective, both started indulging in activities monks normally are expected to, and bitterness spewed against each other.
The bitter rivalry assumed a new dimension when UghyenThinley Dorje suddenly appeared in India in January 2000. The competition became fiercer and hectic political lobbying, never known in the history of Tibetan Buddhism on Indian soil, became common place. Apart from pulling strings at their disposal in Sikkim as well as in the power corridors of New Delhi, these senior monks spat against each other with allegations and counter allegations, widening the gaps between their supporters. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, choosing to favour one of the candidates—a decision many Tibet watchers felt was ill-timed—had also limited possible scope of rapprochement. Hence, the Karma Kargyue followers are now vertically divided, while the camps are dragged into a long drawn legal battle.
Another development that unfortunately split the Tibetans is the controversy over Shugden worshipping, which again is an internal matter of the Gelugpa sect, to which the Dalai Lama belongs. It erupted as a result of the Dalai Lama urging Tibetans to refrain from worshiping Dorje Shugden, a deity believed to be a protector, according to Tibetan legend. Shugden practitioners, who felt offended by the call, describe it as an attack on freedom of religion, a right, which Dalai Lama himself tirelessly fought for. On the other hand, die hard Dalai Lama followers perceived the questioning of the decision as one challenging the wisdom of the Dalai Lama and mounted massive pressure on Dorje Shugden practitioners to relent, with some even demolishing the statues of the deity. The rivalry ultimately led to split in two Gelug monasteries in Karnataka, and Serpom and Shar Garden monasteries in Bylakupe and Mundgod respectively came under the control of Shugden followers. The bitterness associated with the split is exemplified by the fact that till today, members of these monasteries are treated as some sort of outcasts by the others. Thus, for the first time, the Tibetan diaspora in India gave birth to sections opposed to the Dalai Lama, with spillover effects in Tibet and elsewhere.
For India, with a fragile internal security profile, a divided Tibetan population on its soil is not good news. It has several long-term implications. It is common knowledge that China considers Dalai Lama as a secessionist, one plotting to divide their country. The latter’s claim of “all that Tibetans were asking for, was a status of genuine autonomy within the Constitution of the Peoples’ Republic of China”, had fallen into deaf ears. China also considers him as someone who plays to the Indian tune to tickle China. Therefore, at a time when China has successfully shrunk the Dalai Lama’s space internationally, India continuing to extend the usual space for him is viewed as complicity. Sharp reaction from China when he was allowed to visit Arunachal Pradesh in April 2017, is a recent example. Such being the delicate nature of India-China relations on matters and issues concerning Tibetans, India can hardly afford to ignore the division within the diaspora. Past experience of dubious elements from Tibet having succeeded in infiltrating the Central Tibetan Administration, including the security wing, should be a warning.
It is also time India understands the reason behind Tibetans seeking Indian passports, despite an existing arrangement for issue of Identity Certificates, which is passport equivalent. Some had even successfully taken recourse to legal remedy on the issue, and left the government of India red-faced. These changing moods should not be viewed as desires by Tibetans to become Indian citizens. They are triggered by the pathetic state of affairs associated with issuing of Identity Certificates, where delays in most cases are anything between six months to one year. Early streamlining of the process will drastically reduce their desire to hold Indian passport. It will also remove the wrongly perceived notion among some educated Tibetan youth, that the cumbersome process was a ploy by India to confine them in this country. While India should not shy from requesting the Dalai Lama to use his good offices to end all differences within the community in the interest of India’s internal security, it will also be necessary to ensure that young Tibetans do not nurse a silent grudge against the very country they called their second home.
https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/tibetan-disunity-not-indias-interest
Although the Dalai Lama has offered an apology, the Arunachal Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) still expressed their disappointment over his controversial comment on Nehru, the Arunachal Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC). Dalai Lama called Nehru self-centred.
The Congress said Dalai Lama being a foreigner should shun and refrain from interfering in the internal as well as external affairs of India.
Dalai Lama should abstain from imparting controversial information to students: Arunachal Congress
Dalai Lama should know that a spiritual leader like him is shouldering great expectation: APCC
| DAMIEN LEPCHA | ITANAGAR | August 12, 2018 9:58 pm
disappointment over the recent statement made by Tibetan Spiritual Leader the 14th Dalai Lama in which he called Jawaharlal Nehru, the former Prime Minister of India as “self-centered” and the one responsible for parting India and Pakistan.
“Although Dalai Lama expressed regret over his controversial comment, the APCC is extremely thwarted by it. A Tibetan spiritual leader calling names to an Indian leader who sweated most to keep him and his followers safe from Chinese aggression is simply not acceptable. Today, India is home to lakhs of Tibetan refugees who are living in 37 settlements and 70 scattered communities across different states of India,” APCC vice-president Minkir Lollen said in a statement on Sunday.
“Dalai Lama may have forgotten that India provided a beam of light and hope to Tibetans remaining in Chinese-dominated Tibet and in the neighbouring Chinese provinces politically cut off from the Tibetan heart land. All these happened only because India has great leaders like Gandhi and Nehru who took the responsibility of social burden to shelter thousands of persecuted Tibetans then in 1959,” Lollen added.
Minkir said Dalai Lama should know that a spiritual leader like him is shouldering great expectation, hope and trust of millions on record and the same are watching his contribution towards the mankind.
“In such circumstances, Dalai Lama should abstain from imparting partial and controversial information to the students who are the torch bearer of the nation,” the Congress said.
Further stating that the statement of the spiritual leader could be a politically motivated one and made with an effort to approach Prime Minister Narendra Modi for survival of his continuation in the country, the Congress said Dalai Lama being a foreigner should shun and refrain from interfering in the internal as well as external affairs of India.
https://nenow.in/north-east-news/dalai-lama-should-abstain-from-imparting-controversial-information.html
The Dalai Lama has mentioned many times he wants to go back to Tibet, he will opt for the Middle way approach to only have autonomous status for Tibet. Lobsang Sangay kind of says it is a good idea. However, Lobsang Sangay’s action is totally opposite of what he says.
Recently, another Friend of Tibet group is set up in the Czech Republic and Lobsang Sangay is very happy about it. Is Lobsang Sangay challenging China? Is he telling China he will continue to condemn China and fight for Tibet’s freedom? This is hypocritical.
Lobsang Sangay puts more focus on the Tibet cause than to find ways or formulate a strategy to bring the Dalai Lama back to Tibet. The Dalai Lama is getting older every day, he has to do it fast. Instead, the CTA keeps sending the Dalai Lama for overseas visit to make money. It is so sad to see the Dalai Lama is only a money making tool to the CTA.
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January 8, 2012 · 0 Comments Reflections on Tai Situ’s India Entry Ban
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The Dalai Lama Must Apologize!
Posted on September 20, 2018 in Articles, Features, Guest Writers · 13,949 Views · 67 Comments
Fit to be labelled the Most Famous Refugee in the World, the Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 and has been living in India for almost 60 years.
By: Heinrich Hauff
When Sweden’s Democrats, an extreme right-wing political party with a white nationalist agenda gained a significant win to become the deal-maker who would form the next government of Sweden, the entire European community braced itself for an outpouring of extremist views.
Europe was already in the grip of a tense situation. Yet a very provocative statement was made from a totally unlikely source, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, who should have known better than to create even more problems for the Europeans. Only three days after Sweden’s election results, the Dalai Lama, at the start of his European tour in Malmo, Sweden, spoke publicly about how “Europe is for Europeans”. This has since ignited debates that have been raging for nearly two weeks with no signs of dissipation.
With the now infamous ultranationalistic and racist statement, the Dalai Lama revealed how far removed he is from current global affairs and how ignorant he is about the tragedies that have struck the Afghan people and other afflicted groups who have since become reluctant refugees. This is not to mention the disasters that have visited the people of Somalia, Eritrea and those under the Assad and other totalitarian regimes. If the Dalai Lama does not have his finger on the pulse of global affairs, it is only proper for him to refrain from speaking on inflammatory socio-political topics. Especially seeing how he had caused a furore with his remarks on Indian political issues just a month prior. This is especially so given the fact that he has utterly failed to solve the Tibetan refugee problem even after 60 years in exile. Shouldn’t the Dalai Lama focus on solving his own problems instead of creating new ones for the Europeans?
The need for the Dalai Lama to not be issuing political statements couldn’t be any more apparent especially when innocent lives are at stake. For these refugees fleeing their homeland, the conditions in their countries of origin are far from being resolved and are unlikely to be in the near future. To send refugees back to situations where they would face mortal peril is tantamount to signing their death sentence. In addition, what exactly does the Dalai Lama mean when he speaks of their eventual return? And when? In five years? Ten? How arbitrary and miscalculated all that is.
Syrian refugees make up a large percentage of the European Refugee Crisis
As a monk with neither formal education nor training in politics, the blunders the Dalai Lama has made have had wide-reaching consequences, especially when parties manipulate them with harmful agendas. The bottom line is this – for the Dalai Lama to be making statements that stoke Islamophobia, he is carelessly disregarding human lives.
Theo Horesh, the author of the article, “The Dalai Lama Owes An Apology” published in the Elephant Journal, could not help but note the irony:
“The Dalai Lama is himself a refugee who cannot return home without fearing for his life, but he doubled down when asked to clarify his remarks the next day. Perhaps he did not recognize the way his words were being used, or else he simply misspoke. But it is unlikely, given that he is the head of state to a nation in exile and a perceptive thinker who chooses his words carefully.”
Even though popular opinion may place the Dalai Lama as a veteran statesman who saved his people from genocide, it is time to ask what this Nobel Peace Prize winner has really achieved. To begin with, what has the Dalai Lama done to really help the people of Syria, for example, when they were torn apart by war and before they were forced to become refugees? What has the Dalai Lama done to help afflicted countries such as the African nations find peaceful resolutions to the violent disputes that have plagued them? Most relevantly, what has the Dalai Lama done to resolve the Tibetan refugee crisis? (if we can even call it a crisis in this day and age)
Tibet is still a part of the People’s Republic of China and there is no sign of the Dalai Lama ever regaining sovereignty over his own homeland.
The Dalai Lama himself is still a refugee.
The Dalai Lama’s subjects in exile are still refugees. What’s more, Tibetan refugees have also sought to make Europe their home. So it is not only those who fled from war-torn Syria that make up Europe’s refugee population but also Tibetan refugees who contribute to the concerns of the Europeans. Why the Dalai Lama did not address his own people and demand that they are repatriated from Europe is a mystery. After all, they have been there much longer than any other refugees.
There is no progress with the Middle Way Approach to seek autonomy within China. In fact, all dialogue with China came to a grinding halt many years ago.
Migrants being rescued in the Mediterranean Sea
Truth be told, the Tibetan people are more hopeless today than they were in 1959 and the Tibetan refugee population who continue to trust and rely on the Dalai Lama’s government is only about half the number in diaspora. The rest seem to have taken matters into their own hands. Shouldn’t the Dalai Lama demonstrate that he can ably solve the Tibetan people’s issues before meddling with Europe’s migrant problems?
For this former head of the Tibetan government-in-exile, the past 60 years have presented countless opportunities to resolve the Tibetan refugee crisis. China’s rise as a global superpower could have meant a slew of benefits for the Tibetan people, but instead of placing emphasis on building relations with the Chinese government, the Dalai Lama directs his attention to everywhere else but China.
In his article, Horesh also displays extraordinary astuteness in his observation of why the Dalai Lama’s Islamophobic statement is ridiculous. He gives the hypothetical example of a Syrian immigrant who has carved a new life in an adoptive country for the past 10 years – his new wife is Turkish, his children are German, and his business is located in Berlin. How can you repatriate such a person back to a country that he and his wife and children have no cultural connection with? How can you ask them to unravel their lives all over again and agree to be alienated one more time just because the Dalai Lama said so?
If we were to go along with the Dalai Lama’s philosophy on refugees returning to develop their home countries, then the question that begs asking is, when will Tibetans-in-exile in Europe and North America be returning to Tibet? What about the Tibetans who have taken foreign partners and those in families with children of mixed race? Are they to reject their new found homes where they have lived for the majority of their lives to simply return to Tibet? After being in Europe for so many decades, many Tibetans are merely Tibetan in name, but culturally they are not. Will these Tibetans who have absorbed decades of foreign culture just transplant themselves and integrate instantly in Tibet, China? Or is the Dalai Lama’s philosophy only for Muslims? If not, why doesn’t it apply to Tibetans too?
Until today, the Dalai Lama has made little progress for the Tibetan cause with the Chinese Government but maintains close relationships with Western leaders
Whether knowingly, or as some allege, unknowingly, the Dalai Lama stoked racist and negative religious sentiments with his irrational statement. This is another sign that as a Buddhist monk, he should not involve himself with European politics as his lack of knowledge in political affairs can be used to hurt other people. It is a glaring revelation that the Tibetan leader lacks in education, exposure and history.
“Like all identities, Europeanness is a mental construction. There is no essence to it; rather, it is what we make it. And the more expansive our idea of it, the more inclusive it can be of the people actually living in it.”
Theo Horesh is brilliant in saying that identities such as ‘Europeanness’ are a mental construction. Of all people, the Dalai Lama who champions Buddhist teachings on subjects like the inherent emptiness of all phenomena, should already know this. Yet, the Dalai Lama conveniently forgets that Albania, Kosovo and Bosnia are three countries in Europe that are also Muslim states. Even Turkey is predominantly Muslim. All of these three Muslim countries are not recent inclusions in the European Union, and therefore the Dalai Lama’s statement on Muslims not being a part of Europe, and on how Europe is for Europeans is another shout out of his ignorance. But more to the point, shouldn’t a spiritual leader promote tolerance and pluralistic views? If our concept of personal and national identities can be broadened to be more inclusive, then clearly there is a better chance for people to live together in harmony.
Horesh summarizes it well when he says that the Dalai Lama’s half-hearted statement has caused hurt, immediately increased Islamophobia and played into the hands of extreme right-wing policies that could be damaging in the long-term. In the present day, these xenophobic extremists are attacking Muslims but who will be next? Will they target other refugees or migrants such as Indians, Asians, Pacific Islanders and so on?
Ultimately, the false identity of Europe for Europeans is a very negligent and damaging statement from someone such as the Dalai Lama who is regarded as a “seasoned politician”. Given that this statement has drastically decreased respect for the popular Tibetan leader worldwide, then perhaps the Dalai Lama who is the most famous refugee in the world, as Horesh says, should apologise.
The Dalai Lama Owes an Apology
Cropped for brevity. Click to enlarge and read the whole article. Source: https://www.elephantjournal.com/2018/09/the-dalai-lama-owes-an-apology/
Related Topics: controversy, Dalai Lama, Europe
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CTA failed
What a failed leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama had become. I used to respect him alot because he is the icon of peace and his teachings are great. However, after seeing his latest comments on the various issue, I start to doubt he is really the ambassador of peace anymore.
How can a leader talk in such a way that makes the public angry? He is telling the refugees should go back to their country and help their own country. How can he say that when he himself is an international refugee? Just because India let him stayed there for 60 years, that does not mean he is not a refugee anymore.
Did he not think about how the refugees react after hearing what he said? They escaped their country because of war just like how he did in 1959. Why is it that he can escape while all other refugees need to go back and face the war head on? Why is there a double standard?
If that is the case, India should not give them asylum anymore and all Tibetans in Exile should go back to Tibet at once and face China.
Why Dalai Lama has been making so many statements which hurts so many parties and countries? 😱😱 By doing this, he in return is breaking their ties and will have bad relationship with the countries.😬😬
Why is the Dalai Lama making such an offensive statement to the refugees in Europe? No one wants to leave their family, home, friends, and everything they have unless the circumstances force them to. These refugees have suffered so much in the war and they have to abandon their home to look for shelter in a place where they are not familiar with.
The Dalai Lama himself is a refugee, he should know how hard it is to leave one’s home. He was lucky that Nehru welcome him with open arms and allowed him and the Tibetans to settle down in India. The Tibetans are the most fortunate refugees in the world, they receive many supports from the people around the world. Look at the Vietnamese refugees in the past, how much they had to suffer when they were still refugees.
The Dalai Lama should show compassion to the refugees, share his experience on how to bring peace to their mind. What the refugees need are some words of encouragement. What the Dalai Lama could also do is to advise the Europeans to be more compassionate and have empathy towards these refugees, not to add salt to the wound.
In recent years, the Dalai Lama has been making a lot of offensive comments or he simply says something that is opposite of what was said before. For example, he said if he takes rebirth as a girl, the girl better be pretty and sexy, he was racist towards the refugees in Europe and he always criticises the internal affair of India. His behavior has angered a lot of people.
Not only that, he also changed his view on the Chinese recognised Panchen Lama. His change of tone on the Panchen Lama was shocking to some people. How can a person so highly respected suddenly makes so many mistakes and becomes so insensible?
Perhaps this is part of the bigger picture plan. It is time for the Panchen Lama to shine, it time for the Dorje Shugden to benefit more people. In order to invalidate himself, the Dalai Lama has to manifest in this way so he will lose his credibility and whatever he says about the Panchen Lama and Dorje Shugden will become invalid. That is when the ban will eventually be lifted.
Dechen
The Dalai Lama is a man famed for his compassion, he can also be controversial. It seems like since a few years ago, he has been making comments that contradicts himself.
Many people including some journalist is now questioning his credibility. How can he say one thing today and say another the next day that confuses people? He is not sure of what he says anymore. If for secular matters he can change his mind so easily, how about the Dharma teachings he has been preaching?
When the Dalai Lama is not sure of his stance, he is going to lose his supporters. Tibetans in exile rely heavily on their sponsors, should they lose their financial support, they will not be able to survive. It does not take a genius to guess what will happen to the Tibetans and the CTA. Soon, the CTA will have to dissolve and Tibetans have to make their choice whether to go back to China, become Indian citizens or migrate to other countries.
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Bexhill is a large seaside resort on the East Sussex coast midway between Eastbourne and Brighton.
As well as the usual Sussex seaside attractions, such as the pleasant promenade and good beaches, Bexhill is known for it's unusual place in motor sport history.
In 1902 Bexhill held pioneering motor races along De La Warr Parade to mark the granting of its royal charter as a borough. Commemorative races were reinstated to mark Bexhill’s role in this milestone in motorsport, but these ceased after the centenary year of 2002.
Bexhill has a smart, recently refurbished museum which celebrates the towns role in the history of motor racing as well as having plenty of displays of artefacts of local interest.
Bexhill's iconic and ground breaking art deco De La Warr Pavilion was opened in 1935. While not the first such building in the UK, the pavilion became a symbol of the decay, reappraisal and recovery of this style of modern architecture in the UK. In 1986 the De La Warr Pavilion was granted the protection of a Grade I listing and in 2005, after a great deal of public money was spent on its renovation, it reopened as a very good arts centre.
Bexhill-on-Sea history
Bexhill was founded when Mercian King Offa (a Midlander who had been harrying much of Sussex and Kent and the Hastingae people) granted a parcel of land to Bishop Oswald for a church in 772. Not much happened for the next nine hundred years. Much Of Bexhill, including Bexhill Manor, was part of the lands of the bishops of Chichester.
From the late middle ages much of the history of Bexhill is linked to the fortunes of the Sackville family. Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset, was granted substantial lands connected with Bexhill Manor from Queen Elizabeth 1. Later the lands passed by marriage and then inheritance to the De La Warr family who, in due course, had a huge influence of the pace of development of the town.
The building of a seaside resort at Bexhill took place later than at neighbouring Eastbourne or Hastings and Eastbourne, which were both well established holiday destinations when the 7th Earl De La Warr first set about transforming the area.
The first works were completed in the last two decades of the 19th century and the centrepieces were the opulent Sackville Hotel, De La Warr Parade and the sea wall. A new railway station was opened to serve the new resort.
Since then Bexhill has expanded greatly, with much of the town's architecture still dating from the late Victorian and Edwardian eras.
Other Bexhill-on-Sea attractions
High Woods is a Site of Special Scientific Interest because of its rare oak trees. It's a traditional coppiced woodland of 87 acres. Guided walks around High Woods are organised by the Highwoods Preservation Society, whose members look after the woodland and its wildlife.
Like many East Sussex seaside towns, smuggling was a big part of Bexhill life and you can find out more about the clandestine activities of the smuggling gangs by following the new Bexhill Smugglers Trail - see the museum for more details.
One of the key sports on the trail is Sidley Green where a bloody battle between smugglers and customs men took place on a winter's night in 1828. Two men died, many others were badly beaten and the battle led to the convictions of ten of the smugglers - members of the Little Common Gang.
> Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex
Towns in East Sussex
Villages in East Sussex
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Posts Tagged ‘harsh realm’
MTV: 'X-Files' Producer/Director Frank Spotnitz Makes The Mythology Matter In New Wildstorm Comic Series
Permanent Link to ‘X-Files’ Producer/Director Frank Spotnitz Makes The Mythology Matter In New Wildstorm Comic Series
Kiel Phegley
X-Files comic books — in the ’90s, four color tales of Agents Scully and Mulder heated up the comics charts and nabbed scores of cash on the back issue market before the comics industry and publisher, Topps, took a turn for the worse…along with the whole “X-Files” franchise (check out Kurt Loder’s visit to the “X-Files” set here). Now in November, DC’s Wildstorm imprint looks to reignite the series’ comic popularity with a miniseries featuring something the ’90s comics never had: a direct tie to the show’s overarching mythos.
“They are connected with a part of the mythology that we introduced but did very little with at the beginning of season five,” said writer Frank Spotnitz, a longtime scribe for the series and co-writer of July’s “I Want To Believe” film. “We introduced this corporation Roush and so that was part of the mythology that we could have gone a lot deeper with but never got the chance. So the next two books connect with Roush. And I’m going to take a little break from writing comics after this and get back to my screenwriting career, but at some point I hope to get back to write more and do more with the mythology.”
But while Spotnitz’s direct exploration of the show’s most successful period will only last a few months, the series will continue for five issues after that, presenting new stories of Scully and Mulder in classic form mixing it up with FBI Deputy Director Skinner, conspiracy nuts The Lone Gunman and the villainous Cigarette Smoking Man, all of whom appear in upcoming issues.
“It’s just fun to play with again,” he explained. “This is kind of an interesting thing about the comic books – in my imagination anyway – [it’s] that they’re sort of ‘out of time.’ The situation is the situation that we found between seasons two and five of the series. And yet, they’re wearing clothes and using technology that is contemporary of today. It’s not like they’re period pieces. It’s sort of like they’re unstuck from time. I look at them as if that situation in ‘The X-Files’ were still going on today; a sort of parallel universe to the one that we have in the movie.”
With that last movie underperforming at the box office this summer, long time X-Philes will be glad to know that the creator’s plans for future comics series will continue to play in the show’s glory years with new stories focusing on various mythological elements not fully developed in the show. And if Spotnitz has his way, those tales will be penned by both past “X-Files” writers as well as some of his big name comic writing pals, including Brad Meltzer and Brian K Vaughan.
“We have some writers from the TV series who have expressed interest like John Shiban and David Amann, but they all have busy television careers. But in the meantime I’d love to see some other established comic book writers try their hand at the ‘X-Files.’ And that’s what’s great about comic book series is you’re a lot freer to explore and experiment and do things that are out there.”
And if readers get behind the expanded in-continuity comics treatment “X-Files” is getting, Spotnitz doesn’t rule out more series based on his friend Chris Carter’s universe of TV series. “I think it’s a great idea; I still love all those titles. Every single show we did with Chris at 1013 I have great affection for. Especially ‘Harsh Realm’ and ‘Lone Gunman’ I think ended before their time. And I have to tell you, everywhere I go people are always asking me if there’s going to be a ‘Millennium’ movie or something, so I suspect there’s a hardcore audience out there that’s still wanting it.”
Tags: frank spotnitz, harsh realm, lone gunmen, millennium, x-files
Posted in Interviews: Online | 4 Comments »
Ain't It Cool News: ScoreKeeper With Composer Mark Snow
Jun-24-2008 [9:49:12 AM CDT]
ScoreKeeper With Composer Mark Snow About THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE, The Creation Of The Series’ Theme, And Much More!!
Ain’t It Cool News
Greetings! ScoreKeeper here secretly sleuthing my way with what could be my favorite composer interview to date.
Mark Snow is a legend. Sure, you probably know him as the composer for the smash-hit phenomenon THE X-FILES (1993-2002), but his legacy didn’t start nor ended with that series. He is the composer for countless television series and movies including SMALLVILLE (2001-2008), GHOST WHISPERER (2006-2008), THE LONE GUNMEN (2001), MILLENNIUM (1996-1999), HARSH REALM (1999-2000), 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (1997), FALCON CREST (1986-1988), T.J. HOOKER (1982-1986), and HART TO HART (1979-1983) as well as a composer for theatrical motion pictures which include DISTURBING BEHAVIOR (1998), THE X-FILES: FIGHT THE FUTURE (1998), CRAZY IN ALABAMA (1999), and COEURS (2006) which was nominated for a César Award for Best Score.
Now the sizzling Summer of ‘08 heats up even higher as Mark returns to the world of Agents Mulder and Scully in THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE (2008). Already one of the more highly anticipated films of the summer, Mark sheds tiny slivers of light on what has successfully been a very clandestine production.
Mark was a joy to speak with. His casual demeanor and passionate expression created the perfect combination for a great interview. We gabbed about the new film, the old shows, and everything in between. As a die hard fan, it was difficult containing my inner geek. So I gave up and just had fun. I hope you will too.
Enjoy the interview…The truth is out there.
ScoreKeeper: Thank you for taking the time out to speak with me today. I’d like to start off talking about THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE. As a bona fide fan of the series, I am very excited about this new movie. How does it feel returning to the world of Mulder and Scully after six years? Did you miss it?
Mark Snow: I did and I knew many years ago that this project was in the works. In fact, Chris Carter called me from London about five years ago and said “Get ready. We are going to do another one…”.
Then it got bogged down and there was red tape with the studios while they were “ironing out” the contracts. But it came to pass and I was thrilled to be invited back. It just felt so comfortable.
SK: Having scored nine seasons of episodic television and a feature film, how did your approach to the new film fit within the X-FILES universe?
MS: It’s very different than the first movie. This is more of a stand alone episode while the first one followed the mythology story with government conspiracies and aliens. There is a lot more heart, warmth and tuneful music in this one – as well as all of the wonderful sound design and atmospheric things.
The idea of being able to write some great themes for some of these very emotional scenes…well, it’s really great! In the score there is this great contrast of fast and slow and loud and soft and melodic and atmospheric. There’s just so many wonderful textures.
I had my full battery of samples and synthesized sounds. I certainly bring back a few things that people might remember from the old days plus a lot of new things. I had a session with a big orchestra that just did atmospheric sound effect music. There was no music written out. I would just give the orchestra instructions like with an accent or a “boom,” or “let’s crescendo here,” or “make a funny noise here,” or “drop a pencil on the music stand,”…all kinds of real cool inventive things.
There’s a battery of percussion with these fabulous taiko drums and all kinds of things. Plus live whistlers and live singers…It’s quite a sound!
It was all very creative.
So, you’ve got that and then a big orchestra hanging out playing written out music for four days of recording. The thrust of the orchestra is mostly like a baritone to low orchestra. There are no trumpets, no high woodwinds. There is a flute solo but it’s an alto flute solo and there is one moment where there’s a high baroque trumpet playing over a very emotional scene. There are eight French horns, five trombones, and two pianos and harps…thirty-two violins, sixteen violas, twelve cellos, and eight basses…
SK: Wow!
MS: That makes a hell of a sound! It has been great.
One of the most wonderful things was I was able to get Alan Meyerson to be the scoring engineer and the music mixer. He does all of James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer’s stuff. His creativity is really just fantastic! His mixes just come alive.
SK: That improvised aleatoric jam session you talked about…Were you doing that to picture?
MS: No, there was no picture. I just made a tool box of all these sounds and had it at my disposal to sprinkle throughout the score. There’s all sorts of short accents and long sustained things…all kinds of drums…just really marvelous stuff.
SK: You mentioned Chris Carter said there was interest about five years ago to do a second film. At what point did the creative process begin for you? Did you receive a script during that time to start thinking about music? At what point did the compositional process begin for you?
MS: There was such incredible secrecy about this project. I did receive a script and each page had my name watermarked on it. I had to sign something saying if I gave this out then I would be killed.
[Both Laugh]
MS: So that script was going to be chained to my wrist for the whole duration so to speak.
Certainly reading it was the beginning of my thought process and I remember the most direction that I got from Chris Carter was “This is a love story with spiritual and religious overtones.”
I’m reading the script and saw a love story in it along with real good classic X-FILES weirdness. It’s a very complex story. After the first reading, I was so intrigued and I read it so quickly that I had to read it twice and even a third time. But there is still nothing like seeing the visuals. That’s when it really kicks in!
I did write a couple of themes that I thought might work and actually one of the things I wrote before seeing the picture did work out beautifully. Another piece, Chris (Carter) and Frank Spotnitz, the producer, weren’t crazy about but I was able to take it and turn it around and make a variation of it. It worked out great.
SK: What is the functional purpose behind the two themes? Do they have a symbolic relationship in the film?
MS: There are two very distinct moments. I hope you will respect the fact that I can’t say too much about it…
SK: Oh! Of course. I don’t want to know too much about it, so, yeah, don’t go into spoilers. If that’s the case, that’s fine.
MS: These two particular pieces come back quite a few times in different orchestrations and settings and they really work out great. That is what was so satisfying…to be able to write real melodic and thematic music in this movie as well as all of the great X-FILES noises on top of it.
SK: How about the iconic main theme? It’s interesting because in the first film it didn’t appear that much. I liked that you refrained from using it and composed a host new material. How does the main X-FILES theme work into this new film, if at all?
MS: Right from the get go you will probably recognize it and that’s all I can say. Then during the score, there are hints of it and variations of it. It is very subtle and it comes and goes. It doesn’t appear too frequently but enough that someone with a good musical ear will be able to pick it up. It’s not dominating the music whatsoever and these other thematic pieces actually have no relation to it at all.
SK: I find it interesting because you have such a long and fabulous career with so many different television shows and productions but it’s the THE X-FILES that has really come to define your career and help solidify your name in the scoring world.
How did your experience working on I WANT TO BELIEVE compare to nine seasons of THE X-FILES series, the previous film, and all the other scores you’ve done throughout your career?
MS: The most exciting stuff in the TV series, for me, was actually the stand-alone episodes. The mythology episodes had sort of a set palette and everyone kind of liked that. It was more of a traditional sound. The stand-alone episodes were a real free-for-all. They were like mini-movies unto themselves.
The freedom and trust that Chris and company had with me was so remarkable. I could basically do whatever I wanted and when you are given that kind of freedom it’s also a responsibility. No one was giving me notes. They would come over and they would watch every score of every episode for the whole nine years and mostly it would just be “Oh, we just love to get out of the studio and watch the music and see how it helps the picture.” There would rarely be any notes. If anything, “Oh, hit this louder,” or “When this guy jumps out of the box…smash it!” or “That’s too much…”. It was very minimal.
With the recent film, it was a combination of all the stuff that I loved so much about the series: the freedom to do what I wanted and the idea of writing these themes which turned out to be so potent and hopefully memorable.
Going from the orchestra’s reaction…the musicians were maybe thinking they were just going to be playing a bunch of sound effects. Then when all of these, dare I say, wonderful tunes showed up, it was just great. Chris, Frank, and the people at Fox would walk in from time to time listening to the cues and it was just “thumbs-up” the whole way.
Thomas Newman once said in regards to work, “There is war and peace. War is scoring a movie and peace is when you are between movies.” With I WANT TO BELIEVE there was no war, it was just a fabulous exhilarating experience.
SK: Take a moment to address all of the X-FILES fans out there. What is in store for them? What can they expect?
MS: All the best things of the stand alone episodes and the relationships with the characters… They will not be disappointed, I’m telling you!
SK: I’m among the many anxiously awaiting this one. Personally, this could be one of my more anticipated movies of the summer. Since hearing you describe the music in more detail, I’m even more excited.
How many minutes of music are there in the film?
MS: There’s about an hours worth. Maybe a little bit more. There are a couple of songs but really the thrust of the music really is the score.
There’s not more than three songs in the movie and they aren’t in a montage or playing during a whole scene where the sound effects and dialogue are cut out. The songs are more subliminal and more a part of the overall sound.
SK: When scoring the series you were primarily layering synth sounds without utilizing many live acoustical elements. When THE X-FILES: FIGHT THE FUTURE came along, you had the opportunity to score with a live orchestra and again with I WANT TO BELIEVE.
First of all, how does the compositional process differ between the series and the films and to what effect did any differences outcome the music?
MS: Well, it didn’t really change at all. The big difference was when I was done with a piece, I would turn it into a MIDI file and it would go out to the copyist who would, in turn, put it through one of their programs to give to the orchestrators. They would see pretty clearly where the orchestral music was in regards to the strings, the horns, percussion, piano, harp, and they would write that out.
Sometimes my synth strings would be with the orchestral strings and sometimes not. Sometimes my percussion stuff would be plenty and we didn’t need any of the live percussion. It was a cue by cue situation. I felt very comfortable that all of my orchestral instruments would be much more fantastic with the real deal, especially with the size of that group.
SK: How do you work in the electronic elements of your acoustical scores? Do you have those planned out ahead of time or do you add them after the acoustical elements are in place?
MS: I basically hear the whole thing right from the get go. We separate every single individual synth or sampled sound on a separate track and Alan Meyerson mixes each one of those. He treats them with who knows what he does – it’s amazing to me – and then combines them all. Then it has to be mixed in 5.1 surround sound. It’s a miracle!
I do my thing and it sounds pretty good. We get an orchestra and live players and Alan Meyerson…Holy mackerel! I pinch myself listening back to these things. I said “Wow! I loved that! Holy Smokes! This is great!”
SK: It sounds like this could be a real peak for you as far as satisfaction throughout your career. Not just in the X-FILES world. It’s sounding very much like this is one of those top ranking experiences for you…
MS: I’m glad you said it because somewhere along this interview I was definitely going to say that. In terms of satisfaction this ranks the highest.
I did a movie in France with director Alain Resnais. That was also satisfying. The only thing missing was we didn’t have a live orchestra. The music for that – and there is going to be a CD coming out momentarily – was very subtle but also extremely thematic and tuneful. It’s all very emotional but in a quiet sort of sad-yearing-type of way.
It was also very satisfying in the sense that the director just said, “I’m a big fan of yours and I want you to do this. I hired you because I know you will do the right things. I don’t want to tell you what to do. Just go out there and do it.”
So I did and it turned out to be a really great experience.
SK: I received a promo copy of your score from PUBLIC FEARS IN PRIVATE PLACES (aka COEURS) and I wrote a brief preview of it on this site [HERE].
I loved it! I don’t normally review film music without having seen the film but in this case, I did. I really loved the music. You were nominated for what is basically the European equivalency of the Oscar for that score, is that correct? [details HERE]
MS: Yes, I was nominated. They call it a César Award. To get that nomination, that too, is pretty remarkable.
SK: Do you have a date yet when the score will be released on CD?
MS: It could literally be next week.
SK: I’ll be on the look out for that. The promo CD that I got only had ten or twelve minutes of music on it, so I’m definitely dying to hear more.
SK NOTE: Since this interview was conducted, BuySoundtrax.com has announced the release of PRIVATE FEARS IN PUBLIC PLACES (aka COEURS) on their own BSX Records label. I ordered my copy immediately upon hearing the announcement. Check out their web site [HERE] for more information.
I’ve heard there is already a CD planned for THE X-FILES 2: I WANT TO BELIEVE. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
MS: It’s going to be coming out on Decca. They are bugging me, “Let’s go do some record mixes for it right away!” It will probably be 90% of the score because a lot of the pieces are just sound effect style stuff.
There is also a song by Xzibit which plays during the end credits. I think that song is going to be on the CD as well. There’s also a really great new band that Chris Carter knew about that did a remix of THE X-FILES theme which sounds fantastic. That’s going to be on there as well.
SK: What about the series? I remember when THE TRUTH AND THE LIGHT CD came out. I was very excited they finally released your music from the show. Any future plans of releasing more?
MS: I understand that there’s going to be CDs released on the other series that Chris did: MILLENNIUM, THE LONE GUNMEN, and HARSH REALM.
They’re talking about this massive compilation of THE X-FILES too. But nine years times…it could be ten thousand minutes of music! That would be a real challenge to choose from that much music but I understand that that is in the works too.
SK: That would be awesome!
I’ve interviewed and talked with a lot of different television composers and one thing that frequently comes up is we seem to be currently witnessing a genuine renaissance in television.
The various facets of television are reaching new heights in terms of quality and one of those facets is music. We are getting some absolutely fantastic scores in television these days. In the past several decades that hasn’t always been the case.
I’ve always attributed this modern boom back to THE X-FILES. Even during the nineties, television wasn’t the place to go if you wanted to hear great scores. But I very much believe it was your work on THE X-FILES that helped catalyze the resurrection of well-crafted scores for television.
It was your music, in fact, that first got me sucked into the show. I was flipping channels one night – I believe it was during the second season – and I came across a show and said to myself, “What is this music?” I was loving it. It turned out it was THE X-FILES. I tuned in the following week just so I could hear more music. The next thing I knew, I was hooked on the show.
I’d like for you to comment a little on the recent trends of television scoring because I think you deserve a lot of credit for raising the bar and improving the overall quality of it.
MS: That’s an immense compliment and I really appreciate it. I think the most important factor was that Chris and company really seemed to trust me.
First of all, there is a lot of music in the show. At first, with the pilot, they really wanted very atmospheric stuff. Not melodic or cheesy. Just supportive almost sound designed music. That’s where we started.
I felt after a while that was getting too one dimensional and so I started experimenting. Every time I did, it was encouraged by Chris and company so I just kept going and going and they kept liking it and liking it.
It’s rare that you are in a situation where you are given such creative freedom. In television, the music editor has to do temp tracks that have to be approved by the studio, the network, the producers and then those things are tweaked and changed and then it comes back to the composer and the composer is given these marching orders, “Copy this as close as you can come,” which does take some degree of one’s own creative impetus out of the process. It just depends on the show and it depends on the people that you are working for.
I think Chris Carter and Steven Cannell, Dick Wolfe, and Steven Bochco, are the last of the great singular people that a composer had to answer to. Not committees and not networks. These guys would tell us what they wanted and it was just wonderful being able to answer to just one person.
SK: That seems to be the reoccurring theme. The more creative freedom talented individuals receive the better the product is going to be. It’s not a law, but it’s definitely something common amongst the great shows of our time.
To me, I think without the success of THE X-FILES, I don’t know if we would have some of the great television scores that we are getting today. Trust begets trust.
MS: I really appreciate that but at this point in the interview I have to give credit to someone who was actually my mentor. I think this man was the absolute first composer for TV music that gave it some legitimacy and that’s Earl Hagen.
Although he did a lot of light hearted and comedy music, his more dramatic music and the range of what he could do was exceptional. He was such a hard worker. In those days there was no such thing as a sampler or a synthesizer. Everything was written out and played by live musicians. If you listen to some of the underscore of some of his dramatic shows it is so brilliant!
He was incredibly generous to young composers who were starting out. He would have this class at his house out in Calabasas California, where there is a big country club that he belonged to. He loved golf. He made a ton of money on all of the TV shows so the fee for getting into the class was a dozen Titleist golf balls.
We would have a ten week session each year. There wouldn’t be more than ten people and once a week we would sit around with him while he played some of his music and teach us about the technical side of things.
I just remember he would never kick you out. If you wanted to stay there until four in the morning, he would be right there with you and you could ask him any question, talk about stuff, or listen to all kinds of music. It was incredibly inspiring.
SK: I’m glad you brought him up. I couldn’t agree more. When he passed away a few weeks ago, I wrote a brief memorial article for Ain’t It Cool News [HERE].
When you talk about the father of television scoring, nobody can quite compare. His body of work is just legendary. That’s an amazing anecdote.
MS: Also, in a funny way, my X-FILES theme with the whistle is sort of my homage to Earl. He whistled (the theme from THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW) himself. I wasn’t that good of a whistler. But he did it.
SK: That’s awesome!
What I’d like to do now is take you back through THE X-FILES series a little bit. I’m going to mention a handful of individual episodes and I want you to give me some initial thoughts of reflection or an anecdote or whatever comes to your mind when I mention the episode. I’m going to start off with one of the more legendary X-FILES episodes of all time
MS: That was so powerful and so incredible…the idea behind it. All I had to do was sit there at the keyboard as something came up right from my gut, into my fingers and plopped down.
I was possessed absolutely with that episode. I’m telling you, when the shows were that good it was less than easy. It just flowed. It was so natural and came so easily. I don’t know what else to say. It was just so inspiring that you couldn’t miss. You couldn’t go wrong when you were just so completely mesmerized by the show and that was one of the classics. You are absolutely right.
SK: That’s TV history in my opinion. Nobody has seen anything like that since or before and it still remains one of those episodes you clearly remember where you were when you first saw it.
MS: I also thought that it was so powerful even with no music and just sound effects. Like NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007) and how great that was.
But (HOME) was a classic no doubt about it.
SK: The next one is one of the more beautiful and poignant scores you’ve done for the series. It’s one of my favorites, THE FIELD WHERE I DIED.
MS: There was an opportunity there. So much of the music in the first season or first part of the first year was all of this musical vapor and atmospheric sound design stuff. I knew that I just loved being able to write a melodic piece and here was an opportunity where it presented itself that worked out great.
I was a little nervous when Chris and company would hear a melody. They might think “Uh oh.” I tried to make it as honest and heartfelt as possible.
I think that actually leads right over to what I did with I WANT TO BELIEVE with these themes. Frank Spotnitz is a real straight forward, serious, but good-natured guy and he walked over during one of the recordings of one of these pieces and there were tears in his eyes. That was like, “Wow!”
I don’t want to sound like I’m so full of myself but there were so many magic moments in the scoring of this movie, especially with these themes. I think you will know what I mean when you see it.
SK: The teary eyes from any of your audience members is definitely the ultimate compliment for a film or television composer.
The episode that I consider to be the quintessential episode – if no body had ever seen the show and they said “What one episode should I see?” I would tell them to go see JOSE CHUNG’S FROM OUTER SPACE.
MS: That was such a remarkable episode. Getting Charles Nelson Riley in that was genius. He was just so quirky and perfect. That’s another thing that seemed to play automatic.
The idea…what was sort of like 50’s bebop jazz with the bongos…almost like something from Ed Wood but finger snapping and the piano thing.
Using the little jazz combo – without overdoing it – gave such an interesting flavor and again, very different from most X-FILES music.
SK: THE X-FILES is well-known for darkness and for beauty but one element that often gets overlooked was comedy. I’ve always thought SMALL POTATOES was one of the great comedic episodes of the series.
MS: There was a palette of instruments consisting of strings and woodwinds that I had for that show that in a way dictated some of the other lighthearted or comic shows. The sound relied on pizzicato strings a lot.
Nevertheless it seemed sparse enough and not over-the-top but definitely lighthearted with a lot of good space between notes. There were woodwind solos with pizzicato strings and some piano and every once in a while one of the classic X-FILES weird sounds would pop in.
Those episodes were tons of fun because it really relied on timing. It also seemed that the economy of the music was a big part of that to make it successful.
SK: One of the things I’ve always been curious about is in the episode CLOSURE from the seventh season when you finally learned the fate of Mulder’s sister, it’s one of the rare moments where you didn’t actually compose the music. They cut in “My Weakness” by Moby.
First of all, did you have anything to do with the selection of that piece and I often wondered was it at all disappointing for you not be able to score such a major resolution in the X-FILES mythology?
MS: That’s a good question and luckily for myself, I really thought that song was perfect. I didn’t have anything to do with it or the decision behind it but I felt totally comfortable.
Every once in a while, when Chris would pick out a pop song or whatever, he would always make really great choices and I thought that was a good one.
He was a big fan of Moby at the time and actually my theme for HARSH REALM was inspired by Moby where I used some snippets of Mussolini giving a speech. I used it in sort of a musical-sample way over the dark music. There was sort of a hip-hop type rhythm section I used with this Mussolini thing. It think it had a pretty cool effect actually.
SK: If somebody had told me before watching CLOSURE, that they ended it with a piece that you didn’t compose, I would have screamed “Blasphemy!”
That said, I do think it was one of the more powerful, amazing, and emotional moments in the entire series.
MS: Chris’s taste in pop music and alternative music…I’ve been right there with him.
So that’s always great. I remember in MILLENNIUM, there were some opera pieces and in the great black-and-white show, THE POST-MODERN PROMETHEUS, they took a piece from (Camille) Saint-Saëns, called THE CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS. So we have been all over the map. What’s that Johnny Cash song? “I’ve been everywhere man…”
I have been everywhere musically with the X-FILES. From harpsichord baroque, string quartets, live sopranos…the Scully theme that people talk about a lot, so…
They were talking about doing another movie after (I WANT TO BELIEVE) and I thought “You are kidding! I thought this was going to be it.” I suppose if this does big business or acceptable business they might keep doing some more. That would be incredible.
SK: Looking back on it all…the show, the two films, in your best summation, what does the X-FILES mean to you?
MS: At first it was an absolute shock! When I first saw the pilot, I knew it was good. I knew it was well done but like everyone else I had no idea whatsoever that it was going to turn into this cult phenomenon.
The magic of that time in my life was just amazing. If that happened again in my life it would be a miracle of miracles. To be a part of something where I do music for either a TV show or a movie that became another iconic thing, that would be amazing. But believe me, I am very satisfied with this one!
SK: Can you recount your experience composing the now classic theme for the THE X-FILES series?
MS: The story about the theme is so cool.
At first, Chris sent me a collection of CDs and music ranging from classical to punk rock to all sorts of things. He said “I like the guitar here. I like the vocals here. I like the drum sound here.” So to make a long story short, I did four themes before I hit upon the final one and all of them were based on material that he gave me.
They were more of what you would think perhaps a sci-fi theme would be: loud, fast, and weird. He was very cool about the whole process. I said, “Look, let’s try this…Let me just start from scratch and erase everything we have done and see what I can come up with. I’m getting to know you better and your musical sensibilities and what you have a taste for, so just give me a shot here.” He said, “Absolutely!”
I remember he walked out of the studio. I put my hand down on the keyboard and I had this delay echo effect which later became the four note piano triplet figure that repeats itself, “Da-da-da, Da-da-da, Da-da-da…” I said, “Wow! That’s a happy accident.” So keeping with the Chris Carter school of music – nothing slick or overproduced and really, really simple – I thought, “What else does it really need?”
It needed a pad of stuff underneath and then a melody and that was it. So I had the piano part. I had the pad combination of a lot of things, and then I came up with this tune.
Then it was a matter of what instrument or sound would play it and I went through everything that makes a sound from saxophone to guitar to flutes, all of the regular instruments and synthesizer stuff. I then stumbled upon this one sound.
I remember my wife hearing that whistle sound. She was out in the yard and the door was open. She came in and said, “You know, that’s pretty cool.”
I got Chris back in my studio and he’s very quiet. He hears it and he says “That’s great” in a very low key way. He kept hearing it and hearing it and he said, “I think that’s it. I think that’s our TWILIGHT ZONE theme.”
Then he said, “OK, now we have to get it approved by Fox so I want to bring it in with you. We’ll both sit there with them and play it.”
I meet him over at the studio and I have a boom box and a CD and we go in there and he looks at his watch and goes, “Oh no! I have a meeting. I can’t stay. Hey guys, this is the theme I want. Here’s Mark Snow… I have got to go.”
So I’m left with these four executives and they are all in suits and they are all very nice and respectful and I played the piece and they looked like they didn’t know what the hell happened. They couldn’t say anything.
One guy said “You know, that is really…I am telling you…” and then he would look to his friend and say “Bill, what do you think?”…“This piece…Sam?” and they would go around the room and no one would say anything. But they signed off on it.
Whatever it was, a month or two later when the show was beginning to take off and the music was getting noticed, one of these guys called up and said “Didn’t I tell you how great that was, huh?”
What do you day? You say “Yes Sir, thank you very much.”
SK: That very first draft that you played for Chris, is that the draft that we hear on the show?
MS: Actually there was a little more stuff in it. He said “Why don’t you just simplify it? You’ve got these three basic elements. Just take out this, this, and this.” It wasn’t too much more.
SK: Are there any particular episodes that I might not have mentioned that seem to stand out in your mind as being a favorite of yours?
MS: Oh God…
SK: Hard question, huh?
MS: That is. I forget the name of the show, but the side show circus group with this guy who had…
SK: HUMBUG.
MS: Yeah, HUMBUG, where his twin was attached to him and would crawl out in the middle of the night to all kinds of mischief. God that was amazing! I’m just at a loss of remembering names…THE POSTMODERN PROMETHEUS was a big deal. JOSE CHUNG was great. CLYDE BRUCKMAN was a great one…HOME.
SK: THE HOST…That was probably the first slap across the face for people watching the X-FILES in its debut season. They are getting comfortable in the first season and all of a sudden THE HOST comes on, it’s like, “Whoa! This is something different.”
MS: The series of shows that Micheal McKean was in (DREAMLAND and DREAMLAND II)…Just name it. They are all good. The JFK black-and-white in and out with the Cigarette Smoking Man was amazing…
SK: There’s that block of episodes in the fourth season that stick out for me, with HOME, UNRUHE, MUSINGS OF A CIGARETTE SMOKING MAN, NEVER AGAIN, THE FIELD WHERE I DIED…There are like five or six of them within an eight week period that I think represent some of the best episodes of the series. What an amazing run. I have a hard time picking my favorites too.
MS: I remember there was one where there is an Amish sect that has all kinds of crazy stuff going on in a very rural country setting.
I remember using this ram’s horn sound as a signature sound for that episode with just two notes that sounded very primitive. It also had a kind of scary religious overtone to it.
SK: Great stuff! Real quick, do you have anything planned after X-FILES 2? What do you have coming up in the future?
MS: Actually I’m writing a score now that is a completely different change of pace. It’s a kids movie, sort of Tom Sawyer meets Hitchcock and it’s really well done and cute and sweet. It’s an independent movie.
In fact, it’s directed by a guy named Bobby Moresco, who was one of the producers of MILLENNIUM of all things and he also co-wrote CRASH (2004) with Paul Haggis. He really had a love for this story and did a really great job. It’s a lot of fun going from the big X-FILES to this other thing.
SK: Well Mark, I’ve had a blast chatting with you today. I want to thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to do so. I wish you the very best in your future endeavors hope I can talk more X-FILES again soon.
MS: Thanks! It was my pleasure.
If you’d like to catch a great series of photos from the scoring sessions for THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE, check out the spread at ScoringSessions.com [HERE] and see Mark in action!
On behalf of Ain’t It Cool News I’d like to thank Mark Snow for his time. He worked in a generous hour between recording sessions for THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE in order to talk with me. Time is sparse during such hectic days for a composer and I’m very thankful Mark chose to divvy up some my way.
I’d also like to thank Costa Communications for their assistance with this interview.
There’s no doubt about it…I WANT TO BELIVE!
Tags: harsh realm, iwtb, lone gunmen, mark snow, millennium, x-files
Posted in Interviews: Online | 1 Comment »
Emmy Magazine: The Chris Carter Workout
Apr-??-2001
Emmy Magazine
The Chris Carter Workout
Barry Garron
Maybe he’d rather be surfing, but since the success of his X-Files, Chris Carter’s idea of hanging ten is keeping both hand on the keyboard. Now with two series on the air. Those long days keep getting longer.
Let’s start with this: Chris Carter says he’s not a workaholic. If you can believe that-and many people have trouble doing so-the rest of the story is going to be fairly easy to swallow.
That’s because the rest of the story is about how Carter, creator and executive producer of The X-Files and, as of March, The Lone Gunmen, crafts his series and his beliefs that (a) TV is a business that’s comfortable with failure and (b) Hollywood is a place that eschews hard work. Sure, those propositions are debatable, but not as much as Carter’s notion about his affinity for work.
Being a workaholic, he says, suggests a compulsion to work. As he speaks, Carter sits in his production office on the 20th Century Fox lot in West L.A., where you can usually find him between six-thirty each morning and evening. “My compulsion is to make something good and right-to be as good as it can be. So I’m a quality-aholic,”
It’s a distinction that probably matters more to Carter than the rest of the world. According to him, if he didn’t have to spend all those hours getting things right-if he wasn’t so afraid of failure-if he didn’t have to thoroughly satisfy himself that the hard work of his production team was going to have a satisfying payoff for viewers-well, he’d be out the door and down at the beach in Santa Barbara, surfboard in hand.
Fat Chance.
“I don’t see anyway around it if you want to make a successful television show,” he says of the long hours. And each award and scrap of praise makes him work all the harder, he adds, if only to live up to the accolades.
Robert Patrick, added to The X-Files cast this season with the reduced presence of David Duchovny, professes amazement “at how easy Chris is to find. All you have to do is call his office. He’s there every hour of the day. That poor guy works his ass off.”
So maybe it’s a lost cause for Carter, forty-four, to deny his addiction to work. If it’s the truth, it’s out there anyway. Besides, this soft-spoken, intense, idealistic, fiercely loyal, often demanding storyteller has no shortage of other thoughts worth considering. For example, about TV: “It’s a business where they dare you to succeed and, if you take that dare, you’re taking the chance of failure. I’m just kind of realistic about that.”
That sounds straight forward enough-until you remember that Carter, despite his oft-confessed fear of failure, refuses to play it safe. Cop shows, medical shows, lawyer shows? Forget it. Carter wants to do shows about FBI agents who investigate the paranormal (The X-Files), about an FBI agent who sees through the eyes of the criminals he pursues (Millennium), about a soldier trapped in a life-and-death world of virtual reality (Harsh Realm), and, now, about a team of bumbling but earnest investigative reporters who uncover amazing crimes and conspiracies (The Lone Gunmen).
The X-Files, for which a ninth season was under discussion at press time, has achieved TV legend status but, like most unconventional shows, selling the premise wasn’t easy. Fox executives had to be persuaded that viewers would rally round a series that capitalized on fear and that Carter’s chosen leads-Duchovny and, particularly, Gillian Anderson-were right for the parts.
“The X-Files is the result of my setting out to do something that wasn’t on TV at the time, which was a good, scary show,” Carter says. “I would say that the idea of the show has always been to scare people.” Not surprisingly, among his favorite shows growing up were Alfred Hitchcock Presents, the classic mystery anthology series; Night Gallery, the supernatural anthology series with host Rod Serling; and The Night Stalker, the mid-seventies fantasy series in which a reporter stalked a new, mysterious murderer each week.
As X-Files developed, he realized that it also must be about Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, the believer and the skeptic who became instant hits with viewers. “I think the show succeeds best when it succeeds with these characters,” he says, “and it succeeds wonderfully when it succeeds in its storytelling and its character development.”
Millennium lasted three seasons and Carter considers it a success, too, though clearly not of X-Files proportions. Harsh Realm is another story, though. Introduced last fall, it lasted only three episodes. Doug Herzog, then Fox president, failed to nurture or promote the show, Carter says, and likely didn’t understand it. The producer concedes that in fulfilling a network request, he may have tried to pack too much background and exposition into those early episodes, asking too much of viewers. “It was a huge disappointment because I think we had done good work and nobody ever knew the show was on.”
He has a different sense about Lone Gunmen, a spinoff of X-Files, though hugely different in tone. “You can feel when a show is working and you can feel when a show is inspired,” he says, “and this feels inspired. The stories make you laugh just hearing the log lines.”
While The X-Files is a drama with comedic elements, Lone Gunmen – starring Bruce Harwood, Tom Braidwood, Dean Haglund, Stephen Snedden and Zuleikha Robinson-is a comedy with just enough drama to provide the framework for the plot. Viewer exposure was guaranteed by a launch on the popular Sunday-night Fox schedule. “It’s about misdeeds at all levels of society,” Carter says. “But it’s really about the disenfranchised little guy or some injustice that’s overlooked or buried. These guys pick up the cases that no one wants to take.”
Because Carter is not a producer who abandons one creation for another, he found himself doing double duty much of this season, splitting his time between the two shows. “We don’t just write these scripts and hand them to someone to produce them,” he says. “We spend a lot of time talking about what we should see when, where the camera should be, delivery of information.” Let the camera tell as much of the story as possible, Carter maintains, but don’t make it a character. “These shows are very cinematic in their approach,” he explains. “They require a relationship between the crew, the production personnel, the director and the writing producers. It’s a very collaborative and cooperative endeavor.”
Although Carter keeps tabs on every step in the process, most of his time is spent writing, which becomes more challenging with each succeeding episode. But this is where he shines. He has the ability to focus instantly on the material and filter out all distractions. Yes, it’ll take time to get it right, and he tries not to rush the process.
“I always say that we don’t just write the scripts for some future audience,” Carter says. “You’re writing for the crew, you’re writing for the cast. You’ve got to keep them entertained. And if [you do], most likely, you are well on your way to being successful.”
Though there was no way of predicting that Carter would become one of TV’s leading producers-or, for that matter, one of Time’s twenty-five most influential people in America and one of People’s fifty most beautiful people-his propensity for hard work and writing were obvious from an early age. He grew up in the working-class L.A. suburb of Bellflower and graduated from Cal State Long Beach in 1979 with a degree in journalism, having taken a semester off to help a carpenter friend build a house from scratch.
A devotee of surfing from age twelve, he took his first job after college as a writer and editor for Surfing magazine. Starting at the keys of an IBM Selectric taught him the discipline of writing. “It’s not necessarily that I learned to be a writer there. I learned that an enormous part of being a writer is keeping your butt on the chair and your fingers at the keyboard.”
His father, a foreman on a construction crew, took pride in being the hardest worker on every job. The lesson wasn’t lost on young Chris and his younger brother, Craig, now a science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “The truth is, I work in what I consider to be a very blue-collar business. It’s a very hard-working environment, and if anybody takes on the air of king or prima donna, you’re in big trouble. My management style is always to work as hard or harder than anybody. My forebears were dairy farmers and flower growers. They were up early and working early. And I say to my wife sometimes, ‘I feel like I’m just doing another version of milking the cows.’ I feel that those hours are the hours I’m genetically disposed to keep.”
One can sense a sort of pride in the amount of time he spends at work. But if you ask Carter what he’s really proud of, he’ll say it’s the longevity of The X-Files and the team he’s assembled at Ten Thirteen Productions (named for his birthdate, October 13, and for his lucky numbers). At the same time, he knows that, to some extent, his philosophy makes him an outsider in the industry where he’s been so successful.
“There is an attitude that effort is vulgar,” he says. “I don’t know where it comes from, but it’s a pervasive attitude. Hard work is for those guys, somebody else. If you can’t be a deal-maker, and if you can’t be out there in the trades, you’re just a content producer. And that’s kind of an irritant to me.”
Another irritant is what he calls the “dabblers” in television, the Hollywood hotshots of the feature world who descend from the film equivalent of Mt. Olympus to dip their toes in the TV waters. They have an idea and maybe a script, and maybe they’ll even direct the pilot. Then someone else runs the show.
“This is not a business for dabblers,” Carter says. “I think that’s why there’s a lot of failure, why television gets a bum rap sometimes. If you look at the good television shows, they are not created by dabblers.”
In 1985, Carter signed a development contract with Walt Disney Studios. Later, he moved to NBC, the result of a meeting on the softball field with Brandon Tartikoff, the late president of NBC Entertainment. Carter went back to Disney in 1989 but, three years later, signed an exclusive deal with Peter Roth and Fox to develop new series. His latest deal with Fox, signed in September, 1998, reportedly spans five years and is worth as least $30 million. Industry experts have speculated that, with all profits from TV and film factored in, it could be worth as much as $100 million. Carter has his own perspective, though.
“The truth is, there’s not a whole lot I want in life,” he says. “I’d love to go surfing when I want to go surfing, where I want to go surfing. I’d like to make sure my wife [screen-writer-novelist Dori Peterson] [sic] has everything she wants in life. That’s very important to me. Beyond that, it is just insurance. You’re forced to be motivated by money in Hollywood because they make it about money. The deal is dishonest and everyone knows that. You are working with a [studio] partner and, in success down the line, there’s going to be a problem because this is a business of not just manufacturing, but a business of accounting.”
Hollywood is about more than dollars and cents, Carter says. “Money is a certain form of justice in Hollywood and no one is an idiot. If they said they were lopping off a few million dollars, would I work as hard? Basically, the virtue of being a hard worker is people get to take advantage of that. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be paid for it.”
In 1998 Carter turned The X-Files into a feature film, and a successful one at that. Reportedly, the movie, shot on a budget of $63 million, had a worldwide gross of $185 million. Carter would like to make more movies, including a second film based on the series. He also plans, sometime this summer, to write the first of two novels for Bantam Books.
And then there’s the Carter Foundation, begun last year, which has issued several thousand dollars in scholarships to needy college freshman who intend to pursue a science major. Carter plans to double the amount this year.
“You know where the money’s going in big universities now?” he asks. “Film schools. Everybody wants to be a film-maker, so they’re pumping money into film schools but they’re not doing anything for science programs. I figure that anything I can do to turn the tide on that would be a smart thing.”
Not long ago, Carter was asked what advice he would give to aspiring writers. His answer should come as no surprise. “Work really, really hard,” he said. “A lot of people come up to me and say, ‘I want to write.’ And I always say, ‘What’s stopping you?’ It’s a matter of sitting down in front of a computer, a notepad, a typewriter and doing it. You’re about 90 percent of the way there if you can do that.”
Tags: chris carter, harsh realm, lone gunmen, millennium, x-files
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Seattle Times: Enter the Gunmen: 'X' marks the spot
Enter the Gunmen: ‘X’ marks the spot
Allan Johnson
Writer/producer Chris Carter says he won’t hold a gun to Fox’s head if the network wants another season of “The X-Files,” even if it mistreats his new series, “The Lone Gunmen.”
But with visions of “Harsh Realm,” his previous series for Fox, still dancing in his head, Carter does want a little respect.
“The Lone Gunmen,” the promising action-comedy spinoff of Carter’s “The X-Files,” is about the three nerdy conspiracy theorists/computer hackers who provide the paranormal-investigating FBI agents with research and information from time to time. It settles in the 9 p.m. Sunday “X-Files” slot beginning this weekend (on KCPQ-TV) before moving to its 9 p.m. Friday slot on March 16.
Recent interviews with Carter have painted a dark picture for fans of “The X-Files.” He has indicated one of the determining factors for producing a ninth season would be how well Fox protects “Gunmen.”
That’s because Carter thinks Fox didn’t do enough for “Harsh Realm,” a virtual reality-themed 1999 action drama that only lasted three episodes before it was canceled.
“X” is on a high
“The X-Files” is doing well, both creatively, with the invigorating addition of Robert Patrick as the new partner of FBI agent Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), and in the ratings, hitting its highest viewership in more than a year last Sunday. Both elements bode well for a ninth season.
Carter, who doesn’t have a contract to remain with “X-Files” after this season, chooses his words carefully when talking about whether or not his return hinges on Fox’s treatment of “Gunmen.”
“I’m not holding that out there as a negotiation tactic per se,” Carter says. “It’s simply that as we speak right now, we’ve got the most popular show on Fox. We’re working our (tails) off, not just to keep that show good and fresh, but to do this new show. We just want to be given the chance and respect it deserves.
“And as with the case of “Harsh Realm,’ ” Carter adds, “it never had that opportunity. So we want to make sure that our hard work is respected and rewarded. And that’s really what that’s about, because there’s no sense in being involved in a partnership that doesn’t work two ways.”
Carter is heartened by Fox’s actions thus far. The network has constantly promoted “Gunmen’s” debut. Fox is allowing “X-Files” to take a break to allow “Gunmen” a chance for a decent sampling on the next three Sundays. Also, the series will air twice in one weekend, on March 16 in its Friday spot and on March 18, its last Sunday appearance.
” “Harsh Realm’ is now looking like it was the anomaly,” says Carter, 44. “They are getting in there and they are supporting “The Lone Gunmen.’ It’s just that continued support is what you need, because a TV series is a series; it’s not a movie. There’s many episodes, and you have to hang in there with something that you know is coming from people who can produce quality programming.”
A quirky comedy
While not in the same league as the moodier “X-Files,” “Gunmen,” a comic “Mission: Impossible” with the guys going to great lengths to investigate conspiracies, still has elements that could make it a quirky little winner.
Fans of “The X-Files” know the computer-hacking trio of straight-laced, dedicated John Byers (Bruce Harwood), cynical, pugnacious Melvin Frohike (Tom Braidwood) and long-haired techno whiz Richard “Ringo” Langly (Dean Haglund). The three publish a newspaper that exposes perceived government and corporate shenanigans.
They were always more for comic effect on “X-Files.” In their own series, they get to strut their amusing mix of sarcastic one-liners and bumbling ineptitude in an effort to, as Byers says in the premiere, “expose those that will destroy that (American) dream” and “write the stories that they don’t want you to read. …
“That’s why I teamed up with you guys. You’re true believers.”
Cracks Frohike: “I thought it was for the chick throw-off.”
“They’re obviously throwbacks to the ’60s, certainly Frohike,” Carter says. “They are sort of cynical idealists who believe in sort of mom and apple pie and truth, justice and the American way. So they really are kind of geek patriots who believe in a better America.”
“If you pimply pencil-necks are the only hope for the American people, God help us all,” says Yves Adele Harlow (Zuleikha Robinson), a rival who spars with the Gunmen.
Harlow and goofy Jimmy Bond (Stephen Snedden), who becomes the deep pockets for the Lone Gunmen newspaper, seem to be nods to viewers who are used to seeing beautiful people on TV – which the Gunmen are not.
While the mysterious Harlow makes a fine foil for the trio, Bond, with his annoying gee-whiz enthusiasm, is an intrusion. The boys can stand on their own. The series, with episode openings that spoof “The Matrix” and “Mission: Impossible,” has the same sophisticated sheen as “The X-Files.” It even has the same cloudy and gray look of that series in its early years, due to its shooting in Vancouver, B.C., where “Gunmen” is filmed and where “X-Files” filmed before moving to California a few years ago.
While played for laughs with broad physical humor (Frohike is the prime target of the pratfalls), it will be interesting to see just how many conspiracy-laced plots Carter can come up with, and whether Fox will be patient with “Gunmen” when it finally lands on Friday nights.
Tags: chris carter, harsh realm, lone gunmen, x-files
Long Island Newsday: Glued to the tube 'X-Files': It's Still Out There But its creator eyes Fox's backing of 'Lone Gunmen'
Long Island Newsday
Glued to the tube
‘X-Files’: It’s Still Out There But its creator eyes Fox’s backing of ‘Lone Gunmen’
Diane Werts
HOLLYWOOD – IT WAS 1930s Hollywood mogul Harry Cohn who said, “If you want to send a message, call Western Union.” Today, the showbiz heavy hitters just call the TV critics.
Actually, they don’t have to call. We’re already here, twice a year, at the two-week press tours in which the country’s tube writers meet with network executives, producers and stars to preview their fall or midseason offerings.
Mostly they come to our convention hotel in a parade of ballroom news conferences. But sometimes we head to their home studios to chat on-set, where they feel more comfortable.
And so they get personal. “The X- Files” creator Chris Carter did his press duty on a 20th Century Fox soundstage below a hanging alien ship contraption that looked like some “Star Trek” Borg assimilation of an arena scoreboard.
Carter clarified that David Duchovny’s MIA Mulder character “will come back into play in Episode 14 this year [the Feb. 25 cliffhanger before a five-week hiatus] and be very important to the rest of the season.” Simultaneously, the show will explore Robert Patrick’s new Doggett character. “We’ll realize why he is the way he is and how he may have changed, in Episode 14.” Annabeth Gish is joining the cast to avoid a Mulder-Scully-Doggett triangle, and Scully’s pregnancy will be “played out by the end of the season,” Carter says, choosing his words carefully.
He gets less circumspect regarding negotiations for another season of his eighth-year show, revealing much in one-on-one conversation about his relationship with the Fox network, which debuts his spinoff series, “The Lone Gunmen,” March 4 to keep the “X-Files” Sunday slot hot.
“I’m open to it,” he says of more “Files,” but “I really am interested in seeing their promotion and support for ‘Lone Gunmen.’ I want to make sure that they are supporting us completely and not just partially, that it’s not just for the perpetuation of ‘X-Files,’ that they’re going to support it as the good show it is.” His recent series “Harsh Realm” got “no promotion,” he states, and “it was a shock to me.” Got the message, Fox? “I hope that the talks can be done a lot sooner than they were last year, which was like right down to the wire,” Carter says, “and that we would know [early] so I could have more time to spend with the [season’s] final episode.” Carter partner Frank Spotnitz says May’s last outing, in any event, “will be the finale for eight seasons of “The X-Files,” as Duchovny’s part-time contract runs out. Nevertheless, the show’s fate remains uncertain.
Fandom.com: X-Files Music: Composer Mark Snow: The Ambience Is Out There
X-Files Music: Composer Mark Snow
The Ambience Is Out There
Randall D. Larson
For the last eight years, The X-Files has been mesmerizing its television audiences with its mysterious entities, government conspiracies, alien abductions, malevolent mutants, and whimsical creatures, all wrapped up in a detective-show type format. Among the various elements that bred its dark, pensive ambience has been the musical contributions of Mark Snow, the only composer the series has utilized thus far. Snow’s ominous musical atmospheres have intensified the show’s sense of apprehension and otherworldliness, while also supporting its eclectic storylines and rampant creativity.
Although X-Files, has given Snow his greatest claim to fame, the composer actually has been scoring television since 1976. He studied oboe at New York’s Julliard Academy of Music, where he became friends with Michael Kamen, another music student who would end up working in film. The two of them formed a band they called The New York Rock and Roll Ensemble in the late 1960s. It was an encounter with “Planet Of The Apes”, including Jerry Goldsmith’s modernistic 12-tone music, that caught Snow’s attention and directed his path towards a career in movies.
Aided by his wife (sister of actors Tyne Daly and Tim Daly; daughter of James Daly), Snow gained introductions in Hollywood and started working as a composer for Aaron Spelling on the TV series, “The Rookies”. Other assignments followed, including “Starsky & Hutch”, and before long Snow found a comfortable niche scoring for television. He got involved with The X-Files at its inception, and his music has gone on to become another character in the series, as prevalent and as important as Skinner, the Cigarette-Smoking Man, or the Lone Gunmen.
Snow’s main theme is a rhythmic amalgamation of synclavier and an electronically reprocessed melody whistled by his wife, which was sampled and doubled with a music software program called Proteus2. That simple 5-note motif musically symbolizes all that the X-Files is about, with its furtive, spooky ambience and a rhythmic cadence of adventure and investigation.
During the show’s first season, Snow emphasized a brooding, ambient soundscape, but as the series progressed, he found more opportunities for musical development. “From day one, with the pilot, everyone involved from Chris Carter on down wanted a lot of music,” says Snow. “At first he was talking about ambient, atmospheric, basic synth-pad material, and that’s what I did at the beginning. It got boring and too ordinary, so I opened it up. Chris didn’t mind, and after the first year he just let me go off on my own. As the years went on, it became more musical and less sound design-oriented. Now it’s a pretty good mix of the two.”
Snow likes to maintain an open palette of sounds for his X-Files scores and relishes the freedom he’s given to compose a variety of musical styles while maintaining an overall atmosphere of ominous danger. “It seems that people respond to my suspenseful music as if it’s this really new approach, but it’s really just the style of music I’ve come to love over the years, since I was a student,” says Snow. “Music by Varese, John Cage, all the real atonal material that perhaps I like more than some other composers. I think some of those sounds and techniques work great in suspense. On The X-Files, I mix that with a more traditional scoring approach.”
“Musically, the show has evolved from being more ambient, sound-design kind of material into some melodic music, in a dark, Mahleresque style,” said Snow, who has received several Emmy nominations for his X-Files music. “What is great about it is that I can go back and forth. There’s always a combination of the two styles. I’ve done flashbacks and dream sequences that are all very aleatoric and tonal, avant-garde sound design, with wonderfully weird combinations of sound and music, and then it goes back into the style of Mahler or Bruckner or late Beethoven!”
The variety of the series, which contrasts the ongoing mythology stories with a number of stand-alone, monster-of-the-week episodes, gives Snow plenty of opportunities for musical diversity. “When we have these stand-alone-or what I call ’boutique’-episodes, some of which verge on black comedy, there’s a lot of cute things I can do,” says Snow. “The big mythological/conspiracy/cover-up shows are fairly drab, and there’s not much room for anything but the real dark approach.”
In Season 4’s tongue-in-cheek episode “Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space,'” Snow arranged a cheesy muzak-version of the show’s main theme, which plays during the alien autopsy sequence-the only time he’s used the show’s title theme in the body of an episode score. His music for “The Post-Modern Prometheus” in Season 5 paid homage to John Morris’s score for “The Elephant Man”, a film whose storyline and visual style shared a lot with this episode. The 6th Season episode, “Triangle,” gave Snow the opportunity to compose Swing music for sequences occurring on a 1940s cruise ship. More recently, in Season 8’s “Via Negativa,” Snow crafted a powerful and frightening amalgamation of electronic and acoustic patterns and sounds that leant a potent, nightmarish mood of apprehension in the dream sequences. In an earlier 8th season episode, “Invocation,” Snow adapted the children’s folk song, “All the Little Horses,” into a variety of arrangements for piccolos and voices that become a haunting musical description of the kidnapped boy whose sudden reappearance, 10-years later, opens up a ghostly tale that could have come out of “The Others”.
Snow has anywhere from three to five days to write up to half an hour of music for each weekly episode. “The hardest part is the beginning,” he says. “Figuring out the palette of sounds and instruments, and doing that first cue. After that’s done, it starts falling into place.”
When X-Files creator Chris Carter created Millennium, about a former FBI agent with a psychic affinity for profiling the murderously depraved, Mark Snow came along to supply the music. While both shows dwell on dark subjects, Snow provided a somewhat lighter tone by contrasting the darker music with an element of quasi-Celtic folk material. “When they first came to me, they said they wanted the music to depict good and bad, heaven and hell, hope and horror,” says Snow. “I asked them, ‘Which is it more? Is it more dark or more light? Is it more horror than hope, or what?’ And they said ‘Yeah.’ So I came up with this single voice, which turned out to be a solo violin, with this dark percussion accompaniment. I had these folky, Celtic violin solos with the sleek, dark synthesizer rumbling. I’d gotten into more specific dark music with this Celtic contrast, whether it’s solo violin or solo harp or solo woodwind. That seems to have worked well.” The expressive violin tends to speak for the heart of Frank Blake, the show’s reluctant hero, while the synthesizer patterns represent the darker world in which he works, confronting the various faces of evil.
Snow got his biggest feature assignment to date from The X-Files movie in 1998. With the canvas of a widescreen theatrical feature, Snow had the opportunity to expand the scope of his television music and orchestrate it much more broadly. Most pleasing was the chance to redevelop themes, motifs, and stylisms he’d composed for the show’s 30-odd musicians into a full orchestra of 85 players. “Ninety percent of the score is big orchestra combined with electronics,” Snow said at the time of the film’s release. “I think the best thing, thematically, that’s come out of the feature is the X-Files Theme itself, which was harmonized and orchestrated in different settings that have never appeared on the TV show. The TV version is sort of a one-note pad with simple accompaniment. With the feature, I’ve put different kinds of harmonization to it. It doesn’t happen every place, but it happens enough that anyone who knows the theme would recognize it.” The orchestration was fairly standard but the inclusion of extra basses and five percussionists gave the music a deep dynamic and a wider scope.
Snow created a few new themes for the movie. “There is a veiled theme for the Cigarette-Smoking Man,” said Snow. “It’s not as much melodic as it is harmonic. It’s a bunch of minor chords going from one to another. There’s a theme for the Elders, the Well-Manicured Man, and the older conspiracy figures.” Some of these themes were carried into the 1998 TV season finale, which acted as a sort of prelude to the movie, which was released later that summer.
Far from the TV series’ five days, Snow had a lavish five months to compose 75 minutes of music for the X-Files feature. Snow said that a major concern on the feature was to carry through the honesty of the music from the series into the size and scope of widescreen cinema. “My biggest challenge was in understanding how to make that jump without it seeming like a score by Jerry Goldsmith or James Horner or another big name movie composer.”
Snow went from the X-Files feature into another feature film thriller called “Disturbing Behavior” before returning to Ten Thirteen productions for the new season of The X-Files. Snow still finds time to score about five or six feature or TV films a year, including such TV thrillers as Dean Koontz’s “Sole Survivor,” “Stranger In My House”, and Dean Koontz’s “Mr. Murder”. Quite unlike his X-Files music, his scores for made-for-TV movies-dramas, murder mysteries, Westerns-have been quite romantic and melodic. He provided a lavish and harmonious score for ABC’s Jules Verne fantasy, “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea”. He also composed the theme for the TV incarnation of “Le Femme Nikita”, and provided music for some manic episodes of “Pee Wee’s Playhouse”. In 2000, he wrote a score for an action video game called “Giants”.
But The X-Files remains inescapable for the composer, whose career continues to be defined, if not restricted by, his musical efforts for Mulder and Scully and company. “If there’s any sense of style that I have now, it was really The X-Files that put me over the hump and got me up into another level,” Snow said. “It made me experiment with a lot of different approaches, and it made me comfortable with that.” In fact, with the 2001 debut of a spin-off series, “The Lone Gunmen”, Snow will continue to lay down the fundamental ambient atmosphere that intensifies the X-Files world. The series, set to debut in March, should give Snow some new opportunities as he musically characterizes the personalities of the conspiracy-busting trio. “The main theme starts out with the Star Spangled Banner, ala Jimi Hendrix guitar solo,” said Snow. “Then it goes into a rhythm pattern, and then into the main tune from guitar. It sounds a little like a hipper version of “Mission: Impossible”. It has that spy vibe to it.”
Snow also scored Chris Carter’s short-lived 1999 series, Harsh Realm, laying down an X-Files-ian atmosphere but deriving his approach more from the duality of the series’ setting, half in the real world and half in the virtual reality of Harsh Realm. “In the most simplistic way, I’ve used conventional, traditional instruments like pianos and strings for the real world, and more of the sound design in the Harsh Realm world,” said Snow. There was a blurring of the edges on occasion; for example, when Snow needed to accentuate an emotional moment in the virtual world, he’d bring in the strings, creating an emotional crosslink with the real world that also enhanced the symbiotic relationship between the two as emphasized within the series.
With The X-Files entering its eighth season this year, Snow introduced a new tonality in the form of a lilting melody for solo female voice associated with Scully, which will be heard throughout the season. “Since this whole season is going to be so Scully-intensive, Chris Carter thought there should be a theme for her during the contemplative moments of the mythology episodes-something that spoke for her emotions.” The vocalist for the theme is Nicci Sill, who previously sang Snow’s theme for “Le Femme Nikita”. The vocal was initially intended to be wordless, but as she vocalized the part Sill began repeating in barely discernable voice the phrase “We are near,” which Snow felt was more than appropriate considering the fact that the aliens have kidnapped Mulder and are closer to the cast than ever before. “With the first episode of the season, the aliens have Mulder, and Scully is close but never quite there. But when she was singing it, it sounded like some ethnic incantation of some sort.”
The lack of a real soundtrack CD from The X-Files has been a source of frustration for many. A CD that came out in 1976, called “Music in the Key of X”, was nothing more than a collection of rock tunes inspired by the show, plus a version of Snow’s theme music. A very odd creation was also released that same year, “The Truth and the Light: Music of the X-Files”, merging seemingly random bits and pieces of music from the show with random bits of dialog and sound effects, creating a bizarre sound collage that pleased few people. “That mistake will never be made again!” grins Snow. “Somewhere, Chris Carter heard this voice-over thing and thought ‘That was great, we gotta do it!’ Actually, I thought it was pretty cool up to a point, but it got a little out of hand. And it was incredibly problematic-all the actors wanted a royalties, and so forth.”
To date the best representation of the show’s music appeared on a compilation CD entitled “The Snow Files”, released by Silva Screen in 1999. In addition to an impressive variety of excellent music for films and television, a very faithful arrangement of Snow’s X-Files music was performed by composer and synthesist John Beal, under Snow’s direction. (The actual music tracks were not available for licensing on the disc; but Beal’s arrangements are very fine and true.) Still, there is ongoing talk in the hallways of 20th Century Fox about the possibility of an actual soundtrack release, and hopefully one will be forthcoming in the future.
While more opportunities to score feature films would please Snow, he is finding plenty of satisfaction scoring quality television such as The X-Files. “I’ve been very lucky, because the quality of X-Files and Millennium is so good, in general, that it is like doing a mini-feature every week,” says Snow. “I’d like to graduate some day to where I’m not doing episodic TV, and I’m doing three, four, or five movies a year, where I really could expand my career from film to film. But the graph of my career is still amazing to me. I haven’t gotten into the negative yet. There’s so many guys who have come and gone, who have been so blisteringly hot and then fell off, so I really can’t complain when I look at it from the perspective of the business.”
Tags: ftf, harsh realm, lone gunmen, mark snow, millennium, x-files
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Home | Albums | Films | Didjeridu | Library
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Didjeridu & Traditional Music of the Top End
The content of this page was originally created by Peter Lister
Didjeridu Home : Traditional Didjeridu and Music
Traditional Didjeridu and Music of the Top End, Northern Territory
"From 1927 on I had seen corroborees, with their singing and dancing,.....,but it was not until I made a survey in 1946 almost around Arnhem Land that I realized the vitality and richness of the singing and dancing of that region. I therefore determined to make permanent records as soon as possible, so that musicians and dancers would be able to hear and see this part of Aboriginal culture, even if only at second hand."
Prof. AP Elkin, (1979, p.285)
These pages are intended as an introduction to the traditional music, and in particular the use of the didjeridu in traditional music within the Top End of the NT. It is by no means a definitive work, nor is it intended to be. Rather, the reasoning behind its development lies in the perceived need for this type of material in this format. With the increasing interest in the use of the didjeridu worldwide, this author believes it's important for us to understand both the origins of this instrument and the context in which it was and is used today by traditional people of the region.
The music of the Top End is rich and complex, and as Elkin said, it's not until you take the time to listen that you realise the depth and vitality of it.
The didjeridu, as recently as 100 years ago, had a restricted distribution in Australia. Map 1. is based upon the work of Dr Alice Moyle whom researched traditional sound instruments throughout Australia, in particular during the 1960's and '70's. The hatched area denotes the area in which the didjeridu was a part of traditional music during the 1960's and '70's. This includes the adjacent islands of the Northern Territory such as Groote Eylandt and the Wessel group and Crocodile Islands, with the exception of the two large islands immediately north of Darwin, Bathurst and Melville Island (Tiwi). The didjeridu is not a part of the Tiwi peoples' musical reportoire (in fact, the Tiwi are culturally distinct from mainland people).
Earlier researchers, such as Elkin (1938) noted that it was "only known in Eastern Kimberley and the northern third of the Northern Territory". Although now played around the globe, traditional playing style and technique is still confined to this region.
Early this century the instrument spread both south and east, primarily with the movement of Aboriginal people to mission settlements and has been incorporated into traditional music in varying degrees. This is particularly the case for the Cape York region of northern Queensland, although the actual playing techniques employed are different from those used within the traditional area. According to Berndt (1964), "in 1945, from Wave Hill to Birrundudu and Gordon Downs in the east Kimberleys, only young men played it; older men regarded it as new-fangled and would have nothing to do with it. At Balgo in 1958 it was used rarely; but two years later it was very popular indeed.".
Garde (1997) noted the use of the didjeridu at Aurukun (western Cape York) in 1985, brought there by people from Doomadgee (Gulf of Carpentaria) whom had moved there as a result of marriage. The didjeridu was introduced to Mornington Island in the 1930's and '40's by Larry Lanley and Larry Gavenor, whom were born and raised there from mainland parents (Nancarrow pers. comm.1999). It is sometimes used in traditional music there.
Traditional Didjeridu and Music of the Top End
The area in question
Traditional musical styles/genres of the region
Song types
Variations in didjeridu style and playing within the Top End
Copyright 2002-2006 J.H. Burrows and Peter Lister
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2017—2018 · V. 45 No. 3
Liens rapides Prix Statuts, règlements, politiques Santé et sécurité Pensions Politique de lutte contre le harcèlement Guide Financier (PDF) Districts 01 - Ontario North East District 02 - Algoma District 03 - Rainbow District 04 - Near North District 05A - Northern Shield District 05B - Rainy River District 06A - Thunder Bay District 06B - Superior North District 07 - Bluewater District 08 - Avon Maitland District 09 - Greater Essex District 10 - Lambton Kent District 11 - Thames Valley District 12 - Toronto District 13 - Durham District 14 - Kawartha Pine Ridge District 15 - Trillium Lakelands District 16 - York Region District 17 - Simcoe District 18 - Upper Grand District 19 - Peel District 20 - Halton District 21 - Hamilton-Wentworth District 22 - Niagara District 23 - Grand Erie District 24 - Waterloo District 25 - Ottawa-Carleton District 26 - Upper Canada District 27 - Limestone District 28 - Renfrew District 29 - Hastings-Prince Edward District 30 - PSAT District 31 - Franco-Nord Ontarien District 32 - Centre-Sud-Ouest de l'Ontario District 33 - District de l'Est 34 - Independent Educational Programs 35 - Universités Publications
Queen's Park Notes
With the June 7, 2018, provincial election around the corner, Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals, in recent months, have made moves in an attempt to shore up their progressive flank with measures such as increasing the minimum wage, strengthening civilian oversight of policing and reforming the criminal justice system.
But, with the imposition of back-to-work legislation to resolve the five-week college faculty strike, Wynne’s efforts to present a more progressive-friendly agenda may be imperiled. The collective bargaining process is a crucial component of any progressive agenda and Wynne’s interference in it risks damaging any goodwill she has built over the last few months, particularly with the labour movement.
Also, the issues that are central to the college faculty strike, particularly the precarity of work as it relates to the many occasional and part-time faculty, are issues that Wynne has identified, specifically in the debate around Bill 148 Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act, 2017, to be an important element of her attempts to create a more fair society. Yet, the lack of funding for post-secondary education, which is the lowest of any province in Canada, diminishes her message. While Wynne may tout the increased availability of lower and, potentially, free tuition for many students, the length of this strike does little to make those same students, and their parents, believe that she has made post-secondary education more accessible to them. In fact, the perceived good of the lower tuition fees is inconsequential when one has no classes to attend.
In addition, for many in the elementary and secondary education systems, Wynne’s back-to-work legislation reminds them of the Liberals interference and imposition of contracts on education workers over the last few years.
While some may say that Wynne did everything possible to allow the collective bargaining process to conclude on its own, the challenge remains that her actions in the end will not be appreciated by either students, parents or the striking workers. It is likely that Wynne would have been condemned for imposing back-to-work legislation at any point in the process whether it would have been after one week or ten weeks.
As students and faculty return to classes, the main issue for Wynne and her government to review is the funding formula for post-secondary education. She needs to ask if there is enough money in post-secondary education to allow the proper funding of faculty that are not reliant on precarious work, which in the end, impacts on student learning. Also important is a review of the actions of the employer group and if they were genuinely interested in a collective bargaining settlement or were awaiting government back-to-work legislation to resolve the issue for them.
For elementary and secondary school education workers' unions, the actions of the colleges’ employer groups reminds them of similar action by their employer group. It can only be hoped that Wynne will come up with a better plan than the inadequate School Boards Collective Bargaining Act, 2016, which did little to address the concerns raised by education unions respecting the actions of the employer group in the collective bargaining act. If not, the current cycle of strikes ended by back-to-work legislation will only continue. And, that, in the end, will only continue to harm the education system and the political party in power.
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The Writing on the Wall. On the Decomposition of Capitalism and Its Critics, by Anselm Jappe (Zero Books, sept. 2017)
On the Decomposition of Capitalism and Its Critics
by Anselm Jappe and translated by Alastair Hemmens
(Zero Book, 29 sept. 2017)
A new approach to the meaning of social emancipation
The 2008 global financial crisis has led to the re-emergence in public discourse of the idea that capitalism could end. For many, it was proof of the notion that capitalist civilisation has an endemic tendency towards crisis that will ultimately bring about its demise. Must we assume, however, that such an eventuality would inevitably result in the liberation of humanity, as many orthodox Marxists claim? Through a collection of specially revised essays, first published in France between 2007 and 2010, Anselm Jappe draws on the radical new perspective of “the critique of value” as a critical tool with which to understand today’s world and to re-examine the question of human emancipation. The Writing on the Wall offers a powerful new analysis of the decomposition of capitalism and its critics.
REVIEWS & ENDORSEMENTS
The Writing on the Wall: On the Decomposition of Capitalism and Its Critics by Anselm Jappe and translated by Alastair Hemmens is a study of capitalism and its future failure. Jappe grew up in Cologne and in the Périgord. He studied in Paris and Rome where he obtained, respectively, a master’s and then a doctorate degree in philosophy. In his writings, he has attempted to revive critical theory through a new interpretation of the work of Karl Marx. His book Guy Debord was an intellectual biography of Guy Debord, the prime mover of the Situationist International. Marx’s specter did put a fright into Europe in the late 19th century. Industries treated employees better. The work week was limited. The industrial worker now enjoyed something new called leisure time. The specter seemed satisfied and a new era of growing wealth and security that lasted until the out break of WWI. Unions and socialists still kept the pressure on governments and industries, but failed to keep workers from fighting other workers who lived under a different flag. After the war and the Russian revolution, governments and industry struggled to prevent socialists from rising to governmental power. There was a rise in anti-socialism backed by industry and wealth. This was best seen in Germany and Italy. In the US, socialism was controlled by laws, especially the espionage acts that put Eugene Debs in jail. There was also violence against unions. Marx predicted that Capitalism would fail. It was a beast that consumed everything in front of it and would eventually devour itself. Workers were the first to get eaten and spit out broken. When they fought back the jobs left or they were replaced. Now, it is resources and our planet, in general, that is suffering. Industrialization and consumerism have upset the environment from climate change to pollution, to the giant island of floating plastic in the Pacific Ocean. Wages of workers remain stagnant while the top percentage of white collar workers see increases in earnings. Industrial jobs are moved overseas for the cheap labor and lack of regulation. Countries like China and India benefit only because they were so far behind the Western World. Workers there are paid low and are worked long almost like the industrialized revolution here. Some benefit greatly the vast majority do not. Jappe leads the reader through his thinking with ten, very well documented, essays. One point that particularly stuck in my mind was behavior. We have four taste senses; sweet, salty, bitter, and sour. A child will only ask for sweet and salty. We learn to like the other tastes and develop an appreciation for them with time. Cut out the learning and what we have left is basically McDonald’s — salty food and sugary drinks. Cut out the education, or dumb it down, and we have people whose only qualifications are unskilled labor, the so-called McJobs. What is needed to pass high school today is a lot less than fifty or seventy years ago. An associates degree that would secure a tech job in the past carries much less weight today. Jobs that used to have insurance, vacations, pensions, and holidays don’t anymore. We are in an era of “Bread and Circuses.” The system is starting to consume itself and we are told not to worry. We have cable television, cell phones that are used for mindless games rather than talking. Social media that helps pit one side against another. In America, our political system is split into only two sides an “us versus them” scenario. Realistically the parties are not that far apart on the political spectrum. It is not socialism versus fascism. The rich still benefit no matter who is in control. The system encourages people to vote against their own interests with sound bites and catch phrases rather than thoughtful discussion. The idea of capitalism trumps the idea of democracy. The fear that capitalism will fall to socialism is not one that is based in reality. Capitalism will destroy itself and it will not be a workers revolt that will rise but rather barbarism. Much like a building crumbling to the ground and new better building will not arise unless there is the organization, skilled labor, and a popular willingness to build a new, better building. That is what is missing and the system, in order to protect itself, the system works to undermine that organization. Society is not going to fall into socialism when capitalism fails. Mankind will enter a Hobbesian state of nature. Jappe explains to the reader that the writing is on the wall and it is up to us to first notice and then react. ~ Evil Cyclist, https://evilcyclist.wordpress.com/2017/08/22/book-review-the-writing-on-the-wall-on-the-decomposition-of-capitalism-and-its-critics/
This passionate collection of essays by Anselm Jappe, a critique of value theorist, is a significant contribution to the critical analysis of contemporary capitalism. Resolutely anti-capitalist, the author reminds us that by demanding submission of all aspects of life to market relationships, the system inexorably leads to the destruction of human communities and the environment. ~ Michael Löwy, Alternative Libertaire
Contact with reality makes a theory stronger and the importance of Anselm Jappe’s book is that it allows us to measure the explicatory power of the ‘critique of value’ when it is applied to a number of different subjects, from political life to contemporary art. The central chapter, where he analyses the subprimes crisis, is the most striking. Here Jappe reminds us of the founding paradox of capitalism as originally formulated by Marx: capitalism realises profits by exploiting human labour, yet every increase in productivity made possible by automation and technology reduces human input into the goods that are produced. ~ Eric Aeschimann, Libération
Robert Kurz, The Substance of Capital (Chronos Publications, London, 2016)
Neil Larsen, Mathias Nilges, Josh Robinson and Nicholas Browm (edited by), Marxism and the Critique of Value, MCM', Chicago, 2012 (in PDF).
Robert Kurz, No Revolution Anywhere, Chronos publications, 2012.
Intégralité de l'émission « Un XXIe siècle à la bougie ? » (sur ARTE) : Anselm Jappe VS. Laurence Boone
La violence, mais pour quoi faire ?, par Anselm Jappe
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Thursday's Headlines - DC President Leaves
DC Entertainment President Diane Nelson has officially left her position - and the company. Nelson, who also served as Warner Bros. Consumer Products' President, took a leave of absence on April 2 due to pressing family issues, but a memo from Warner Bros. Chairman/CEO Kevin Tsujihara (via Deadline) has stated that she is officially no longer with the company.
"Dear Colleagues:
"I wanted to let you know that Diane Nelson, President of DC Entertainment and President of Warner Bros. Consumer Products, who took a leave of absence at the end of March, has decided to step away from her executive duties here at the Studio. Attached is the press release that will be issued this morning.
"Diane has been a friend and colleague as well as a valued member of the Warner Bros. family for more than 20 years. While we’re sad she’ll be leaving us, we completely respect and support her decision.
As previously announced, the DC Executive Management team will continue to report to Thomas Gewecke in the interim, and Pam Lifford will now report directly to me.
"Please join us in wishing Diane all the best.
"Sincerely,
"Kevin"
Following news of her leave of absence in April, Warner Bros. stated that Warner Bros. Chief Digital Officer and Executive VP of Strategy and Business Development Thomas Gewecke will serve as support for DC's executive management team, which includes: DC co-publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee; DC President/Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns; and DC's Executive VP of Business & Marketing Strategy, Direct to Consumer and Global Franchise Management Amit Desai. It has not been announced if that will change, or if a replacement will be found for Nelson's roles at Warner Bros.
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Bruno Sammartino
Get Bruno Sammartino essential facts below. View Videos or join the Bruno Sammartino discussion. Add Bruno Sammartino to your PopFlock.com topic list for future reference or share this resource on social media.
Italian-born American professional wrestler
Sammartino as WWWF World Heavyweight Champion
Bruno Leopoldo Francesco Sammartino[1]
(1935-10-06)October 6, 1935
Pizzoferrato, Italy
April 18, 2018(2018-04-18) (aged 82)
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Multiple organ failure due to heart problems[2]
Carol Sammartino
(m. after 1959)
3; including David Sammartino
Professional wrestling career
Billed height
5 ft 10 in (178 cm)[3]
Billed weight
265 lb (120 kg)[3][4]
Billed from
Abruzzo, Italy[5]
Ace Freeman
Rex Peery[3]
Bruno Leopoldo Francesco Sammartino[1] (October 6, 1935 - April 18, 2018) was an Italian-American professional wrestler, best known for his work with the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF, now WWE). There, he held the WWWF World Heavyweight Championship (WWWF Heavyweight Championship during his second reign) for more than 11 years (4,040 days) across two reigns, the first of which is the longest single reign in the promotion's history at 2,803 days. He is overall a two-time world champion in professional wrestling.
Dubbed "The Italian Strongman"[5] and "The Strongest Man in the World"[6] early in his career, Sammartino later earned the title "The Living Legend".[7] Known for his powerful bearhug[3] finishing move, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time.[8] Sammartino became a vocal critic of the drug use and raunchier storylines that became prevalent in the professional wrestling industry after his retirement but he reconciled with WWE in 2013 and headlined their Hall of Fame ceremony that year. Wrestler Terry Funk commented that Sammartino "was bigger than wrestling itself".[9]
Bruno Leopoldo Francesco Sammartino was born in Pizzoferrato, Abruzzo, Italy, to Alfonso and Emilia Sammartino on October 6, 1935.[3][10] He was the youngest of seven children, four of whom died during his early childhood.[10] When he was four, his father immigrated to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[10][11] During World War II, his mother hid him and his siblings from German soldiers in a mountain called Valla Rocca.[11] During this time, his mother would sneak into their German-occupied town for food and supplies.[11] In 1950, [12] she and the children joined her husband in Pittsburgh.[10]
When the Sammartinos arrived in the U.S., Bruno spoke no English and was sickly from the privations of the war years.[11] This made him an easy target for bullies at Schenley High School. He turned to weightlifting and wrestling to build himself up.[10] His devotion to weightlifting nearly resulted in a berth on the 1956 U.S. Olympic team, which went instead to eventual gold medalist Paul Anderson.[10]
In 1959, Sammartino set a world record in the bench press with a lift of 565 pounds, done without elbow or wrist wraps. When he brought the bar down, he did not bounce it off his chest, but set it there for two seconds before attempting the press.[4] He trained in wrestling with Rex Peery, the University of Pittsburgh team coach.[3]
He also became known for performing strongman stunts in the Pittsburgh area, and sportscaster Bob Prince put him on his television show. It was there that he was spotted by local professional wrestling promoter Rudy Miller, who recruited the young man into the ring.[3]
Early years (1959-1963)
Sammartino made his professional debut in Pittsburgh on December 17, 1959, pinning Dmitri Grabowski in 19 seconds.[4] Sammartino's first match in Madison Square Garden in New York City was on January 2, 1960,[1] defeating Bull Curry in five minutes.[13]
Sammartino (right) with Verne Gagne and WWWF promoter Vincent J. McMahon
Feeling like he was being held back in the New York territory in favor of National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) star Buddy Rogers, Sammartino gave his notice to Capitol Wrestling Corporation (CWC) owner Vince McMahon Sr. and planned to go to San Francisco to work for Roy Shire. While on his way to California, he missed two bookings in Baltimore and Chicago, and as a result was suspended in those territories. California honored the other state's suspension, leaving Sammartino out of work.[14] In his autobiography, Sammartino states that he believed McMahon set him up, by double-booking him and not informing him of his match in Baltimore, as a way of punishment.[15] Sammartino was forced to return to Pittsburgh and found work as a laborer.[14]
On the advice of wrestler Yukon Eric, Sammartino contacted Toronto promoter Frank Tunney hoping to take advantage of Toronto's large Italian population.[13] Sammartino made his Toronto debut in March 1962 and very quickly, with the help of self-promotion in local newspapers and radio programs, became an attraction. His ability to speak Italian also ingratiated him with that immigrant population.[14] With Whipper Billy Watson, Sammartino won his first professional wrestling championship in September 1962, the local version of the International Tag Team Championship.[16] Soon, he was in demand by other promoters in different Canadian territories.[14]
Sammartino also challenged NWA World Heavyweight Champion Lou Thesz twice for the championship in Canada. One match ended in a draw and the other with Thesz scoring a fluke pin after a collision, despite Sammartino controlling the 20 minute match from the beginning. This match was booked by NWA promoter Sam Muchnick as a preliminary to the forming of the WWWF, to ensure the dominance of the senior organization and its championship.[17]
World Wide Wrestling Federation/World Wrestling Federation (1963-1981)
First World Heavyweight Championship reign (1963-1971)
After the first WWWF World Champion, Nature Boy Buddy Rogers, was hospitalized three times in April 1963 for chest pains, Vince McMahon, Sr. and Toots Mondt made a command decision to make an emergency title switch. Between Antonino Rocca and Bruno Sammartino they went with the younger Sammartino who was 28 years old at the time. The match was scheduled to be concluded quickly so as not to risk Buddy's health any further. Promoters Mondt and McMahon Sr. cleared up Sammartino's suspension by paying his $500 fine, allowing him to return to wrestling in the United States. Sammartino won the title on May 17, 1963, defeating Rogers in 48 seconds.[18] Sammartino and Rogers faced each other two months later at Madison Square Garden in a tag team match, with Rogers and Handsome Johnny Barend defeating Sammartino and Bobo Brazil by 2 falls to 1. Rogers pinned Sammartino for the third and deciding fall. Rogers retired prior to their scheduled title rematch on October 4, 1963, in Jersey City, New Jersey's Roosevelt Stadium. Sammartino instead that night had his first match against new number one contender, Gorilla Monsoon. Because Monsoon won the match by disqualification, thus Sammartino retained his belt.
On December 8, 1969, he teamed with Tony Marino to win the WWWF International Tag Team Championship by defeating The Rising Suns (Tanaka and Mitsu Arakawa). Company policy meant that Sammartino could not hold two championships simultaneously, so he was replaced by Victor Rivera.[19] Sammartino held the WWWF World Heavyweight Championship for seven years, eight months, and one day (2,803 days).[13][20] On January 18, 1971, Sammartino lost the championship at Madison Square Garden to Ivan Koloff.[21] Sammartino recalled the shocked silence that greeted the result, remarking he thought he had damaged his ears.[7] Later that year, he won the International Tag Team Championship for the second time by teaming with Dominic DeNucci.[19]
Second World Heavyweight Championship reign (1973-1977)
Sammartino and Mario Trevi
Later in 1972, Sammartino was asked back by McMahon Sr. to regain the title. After refusing McMahon Sr.'s initial offer, Sammartino was offered a percentage of all the gates when he wrestled and a decreased work schedule that only included major arenas. Soon after, Sammartino and then champion Pedro Morales teamed up for a series of tag team matches. In a televised match, Professor Tanaka blinded both men with salt and they were maneuvered into fighting each other. When their eyes cleared, they kept fighting each other. Two weeks later, all syndicated wrestling shows in the WWWF showed a clip of Sammartino and Morales signing a contract for a title match at Shea Stadium. When McMahon Sr. gestured for them to shake hands, both wordlessly turned and walked away. On September 30, 1972, Sammartino and Morales wrestled to a 65-minute draw at Shea Stadium in New York.[22]
Eventually, on December 10, 1973, Sammartino regained the WWWF Heavyweight Championship by defeating Stan Stasiak.[7] During this time, on April 26, 1976, Sammartino suffered a legitimate neck fracture in a match against Stan Hansen at Madison Square Garden, when Hansen improperly executed a move and dropped Sammartino on his head.[10][13] After two months, Sammartino returned and faced Hansen in a rematch on June 25, 1976 at Shea Stadium, which was on the closed circuit TV undercard of the Ali vs. Antonio Inoki match for WWWF cities. The match was rated 1976 "Match of the Year" by Pro Wrestling Illustrated.[23]
In early 1977, Sammartino informed McMahon Sr. that he felt he could no longer continue as champion due to his injuries. On April 30, 1977, he was defeated by Superstar Billy Graham for the title.[7][24] His second title run lasted three years, four months, and twenty days (1,237 days).[13][20] Despite a very long series of rematches against Graham, Sammartino was unable to regain the title. His final attempt was in Philadelphia, just a few days before Graham was scheduled to lose the title to Bob Backlund.
Later career and initial retirement (1978-1981)
After his second reign ended, Sammartino leisurely toured the U.S. and the world. He wrestled then NWA World Heavyweight Champion Harley Race to a one-hour draw in St. Louis. He also wrestled and defeated Blackjack Mulligan, Lord Alfred Hayes, Dick Murdoch, Kenji Shibuya, and "Crippler" Ray Stevens. Also during this time, Sammartino began serving as color commentator for the WWF's syndicated programs, WWF Championship Wrestling and WWF All-Star Wrestling.
On January 22, 1980, his former student Larry Zbyszko turned on him at the World Wrestling Federation's Championship Wrestling show. Sammartino, shocked and hurt by Zbyszko's betrayal, vowed to make Zbyszko pay dearly. Their feud culminated on August 9, 1980, in front of 36,295 fans at Shea Stadium.[25] As the main event of 1980's Showdown at Shea, Sammartino defeated Zbyszko inside a steel cage.[25] In his autobiography, Hulk Hogan claimed that his match with André the Giant was the real reason for the huge draw at Shea Stadium; however, the feud between Sammartino and Zbyszko sold out everywhere in the build-up to the show. In contrast, Hogan and André headlined exactly one card in White Plains, New York before they wrestled at Shea, and they drew 1,200 in a building that held 3,500.[26]
Sammartino retired from North American wrestling full-time in 1981,[10] in a match that opened the Meadowlands Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Sammartino pinned George "The Animal" Steele in his match. Sammartino then finished up his full-time career by touring Japan.
Return to WWF (1984-1988)
It was during this time Sammartino found out through Angelo Savoldi, a recently fired office employee of Capitol Wrestling Corporation, that he had been cheated by Vince McMahon Sr. on the promised gate percentages for his entire second title run. Sammartino filed suit against McMahon Sr. and his Capitol Wrestling Corporation.[27] The suit was eventually settled out of court by McMahon Sr's son, Vince McMahon after his father had died, and included an agreement for Sammartino to return to the company as a commentator.[20]
At the inaugural WrestleMania on March 31, 1985, Sammartino was in his son David's corner for his match against Brutus Beefcake.[28] The match ended in a double-disqualification after the Sammartinos began brawling with Beefcake and his manager Johnny Valiant. He returned to in-ring action soon after with his son, as they wrestled against Beefcake and Valiant at Madison Square Garden. The Sammartinos also teamed against "Mr. Wonderful" Paul Orndorff and Bobby "The Brain" Heenan in various arenas.[29]
Sammartino's highest-profile feud during this run was with "Macho Man" Randy Savage. An irate Sammartino attacked Savage during a TV interview, after Savage bragged about injuring Ricky Steamboat, by driving the timekeeper's bell into Steamboat's throat during a televised match. Sammartino defeated Savage in a lumberjack match for the WWF Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship via disqualification at the Boston Garden.[30] This allowed Savage to keep the championship, as titles cannot change hands via countout or disqualification. He was often teamed with Tito Santana and his old enemy George "The Animal" Steele (who was a fan favorite at this point in his career) to wrestle Savage and "Adorable" Adrian Adonis. The climax of their feud came was a victory for Sammartino and Santana in a steel cage match in Madison Square Garden. Sammartino also engaged in a feud with "Rowdy" Roddy Piper after Piper insulted his heritage on a segment of Piper's Pit at Madison Square Garden. Sammartino faced Piper in both singles and tag team matches. Sammartino teamed with Paul Orndorff in his matches against Piper, while Piper would tag with his "bodyguard", Ace "Cowboy" Bob Orton. Sammartino would eventually get the upper hand in the feud, by defeating Piper in a steel cage match at the Boston Garden. In 1986, Sammartino competed in a 20-man battle royal at WrestleMania 2 at the Rosemont Horizon in Chicago.[28]
Sammartino's final match was at a WWF house show in Baltimore on August 29, 1987, where he teamed up with Hulk Hogan to defeat King Kong Bundy and One Man Gang in the main event. Sammartino continued doing commentary on Superstars of Wrestling until March 1988.[16]
Non-wrestling roles and WWE Hall of Fame (1988-2018)
After leaving the WWF, Sammartino became an outspoken critic of the path on which Vince Kennedy McMahon had taken professional wrestling. He particularly criticized the use of steroids and "vulgar" storylines.[31][32][33] He appeared in the media in opposition to the WWE on such shows as The Phil Donahue Show, Geraldo and CNN.
Sammartino worked as a commentator for the Universal Wrestling Federation. On October 28, 1989, Sammartino made a special appearance at the NWA pay-per-view event Halloween Havoc, where he was the special guest referee in a "Thunderdome" cage match which featured Ric Flair and Sting taking on Terry Funk and The Great Muta.[16] Sammartino worked several WCW events in a minor analysis role in the early 1990s, as well as a brief run doing color commentary with Jim Ross on Saturday Night in 1992. He also acted as special guest referee in World Championship Wrestling (WCW) for a series of matches between Flair and Randy Savage in June 1996.[16]
In 2006, he signed an independent deal with Jakks Pacific to produce an action figure, which is part of the WWE Classic Superstars line, Series 10.[34]
On March 25, 2010, Sammartino was honored at the 74th annual Dapper Dan Dinner, a popular awards and charity fundraising event in Pittsburgh, with a lifetime achievement award, for which fellow former Studio Wrestling personalities Bill Cardille, "Jumping" Johnny De Fazio, Dominic DeNucci, Frank Durso, and referee Andy "Kid" DePaul were all present.[35]
Sammartino with Triple H at WrestleMania Axxess in April 2014, unveiling a statue created in Sammartino's image and honor
In 2013, Sammartino accepted an invitation for induction into the WWE Hall of Fame, after having declined several times in prior years. He finally accepted the offer to join because he was satisfied with the way the company had addressed his concerns about rampant drug use as well as vulgarity.[36] The ceremony took place at Madison Square Garden on April 6, 2013, and Sammartino was inducted by Arnold Schwarzenegger.[37] Sammartino appeared on the October 7, 2013, episode of Raw and received a birthday greeting in his hometown of Pittsburgh.[38] On March 28, 2015, Sammartino inducted Larry Zbyszko into the WWE Hall of Fame.[39]
Sammartino is included in two DVDs summarizing his career and life: Bruno Returns to Italy With Bruno Sammartino (2006) and Bruno Sammartino: Behind the Championship Belt (2006).[40][better source needed] Both were only released in Pittsburgh. Sammartino is honored on the Madison Square Garden Walk of Fame.[41]
Sammartino appeared in the WWE 2K14 video game as a downloadable character.[42]
Sammartino at Celebrate the Season Parade in Pittsburgh, 2005
Sammartino was married to his wife Carol from 1959 until his death in 2018. They had three sons together, David and fraternal twins Danny and Darryl. They were grandparents of four grandchildren. The Sammartinos lived in Ross Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh from 1965 on.[11] In 1998, he said he had been estranged from David since retiring from wrestling against David's wishes for a tag team.[43]
On April 6, 2013, Sammartino received the Key to the City in Jersey City, New Jersey.[44] May 17, 2013 was declared "Bruno Sammartino Day" in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. In 2013, Sammartino appeared as one of the Board of Governors in the nationally televised 69th Annual Columbus Day Parade.
Backstage incidents
In the late 1960s, Sammartino was involved in a fight with former Pennsylvania Athletic Commissioner Joe Cimino. Cimino was new to his post and intervened in a match finish involving Sammartino, who took a shot at Cimino in the ring and the argument continued backstage. Sammartino ended up in a screaming match with Cimino on Pittsburgh's local Studio Wrestling program, and Cimino suspended him for a month. Irvin Muchnick mentioned the incident in his book, Wrestling Babylon.[45]
In his autobiography, The Cowboy and the Cross: The Bill Watts Story: Rebellion, Wrestling and Redemption, Bill Watts told of witnessing a backstage incident between Sammartino and Gorilla Monsoon.[46] Watts wrote that Monsoon "soon found himself in deep water" when messing with Sammartino, and he did not go into further detail on the incident out of respect for Monsoon.[46]
On July 26, 2004, Sammartino and Ric Flair were involved in the "Who snubbed who?" non-confrontation at the Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh. Flair had denigrated Sammartino's wrestling ability in his book To Be the Man.[47] Flair said Sammartino refused to shake his hand at the event, while Sammartino said Flair saw him coming down the hall, turned, and rushed away.[47]
Sammartino underwent heart surgery in 2011.[13] He died on April 18, 2018, at the age of 82 from multiple organ failure due to heart problems[2] following a two-month hospitalization.[48][49] WWE honored his life with a ten-bell salute before a house show in Cape Town later that day, and again on the April 23 episode of Raw in St. Louis.[50][51] Mayor Bill Peduto remembered him as "one of the greatest ambassadors the city of Pittsburgh ever had."[52]
Championships and accomplishments
Sammartino is a two-time and longest-reigning WWWF World Heavyweight Champion
Sammartino was inducted into the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum in 2002
Sammartino was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2013
George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame
Class of 2019 [53]
International Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame
Class of 2021[54]
Keystone State Wrestling Alliance
KSWA Hall of Fame (Class of 2012)[55]
Maple Leaf Wrestling
NWA International Tag Team Championship (Toronto version) (1 time) - with Whipper Billy Watson[16]
NWA United States Heavyweight Championship (Toronto version) (1 time)[56]
NWA Hollywood
Los Angeles Battle Royal (1972)[57]
Pro Wrestling Illustrated
Inspirational Wrestler of the Year (1976)[23]
Match of the Year (1972) Battle royal[23]
Match of the Year (1975) vs. Spiros Arion[23]
Match of the Year (1976) vs. Stan Hansen[23]
Match of the Year (1977) vs. Superstar Billy Graham[23]
Match of the Year (1980) vs. Larry Zbyszko at Showdown at Shea[23]
Stanley Weston Award (1981)[23]
Wrestler of the Year (1974)[23]
Ranked No. 200 of the top 500 singles wrestlers of the "PWI Years" in 2003[58]
Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum
World Wide Wrestling Alliance
Hall of Fame (Class of 2008)[60]
World Wide Wrestling Federation/WWE
WWWF International Tag Team Championship (2 times) - with Dominic DeNucci (1) and Tony Marino (1)[19]
WWWF United States Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Spiros Arion[16]
WWWF World Heavyweight Championship/WWWF Heavyweight Championship (2 times)[a][7]
WWE Hall of Fame (Class of 2013)[36]
WWE Bronze Statue (2014)[61]
World Wrestling Association (Indianapolis)
WWA World Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Dick the Bruiser[62]
World Wrestling Council
WWC North American Heavyweight Championship (1 time)[63]
Wrestling Observer Newsletter
Feud of the Year (1980) vs. Larry Zbyszko[64]
Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame (Class of 1996)[65]
^ During Sammartino's second reign the title was known as WWWF Heavyweight Championship, due to the WWWF rejoining the National Wrestling Alliance.
^ a b c Hornbaker, Tim (2007). National Wrestling Alliance: The Untold Story of the Monopoly That Strangled Pro Wrestling. ECW Press. pp. 186-187. ISBN 978-1-55022-741-3.
^ a b Meltzer, Dave (April 26, 2018). "APRIL 30, 2018 WRESTLING OBSERVER NEWSLETTER: THE STORY OF BRUNO SAMMARTINO CONTINUED". Wrestling Observer. Retrieved 2018.
^ a b c d e f g Hornbaker, Tim (2012). Legends of Pro Wrestling: 150 Years of Headlocks, Body Slams, and Piledrivers. Sports Publishing. ISBN 978-1613210758.
^ a b c d Davies, Ross (2001). Bruno Sammartino. Rosen Publishing Group. pp. 23-24. ISBN 978-1435836259.
^ a b Shields, Brian; Sullivan, Kevin (2012). WWE Encyclopedia: Updated & Expanded. DK. pp. 56-57. ISBN 978-0-7566-9159-2.
^ Hornbaker, Tim (2015). Capitol Revolution: The Rise of the McMahon Wrestling Empire. ECW Press. pp. 212-213. ISBN 978-1-77041-124-1.
^ a b c d e Schramm, Chris (September 15, 1999). "Sammartino the Living Legend". Slam! Sports. Canadian Online Explorer. Retrieved 2018.
^ Murphy, Jan (October 1, 2014). "Jim Myers: The man behind the Animal". SLAM! Sports. Canoe.com. Retrieved 2016.
^ Barrasso, Justin (April 18, 2018). "'The Joe DiMaggio of Professional Wrestling': Terry Funk Remembers Bruno Sammartino". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved 2020.
^ a b c d e f g h McFadden, Robert D. (April 18, 2018). "Bruno Sammartino, Durable Champ in WWE Hall of Fame, Dies at 82". The New York Times. Retrieved 2018.
^ a b c d e Togneri, Chris (December 24, 2010). "Bruno Sammartino: Mountain of strength". Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Archived from the original on December 27, 2010. Retrieved 2010.
^ Pro wrestling legend Bruno Sammartino dies at 82, Los Angeles Times, April 18, 2018
^ a b c d e f Oliver, Greg; Johnson, Steven (April 18, 2018). "Bruno Sammartino dies at 82". Slam! Sports. Canadian Online Explorer. Retrieved 2018.
^ a b c d Oliver, Greg (March 27, 2012). "Without Toronto, there would have been no Bruno Sammartino". Slam! Sports. Canadian Online Explorer. Retrieved 2018.
^ Sammartino, Bruno; Michelucci, Bob (1990). Bruno Sammartino: An Autobiography of Wrestling's Living Legend. Sports Publishing. ISBN 978-0911137149.
^ a b c d e f "Bruno Sammartino". Slam! Sports. Canadian Online Explorer. Retrieved 2018.
^ Meltzer, Dave (August 21, 1995). "history". Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
^ Cawthon, Graham (2013). The History of Professional Wrestling: The Results WWF 1963-1989. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. p. 16. ISBN 978-1-4928-2597-5.
^ a b c "10 championships you never knew existed in WWE". WWE. Retrieved 2018.
^ a b c Campbell, Brian (April 18, 2018). "Remembering Bruno Sammartino, the singular face of a bygone pro wrestling era". CBS Sports. Retrieved 2018.
^ Cawthon, Graham (2013). The History of Professional Wrestling: The Results WWF 1963-1989. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. p. 113. ISBN 978-1-4928-2597-5.
^ Davies, Ross (2001). Bruno Sammartino. The Rosen Publishing Group. p. 77. ISBN 978-0-8239-3432-4. Retrieved 2012.
^ a b c d e f g h i "PWI Awards". Pro Wrestling Illustrated. Kappa Publishing Group. Retrieved 2018.
^ a b Cawthon, Graham (2013). The History of Professional Wrestling: The Results WWF 1963-1989. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. p. 309. ISBN 978-1-4928-2597-5.
^ Cawthon, Graham (2013). the History of Professional Wrestling Vol 1: WWF 1963-1989. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1492825975.
^ Bruno Sammartino v. Capitol Wrestling Corporation and Vince McMahon. Wrestlingperspective.com (August 26, 1983). Retrieved on September 29, 2012.
^ a b "Professional wrestling great Bruno Sammartino dies at 82". The Times Herald. April 18, 2018. Retrieved 2018.
^ Cawthorn, Graham. "WWE in 1985". History of WWE. Retrieved 2020.
^ Molinaro, John (October 20, 1999). "Sammartino no fan of McMahon". Slam! Sports. Canadian Online Explorer. Retrieved 2018.
^ Mackinder, Matt (April 16, 2007). "Sammartino: McMahon is 'a sick-minded idiot'". Slam! Sports. Canadian Online Explorer. Retrieved 2018.
^ Muchnick, Irvin (March 20, 2013). "Bruno's bad call on WWE Hall of Fame shows Vince is right - everyone has a price". Slam! Sports. Canadian Online Explorer. Retrieved 2018.
^ "Where legends are displayed". Classicfigs.com. Archived from the original on February 10, 2008.
^ Dvorchak, Robert (March 26, 2010). "Dapper Dan: Malkin, Sammartino, Penn State volleyball claim awards". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved 2010.
^ a b Robinson, Jon (February 3, 2013). "WWE to induct Bruno Sammartino into HOF". ESPN. Retrieved 2015.
^ Caldwell, James (April 6, 2013). "WWE NEWS: Hall of Fame 2013 report". Pro Wrestling Torch. Retrieved 2015.
^ Caldwell, James (October 7, 2013). "Caldwell's WWE Raw Results 10/7 (Hour 1): Battleground PPV fall-out, WWE Title match to continue at next PPV, one "firing", Bruno Sammartino, more". Pro Wrestling Torch. Retrieved 2013.
^ Caldwell, James (March 28, 2015). "WWE Hall of Fame report 3/28". Pro Wrestling Torch. Retrieved 2015.
^ In Memory For Bruno Sammartino - For The Fans (April 21, 2019). "Bruno Sammartino Behind The Championship Belt". Retrieved 2019 – via YouTube.
^ Satin, Ryan (April 19, 2018). "Madison Square Garden Pays Tribute To Bruno Sammartino". Pro Wrestling Sheet. Retrieved 2019.
^ Kato, Matthew (January 7, 2014). "New WWE 2K14 DLC Introduces More Superstars". Game Informer. Retrieved 2015.
^ Rouvalis, Cristina (October 28, 1998). "Wrestling with fame: Bruno Sammartino still a hero to fans". Post-gazette.
^ Machcinski, Anthony J. (April 6, 2013). "Bruno Sammartino given key to Jersey City before his induction into WWE Hall of Fame". Jersey Journal. Retrieved 2018.
^ Muchnick, Irvin (2011). Wrestling Babylon. New York: ECW Press. p. 55. ISBN 978-1-55022-761-1.
^ a b Watts, Bill (2006). The Cowboy and the Cross:The Bill Watts Story: Rebellion, Wrestling and Redemption. New York: ECW Press. p. 72. ISBN 978-1-55022-708-6.
^ a b Flair, Ric (2005). Ric Flair: to Be the Man. New York: Pocket Books. pp. 63-64. ISBN 978-0-7434-9181-5.
^ ESPN.com Staff (April 18, 2018). "WWE Hall of Famer Bruno Sammartino dies at age 82". ESPN.com. United States: ESPN Inc. Retrieved 2018.
^ KDKA-TV Staff (April 18, 2018). "WWE Hall Of Famer Bruno Sammartino Dies At 82". KDKA-TV. Pittsburgh: CBS Corporation. Retrieved 2018.
^ Johnson, Alex (April 19, 2018). "Bruno Sammartino, wrestling's original good-guy hero, dies at 82". NBC News. Retrieved 2018.
^ Hamlin, Jeff (April 23, 2018). "WWE Raw live results: Brock Lesnar returns to TV". Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Retrieved 2018.
^ "Professional wrestling great Bruno Sammartino dies at 82". April 18, 2018.
^ "2019 TRAGOS/THESZ PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING HALL OF FAME CLASS ANNOUNCED - PWInsider.com". www.pwinsider.com.
^ https://www.prowrestlinghall.org/induction
^ "Keystone Sate Wrestling Alliance - Hall of Fame". Keystone State Wrestling Alliance. Retrieved 2018.
^ Royal Duncan & Gary Will (2006). Wrestling Title Histories (4th ed.). Archeus Communications. ISBN 978-0-9698161-5-7.
^ "Los Angeles Territory".
^ "PWI 500 of the PWI Years". Willy Wrestlefest. Retrieved 2012.
^ Puskar, Gene J. (February 20, 2005). "Bruno Sammartino body slams hall of fame". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved 2018.
^ Rabito, Lou (November 6, 2008). "WWWA honors Bruno Sammartino, and vice versa". The Inquisitor. Retrieved 2018.
^ "Triple H reveals Bruno Sammartino statue at WrestleMania Axxess".
^ "W.W.A. World Tag Team Title (Indianapolis)". Puroresu Dojo. 2003.
^ "WWC North American Heavyweight Title (Puerto Rico)". Wrestling-Titles.com.
^ "Pro Wrestling Illustrated (PWI) 500 for 2007". Internet Wrestling Database. Retrieved 2016.
^ "Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame". Pro Wrestling Illustrated. Kappa Publishing Group. Retrieved 2018.
Bruno Sammartino on IMDb
Bruno Sammartino on WWE.com
Bruno Sammartino at Find a Grave
Bruno Sammartino's profile at Cagematch.net, Wrestlingdata.com, Internet Wrestling Database
7/9 Bruno Sammartino
An Interview With Bruno Sammartino
BRUNO SAMMARTINO @THE APTER CHAT
Bruno Sammartino vs. Killer Kowalski
Bruiser Brody vs. Bruno Sammartino
Bruno Sammartino/Greatest Sports Legends
Bruno Sammartino Vs. Bruiser Brody
Bruno Sammartino vs Nikolai Volkoff
Capt. Lou Kisses Bruno Sammartino
Fred Blassie vs Bruno Sammartino
Bruno Sammartino vs. Buddy Rogers
Bruno Sammartino vs Superstar Billy Graham
The Wrestling Guys With Bruno Sammartino
Billy Graham shoots on Bruno Sammartino
9/9 Bruno Sammartino Shot Interview
2/9 Bruno Sammartino Shoot Interview
Bruno Sammartino Vs Gorilla Monsoon VBOX7
Bruno_Sammartino
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State Budget Crisis Task ForceHome
State Budget Crisis Task Force Calls for National Attention to Reforms in State Budgeting and Financial Reporting
DOWNLOAD FINAL REPORT
On January 14, 2014 Co-Chairs former Lt. Governor of New York Richard Ravitch and Paul A. Volcker, former Chairman of the Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve System, released the Final Report of the State Budget Crisis Task Force today after nearly three years of study, analysis and debate.
The Task Force outlined a troubling picture of the unsustainable and now perilous fiscal position of many states and their local governments across the country. As symbolized by this event being held in the Rayburn Office Building and surrounded by the Halls of Congress, the implications are national. Understanding and action by the federal government as well as the states will be required to support needed reforms.
“What is at stake,” said Co-Chair Ravitch, “is the strength of our educational institutions, of our infrastructure, our health care and judicial system, and the safety and security of our homes and streets – all of which in our federal system are heavily dependent upon the management and financial integrity of our states and their political subdivisions.”
Co-Chair Volcker added that, “We need only look to Detroit where debt was leveraged time and time again with no ability to pay, to see that reforms in financial reporting and oversight by states and localities are prudent and necessary. The ultimate victims of unsustainable, patchwork budgeting and overextended finances are the citizens dependent upon essential public services.”
The Task Force, an independent, non-partisan group of experienced participants in government, has not itself set out positions with respect to particular public policies and programs. What it does insist upon is that political and policy discussions and decisions must be made on the basis of honest, reliable budget estimates and easily accessible, comprehensive, and transparent financial data.
View the Texas State Report
View the New York State Report
View the Virginia State Report
View the New Jersey State Report
View the Main Report
View the California State Report
View the Illinois State Report
Richard Ravitch, who won an emergency appointment as New York’s lieutenant governor during the 2009 budget impasse, announced a high-level new project Thursday to untangle the finances of the states and shine a light on their hidden debts.
- New York Times
Former New York Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker are serving as co-chairmen of a new task force that will examine issues such as health-care costs and municipal borrowing practices, according to a person familiar with the matter.
- Wall Street Journal and website
© Copyright 2012. Task Force on the State Budget Crisis
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How much did the remodel cost for the current administration building? What was the estimated cost of remodeling the old BH Corp building for the new administration building? Now, what is the actual cost going to be? Where did these funds come from?
RCAS’ portion of the remodel costs at the City, School Administration Building would have been $7.5 million. The cost to renovate the new administration building (The Rapid City Education Center) was $4.2 million. The District saved $3.3 million by moving to the new building. The cost of the Rapid City Education Center building was paid for with money the District received from the City for the District’s portion of City, School Administration Building. The renovation dollars came from our Capital Outlay fund.
Where will the alternative high school program that is currently housed at Rapid City High School be relocated?
The Six-year Plan includes re-purposing the current Rapid City High School (RCHS) building as a future elementary school.
At present, the alternative high school program at RCHS only partially utilizes the building. The board of education and the superintendent have recently identified capacity issues within the district, with the greatest need in the elementary grades.
With the newly established educational initiatives taking root at RCHS the alternative high school has enjoyed huge success, and we attribute that feat to those running the program and not the building it occupies, or its location. We are excited about the new programming RCHS has put into place, and know we’ll learn a lot about their space needs as their new program becomes fully implemented. Our goal is to find space for RCHS that not only meets the needs of their new programming but enhances it. We are exploring a number of options but want to give the new program time to be fully implemented in order to better understand its facility needs. Suffice it to say that neither the school board nor the administration are planning to eliminate or marginalize the RCHS program in any way.
How is the bond structured?
The bond structure is complex. It is not a straight amortization. The bond payment will grow over time. As the bond payment grows, so will the community. More people plus an increase in valuation will ensure the District can meet the debt service obligation as it increases over time. Total principal and interest payments begin around $8 million and incrementally increase to around $18 million by the end of the debt service period.
This bond structure assumes that the community will see a 4 percent increase in valuation each year. This is a conservative valuation increase as growth in our community has exceeded 5 percent in recent years. If the valuation is less than four percent, and the revenue from the levy at .85 will not meet the debt service in a given year, then the district will make up the difference using capital outlay dollars.
This bond structure is a common practice and is used by districts throughout the country. It allows the district to be able to meet its most pressing facility needs while minimizing the impact on its taxpayers. The District worked with Mr. Toby Morris, of Dougherty & Company, LLC, in analyzing and structuring the bond. Mr. Morris has extensive bond advisory experience and has worked with many schools and municipalities across the state over the past 20 years. Also, the District has received legal counsel on the bond matter from Mr. Todd Meierhenry, of Meierhenry Sargent LLP of Sioux Falls. Mr. Meierhenry specializes in the area of public finance and has worked extensively with bond issues. After working with these gentlemen, the District feels confident in the structure of the bond.
Can the school board arbitrarily increase my taxes?
In the unlikely event that valuation depreciates, the Board could increase the mil rate in order to meet its debt obligation. This is not a likely scenario. Even in a worst-case scenario where the levee did have to increase, it could never be arbitrary. The district could only ever collect up to the total amount of debt service in a given year. So, the board could never increase the levy because they felt like it.
Can I vote if I don’t live within Rapid City limits?
Yes. Anyone who lives within the district’s attendance boundary can vote? Not sure if you live within the attendance boundary? Enter your address here to find out. https://versatransweb05.tylertech.com/RapidCity/elinkrp/Students/BasicTransBoundarySearch.aspx
Why did RCAS wait so long to address these deteriorating building conditions?
The buildings that are on the closure list are in excess of 60-years-old. Canyon Lake Elementary was built in 1948, Robbinsdale was built in 1953, Horace Mann was built in 1952, Wilson was built in 1929, and South Middle School was built in 1959. Many of these buildings were built on land that was donated at the time to save costs. Many of the issues that the District is dealing with are related to locations of the buildings. Robbinsdale and South were built on expansive soil and there is a high-water table at Canyon Lake and Horace Mann.
Structural engineers monitor the movement that is happening at Robbinsdale Elementary on a biweekly basis. Our maintenance team spends a lot of time in that building doing reactive maintenance –mostly due to the shifting that is happening there. The same is true at South Middle School. Last year, a portion of the structure underneath Canyon Lake had to be rebuilt because the steel beams had rusted from the water that continues to be an issue at that site. Wilson has a number of maintenance needs that would be very costly to repair. There is also a high-water table at Horace Mann that has created maintenance issues.
The District’s maintenance team is doing the best with what they have, but simple maintenance projects can be costly and take a lot of time. For example, changing a light fixture at South Middle costs significantly more than changing a fixture in one of our new buildings. Why? There is asbestos in that building. Further, since some of the boiler systems and other infrastructure is aging, the District often must have custom parts made to fix issues. It’s also not easy or cheap to find people to fix some of these systems because many today do not know how to work on HVAC and boiler systems that are this old.
The short answer is that these buildings have not been neglected. Through the years, the district has been able to build buildings (five new schools) and do multiple renovation projects without asking for a property tax increase. With the available dollars RCAS has performed various preventive maintenance projects like NMS structure stabilization and preservation, Roof Maintenance District wide, Meadowbrook structure stabilization and preservation, Rapid Valley structure stabilization, Rapid City High School structure stabilization, New HVAC system at Knollwood, Energy upgrades throughout the entire district, and the list goes on.
Unfortunately, the District’s needs are mounting, and it is getting harder and harder to continue to fix these facilities. The spaces are too small, present many issues for our students with mobility issues and the list goes on.
Do building improvements lead to better educational outcomes?
There is research that shows school facility investments lead to modest gradual improvements in test scores, large immediate improvements in student attendance, and significant improvements in student’s effort.
What happens if the bond does not pass?
The District will have to make adjustments, many of which won’t be ideal, but nonetheless are necessary. Here are just a few things the District would need to do to accommodate shifting growth, current capacity issues and future growth.
-We would continue to force transfer students, especially those who live in growing communities in the Southwest and East parts of the City
-We would do immediate boundary shifts and adjustments to alleviate the crowding in those high growth areas of town
-We have already had to increase our elementary and middle school classes at some schools and that will likely continue. We could have as many as 30 students at K-2, 32 at 3-5 and 35 students in class in grades 6-8
-We would also consider adding annexes
One issue that we must plan for is the possibility that we will have to close one or more of our aging buildings due to the condition. That would mean that we would have to look at alternative sites to place kids, or potential schedule changes.
How long will it take to complete all of the projects listed in the bond proposal?
All of the projects will be complete within six years.
Why not build a third high school?
Our high schools are not over capacity. Our immediate need is at the elementary level where our numbers are up significantly. Those capacity concerns are starting to carry over to the middle school level. Currently, RCAS does own land in the Valley. Eventually, a third high school could be built there. The speed at which our community grows over the next few years as a result of the base expansion could expedite timelines.
Why are we not able to do a sales tax increase instead of a property tax increase?
A sales tax has to be approved by the legislature. There is not a mechanism in place to do that at the district level. The sole option the Legislature provides for school districts to do large scale facility improvements is a general obligation bond, which increases property taxes.
Did the task force consider accessibility issues for students (and the public) with physical disabilities and ADA when making its recommendations? If so, how is this reflected in the plan? If not, please explain why.
Absolutely. New buildings will be ADA accessible. There is also money in the plan to address some areas that are not ADA accessible in some of our older buildings.
How much has our student body grown?
In 1945, the district’s enrollment was 2,688. Today, our enrollment is over 13,700, so our student population is more than five times as big now than it was in the 1940s.
What would three $30 million elementary schools look like? What would two $45 million middle schools look like? Are we getting a Chevy Impala or a Lexus?
A $30 million elementary school will meet our students’ needs today and in the future. There will be space on-site to add onto a building should we need it. The building will be constructed using sustainable products to keep maintenance costs down. For example, geothermal systems would be used for heating and ventilation. Playgrounds would have protective services – not pea gravel like we currently use. The building and playground would be ADA accessible and have safe pick-up and drop-off lanes. Additionally, each classroom at the elementary level will be a minimum of 900 square feet and bigger at the middle school level. The price increase for the middle schools comes as a result of more square feet.
The cost includes furnishings, architecture fees, and any required site modifications. In response to the comparison of an Impala or a Lexus – we would not include luxuries like a granite floor, but the schools will be built to last, which means the facilities won’t have sheet rocked walls, but masonry walls. We will pay more for sustainable products up front in order to recognize the savings in maintenance costs for decades to come.
Would a $19 million fine arts wing at Stevens High School resemble Carnegie Hall?
No. That $19 million figure includes ADA improvements and theatrical lighting upgrades to the current theater. It also includes new practice spaces and safety and security measures throughout the buildings. It will pay for things like asbestos floor tile abatement, fire sprinklers, school parking lot and site modifications.
And what does $30 million for deferred district maintenance mean? Are the roofs caving? The foundations crumbling? Does $30 million not go as far as it once did?
These dollars would be used to update obsolete light fixtures, energy inefficient single pane windows and doors at our older buildings, heating systems, and fire sprinkler systems. These funds would be used to do hazardous material abatement, ADA upgrades, elevator upgrades, keyless access systems and other security improvements. These funds would also be used to convert classrooms into lab and other spaces for STEAM and pathways.
FAQs Submission Form
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The Refugee Rights Unit was founded in 1998 as a Project within the UCT Law Clinic, aimed at providing legal support services to the growing number of refugees and asylum seekers in South Africa. It has since evolved into a fully independent Unit, with four main components: the Unit's Refugee Law Clinic provides direct legal services to thousands of refugees and asylum seekers in the Western Cape each year; the Unit conducts applied research in refugee law and related topics; it teaches refugee law to undergraduate law and masters' students within the Department of Public Law; and, it undertakes a significant amount of targeted advocacy and training of government officials, the judiciary, civil society partners and refugee communities.
The Refugee Rights Unit remains not only committed to directly assisting refugees and asylum seekers but also in engaging in research which can be used to promote and further the law in this area and as an advocacy tool in the future.
The Refugee Rights Unit is currently funded by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Atlantic Philanthropies and the Sigrid Rausing Trust.
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Chapter 5: Matthew and Luke on the Final Days in Jesus’ Ministry
The Modern Reader's Guide to the Gospels
by William Hamilton
Matthew 19-28:20 and Luke 18:15-24:53 (Compare Mark 10-16:8)
In this final section, Matthew and Luke follow Mark's order of Vents with considerable care, and the reader may wish to make of the references to Mark's gospel as he proceeds.
1. The trip to Jerusalem, Matthew 19-20 and Luke 18:15-19:27 (compare Mark 10)
When Matthew deals with Jesus' teaching on divorce, he modifies the unconditional prohibition of divorce as found in Mark. Notice Matthew 19:9, the phrase "except for unchastity," which Matthew's adds to Jesus' words from Mark. In the story of the rich young man, both Matthew and Luke leave out the touching comment Mark that Jesus looked on the young man and loved him, he had claimed obedience to the basic commandments. His discipleship needed one further thing, that he sell all his goods and give the proceeds to the poor. Full obedience for this man meant giving up his wealth, and in face of this demand he turned away sad. With a touch of humorous exaggeration, Jesus draws a conclusion from this incident. The disciples, though not themselves rich, wonder if any man can be saved. Jesus answers directly: no, not themselves or on their own merits. God alone can save man, He alone grants his kingdom. Jesus goes on to describe this kingdom as a future blessedness. Even though a man has given up every thing to be a disciple, his reward will be beyond his imagining, human standards of value and worth will be radically overturned.
a. The parable of the laborers in the vineyard, Matthew 20:1-16
This is of course a very poor lesson in labor-management relation. and is not meant to be such. "Vineyard" is a familiar symbol the Old Testament for Israel (see Isaiah 5:7); and therefore can be seen as a study in God's justice and freedom in offering the kingdom to whomever he wishes. Verse 15 is the actual point: the kingdom is a gift of grace, not given according to merit virtue, as the Pharisees and the elder brother in Luke 15 supposed.
In Matthew 20:17-19 (and in Luke 18:31-34) Jesus and disciples set out for the capital city, and he tells them for the third time what his fate is to be. A prediction of the resurrection is found in both accounts, but the dispersal of the disciples at the of the arrest, and the element of surprise when the account of the resurrection is received later on, both suggest that these are words which the evangelists place on Jesus' lips at this point. In Matthew 20:20-28, the mother of James and John requests a special place in the kingdom for her sons. Jesus refuses this silly request rather gently, and then deals with the apparently self-righteous anger of the disciples at the request itself. True power is a kingly power, but lowliness, suffering, and death. The career the Son of man is to be a model for the career of those who him. (Compare Luke 22:24-27.) The blindness of the disciples who do not see this yet, is then contrasted with the story of blind man (two in Matthew) who is made to see by (Matthew 20:29-34 and Luke 18:35-43; compare Mark '46-52).
b. Zacchaeus, Luke 19:1-10
This may be another version of the call of Levi (Mark 2:13-17 Luke 5:27-32). Zacchaeus is described as a sort of supervisor tax collection in the area, a position that ostracized him from
his fellow Jews. He is drawn to Jesus because of Jesus' reputation as a friend of such as he. Jesus calls his name (Luke does not bother to explain how Jesus knew it) and indicates that he wishes
to stay at his house. This act of acceptance was the decisive turning-point for Zacchaeus. The bystanders murmur their disapproval verse 7; Zacchacus makes a response to Jesus' act of acceptance and Jesus' words in verse 9 are apparently his answer to the crowd's criticism. Zacchaeus has shown himself to be a true Jew by his response, in spite of his ostracism by his fellow Jews. The story ends, as so often in Luke, with an emphasis on the special value in the kingdom of God of the lost, outcast and rejected.
c. The parable of the talents, Luke 19:11-27 and Matthew 25:14-30
A "talent" was equivalent to about $1000, and our modern use of the word to mean a special aptitude or gift is probably derived from this story. Matthew preserves a fairly simple version of
story. It is not primarily a defense of capitalism or banking, but a warning to the Jews not to be content with their tradition and past, but to develop and use it creatively. It could also be to a Christian disciple to make use of what he has, lest even little (faith) he has to be taken away.
Luke adds a number of details. The man has become a noble man, who leaves to receive some sort of royal power over subjects. Some local citizens oppose this, and send a delegation away to complain. On his return, invested with the royal power in spite of the objections, the nobleman rewards the faithful grants of political power, rebukes the timid ones, and gives order that the citizens who objected to his appointment be put death. Thus Luke adds an allegorical meaning beyond what the Matthew intended. The nobleman going away to become a king points to the death of Christ, and his return is the second coming. In the interim, the disciples are exhorted to be faithful, for there be rewards and punishments at the time of the last judgment. Those who hate him and oppose the "appointment" are presumably the Jews. Both versions make the same point: warning to the Jews, and advice to the disciples to be faithful and obedient so that eternal life may be granted (this is the meaning of phrase "joy of your master" in Matthew 25:21, 23).
2. Events and teaching in Jerusalem, Matthew 21:1-25:46. Luke 19:28-21:38 (compare Mark 11-13)
A very brief outline of these decisive events will be given, before we proceed to deal with the death and resurrection in more detail.
a. The entry into the city, Matthew 21:1-9 and Luke 19:28-38
This entry takes place amidst considerable tension; the crowd not understanding what is going on, the disciples themselves half bewildered, the authorities preparing to strike, and Jesus alone clearly aware of what the future is to be. Matthew makes explicit the messianic character of the entry, by quoting the passage from Zechariah 9:9. Jesus intends this as a symbolic gesture, clear to those who have eyes to see, meaningless to the rest. Here, as elsewhere, he acts out, rather than explicitly describes, his lowly messiahship. Note that Matthew, in his zeal to work out a literal fulfillment of the prophecy, misreads the Old Testament prophecy, and has Jesus in the awkward situation of riding on two animals at once.
b. The cleansing of the temple and the cursing of the fig tree, Matthew 21:10-22 and Luke 19:45-48
Matthew records both these events, and weaves them together; Luke, perhaps embarrassed by the rather unattractive picture of Jesus cursing a tree for not bearing fruit at a time when the fruit
was not supposed to grow, drops it. The cleansing is not merely the act of a reformer of piety, but a fulfillment of some Old Testament passages about the messianic age (Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah7:11). Luke radically shortens this story. It is probable that originally the story of the tree was a parable in which Jesus compared Israel to a barren fig tree, and in the process of transmission it became transformed from a parable to a narrative of an actual event.
c. Teaching and parables in Jerusalem, Matthew 21:23-24:51 (and 25:31-46) and Luke 20:1-21:36 (compare Marl 11:27-13:37)
1. A question on authority, Matthew 21:23-27 and Luke 20:1.
Jesus replies to a baited question with a counter-question. If the priests and elders denied John's authority, they would offend people; if they affirmed it, they would be obliged to affirm authority as well.
2. The parable of the two sons, Matthew 21:28-32
The point is in Matthew 21:31; verse 32 seems a rather irrelevant addition, designed to relate this passage to the previous one. Jesus' reply to his questioners could hardly have been more offensive.
3. The wicked tenants, Matthew 21:33-46 and Luke 20:9-19
Two accusations are concealed in this parable or, more allegory; the Pharisees and priests are accused in advance of murder; and God will reject the Jews because of this criminal act. Israel is in the vineyard, God is the owner, the Jews are the tenants, the servants are the prophets, and the son is Jesus himself.
4. The question of paying the poll tax, Matthew 22:15-22 Luke 20:20-26
Again the question is designed to compromise Jesus; a clear "yes" would have a bad popular effect, and a "no" would portray him as seditious. Just what is Jesus' answer here, and what are the impl- cations of it for a political ethic? What about Acts 5:29 alongside this?
5. On the resurrection, Matthew 22:23-33 and Luke 20:27-40
Jesus doesn't really answer the question put to him, except to suggest that life in the world to come will be of a different order than life here. The real intent of the passage is to base the Christian hope for resurrection on God, and not on anything inherently immortal in man.
6. The great commandment, Matthew 22:34-40 and Luke 10:25-28
A serious question from a Jew this time, not an attempt to trap Jesus. And Jesus answers it directly.
Following this is a question about the Messiah's descent from David (which Jesus seems to deny, Matthew 22:41-46 and Luke 20:41-44); and a long criticism of the Pharisees, Matthew 23:1-36 and, more briefly, in Luke 20:45-47.
7. The apocalyptic discourse, Matthew 24:1-51 and Luke 21:5-36
For a number of reasons, most observers agree that this material is a variety of sources; there may be some authentic teaching of Jesus here, but there is also some material that the church used to warn the Christians to flee from Jerusalem at the time of the Roman attack in A.D. 70. Instead of answering the question about the fall of the temple, Jesus speaks of events leading up to the final catastrophic end of all things. There is a great deal of Old Testament quotation and paraphrase here, and as a whole it is too un-original to be taken in any full sense as authentic words of Jesus.
Matthew (verses 37-51) concludes this discourse with advice on need for watchfulness, though the reference in the conclusion may be to the coming crisis in Jesus' own ministry and not to the of the world. If the reader keeps in mind these two references: to the coming crisis in Jesus' own ministry and to the persecution of the church in Matthew and Luke's time; and if he further understands that apocalyptic thinking about the future of the world is a perennial temptation in time of political or cultural despair (science fiction today is a sort of secular apocalyptic), these passages will speak movingly of the power of God even in the darkest days.
8. The last judgment, Matthew 25:31-46
The "Son of man" coming at the end of time as judge is a messianic figure (he is also called a king), but Jesus does not here identify himself with that figure. The motif is one we have already become familiar with in Matthew and Luke: humble and self-effacing service is a mark of obedience to the Messiah and his kingdom, even if one is unaware that one's service is in fact obedience to Christ. The touch of surprise in verse 38 is interesting. It may be that it is not general benevolence to all men that is described here, but rather service to the disciples of Jesus. "My brethren" in verse 40 may mean this, and Matthew 12:48-49 seems to stand as evidence for such an interpretation.
In any case, the decision against the Messiah has already been made by the Jews. The humble and lowly and sinful have obeyed; the religious leaders have rejected him. What follows is in a way both epilogue and climax. The Passion story itself works out the implications both of Jesus' rejection and the meaning of accepting and following him.
3. The Passion and resurrection narratives, Matthew 26 -- 28 and Luke 22 -- 24 (compare Mark 14 -- 16:8)
Matthew and Luke follow Mark fairly closely in their accounts of the events leading up to the last supper: the plot, Judas' betrayal, the preparation of the last supper, and the prediction of the betrayal (Matthew 26:1-19 and Luke 22:1-13, compare Mark 14:17-25. But Matthew alone includes here the story of the anointing at Bethany (26:6-13). This needs some comment. In verse 11 Jesus is saying that of course service to the poor is always required, but in this particular case the woman has performed an act that makes practical criticism irrelevant. But what had she done ? She had "anointed" Jesus. What makes the act worthy of such praise ? Two meanings are contained in the woman’s act: it is first a confession that Jesus is the Messiah, the "anointed" one. She is also pointing to his death and burial, for the dead are anointed as well. And so the woman has seen something that the disciples themselves had not seen up until now: that Jesus’ messiahship is a suffering one, and that it will lead to death.
a. The last supper, Matthew 26:17-29 and Luke 22:14-38 (compare Mark 14:17-25)
Matthew and Luke, like Mark, describe this day as the one before Passover, interpreting the trial and the death as falling on Passover itself. Thus Jesus is seen as bearing a new covenant, related to the old covenant given through Moses. John puts the crucifixion on the day before Passover, the day when the lambs are slaughtered for the feast. Matthew is quite close to Mark in this story, but Luke has some significant variations: the cup comes before the bread and is not related to the new covenant. He also stresses, in verses 16 and 18, the clement of anticipation in a way that reminds us of I Corinthians 11:26. Luke may have an independent source for this event. The bread is broken, and the wine is released, given, poured out. These arc the central gestures in this story and are the clues to what was being enacted by Jesus before his perhaps uncomprehending disciples. The broken bread points forward to the actual taking of the body on the cross the following day. What of the pouring of the wine? The blood, remember, is the source of life in psychology, and so it is not death that is involved in the shedding of blood, but the new gift of new life. Thus both death and resurrection seem to be anticipated in Jesus' words and gestures.
When the Christian church celebrates the central act of its worship -- whether it calls it Mass, Eucharist, Holy Communion, or Lord's Supper -- it points back not only to these events in the upper room, but to the whole drama of God's redemptive action that Jesus is symbolizing in his words and gestures.
b. Gethsemane, Matthew 26:36-46 and Luke 22:40-46 (cornpare Mark 14:32-42)
Matthew follows Mark almost word for word, but Luke has made the scene if anything more vivid and powerful. The threefold falling asleep of the disciples is cut; the vision of an angel is added, and the anguish is deepened. The reader should note just what is being said here: a few hours before his death, Jesus prayed that it not come to pass. He in effect rebelled against God. Only after his rebellion did he give himself into God's hands.
In the story of the arrest that immediately follows, Matthew has added a saying about Jesus' power to call into his service an army of angels, and Luke has added a rather perfunctory miracle of healing the ear of the slave that ojie of the disciples cut off in anger. Note that Luke has not included the humiliating fact of the disciples' flight after the arrest (Matthew 26:56).
C The trials, ecclesiastical and civil, Matthew 26:57-27:31, Luke 22:54-23:25 (compare Mark 14:53-15:15)
The trial before Caiaphas (Matthew names him) was probably not an official trial so much as a preliminary hearing to get evidence to present to Pilate. There were strict rules of evidence, and witnesses were unable to agree (each witness had to he examined individually, and there had to be clear agreement). So they began instead to question Jesus himself, to see if he would claim to be Messiah in order that they might present him to Pilate as a royal pretender to the Jewish throne (of Herod). Note that Matthew (26:64) and Luke (22:67-70) slightly modify Mark's version of Jesus' response to the high priest's question about his status as Messiah. In Matthew, Jesus replies "You have said so"; and in Luke, "You say that I am." Note also that Matthew and Luke clarify what is happening in Mark 14:65, by adding the taunting question, "Who is it that struck you?" This is a little game; if you are a prophet, they say, put on this blindfold and guess which one of us is hitting you.
Matthew 27:3-10 gives an account of Judas' repentance and suicide. Compare with this the brief account in Acts 1:18-19. The actual repentance and remorse is plausible, but it looks as if the rest of the passage (verses 5-10) is built up around the quotation from the Old Testament.
Matthew is closer to Mark in his record of the trial before Pilate than Luke, but even in Matthew we have a little more emphasis on Pilate's conviction of Jesus' innocence than in Mark (Matthew 27:23-25). Luke adds to Mark the Jewish complaints at the beginning of the hearing (Luke 23:2-5), several protests by Pilate of his conviction of Jesus' innocence, and Pilate's attempt to avoid responsibility of referring Jesus to Herod, the tetrarch, who is apparently in Jerusalem at the time (Luke 23:6-16). But Herod finds no crime in him, and sends him back to Pilate who again declares for his innocence
Pilate's role in all this is difficult to assess. It may well be that the church at the end of the first century, living under Roman rule and permission, is anxious to underline the Jewish responsibility and to minimize the Roman part. But Jesus is, after all, crucified, and this is a Roman method, and the charge posted on the cross was a political not a religious one. Pilate's superior, the emperor Tiberius,
was known to be merciless to suspected traitors, but he was also careful that prisoners not be mistreated. Apparently Pilate, even though he saw the motives of the high priests clearly, feared an uprising even more, and gave orders that the prisoner be condemned and crucified.
Luke adds a moving scene on the way to Calvary, 23:26-31. Pity, Jesus says, is not what is required now. The women of Jerusalem have more reason for tears than they realize, he says. The Jewish rejection of the Messiah may be the greater reason for grief, and Luke's readers will certainly have thought of the actual fall of Jerusalem and the temple in A.D. 70.
d. Crucifixion, death, and burial, Matthew 27:32-66 and 28:11-15; Luke 23:32-56 (compare Mark 15:22-47)
Matthew and Luke preserve the same form and simplicity in their accounts that is found in Mark. But some of the differences should be noted. Luke has translated the Aramaic Golgotha into "the Skull." In verses 34-35 Luke adds a saying of Jesus on the cross that is unique to him. Whom is Jesus forgiving here? The Jews or the Romans or both? Matthew adds, in verse 36, a saying about the soldiers keeping watch over the body, perhaps to prepare reader for verses 62-66. He also adds the phrase "Son of God" in verse 40, recalling that the high priest had used this phrase in his question at the trial (26:63).
Luke, in verses 39-43, adds some sayings of the two criminals crucified with Jesus. The one who asks Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingly power receives an even greater promise. "Today you will be with me in Paradise." "Paradise" is a Persian word, and it reminds us that in Jewish thought was emerging -- along with the older idea that the spirits of the dead would dwell in Sheol until the final resurrection and judgment -- this newer idea that the righteous went immediately to their reward after death.
Luke does not record the terrible cry of dereliction from the cross (Matthew 27:46), including in its place a quotation from: Psalm 31:5. We cannot hope to penetrate its meaning adequately though it is surely right to see in it something of the cost to Christ, and even to God, of the bearing of human sin. In this cry, we catch something of the depth to which God stoops in Christ; He comes fully into our humanity, our sin, and, perhaps, even into our despair. The drink of vinegar (Matthew 27:48) may be an act of mercy, or it may be another form of abuse (see Psalm 69:21).
In Mark, the centurion expresses admiration at Jesus' courage in the face of death. In Luke, he declares Jesus' innocence, verse 47, and in Matthew, verse 54, both the centurion and some bystanders are filled with awe. Note that Luke, verse 49, suggests (in the phrase "all his acquaintances") that the disciples had not all fled at the time of the arrest.
Matthew 27:62-66 and 28:11-15 are pieces of legendary material added by Matthew. They seem highly improbable. They were possibly added by early Christians to repudiate the charge that Jesus' body was merely stolen from the tomb by the disciples. lt is unlikely that the high priests would have taken Jesus' prediction of His resurrection seriously, even if they had known about it: after all, the disciples themselves were surprised by it. And it is further unlikely that Pilate would have consented to give a guard to the Jews; he has not been portrayed as exactly friendly to them. However suspicious we may be of the sources of this material, it does at least show that there was an empty tomb that needed explaining.
e. The resurrection, Matthew 28:1-20 and Luke 24:1-53
1. The empty tomb, Matthew 28:1-10 and Luke 24:1-11
Matthew and Luke both take over Mark 16:1-8, and make some significant additions. In Matthew, the women do not come to anoint body, as in Mark, presumably because of the presence of the guard. Matthew adds the touches of supernatural wonder in verses 4 and the note about the helplessness of the guards. After the angel’s words in Matthew, the women depart in fear and joy to tell the disciples, and Jesus meets them. Note their response: they both worship and touch him, an indication that Matthew intends us to understand that this is no hallucination or vision. Jesus tells the women that be will appear again in Galilee to the disciples.
In Luke, Jesus does not appear to the women, and the message they rush off to report is merely the words of the two angels. The curious fact, in verse 11, that the disciples did not believe may be contradicted by verse 24. Remember that in Mark and Matthew, the disciples had all gone home to Galilee by the time of the arrest; only in Luke 23:49 are they said still to be in Jerusalem. The contrast between the silence of the women in Mark 16:8 and the eagerness to report in Matthew and Luke is interesting.
2. The command to baptize Matth w 28:16-20
Here the promise of verse 10 is fulfilled. These verses probably reflect the early church's interpretation more than Jesus' actual words, but they make a striking climax to the gospel. The miraculous is set aside, for it is not the final word. The final word is obedience and service on behalf of the risen Lord. No part of the Bible has given Christians such a sense of the world-wide church. Note that this saying, like the ten commandments, and like the Sermon on the Mount, is given from a mountain. Some of the disciples believed, and some did not (Jesus himself had said that a resurrection would not convince everyone, Luke 16:31). He speaks of his authority and of thcir obedience. He promises them his presence, until the very end of human history itself, when all people will inherit the kingdom of God and see him face to face.
3. Resurrection appearances in Luke 24:13-53
a. The Emmaus road, 24:13-35
These two were not apparently among the original disciples, but of that other group who heard the women's story of the tomb and disbelieved it (in verses 9, 10, 11). They are on their way home from Jerusalem, and the risen Lord draws near. They do not recognize him, and Luke suggests it is because their understanding has been dulled by God. Compare Mary's confusion of the risen Christ with the gardener in John 20:14-16. The disciples describe what they had hoped for in Jesus in terms that are very similar to the early sermons of Peter in Acts 2. The cross has left them desolate, and the story of the empty tomb has not lifted their gloom. Verse 26 suggests that Christ has already entered into his glory, yet it is clearly a glory that is not over-poweringly self-evident. It has to be discerned. Their hearts burn, they later say, when Jesus expounds the biblical story, but they do not really see who he is until they break bread together. This meal seems similar to the last supper, and may have been thought of by Luke as a sort of early Lord's Supper. When they recognized him, he disappeared. They returned to Jerusalem to tell the original disciples; in the meantime, Jesus had appeared to Peter.
This story is in many ways the most vivid insight into the early church's understanding of the resurrection of Christ that we have. It was clearly understood as an historical event, but it was obviously something more. Three different stages in the disciples' understanding can be noticed: they see and listen to him; they discern who he is; and they make an appropriate response — returning to the city with the message, "The Lord has risen in deed." The resurrection cannot here be less than event (physical, it is sometimes called); but it must be something more. Discernment of its meaning in the context of the whole biblical story must come; this is the significance of the exposition of the Bible along the way. And finally, before it can be truly an experience of the risen Lord, the disciple must make a response of obedience. Thomas, remember, had first to see and to touch; only then did he find it possible to say, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28).
b. Christ's appearance in Jerusalem, Luke 24:36-49
The story of the Emmaus road is not explicit as to the form of the risen Christ. This story of the appearance to the disciples in Jerusalem in the midst of the report of the two from Emmaus, contains an insistence that Jesus' risen form was physical. He invites them to touch him; he eats fish in their presence. There is a slight difference of emphasis between this and the earlier story. There Jesus is seen, but he is not discerned or fully understood all at once. Here the appearance is interpreted as more self-evident, in spite of the wonderful phrase in verse 41: "they still disbelieved for joy."
The final words are quiet and moving. The supernatural and miraculous atmosphere has lifted, and the final emphasis is on the work to be done. Christ interprets his meaning; he gives his disciples their commission, and bids them wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit, promised in the prophecy of Joel 2:28-29 and given at Pentecost in Acts 2 (but see John 20:22).
c. The ascension, Luke 24:50-53
By comparing the Revised Standard Version and the King James here, you will notice that the statement that Jesus "was ... carried up into heaven" (verse 51, KJV) is not found in the best manuscripts, and is therefore not included in the translation. Nevertheless, this is the story of the ascension that Luke interprets more fully in Acts 1:6-11. Apparently, by the time he began on the second volume of his work he had come into possession of new material indicating that Jesus' appearances lasted for forty days. Here in the gospel, the ascension takes place on the day of the resurrection. We need not worry overmuch about the actual meaning of the ascension. The incident seems played down here in any case; Jesus' work is done, and the disciples know who he is. His presence is no longer needed as before, and it is withdrawn. The response of the disciples is the only appropriate one: they praise God with joy and gratitude, and prepare to serve him in the world.
The true '"problem" at the end here is not the problem of ascension, it is the problem of service and obedience. Since all these things have happened, what is to be done? The second volume of Luke's book (The Acts of the Apostles) begins the answer to that, and the history of the church up to today continues it.
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Chapter Two: The First and Greatest Recession (A.D. 500 – A.D. 950)
The Unquenchable Light
by Kenneth Scott Latourette
The great advance which had made Christianity the formal faith of the most populous cultural center on the globe was followed by a long period of decline which for a time seemed to presage the end of the influence of Jesus. As in the case of many great movements, boundary dates are difficult to determine and at best are only approximate. Earlier ones might be defended for both the beginning and the end of the recession.
The disheartening losses were associated with the decay of the Roman Empire. For that decay Christianity seems to have been in no way responsible. Both at the time and later the blame has been repeatedly laid at the door of Christianity. The fact that the growth of the latter coincided roughly with the rapid increase of the visible signs of the dissolution of the Greco-Roman world has appeared to many to indicate cause and effect. The factors which made for the decline of Rome were many and complex and even now scholars do not fully agree as to what they were. It is clear, however, that at least some of them had begun to operate before Christianity became prominent and possibly before the birth of Jesus. The most that can legitimately be said against Christianity is that it did not arrest and reverse the process. On behalf of Christianity it must be recorded that it was the source of most of such new cultural achievements as were registered in the Roman Empire after the second century. The emergence of the Christian Church, of Christian theology, and of Christian art shows that what was lacking in the Mediterranean world was not native ability but a sufficiently powerful impulse to stir that ability to creation. It must also be recalled that it was largely through Christianity that such of the cultural heritage of Greece and Rome as survived was preserved and transnutted to future generations.
Although Christianity was not its cause, the decay of Rome seemed to threaten the end of that faith. Christianity was put in jeopardy by its very success. Through its first great triumph it had come to be so closely associated with the Greco-Roman world that the disintegration of the one might well be the precursor of the demise of the other. Christianity appeared to be identified with the fading remnants of a passing culture.
The collapse of Rome and the losses to Christianity were hastened and accentuated by foreign invasions. The decay of Rome was due primarily to internal factors. It was accelerated and made spectacular by pressure from without. From time immemorial the fertile and salubrious Mediterranean Basin had been subject to incursions from its periphery. During the years of its might the Roman Empire was able to halt these at the frontiers. Beginning with the latter part of the fourth century invasion after invasion penetrated the weakened defenses and wrought havoc in the crumbling world. The long series is usually said to have begun with the defeat of the imperial armies and the death of the Emperor Valens at the hands of the Goths in a battle at Adrianople in A.D.
378. This was followed, in A.D. 410, by the capture and sack of Rome by Alaric and his Visigoths, an event which brought dismay throughout the Empire. In Southern Gaul and Spain the Visigoths soon erected a kingdom. Other peoples, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Alans, Suevi, Burgundians, Franks, Lombards, Angles, Saxons, and Huns, entered in the fifth and sixth centuries. Fortunately for Christianity, some of these were already adherents of that faith before they established themselves in the Empire. Others, however, were frankly pagan. The later invaders were entirely non-Christian. Wave followed wave. No sooner had partial recovery been registered than another incursion followed, bringing fresh disasters. In the sixth century, because of the Angles and Saxons, Christianity disappeared from much of Eastern Britain. In the sixth century the Uighurs, from Asia, established themselves in Central Europe. In that same century the Avars were the most powerful force in Central Europe and in the seventh century were strong enough to attack the chief center of Greco-Roman culture, Constantinople. In the seventh century came the Bulgars. They settled in the Balkan Peninsula and also proved a menace to Constantinople. In the seventh century the Slays were moving into the Balkan Peninsula and were even effecting settlements in Greece. Late in the eighth century the Vikings, from Scandinavia, began ravaging the coasts of Europe from Germany and the British Isles into the Mediter~ ranean as far east as Constantinople. Before many decades they became the rulers of parts of Ireland, Great Britain, Gaul, and what was later Russia. Each fresh wave of invaders brought fresh destruction, and especially to such centers of culture and repositories of wealth as churches and monasteries.
Even more serious was the Arab invasion of the seventh and eighth centuries. While pagan peoples were pressing in from the North and the Northeast, the bearers of a new religion were conquering the South and the Southeast. As we are to see in a moment, Christianity proved strong enough to assimilate the pagans. At least it eventually obtained their outward allegiance. The reverses which it suffered at their hands were only temporary. Islam, however, proved a different problem. In the seventh and eighth centuries Moslem Arabs conquered about half the coast of the Mediterranean, or, in other words, about half the area in which Christians constituted a majority of the population. In the lands in which it acquired political dominance Islam slowly strangled Christianity. In territories ruled by Moslems Christian churches survived for shorter or longer periods. Indeed, in several areas they are still to be found. In some regions, as in Spain, Portugal, Sicily, and, much later, the Balkans, where political power passed again into the hands of Christians, Islam eventually was either eliminated or weakened. Where Moslems continued in control of the state, Christianity suffered. Even in our own day the decline of some of the Christian enclaves continues. Never, not even to the Russian Revolution or to the skepticism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, has Christianity suffered such heavy numerical and territorial losses to any one enemy, and, indeed, to all enemies combined, as it has across the centuries to Islam.
The reasons for these losses are not far to seek. First of all was an extraordinary political situation which gave the Moslem Arabs their initial opportunity. When the Moslem Arabs, in the first enthusiasm of their new faith, tested out the defenses of their neighbors, the two strongest states of the Near East, the Byzantine and Persian Empires, had recently fought each other to the point of exhaustion. The Persians had penetrated the Byzantine realms as far as Palestine and Egypt. The Byzantine forces, staging an amazing recovery, had overwhelmed the Persians. Then, when the Arabs attacked his empire, the Byzantine ruler, Heraclius, seized by one of his strange fits of inertia, did nothing to stop them. Moreover, Syria, the logical outpost against the Arab advance, was unhappy under Byzantine rule and was disaffected, and in Egypt, the next Christian territory to fall, the attempt of the Orthodox Byzantine rulers to stamp out the prevailing Monophysitism had engendered dissension. Once having gained momentum, the Arab Moslem tide rolled on until it had engulfed the north coast of Africa, practically all of the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily, and part of Southern Gaul. In its intrinsic nature Islam had its greatest single asset. With a firm and simple belief in God which could be understood by the humblest and least educated, with a fiery confidence in Mohammed as the supreme prophet of God, with reverence for Jesus but declaring that Christians had misrepresented him, that he was not the unique Son of God, and that to Mohammed had been given a later revelation, with the type of fatalism and belief in heaven which reinforced ardor in battle, Islam proved the faith of warriors. Many Christians became convinced that its claim to be a later revelation than Jesus was borne out by its astounding military successes. Moreover, Islam, while permitting and even encouraging conversion, punished apostasy from itself with death. One might become a Moslem, but once a Moslem one must never again change his faith. While not usually compelling Christians to renounce their faith, Moslems placed them under such disabilities that many Christians were glad to renounce the Christ for the Prophet.
Christianity has proved more resistant to Islam than has any other faith—unless it be Judaism and Hinduism. The Zoroastrianism of the Persians all but disappeared or sought refuge in India, but the Christian churches in the former Persian realms lived on under the Arabs and even flourished. Christianity, and through it Jesus, made contributions to Islam. It was Christians who translated much of Greek literature, including the philosophers, into Arabic. Christian artisans seem to have done much to shape the type of architecture which bears the Arab name. Moslem mysticism and asceticism owed much to contact with the Christians.
However, where the Moslems remained in control, as we have said, the Christian churches dwindled. In North Africa the churches which had given such famous names to the faith as Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine completely disappeared. Their collapse was probably accelerated by the fact that they had their chief strength in the Greek and Latin elements in the population and had never been deeply rooted in the Berber stock. The former vanished and the latter persisted. Slowly choked by Islam, Christianity gradually faded in about half the area in which at the dawn of the sixth century it was the professed religion of the majority.
It must be noted, moreover, that Christianity, after having been introduced into China in the seventh century, presumably by the Nestorians, had disappeared from that empire by the middle of the tenth century. So far as we can ascertain the reason, it is to be found partly in severe persecutions which were visited on Buddhists as well as Christians and partly in the alien nationality of the Christians and of the Christian leadership. We are not sure that any Chinese became Christians—although it is probable that some did. The monasteries were small and, so far as we know, manned by foreigners. With the decadence of the T’ang Dynasty, in whose prosperous years Christians, with other foreigners, had been attracted to China, the alien groups seem to have dwindled.
Along with the blows dealt by invaders from without went a decline in the inner life of the Church. This decay in morale was neither steady nor uniform. Here and there were revivals. In the Byzantine East an upswing began in the ninth century. In Western Europe, however, the end of the ninth and the opening of the tenth century witnessed a nadir in the vigor of the Church. Irish monasticism, from which had issued currents of life to the British Isles and Frankish domains, had been brought to a low ebb by the prolonger Norse invasions. The decline of the Carolingian power had left ahd Papacy, to which Western Europe looked for spiritual leadership a prey to the worldly nobility of Rome. A series of Popes sat on the throne of Peter the scandal of whose lives was not offset, as was that of some of the most infamous of the Pontiffs of the fifteenth century, by the outward splendor of their court. In Western Europe Christianity seemed dying from within.
The four and a half centuries after the year 500 made clear that the vitality inherent in Christianity as the legacy of Jesus was not alone sufficient to insure the ad and survival of the faith. An adverse environment might check it or even kill it. However, the losses of Christianity in this period, while severe, are by no means the complete picture. There were also gains. Advances were made in winning fresh peoples and new territories to the Christian faith of the pagan barbarians who invaded the Mediterranean world from the North and Northeast all who permanently settled in that region became adherents of Christianity, although the conversion of some was de1 until after A.D. 950. In Western and Central Europe, even in what was, in general, a period of seeming Christianity was carried northward beyond former borders of the Roman Empire and of the faith. In the years when fresh invasions were sweeping new waves of pagans in destructive raids into nominally Christian areas and Arabs were bringing about half of what had been Christendom under the sway of the Crescent, Christianity was recouping some of its losses by conversions in that very Mediterranean Basin and on the borders of what had been the Roman Empire among peoples which until then had been largely on entirely outside its influence. In Gaul the Franks, who made themselves dominant in that area and who later constituted the nucleus of the Carolingian Empire, were baptized and became champions of the faith. The approximate date of the baptism of the first Christian king of the Franks, Clovis, was A.D. 496. Late in the sixth century and in the course of the seventh century the Angles and Saxons, who had wiped out much of the Christianity of Britain, accepted the faith which had once been their prey. From them went missionaries to the Continent. In the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries such of the Germanic peoples in Western Europe as had not been converted earlier were won. Among these were the Fnisians in the Low Countries, the Hessians, and, last of all, the Saxons. Before A.D. 950 some of the Vikings had been baptized. The Avars were converted, largely in the latter part of the eighth and in the ninth century. Beginning at least as early as the seventh century, the conversion of the Slays had its inception. It was several centuries before the process was completed. In the ninth century a large proportion of Moravians and the Bohemians were baptized. In the ninth century occurred the conversion of many of the Slays in the Balkan Peninsula, including the Serbs. The ninth and the first part of the tenth century witnessed the conversion of the Bulgars. Here was an amazing achievement, of prime importance for the future of Christianity.
It was not only among the invaders of the Mediterranean Basin that advances were registered in these dark centuries. Christianity also spread southward and eastward. Beginning in the sixth century, it gained footholds up the Nile, in Nubia. It augmented the hold which it had earlier acquired in Ethiopia. Jacobites and Nestorians and even Greek Orthodox were to be found in Central Asia. The Nestorians, as the chief of the churches in the Sassanian and then the Abbasid realms, led in the propagation of the faith in the East. In the sixth century Christian communities existed on the Oxus. There were Christians among the Hephthalite Huns and the Turks. Christianity became strong in the cities of the valley of the Jaxartes. It moved eastward across the mountains into the Tarim River Valley and in the first half of the seventh century was planted in China. Manicheaism, which honored Jesus and in which Christian influences were present, was widespread in Central Asia and was represented in China by small communities. Christianity continued in India, although we know too little of its early history there to be clear whether in these four and a half centuries its gains offset its losses. As early as the sixth century there were Christians on Socotra, not far from the entrance of the Gulf of Aden, and by the ninth century that island is said to have been Christian.
In spite of the prodigious numerical losses, the largest proportionately which Christianity was to know, and in spite of the wars, the disorder, and the collapse of the empire with which Christianity had been most closely associated, by A.D. 950 Christian communities were scattered over a broader area than they had been in A.D. 500. With them, the influence of Jesus had become more widely disseminated.
The causes of the expansion of Christianity in these difficult centuries were varied. Some of them were more obviously opposed to the spirit and teachings of Jesus than had been any of the agencies of spread in the preceding five centuries. Others, if not so manifestly contrary to what Jesus had stood for, were not intrinsically friendly to it.
Much of the conversion occurred as part of the assimilation of barbarians to the culture of the regions which they had invaded. While mastering a region, the conquerors wished to enjoy it and to take advantage of the civilization which was there. By the sixth century the Roman provincials were generally Christian. Naturally the barbarian invaders from the North and Northeast tended to drop their paganism and to assume the Christian name. This factor seems to have made powerfully for the conversion of the Slays who settled in Greece and Macedonia. It appears to have been potent in the conversion of the Franks. Undoubtedly it was largely responsible for the exchange by the Goths of their Arian Christianity for the Catholic Christianity which prevailed about them.
The expansion of Christianity often coincided with a time of prosperity of a realm which was professedly Christian. Thus the revival of the Roman Empire under Justinian was accompanied by the spread of Christianity on the borders of his territories, notably into Ethiopia, in North Africa, in Arabia, and in the Caucasus. The Carolingian monarchy, in the eighth and ninth centuries the strongest political force in Western Europe, and a champion of Catholic Christianity, was partly responsible for the halting of the Moslem Arab advance from the South and the conversion of some of the peoples on its northern and eastern marches. A renewal of the power of the Byzantine Empire in the eighth century was to some degree accountable for the acceleration of conversions in the Balkan Peninsula.
The zeal and leadership of civil rulers was often very important. As the espousal of Christianity by Constantine and his successors had speeded up the conversion of the Roman Empire, so the adoption of Christianity was hastened or made possible by the favor of many another monarch. Although Clovis did not employ force to induce his Frankish followers to conform to his example, his baptism gave a powerful stimulus to that of his nation. Again and again in Great Britain the conversion of one of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms followed upon that of its king. The Carolingians accorded active backing to missionaries among the Frisians and in the Rhine Valley. Their motive may have been partly religious, but obviously the acceptance of Christianity from agents who were under their aegis would make for the extension of their authority. The support of Christianity, therefore, became a method of Carolingian imperialism. More than one Slavic prince engineered the conversion of his subjects. The conversion of the Bulgars was accomplished largely because of the initiative of their king, Boris, and the leadership of his great son, Simeon.
Among the Slays the desire of the Germans to spread their authority was a complicating factor. It may have been fear of German aggression which led the Moravian Slavic prince, Rastislav, to send to Constantinople for missionaries. Certainly Cyril and Methodius, who came in response to this appeal, met persistent and bitter opposition from the Germans, including particularly the German clergy. Again and again German priests and monks insisted that missions among the Slays on their eastern borders must be conducted by them, and opposed the use of translations of the sacred books and the liturgy into Slavonic, presumably because it would encourage Slavic political and ecclesiastical independence of their rule.
Occasionally armed force was employed to insure the acceptance of baptism. Famous was the use of it by Charlemagne among the Saxons. Both Charlemagne and the Saxons evidently regarded the reception of baptism as tantamount to acquiescing to his authority and becoming incorporated into his realms. After he had reduced them to submission, the Byzantine Emperor Basil I compelled the Serbian pirates of the Narenta Valley to be baptized.
We must remember, moreover, that more than once force saved Christianity from grave territorial losses. It was the Battle of Tours which stemmed the Moslem Arab advance. The armies of the Byzantine Empire were long a bulwark against the Moslem tide which, but for them, might have engulfed much of Western Europe. However incompatible the spirit of Jesus and armed force may be, and however unpleasant it may be to acknowledge the fact, as a matter of plain history the latter has of ten made it possible for the former to survive.
Commerce was a factor. The spread of Jacobite and Nestorian Christianity in Central Asia largely followed the trade routes. Christianity was strong among the merchant population of the cities of Mesopotamia. Christian merchants, journeying eastward, carried their faith with them. It is more than a coincidence that Christian communities existed in such caravan centers as Merv and Samarkand. Christian merchants were among the pioneer representatives of Christianity in Scandinavia. The planting of Christianity in Southern Arabia seems to have come as a concomitant of commerce. The strength of what was known as Syrian Christianity in the regions of India in which were the marts of sea-borne commerce is probably evidence of the close connection of the origin of that faith with the trade with Mesopotamia.
Sometimes what many Christians would call superstition led men to the baptismal font. Miracles were confidently believed and reports of them aided the spread of the faith. For instance, the visit of the English Bishop Wilfrid to the Frisians in A.D. 678 and his preaching coincided with an unusually large catch of fish and peculiarly fruitful harvests. These were attributed to his presence and encouraged the reception of baptism.
It was not alone factors indifferent or even antagonistic to the temper of Jesus and his message which accounted for the spread of Christianity in these parlous centuries. Within Christianity and deriving ultimately from Jesus was a vitality without which the faith would not have persisted or have won fresh converts.
The active missionaries who preached, baptized, and taught the neophytes were usually monks. Monks, it will be remembered, were Christians who, at least in theory, had given themselves fully to the commands of Jesus. Obeying what they believed to be his behest, they had left all to follow him. To be sure, monasteries often lost their pristine devotion and became centers of easy living and even of vice. Many were attracted to them by the hope of security and quiet in a disorderly age. However, this decay in devotion was usually after the initial hardships of breaking ground for the faith and founding the monastery had passed. In the pioneer stages, it was usually the more sincere and singlehearted who bore the brunt of missionary effort. They did not perfectly conform to the standards of Jesus. Some of them were attracted by the opportunity for adventure or were moved by dissatisfaction with their lot in the parent monastery. Yet in general it was those who were most ardently loyal to Jesus as they understood him who were the outstanding pioneers and who were most honored by succeeding generations. The very fact that their memory was revered tended to perpetuate the life which they were believed to have embodied. Thus Martin of Tours, who, to judge by the number of churches named for him, was an inspiration and model of many an ecclesiastic and layman, was remembered by a friend and admirer as never angry or annoyed or mournful and as having nothing in his mouth but Christ and nothing in his heart but piety, peace, and pity. It was just at the dawn of this period, so generally a time of recession for Christianity, that one of the great monastic movements came into being. It was in the sixth century that Benedict developed the rule which long gave Western monasticism its characteristic form. The Benedictine rule, with its alternation of work and worship, was more activistic than was most of Eastern monasticism. The Benedictine houses which were dotted over much of Western Europe became centers of learning and of the arts of peace and often were aggressively missionary. They strengthened the tradition, probably in part an expression of the practical Roman spirit and partly derived from Jesus himself, which made Christianity in the West a more effective force for molding civilization than was Christianity in the East. Gregory, later named "the Great," who had been caught up in the first flush of the Benedictine movement and had devoted his inherited wealth to the poor and the Church, sent the famous contingent of Roman monk-missionaries to Britain. The Irish monks who had so large a share in the conversion of many of the peoples of Great Britain and of the Continent and did much to revive the Christianity of Western Europe professed to leave home and go upon their wanderings "for the name of the Lord" or "for the love of the name of Christ"—or at least these were among the motives ascribed to them by their biographers. Two of the greatest Irish missionaries, Columban in the Frankish domains and Columba in Scotland, made their original excursion from their homeland with twelve companions, presumably in imitation of Jesus and his apostles. Willibrord, the outstanding English missionary to the Frisians, drew his inspiration from the Irish, and his original band to the Low Countries numbered twelve. The monk Boniface, the chief missionary in the Rhine Valley, turned his back upon assured ecclesiastical position in England for the perils of a pioneer and left a profound impression of courage, selflessness, and beauty and strength of life. It was Anskar, a monk who had already been one of a ground-breaking group in the land of the recently converted Saxons, who became the head of the perilous Frankish enterprise for winning the piratical Scandinavians.
The chief agency for the perpetuation and propagation of Christianity in these dark centuries was that unique creation of the Christian spirit, the Church.
In some respects the Church profited by the collapse of the Roman Empire. In the East, in the Byzantine realms, where the power and tradition of the Roman state survived in a continuous succession from the C~sars, the Church, true to the traditional position of the official religion of the Empire, was kept subordinate and ancillary to the state. To be sure, it maintained much of the structure which it had developed before it was adopted by the state, and, in general, it was less subservient than the state cults which had preceded it. Not all of its independence was quenched. Yet it tended to be an arm and tool of the state. In contrast, in Western Europe, where the political structure of the Empire suffered more than in the East and in several regions disappeared, the Church survived and took to itself some of the powers and functions of the Empire. It had an ecclesiastical structure more comprehensive geographically than that of any single state and acknowledged allegiance to a single directing head, the Bishop of Rome. For generations the Byzantine Emperors preserved their hold on diminished portions of the Roman domains in the West. Charlemagne attempted to revive the Empire in the West and he and some of his successors bore the imperial title. In the tenth century Otto I was crowned Emperor, a step which is usually regarded as the inauguration of the Holy Roman Empire. Yet the Byzantine dominion in the West dwindled and neither Charlemagne nor the Holy Roman Emperors obtained the extensive control over the Church which their Byzantine counterparts exercised in the East. In spite of some palpably unworthy and weak men who obtained the See of Peter, the power of the Papacy increased, enhanced by the decay of the imperial authority and by its double heirship to the great tiame of Rome and to the prestige of Peter and Paul and built up by an occasional Pontiff of outstanding ability. Even apart from the Papacy, although in practice that separation was not made, the Church in the West remained the most stable institution in an age of disorder when civil authorities came and went and violence was rampant. Thus in the first centuries of the invasions of Gaul the bishops, recruited largely from the GalloRoman aristocracy, stood for order and were the protectors of the weak. It was chiefly through the Church and its monasteries that such education and learning as survived was handed down to later generations, that the poor were succored, that the marriage tie was given sanctity, that the sick were cared for, that travelers were sheltered, and that morality was inculcated. To be sure, ecclesiastical offices were often the prey of men who were attracted by their power and wealth. Both higher and lower clergy often grossly caricatured or in effect spurned the Christian ideal. In times of grave civil disorder the morale and quality of the Church sometimes sank to a low ebb. Yet the Church went on, the most nearly stable and inclusive institution in an age when war was chronic and only a few of the strongest princes could establish, and then only temporarily and over a limited area, some semblance of order.
This perseverance of the Church was due primarily to its inward spiritual strength. It was not from the momentum acquired in the days when the Roman Empire was intact. Had the latter been the explanation, the Church would have collapsed with the Empire or at best would have survived it but a few generations. The Church went on, the source of continuing life and even in the Dark Ages the wellspring of new movements. In spite of temporary recessions it was a growing power. That this was the case must be ascribed to the strength of the original impulse out of which the Church arose. It was due, in the last analysis, to Jesus himself.
It is, however, significant that this impulse from Jesus issuing in a vigorous church was most potent in the conditions peculiar to ‘Western Europe. It persisted in the Byzantine Empire, but not so markedly, apparently because it was handicapped by a strong even though ostensibly friendly state. It was unable to make much headway in the Persian realms where the espousal of Zoroastrianism by the state restrained it. In general it lost ground in areas where Islam held the reins of political power. It was in Western Europe, where it faced a much weaker paganism, was associated with the prestige of Roman civilization, and, while often favored by civil rulers, did not have to confront a continuously powerful state which controlled all phases of life, that the influence of Jesus was most marked. Inner vitality was essential to survival, but it was not enough. The environment also had to have favoring features. In this age of the major recession of the faith it was the combination of inner vitality and environment which made possible the persistence and the growing power of Christianity in Western Europe. It was in the one area in which states professedly friendly to Christianity were not strong enough to bring the Church completely to heel that the influence of Jesus was most effective. It was from this area that it chiefly went on to future ages and that it had its major geographic expansion.
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Bargains On The Baghdad Exchange
Courtesy of Barrons, an interesting article on why Geoff Batt and Grant Felgenhauer of the Euphrates Iraq Fund, the country’s largest non-Iraqi investors, like Bank of Baghdad, Al-Mamoura Real Estate, and Pepsi distributor Baghdad Soft Drinks, the country’s largest soft drink provider with 80% of the market:
Americans sacrificed lives and billions of dollars in Iraq. Geoffrey Batt, 35, is optimistic that those sacrifices weren’t in vain. In 2010, the investor started what is now the largest U.S.-managed hedge fund devoted to that recovering nation. Since inception, the $62 million Euphrates Iraq fund has returned about 30%, as the Iraqi people build a modern economy underwritten by record levels of oil production. Joined by his partner Grant Felgenhauer, 39, Batt told us why Iraq’s little stock market may be poised for a rally reminiscent of postwar Germany, 1990s Russia, Hong Kong, or South Korea.
Barron’s: How did you wind up in Iraq, Geoff ?
Batt: I didn’t know the distinction between a stock and a bond when I was an undergrad. My intention was to pursue a Ph.D. in philosophy and become a college professor. But junior year, I took a graduate seminar, and there was a third-year Ph.D. student who was the smartest guy in the class. He also looked like he may have routinely slept in his clothes. We would go to lunch after class and talk about philosophy and current events. After knowing him for a year, I told him that I had to leave school because I couldn’t afford to pay the following year’s tuition.
And he said, “Maybe I can help you.”
“Before I decided to pursue a Ph.D.,” he told me, “I created the first fund to invest in post-Soviet Russia, called Firebird. That’s how I made my fortune. I’m starting a new venture that will focus on Asia, ex-Japan. Why don’t you come work for me for a year and learn how the world works? The last thing we need is another philosopher who doesn’t know anything about the real world. If we do well, I’ll pay you a bonus that will cover your tuition.”
Who was this guy?
Batt: Daniel Cloud. If you could only see this guy telling you that he’d created the first fund to invest in Russia — I mean he looked, on certain days, like maybe he actually slept outside. It didn’t fit my conception of what a wealthy person looked like. I left the conversation a little scared. But I looked him up on Google, and sure enough, everything he’d said was true. There was a story and pictures of him and Firebird’s other founding partner in Barron’s in the mid-’90s.
Was he better dressed for Barron’s?
Batt: Oh yeah, he was in a suit and a tie. He cleans up well.
I was intrigued. I talked to my parents, and they said, “We think you’re nuts, but you can do what you want.” So I worked for Dan for a year. We focused on East Asian emerging markets like Thailand, Taiwan, Indonesia. They did very well that year. I got my bonus, and it paid my tuition.
Actually, I had money left over to invest. I went back to school and would sit in the lecture hall with my laptop reading 10-Qs and 10-Ks, rather than listening to the teacher. My heart simply wasn’t in it anymore. After a semester, I decided to go part-time so that I could focus more on markets. Eventually, I just dropped out, two classes short of graduation. Chalk it up to Latin. I just couldn’t pass Latin, no matter how I tried. In retrospect, a foolish decision. Maybe I was a bit mad myself.
Then I started looking for the next Russia, the next historic equity “rerating.” And I was a bit despondent because in the summer of 2007 just about everything that you can think of was in a bull market. Emerging markets were very fashionable. Commodities were in a fifth or sixth year of a big bull market. Even currencies had spectacular moves.
“Rerating” means what?
Batt: Think of a rerating as earnings growth and multiple expansion at the same time. You get this compounding effect.
Grant Felgenhauer: Successful reratings have three characteristics: No. 1, stable currency and prices; No. 2, the ability for the economy to grow into something significant; and No. 3, very low valuations.
Batt: In the summer of 2007, I happened to come across an article about how Iraq was increasing its oil production. I thought to myself this is a strange thing. All I knew was what I read in the newspapers or saw on television. I’d thought Iraq was a failed state, fighting a civil war. How on earth did a failed state increase oil production?
This was the sort of thing Dan taught me to look for — a very wide gap between perception and reality. The wider the gap, the bigger the opportunity to make money. So I looked more closely and saw that it wasn’t just oil that was increasing. Deposits in the banking sector had started to rise rapidly; electricity generation was rising. Their currency was stable. Violence from terrorism — which was around 4,000 fatalities a month at its peak in 2006 — had dropped to about 1,000 a month, down about 75%.
I went to the stock exchange Website in December 2007, got all the brokers’ addresses, and e-mailed everyone. Something like five responded…two in English…one in coherent English. I went with that guy. Opened an account, wired some $2,000, bought a stock, sold it the next day, and wired the money back to my bank in New York — all to see if I could get the money out.
There was no problem, and I just went from there. I told Dan about it, and he said something like, “You’ve come to me with 100 ideas, and 99 of them have been either average or bad. But I know this one is really good, because the very first thing I thought was, How can I steal it from you?”
Come 2010, I told Dan that there could be demand for a hedge fund, but none existed. We launched Euphrates with $5 million of our own money, in October. We didn’t start taking outside investment until late December 2010, after I published an article about Iraq in the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report.
The newsletter published by Barron’s Roundtable member Marc Faber.
Batt: Yes. He became an investor in our fund. A lot of high net-worth individuals read his newsletter. We went from $5 million to $27 million pretty quickly. That’s when I brought Grant in. Once Grant came on board, we really started to grow. Now we are up to $68 million, including managed accounts.
Where’d he find you, Grant ?
Felgenhauer: I started my career thinking that I would spend the rest of my life working in post-Soviet Russia. I made my first trip there during high school in 1991 and continued to go back every year during college. In 2004, I joined a firm called Hermitage Capital, which was the largest portfolio investor in the Russian equity market. I came to Hermitage because its manager Bill Browder had invested successfully in the treacherous operating environment of Moscow. Russia had been experiencing one of these historic equity reratings that happen once in a generation. Hermitage moved to London in 2007 and launched a global fund focused on frontier and emerging markets. We looked at Iraq, and in the course of that work, I met Geoff. When he described what was happening on the ground in Iraq, it sounded like Moscow in 1994-95. I invested in his fund individually, in the summer of 2011. Then I joined Euphrates in April 2012.
So how’s Baghdad these days?
Batt: It’s surprisingly normal, though all you see on TV are bullets and bomb blasts.
So it’s not like The Hurt Locker?
Batt: Nothing like that. The violence in Iraq is high-profile violence, sure, because there are bombs going off. But it’s concentrated in a few areas in the west and the north: some parts of Baghdad, but mostly places like Fallujah, Mosel, Kirkuk, Tikrit. Yet most of the oil is in the south, and that’s where it’s actually safest. In the main business district of Baghdad, you can walk around at night, window shop, and go to restaurants. You look out your hotel room window and see two guys playing tennis in the middle of the afternoon, other guys jogging down the street, kids playing in a playground.
Felgenhauer: Rising GDP per capita is going to overwhelm any kind of divide between the people, sectarian or otherwise. It also means that the guys setting off bombs have no following. Iraq has a terrorism problem now, not a civil-war problem.
Are there other foreign investors like yourselves in Iraq now?
Batt: In 2008, I was one of three or four people in the West investing more than a million dollars in the Iraqi stock market. There are a few more now.
Felgenhauer: The stock exchange keeps track of Iraqi trading and non-Iraqi trading. Non-Iraqis rarely reach 20% of daily turnover, and often much lower than that. If you consider non-Arab foreigners, it is basically us and a few other funds, none of which is larger than $30 million. That will change.
How big is the Baghdad market?
Batt: When I first invested in 2008, the exchange had a market cap of $1.8 billion, smaller than the Palestinian Stock Exchange. By 2013, it had a $5 billion market cap. Mid-February, it was $10 billion, because of a $5 billion IPO — the largest in the Middle East in five years, a mobile telecommunications operator called Asiacell [ticker: TASC.Iraq].You will have another $5 billion telecom IPO late this year or early next year.
OK. What’s in your portfolio?
Batt: A key difference between the Iraqi stock market and Russia is that in Russia you were investing directly in Lukoil or Gazprom. In Iraq, oil is state-owned.
Felgenhauer: A good analogy is Saudi Arabia. As an equity investor in Saudi Arabia, you never own a piece of Aramco. But you can own everything that benefits from the liquidity provided by Aramco.
So banks are about 45% of our portfolio, real estate is just over a quarter, consumer goods is about the same, and the rest is logistics, trucking, hotels.
Batt: We think of a bank as a leveraged investment on the growth of a country, particularly when a country goes from not having a banking system to having a banking system. The banks can go from being very, very tiny to colossal in a relatively short period of time, short being defined as 15 years. They can go from having $300 million to $40 billion to $50 billion in assets.
Company Ticker Price
Bank of Baghdad BBOB 1.97*
Baghdad Soft Drinks IBSD 2.36
Al-Mamoura Real Estate SMRI 3.75
Companies trade on the Iraq Stock Exchange. Prices in Iraqi dinars.
*As of 7/02/13. Source: Bloomberg
Felgenhauer: We own Bank of Baghdad [BBOB.Iraq]. It is Iraq’s No. 2 private bank, by assets, with a market cap of roughly $300 million. It’s inconceivable to me that in 10 years the market cap will be $300 million.
Batt: In Saudi Arabia, over the past 50 years, you’ve had a 114,000% increase in the assets of their banking system. Bank of Baghdad is now about $1.4 billion in assets. You could easily imagine this bank having $15 billion or $20 billion in assets in the next 10 years. Let’s say it has $20 billion in assets and a 2% return on those assets. It would earn $400 million, which is greater than its market cap right now.
We are also investing in consumer products. We own 7.5% of Baghdad Soft Drinks [IBSD.Iraq], which is the Pepsi bottling distribution company for Iraq. Pepsi is the No. 1 soft drink in Iraq, and the company has 80% of Baghdad’s soft-drink market. Iraq is one of the hottest places on earth. We have rising per-capita GDP and a young, rapidly growing population. So it is an ideal environment to be investing in the soft-drink business, particularly one as well managed as this company is.
Felgenhauer: And it is trading at seven-times earnings.
Tell us another of your holdings.
Felgenhauer: We own a real-estate company — Al-Mamoura Real Estate [SMRI.Iraq]. They own the single largest undeveloped plot of land in suburban Baghdad, which is an asset that is going to do great things in this kind of cycle that we are just starting. In the meantime, they just build seven-story apartment buildings over and over again, whose units sell like hot cakes.
What limits Iraq’s capital markets?
Felgenhauer: Illiquidity. The exchange’s daily trading volume is between $2 million and $4 million. You can have some days where you trade $30 million, but it is a small market.
What else is missing?
Batt: Major third-party custodians. Institutional investors invariably bring up custody as their No. 1 concern. Now, custody is via the stock exchange itself. But a large $50 billion regional bank, called National Bank of Kuwait, is thinking about offering custody.
Felgenhauer: Citibank just went into Iraq.
Batt: And JPMorgan announced that they are going back in. Standard Charter is going back in. You can easily imagine third-party custody put into place within a 12-to-18 month period. That could lead to a significant amount of foreign money coming in.
You must be optimists.
Batt: Iraq is a very diverse place. It is arguably the most important place for Shia Islam, but at the same time it is a cosmopolitan and progressive place. You have Sunni and Shia Muslims, Arab Christians, Kurdish Christians, Kurdish Sunnis, Syrians, even Zoroastrians. It’s a melting pot of ethnicities and religions. I met with the CEO of the stock exchange, and one assistant comes into his office dressed in traditional Arab clothing. She won’t even shake your hand. The next assistant comes in, and she’s wearing a black miniskirt with stiletto boots and a lot of makeup. She looks like she could be walking down the street in SoHo. And they are working together. The CEO of the largest bank in Iraq is a woman. Twenty-five percent of parliament is made up of women.
Felgenhauer: What’s happening there is reshaping the Middle East and affecting every neighbor. Saudi Arabia is terrified of Iraq. They see a country that is growing oil production and where a quarter of the parliament are women who can drive and do whatever they want. It scares them to death.
Batt: And they have regular elections.
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Character Sketches 2018 was so popular, we've extended the program into 2019 and expanded the months the program is available, January 9th, through October.
1 Forty-five minute sketch.
Character Sketches is not a “class." No teacher or mentor is present.
We ask (not require) that you permit us to photograph one or more of your sketches to use as advertisement for future sessions, and to send to the model as a thank you.
January 9: Scout / To Kill a Mockingbird.
Scout is an intelligent and courageous young girl living in the middle of the Great Depression.
Model: Reese Burton.
Click here to see all images
January 16: Santiago is a Cuban fisherman who has had an extended run of bad luck. Despite his expertise, he has been unable to catch a fish for eighty-four days. He is humble, yet exhibits a justified pride in his abilities.
Model: Jim Shurtleff.
Click here to see all images.
January 23: Nell Trelawney / Treasure Mountain. Nell is one of the girls from back home who the Sackett's run into during their western adventures.
Model: Stephanie Hunter
January 30: Bob Cratchit / A Christmas Carol. Cratchit works for 15 shillings a week at a rate of three pence ("thruppence") an hour for 60 hours per week. In terms of 2015 purchasing power, this would be approximately £63.00 or about $94 US per week.
Model: Craig Isom
February 6: Bellatrix Lestrange / Harry Potter series. One crazy witch. Her years in Azkaban Prison seem to have only strengthened her love for Voldemort and his mission, and she's his most fervent, loyal follower. All she ever thinks about is Voldemort's success. She's unafraid to be cruel – in fact, she loves it. To make things worse, not only is Bellatrix criminally insane, she's also arrogant as all get-out; her mockery is almost as bad as her malice.
Model: Kira Greener
February 13: Westley and Buttercup / The Princess Bride. Just in time for Valentine’s Day! Westley is Buttercup’s beloved “farm boy” who, after leaving to seek his fortune returns to save Buttercup from all that threatens her. Feisty, tomboyish Buttercup, the most beautiful woman in the world, loves Westley and her horse.
Models: Garett and Kyra Ruesch
February 20: Siren / The Odyssey. The Sirens are mythical creatures. They lure men to their island with their music and voices, never to return to their families and homes. In the Odyssey, the Sirens were briefly encountered by Odysseus and his men. When they were drawing near, Odysseus used Circe's advice of how to avoid being drawn in by them and plugged his men's ears with wax; he was also tied to his ship in order to stay with them. To the fortune of Odysseus and his crew, all passed with complete survival.
Model: Lainee Mathews
February 27: Quasimodo / The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Born deaf, with a hunched back and a wart covering one of his eyes, as a child he was abandoned but eventually the Archdeacon Claude Frollo adopted him on Quasimodo Sunday (the first Sunday after Easter). Frollo names him after the day he was found. As he grows up he becomes hated for his deformities but it is revealed that he has a kind heart.
Model: Roy Mathews
March 6: Lisabeth Salander / The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. She is fiercely independent, stubborn, and intelligent, and is able to use both her smarts and violence to get herself out of sticky situations. She's motivated by a desire to expose people's secrets as well as exact revenge for crimes, particularly violent crimes against women.
Model: Xochi Jimenez
March 13: Puck / A Midsummer Night's Dream. Puck is a powerful supernatural creature, capable of circling the globe in 40 minutes or of enshrouding unsuspecting mortals in a deep fog. Also known as Robin Goodfellow, Puck would have been familiar to a sixteenth-century English audience, who would have recognized him as a common household spirit also often associated with travelers.
Model: Caitlin Hanson
March 20: Éponine / Les Miserables. Éponine is the eldest daughter in the Thénardier family. But just because she's not exactly high-falutin' doesn't mean she's an unregenerate reprobate like dear old dad. In fact, she protects Cosette and Jean Valjean's house from her father and his goons because she has such deep feelings for Marius.
Model: Cecily Whittier
March 27: Paul Bunyan / folklore, tall tales. The hero of yarns first told along the Canadian border about 1837. Bunyan first saw Babe, the Blue Ox, the winter the blue snow fell. Bunyan invents the multiplication table, the cube root system, and algebra so that he can keep accurate records. He sweats so hard cutting the stonewood trees in Utah that he creates Salt Lake. With the coming of machinery, however, there is no place for him, and he and Babe disappear forever.
Model: Collin Shurtleff
April 3: Harley Quinn / Batman comics. Dr. Harleen Frances Quinzel, PhD, is a frequent accomplice and lover of the Joker, whom she met while working as a psychiatrist at Gotham City's Arkham Asylum, where the Joker was a patient. The character has teamed up with fellow villains Catwoman and Poison Ivy several times, the trio being known as the Gotham City Sirens
Model: Gabby Cox
April 10: Nolan / Killer Angels: Nolan is a Union Army doctor in the American Civil War who has never treated a black person until one is brought to him by his fellow Union soldiers.
Models: Larry and Naomi Bilyeu
April 17: Alice / Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The seven-year-old protagonist of the story. Alice believes that the world is orderly and stable, and she has an insatiable curiosity about her surroundings. Wonderland challenges and frustrates her perceptions of the world.
April 24: Don Quixote / The Ingenious Nobleman Sir Don Quixote of La Mancha. The novel’s tragicomic hero. Don Quixote’s main quest in life is to revive knight-errantry in a world devoid of chivalric virtues and values. He believes only what he chooses to believe and sees the world very differently from most people. Honest, dignified, proud, and idealistic, he wants to save the world.
Model: Jim Shurtleff
Click here for all images.
May 1: Merlin / Arthurian Legends. A sorcerer who arranges for Arthur to be brought up outside the royal court, in exchange for providing Uther with the means of attaining Igraine as his wife. Merlin’s powers include foretelling the future and enchanting mortals to follow his command. But his powers are also partial and limited, and ultimately he succumbs to the very mortal weakness of desire, which leads to his death.
Model: Derek Wood
May 8: Mr. Tumnus / The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Mr. Tumnus is a Faun—a creature that is human from the waist up and a goat from the waist down. He is the first person Lucy meets in Narnia and they quickly become besties. Although Mr. Tumnus had previously agreed to hand over any human being he met to the White Witch, as soon as he meets Lucy and gets to know her, he realizes that he can do no such thing.
Model: James Harris
May 15: Holly Golightly / Breakfast at Tiffany's. Holly was orphaned at a young age and we learn that her childhood was pretty rough since she was forced to move in with some pretty terrible relatives after her parents' deaths. She and her brother Fred eventually run away and they end up living at Doc Golightly’s after one of his daughters finds them trying to steal milk. The two look so pitiful that Doc takes them in, and Holly eventually marries him because he's been so good to her and because, as she tells us, she loves him.
May 22: Tom Sawyer / The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Tom is a mischievous boy with an active imagination who spends most of the novel getting himself, and often his friends, into and out of trouble. Despite his mischief, Tom has a good heart and a strong moral conscience. As the novel progresses, he begins to take more seriously the responsibilities of his role as a leader among his schoolfellows.
Model: Berkeley Terry
May 29: Nurse Ratched / One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The cold, implacable head nurse of the psychiatric ward. Chief Bromden describes her arrival for morning shift: “She slides through the door with a gust of cold . . .” As a former Army nurse, prides herself on order and efficiency. She quickly extinguishes any behavior on the ward that deviates from her mechanized regime.
Model: Jennifer Terry
June 5: Agatha Trunchbull / Matilda. Agatha Trunchbull is the headmistress of Crunchem Hall, a primary school for students five through twelve years old in Roald Dahl's Matilda. Trunchbull is a force to be reckoned with. She's unattractive to look at and built like a tank; her thick, stocky, muscular body is usually clothed in a uniform similar to a soldier’s. Ms. Trunchbull was an athlete when she was younger, and she still has a powerful body. When she moves around the school, she doesn't walk, she marches, and when she marches everyone gets out of her way!
Model: Cassie Walker
June 12: Hercule Poirot / developed by Agatha Christie. A retired Belgian police officer. Poirot is Christie's most famous detective and is known for his short stature and long, curly moustache. Poirot is very intelligent, extremely aware and instinctual and is a brilliant detective.
Model: Trevor Walker
June 19: Katniss Everdeen / Hunger Games. When she was 16 years old, Katniss volunteered to take her sister, Primrose Everdeen's place in the 74th Hunger Games after Prim's name was called during the reaping. Originally, she had no intention of going into the games, hoping she wouldn't be picked before the female tribute was chosen.
Model: Brittany Buehler
June 26: Witches / Shakespeare's Macbeth. Three “black and midnight hags” who plot mischief against Macbeth using charms, spells, and prophecies. Their predictions prompt him to murder Duncan, to order the deaths of Banquo and his son, and to blindly believe in his own immortality.
Models: Heather, Lee, and Lily Shurtleff
Emily Stone doesn’t have a badge. But that hasn’t stopped her from tracking down some of the West’s most dangerous child-killers. Armed with a digital SLR camera, laptop computer and her trusty Beretta, Stone uses her innate gift for detective work to identify the perps — and then anonymously e-mail the evidence to the cops.
July 10: Peter Pan / Peter Pan. Peter is the clever, adventurous, and confident leader of the Lost Boys. While at times he is boastful and self-centered, there is a side of Peter that is caring and joyous. His desire to stay a child forever allows him to continue his adventures unburdened by the realities of growing up. He is the embodiment of youthful naivete.
Model: John Myers
July 17: King Mongkut of Siam / Anna and the King of Siam. Temperamental and sometimes cruel, at other times childlike, generous, and kind. Intelligent, in spite of his capriciousness, he is willing to try advanced ideas.
Model: Jared Meibos
July 24: Holiday - No Character Sketches.
July 31: Ginger Grant / Gilligan's Island. Ginger is a "movie star", and would casually mention names of some of the biggest movie stars of the day, as co-stars or acquaintances, suggesting that she too was a great star. She also mentions her roommate and fellow actress, Debbie Dawson, several times. Gillilgan's Island ran from 1964 to 1967 and fostered spin off movies like "Return to Gilligan's Island." It has also generated several books about the show and it's characters including "Inside Gilligan's Island: From Creation to Syndacation" and "Mary Ann's Gilligan's Island Cookbook."
Model: Kimber Myers
August 7: Vin / Mistborn. Vin is the main protagonist of the Mistborn Trilogy. She was recruited to help overthrow the Lord Ruler by Kelsier, and played a pivotal role in the Lord Ruler's defeat, the subsequent Skaa government, and the consolidation of the Second Final Empire. She is later praised as the "Ascendant Warrior" in The Alloy of Law though at that point she is more myth than fact.
August 14: Scheherazade / One Thousand and One Nights. King Shahryar found out that his first wife was unfaithful to him. He thus resolved to marry a new virgin each day as well as behead the previous day's wife, so that she would have no chance to be unfaithful to him. He had killed 1,001 such women by the time he was introduced to Scheherazade, the vizier's daughter. Against her father's wishes, Scheherazade volunteered to spend one night with the king. Once in the king's chambers, Scheherazade asked if she might bid one last farewell to her beloved sister, Dunyazad, who had secretly been prepared to ask Scheherazade to tell a story during the long night. The king lay awake and listened with awe as Scheherazade told her first story. So the king kept Scheherazade alive day by day, as he eagerly anticipated the finishing of the previous night's story. At the end of 1,001 nights, and 1,000 stories, Scheherazade told the king that she had no more tales to tell him. During these 1,001 nights, the king had fallen in love with Scheherazade. He spared her life and made her his queen.
Model: Kay Scott
August 21: Despite her beauty and charm, Daisy is merely a selfish, shallow, and in fact, hurtful, woman. Gatsby loves her (or at least the idea of her) with such vitality and determination that readers would like, in many senses, to see her be worthy of his devotion. Although Fitzgerald carefully builds Daisy's character with associations of light, purity, and innocence, when all is said and done, she is the opposite from what she presents herself to be.
August 28: Jason / Jason and the Golden Fleece (The Argonautica). Jason's real strength lies in his leadership skills. Nobody ever says he's a bad warrior, but his quest is truly achieved through his skills at delegation. Instead of sailing off to get the Golden Fleece all by himself, he assembles the most intimidating team of heroes the world has ever seen.
Model: Phil Jenson
September 4: Roland Deschain / Stephen King's Dark Tower series. Roland becomes a gunslinger at the unheard-of age of 14 after being manipulated into taking the "trial of manhood" by Marten Broadcloak, his father's adviser. Marten has an affair with Roland's mother and makes sure Roland finds out about it, prompting Roland to request his trial in order to gain his guns and exact revenge on Marten. Roland is a 30th-generation descendant of his world's version of King Arthur, referred to in the series as Arthur Eld.
Model: Randy Seely
September 11: Sula / Toni Morrison. Sula Peace, the main antagonist, whose return to the Bottom disrupts the whole community. The main reason for Sula's strangeness is her defiance of gender norms and traditional morality, symbolized by the birthmark "that spread from the middle of the lid toward the eyebrow, shaped something like a stemmed rose."
Model: Koryn Sobel
September 18: Jim Chee / Tony Hillerman character. Jim Chee is one of two Navajo Tribal Police detectives in a series of mystery novels by Tony Hillerman. Unlike his superior Joe Leaphorn, the "Legendary Lieutenant", Chee is a staunch believer in traditional Navajo culture; indeed, he is studying to be a traditional healer at the same time that he is a police officer.
Model: Bobby Rowser
September 25: Luther Billis / South Pacific. A Seabee who rates himself as a great entrepreneur in the tourist souvenir business, but is constantly outsmarted by Bloody Mary. He is everybody's chum and general help-mate.
Model: Kent Barney
October 2: Jeeves / developed by P. G. Wodhouse. Jeeves is the highly competent valet of a wealthy and idle young Londoner named Bertie Wooster. First appearing in print in 1915, Jeeves continued to feature in Wodehouse's work until his last completed novel Aunts Aren't Gentlemen in 1974, a span of 60 years. Both the name "Jeeves" and the character of Jeeves have come to be thought of as the quintessential name and nature of a valet or butler. A "Jeeves" is now a generic term as validated by its entry in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Model: Paul Terry
October 9: Rollerskate Carhop / American Graffiti: A waiter or waitress who serves food to customers in their cars.
October 16: Anthony "Ant" Jones / Black Boy White School: In a hard-hitting novel about fitting in—or not—Anthony “Ant” Jones gets transported from his East Cleveland hood to an almost all-white prep school and has to figure out where he belongs...before he loses himself entirely. Everyone calls him “Tony,” assumes he’s from Brooklyn, expects him to play basketball, and yet acts shocked when he fights back. As Anthony tries to adapt to a world that will never fully accept him, he’s in for a rude awakening: Home is becoming a place where he no longer belongs.
Model: Mekhi Sobel
October 23: Ouiser Boudreaux / Steel Magnolias. Ousier is an older woman in her late fifties to early sixties. She is seen as bitter and annoyed most of the time. She has a dislike towards Drum Eatenton. In her life, the things she values the most are her dog Rhett and her property. She is constantly arguing with M’Lynn’s husband Drum over property but does have a deep concern with Shelby like all other characters. Even though she speaks poorly to the other women sometimes, she still considers them as her closest companion. She has been married twice and has children.
Model: Heather Shurtleff
October 30: Unidentified character. Scheduling issues forced a last minute model change. Mekhi Sobel modeled no specific character. Thanks Mekhi for stepping in at the last moment!
November 2: Edward Hyde / Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. A deformed, disgusting man somewhat younger than Dr. Jekyll who is apparently devoid of a profession. Some describe witnessing something indefinably evil and horrific in Edward Hyde's face. He is often compared to animals, implying that he is not a fully evolved human being. Despite these descriptions, Hyde is generally civilized in his interactions with others. Dr. Jekyll describes Hyde as "pure evil," who menaces society at night, trampling a girl in the street and murdering Sir Danvers Carew.
Model: Lee Montgomery
Character Sketches is not held in November or December. Character Sketches will continue through October 30, 2019 and resume January 8, 2020.
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Neil Young and the Music He Influenced from alt-country to Grunge.
Son Volt's New "Okemah and the Melody of Riot"
Jay Farrar and Son Volt have a new album, a retrospective disc and a live DVD on the way.
Farrar's group will release "Okemah and the Melody of Riot," in DualDisc format with interviews and video content on July 12. Jay Farrar says in an interview:
"We didn't know what we were capable of as a band. Since none of us knew exactly what to expect, the recording session was unconstrained and spontaneous. I think we found a creative flow."
Son Volt's 1997 appearance on the PBS series "Austin City Limits" will be released May 10 on DVD via New West Records. Also, Rhino is releasing "A Retrospective 1995-2000" with 20-tracks. Includes five previously unreleased tracks, including four-track demos of "Tear Stained Eye" and "Loose String," and a live version of "Medicine Hat."
Son Volt starts a European tour April 22 in Belgium. Tour schedule is available on JayFarrar.Net
Here's a MP3 download of "OUT ON THE ROAD", an alternate take from 'TERROIR BLUES'.
Also, see Jay Farrar Channels Woody Guthrie on Son Volt's New "Okemah and the Melody of Riot". More on Jay Farrar and Son Volt and Uncle Tupelo and their relationship to Neil Young's music.
posted by thrasher @ 4/22/2005 05:23:00 PM 1 comments
At 7/13/2005 09:47:00 AM, Craig said...
bars and guitars has a song from this up on his site
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In mid-September, Salt Lake City International (SLC) unveiled the first phase of its $4.1 billion redevelopment project, a comprehensive series of much-needed operational and aesthetic upgrades throughout the entire airport.
Despite surprising underground discoveries and a limited construction period due to impending seasonal fog, Sacramento International Airport (SMF) opened its critically important new $30 million concrete runway on time.
Central Nebraska Regional Airport (GRI) was ready to retire its old 1982 Oshkosh fire truck.
Some say that when one door closes, another one opens. Turns out that when one Air Force base closes, a lot of doors can open.
Beatlemania, bell bottoms and lava lamps. These were all the rage in the ’60s, when most of the bulk fuel farm at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) was built.
Recognizing the need to improve ground transportation flow, the airport operations team zeroed in on traffic from app-based transportation network companies (TNCs) such as Lyft and Uber. In mid-August, IAD debuted what it calls the third curb, an area dedicated solely to TNC pickups.
Construction moved ahead, but not without challenges. From the airport’s perspective, it was crucial for the project team to communicate frequently and coordinate effectively to keep daily operations running smoothly.
Paine Field (PAE), just north of Seattle, saved an estimated quarter of a million dollars and two months of time on recent ramp repairs by suspending commercial passenger flights and closing the terminal to complete the project while traffic was already slow due to COVID-19.
Late last year, Regina International Airport (YQR) in Saskatchewan added a glass wall, and concessions sales promptly jumped. Liquor sales doubled, and post-security food receipts increased by more than 50%.
Huntsville International (HSV) didn’t plan for its new security system to go live during one of the greatest periods of unrest the U.S. has seen. But that’s how the project schedule unfolded.
When Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) opened the first phase of its $4.1 billion redevelopment project in mid-September, one of the most critical aspects had been commissioned about six months earlier.
Recognizing its airport’s potential as an economic magnet, the city of Fitchburg, MA, recently built a new runway capable of handling corporate jets. The $14.7 million project was backed and largely financed by the FAA. Fitchburg Municipal Airport (FIT) opened the new 5,001-foot runway in late May.
Beacons Offer Bridge to Common Goal of Customer Service
Beacon technology is nothing new, but the way it is being implemented at airports certainly is. Phil Easter, director of mobile apps at American Airlines, says that beacons build a bridge between the airport authority and the airlines by providing information that benefits both, and, most importantly, benefits their common customers, the passengers.
Read more about Beacons Offer Bridge to Common Goal of Customer Service
Sea-Tac's Green Programs Run the Gamut From Food Donation to Flight Procedures
Airport officials who insist that environmental programs are a) too expensive; b) disruptive to operations; c) largely ineffective; or d) all of the above could learn a lot from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA). Last year, it handled 34.8 million passengers while maintaining more than a dozen green initiatives, and in the process further solidified its position as one of the industry's strongest environmental leaders.
Read more about Sea-Tac's Green Programs Run the Gamut From Food Donation to Flight Procedures
Service Changes Lead to New Retail Development at Pittsburgh Int'l
A $10 million revamp of the airside terminal at Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) simultaneously addressed two issues: a major change in the nature of the airport's passenger traffic and the need to update its retail concessions.
Read more about Service Changes Lead to New Retail Development at Pittsburgh Int'l
Birmingham-Shuttlesworth Int'l Strips Terminal to Bones & Rebuilds
Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport (BHM) celebrated the $201 million renovation of its terminal and concourses in August; but "renovation" doesn't fully convey the magnitude of its transformation.
Read more about Birmingham-Shuttlesworth Int'l Strips Terminal to Bones & Rebuilds
No Airport is an Island
Events over the last few weeks have served as vivid reminders of how tightly our nation's airports are woven into the fabric of what happens nationally and locally. The challenge is how we approach, even embrace, our responses.
Read more about No Airport is an Island
Fairbanks International Airport Baggage Transport Conveyor Enhanced With Mod Drive™ System
Airports face a host of unique industry challenges, such as meeting efficiency regulations and seeking out the best maintenance practices to reduce costs and keep operations flowing. In today’s current economic climate, any potential cost savings can go a long way.
In 2019, Alaska’s Fairbanks International Airport (FAI) sought to modernize its equipment and operations. They were dissatisfied with the performance of the gearmotors on their baggage transport conveyors and began searching for new suppliers. Regal approached FAI with a solution that could improve equipment performance and simplify maintenance, with the added benefit of energy cost savings: the Hub City® MOD Drive™ system.
This white paper discusses the hardware deployed, the test results and the annualized expectations for ROI.
At the recent ACC/AAAE Symposium in Denver, I heard a few people whining about the recently-signed stimulus package. The comments were that we "only got $1 billion." Unbelievable. This is a tremendous building block...
Read more about 1 + 1 = 3
Midway Privatization in Final Phase
Six firms/investment groups responded to the City of Chicago's request for qualifications from private companies interested in assuming management of Midway. In September 2008, it selected the Midway Investment and Development Corporation, a consortium of Citi Infrastructure Investors, Vancouver Airport Services and John Hancock Life Insurance Company.
Read more about Midway Privatization in Final Phase
Roadway Method Reaps Benefits for Lone Star Runway
When the main runway at Lone Star Executive Airport in Conroe, TX, started to face frequent drainage issues and distress that required constant patching and replacement, officials there turned to a technique more popular on roadways than runways.
Read more about Roadway Method Reaps Benefits for Lone Star Runway
Happy New (Legislative) Year
President-elect Barack Obama has put his new transportation leadership team in place and we anticipate a fast start to address our nation's infrastructure challenges.
Read more about Happy New (Legislative) Year
SMS Pilot Programs Already Yielding Results
You don't need a crystal ball or tea leaves to see it coming. The topic of safety management systems (SMS) has been popping up at seminars and industry conferences throughout the country ever since the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released its first Advisory Circular (150/5200-37) on the subject in early 2007. Before that, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) had required SMS from certificated international airports since 2005.
Read more about SMS Pilot Programs Already Yielding Results
Massport Takes a Multi-Faceted Approach to Airfield Safety
Officials at Boston Logan International Airport (BOS) take what they call a "multi-faceted" approach to airfield safety. Flavio Leo, manager of aviation planning, identifies six main facets: a heavy emphasis on partnerships, promoting a learning culture, testing and/or implementing new technology, enhanced markings, physical improvements and extensive, regular coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration and air carriers.
Read more about Massport Takes a Multi-Faceted Approach to Airfield Safety
Southwest Florida Cleans Up Baggage Loading Process
When its state-of-the-art terminal opened in September 2005, Southwest Florida International Airport was one of the first airports in the nation to operate an inline baggage handling system with fully automated explosives detection. As such, the Lee County facility was one of the first airports in the nation to fully realize the complexities of such a system.
Read more about Southwest Florida Cleans Up Baggage Loading Process
Indy Raises the Bar for Airport Command Centers
The new $11 million Airport Operations Center/Emergency Operations Center (AOC/EOC) at Indianapolis International is bound to become the envy of airport operators throughout the country and abroad. It's already the pride and joy of the staff working there.
Read more about Indy Raises the Bar for Airport Command Centers
Digital Upgrades at Sanford
Known as Central Florida's "Gateway to the Sun," Sanford International Airport (SFB) near Orlando is one of the busiest airports in the country. With the daunting responsibility of accommodating approximately two million travelers each year, SFB had good reason to step up its interest in the latest security technologies.
Read more about Digital Upgrades at Sanford
IT Achieves Master Plan Status
Typical airport master plans provide conceptual structure for future growth and improvements, with an emphasis on physical infrastructure like buildings and runways. The San Diego County Regional Airport Authority is taking a more progressive approach by supplementing the master plan for San Diego International Airport (SAN) with a companion information technology (IT) master plan.
Read more about IT Achieves Master Plan Status
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The Death Of Stalin Review
Fans of the film In the Loop and the TV series Veep will definitely not want to miss this raucously hilarious political satire from the same creator, Armando Iannucci. This time he has gone back in history to 1953, giving his snappy dialogue to the Russians jostling for control after the Soviet leader's sudden demise. The setting makes it a lot darker than Iannucci's previous work, but it's packed with unforgettable one-liners, visual gags and pointed observations on politics today.
In the wake of Stalin's death, his successors aren't sure whether they should continue with his campaign of terror against Russian citizens. Dopey deputy Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor) wants to maintain the status quo, while more progressive Krushchev (Steve Buscemi) is looking for change. Their main rival is Beria (Simon Russell Beale), a thug who likes young girls. Then the enthusiastic General Zhukov (Jason Isaacs) charges in, deciding that they need to push Beria out and go in another direction. Meanwhile, Stalin's spoiled children (Rupert Friend and Andrea Riseborough) are determined that they should have a say in any new government, but everyone else knows that their days are numbered.
Continue reading: The Death Of Stalin Review
My Cousin Rachel Review
Daphne du Maurier's 1951 mystery-romance novel has been adapted for theatre, radio, TV and film, although the last time it was seen on the big screen was in the 1952 movie starring Olivia De Havilland and Richard Burton. So a new film version isn't a terrible idea, bringing some modern sensibilities to the 19th century tale of obsession and intrigue. It's just a shame that this version, while gorgeous to look at, never quite manages to generate the momentum needed to involve the audience.
It's set in the early 1800s, when Philip (Sam Claflin) has inherited a Cornish farm from his cousin, who died in Italy where he lived with his wife Rachel (Rachel Weisz). Philip is nervous about meeting Rachel, but he's instantly smitten with her dark charm. His godfather Kendall (Iain Glen) warns him to be careful, and Kendall's daughter Louise (Holliday Grainger) is even more horrified by this development, because she has always had a crush on Philip. But as Philip becomes increasingly focussed on Rachel, he offers to give her the farm to prove his love. The question of course is whether she is really in love with him.
Continue reading: My Cousin Rachel Review
The Lady In The Van Review
Maggie Smith couldn't be more perfect for the title role in this film if it were written for her. But the most astounding thing about this story is that it's true, an event from playwright-screenwriter Alan Bennett's own life. The film cleverly plays with the idea of a writer telling his own story. And it also gives Smith an unforgettable role in a movie that's both entertaining and sharply pointed.
It happened in 1970 Camden, as neighbours worried about a homeless woman parking her van in front of their houses. She turns out to be Mary Shepard (Smith), and resident Alan Bennett (Alex Jennings) offers to let her park her van in his driveway for a few months. She stayed there for 15 years, during which Alan refuses to pry into Mary's personal life and she turns a blind eye to the steady flow of young gentleman callers at his door. Even so, over the years Alan learns some details about Mary's past as a musician, ambulance driver and nun, and that she became homeless because she was on the run from the police.
Bennett takes a cheeky approach to the script, writing two versions of himself: one who lives his life and one who writes about it. The interaction between the two is cleverly played by Jennings and directed with offhanded hilarity by Hytner, who shot the movie in the actual street and house where the events took place. Jennings also adds some emotional interest in Alan's relationship with his mother (Gwen Taylor), who ironically has to move into a nursing home. Opposite him, Smith is as magnetic as ever, reeling off each pithy one-liner with impeccable timing. The role may not seem like much of a stretch, but she delivers it with a prickly mix of attitude and humour, plus a strong undercurrent of pathos.
Continue reading: The Lady In The Van Review
Le Week-end Review
Like a 20-years-later sequel to Before Midnight, this sharply observant comedy-drama follows a couple through a soul-searching weekend in which they evaluate their relationship with real wit and emotion. And transparent performances make it something to savour, as it offers us a rare grown-up movie about real issues we can identify with.
As the title suggests, the weekend in question takes place in France, and it's a 30th anniversary treat for Nick and Meg (Broadbent and Duncan). They can't really afford a trip to Paris, especially after ditching their dodgy pre-booked hotel in lieu of something far nicer, but they figure out ways to make their time special. Meanwhile, they talk about their years together, and the hopes and regrets that are haunting their thoughts. There are some hard questions to ask about their future, even as they haven't lost that spark of sexuality. Then they run into Nick's old Cambridge pal Morgan (Goldblum), who invites them to a party where they meet academics and artists just like them. Which only makes them think even more.
The key issues for them include Nick's early retirement (for an ill-timed comment to a student) and Meg's desire to change her life completely. As they consider the options, their conversations drive the film forward forcefully, flowing through cycles of flirtation and laughter to bitterness and cruelty. The depth of their love is never in doubt, even as they wonder how secure their relationship actually is. Broadbent and Duncan play these scenes effortlessly, taking our breath away because it's all so honest, often both funny and scary at the same time.
Continue reading: Le Week-end Review
Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa Review
In bringing his iconic 1990s radio and TV character to the big screen, Coogan refreshingly refuses to play to American audiences: this film is purely British in its story, setting and characters. And as it gleefully redefines almost every action movie cliche imaginable, it's also one of the funniest films of the year. This is party due to the hilariously astute script, but also because Alan Partridge is both riotously embarrassing and utterly loveable.
As we meet him this time , Alan (Coogan) is trying to save his job at North Norfolk Digital when the radio station is bought by a corporation and turned in to Shape ("The way you want it to be"). In the process, Alan gets his colleague Pat (Meaney) sacked, and at the Shape launch party Pat goes postal with a shotgun, taking the staff hostage. As the police close in around the station, Alan becomes the chief negotiator, realising that this can only help boost his fame. But as he works on increasing his own publicity, Pat is menacing his on-air sidekick Simon (Key), while his offbeat security guard friend Michael (Greenall) finds a place to hide and his assistant (Montagu) has her own encounter with the media.
After all these years, Coogan is able to completely vanish into Alan's distinctive personality, saying all the wrong things at the wrong times while constantly getting distracted by irrelevant details. He only ever does the right thing by mistake. Yes, Alan is a buffoon, but he isn't stupid. Coogan plays him so perfectly that we can't help but like Alan even with his distinctive flaws. And the film actually generates a real sense of menace in this mini-Die Hard siege scenario, blending real danger with inspired physical comedy. And virtually every line of dialog has a joke in it.
Continue reading: Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa Review
Hyde Park On Hudson Review
The breezy, entertaining tone of this historical comedy-drama kind of undermines the fact that it centres on one of the most pivotal moments in US-British history. Director Michell (Notting Hill) knows how to keep an audience engaged, and yet he indulges in both tawdry innuendo and silly cliches, never giving the real-life events a proper sense of perspective. Even so, some terrific performances make it enjoyable.
The events in question take place in 1939, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt (Murray) invites Britain's King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (West and Colman) to visit Hyde Park, the upstate New York residence he shares with his mother (Wilson), while his wife Eleanor (Williams) lives down the road with her "she-male" friends. Roosevelt knows that George is here to ask for help against the growing threat of Hitler's Germany, and as a result of their talks a "special relationship" develops between America and Britain. Meanwhile, the womanising Roosevelt is not-so-quietly having an affair with his distant cousin and confidant Daisy (Linney).
Essentially there are two films here fighting for our attention. Much of the story is seen through Daisy's eyes, complete with an annoyingly mousy voiceover that never tells us anything we can't see on screen. Linney underplays the character to the point where we barely notice that she's in the room, and the depiction of Daisy's romance with FDR is often squirm-inducing. By contrast, the other aspect of the plot is fascinating, with West and especially Colman shining in their roles as witty, nervous Brits trying to make the most of the first ever visit of a British monarch to America. Their steely resolve is brilliantly undermined by their brittle nerves and endless curiosity.
Continue reading: Hyde Park On Hudson Review
Wuthering Heights Review
Emily Bronte's novel is one of the most unsettling books you'll ever read, so it's about time a filmmaker made a darkly disturbing movie out of it. And Arnold's movie is like no other period adaptation we've ever seen: gritty, messy and thoroughly involving.
When the farmer Earnshaw (Hilton) brings a street urchin (Howson) home after a trip to Liverpool, he adopts him as a son and has him christened Heathcliff. He bonds quickly with Earnshaw's daughter Catherine (Beer), but her older brother Hindley (Shaw) continually abuses him. This only gets worse after Earnshaw's death, and when Cathy decides to marry the rich neighbour Linton (Northcote), Heathcliff runs away. Years later, he returns (now Howson) to confront Cathy (now Scodelario) about her true feelings.
Continue reading: Wuthering Heights Review
Venus Review
By Don Willmott
Not since Harold and Maude has there been an intergenerational love connection as intense as this. In Venus, rapidly deteriorating 75-year-old Maurice (Peter O'Toole) is infatuated by the tough-talking 19-year-old country girl Jessie (Jodie Whittaker), the grand-niece of his best friend Ian (Leslie Phillips). When she arrives in London from the sticks to act as a nurse/babysitter for her uncle, she disrupts both of their dusty lives with all sorts of fascinating unintended results.Maurice and Ian are both actors of some renown, and Maurice still works, although he's been reduced mainly to playing dying men and corpses. A quick wit who enjoys a sip of whiskey as he amuses himself with the unpleasant details of his own decline, the sullen (and lovely) Jessie fascinates him. She, of course, is repulsed by both men and is mainly looking for free London lodging and a job "modelin'." She only takes interest in Maurice when he says he can get her a job.The job turns out to be modeling in the nude for an art class, but Jessie reluctantly goes along with it, convinced when Maurice takes her to the National Gallery to look at a particularly beautiful painting of a nude Venus.Though the skittish Ian remains terrified of this new disruptive presence, Maurice, who has always been a ladies man and isn't about to change now, becomes increasingly enamored of her, and she grows fonder of him, although her motives are always in question. What, exactly, Jessie is up to, becomes an important question as she begins to let Maurice kiss her shoulders (only three times) or smell her neck. She also lets him buy her gifts, including a tattoo, and Maurice, for his part, sees himself playing a Henry Higgins sort of role. Can he turn this bumpkin into a lady? A lady who might actually love him?Peter O'Toole takes this excellent opportunity to remind us what an incredible actor he is. It's been decades since he's been given a chance to shine like this, and he blows the doors off in a part that seems to have been custom-made for him. Stripped of all vanity (Maurice even submits to a prostate exam), O'Toole delivers a master class, submitting to lots of invasive close-ups that highlight those inextinguishable blue eyes. His brief scenes with his ex-wife, played by Vanessa Redgrave, should be studied by acting students. They're two geniuses at work. Equally important is Whittaker, who shows no fear as she acts with these legends.Roger Michell and Hanif Kureishi teamed up three years ago on The Mother, another interesting look at age gaps and attractions. Venus is lighter fare and rather more pleasant to watch, but most important, it gives Peter O'Toole an opportunity to do what he does best. One wonders if this may be his last truly grand performance.I'm your Venus, I'm your fire, your desire.
Kevin Loader Movies
The Death of Stalin Movie Review
Fans of the film In the Loop and the TV series Veep will definitely not...
My Cousin Rachel Movie Review
Daphne du Maurier's 1951 mystery-romance novel has been adapted for theatre, radio, TV and film,...
The Lady In The Van Movie Review
Maggie Smith couldn't be more perfect for the title role in this film if it...
Le Week-end Movie Review
Like a 20-years-later sequel to Before Midnight, this sharply observant comedy-drama follows a couple through...
Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa Movie Review
In bringing his iconic 1990s radio and TV character to the big screen, Coogan refreshingly...
Hyde Park on Hudson Movie Review
The breezy, entertaining tone of this historical comedy-drama kind of undermines the fact that it...
Wuthering Heights Movie Review
Emily Bronte's novel is one of the most unsettling books you'll ever read, so it's...
Venus Movie Review
Not since Harold and Maude has there been an intergenerational love connection as intense as...
Filmmakers Index: 0 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
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Langhorne Slim
Langhorne Slim didn’t write a song for more than a year. A battle with clinical anxiety disorder and prescription drug abuse, which came to a head in 2019, had dimmed the light within. The man who once seemed to ooze spontaneity was now creatively adrift, stumbling along in the fog.
In December, he entered a program and, for the first time in a long time, a path toward healing began to emerge. He began to see that inner peace was possible, even with the world outside raging.
A few months later, in February, a tornado came and decimated East Nashville, his adopted hometown. Covid-19 took root just days later, changing lives forever. In the early days of his recovery, a different reality was beginning to take shape, both within and without. New worlds were being born; old worlds were dying.
Knowing he was struggling to write songs and make sense of it all, Slim was finally able to flesh out a throwaway ditty one afternoon. His close friend Mike then suggested he try penning a song a day. Slim didn’t like the idea, but he gave it a shot.
To his surprise, the songs came. In a flurry of stream-of-consciousness writing, the new tunes tumbled out, one after another, like little starbursts of joy, gifts from the gods you might say. Slim was tuning out the noise and finding beauty in the madness of a world coming undone. Over the course of a couple of months from March to May, Slim penned more than twenty that were certified keepers. Out of this bumper crop came the songs that make up his new album, Strawberry Mansion, which is being released this winter on Dualtone Records.
“I wasn’t sitting on the songs and I wasn’t overthinking them,” Slim says of the writing process of those months. “Something cracked open with the slowing down and the stillness of quarantine.
After finishing a song, whether he liked the tune or not, he’d call Mike, a videographer, and they’d record it and post it to Instagram. It was a form of therapy, he now realizes. “There was nothing precious about the process and it was a bonding thing between me and Mike as much as anything else,” Slim says. “It also gave me a release and maybe some potential form of healing, and was an opportunity to not always listen to the shitty thoughts in my head. I wasn’t ever thinking that I was writing songs for a new record.”
Prior to this creative outburst, Slim’s anxiety had grown so acute there were times when he actually feared picking up his guitar and trying to write. With the help of therapy and friends, he was now learning to confront his demons rather than run from them. So, in the midst of a panic attack one day, he picked up his guitar and the song “Panic Attack” was born. It’s a raw, off-the-cuff number that rises above the dark subject matter with spirit, irony and humor. “I called a healthcare professional/ Wanna speak to someone confidentially/ Don’t know just how I’m feelin’/ But I’m feelin’ feelings exponentially,” he sings.
Album-opener “Mighty Soul” details a world beset by Biblical-grade plagues (coronavirus, the Nashville tornado) and government malfunction. It ultimately calls for healing through community and the recognition that we can all make a difference. It functions as the album’s spiritual center, a secular gospel number for all mankind.
“Morning Prayer” is inspired by the songwriter’s effort to pray for the first time in his life. “It’s not in the key of any one religion,” Slim says of the number. “For this, I’m grateful that my guitar was unknowingly yet appropriately out of tune. It’s a song to help me practice compassion, surrender, connection to nature, the spirits and beyond.”
The second part of “Morning Prayer” is one of the most affecting moments on Strawberry Mansion, with the singer reaching out and offering prayers for his loved ones who are struggling, for all of humanity, really. “For my friends who suffer/ For my mother, father and brother/ For a world down on its knees/ I pray for thee,” he sings with great poignancy.
The road to Strawberry Mansion, which was recorded at Daylight Sound in Nashville with longtime compadres Paul DeFigilia (Avett Brothers) and Mat Davidson (Twain), began in 2019 with Slim’s decision to get sober. Even though the singer-songwriter kicked alcohol years ago, the insidious monster of addiction had crept back into his life in different guises. The last straw came during a road trip with a friend, who, at the end of the journey, let it be known that the man he knew and loved was no longer recognizable. So Slim called his manager and loved ones and soon checked into a program. That experience and his ongoing recovery program have given him a framework for grappling with the personal demons that have always skulked in the shadows, and helped him find light in the void. “It’s important for me to talk honestly about these things, because I feel it gives me strength, and it might help others along the way.” he says.
Strawberry Mansion is the singer-songwriter’s seventh full-length album. He released his first record, Electric Love Letter, back in 2004. Since then he has graced the stages of Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Newport Folk Festival, and the Conan O’Brien show, winning fans over with his heart-on-a-sleeve sincerity and rousing live shows.
Born Sean Scolnick in 1980, Slim took part of his artistic moniker from his hometown of Langhorne, Pennsylvania, a place he’s still very much connected to despite making his home in Nashville. Since the advent of Covid-19, he has been traveling back to PA once a month to see his mother and grandmother, and, like many Americans, finding strength in his origins and family bonds. The title Strawberry Mansion refers to the neighborhood in Philadelphia where both of his grandfathers grew up, a place he calls “dirty but sweet, tough but full of love, where giants roamed the earth and had names like Whistle and Curly.” That idea of a mythical wonderland informs the new album from head to toe. Strawberry Mansion is not so much about nostalgia for the past as it is about the possibility of better days ahead in this world. These are songs that remind us we’re all part of a collective “Mighty Soul,” united in one journey, just like the characters in that old Philly neighborhood. It’s a life-affirming album for these times.
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Visit Langhorne Slim’s Official Website
Langhorne Slim To Release His Most Personal Album with Strawberry Mansion on January 29th
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Professor conducts poll on ballot measure language
In his book "Don't Think of an Elephant" George Lakoff talked about the importance of framing political debate and earlier this year, he did that with an eye towards streamlining the state's budget process.
To pass a budget or raise taxes, the California Legislature must have a two-thirds majority. Lakoff's wrote a very simple ballot measure to change that.
"All legislative actions on revenue and budget must be determined by a majority vote. That's it the whole thing," says Lakoff.
Lakoff says his one-sentence initiative proposal was simple and popular, at least that's what his polling showed.
"We found out that 73 percent were in favor, 22 against," says Lakoff.
Seventy-three percent is a big number. Encouraged, Lakoff sent the proposed initiative to the Democratic California Attorney General Jerry Brown for title and summary, but when it came back the attorney general changed the language.
"The attorney general says, '...changes the legislative vote requirement necessary to pass the budget and to raise taxes from two-thirds to a simple majority," reads Lakoff.
The summary continues, "...unknown fiscal impact from lowering the legislative vote requirement for spending and tax increases. In some cases, the content of the annual state budget could change and/or state tax revenues could increase."
Lakoff, a language expert, says note how many times words "taxes" and "increase" appear in the attorney generals version -- at least three.
"And what people hear is 'Raise my taxes.' Now that's phony," says Lakoff.
Lakoff commissioned another poll using the attorney general's language and the 73 percent support dropped to 38 percent with 56 percent opposed.
"That is a 69 percent shift by simply having the attorney general use that language," says Lakoff.
Lakoff withdrew his proposal to rewrite it. Brown says that's democracy.
"And by the way democracy is about exposing the truth and not trying to varnish it over with sweet smelling phrases," says Brown.
Brown says Lakoff tried to hide the intent of his measure, which was to make it easier to raise taxes.
"We're supposed to write a fair, impartial, non-argumentative summary. We did that and I stand fully behind that," says Brown.
Lakoff has re-written his initiative proposal and re-submitted it to the attorney general, but he believes now he'll have to wait until next year to get it on the ballot. Next year won't be an election year. Next year, Brown won't be worried about Republican candidate Meg Whitman beating him up over a ballot measure that would make it easier for the legislature to raise taxes.
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The Dark Side of Military-Funded Neuroscience
Military-funded neuroscience helps saves lives but may also help kill.
By KATIE MOISSE
Scientists 'See' Movies in the Mind
UC Berkeley researchers use brain imaging, computer modeling to recreate clips.
March 21, 2012— -- By unlocking the mysteries of the mind, neuroscientists have opened the door to revolutionary technology -- technology the American military hopes to harness. From keeping troops more alert during exhausting missions to engineering intelligent drones, some experts argue brain research has changed the battlefield.
"There's a tremendous amount of research going on around almost every aspect of the brain you can think of," said Jonathan Moreno, professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania and author of "Mind Wars." "How much of this is related to national security and counterintelligence? It turns out to be quite a lot."
In an essay published Tuesday in the journal PLoS Biology, Moreno said neuroscientists may not consider how their work contributes to warfare.
"Technology doesn't care what it's used for," he said, explaining how the same research that could help a paralyzed person move a robotic exoskeleton could also help coordinate an attack by an unmanned weapon. "It's our ingenuity and the way we apply the technology, which does raise an interesting problem for scientists."
In the 1940s, physicists and engineers working on the Manhattan Project grappled with the implications of their work.
"Now it's the life scientists having a hard time with this," said Moreno, adding that researchers studying infectious diseases like bird flu might not consider the dark side of their discoveries. "Even Einstein didn't recognize the possibility of nuclear fission. He had to be convinced by a colleague to sign a letter to [Franklin Delano Roosevelt] about the Manhattan project."
Einstein later wrote that signing the letter, which led to the development of the first atomic bomb, was the "one great mistake" in his life.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon's science agency better known as DARPA, received roughly $240 million to fund neuroscience research in 2011. Much of that research is "dual use," meaning it will benefit American civilians as well as military forces -- a reminder that many medical gains have originated in the trenches.
"Much of what's known about helping people with terrible burns came out of Vietnam," said Moreno. "Amputation came largely out of the civil war. Blood banks came out of Korea. Every war, sadly enough, has created opportunities for advances in medicine."
Beyond supporting the development of military devices like drones, brain research is helping troops learn the art of enemy deception and interrogation. It has also led to drugs designed keep troops awake and alert -- a feat once achieved with coffee and cigarettes.
Moreno said researchers are also looking for ways to predict the emotional response to war.
"Would it have been possible to identify some increased risk for a violent act?" he said, alluding to Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, the U.S. soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians. "A lot of people believe those predictions are going to get a lot better."
Neuroscience may seem a far cry from the nuclear fission research that forever changed the world. But Moreno argues the resulting technology could change the rules of engagement.
"If you start making automatic fighting machines, you lose the military ethos," he said. "If the bad guys can't get to us because there are machines in the way, will they come here to get us? Are we inviting more attacks at home? Nobody knows the answer."
Moreno stressed that neuroscientists should be aware of the ethical issues associated with their work, adding that many nuclear scientists opposed the development of atomic weapons.
"We need to keep moving forward," he said. "But there needs to be professional standards."
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190,248 of 250,000 signatures
To Helena Dalli, Commissioner for Equality of the European Commission, and the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament
Make Europe a safe place for all women and girls! We are calling on you to urgently ratify and implement broadly the Council of Europe convention to fight violence against women. Women and girls across Europe want to live a life free from violence and fear. Act now to make sure that the European Union takes concrete action to protect all women and girls from violence and actively fights this pervasive human rights violation.
All across Europe, violence against women has spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic, making even more evident the scale of the epidemic of male violence in all walks and sectors of life, including at home. Intimate partner violence, psychological violence, sexual violence and rape, female genital mutilation, sexual exploitation and trafficking, harassment and stalking, including in the digital space, are the unacceptable everyday reality of many women across Europe. In concrete figures: 62 million women in the EU has experienced physical and/or sexual violence since the age of 15. Overall, violence against women threatens the security of half of the population in the EU, affecting over 250 million women and girls. There can be no peace and security in the EU while women fear for their safety in their homes, in institutions, in workplaces and in public places in Europe.
There is something we can do together to save lives: call for concrete EU action to protect women’s and girls' right to live a life free from violence.
The European convention to end violence against women [1] is the most a powerful binding tool we have in Europe to end violence against women and girls. It sets standards to give legal power, attention, and funding to efforts to stop and punish violence against women.
In June 2017, the EU signed the Convention, sending a very strong political message on its commitment to put an end to this human rights violation. [2] But, more than three years after this first step has been taken, the process is blocked: EU countries haven’t been able to reach an agreement on the EU accession to the Convention. And without it, the Convention can not be effective and women throughout Europe can not be protected.
The vast majority of EU Member States (21) have ratified the Convention. In all these countries, there have been positive developments in policies, protection and prevention of violence against women and domestic violence. However, a small minority of EU member states (6) haven’t yet ratified the Convention (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia) preventing progress at EU level.
Furthermore, auspiced by a fake-news campaign run by regressive groups, there have been recent initiatives this year in countries like Poland considering withdrawal from the Convention; or Hungary, proposing not to move ahead with the ratification. When some Governments take the path of inaction by not ratifying the Convention, or when they take proactive steps to withdraw they are backtracking on women’s safety and integrity. It means that they deliberately want to build societies where women’s rights are not respected, where women and girls are considered inferior and their bodily integrity is not protected.
Good laws can change whole societies. If the Convention is applied everywhere in the EU, it would strengthen all prevention mechanisms, broaden the protection of victims of violence and provide access to justice and reparation. For the Convention to be effective, the EU and all the EU countries need to access or ratify it and ensure comprehensive implementation. [3]
All Member States and particularly the country presiding over the Council of the European Union need to show strong leadership and commitment to ensure that the EU fulfills its promise.
After the EU elections in May 2019, more women entered in the European Parliament and Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the new European Commission stated that ending violence against women will be a top priority and that the EU’s accession to the Istanbul Convention is a must. This is captured in the new European Commission Strategy on Gender Equality 2020-2025, issued in early March this year. [4] As per the new workplan for 2021, the European Commission will be working on a legislative proposal to cover specific forms of violence against women.
On 25 November, we mark the International Day for the elimination of violence against women and girls. Once again, citizens all over Europe will take up the streets of many cities to say loudly and firmly that women and girls want to live a life free from violence and also the fear of it. We might hear many statements from decision makers showing good intentions; but we want concrete actions.
Violence against women and girls has aggravated during COVID-19 lockdown times in most EU countries. This should be of utmost concern for all European leaders who need to act in a concerted way. We are urging leaders to take up their responsibility in ensuring the right of women and girls to be free from violence and to be safe. It is imperative the EU raises up to the challenge by ratifying the Convention and by adopting legislation addressing all forms of violence against women and girls.
The Istanbul Convention is the common name for the Council of Europe 2011 Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and girls and domestic violence. It’s the first legally binding treaty in Europe which criminalises different forms of violence against women, sets a comprehensive set of standards to prevent violence and to guarantee the right to every woman to live free from violence. The EU’s accession to the Istanbul Convention will send a strong political signal that violence against women is not acceptable anymore anywhere in the EU and set the basis for further EU action on this matter.
The Istanbul Convention is the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence: https://www.coe.int/en/web/istanbul-convention/home?
Commissioner Jourová signs the Istanbul Convention: http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/just/item-detail.cfm?item_id=80397
The Istanbul Convention: A vital opportunity to end violence against women: https://www.womenlobby.org/IMG/pdf/european_coalition_factsheet_final_all_logos_8_march.pdf
EWL's analysis “4 reasons why the new Gender Equality Strategy (2020-2025) is key in responses to the COVID-19 crisis and its aftermath” https://www.womenlobby.org/4-reasons-why-the-new-Gender-Equality-Strategy-2020-2025-is-key-in-responses-to
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The new European Commission, whose mandate will last for 5 years from now, is in its first day at work, TODAY! The Commissioner in charge of violence against women, Helena Dalli, must learn Europeans are watching - that we welcome the Commission’s commitment, and that we expect real action, that is, that the Commission puts all its energy in ensuring the Convention is ratified in 2020. Will you let Dalli know?
Post a comment on one her Facebook posts: it’ll take you less than half a minute! You can even use these templates:
Dear Ms Dalli, congratulations on your nomination as the Commissioner for Equality. I’m very pleased President von der Leyen has made a clear, public, point that the Istanbul Convention should be ratified by the EU. I encourage you to put all the energy possible in that direction. Europe needs to be rid of violence against women.
Ms Dalli, I’m very concerned about killings of women and the broader violence exerted on women taking place every day in Europe. As you start your mandate as European Commissioner for Equality, I ask you to please do everything possible to have the Istanbul Convention ratified by the EU, now. Every day counts.
As the new European Commission is launched this week, I’d like to take the chance to congratulate you on your new position, and to demand real action to have the Istanbul Convention ratified by the EU as soon as possible. President von der Leyen made this point in her opening statement. Now it’s time for words to become action.
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.@helenadalli congratulations on your nomination as the Commissioner for Equality. From now, please work with determination to have the #IstanbulConvention ratified to free European women from violence #EndViolenceAgainstWomen #16DaysOfActivism https://act.wemove.eu/campaigns/womens-rights
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Hi, I just signed the call to urge Bulgaria to nationally apply the powerful European convention to fight violence against women. As the country currently leading the work of the Council of the EU, Bulgaria has the most power to set the course for the entire process of EU ratification of the convention. But from what we hear outside the Brussels negotiating rooms, it looks like they’re pushing to make the EU implementation barely symbolic! We’re angry: we’ve had enough of people - and countries - standing in the way of justice! This Women’s Day we’re speaking up for the right of each of us to live free from violence and fear. When we reach 200,000 signatures we will publicly deliver the petition to the Bulgarian officials, showing the support from across Europe for the convention. The convention will give legal power, attention, and funding to efforts to stop and punish rape, beatings, exploitation and trafficking, harassment and stalking: the unacceptable everyday reality of millions of women across Europe. “Traditional family values” will no longer be an excuse not to fight domestic violence. Add your signature now: https://act.wemove.eu/campaigns/womens-rights
Thank you for standing for women's rights with us. It is only together that we can truly be a force to be reckoned with.
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HANSARD 1803–2005 → 1970s → 1976 → July 1976 → 28 July 1976 → Lords Sitting
CHRONICALLY SICK AND DISABLED PERSONS (AMENDMENT) (No. 2) BILL
HL Deb 28 July 1976 vol 373 cc1427-37 1427
§ 6.42 p.m.
§ Lord TAYLOR of MANSFIELD
My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill, the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill, be now read a second time. There were two episodes at the end of last week that cheered me immensely. One concerned the Headingley cricket match. As the cameras kept moving to and fro one could see a notice saying: "This area is reserved for disabled persons". The other concerned the town of Scarborough. A swimming exhibition had been arranged, the proceeds from which were to go towards helping the local disabled people, and in this exhibition a legless man was to swim around the harbour in close proximity to the castle. What pleased me was that there was such an expression of compassion and generosity that £250 was raised for the local disabled people.
My Lords, this Bill is one from another place which was promoted by Mr. James Callaghan—not the Prime Minister, may I say, but the Member of Parliament for Middleton and Prestwich. It is also pleasing to note that this very important measure was supported by a number of Members of all Parties. My information is that the All-Party Disablement Group within the precincts of Westminster are supporting this Bill and are giving their blessing to it. During its stages in another place, there was no opposition at all, so far as I can gather, to the contents of the Bill and to what it proposes to do; but there was a major concern, as one sees from reading the report of the Committee stage in another place, expressed by the Members of all Parties who took part in those proceedings. Every one of them, without exception, expressed their 1428 major concern that this Bill should reach the Statute Book, and it is my hope that they will not be disappointed. I have again read the debate in your Lordships' House on the Private Member's Bill of 1970, and there is no mistaking the fact that in that debate there was ample evidence that your Lordships' interest in the welfare of the disabled is really overwhelming; and, on that occasion, that interest came from all quarters of the House during all the proceedings.
My Lords, in moving this Second Reading—and I want to do it very briefly—I must confess that I have some nostalgic feelings, for in my maiden speech in another place, which is quite a few years ago now, I made mention of an innovation that there had, been in the interests of disabled miners and their welfare. In Mansfield, a spacious hall and grounds had been purchased by the Miners' Welfare Commission. The coal owners—this was before vesting date in 1947—and the unions co-operated, and, under the guidance and supervision of a very eminent orthopaedic surgeon, remedial treatment and occupational therapy was undertaken, as a result of which men whose limbs had been broken by accident in the mines, even paraplegic cases, had their working capacity restored, if not wholly at any rate in some degree, enabling them to resume employment. The centre, which is a residential one and has been all those 40 years, continues its good work, and I know from my own personal know ledge that during that period it had done an extremely good job in the interests of disabled miners. The only change that there has been in recent years is that, whereas at the time of its inception it was exclusively for injured miners, it now caters for others who are in need of such treatment.
Now, my Lords, I come to the Bill. It is a short, simple, understandable, one-clause Bill, but I do not think that, because of its brevity, your Lordships will regard it as unimportant. The purpose of it is to add a new clause to the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970. I am sure your Lordships will recall that in Section 4 of that Act it was provided that, in the building of premises to which the public was to be admitted, provision was to be made to meet the needs of the disabled so far as the circumstances were reasonable and practical 1429 —and here I should like to make an observation. I hope that at some time in the future, in our drafting of Bills and in our promotion of legislation, we might get away from these particular words. I recall from the passage of the Mines and Quarries Bill 1954 through another place that the number of times these words appeared in that Bill was legion.
Section 4 of the Act, which I have mentioned, was to meet the needs of the disabled as regards means of access, parking facilities and sanitary convenience. Section 8 of what is now the 1970 Act makes a similar provision in respect of educational establishments; that is, schools, colleges and universities. This Bill in Clause 2 requires the same facilities to be made for the disabled where a person is undertaking the provision of premises for employment purposes. This Bill as drafted applies to premises set out in Clause 2.
The Promoter of the Bill during the Committee stage in another place stated that it was his intention to cover as many places of employment as possible. The Under-Secretary undertook during those proceedings to look again at this point. I should like to ask my noble friend Lord Jacques, who I understand is in charge of this Bill, whether he has any further information on that particular point. The Bill provides that at places of employment there shall be access to and within the premises; adequate circulation, both vertical and horizontal; that doors and passages be of adequate width and height; that ramps or lifts be provided for any change of level; that there be adequate parking facilities for disabled employees and sufficient lavatory accommodation for those confined to a wheelchair. That is, substantially, the language that is used in Section 4 and Section 8 of the 1970 Act.
I do not know whether this is generally known, but there is a serious problem of unemployment among the disabled. My information is that in April this year 13.6 per cent. of disabled people signed the register as unemployed. If my mathematics are correct, that is a global total of 76,000. In making that statement, I am not saying or even suggesting that it is the lack of facilities in places of employment that is responsible for this state of 1430 affairs: but it may well be. It is not outside the bounds of possibility that a number of these disabled people find it more difficult to get work because of lack of facilities. I have heard suggested in some places the fear that chances of promotion of disabled people in employment are missed for the reason that there are no adequate facilities to accommodate them.
In moving this Second Reading I recognise that it might be some time before the provisions of this small, modest Bill can have an influence on places of work. But I now take an opportunity of welcoming—and this may be a great help—the scheme announced last December by the Manpower Services Commission to make capital grants for employers to modify their premises or to instal special or modified equipment in the interests of the disabled. I think that the only question, in addition to the one I have already posed to the Minister, is this. Has he any further information on this proposal that was made by the Manpower Services Commission?
My Lords, in conclusion may I say that many of us may feel that this Bill is too modest. Your Lordships may feel that it is not fully adequate to meet the situation with which the disabled are confronted. Nevertheless, I suggest that even if this be so—and I believe that it is—it is a step in the right direction. I ask your Lordships to support this modest, small Bill for two main reasons. First, because it will lend support to the campaign to create an environment in which disabled people are no longer second-class citizens; and secondly, because it will enable them to play their full part in society along with their able-bodied colleagues. I beg to move.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a—(Lord Taylor of Mansfield.)
§ Lord SANDFORD
My Lords, I must start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Mansfield, for introducing this Bill so ably and to congratulate him for having the good sense to be content with a modest forward step. This is the ideal prescription for any successful Private Member's Bill. Many have failed through not attending to that principle. I should like to wish him every success with this particular measure.
1431 It is true that there is widespread all-Party support in Parliament, as in the country at large, for the disabled. But that cannot, and does not, override all other considerations. I well recall speaking from this Box in 1970, dealing with the main Bill at the end of that Parliament and coming to an understanding with the noble Baroness, Lady Serota, then Minister of State to the Department of Health and Social Security, that we would set aside our political differences and do our best to get the main Bill on the Statute Book before the Dissolution. To achieve this, the main need was to persuade the "mobile" Benches and their supporters, if I may so describe them, to restrain themselves from trying to pack any more into what was already a somewhat overloaded and ill-digested Bill. As it was, I am afraid that they very nearly lost the Bill altogether; but it did, in fact, scrape through.
I am quite ready to admit that this small amending Bill makes good one of the matters that were omitted in 1970 and which we might have got first time if we had had time to consider it properly. Therefore, I am glad to welcome the Bill as making good an omission of six years ago. But I must go on to say that I am enabled to do that because it has in it what are, for me, the blessed saving words, "reasonable and practicable". I know that the mobile Benches and their supporters do not like that phrase. They regard it as the let-out and the loophole which everyone who is disposed so to do will use as an excuse to neglect their duties towards the disabled. I do not share that view. I regard it as an essential feature to allow authorities, employers, industrialists and everybody else concerned with this measure to exercise their discretion to allow some degree of flexibility in coming to a proper balanced judgment in the light of local conditions, particular cases, other priorities and so on.
I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Mansfield (I think that he and not the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, is in charge of the Bill), that if he successfully resists any attempts to modify—at any rate for the time being—that doctrine of reasonable and practicable, he will certainly be able to count on my support in this useful amending Bill. I hope that we shall be successful in getting this Bill on to the Statute Book before the end of this Session.
§ 7.1 p.m.
§ Lord AMULREE
My Lords, I should like briefly to give a welcome to this Bill because I have nothing to add to what the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Mansfield, said in introducing it and what the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, has said. I hope it receives support from all Parties. I join the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Mansfield, in inquiring from where the proposed grant is likely to come, otherwise the words "reasonable" and "practicable", which must be there at present, will remain there for a very long time and do a good deal of damage to people's intentions to try to improve things for their employees, not because they do not want to do it but because they cannot afford to do it. It is a costly exercise to change the interior of ancient buildings, particularly when offices, et cetera, may be on the third, fourth or fifth floor.
I was encouraged by the reply of the Government to an Amendment proposed the other day to another Bill by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy. There it seemed that the Government were taking an interest in saying that when new houses are built in new towns some provision is made for the wheelchair patient. In the past there has been a good deal of difficulty in some of the new and modern hotels where doors appear to have been built upon a standard pattern which does not admit a wheelchair into a bedroom. That is something which we hope will be changed. It is important that all hotels should have some rooms where a wheelchair can enter. There should be some accommodation in the new towns for people in wheelchairs. My Lords, I do not propose to say any more except to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Mansfield, on introducing this Bill. I trust it will reach the Statute Book in record time.
§ Viscount INGLEBY
My Lords, also should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Mansfield, for introducing this Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, said, I had some small part in the access clauses on the original Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Bill. As with the access provisions in the original Bill, there are no provisions for the enforcement of this new Bill, and I 1433 should like to ask the Minister who is to reply what are the reasons which prevent planning permission being made conditional, where reasonable and practicable, on suitable access for the disabled.
I should like to commend my own North Yorkshire County —Council for providing two nice parking spaces with a little sign indicating that they are for disabled people. There is a ramp and a lift, but there is still an awkward flight of stairs with no handrail up to the Council Chamber. The steps are made of marble and are a little slippery. Perhaps the most helpful course that the disabled, and those who want to help the disabled, can take is to identify the places where there seems to be a special need. My information might be a little out of date, but the last time I asked at Kings Cross Station, there was no lavatory in the main platform area to which somebody in a wheelchair could get access. Being rather keen on natural history, I visit from time to time the Natural History Musuem at South Kensington. A year ago there was no lift there that a wheelchair could get into and therefore upstairs floors were pretty well out of bounds for the disabled.
Although I class myself as a railway enthusiast I have not yet visited the new railway musuem at York, though I have received some unfavourable comment from the point of view of access for the disabled. This is a fairly new building which has been opened to the public. If this unfavourable comment is true then it is disappointing. I should like to share in welcoming this Bill.
§ Baroness PHILLIPS
My Lords, I should like to welcome this Bill and to congratulate my noble friend Lord Taylor of Mansfield, who introduced it in his usual compassionate and understanding way. I declare an interest as chairman of a sub-committee of Lord Snowden's Working Party on the integration of the disabled. My particular sub-committee has been concerned with buildings and housing. The report of the Working Party, we hope, is almost complete, and I am afraid that my sub-committee will be recommending far tougher legislation for the provision of access than is included 1434 in this Bill. I am sure your Lordships will forgive me if my welcome includes my reservations.
This Bill is a No. 2 Bill because the Government objected to the original one presented by Mr. Jim Callaghan. Mr. Callaghan was in consultation with members of my sub-committee. The original Bill reflected the advice they had given him. The evidence we received indicates—this has been emphasised by the noble Viscount, Lord Ingleby—that since Section 4 and Section 8 of the principal Act are non-mandatory and non-enforceable, they have little effect on public buildings and negligible effect on private developments.
All the experts to whom I have spoken agree that if adequate facilities are included at the planning stage, they need not incur as much expense, and certainly conversion costs will be far less. It therefore seems logical that any enforcement should occur at this stage. Therefore the sub-committee will recommend that a local authority should withhold planning consent if adequate facilities for disabled people are not included in the plans.
I believe this recommendation formed part of Mr. Callaghan's original Bill, but the Department of the Environment seemed opposed to it and forced him to withdraw it. I will not go now into their reasons, which seemed unconvincing on paper. Your Lordships will appreciate that in supporting this present Bill I must place the strongest possible obligation on the Government to ensure that this is not just another homily on the Statute Book. Government Ministers have said that the right way to seek enforcement of adequate provision for disabled people in buildings is through building regulations. Thanks to Section 61 of the Health and Safety at Work Etc. Act 1974—when it is brought into effect—the Department now has the necessary power.
In Committee in another place it appeared that Mr. Jim Callaghan quoted extensively from a letter from the Minister of State for Housing and Construction to Mr. George Wilson, the chairman of the Central Council for the Disabled. I will not at this late stage repeat the letter. Its burden was that they were willing to use building regulations to prevent our 1435 efforts over this Bill being totally wasted, but only when they could get around to it. I should like to ask the Minister a question which arises from the letter. Can he say when Section 61 of the Health and Safety at Work Act will be put into effect?
The Minister of State also asserted that the preparation and enforcement of building regulations would be a burden on existing staff, and therefore could not be given very high priority. So far as the preparation of regulations goes, I hope your Lordships will agree that this is not a very good excuse. I am absolutely certain, from my work with the Central Council for the Disabled and other groups, that the Minister would receive eager assistance from the voluntary organisations in order to bring this about. I am absolutely convinced that the enforcement of the regulations would not be an impossible burden on the backs of local authorities.
Having said that, I am in full support of this Bill. I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, that one must go slowly; but I could not miss the opportunity to enter this caveat, of which the Government are well apprised, when the report of the sub-committee comes out.
§ Lord JACQUES
My Lords, first of all, I should like to congratulate the right honourable Member of another place, Mr. Callaghan, on having got his Bill through the other place without amendment. I would also congratulate my noble friend Lord Taylor on his most appropriate Second Reading speech. I believe he will get the Bill through this House equally expeditiously.
We are very sympathetic to the aims of the Bill, and hope that it will pass through all its stages very quickly. We want to see it on the Statute Book. Nevertheless, we are not convinced that access and other facilities are a major stumbling block in the employment of the disabled. They are a stumbling block in some cases, but we have found by experience that we can often overcome that difficulty by way of persuasion. However, we feel the Bill can do only good. It will encourage employers to provide facilities, and we believe it will have public opinion behind it. We hope also it will be a moral force.
1436 There are a number of questions to which I feel I ought to reply. First, I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Taylor for having given me notice of the questions he was going to ask. He referred to the definition of "premises". I should first point out that the Bill as it stands will cover premises which are covered by the Factories Act and the Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Act. The total number of premises that will be covered is approximately a million. The Government undertook to give the sponsors of the Bill further advice about the coverage of the Bill: they have done so. It is possible that some places of employment are excluded through the use in the Bill of the definitions in the Factories Act and the Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Act. But at this stage it seems more practicable not to amend the Bill, but to get it through the House as quickly as possible so that it need not be reconsidered by the Commons.
So far as grants are concerned, the Manpower Services Commission has been asked to introduce a scheme of grants for employers who modify or instal special equipment or facilities in order to employ disabled people. The scheme is still under discussion with the Manpower Services Commission. I come to the question of enforcement, and would point out that this amending Bill is in keeping with the parent Act. In the parent Act there is no provision for enforcement, and I think it is appropriate that this Bill should be in keeping with the parent Act. Planning is concerned with land use. It would be quite wrong in principle, and outside the scope of the present legislation, to attempt to use the development control system to implement the provisions of other legislation. We are, therefore, entirely opposed to trying to use the land-use legislation for this particular purpose. It is a form of tacking.
There are other possibilities, however. There will be powers under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 to make regulations when Part III comes into force. The Government are considering whether or not these powers could be used for the purposes, if need be, but they do not want to act hastily. They want to have time to consider whether it is appropriate for those powers to be used for that purpose. If they conclude that such a procedure 1437 would be appropriate, they believe that powers could be used, if need be, to enforce this legislation. I am unable to say at this moment when Part III of the 1974 Act will come into operation, but I would expect it to be comparatively soon.
With those few words, my Lords, I think I have covered the points which have been raised. I hope that this House will pass the Bill quickly and without amendment. Only in that way shall we ensure that it in fact gets a place on the Statute Book.
§ On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the whole House.
Back to IRON AND STEEL (AMENDMENT) BILL
Forward to DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND MATRIMONIAL PROCEEDINGS BILL
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https://apnews.com/article/742056b2f8e7476ebdb2676112f12ca1
Baylor, Louisville, Notre Dame and UConn top seeds in reveal
By DOUG FEINBERGMarch 5, 2019 GMT
Graphic shows the DI Women's Basketball Committee top-16 ranking reveal with region assignments; 1c x 4 1/2 inches;;
NEW YORK (AP) — Baylor, Louisville, Notre Dame and UConn are the No. 1 seeds in the second NCAA Top 16 reveal.
The Lady Bears remained the No. 1 overall team and would be the top seed in the Greensboro Region, according to the potential seedings revealed Monday night. The Cardinals would be the No. 1 seed in Chicago. Notre Dame would head out to Portland and UConn would be in Albany.
Rhonda Lundin Bennett, chair of the Division I Women’s Basketball Committee, said there were five or six teams in consideration for the top line of the poll.
“I think just generally it shows how much basketball has been played and there are a lot of teams that have had an opportunity to move up in their seeding and move into the first line,” she said.
“You have your four No. 1 seeds, and at least a couple other teams that could easily be there. Everyone looks very similar and is playing very, very well.”
Most of the top teams are getting ready for conference tournament play to begin this weekend. Both UConn and Baylor played Monday night.
“There’s a lot of basketball left to be played,” Bennett said. “We’ll have a much clearer picture when we have to make the selections.”
If the seeds were to hold, the defending champion Fighting Irish would have to play Oregon in the regional final. The Ducks were the top No. 2 seed, but geography trumped going with pure seeding which would have had them in Albany with UConn.
“We do have all the different principles and procedures, seed-line order, and then the geography comes into play,” she said.
Other No. 2 seeds in the reveal are Mississippi State, Iowa and Stanford.
The three seeds are Oregon State, Maryland, N.C. State and South Carolina.
Miami, Iowa State, Texas A&M and Syracuse round out the potential top 16 teams, which would host the opening two rounds of the NCAA Tournament. All those teams would play at home with South Carolina playing the first two rounds in Charlotte because the Gamecocks’ home court is being used for the men’s opening rounds.
The women’s tournament seeds will be revealed on March 18. The Final Four will be back in Tampa on April 5 and April 7.
This is the third straight year that the women will have their national semifinals and finals on a Friday-Sunday format. Before last season, the Final Four hadn’t used that format since 2002.
Follow Doug Feinberg at https://twitter.com/DougFeinberg
More AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/Collegebasketball and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25
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Analogue Music | Erika Wennerstrom
Erika Wennerstrom
By Matt Conner
Erika Wennerstrom didn't know she needed the space.
When the Heartless Bastards decided to take a hiatus after the cycle of support for 2015's Restless Ones, Wennerstrom, the band's powerhouse vocalist, wasn't quite sure what was next. She knew the songs would keep coming—they always do—but without an obvious outlet, it placed her in an interesting, and admittedly uncomfortable, position.
Three years after the Bastards' last album, Wennerstrom is back with a solo album, Sweet Unknown, that she describes as both "easy" and "joyful." The break has clearly been good for her, just as it has allowed the band's other members to create and explore on their own. We recently sat down with Wennerstrom to ask her about the hiatus, the band's future and why this season has been so unexpectedly inspirational.
Analogue: Was it you who called for the hiatus or how did that come about?
Erika Wennerstrom: It was more the band itself and I was like, 'Okay.' I was happy to take one without even realizing how much I needed one. The funny thing is that you never know when inspiration is going to strike and hit you. When we went on the break, I had a big flood of inspiration. I think it was propelled by change. Had we not taken the break, whatever next record I would have written would have been a bit different.
Sometimes I have to work really hard at creativity and other times it's just eas, and this time was jsut easy. I don't want to say that I didn't work hard at it, but a lot of the inspiration and lyrics, there just wasn't any pressure—including self-pressure I might add. It was just a joy to make. I would go on meditative walks around the lake every day and a couple lines of lyrics would come to me here and there. I'd jot them in my phone notes and eventually it came together, step by step. It was the easiest album I'd ever written, even to record it. It was a real joy. Maybe I just needed change so bad and I didn't know it.
It was kind of scary at the same time. I like the saying, 'Life begins at the edge of your comfort zone.' Being in that hiatus, I thought, 'Well, what do I do with my life now.' But then there's something thrilling about that. Sometimes being in that uncomfortable place is exactly where you need to be.
Analogue: Was it different to write for yourself outside of the band?
EW: Well, I'm always writing. I never stop. That is something that I always have on my mind. Even if I have a vacation on the beach, I still have a pen and paper or a phone with voice memos. It's just always there with me. I find it difficult to write on the road. I also write the songs for Heartless Bastards, so it's really no different. The only difference is when I have the band consistently there, I have this team of people that I work with and trust and value their opinion. I was able throughout my writing process to bounce ideas and ask, 'What do you think of this?' This time was different because I had to learn to trust my own ideas without having somebody there to affirm what I was doing. That was a challenge and was frightening in a way, but that's good for your comfort zone, since there's a lot of growth in that, too. It was a very valuable experience for me.
Erika Wennerstrom (Credit: Briana Purser)
Analogue: When you first realized that you were going to be on hiatus, was it obvious you'd make a solo record or did you think of other things?
EW: I don't really remember. I'm always writing, like I said. I've never said, 'I'm going to write this for myself and then this for Heartless Bastards.' The band's a bunch of very diverse musicians, so even if I knew I wanted to go a different route, they would go there with me. It would be just as fun for them to experiment with different sounds, too. So I've just always put one foot in front of the other, so there wasn't a single moment where I recall thinking, 'This is what I'm going to do.' I am not a calculated person, but then again I'm very thoughtful, if that even makes sense. It's just like I knew where I was going and what I was doing, yet I don't set out to look at the whole piece. Even right now I'm analyzing this for the first time because you asked. I guess I was just existing, doing what I do. [Laughs]
Analogue: Does it feel more vulnerable when you release an album under your own name?
EW: It does, actually, to some extent. I always liked the idea of having a band and maybe there was a bit of me that was afraid to stand on my own two feet. The writing process really is the same for both projects, but I never really thought my name sounded entertainer-ish. [Laughs] I really debated on calling this a title, too. I actually really thought about calling this project Sweet Unknown, but I decided to name the record that instead.
I guess I'm still getting used to my name as a brand, in a sense, which that part of this is weird to me. But there's something about this whole process of me writing this album and standing on my own two feet and learning to be kinder to myself—using my own name is, in a way, very fitting because it's me learning to be fully proud of who I am. I don't want to say that I've never been proud of myself, but there's something about owning the good and bad parts of you, if you know what I mean? It's about embracing all sides of me.
Analogue: What talked you off that ledge from going by another name?
EW: My manager and label had mentioned, because I'll do stripped-down acoustic sets at times, that it would be good to be able to use the same name for both. But there was this part of me that also thought it was fitting to be able to use my name and be proud of it, whether it sounds like an entertainer's name or not.
Analogue: You mentioned the hiatus. Are you still in that? Or are you staying the solo course for a while?
EW: I really don't know, honestly. Originally Dave [Colvin, drums] had mentioned taking a break since we'd been going at it pretty strong with all of this touring for however many years—eight years or so. He felt like he just needed some change in his life. I'd talked to Jesse and he was like, 'You know, I've been a side man for years, but I've alway wanted to give it a go at songwriting. I think this is a good time for me to do that. Life's too short to put your own dreams and goals on the sideline.' Mark [Nathan, guitar] was happy to have a break, too. Then I got really inspired and did this.
I think right at this moment, it's all still so fresh and everyone is happy trying new things or doing what they're doing. I think it's a matter of us all being on the same page. Right now, I'm too into what I'm doing presently to start thinking about that. I really can't speak for anybody else.
Analogue: Are you on the road for the rest of the year?
EW: Yeah, pretty much. I mean there are times off here and there, and we're working on plans for the fall that haven't been put up, but I'll be consistently busy through the rest of the year and hopefully next year, too.
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A Bridge to College Writing
September 2012Perspectives Newsletter
For UW freshmen, the prospect of writing college-level papers can be daunting. For faculty, grading those early papers can be disheartening. To address the problem, English professor John Webster, along with Anis Bawarshi, professor and director of Expository Writing in the English Department, developed a writing course for entering freshmen. The month-long course, English 108, has been offered prior to autumn quarter for nine years.
English 108 students work on a group project as John Webster (center back) looks on. Media credit: Jacob Lambert
“I started off with the most obvious question,” says Webster, director of writing for the College of Arts and Sciences. “These students got into UW. They’re bright. So why don’t they write well?”
What Webster learned is that many students have limited writing experience, resulting in a severe lack of confidence. His primary goal is to help them build fluency, confidence, and comfort. “To do those things, you have to write frequently, in user friendly ways, in a framework that is positive and supportive,” says Webster. “You also need to have students write about something they care about—something they feel is worth their time.”
Webster chose a topic of immediate concern to all entering freshmen: becoming a more effective learner. He built the curriculum around half a dozen key learning themes, including the inquiry process, learning styles, and self-assessment. Students first write from personal experience, then move toward more research-oriented writing.
Writing as an Insider
Webster believes that students write most effectively when they see themselves as insiders, knowledgeable about a topic, writing to outsiders who are less knowledgeable. “When writers feel like insiders, the writing tends to be more authentic and rewarding,” he explains.
The first assignment is a writing autobiography in which students share how they came to be the writer they are today and how they feel about writing. “It’s a perfect insider-to-outsider assignment,” says Webster. “Students write about something only they know, to a teacher who cares about the topic but doesn’t have knowledge about it. And as a teacher, the essays are enormously instructive. By the end of the week, we feel that we know the students.”
English 108 students during a class sesson. Media credit: Jacob Lambert
Webster is aware that most college assignments involve the opposite scenario, with students writing for professors with far more expertise on the assigned topic. Acknowledging this, the course ends with a paper and oral presentation on a research topic related to writing and learning concepts. Students work in teams, presenting to their peers and other guests at a half-day research conference created for the course.
“Everybody has to speak at least two minutes,” says Webster. “The students have spent the last ten days preparing for those two minutes. For many of them, it’s the first time they’ve ever given a presentation, certainly for people they don’t know.“
In its first few years, the conference was small. But as English 108 has grown in popularity—from 40 students its first year to 300 in 2012 (with sections averaging about 12 students)—the conference has grown proportionally. “Students tend to see the conference as a high risk venture,” says Webster. “It’s not, but it feels that way to them.”
An International Twist
The conference is particularly challenging for international students for whom English is a second or third language. As the number of international students at the UW has increased, their enrollment in English 108 has skyrocketed, representing the vast majority of participants.
“When the student demographics for English 108 changed, we questioned whether we should change our approach to the course,” says Webster. “We decided not to. The reasons international students lack confidence in their writing are different, but the outcome is the same. Their writing autobiographies—that first assignment— map almost exactly as native speakers’ stories. They have the same profile of discomfort with writing.”
Former English 108 student Yunfei Zhao (left) now serves as a writing tutor, helping students like Sijia Bao (right). Media credit: Jacob Lambert
Mary Chen, a sophomore from China, signed up for English 108 as a freshman after receiving a low score on her English writing proficiency test. “I was very afraid of writing, especially college-level writing,” she recalls. “My writing lacked enrichment of words. I think that my writing could never reach my thoughts.”
Chen says she appreciated the small class size and the opportunity for peer review of classmates’ writing. “It was so interesting to read others’ essays, which were at the similar writing level with yourself,” she says. “It was easier to compare their essay with mine and to find out my relative advantages and disadvantages.”
Chinese student Yunfei Zhao, now a junior, was similarly impressed with the peer review process. “This learning strategy is something that we do not have in Chinese schools,” he says. Zhao also recalls an assignment that involved multiple drafts, which “built a strong sense in our minds that a good essay needs to be revised.”
Zhao now shares these and other writing strategies as a tutor at the Odegaard Writing and Research Center (OWRC). He began tutoring at OWRC as a sophomore—a role that he could not have imagined before taking English 108. By sharing what he has learned, he realizes how far he has come.
“English 108 provided us the right way to build an essay, from brainstorming all the way to revising, including some study strategies such as writing an outline or using resources such as visiting writing centers and doing research in libraries,” says Zhao. “As a writing tutor, I can share what I have learned with other writers who have not taken English 108.”
Watching students like Zhao and Chen flourish at the UW is gratifying for Webster and other English 108 instructors. “Most faculty don’t get to work with first-year students this way,” says Webster. “The class is very intensive and very personal. The students write a lot; for many, it’s the first time they’ve been able to work on this exclusively. By the end, there is a marked difference in the prose they write.
“They come in with a challenge, and we have a course that I truly believe helps them,” adds Webster. “It’s as energizing for me as it is for them. As I tell them on the first day, this class is the most exciting teaching I do.”
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The misery for which we did not prepare
Published in Daily Times on July 6th 2014.
Chances are that about 600,000 of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), also known as the internally ‘disowned’ people of North Waziristan, will need more than a few tonnes of wheat, which the army is supplying to them in cookie cutter packages as they flee the war and Operation Zarb-e-Azb. Also chances are that they do not appreciate moving from their homes where drone attacks, aerial bombing by the Pakistan army, routine attacks from the Uzbeks and crossfire between the army and Taliban were not enough to drive them out. They probably had nothing on them but their pride as they left their homes and now, having to stand in long queues for handouts, even that has been scrapped.
One wonders why it seems like the government went into this unprepared. Years of dragging their feet in a war that was ultimately inevitable is the cause of this unpreparedness. The result: lack of planning and mayhem. Who suffers? The people do, particularly women and children, the sick and the old.
In a sane world, it would have been obvious that groups that challenge the writ of the state must be dealt with. In this world it would also be obvious that foreign and local militants supported by a vast network of funding and arms, from Karachi to Uzbekistan, would fester while we turned our faces, and that one day the soul of North Waziristan would need to eventually be exorcised. It would be apparent that even those like the Haqqani network, who we were using for that archaic cancer-like concept called strategic depth, would need to be asked to terminate the contract.
The nerve though, of all stakeholders to be surprised at the now large humanitarian crisis as a result of this war! Just as in South Sudan the floods have festered the misery of the IDPs there, in Pakistan it is the sweltering heat that has brought the IDPs to their knees. If their journey on foot for hundreds of kilometres was not enough to break them, the scene at their destination, of absolute crisis, was. Three IDPs were severely injured in what seemed like a battle for food at a distribution point in Bannu when police baton charged them to stop them from scuffling.
What pundits called an opportunity for the government — the hope that the migration would allow for a renewed drive to stem out polio from the region — has now come to a screeching halt as refuseniks demand that their children not be vaccinated. Is this a surprise too or did we wishfully think that the IDPs would run to polio drops camps despite internalised fear and indoctrination by the Taliban against the anti-polio drive? Where are the programmes that worked on an advocacy campaign for these people for the health of their children? Where is the urgency and the need to enforce what is nothing less than an international crisis? Only this year alone, FATA has reported 66 polio cases and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has reported 15. This is not the time to powder the nose of this crisis. Nor is it time to sell to the world the misery of these people though photo-ops. It is a time to admit that this part of the war was not given the priority it needed.
It is time to acknowledge the state of emergency in the north. As a result, we must take from wherever the aid comes, from the private sector, philanthropists and donors like the UN’s World Food Programme under twinning with USAID. And, as aid pours in, it makes sense to allocate it though channels that already exist, rather than wasting money in administrative set up costs. The army and local government already have established centres that work well but need to be fuelled with more relief. Likewise, given the security scenario, it is understandable that the local government has mandated No Objection Certificates (NOCs) for the establishment of relief camps. This also is a laudable step and may help to limit pro-Taliban offshoots from infiltrating the relief activities under the garb of religious organisations.
We cannot fail these people. The war depends on it. It is a war we must win, for posterity. For the weary hearts of our jawans that have given way fighting the sinister forces against the state. And, more importantly, for the promise that this country holds while its competitors join the emerging world.
Peace comes in many forms. This is an opportunity, yes, for polio advocacy, resettlement after the clean up and a new exposure for the IDPs to better standards of education, but above all it is a chance for Pakistanis to unite and let IDPs know that they are a part of them. It is, after all, the missing sense of connectedness that isolated them and pushed many among them to join forces with the Taliban.
Give what you have most of — it will go a long way for this country.
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Cathay Pacific commences Tel Aviv service with the Airbus A350
Cathay Pacific operated its inaugural service from Hong Kong to Tel Aviv, the latest destination in the airline’s expanding global network.
Flight CX675, a non-stop service flown with an Airbus A350 aircraft, departed Hong Kong at 01:00, touching down at Ben Gurion Airport on schedule at 07:53 local time.
A special departure ceremony for Flight CX676, the return journey to Hong Kong, took place later in the day. Hosted by Cathay Pacific Director Corporate Development and IT Paul Loo, the airline was honoured to welcome Mr Israel Katz, Transport Minister and Mr Yariv Levin, Tourism Minister from the government of Israel as officiating guests at the celebration event. Mr Sagi Karni, Consul General of the State of Israel in Hong Kong also flew in on the first flight from Hong Kong to Tel Aviv to join the celebration.
Originally launched as a four-times-weekly service, Mr Loo said the strength of advance bookings on the route has prompted Cathay Pacific to increase frequency to five times per week from 1 September to 17 November 2017.
“We have been highly encouraged by the overwhelming reception that our new Tel Aviv service has received. Increasing the frequency of our operations to five times a week will provide greater convenience to business and leisure customers travelling between these two great cities – and give passengers from Israel easier access to destinations in Southwest Pacific and across Asia through our hub in Hong Kong,” said Mr Loo.
Cathay Pacific, which operates one of the youngest long-haul fleets in the world, believes that travelling well is an important part of living well, and passengers can be assured of a premium experience onboard the A350. The environmentally-friendly aircraft is equipped with the airline’s latest cabin products, an enhanced inflight entertainment system and Wi-Fi connectivity in Business, Premium Economy and Economy classes.
The airline has taken delivery of 12 Airbus A350 aircraft to date with 10 more to arrive by the end of 2017, which will help Cathay Pacific open up new markets and strengthen Hong Kong’s position as Asia’s premier aviation hub.
The airline recently announced new A350-operated seasonal services to Barcelona from July and Christchurch from December.
Cathay Pacific will also add extra flights on popular routes to destinations across North America, Europe and Southwest Pacific to give its customers more choice and flexibility when planning their travels.
Related Items:Cathay Pacific
Cathay Pacific to Reduce Passenger Capacity by 96% in April and May
Cathay Pacific Takes Over Hong Kong-Auckland Service from Air New Zealand
Cathay Pacific Group Unveils Fleet Optimisation Plans
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Los Angeles All Destinations
Things to do in California
Hollywood Celebrity Homes Tour
Hollywood Sign Tours
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Visit the star-studded homes and neighborhoods of Hollywood’s celebrity elite during this narrated tour through Los Angeles and Beverly Hills. Over the course of your ride, stop by the residences of more than 40 of the world’s biggest stars, stopping along the way to visit the world-famous Sunset Strip and high-end Rodeo Drive. Best of all, your trip is via an open-air van, a smaller vehicle that grants access to smaller side streets where other tours can’t go. An optional round-trip hotel transport upgrade is also available.
Movie Stars' Homes Tour in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills
See over 40 mansions of where your favorite celebrities actually live
Cruise Sunset Strip and drive through world-famous Rodeo Drive
See landmarks like the Hollywood Sign, TCL Chinese Theater, and the Walk of Fame
This movie star homes tour packs a punch by visiting about 40 sites in two hours.
hotel pickup in Los Angeles only (if option selected)
Hotel pickup and drop off (if option not selected)
6801 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood, CA 90028, USA
Pickups at Pasadena, Glendale, Burbank, Downtown LA, San Fernando Valley, Universal City, Studio City, East Hollywood, Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Century City, Bel Air, Brentwood.
The 12:30pm departure has less hotels for pickup than on the list, please ring Starline to reconfirm.
Go behind the scenes of Hollywood for an exploration of the glamorous homes and hangouts of the city’s most famous celebrities and movie stars. It’s the perfect opportunity to get a peek behind the curtain and into the personal lives of Hollywood’s elite.
Start your trip in Hollywood or with a pickup from your Los Angeles hotel (if the option is selected). Head to the luxury areas of Beverly Hills and Bel Air first, site of the homes of Keanu Reeves, Jackie Chan, Britney Spears, Cortney Cox, Tobey Maguire, Nicolas Cage, Peter Falk, Madonna, Halle Berry, Winona Ryder, and Dr. Phil, plus the exclusive Playboy Mansion.
You also see a number of homes once owned by Hollywood legends like Elvis Presley, Gregory Peck, Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball, Marilyn Monroe, Jack Benny, Judy Garland, and Humphrey Bogart, plus the filming locations for some of the entertainment industry’s most famous TV shows and movies.
Head next to the Sunset Strip, a longstanding hotspot for nightlife. Check out iconic locales like the Whiskey a Go Go, Johnny Depp’s infamous Viper Room, hip Sky Bar, the House of Blues, Chateau Marmont, and the Beverly Hills Hotel.
The excursion also travels to the elegant high-end retail shops of Rodeo Drive, where you find the favorite stores of the rich and famous. Stores visible along the tour route include Bijan, Gucci, Harry Winston Jewelers, Prada, and Regent Beverly Hotel, film location for 'Pretty Woman.' Make sure to keep your camera at the ready, as you never know what celebrity you might spot hanging out or running a few errands.
Pass By:
The Viper Room
The Viper Room is a nightclub located on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California, United States. It was opened in 1993 and was partly owned by actor Johnny Depp. The other part owner was Sal Jenco who starred in 21 Jump Street with Depp.[1] The club became known for being a hangout of Hollywood elite, and was the site where actor River Phoenix died of a drug overdose on Halloween morning in 1993. In early 1995, Australian singer Jason Donovan suffered a drug-induced seizure at the club and survived. The Viper Room has undergone several changes in ownership, and continues to host music of multiple genres, including metal, punk rock, and alternative rock.
Rodeo Drive is a two-mile-long street, primarily in Beverly Hills, California, with its southern segment in the City of Los Angeles. Its southern terminus is at Beverwil Drive, and its northern terminus is at its intersection with Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills. The name is most commonly used metonymically to refer to the three-block stretch of the street north of Wilshire Boulevardand south of Little Santa Monica Boulevard, which is known for its luxury goods stores.
The Sunset Strip is the 1 1⁄2-mile (2.4 km) stretch of Sunset Boulevard that passes through the city of West Hollywood, California, United States. It extends from West Hollywood's eastern border with the city of Los Angeles (Hollywood) at Crescent Heights Boulevard to its western border with Beverly Hills at Sierra Drive. The Sunset Strip is known for its boutiques, restaurants, rock clubs, and nightclubs, as well as its array of huge, colorful billboards.
Whiskey-a-Go-Go
Whisky a Go Go is a nightclub in West Hollywood, California. It is located at 8901 Sunset Boulevard on the Sunset Strip, corner North Clark Street, opposite North San Vicente Boulevard, northwest corner. The club has been the launching pad for bands including Iggy And The Stooges, Alice Cooper (who recorded a live album there in 1969), The Doors, No Doubt, System of a Down, The Byrds, The Germs, Buffalo Springfield, Steppenwolf, Van Halen, Johnny Rivers, X, Led Zeppelin, KISS, Guns N' Roses, Death, Linkin Park, and Mötley Crüe. In 2006, the venue was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Starline Tours
The Original Celebrity Homes Tour Since 1935 & The Official City Sightseeing Hop On - Hop Off Tour Bus
TCL Chinese Theatres
TCL Chinese Theatre is a movie palace on the historic Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6925 Hollywood Blvd. in Hollywood, California. Originally named and still commonly known as Grauman's Chinese Theatre, it was renamed Mann's Chinese Theatre in 1973; the name lasted until 2001, after which it reverted to its original name. On January 11, 2013, Chinese electronics manufacturer TCL Corporation purchased the facility's naming rights, under which it is officially known as TCL Chinese Theatre. In 2013, the Chinese Theatre partnered with IMAX Corporation to convert the house into a custom-designed IMAX theater. The newly renovated theater seats 932 people and features one of the largest movie screens in North America.
Dolby Theatre
The Dolby Theatre (formerly known as the Kodak Theatre) is a live-performance auditorium in the Hollywood and Highland Center shopping mall and entertainment complex, on Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue, in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles. Since its opening on November 9, 2001, the theater has been the venue of the annual Academy Awards ceremony. It is adjacent to the Grauman's Chinese Theatre and the El Capitan Theatre nearby on Hollywood Boulevard. Most of the popular movies are premiers Here and for cast and crew viewing
The Hollywood Walk of Fame comprises more than 2,600 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California. The stars are permanent public monuments to achievement in the entertainment industry, bearing the names of a mix of musicians, actors, directors, producers, musical and theatrical groups, fictional characters, and others. The Walk of Fame is administered by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and maintained by the self-financing Hollywood Historic Trust. It is a popular tourist destination, with a reported 10 million visitors in 2003. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce holds trademark rights to the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The Hollywood Sign (formerly the Hollywoodland Sign) is an American landmark and cultural icon overlooking Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. It is situated on Mount Lee, in the Hollywood Hills area of the Santa Monica Mountains. "HOLLYWOOD" is spelled out in 45-foot (13.7 m)-tall white capital letters and is 352 feet (107.3 m) long. The sign was originally created in 1923 as an advertisement for a local real estate development, but due to increasing recognition, the sign was left up. The sign has been a frequent target of pranks and vandalism across the decades, but it has since undergone restoration, including the installation of a security system to deter vandalism. The sign is protected and promoted by The Hollywood Sign Trust, a nonprofit organization, while its site and the surrounding land are part of Griffith Park. The sign makes frequent appearances in popular culture, particularly in establishing shots for films and television programs set in or around Hollywood. Signs of similar style, but spelling different words, are frequently seen as parodies. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce holds trademark rights to the Hollywood Sign.
Show 7 More Stops
Confirmation for this tour will be received at time of booking.
Wheelchair access bus must be requested to Starline 48 hours prior to the service date.
Sunglasses, sun screen, walking shoes and a jacket are recommended.
OPERATED BY Starline Tours of Hollywood
What is the policy on face masks and attendee health during Hollywood Celebrity Homes Tour ?
See all safety measures taken by Hollywood Celebrity Homes Tour .
What is the policy on sanitization during Hollywood Celebrity Homes Tour ?
What is the social distancing policy during Hollywood Celebrity Homes Tour ?
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Wanderer457396
Devon was a great tour guide! He was funny, knowledgeable and made the tour entertaining. Well worth the money!
joannaspiessens
George, our guide, was hilarious ! So good. We enjoyed the tour ! Very interesting ! À pleasant trip.
Interesting and fun.
jtsaflarski
I did enjoy this store and found it to be very interesting and fun. However, it began 25 minutes later than we were scheduled to start. This proposed a problem because we had a flight to catch and made me nervous because we were crunched for time. I wish it would have begin at 11 like they stated.
Touristy to the n-th degree. Scared...
Amy Q
Touristy to the n-th degree. Scared to death our driver was going to go off the edge of the road. Between the bad driving and the terrible jokes, it was like a bad date that you couldn't wait to be over.
Very good - lots of information...
thecopefamily
, Apr 2017
Very good - lots of information given and lots of walls and gates seen!!!!! Real problem is that I cannot remember whose homes I took pics of!! The driver did very well and did not stop talking throughout the tour. Bus was open and was very comfortable and some good sights seen. A packed couple of hours
This covered some great celebrity...
Sherbetmedia
This covered some great celebrity homes and we were on the constant look out for any stars driving along. I liked the open-style van and the stories by the driver were great.
The tour we took the driver would...
Jdyputnam
The tour we took the driver would not stop because he the a police man behind the tour bus- we got picked up at our hotel which was nice but to get back we had to wait over an hour to get driven back? The day was wasted after the tour that just drove around and we could not get photos.
Worst tour we have ever taken, total...
gnpwagner
Worst tour we have ever taken, total waste of time and money. Rob, our driver, told us the same information over and over and most of it didn't have anything to do with the tour. We do know he is the best driver in the company, he is a fabulous guitar player and he was a taxi driver when he first moved to LA....not what we paid to hear! Only went past a few stars homes and the Playboy Mansion. You really don't see anything but the gates. Very disappointed.....
Great guide and saw lots of places...
Great guide and saw lots of places mostly the roof and gates. Would be great to offer more current stars and not places where people used to live. Overall a great morning.
Had a great time out!!! a well...
gertdes
Had a great time out!!! a well organised tour for sure.
Product code: 3638_1
Bus ToursMovie ToursArt ToursCultural & Theme ToursTours & SightseeingLos AngelesBus Tours - CaliforniaMovie Tours - CaliforniaArt Tours - CaliforniaBus Tours - Santa MonicaMovie Tours - Santa MonicaArt Tours - Santa MonicaBus Tours - Long BeachMovie Tours - Long BeachArt Tours - Long BeachCategory
Attractions in Los Angeles
Los Angeles Zoo & Botanical GardensHollyhock HouseLos Angeles Broadway Theater DistrictLos Angeles Convention Center (LACC)Japanese American National MuseumLaguna BeachWhisky a Go GoPacific Design Center (PDC)Grammy MuseumStaples CenterLos Angeles Palisades ParkSix Flags Magic MountainGamble HouseLos Angeles the GroveLos Angeles Museum of the Holocaust (LAMOTH)Dolby Theatre TCL Chinese TheatreBradbury BuildingAngels Flight RailwayParadise Cove
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TELL ME SOMETHING GOOD: Mystery Millionaire Pays $100K To Help Girl
A four-year-old girl in the U.K. is getting a life-changing surgery that may let her walk for the first time, thanks to an anonymous donor.
A little girl in the U.K. is getting her chance to walk for the first time after an anonymous donor paid for her life-changing surgery. Emily Anderson was diagnosed with cerebral palsy in 2017 and an MRI revealed damage to the left side of her brain that left doctors thinking she may never be able to walk or talk.
But the four-year-old girl’s mother, Paula, started researching different treatment options for Emily and found Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy (SDR). The operation could help Emily’s movement, but it comes with a big price tag and she wasn’t able to get it through the NHS, so her family started an online fundraiser. They hoped to raise the nearly $100-thousand needed and within 24-hours they had, thanks to a mystery donor who offered to cover the bill and threw in a trip to Disney afterwards, too!
Their generosity left this mother “speechless” and she says there’s “no way” she can show how thankful she is for this. Paula adds, “I’m so grateful they believe in my daughter like I do.”
About Matt Case
Want to know more about Matt Case? Get their official bio, social pages & articles on 95.7 The Jet!Read More
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Home / More from the 4 Nations Cup event!
More from the 4 Nations Cup event!
Posted By: editor
Report from the 4Nations-Cup in Hellevoetsluis from Christian Stock (GER 100)
"Pssshhhhhh".
There it is again, that piercing, unmistakable sound. It comes from Mischa Heemskerk, who, as always, lifts his A-Cat onto the foils a few seconds after the start signal and hisses away. Nobody masters upwind foiling as well as he does. It not only makes a boat speed of around 19 knots, but also achieves a good height. In order to be able to take the sail really tight, the main sheet has a reduction of 1 to 13.5. Even he, as a very strong sailor, would otherwise have considerable problems mastering the enormous forces in the face of an apparent wind of up to 39 knots. After just three minutes, Mischa was a few hundred meters ahead, he is in a league of his own here at the 4Nations Cup in Hellevoetsluis in South Holland.
The 4Nations Cup was originally intended to be the joint national championship of Great Britain, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. However, the British had to give in at short notice due to the corona, their government had imposed strict exit requirements. So it was a 3 Nation Cup. The turnout was still excellent, at least given the adverse conditions this year. 34 foilers and 24 classics from a total of eight nations made the cup a small European championship; this is likely to be the world's largest A-Cat regatta in 2020.
The area of the organized club Hellecat is near Rotterdam directly behind the dike to the North Sea. That means, you sail with the wind from the sea, but without large waves and without tides and currents. The wind conditions were "krachtig", as it is called in Dutch, only on the last of three days did they become moderate. Almost every sailor capsized at least once in the face of the sometimes violent gusts. Even Mischa Heemskerk and his training partner, the catamaran professional Thijs Visser, dismantled it on Saturday while driving out to the regatta area. Mischa damaged his port rudder, so that he had to carry out an emergency repair on the beach. But he kept his nerve, skipped only two races, which he could then cancel, and achieved 12 race wins in a total of 15 races.
Those who made it through all 15 races (which less than half of the sailors managed) were automatically good at the end result. But the price was high. Most sailors hadn't experienced such a strenuous regatta in a long time. Especially on Saturday, after six races in five winds, most of them were pretty flat. Since no social events were possible anyway due to the corona requirements, you could go to bed early.
In the Foilers, a fierce competition for second place broke out after first place had already been taken. The reigning French champion Emmanuel Dodé was sovereign and relegated the young but highly talented Poland Andrezj Senkus to third place. One should hear more of Senkus in the future if he stays true to the class. Klaus Raab from Füssen sailed a clean series, foiled almost all of the time and achieved a very good 8th place in the overall standings. He was also the winner of the International German Determination of the Best (IDB) in the Foiler category, ahead of the Northern Lights Jörn Knop and Alex Meister.
The Scotsman Micky Todd, sailing for Spain, had a strong performance at the Classics. With his own testimony of a hundred kilos fighting weight, he could not be held sailing upwind. Together with good tactics and decent starts, it was enough for nine race wins and the undisputed overall victory. Second was the Dutchman Jaap Straakenbroek, who was very fast with his DNA F1 trimmed for Classic. Michel Warlop from Belgium was able to defend third place. The winner of the Classic IDB was Christian Stock from Freiburg, who after a modest first day of racing was increasingly moving forward. Second place went to Thomas Becker (Wismar), third place to Georg Merkl vom Brombachsee.
Two things were not optimal, that should not be concealed here. At night, several trailers were broken into on the beach, so that some sailors could no longer participate due to stolen material. At such an open location as at Hellecat, a nightly security team is essential. The second problem could have been avoided even more easily: The race committee allowed the foiler and the classics to start at the same time, but put a separate windward buoy for the classics and carried out completely separate judgments. This led to very tight situations on the water for almost 60 boats; The Classics were almost never able to turn to their windward mark without any problems and the foilers had to do hairy evasive maneuvers downwind. If the evaluation is completely separate, then please also have separate starts and ideally also a separate course.
Many sailors would have preferred a common rating (from which the foil and classics can then be calculated) and a common course. Because all the differences between Foilers and Classics are still in the same class. Apart from that, the 4Nations Cup was a great event that was carried out with a lot of passion. You could see how lucky all the sailors were when they are able to finally pursue their favorite pastime again in this terrible Corona year: During the day, regatta sailing at a high level - and then in the evening to chat about it with friends from all over Europe.
Photos - Laurens Morel
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Category : Literature | Availability : In Stock | Published by : Aakar Books
PREMCHAND ON NATIONAL QUESTION: RASHTRABHASHA (Translated from Hindi to English)
Anuradha Ghosh Saroj Kumar Mahananda Trisha Lalchandani
Premchand on National Language is a collection of his writings, translated from Hind into English, spannin the years from 1931 to 1936. The debates over Hindi as national language in the Devanagari script and the nature of contestations with Urdu in the Persian script led to an intellectual polarization that furthered the split between Hindus and Muslims. The need for a common language was generally accepted but to consider Hindi as national language was not accepted easily as its most challenging contender was English. The views and opinions on the issue of Hindi as 'rashtrabhasha' by leaders and intellectuals like Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Madan Mohan Malaviya, Makhanlal Chaturvedi, Lady Abdul Qadir, and others, referred to by Premchand gives us an insight into the turbulence of the times. His writings are largely in the form of reports, observations and critical comments that trace the chequered and contested issue of the history of proposing Hindi as the national language and even almost nine decades after, its relevance remains. Hindi, along with English is still not the national language, but the official language of India.
Dr. Anuradha Ghosh teaches in the Department of English, Jamia Millia Islamia. Her specialization is in the area of Cinema Studies and she has keen interest in the area of Translation and Adaptation Studies. She has co-edited two books - Politics of Imperialism and Counterstrategies (Aakar Books, 2004) and Filming Fiction-Tagore, Premchand, Ray (Oxford University Press, 2012).
Dr. Saroj Kumar Manchanda, a multi-lingual researcher, writer and translator, teaches at the Department of English, Jamia Millia Islamia, His areas of interest include Dalit Studies, Indian Literature in Translation, Postcolonial Literature, Australian Literature and 19th Century English Literature.
Trisha Lalchandani, Project Fellow, UGC SAP-DRS (Phase III), Department of English,Jamia Millia Islamia, has completed her M.Phi. in 2017. Her specialization is in the are of Partition Studies with special focus on Sindhi literature.
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Why a new hospital?
PECMHF
Bay of Quinte Mutual Insurance Co. Back the Build
Hospital Foundation Announces First Major Gift from Picton Business
PICTON, October 29, 2020 – The Prince Edward County Memorial Hospital Foundation has been waiting a long time to share exciting news about a significant gift to the new hospital, and the donor has deep roots in the Prince Edward County community. Today, the Foundation is able to thank this donor and its Board of Directors for being the first company to come forward with a major gift in support of the Back the Build hospital campaign.
In commemoration of their 146th anniversary on October 31, Bay of Quinte Mutual Insurance Co. is announcing their $1.5 million gift to help build Prince Edward County Memorial Hospital’s new home.
“Prince Edward County Memorial Hospital is a pillar of the community. Supporting and investing in our local communities is important to Bay of Quinte Mutual Insurance Co. As this community continues to grow, the need for access to health care is more important than ever,” said Steve Raymond, board chair of the Bay of Quinte Mutual Insurance Co.
The transformational gift has been designated to help build the diagnostic imaging department inside Quinte Health Care’s (QHC) new Prince Edward County Memorial Hospital. The department will house services currently offered in the present hospital such as X-Ray, ultrasound and mammography and will be named in recognition of Bay of Quinte Mutual Insurance Co.
“It’s a great day when an esteemed business like Bay of Quinte Mutual Insurance expands their charitable giving and chooses to give back to a once-in-a-lifetime project like this,” said Shannon Coull, executive director of the PECMH Foundation. “Bay of Quinte Mutual Insurance has been a member of our donor family for over 11 years and were the first major corporation to step forward with a significant commitment to help Back the Build. We are grateful for their board’s leadership and investment in continuing to support exceptional health care in our community.”
On October 31, 1874, the Bay of Quinte Mutual Agricultural Fire Insurance Company commenced business in rented office space in the Jamieson Block in Picton. It wasn’t until the 1920s that Bay of Quinte Mutual Insurance Co. expanded to insure properties in Northumberland and Hastings Counties. In 1978, the company moved into its current location on Loyalist Parkway in Picton.
“Bay of Quinte Mutual Insurance Co. takes pride in being part of the rural communities in South Eastern Ontario, but Picton is where we got our start. It’s the reason our board felt strongly about giving back to the community where we had our beginnings 146 years ago. Bay of Quinte Mutual Insurance and Prince Edward County Memorial Hospital are similar in that they have been deeply rooted in this community for over 100 years. A new hospital is not something that happens often and some may never see one in their lifetime. If ever there was an opportunity for our board to support a new hospital with a meaningful gift, now is the time to do so to ensure there’s a hospital here for many years to come,” said Raymond.
Bay of Quinte Mutual Insurance Co. is a long-time supporter of our local hospital and a key partner in advancing the construction of the new Prince Edward County Memorial Hospital. Many of Bay of Quinte Mutual Insurance Co. board and staff members live in the County and have exceptional pride in helping to build the first new hospital in Prince Edward County in more than 60 years.
“It’s inspiring to see the community come together to support a new hospital. Bay of Quinte Mutual Insurance Co. has shown great dedication and generosity, in both equipping the current hospital and now building the new one. This gift will have a significant impact on our growing community for years to come,” said Nancy Parks, Back the Build campaign co-chair.
This gift has been a huge help in PECMH Foundation’s ability to raise $11.3 million of its $16.5 million goal, which represents the community share of the estimated $100 million project.
“We are grateful to the Board of Bay of Quinte Mutual Insurance Co. for this $1.5 million contribution and their community leadership,” said Dennis Darby, Back the Build campaign co-chair.
PECMH’s new build provides a number of opportunities for individuals and families to leave a lasting legacy by naming a room, like Bay of Quinte Mutual Insurance Co. has, in the state-of-the-art facility. Naming opportunities within the new hospital are based on giving levels, starting with a commitment of $25,000, pending availability.
“Honouring and recognizing our donors is a priority for the PECMH Foundation and the Back the Build Campaign Cabinet,” said Coull. “It is a proud moment when we successfully assist our donors to find a naming opportunity that holds special meaning to them. We look forward to cutting the ribbon on the newly named diagnostic imaging department with Bay of Quinte Mutual Insurance Co. representatives when our new hospital is built.”
“Our board members take great pride in helping to build this much-needed hospital for our community. It is an honour for us to be able to give back and make a difference, both as a board and as donors. We’re proud to be supporting Prince Edward County Memorial Hospital Foundation’s Back the Build campaign to ensure quality care, close to home, continues to be delivered in Prince Edward County,” said Raymond.
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403 Main Street East
K0K 2T0
info@pecmhf.ca | (613) 476-1008 Ext. 4502
Charitable Number: BN 132876855 RR0001
© COPYRIGHT 2021 I LOVE THE COUNTY I BACK THE BUILD
SITE BY SNAP 360
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The Death Penalty: Cost And Public Opinion Support Biden’s Plan To End It
rtmadminadw
By David Dozier
A study in California revealed that the cost of the death penalty in the state has been over $4 billion since it was reinstated in 1978. Since California has executed 13 prisoners during that time, the cost per execution is more than $307 million. Other financial facts about the death penalty show capital cases in some states costing millions more than life imprisonment.
So, more people are asking: Is it worth it?
Cost is one factor people sometimes don’t consider in the debate over the death penalty. The complexity of seeking it and carrying out an execution is a long and expensive process. Many capital cases are appealed, and incarceration on death row can span 10, 15 or 20 or more years. And with capital punishment costs imposing a burden on state government budgets that are already stretched, it’s more cost-effective to commute death penalties to life imprisonment without parole.
But cost is just one reason that President-elect Joe Biden should work toward ending the death penalty in the U.S. As part of his criminal justice reform platform, he has pledged to abolish the federal death penalty and to give incentives to states to stop seeking death sentences. (Currently, capital punishment is authorized in 28 states.) Another reason to end the death penalty is its ties to racism. The Biden-Harris adminstration plans to address racism on many fronts.
Awareness of the killings of unarmed Black people by police has heightened the sensitivity of White Americans to racial injustice and prompted protests. Capital punishment is targeted at persons of color: Black Americans make up 13% of the U.S. population – but 34% of persons executed since 1976.
Too often, the death penalty is a poor man’s punishment. District attorneys are more likely to go after poor defendants who are trying to fight for their lives with overworked and underpaid public defenders. DA’s sometimes put dirty cops above the law by refusing to prosecute police who kill unarmed persons of color. That’s because police unions and prison guard unions pump lots of money into DA political campaigns. But if a Black man kills a policeman, police and police unions will push DA’s to seek the death penalty.
A third reason the death penalty should be eliminated both in the U.S. and around the world is because it is cruel – a barbaric and sadistic violation of human rights. It is pure hypocrisy for a nation such as ours to view itself as a beacon for human rights while ranking seventh in the world for the number of executions we administer. Executions are a form of torture that violate the Eighth Amendment prohibiting the federal government from imposing cruel and unusual punishment.
The U.S. government under President Donald Trump in 2020 carried out the most federal executions ever in a single year. But under Biden, the pendulum should swing; the question is how much on a state level. Meantime, it’s good to see public opinion shifting toward the elimination of the death penalty. Using an unbiased question, a 2019 Gallup poll on capital punishment showed 60% of Americans favored life in prison for murder while only 36% preferred the death penalty.
Public support for the death penalty has dipped near a 48-year low, and at the same time there is a bipartisan movement in state legislatures and Congress to end it. Many politicians and ordinary Americans are bothered by executions of innocent people. For every nine prisoners executed, an innocent death row inmate is exonerated. DNA science and advances in law enforcement have cleared numerous death row inmates.
As Biden enters the White House, numerous Democratic lawmakers have already written to him about their objections to the death penalty, asking him to sign an executive order to eliminate federal executions and calling capital punishment unjust, racist and defective. And conservatives in several states have pushed back against the death penalty, saying it is too costly, inconsistent with conservatives’ opposition to abortion, subject to error, and not an effective deterrent.
The momentum of states toward abolishing the death penalty, and the strengthening bipartisan footing against it on state and federal levels, make Biden’s goal of ending capital punishment a stronger possibility. You can measure the cost of capital punishment in many ways – in terms of public policy and sheer, enormous dollars; in morality; and in racism. But any way you slice it, it comes out as wrong. The Biden Administration has a great opportunity to get it right.
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Americans United for Life
Americans United for Life advances the human right to life in culture, law, and policy.
Testimony/Comments
Defending Life
Unsafe
Learn & Engage
#myLIFEstory
Life, Liberty, and Law
Mildred Press
We Must do Better for Elder Americans
Catherine Glenn Foster, M.A., J.D.
Advocates for Life
Widespread neglect in the American nursing home system has been well documented, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s absolutely disgraceful. Simply put, policymakers have made some very bad choices that put residents at assisted living facilities, who were already at the greatest risk of succumbing to the novel virus, at substantially increased risk of contraction and death. The date bears that horrible reality out. Tens of thousands of excess deaths, directly attributable to subpar given to senior Americans in the facilities that exist purely to give adequate and humane care. This recent report from the Associated Press was particularly sobering:
A nursing home expert who analyzed data from the country’s 15,000 facilities for The Associated Press estimates that for every two COVID-19 victims in long-term care, there is another who died prematurely of other causes. Those “excess deaths” beyond the normal rate of fatalities in nursing homes could total more than 40,000 since March.
These extra deaths are roughly 15% more than you’d expect at nursing homes already facing tens of thousands of deaths each month in a normal year.
“The healthcare system operates kind of on the edge, just on the margin, so that if there’s a crisis, we can’t cope,” said Stephen Kaye, a professor at the Institute on Health and Aging at the University of California, San Francisco, who conducted the analysis. “There are not enough people to look after the nursing home residents.”
Comparing mortality rates at homes struck by COVID-19 with ones that were spared, Kaye also found that the more the virus spread through a home, the greater the number of deaths recorded for other reasons. In homes where at least 3 in 10 residents had the virus, for example, the rate of death for reasons besides the virus was double what would be expected without a pandemic.
The pro-life movement has always acted as a voice to the voiceless, and many residents in long term care facilities are increasingly voiceless. We must do better for our elder Americans.
Our work is possible thanks to the support of Americans of all ages, backgrounds, and beliefs.
Your gift is essential to defending existing law and enshrining new law that protects human life. Begin or renew your partnership with a one-time or recurring gift.
Consider A Gift
Advance the cause for life
We share 10-12 monthly updates, featuring Americans United for Life News, updates from President & CEO Catherine Glenn Foster, and action alerts. We are powered by Americans of all ages, backgrounds, and beliefs, and we invite you to join us.
We take your trust seriously. Your information will never be shared with others.
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info@aul.org | press@aul.org
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August 18, 2005 by Chimaera Publications
Horrorscope – Call for Contributors
HorrorScope is a new Australian blog, started by Shane Jiraiya Cummings, that aims to be a source of news, reviews, and articles on horror and dark speculative fiction (publishing, movies, and television).
HorrorScope is currently looking for contributors to write reviews, track down news and interviews, and offer their opinion on all things related to Australian horror and dark speculative fiction.
So, if you think you can help out why don't you mosey on over to the OzHorrorScope site [http://www.ozhorrorscope.blogspot.com] for more information. If contributing's not your thing, make sure you head on over anyway and check it out.
August 4, 2005 by Chimaera Publications
Margo Lanagan sells new work to Allen & Unwin
Aurealis Award-winner, Margo Lanagan, has sold a YA novel and story collection to Rosalind Price at Allen & Unwin (Australia).
John Flanagan's RANGER'S APPRENTICE published in US
Former ad-man John Flanagan has had the first book in his YA RANGER'S APPRENTICE series, The Ruins of Gorlan, published by Penguin in the US. The Sydney-sider wrote the first book in the RANGER'S APPRENTICE series to encourage his 12-year-old son to enjoy reading, and then went on to write three further volumes.
Sean Williams sells Astropolis trilogy
Aurealis Award-winning author, Sean Williams, has sold his Astropolis trilogy, a "pan-galactic gothic space adventure" to Ginjer Buchanan at Berkley (US) via agent Richard Curtis.
[link: http://www.seanwilliams.com/]
Damien Broderick appointed fiction editor of Cosmos
Multi-award winning Australian science fiction writer, Damien Broderick, has been appointed fiction editor of Cosmos magazine. Some of the biggest names in SF have been commissioned by Broderick to write short fiction for Cosmos, which will be paying some of the highest rates for original science fiction in the world. For further details see www.cosmosmagazine.com.
Haven’t read Conquist yet?
Overlooked, Underrated, Forgotten 7
overlooked, underrated, forgotten
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Meet George Benaur
Case Experience
Russian tycoon Chigirinsky accuses his ex-wife’s business partner of aiding fraud
George Benaur, Benaur Law LLC
MOSCOW, February 4 (RAPSI) – Russian tycoon Shalva Chigirinsky who has brought a legal action against his ex-wife Tatiana Panchenkova claims that her long-standing business partner Aleksander Smukler abetted and aided an alleged fraud.
Chigirinsky filed a lawsuit against Panchenkova with the New York Supreme Court in June 2014 seeking to recover tens of millions of dollars of property that allegedly belonged to him or in which he had a beneficial interest and which was in his ex-wife’s possession.
This property includes prime New York real estate, fine art, religious icons, antiques, jewelry, and a historic library of Russian literature collected by Chigirinskiy both before and during his marriage.
Panchenkova took possession of the property pursuant to an agreement with Chigirinsky that, following their divorce, the library would be preserved intact and maintained for the ultimate benefit of their children, according to court records.
According to Chigirinsky, estimated value of this library was around $120 million.
He claims that his ex-wife failed to return property to him as well as preserve and maintain the library as it had been agreed upon.
“Ms. Panchenkova has embarked on a systematic dissipation of the Collection, selling numerous items, many, on information and belief, at below market value, and unjustly enriching herself with the roceeds,” according to court records.
On February 1, Chigirinsky filed a second amended complaint with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York where the case had been moved listing Smukler as a co-defendant.
“Mr. Smukler knew about the fraud and fraudulent concealment perpetrated by Ms. Panchenkova, aided and abetted her and provided substantial assistance to her in achieving this fraud and concealment,” reads the complaint.
Akerman Attorneys Can’t Stop This International Litigation From Advancing to Trial
The case may serve as an exemplar for how...
Oligarch in Bridgeport seeking to be reunited with daughter
By Daniel Tepfer 8:00 pm EDT, Tuesday, October 23,...
Promotional Videos – Archive
Benaur Law Promotional videos from 2015-17...
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© 2015-21 Benaur Law LLC | Attorney Advertising , Legal Notices | Website by Lisa Drew, Websites for a Song
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Category archives: Religious Persecution
Standing Against Religious Persecution in Communist Countries
by Anna Longbons
Bob Fu from China Aid recently joined a panel discussion at FRC to highlight the religious freedom abuses transpiring in China. Similarly, President Trump’s recent summit with Kim Jong Un brought renewed attention to the humanitarian and religious liberty crisis in North Korea. Both Chinese and North Korean citizens live under communist regimes. Although much of communism dissipated when the Iron Curtain fell away, it still survives in five countries, including North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, China, and Cuba. In all five nations, people of faith suffer persecution.
To live as a Christian in a communist nation is to live with competing loyalties. Communism demands allegiance, but so does Christ. Because religion threatens their authority, communists regulate religion or try to abolish it altogether.
Historically, communism and atheism have worked hand in glove. Marx famously referred to religion as “the opium of the people,” while Lenin asserted that “a Marxist must be a materialist, i.e., an enemy of religion.” More recently, the Communist Party of China has reiterated that all party members must ascribe to an atheistic worldview.
International Christian Concern lists Marxist persecution as one of the top three forms of religious persecution. Likewise, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) groups all five communist nations on its top two tiers of religious hostility. Many conservatives object to communism for economic and political reasons. However, the tie between Marxism and religious persecution gives Christians added reason to learn about and stand against communism and the accompanying persecution that these regimes inflict on people of faith.
USCIRF reports that “the North Korean government’s approach toward religion and belief is among the most hostile and repressive in the world.” Open Doors lists North Korea as the top country for Christian persecution on its world watch list. In North Korea, the government mandates the worship of the ruling Kim family. Because of the government’s hostility toward religion, many believers hide their faith to defend themselves and their families. Believers face arrest, prison, and death because of their faith.
Like North Korea, Vietnam also ranks as a Country of Particular Concern with USCIRF. Open Doors reports that although believers enjoy greater liberty in Vietnam than in North Korea, they still live with the risk of persecution. Believers encounter both racial and religious oppression. They also suffer attacks from gangs that may be state-sponsored.
In nearby Laos, Christians also face persecution. USCIRF reports that “the Lao government tightly manages religious groups much in the same way it controls any individual or group it perceives could deviate from the state’s agenda or who expresses dissent or criticism.”
The Chinese Communist Party took a more direct role in governing religion in 2017, which triggered a subsequent increase in religious persecution. China Aid reports that “more than 1,000,000 people were persecuted in 2018, which is three-and-a-half times more than those recorded in 2017. Of those, more than 10,000 church leaders were persecuted, which is five times greater than those recorded in 2017.” China Aid’s 2018 annual report chronicles case after case of heightened persecution in China, from churches being demolished to school children being questioned for their faith.
The Office of Religious Affairs in Cuba works for the Cuban Communist Party, giving the communists great authority over believers. According to USCIRF, “the government continues to interfere in religious groups’ internal affairs and actively limits, controls, and monitors their religious practice, access to information, and communications through a restrictive system of laws and policies, surveillance, and harassment.” A number of religious groups spoke out recently against the new constitution being proposed for the country, which would curtail religious freedom.
Protecting Religious Freedom Through Education, Donation, and Prayer
Christians can stand against communist persecution by educating themselves, praying for those affected by persecution, and supporting human rights advocacy organizations. Through education, Americans can better understand and influence our foreign policy regarding these communist nations. Christians can also donate to advocacy organizations who are working on the ground to provide material and spiritual aid to the persecuted, such as China Aid, Voice of the Martyrs, Open Doors, and International Christian Concern. These organizations also offer information that equips Christians to pray for the specific needs of their suffering brothers and sisters around the world.
Christianity threatens communism, because communism depends upon citizens’ brainwashed, undivided loyalty. However, Christianity bolsters democracy, because democracy rests on natural law and personal freedom. Therefore, preserving democracy means preserving religious freedom, while standing against communism means standing against oppression. By opposing communism worldwide through education, financial support, and prayer, we support our brothers and sisters and safeguard our own country.
More information on the persecuted church can be found at FRC’s Remember the Persecuted webpage.
Anna Longbons is an intern with FRC Action.
The Real Nature of Politics
by FRC Action
In our first ever FRC Action-hosted policy lecture, we partnered with The Leadership Institute to bring you “The Real Nature of Politics.”
Many committed conservatives tend to believe that being right, in the sense of being correct, is sufficient to win. Unfortunately, political history proves otherwise. If you allow your opposition to organize and communicate better than you do, they will beat you no matter how right you are — and you don’t deserve to win. You owe it to your philosophy to study how to win. You have a moral obligation to learn how to win. In this lecture you will learn the real nature of politics, and study how to win.
The speaker in this presentation, Robert Arnakis, is the Senior Director of Domestic and International Programs for The Leadership Institute, the nation’s premier public policy training organization. Robert oversees divisions which provide political education and training to tens of thousands of activists, elected officials, and political staffers. Robert’s 15 years of grassroots organizing, campaigning, fundraising, and communications experience has established him as one the country’s top political trainers. His background includes serving as campaign staff on presidential, congressional, municipal, and initiative-focused campaigns. Robert’s best campaign memory was assisting U.S. Senator John Thune in defeating Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.
Top 10 Best Statements from Trump’s Speech at the Celebrate Freedom Rally
On July 1, President Trump delivered an address honoring military veterans at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Here are some of his most memorable quotes (see the below video to view quotes at the indicated times in parentheses):
“Bureaucrats think they can run over your faith and tell you how to live, what to say, and where to pray, but we know that parents, not bureaucrats know best how to raise their children and create a thriving society …” (10:43-11:05)
“…and we know that families and churches, not government officials, know best how to create a strong and loving community, and above all else we know this: in America, we don’t worship government we worship God…” (11:19-11:42)
“Our religious liberty is enshrined in the very first amendment in the Bill of Rights. The American founders invoked our Creator four times in the Declaration of Independence…” (12:11-12:27)
“Inscribed on our currency are the words ‘In God We Trust,’ but not only has God bestowed on us the gift of freedom, he’s also given us the gift of heroes willing to give their lives to defend that freedom…” (13:03-13:25)
“Every veteran with us tonight from every branch of the military – Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and Coast Guard – I want you to know that we will always keep our promises to those who have kept us free. Since my very first day in office, we’ve taken one action after another to make sure that our veterans get the care they so richly deserve…” (19:25-19:48)
“I also want to speak to all of the people in our faith community who are here with us tonight – veterans and non-veterans alike. You’re never gonna be forgotten. My administration will always support and defend your religious liberty…” (25:05-25:35)
“We don’t want to see God forced out of the public square, driven out of our schools or pushed out of our civic life. We want to see prayers before football games if they want to give prayers. We want all children to have the opportunity to know the blessings of God. We will not allow the government to censor sermons to restrict the free speech of our pastors and our preachers…” (25:43-26:27)
“I just signed an executive order – and this is something that makes me very happy and very proud – following through on my campaign pledge to stop the Johnson Amendment from interfering with your First Amendment rights. As long as I am president, no one is going to stop you from practicing your faith or from preaching what is in your heart…” (27:03-27:48)
“Though we have many stories we all share one home and one glorious destiny, a destiny that’s getting better and better every single day, and whether we are black or brown or white, and you’ve heard me say this before, we all bleed the same red blood, we all salute the same great American flag, and we are all made by the same Almighty God.” (29:55 -30:46)
“As long as our country remains true to its values, loyal to its heroes, and devoted to its creator, then our best days are yet to come, because we will make America great again.” (32:16- 32:32)
The Religious Litmus Test
Family Research Council Action launched a video ad calling on Americans to tell their Senators “to denounce Bernie Sanders’ religious test” upon the nomination of Christian nominee Russell Vought for the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Vought’s nomination drew national attention after Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) deemed Vought unfit for public service due to his Christian belief that salvation is found through Jesus Christ alone.
In the confirmation process, Sen. Sanders fires off probing questions that had nothing to do with the job Vought was being considered for, experience, or qualifications, but had everything to do with the nominee’s faith. Sanders referenced a piece Vought wrote in The Resurgent defending his alma mater, Wheaton College, for its decision to stand by Christian doctrine when the school decided to fire a professor for equating Islam with Christianity.
Sanders pulls out a quote from Vought’s piece in the Resurgent stating, “‘Muslims do not simply have a deficient theology. They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ, His Son, and they stand condemned.’ Do you believe that that statement is Islamophobic?” says Sanders.
Vought: “Absolutely not, Senator. I’m a Christian, and I believe in a Christian set of principles based on my faith …
Sanders: “… Forgive me; we just don’t have a lot of time. Do you believe people in the Muslim religion stand condemned? Is that your view?”
Sanders: “… Do you think that’s respectful of other religions?… I would simply say, Mr. Chairman that this nominee is really not someone who this country is supposed to be about.”
Nominee, Russell Vought, was criticized for what seemed to be a religious test by Sen. Bernie Sanders when Article VI of our nation’s Constitution clearly states “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”
Christians have been sued and bullied out of their livelihood for “bringing their faith into the workplace” even as business owners in the private sector! Now one is required to have a certain set of religious beliefs to be qualified for a specific job?
In response to Senator Sanders’ religious bigotry, Family Research Council (FRC) started a petition calling on Senator Sanders to apologize for his unconstitutional religious test and urged the U.S. Senate to reject the religious test. Over 55,000 Americans have already signed FRC’s petition.
In case you haven’t had a chance yet, you can still sign the petition today here.
Please call your Senator TODAY at (202) 224-3121 and tell them to confirm Vought! They need send a clear message and vote to confirm Vought based on principles — the principles of religious freedom, freedom of thought, and constitutionalism.
Parts taken from original article published here on The Christian Post.
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Slipknot Frontman Corey Taylor Eviscerates Kanye For His ‘Greatest Living Rock Star’ Boast
#kanye
by Paul Sacca July 8, 2015
Rapper and professional assclown Kanye West headlined UK’s Glastonbury festival where he attempted to sing Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Despite fucking up the lyrics and embarrassing himself while attempting to sing the Freddie Mercury classic, that didn’t stop Mr. Fishsticks from making a bold and unworthy proclamation.
“I’m going to say this tonight because 20 years from now, 30 years from now, 40 years from now, I might not be able to say it, but I can say it tonight. You are now watching the greatest living rock star on the planet,” the 37-year-old rapper informed the crowd during his performance.
The Who closed out the festival and that’s when Townshend poked fun of Kanye’s foolishness by saying, “We’re going to send you home now with a rebellious, “Oh yeah, who’s the biggest rock star in the world.'”
Now Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor takes aim at Kanye’s ludicrous statement. Taylor recorded a video for Music Choice where he destroys West.
“You are not the greatest living rock star of all time. The fact that you had to tell people that kinda says it all. You remind me of the guy who brags about pussy, they never get as much as they brag about. Stop it. Stop it!”
‘Tis true. You never hear Michael Jordan telling the world that he’s the greatest of all-time because everyone already knows that he’s the G.O.A.T. Kanye, it’s called “humility,” get some.
Tags kanyeKanye WestMusicRock
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Seven Essential Ingredients for Change Management
xxxxxxvii) Stereotyping
Be careful of stereotyping, ie all members of a group are classified as the same. It is "judgments of representativeness" (the similarity of an individual to the stereotype of the group is unaffected by the size of the group). They are representative and are less about probability (likelihood). Remember:
"...judgments of similarity and probability are not constrained by the same logical rules. It is entirely acceptable for judgments of similarity to be unaffected by base rates and also by the possibility that the description was inaccurate, but anyone who ignores base rates and the quality of evidence and probability assessments will certainly make mistakes..."
Daniel Kahneman 2012
We have a preference to selectively help people who are like us and we can draw possible erroneous conclusions about an individual from statistics of the group
There is a difference between awareness of stereotyping and endorsement of it. But our subconscious cannot distinguish between the 2; it is more about a language of association, ie white is good. Generally most people do not want to express their bias openly and/or admit their biases to themselves. In fact there is a preference to selectively help people who are like you, ie maintain the status quo.
"...We're each part of several groups, defined by race, gender, religion, family, alma mater and so on, and when we go out of our way to help an in-group member, we don't see that as a bad thing ..."
Matthew Hudson, 2013
Remember: attitudes influence behaviour, and different circumstances can bring out different attitudes and influence behaviours
Home | Knowledge Base | Centre of Excellence | About Us | Login
Bill Synnot is one of Australia's leading specialists in organisational change management, executive coaching, facilitation, team development, creative thinking and organisational reviews.
He has 30+ years experience in management and consulting, both in Australia and internationally, in the public, private, co-operative, professional, educational and not-for-profit sectors.
In addition to acting as a consultant/trainer, Bill's experience comes from his senior management positions as a change catalyst. His approach is very practical and is based on hands-on experience.
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« The Biodiversity-IPRs Debate
Analysis of the MOP 3 Article 18.2(a) decision »
Impact of Bt Cotton on Farmers’ Health
BT COTTON AND FARMERS’ HEALTH
We wish to bring to your attention a report about the health situation of Bt cotton growing farmers in India.
Following complaints of allergenic reactions among farmers growing genetically modified cotton, a three member panel was set up to investigate the matter in Barwani and Dhar Districts of the state of Madhya Pradesh. In March 2002, cultivation of GM Bt cotton was permitted in India. Madhya Pradesh is the fifth largest producer of cotton in the country.
The investigators were: Dr Ashish Gupta, MBBS, currently working with a voluntary organisation at Indore and is associated with Jan Swasthya Abhiyan; Ashish Mandloi, a graduate of Barwani College, an activist of Narmada Bachao Andolan for the last 12 years and associated with the National Alliance of Peoples’ Movements (NAPM); and Amulya Nidhi, MA, MSW, specializing in Urban and Rural community Development, Pune who is a health activist working in Maharastra and Madhya Pradesh and associated with Shilpi Trust, and Jan Swasthya Abhiyan.
The panel sought to identify the spectrum of symptoms which were reported as a result of exposure of Bt cotton, and to investigate the relationship of symptoms reported by farmers and Bt cotton. According to the report, “the study was meant to be a preliminary investigation merely to understand the above [the symptoms and the possible relationship with Bt cotton] and thereby to stimulate more scientific study on this issue. It was also meant to document the cases who had reported allergies as a result of exposure to BT in order to give voice to their concerns and raise public awareness and debate on this issue”.
The investigators talked with various groups of people associated with the handling of the cotton as well as experts in the Barwani and Dhar Districts. They found that these people who had a direct contact with Bt cotton suffered allergic reactions in various body parts which included hands, feet, face, eyes and nose, with some having fallen seriously ill.
The study found that 82.6 % persons interviewed suffered from redness of skin, 48 % had eye symptoms and 39% persons had symptoms related to nose (upper respiratory tract). The local doctor of the area has reported that he has received 100 and 150 cases of allergy in 2004 and 2005 respectively in the cotton season.
The study has been conducted based on the observation and experience of farmers and those working in the region. The investigators hope that the study will stimulate further study as there is no comprehensive health and risk assessment carried out in the context of Bt cotton.
The report, ‘Impact of Bt Cotton on Farmers’ Health’(Oct – Dec 2005) is available in two parts:
1. Impact of Bt Cotton on Farmers’ Health Part 1
http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6265
March 23rd, 2006 | Category: Health
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Books and Cleverness
And Other Ramblings
Tag Archives: mindy kaling
Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling Review
January 11, 2016 by Books and Cleverness
Well, I officially suck at consistency. It’s been almost two months since my last post, and the only thing I can say is: blame it on the holiday season? Please?
Today I’m going to give you a little bit of insight into my actual human life and not just my blog life: I am a person with a lot of anxieties. Unfortunately, I’m also the type of person who will have a panic attack and think, you know what I should do? Watch a serial killer documentary. Probably not the best idea, but how else am I supposed to know how to get away with murder?
My family and my boyfriend are always so helpful, though. In December my boyfriend told me I should stop reading Holocaust memoirs and read something a little more uplifting. Good job, boyfriend. Good job.
So I put down the book and we went to Barnes and Noble to pick out books together. I bought a few books including Yes Please by Amy Poehler and Mindy Kaling’s Why Not Me? I remember talking to you guys about Mindy Kaling’s first book, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) and telling you how awesome it was. So when I found out (way too late in the game, I might add) that Mindy had written a new book, I was stoked and could not wait to get home to read it.
I have to say, I was a little disappointed. Not because it wasn’t a funny book, or an entertaining book, but because I thought that now that Mindy Kaling is a little more famous than before, she tried to pander a bit to her audience, but ended up doing it in a bad way.
I’ll explain:
Since her first book was released she has been a role model to women and girls of all ages, of all sizes and shapes, and of all colors. Kaling openly admits to being a size 10 in both of her books, and in the first one she makes a big deal about being content with how you look. Personally, I thought that was an incredible message to send out to people. As a woman who is bigger, myself, I see and feel the pressure every day for women to look a certain way. There isn’t just pressure towards bigger, curvier women to be smaller, there’s also pressure towards skinny and less curvy women to be slightly bigger – to be a Victoria’s Secret Model. Everyone wants to make the perfect potion to make themselves look a certain way: add a pinch of C-cup boobs, a sprinkle of the perfect tan, a dash of a toned and flat stomach, a half a cup of flawless skin, and an eye of newt.
But to be frank, all of that is complete bullshit. There’s so much pressure in everything you do: jobs, relationships with other people, goals, there’s even pressure when you drive (screw you guy behind me – I’m going 5 miles over the speed limit, get off my butt). The only thing you can do to help yourself is tune them out. Do what you think is right. Be proud of how you look. Don’t let anyone tell you what you should and shouldn’t do. Every BODY is different, and there’s a reason for that. It’s not because we need to be the same, it’s because we’re SUPPOSED to be different.
But I digress… In Mindy Kaling’s second book she kind of does a 180 from her original opinions. I don’t think she means to, I actually think she’s trying to convey a better message. But here’s what happened:
Kaling tries to say that she’s a real person too and sometimes doesn’t love the way she looks. That’s an awesome message, I agree. It’s important for people to understand that those thoughts and feelings are completely normal. But then she goes on to tell a story: A magazine or website or something of that nature put her on a list of the most beautiful curvy and bigger women in Hollywood. Again, that’s awesome. Except that Kaling then says that she looked through the list and saw people twice her size and thought, “why am I on a list with these heifers?” What a horrible thing to say.
I understand that she’s a comedian and was just making a joke. But why would you spend your career trying to be a role model for plus size women and then bad mouth them at the same time? That’s not right. And while I love Mindy, I think she’s hilarious, a phenomenal writer, and a really great role model, I also think she should’ve left that part out of the book.
We all say things we don’t necessarily mean, or say things that might sound a little bit cruel without meaning it to, but that doesn’t mean that it’s okay to tell people to love their body and stop shaming each other for how they look and then call them a “heifer” – that’s just mean.
I feel like the majority of the book was written to get people to look at her as a regular human, but she just went about it the wrong way. I completely understand telling your audience that even the most confident person will still look in the mirror and want to change something. What I don’t understand is giving your audience that message, and then adding to their insecurities by telling them that if they’re bigger than a size ten it’s okay to make fun of other people and call them fat.
And look, as I’ve mentioned before, I LOVE Mindy. I think she’s awesome. But that doesn’t mean that I’ll always agree with what she says.
SOOO, after that long rant, I would like to point out some things I thought were awesome in the book:
Kaling talking about her anxieties. This was helpful since, as I mentioned before, I’ve been having a lot of panic attacks recently.
Kaling discussing her thoughts on marriage, love, sex, and friendship. A lot of celebrities don’t delve into their personal relationships as much as she did and I thought that was an amazing way to feel closer to your audience and for the audience to feel closer to her.
Learning her keys to success.
How to make it in Hollywood! (Spoiler: no one knows the answer. It’s all about luck)
Her time with President Obama.
I very much recommend reading this book, I just suggest you take what she says at face value and not idolize her and take what she says as gospel. Because everyone is different, and no one should feel like they’re being made fun of for how they look.
Hopefully I’ll be writing more soon. I have about 10 different blog ideas that I’m super excited to write about. So stay tuned!
e-mail: rachel@booksandcleverness.com
Uncategorized Bookscomedymemoirmindy kalingreviews 1 Comment
Nonfiction or Fiction?
September 22, 2015 by Books and Cleverness
Hi y’all! I can’t believe I haven’t posted anything in almost four weeks. Fortunately, I’m going to cut right to the chase. I’m in a nonfiction mood and I’m starting to wonder what is better: nonfiction or fiction. Okay, maybe that’s not entirely true. I’ve just been starting to wonder when nonfiction or fiction begins to be too much.
For example, for a long time I really only read memoirs. I loved them, I loved being able to transport myself into someone else’s life for a short while. But for whatever reason I stopped reading them. I decided that fiction caught my eye more and that I could transport myself into not just someone else’s life but an entirely different universe and that was extremely appealing to me.
…Until recently. Recently I’ve been on a Netflix binge of crime documentaries. And I’m not talking about watching Law & Order type stuff. I’m talking watching shows about serial killers, about man hunts, about treatment in prisons and prisoners stories – even about the Drugs War inside prisons. I’ve been going ALL OUT to the point where I decided it would be a great idea to start reading nonfiction books again. But fear not, I decided to stick to the scary theme of murderers and bought The Strange Case of Dr. H.H. Holmes.
H.H. Holmes was America’s “first” serial killer. After murdering dozens of people during the Chicago World’s Fair in the late 1880s and continuing his murder spree by using his home (dubbed “The Castle”) as a glorified torture chamber, H.H. Holmes became an infamous name in history. Quite the uplifting story! This nearly 500 page book was extremely graphic and extremely strange to read because a part of me wanted to believe it wasn’t true, even though it 100% was. Also it was partially written by H.H. Holmes himself as his written confession of a lot of murders.
To give myself a change of pace after reading it, I decided to buy a book called Deep Down Dark by Héctor Tobar. This book is about the 33 Chilean miners who were trapped 2,000 feet below ground for over 60 days. Again, so uplifting. I’m almost done with this book, and to be honest it’s absolutely incredible. I think it’s even being turned into a movie, which would be really cool. But it’s nonetheless a very depressing story. As nice it is, and as great as it is that they were found and rescued, it’s still about 33 men living in their own filth in pitch black eating a spoon full of canned tuna a day and drinking dirty oil filled water that the men bathed in. So, yeah, not very happy.
But to top it all off (and to bring into light my predicament) I started thinking of books I should read next. And rather than read the many books I’ve already bought, or even to read the Star Wars prequel book that my boyfriend surprised me with, I’ve started thinking I should re-read The Diary of Anne Frank AND Night by Elie Wiesel. Because apparently serial killers, dying miners and crime documentaries weren’t enough, I had to decide to not only read, but RE-read two of the most depressing books of all time.
Now here’s where the predicament lies: I don’t think it’s at all bad to be reading these things! There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to learn more about things that school doesn’t go over. I’ve never been in a classroom that was like, “Hey kids! Lets talk about Jeffrey Dahmer!” It’s just not going to happen. Sometimes you need to use your own curiosity to learn things that aren’t publicized too much. Knowledge is power.
But when is it enough? When do you tell yourself, “you know what, I know it’s really interesting, but maybe limit yourself to one depressing book every now and then.” or “instead of watching The Killer Speaks, let’s watch Bob’s Burgers for a while”?
The hard thing is: I have no idea. For years and years I only read fiction. To give you a time frame, the last two memoirs that I read were the hilarious Mindy Kaling’s Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? in 2012 . and then The Devil at My Heels in early to mid 2014. That’s THREE years ago and more than a year ago! So am I going to be stuck on this autobiographical kick for the next three years, or at the very least a year? That seems like a really long time. But in comparison, I’ve been reading fiction books for that amount of time and haven’t felt like that was too much. It seems normal, it seems like what a regular reader does.
Which makes me wonder: which is better? What captures the attention more? What makes nonfiction seem somewhat scary in comparison to a fiction book? Fiction can be just as depressing (see my Letter to John Green. God damnit The Fault in Our Stars) but I guess it’s that disconnect: when you’re reading fiction you know that at the end of the book, it’s over. It’s done. But with a true story it hits you in the empathy gut really hard for a long time. It’s something that won’t leave you.
So I guess what I’m saying is, what’s better? Reading something completely depressing and horrible but knowing that it’s just fiction, or reading something that is true and horrible, but will ultimately give you more insight into the real world?
Comment below or send me an e-mail at rachel@booksandcleverness.com so I can hear your opinions. I always love your opinions!
Until next time (and hopefully it won’t be four weeks from now!)
Uncategorized Bookschilean minerscrimedeep down darkFictionis everyone hanging out without memindy kalingmurdernightnonfictionthe 33the diary of anne frank Leave a comment
Book vs Kindle
Peak by Roland Smith Review
Fairy Tale Fails: Hansel and Gretel
A Very Long Review of The Martian by Andy Weir
The Problem With the Media
Top Five Love Stories (In The Past Twenty Years)
Book vs Movie: Gone Girl
Book vs Movie: Cinderella
Fairy Tale Fail - Snow White
Book vs Movie: The Martian
rachel@booksandcleverness.com
Books and Cleverness!
Three Years of BloggingJanuary 27, 2018
The big day is here! I've been blogging for more than three years!
Rachel Dietz
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How Demographic Shifts Are Transforming Florida's Electorate [PODCAST]
At this year's annual Lay of the Land Conference Marian P. Johnson, Executive Director at the Florida Chamber Political Institute, spoke about the shifting demographics here in Florida and how they might affect Floridian politics. Johnson has a wealth of experience, having worked for many local, state, and presidential elections including Ronald Reagan's 1980 and 1984 campaigns.
Johnson began by sharing a truly astounding statistic about Florida. If Florida were a country, it would be the 17th largest economy in the world.
"By 2030," Johnson said "there will be over 5 million new Florida residents. We will need 1.5 million new jobs."
Johnson then went on to share statistics regarding new voter registration in Florida. The number of registered voters has grown from 6.5 million in 1994 to nearly 13.5 million voters today. The Democratic Party boasts the largest voter base in Florida, with 4.97 million voters registered as Democrats. Meanwhile, the Republican Party has 4.72 million registered Floridians. Most crucially, Florida has 3.75 million Non-Party and third party voters.
Johnson also spoke about projected growth for different counties in Florida. According to Johnson, the following counties will see the largest growth in people over the course of the next decade:
Miami-Dade - 639,060
Orange - 451,990
Hillsborough - 412,926
Broward - 329,843
Palm Beach - 279,976
Duval - 225,250
Lee - 212,763
Osceola - 178,394
Polk - 171,439
Pasco - 129,769
Johnson also discussed one of the most unique characteristics of Florida's electorate, which is that it is almost always a swing state with a very thin margin of victory for candidates. Many remember the Presidential election of 2000, when George W. Bush won Florida by a margin of only 0.01%. In 2012, Barack Obama only won Florida by a margin of 0.87%. In both the 2016 Presidential election and the 2018 gubernatorial election, the victor won by a 1% margin. Florida's status as a battleground state makes the state essential to a winning strategy for any campaign.
With the general election fast approaching in November, it will be interesting to see which political direction Florida's electorate decides to go. Studying demographics and the transformation of Florida's population could hold the key to predicting political trends for Florida's future.
For more information on Florida's political demographics, listen to Johnson's speech below and follow along with her presentations slides here.
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Tag Archives: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
Welcome to your childhood, revisited.
(2017) Science Fiction (Saban/Lionsgate) Dacre Montgomery, Naomi Scott, RJ Cyler, Ludi Lin, Becky G, Elizabeth Banks, Bryan Cranston, Bill Hader (voice), Matt Shively, Cody Kearsley, David Denman, Robert Moloney, Anjali Jay, Sarah Grey, Morgan Taylor Campbell, Caroline Cave, Kayden Magnuson, Lisa Berry, Wesley MacInnes, John Stewart, Fiona Fu. Directed by Dean Israelite
Never underestimate the value of nostalgia in selling a franchise movie. The toys and games of our youth become the $100 million franchise film of our present. Michael Bay turned a TV show meant to sell toys into a billion dollar film franchise which shows no sign of abating.
The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers were arguably a bigger kid’s show in their day. Certainly it paved the way for all sorts of shows that were arguably toy ads and included such shows as Pokémon and Animorphs. There were a couple of movies made with the Rangers (the first one I was forced to endure since my son was a MMPR junkie at the time) but while the show has continued in a variety of forms over the years, it hasn’t quite had the same cache as it did back in the day. Now Saban, the American distributor of the original, has started a film arm and is pulling out what is arguably their most valuable property to help get it going.
Five misfit teenagers in the sleepy California town of Angel Grove have been drawn together. Jock Jason (Montgomery) has a bright athletic future ahead of him but throws it all away for the sake of an unfunny prank that ends up getting him arrested. Kimberly (Scott) is a cheerleader whose clique has turned against her. Billy (Cyler) is a brilliant but bullied young man who is on the autism spectrum. Jason, who hates bullies, stands up for Billy but not because he is bullied – Billy is able to disarm the ankle bracelet he’s forced to wear.
Billy takes his two new friends to an old mine his late father used to take him to. There they meet Zack (Lin), an outgoing Asian kid and Trini (G), a Latina loner. The five of them discover that they picked a mine that happened to be above a buried alien spacecraft where they discover five coins. The coins give them a variety of super powers but nothing like what they would have if they could manifest the Power Ranger suits.
At least, that’s what giant head Zordon (Cranston) tells them. With his snarky robot sidekick Alpha 5 (Hader), the five are meant to be the new Power Rangers who have to battle interstellar baddie Rita Repulsa (Banks) who has plans to nab the Zeo Crystal and destroy the planet – unless the bickering teens can get their act together and team up to beat her and her giant robot Goldar. We’re doomed.
It’s hard in some ways for someone like me to review this; I really didn’t follow the show and while my son was way into it for a certain part of his youth, it was his show, not mine. We didn’t watch it together but that was okay – it was something that could be his and his alone, which is important for a young boy. The connection I have to the show is tenuous and the Easter eggs and cameos that litter the film go straight over my head. Younger people who grew up with the show in the 90s will find more resonance here than I ever could so keep that in mind.
The special effects are fairly spectacular for the most part – the climactic battle is a little bit overwrought and difficult to follow. It takes a long time to get there however; the Rangers don’t appear in uniform until the movie is nearly done and the dinosaur-like vehicles they operate, the Zords don’t appear until even later.
The movie is chock full of terms and expressions that will only make sense to those who grew up with the show. That’s okay, mind you, but just be warned that those of us who weren’t into the show will have less of an experience. The same thing can be said about the Marvel movies, Star Trek movies and so on and so forth. That’s kind of the point of going to see a movie like this.
The movie is a bit schizophrenic in that part of it seems to want to be a slam-bang action movie and the other more of a Freeform teen angst movie. Israelite is more successful at the latter than the former and quite frankly the integration of the two could have been better and I think that’s where the movie has its biggest issue. When the action sequences come, they are a bit on the cheesy side and don’t look terribly convincing. They’re also quite jarring when you put them together with teens who are sexting, experiencing sensuality for the first times in their lives, dealing with autism and bullying and alienation from not only the adults in their lives but from people in general. All the special effects in the world can’t help you with those.
If you loved the original series, chances are that you’ll enjoy this depending on how much a stickler you are for keeping things the way they were in the 90s. Chances are you’ll have seen this already as well. For those wondering if they should catch this at the local dollar theater, do. It should definitely be experienced on a big screen with big sound. However, keep in mind that this is essentially a mediocre movie that could have used less of an eye on the bottom line and more of an eye on writing a great story involving these characters instead of one drowning helplessly in liquid cheese.
REASONS TO GO: There is a nostalgia factor for those who grew up with the original TV show.
REASONS TO STAY: Tries to be both an action movie and a young adult drama and doesn’t really integrate the two disparate sides together very well.
FAMILY VALUES: You’ll find plenty of sci-fi violence, a smattering of mild profanity and a little bit of crude humor.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is the third Power Ranger movie to make the big screen (although as a reboot it isn’t connected to the other two) and the first in 20 years to be released.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 5/27/17: Rotten Tomatoes: 46% positive reviews. Metacritic: 44/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Chronicle
NEXT: Pandora
Posted in New Releases | Tagged 90s TV shows, autism, based on a young adult TV show, Bill Hader, Bryan Cranston, cinema, Cinema365, Dacre Montgomery, detention, dinosaurs, Elizabeth Banks, Films, high school, Lionsgate Films, megazords, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, misfits, movies, Naomi Scott, Power Rangers, reviews, Rita Repulsa, RJ Cyler, Saban Films, Science Fiction, spaceship, super powers, toys, zeo crystal, zords | Leave a reply
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Tolces v. Trask
Valov v. Department of Motor Vehicles
Indeed, "the California Supreme Court has held that driving a motor vehicle on the public highways is a…
Southwick v. Crownover
These pre-suspension notice and hearing procedures suffice to ensure reasonable grounds exist to support the…
Full title:ROGER SUNPATH TOLCES, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. GROVER TRASK, as…
Court:Court of Appeal of California, Fourth District, Division Two
Date published: Nov 17, 1999
76 Cal.App.4th 285 (Cal. Ct. App. 1999)
90 Cal. Rptr. 2d 294
Court of Appeal of California, Fourth District, Division Two
Filed November 17, 1999 Certified for Partial Publication
Pursuant to California Rules of Court, rules 976(b) and 976.1, this opinion is certified for publication with the exception of parts I. and II.
Appeal from the Superior Court of Riverside County, No. I51039, Louis Barry Mack, Temporary Judge. (Pursuant to Cal. Const., art. VI, § 21.) Affirmed.
Pursuant to California Constitution, article VI, section 21.
Roger Sunpath Tolces, in pro. per., for Plaintiff and Appellant.
Grover C. Trask, District Attorney, and James P. Fullmer, Deputy District Attorney, for Defendants and Respondents.
WARD, J.
Plaintiff and appellant Roger Sunpath Tolces appeals from a court order denying his requests for an offset against his child support arrearage and for the reinstatement of his California driver's license, which was suspended as a result of the non-compliance with his child support order. On appeal, Tolces contends: (1) he should receive an in-kind offset against his child support arrearage for the alleged fair rental value of the home he provided, rent-free, for the mother of his son and her children; and (2) his driver's license should be reinstated because Welfare Institutions Code section 11350.6 is not applicable to him and is unconstitutional because it infringes on his right to travel and violates his right to equal protection.
All further statutory references will be to the Welfare and Institutions Code, unless otherwise noted.
We find no error and affirm.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Tolces had a son, Thayne Garett Tolces, with Ingrid Traver. The record does not show when Thayne was born. Apparently, the district attorney obtained an order that Tolces pay $175 per month in child support for Thayne. Tolces asserts that his child support obligation was terminated on November 28, 1995, by order of the superior court. At about that time, Thayne moved in with Tolces on a full-time basis.
On or about October 5, 1995, Traver and her children were evicted from their home. Thayne was not then living with Traver. Tolces allowed Traver and her other children to live in a two-bedroom house he owned in Desert Hot Springs, California. They resided in the house, rent-free, for 28 months. Tolces estimates that the fair rental value of the house was $500 per month.
On or about December 2, 1997, the department of motor vehicles (DMV) sent Tolces a "Notice of Intent to Suspend" his driver's license effective May 1, 1998. The DMV proposed to suspend Tolces's license pursuant to section 11350.6, after the Riverside District Attorney's Office, Child Support Division, reported that Tolces had an outstanding balance of $6,631.31 in child support arrears.
As previously noted, the record does not include any documentation to verify the amount of child support Tolces owed in arrears, but we accept the matters alleged in Tolces's papers below seeking an offset against child support.
On March 18, 1998, Tolces filed an order to show cause (OSC) disputing the amount of his child support arrearage balance and requesting an in-kind offset. Tolces demanded a $14,000 in-kind offset against his child support arrearage, which would effectively bring his outstanding balance to zero. He also requested an order prohibiting the Riverside District Attorney's Office, Family Support Division, and the DMV from suspending his driver's license.
On March 26, 1998, Tolces filed a brief in support of his request for an offset against his outstanding child support arrearage. He argued that travel was a right, not a privilege, and claimed that the suspension of his driver's license was an infringement on his right to travel.
On June 1, 1998, the trial court took the matter under submission and rendered its decision on July 9, 1998. The court denied Tolces's OSC because there was insufficient evidence showing the amount of arrearage, there was no prior order permitting in-kind payment, and his request was, in essence, for a retroactive modification of support. Furthermore, the court ruled that section 11350.6 was not unconstitutional, and that it did not purport to limit or prohibit travel. The court specifically stated that because section 11350.6 simply prohibited Tolces from possessing a license to drive, he could still travel as a passenger in a car, bus, or plane, and therefore, his right to travel had not been impaired.
Tolces now appeals.
Analysis I., II.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . III. Neither Tolces's Right to Travel Nor His Right to Equal Protection Has Been Infringed Upon
The main thrust of all of Tolces's scattered claims is that suspending his driver's license for reasons not having to do with safe operation of a motor vehicle somehow infringes upon his constitutional right to travel.
We agree with the trial court that suspension of Tolces's license pursuant to section 11350.6 merely prohibits Tolces from possessing a license to drive, temporarily, and does not infringe upon his right to travel. Suspension of a driver's license, for whatever reason, does not prevent a citizen from traveling wherever and whenever he or she chooses. "It merely limits his options as to his mode of transportation. Thus the right of an individual to operate a private automobile cannot be equated with the fundamental constitutional right of an individual to travel." ( McGue v. Sillas (1978) 82 Cal.App.3d 799, 805.) As stated by the trial court, Tolces's right to travel has not been infringed upon, in that he can still travel as a passenger in a car, bus, or plane.
Furthermore, "[n]either the United States Supreme Court nor [the California Supreme Court] has ever held . . . that the incidental impact on travel of a law having a purpose other than restriction of the right to travel, and which does not discriminate among classes of persons by penalizing the exercise by some of the right to travel, is constitutionally impermissible." ( Tobe v. City of Santa Ana (1995) 9 Cal.4th 1069, 1100, italics added.) Here, the purpose of section 11350.6 is not to restrict Tolces's right to travel, but rather to enforce his child support order. The support enforcement mechanism has not been discriminatorily applied to him. The impact on his right to travel is minimal and incidental.
A. Driving a Motor Vehicle is a Privilege, Not a Right
The true gravamen of Tolces's complaint is not that his right to travel has been infringed upon, but rather that his "right to drive" has been unconstitutionally restricted. We find this contention to be totally lacking in merit. Contrary to Tolces's claim of a right to drive, the California Supreme Court has held that driving a motor vehicle on the public highways is a privilege. ( Hernandez v. Department of Motor Vehicles (1981) 30 Cal.3d 70, 80-84.) Furthermore, "[i]t is well established in California that the privileges conferred by a driver's license constitute an important property right [citations], although not so fundamental a right as to trigger a strict scrutiny analysis." ( King v. Meese (1987) 43 Cal.3d 1217, 1228; McGlothlen v. Department of Motor Vehicles (1977) 71 Cal.App.3d 1005, 1021.)
Because driving a motor vehicle is a privilege, it is subject to regulation. "The right to operate [motor vehicles] in public places is not a natural and unrestrained right, but a privilege subject to reasonable regulation, under the police power, in the interest of the public safety and welfare. [Citation.] The power to license imports the further power to withhold or to revoke such license upon noncompliance with prescribed conditions." ( Watson v. Division of Motor Vehicles (1931) 212 Cal. 279, 283, see also, Hernandez v. Department of Motor Vehicles, supra, 30 Cal.3d 70, 74 [Past authorities have "uniformly recognized that the area of driving is particularly appropriate for extensive legislative regulation, and that the state's traditionally broad police power authority to enact any measure which reasonably relates to public health or safety operates with full force in this domain."]; Johnson v. Dept. of Motor Vehicles (1960) 177 Cal.App.2d 440, 447 ["The Legislature has properly placed within the Motor Vehicle Department the discretion of determining what persons are qualified to receive operator's licenses and of determining what licenses should be revoked. The Legislature has furnished proper guides for the exercise of that discretion."]; Sleeper v. Woodmansee (1936) 11 Cal.App.2d 595, 599 ["The license is a mere privilege to drive a motor vehicle, which is subject to revocation for the reasons and in the manner provided by law."].)
B. Tolces's Equal Protection Rights Have Not Been Violated
Tolces further contends that section 11350.6 violates the equal protection clause. However, he does not articulate a classification to which equal protection applies. We assume his argument is that the equal protection clause applies under two possible theories. We find that Tolces has failed to establish a violation of equal protection under either theory.
The first theory is that section 11350.6 violates equal protection by applying to a class of people that is too poor to pay court-ordered child support. Tolces claims that he is in this class. However, child support cannot be ordered by the court unless it finds the parent has the ability to pay. (Fam. Code, § 4053) If Tolces could not pay his child support, his remedy was to get his child support order modified, which he apparently did not do. He cannot use this lawsuit to collaterally attack the child support order.
The second theory is that the suspension of Tolces's driver's license deprives him of his ability to make a living, and therefore causes him to be poor. However, in the same way that section 11350.6 does not infringe upon his right to travel, it does not deprive him of his ability to earn a living. Tolces may be inconvenienced by the suspension of his driver's license; however, he can get to and from work by other means of transportation.
Furthermore, we understand Tolces's contention to be that section 11350.6 has no rational basis. We disagree. "Unless a statute provokes `strict judicial scrutiny' because it interferes with a `fundamental right' or discriminates against a `suspect class,' it will ordinarily survive an equal protection attack so long as the challenged classification is rationally related to a legitimate governmental purpose. [Citations.]" ( Kadrmas v. Dickinson Pub. Schools (1988) 487 U.S. 450, 457 [ 108 S.Ct. 2481, 101 L.Ed.2d 399, 409].)
Here, Tolces has failed to establish that section 11350.6 interferes with any fundamental right, or that it discriminates against a suspect class. Moreover, it is rationally related to a legitimate governmental purpose. The purpose of section 11350.6 is to enforce child support orders. "The obligation of a parent to support a child . . . is among the most fundamental obligations recognized by modern society. The duty is not simply one imposed by statute, but `rests on fundamental natural laws and has always been recognized by the courts in the absence of any statute declaring it.' [Citation.] It is an obligation that existed under common law [citation] and has long been recognized in a majority of American jurisdictions as not only a moral obligation, but one that is legally enforceable. [Citation.]" ( Moss v. Superior Court (1998) 17 Cal.4th 396, 409-410.)
As discussed above, driving a motor vehicle is a privilege that is subject to regulation. One means of achieving the state's legitimate purpose of enforcing child support orders is by only allowing the privilege of driving a motor vehicle to those who fulfill their fundamental obligation to pay their child support. Thus, we find that section 11350.6 is rationally related to this legitimate governmental purpose.
Because driving a motor vehicle is a privilege and not a right, we find that Tolces has failed to establish any violation of his constitutional rights due to the suspension of his driver's license.
RICHLI, Acting P.J. GAUT, J.
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PSG president ‘very confident’ Neymar and Kylian Mbappé will extend deals
Dec 09, 2020 Sports
The Paris Saint-Germain president has revealed the French champions have started contract extension negotiations with both Neymar and Kylian Mbappé and is “very confident” that the two most expensive players in history will stay at the club beyond 2022.
Neymar: how the record-breaking €222m move to PSG unfolded
The Brazil forward, who moved to the Parc des Princes from Barcelona for a world record £198m in August 2017, scored a hat-trick as PSG thrashed Istanbul Basaksehir on Wednesday, while Mbappé added the other two goals in a 5-1 victory.
“We have begun to talk with Neymar and Kylian Mbappé, the discussions will remain confidential but I am very confident,” Nasser al-Khelaifi told RMC after the match. “They both want to stay with us at PSG.”
Neymar has yet to sign an extension to the five-year deal he agreed when he left Barcelona, which is estimated to be worth around £600,000 a week, but he admitted he is considering extending his stay in the Frrench capital.
“I am very happy here in Paris. I am very happy at the club, with my teammates,” he said. “The idea of leaving does not cross my mind. We need to talk. we have a very good relationship, I am very happy at Paris Saint-Germain.”
The 28-year-old also said after PSG’s win over Manchester United last week that he would relish the opportunity to play for the same team as Lionel Messi again, with the Barcelona forward’s contract expiring at the end of this season.
“What I want most of all is to play with Messi again, to be able to enjoy him once again on the pitch,” said Neymar. “He can play in my place, I have no problem with that. But I want to play with him next year, for sure. We have to do it next season.”
Mbappé, who at 21 years and 355 days has now surpassed Messi’s record as the youngest player to score 20 goals in the Champions League, initially joined PSG on loan from Monaco four weeks after Neymar’s arrival before making his move permanent for £166m.
Read More: PSG president ‘very confident’ Neymar and Kylian Mbappé will extend deals
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Corona Virus is Conquering Hollywood
by Captain Cats and the Nightrider | Mar 17, 2020 | Cinema | 0 comments
Ahoy Captain Cats here and today the Corona Virus has now conquered another industry and this time its Hollywood. Over the past week a lot of films that were slated to be released this month and next month had been postponed with another date, so here is a list of what films have been affected by this release date changes and such:
Mulan – Release date March 27. New release date is TBD.
A Quiet Place: Part II – Release date March 20. New release date TBD.
The Lovebirds – Release date April 3. New release date TBD.
Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway – Release date April 3. New release date August 7, 2020.
No Time to Die – Release date April 10. New release date November 25, 2020.
F9 – Release date May 22. New release date April 2, 2021.
This is bad news for Hollywood, especially when it comes to the final box office numbers. According to Box Office Mojo that the top 10 films this weekend made a total of $50.35 million at the box office COMBINED!
If things keep going the way they are going, it going to be one year Hollywood would want to forget.
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CENTRAL CONFERENCE OF AMERICAN RABBIS (Reform)
The Central Conference of American Rabbis reaffirms its conviction that conscientious objection to military service is in accordance with the highest interpretation of Judaism and therefore petitions the Government of the United States to grant to Jewish religious conscientious objectors to war the same exemption from military service as has long been granted to members of the Society of Friends and similar religious organizations.
(Statement of the Central Conference, 1936)
Our conference, some years since, affirmed the right of the conscientious objectors to refuse, on religious and humanitarian grounds, to bear arms. The Conference does not recede from this attitude. This affirmation may still be invoked by those whose conscience will not allow them, under any circumstances, to bear arms. Nor must those who invoke it become the object of recrimination on the part of the many of us who will not agree with them.
Acting out of commitment to the prophetic ideals of justice and peace, and acknowledging the duty of the individual to act in accordance with the highest ideals of morality, we hereby express our support of those who conscientiously dissent from the policy of our government in Vietnam and who refuse to cooperate with that policy.
(Statement of the Central Conference , 1968)
Over the past years the Central Conference of American Rabbis has spoken out on many occasions against the war in Southeast Asia. We believe that in doing so we have expressed the deep commitment of the Jewish tradition to a search for peace and the protection and enhancement of humanity.
We are deeply gratified by the cease-fire accord presently in force in Vietnam. It has brought cessation to a war we have long opposed and for which we saw neither moral nor legal sanction.
We express our most reverent hope that this cease-fire will ripen into an abiding and lasting peace, and that it will provide the needed opportunity to reconcile the deep domestic division s which so embitter our society. It is time now to "bind up the wounds of the nation."
It is to our considered judgment, based on the Jewish religious demand always to temper justice with mercy, that the first way to affect this healing process is by Congress's granting unconditional amnesty to those young men who refused to serve in the Vietnam war and so either went
to prison, resisted or deserted, or went into exile. The Congress of the United States has the power to grant amnesty as it has done on many occasions in the past. As we make peace with our enemies, let us also make peace with these, our youth.
The Central Conference of American Rabbis calls upon the Congress of the United States to grant unconditional amnesty as an act of reconciliation and compassion.
(Statement by the Central Conference, 1973)
Vietnamese Refugees and Amnesty 1975
WHEREAS we are heirs of a prophetic tradition which ever sought to repair the damaged world, and
WHEREAS in our efforts to restore the world to sanity we affirm the following position which we take knowing full well the complexity of such an issue but knowing also that we cannot be silent,
WHEREAS the Central Conference of American Rabbis has a long record of opposition to the Vietnam conflict,
BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED that we now express our special concern for the people and the land of Vietnam and seek the rebuilding of that devastated country just as we seek the healing of the wounds the war in Vietnam brought to our own country. We call for relief funds to be extended to Vietnam under multilateral auspices to insure their expenditure for the purposes granted. We deplore the sentiment in our own country which would close our gates to Vietnamese refugees or any refugee coming here to seek freedom. We call on congregations to take active part in the resettlement of refugees. We again call on Congress to grant unconditional amnesty to those who refused to serve in the Vietnam war and either went to prison, resisted, deserted or went into exile.
Amnesty (1976)
WHEREAS the wounds caused by the Vietnam War cannot be bound up until those who refused to serve are welcomed home,
BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED that we again call upon Congress and the President to grant unconditional amnesty to all who refused to serve in the Vietnam War and either went to prison, resisted, deserted, received less than an honorable discharge or went into exile.
Registration and the Draft
Whereas, We have previously recognized the right of both conscientious objection and selective conscientious objection to war; and
Whereas, Registration at this time is unnecessary; and
Whereas, Believing that the costs of such an action draw funds from needed social,
educational and economic programs that will make for social betterment;
Resolved, That the Central Conference of American Rabbis opposes the inauguration or implementation by our government of any national draft at this time. Similarly, we oppose the idea of registering our youth at this time for some future draft. We believe that should there arise some national emergency necessitating the mobilization of our population, sufficient techniques exist by which to effect that mobilization.
Further Resolved, That we urge our colleagues to provide counseling services to interested and affected individuals, and to advertise widely this service in and through the community, so that Jewish youth particularly might know where they might go for counseling that is based on the Jewish religious tradition.
(Resolution adopted at the 93rd Annual Convention, June-July, 1982)
Central Conference of American Rabbis, 355 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10017; <info@ccarnet.org>; www.ccarnet.org
JEWISH PEACE FELLOWSHIP
The Jewish Peace Fellowship unites those who believe that Jewish ideals and experience provide inspiration for a nonviolent philosophy of life. Stimulated by elements in traditional and contemporary Judaism which stress the sanctity of human life, the JPF promotes the attitude of respect for humanity and confidence in its essential decency. These attitudes it endeavors to incorporate in the personal relations of its members and friends. In striving to eliminate the causes of war, the JPF is also concerned with the advancement of freedom and justice for all people.
The Jewish Peace Fellowship opposes conscription and defends the rights of conscientious objectors. It also provides an extensive draft counseling service and publishes litersture on the subject.
Jewish quotations on conscientious objection
“It shall come to pass in days to come…that they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. … In turning and stillness shall you be saved, in traquility and trust shall be your strength.
–Isaiah 2:2,4 …. 30; 15
Great is peace, for all blessings are contained in it…Great is peace, for God’s name is peace…. It is written, ‘Seek peace and pursue it.’
–Psalm 34.51
This people is known by three signs: being compassionate–conscientious–charitable.” –Talmud (Yebamot 79a).
“When siege is laid to a city for the purpose of capture, it may not be surrounded on all four sides but only on three in order to give an opportunity for escape to those who would flee to save their lives.”
–Maimonides Code “Treatise on Kings and Wars,” Ch. VII, Law 7.
The following quotations are From Wrestling with Your Conscience: a Guide for Jewish Draft Registrants and Conscientious Objectors, Jewish Peace Fellowship, 2nd ed., 2009.
“The Hebrew word for peace, Shalom, is well known. What is not so well known is that the root of this word is not quietness or lack of hostility but completion or perfection. The word suggests that the way to a perfect world must be peaceful and therefore nonviolent. … Jewish tradition does not exalt military might or regard warriors as role models… The Jewish Peace Fellowship sees Judaism as a nonviolent search for justice and peace. We seek to do this not only for our own people but also for the entire human family.
–Rabbi Philip Bentley, “The Jewish Pursuit of Peace.”
Deuteronomy also establishes a draft law by designating those who cannot be required to serve in the army. If a man has built a house and not lived in it, planted a vineyard and not eaten its fruit, or betrothed a wife and not lived with her, he cannot be called to serve. It also declares that if he is afraid he is exempted from military service (20; 5-8). The ancient rabbis interpreted this to mean a person is exempt if he is afraid that he might sin by killing someone. This may be considered the first provision for conscientious objectors in any draft legislation.
Throughout our history there has been a continuous stream of commentators who find warfare to be a violation of the Jewish principles of compassion and of doing no harm, and, most important of violating the sacredness of human life, since each human has been created in the image of the Divine.
–Rabbi Michael Robinson, “Judaism and War.”
As moral Jews, many young people have questions about whether they could kill another human being, whether they accept the U.S. government’s authority to send people anywhere in the world and order them to kill, or whether they choose to fight the battles chosen by our government.
–Andy Mager, “Registration at Age 18.”
When we consider what Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai accomplished nonviolently in the face of Roman military might, or when we read in Josephus the stirring report of the successful nonviolent resistance to the Emperor Caligula by our people, we realize that modern experiments with nonviolence have an important place in Jewish tradition.
For further information, contact: Jewish Peace Fellowship, Box 271, Nyack, NY 10960; <jpf@forusa.org>; www.jewishpeacefellowship.org
THE RABBINICAL ASSEMBLY Selective Conscientious Objection
The United States government has been a pioneer in absolving religious pacifists from war duty.
The war in Vietnam has created a new dilemma. Some men, who are not total pacifists, object to serving in Vietnam because they regard that war and such service as repugnant to their conscience.
The Rabbinical Assembly, in convention assembled, urges the United States government to continue its pioneering in matters of conscience with respect to war by recognizing selective conscientious objection in the same way that total conscientious objection has been recognized. This will make it possible for the selective conscientious objector to serve his country in a manner other than engaging in direct military duty.
Obviously, everyone is obliged to refrain from invoking such objection except on the clearest grounds of conscience and after the most serious thought and study. Further, whoever out conscience refuses to serve his country at this time must be prepared to accept the consequences of his action as established by law.
(RA 1968)
For further information, contact: The Rabbinical Assembly, 3080 Broadway, New York, NY 10027; rabassembly@jtsa.edu; www.rabassembly.org.
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Professor Geoghegan lauded for work in environmental economics
By Melissa Lynch ’95, MSPC ’15
Jacqueline Geoghegan, professor and chair of the Department of Economics, received an Agricultural and Resource Economics Review (ARER) Fellow Award from the Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association (NAREA), the most prestigious honor the association grants. She was recognized at the association’s annual meeting in Philadelphia in June.
The professional association of agricultural and resource economists gives this award annually to authors who have published five or more peer-reviewed articles in the Agricultural and Resource Economics Review. ARER Fellows represent less than 1 percent of the total number of authors who have published in this journal.
“What pleases me most about this award is that a number of these articles were co-authored with my doctoral students, highlighting the key contribution of our terrific graduate program to the intellectual life at Clark as well as to the larger research community,” she said.
This award culminates a long list of accomplishments and awards for Professor Geoghegan. She received a NAREA Distinguished Member Award in 2011, and served a term as president of NAREA from 2008-2011 and held a seat on the board of directors from 2005 to 2008. Professor Geoghegan (and co-authors Elena G. Irwin and Kathleen P. Bell) received ARER’s “Article of the Year” award for “Modeling and Managing Urban Growth at the Rural-Urban Fringe: A Parcel-Level Model of Residential Land Use Change,” in 2003; she has served as associate editor for both this journal and for the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, and has published in several others.
Professor Geoghegan develops spatially explicit econometric models of land use change using Geographical Information System (GIS) data and technology. She has led vastly different interdisciplinary research projects in this area, first focusing on suburban sprawl in Maryland, then on agricultural development and tropical deforestation in Southern Mexico, then at urban renewal in Main South. Most recently, she worked with Economics Professor John Brown and Clark graduate and undergraduate students to investigate the impact of healthy food accessibility on childhood obesity levels throughout the city of Worcester.
John Karas ’13, MBA ’14: ‘Go at your own speed’
On Clark, Worcester, and 'adulting': A Q&A with GOLD alumnus Ifrad Islam '10
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2005 British & Irish Lions Home Rugby Shirt (M)
Condition: 9/10 Superb
Size: Adult's Medium
Chest Measurement: 40-42 Inches / 100-105 CM
Manufacturer: Adidas
Colour: Red, white trim
Seasons: 2005
Player: N/A
Patches: 2005 Tour vs. New Zealand
Official Adidas British & Irish Lions home rugby shirt from the 2005 summer tour.
Condition of this original rugby shirt is 9/10 – Superb (see photos)
All size and manufacturers labels present. Material is bright, vivid and smooth. Fantastic looking shirt, ideal for a collector or for framing.
In 2005, the British and Irish Lions rugby union team toured New Zealand for the first time since 1993, playing seven matches against first and second division teams from the National Provincial Championship, one match against the New Zealand Māori rugby team, and three test matches against New Zealand (the All Blacks). The Lions lost all three games of the test series, the first time in 22 years that the Lions lost every test match on tour.
This tour followed the 2001 tour to Australia and preceded the 2009 tour to South Africa.
The team was managed by former England international Bill Beaumont, coached by former England coach Sir Clive Woodward, and originally captained by Ireland captain Brian O'Driscoll. O'Driscoll suffered a controversial tour-ending injury two minutes into the first test, and Wales captain Gareth Thomas took over as captain for the final four games of the tour.
The poor test results of the 2005 Lions, despite having one of the most experienced playing squads and the largest management team of any Lions tour, led to criticism of Woodward, particularly his selection policy, and prompted commentators to question the future of the Lions.
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Demystifying the Contents of the Universe: A New Look at Mina Loy
Written by adminon August 13, 2017
(In the poem, the “flabbergasts” “Raminetti” and “Gabrunzio” compete over a woman who is clearly meant to stand for Loy herself.) Prescott’s analysis hinges on her analysis of a single phrase: Loy’s speaker characterizes herself as the “excepted woman” of the Futurist movement. It places Loy’s poems, which marry formal innovations with an unapologetically feminist voice, at the center of the modernist universe, where they belong. Loy’s use of “excepted” may mean that “the men leave the woman out of consideration (‘excepted’)” or that they “paradoxically include her (the homophone ‘accepted’).” Or perhaps “the woman particularly stands out as in ‘exceptional’”? T. Prescott chooses not to write much about Loy’s most famous poem, “Anglo-Mongrel and the Rose,” or her “Feminist Manifesto,” which is often anthologized and taught both in literature and gender studies classrooms, presumably because many other critics have already discussed them extensively. Marinetti and writer Gabriele D’Annunzio. Historically, difficult poems about the fall of Western civilization have been seen as more worthy of elucidation than difficult poems about the cervix: no surprise there. AUGUST 13, 2017
MINA LOY WORE many modernist hats, both literally and figuratively. Ezra Pound famously described Loy’s poetry as “logopoeia, or poetry that is akin to nothing but language, which is a dance of the intelligence among word and ideas and modifications, of ideas and characters.” Her poems are filled with uncommon multisyllabic words that regularly send me running to the Oxford English Dictionary. Poetic Salvage, however, insists that this need not be the case. She had several children by several men, and lost the love of her life, poet and boxer Arthur Cravan, to the sea. T. Marinetti in Florence, and Marcel Duchamp in New York. She hung out with Gertrude Stein in Paris, F. The poem begins with the lines “I am the centre / Of a circle of pain / Exceeding its boundaries in every direction,” a reference both to the expanding cervix and the speaker’s expanding consciousness. Loy is interested, instead, in her experience of “elevated consciousness” while giving birth. Prescott does include a number of helpful resources, though; the first appendix of Poetic Salvage contextualizes the first appearances of Loy’s poems in little magazines and small presses, and the second provides images from Loy’s archive that offer a glimpse into Loy’s composition process. She wrote poems, fiction, plays, and feminist manifestos, made paintings and collages, and could rock the hell out of a fedora. Noting that the hallmark of Loy’s poetry is her esoteric and daring diction, Prescott announces that her aim is “to help readers gain access to Loy’s poetry by investigating the nature of these words, the source materials that inspired them, and the ways in which these unusual words are a part of Loy’s aesthetic.” Prescott’s Poetic Salvage delivers on this promise: it’s a wonderfully clear and precise set of close readings and contextualizations of Loy’s unruly work. Her long poem “Song to Joannes,” for instance, features phrases such as “cymophanous sweat” and “foetal buffoons,” and refers both to the “climacteric / Withdrawal of your sun” and “ego’s / Eclosion.” (For those playing along at home, “cymophanous” means “having a wavy light; opalescent”; “climacteric” refers to “a critical period or event”; and “eclosion” is “the act of emerging from the pupal case or hatching from the egg.”)
Throughout Poetic Salvage, Prescott explicates Loy’s cryptic verse with patience and care. Eliot and Ezra Pound built their reputations on allusive and elusive verse, Loy’s obscurity has long been an impediment to a more widespread recognition of her work. Toward the end of the poem, Loy’s speaker reflects on how she came to be pregnant in the first place:
A leap with nature
Into the essence
Of unpredicted Maternity
Against my thigh
Tough of infinitesimal motion
Scarcely perceptible
Warmth moisture
Stir of incipient life
Precipitating in me
The contents of the universe
It’s remarkable, as Prescott notes, that in 1914 Loy was writing both “frankly and beautifully” about “postcoital fluid.” For Loy, sex is “a leap with nature,” the experience of which ultimately absorbs her speaker into “[t]he was—is—ever—shall—be.” She is creating “the contents of the universe” within her own body. The poem is in constant flux between the organic and the cosmic, speaking of “unifying the positive and negative poles of sensation / Uniting the opposing and resisting forces” at one moment and “deposits of evolutionary processes” the next. She performed in a play with William Carlos Williams, and designed and sold lampshades in a shop funded by Peggy Guggenheim. Prescott unpacks the many possible meanings of the phrase handily. S. Tara Prescott’s Poetic Salvage: Reading Mina Loy, one of only a few book-length studies focused on the writer, helps to correct that omission. Another standout interpretation in Poetic Salvage is Prescott’s take on “Parturition,” arguably one of the first poems in English to graphically describe the process of childbirth. (Loy liked a good word list.)
Difficulty, of course, is a feature of much modernist poetry, and while poets such as T. Loy’s life and her relationships with some of the most important figures of modernism have fascinated many, but it is not until fairly recently that her extraordinary writing has received as much attention as her extraordinary life. Omitting readings of these works seems an unfortunate oversight, even if they have received attention elsewhere, as Prescott writes so precisely about Loy’s representations of gender throughout the rest of her book. ¤
Jacquelyn Ardam is a visiting assistant professor in English at Colby College. Take, for example, her reading of “Lions’ Jaws,” in which Loy alludes to her relationships with Futurist artist F. Prescott explains that the poem “celebrates the act of parturition as an experience worthy in and of itself,” and suggests that the work is radical for not focusing on the result of the parturition process — i.e., the child.
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Understanding CLL & SLL
Both leukemia and lymphoma are diseases of B-lymphocytes, which are a type of white blood cell involved in the immune system. The term leukemia was coined by Dr. Rudolph Virchow, a renowned German pathologist, in 1856. While performing autopsies, Dr. Virchow observed that patients who had enlargement of lymph glands, spleen and liver, and abnormal appearing bone marrow, also had white streaks in their blood. Accordingly, leukemia translates to mean “white blood”.
The term lymphoma can be broken down into two parts. The suffix –“oma” describes swelling or presence of a tumor. This suffix is used often in medical terminology. “Lymph-” describes the location of the tumor which is the lymphatic system. The lymphatic system is where white blood cells reside when they are not circulating in the body fighting illness and disease.
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is classified as a leukemia because it primarily affects the blood and is characterized by an elevated white blood cell count. Its lymphoma counterpart, small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL), infiltrates the lymphatic system, but does not affect the white blood cell count because only a small number of these cells circulate in the blood. Although CLL and SLL do vary slightly, a number of studies have now been conducted which confirm that the cell of origin in CLL and SLL is identical. Both CLL and SLL start in the bone marrow and are sent through the blood stream to various sites in the body including the lymph glands and the spleen. B-lymphocytes, including SLL cells, normally attach to receptor molecules in the lymph glands and the spleen and take up residence in those sites so that they can mature further and conduct their functions as immune cells. A number of CLL cells do not have these attachment molecules and therefore continue to circulate so that the white cell count gradually increases in the blood stream. Apart from the attachment molecules, CLL and SLL have the same genetic pattern and the same prognostic markers. Survival and response to treatment tend to be very similar.
Patients are often confused when they are initially diagnosed with CLL, yet a subsequent lymph gland biopsy describes the diagnosis as SLL or SLL/CLL. This does not mean that a patient has lymphoma in addition to CLL. Rather, the pathologist (the scientist who examines biopsies and determines diagnosis) has identified cells present in a particular pattern in the lymph gland, which is indicative of SLL, but may not be aware that the white blood cell count is increased. Patients sometimes think that if a lymphoma is reported by the pathologist that this may be a sign of a transformation (Richter’s transformation) which has a high risk prognosis. This is not so, and it is important that these issues be addressed with a hematologist to discuss the pathologic diagnosis.
A difficult feature for CLL/SLL patients to understand is that lymphomas have a different staging system than CLL. The lymphoma staging system, known as the Ann Arbor classification, determines the disease stage based on the location of the disease and whether there is bone marrow involvement. In patients with CLL the bone marrow is always involved. The same is true for almost all SLL patients. Consequently, SLL patients who have involvement of the bone marrow will be classified as having stage IV disease under the Ann Arbor classification. This suggests, sometimes incorrectly, a more progressive/advanced disease in these patients. However the [Rai and Binet – ADD LINK] classifications used in CLL focus more on whether the lymph glands and spleen can be examined by feel and whether the production of normal red cells and platelets will be normal. Thus, the staging classifications are quite different. The Ann Arbor staging system is not helpful in separating patients according to a particular prognosis, whereas, the Rai and Binet staging systems are very good at identifying prognosis in both SLL and CLL.
Hopefully this description will help patients identify that CLL and SLL are the same disease with similar indications for treatment. A diagnosis of both CLL and SLL does not indicate advanced disease; it simply means their malignant cells are diverse. Rest assured all of the progress which is being made in CLL is equally applicable to patients with SLL.
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Album Review: An In-Depth Look at Taylor Swift’s “Reputation”
By Kristin Stahlke November 10, 2017 May 5, 2020
3 Comments on Album Review: An In-Depth Look at Taylor Swift’s “Reputation”
As many of you know, I have been a huge Taylor Swift fan for the past 11 years – starting when I was just 12 years old. I have seen Taylor Swift perform seven times and will be seeing her for the eighth time at B96’s Jingle Bash on December 7. I was lucky enough to meet her at her 1989 World Tour stop in Chicago at Soldier Field – click here to read about it.
While I have been extremely anxious about what her 6th album is going to bring, it has brought me a ridiculous amount of desire to write about the music she has been releasing.
This piece has been a work in progress – the content has been stirring in my head since the release of her first single back in August – and I sit here typing just two weeks out from the official release of the album.
This isn’t necessarily going to be a typical album review – I’m going to start from the beginning of the album announcement cycle (us in the fandom refer to this as her 6th era) and touch on the singles and music videos that will have been released before the album. All I have to say is if you actually read this all, I appreciate you SO much more than you will ever know!
A Social Media Blackout and Snakes
We begin Taylor Swift’s Reputation era on Monday, August 21, 2017 promptly at 10 A.M. CST. A mysterious video clip of what seems to be a snake appears on her social media channels following a massive blackout that resulted in all prior social media posts being deleted across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram over the weekend.
Pop culture junkies are left speculating what exactly is to come, die-hard Taylor Swift fans already know that the completed video clip would inevitably show a snake (the nickname that Swift famously adopted after her public feud with the Kardashian Klan and Kanye West). The next clip is released on the 22nd at the same time, following the head of the snake on the 23rd – this time posted at 9 A.M. CST. Just minutes before noon on the same day, Swift has announced her sixth studio album, Reputation, along with the album cover and first single to be released the following day.
The first single, “Look What You Made Me Do,” is not praised in regards of critical reception. Vulture said the song sounded like ““Disney-villain karaoke.” The Guardian questions Swift’s ability to shift to dark-pop, claiming it’s “a risky move in a pop market that seems averse to women who possess any sort of unique vocal personality.”
It seemed like Chris Willman, a writer for Variety, seemed to understand where Swift was headed, noting that Swift is having fun, despite “being legitimately angry” and that “The catharsis and playfulness are a little harder to pick out in this one, though they’re there, if you listen hard enough.”
Regardless of positive or negative views of new singles, one thing that Swift almost always manages to do is jump straight to number one on the charts.
Swift broke the record for first day streaming on Spotify, racking in 8 million plays in just 24 hours – which breaks down to an average of 333,333 streams per hour – which beat Ed Sheeran’s previously held record of 7 million streams in 24 hours.
The release of the single was accompanied by an animated lyric video which became the most-watched lyric video ever.
“LWYMMD” hit 19 million views in 24 hours – smashing the previous record for 9 million views for “Something Like This” by the Chainsmokers ft. Coldplay.
The song’s official music video broke records when it was premiered at the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards – gaining 43.2 million views in the first 24 hours – beating Adele’s previously held record for 27.7 million views for “Hello.”
The music video – complete with jabs at Spotify, the media’s take on Swift’s infamous “girl squad,” and showing the viewer 14 versions of Taylor’s “old self” (which are in fact, dead), has continuously been analyzed for its hidden meanings and its very “meta” feel – indicating a concept which is an abstraction behind another concept. (That definition is taken from Wikipedia but I deem it as pretty accurate).
Avid fans of Ms. Swift understood this – whether this is universally understood by casual fans or those who dislike Swift – remains a mystery (in my personal experience, many non-fans that I know haven’t even bothered to watch the video). If you’re wondering what I think about the song – I will get there! Just be patient for now. This is a long read!
Where Is She Going?
The internet became a monsoon of conspiracy theories, with fans offering their take on what the album was actually going to be like. The most promising theory that has continued to make waves on the web is that Swift will be taking 14 songs to address facets of her reputation – the 15th song being who she “truly” is. Here’s a theory from a Buzzfeed article – take it at face value. Regardless if what ends up actually happening (again, I’m currently writing this two weeks out from the album release), it’s safe to say that Swift is doing a phenomenal job at circulating interest and curiosity around this album release.
“….Ready For It?”
Swift released her second single, titled “…Ready For It?” on September 3 – a teaser of the song was featured in a broadcast for Saturday Night Football during a Florida State vs. Alabama game.
Are you #readyforit?
No. 1 Alabama. No. 3 Florida State. Right NOW on ABC and streaming live on the ESPN App. pic.twitter.com/pojroWJRHL
— ESPN (@espn) September 3, 2017
The song received mixed reviews in a critical sense – although Spin Magazine applauds the single as a step up from “Look.” The writer notes that “…Ready For It?” is “melodically rich and, when it all comes together, far more coherent,” but still questions Swift as an artist, who “gets lost in a jumble of metaphors, involving killers and ghosts and ransoms and thieves and islands and jails.”
Billboard says the lyrics are “unmistakably Swift” and that the song is Swift’s way of “confessing that she’s a man-eater” while simultaneously “mocking her public image,” – stating that the jabs are layered sneakily in this song compared to the winks and wit of 1989’s single “Blank Space.”
After the release of “RFI,” there was a lot of silence in regards of promoting the album, until Swift held the first “Secret Session” for Reputation. For those unfamiliar with what a Secret Session (AKA “SS”) is, Swift started hosting intimate listening parties for her albums for hand selected, super fans back in 2014 for 1989. It was up in the air as to whether or not she would do this again for Reputation, considering it is heavily rumored Swift will not be doing interviews or talk shows during this era – letting the project speak for itself. However, after lots of speculation, Swift held the first SS for Rep in London, England on Friday, 10/13. Swift went from London to Rhode Island for her second SS which was held on October 18, 2017, a third SS on October 22 in Los Angeles, and one in Nashville on October 25.
Fans have obviously been holding back hints about the album like lyrics and song titles (I have been told that fans who attend have to sign an NDA) but every fan who has experienced a SS for Reputation have raved about the album as a whole. Of course, one would assume that after a mega-fan of Swift’s had this SS experience – meeting their idol, being in her home, listening to the album ahead of release, etc., they would never actually share negative reactions to the album on the internet – most likely leave the experience on cloud nine. Honestly, who can blame them?
Regardless of how these fans have been responding to the album, there’s a huge part of the world questioning where the album is going to go sonically. This will continue to be speculated until release day – (and like I said before, by the time this piece has been posted, the album will have been released).
Honestly, I don’t want to waste a lot of time talking about this song because of how much I hate it. I have circled back to this section of this piece after I have heard Reputation in full and I’m genuinely confused as to how it ended up on the album because not only is it the weakest song but it also doesn’t sound like anything else on the album AT ALL.
“…Ready For It?” Music Video
Swift released the official music video for “…Ready For It?” on October 26. The music video has virtually nothing to do with the lyrical content of the song and was immediately analyzed by fans as a comment on Swift’s personas in the public eye. I won’t waste too much time on this – you can click here, here and here to see how Twitter users and journalists alike have been dissecting the hidden meanings in the video.
There have been hints floating around the internet that the album will be a visual one – with music videos completing each song. Since the plot for the video above has nothing to do with the song, this seems more and more plausible as we approach Reputation’s release.
Right when you think that there’s a calm before the storm…Taylor announces that there’s another single being released on Thursday, November 2 – titled “Call It What You Want,” with this accompanying image:
By going off of this small piece of information, I automatically had hopes for the song and was judging that based on the lyrics she was giving away that the song would be more lyrically T.Swift than the other three singles. I knew that this was a crucial time for me, if I wasn’t thrilled with the fourth song released – out of 15 total tracks (27% of the album) – that Reputation probably wouldn’t be the album for me. I waited nervously all day but was actually really surprised and relieved once the song was finally released (again, I will get to a more in depth analysis of each song later in this piece).
As I type, the song has been out for 41 hours and is just about to hit 3 million streams on Spotify. The song is also #1 on iTunes and is Swift’s fifth song to get to Number One in 2017 thus far. Vulture comments on its “airy production” and that it “attempts to evoke, a sense of radiant, protective romance in the wake of a devastating social debacle.”
Reputation‘s Arrival
Congratulations if you got to this part of the post! I appreciate you for sticking through it. Now that we’ve gone through the moments leading up to Reputation’s release, I’m ready to start breaking down each song!
While most reviews touch on highlights of albums and discuss the overall concept of an album, I have to go all out because I love Taylor…obviously.
Here’s a blurb that is featured in the 72-page magazine that you can purchase from Target that I think is important to read to understand the album:
In Chronological Order:
1.“…Ready For It?”
I did not like this song the first time I heard it. At all. It really confused me and it’s a little too aggressively synth for me. After a couple listens, I very much became intrigued with each of the verses and felt that the chorus did not belong in the song. I do really enjoy the lyrics of each verse and I think that she’s touching on similar concepts that were alive in “Blank Space,” referring to herself as a man-eater, a robber, a thief, etc.
There are also interesting moments in this song where she hints at this mystery man forever having to deal with the repercussions of dating her – “Touch me and we’ll never be alone” and I think that’s a really interesting idea to explore. I now understand it in the perspective that she’s asking the guy she is singing about (her current boyfriend), if he’s ready to deal with everything that comes with dating Taylor Swift – one of the biggest, if not THE biggest, pop star in the world.
Obviously this can be understood after hearing the song a couple times, but hearing it in the album’s narrative, it is a song that is explaining reoccurring themes in the rest of the album, which is super cool to see – the second song released as promotional single for Reputation gave us a sneak peek of what was coming.
Favorite Line: “Knew I was a robber first time that he saw me / Stealing hearts and running off and never saying sorry / But if I’m a thief, then he can join the heist And we’ll move to an island-and / And he can be my jailer, Burton to this Taylor / Every lover known in comparison is a failure / I forget their names now, I’m so very tame now / Never be the same now”
2.”End Game”
Taylor Swift really likes to chant. That’s what we learned on Red’s “We Are Never Getting Back Together,” 1989’s “Shake It Off,” and now in the opening lines of “End Game,” a song featuring Future and Ed Sheeran that sounds like it was crafted to be the next overplayed song on every contemporary radio station across the country. I was insanely interested in seeing what was going to come from this song – and I hate to say that I ended up underwhelmed with the result. I think part of it is because I really don’t enjoy rap music and since I generally stay away from Top 50 Radio, I just didn’t really love this song.I think it sounds a little too much like a Selena Gomez song.
I think it’s one of my least favorite moments off of Reputation even though there are some really great, classic T.Swift lyrics embedded in this song. I worry that listeners will be too distracted with everything that’s going on that they will just breeze over the lyrical content. I’m not going to lie, I will definitely sing along to this song whenever I hear it (and when I get to the point where I’ve memorized lyrics), but I wish it sounded different – maybe like Rihanna and Future’s “Selfish?”
Favorite Line: “I bury hatchets, but I keep maps of where I put ’em / Reputation precedes me, they told you I’m crazy / I swear I don’t love the drama, it loves me”
3. “I Did Something Bad”
Ladies and gentlemen: Taylor Swift swore in a song. It happened. I instantly fell in love with this song because it sounds like a continuation of her character that was introduced on “Blank Space,” a woman who jets around the world with a new guy (in this case, a narcissist – cough cough, Calvin Harris), and lets them think they’re swooping in saving the damsel in distress. I freaking LOVE that this is a f*** you song to everyone who has caused issues to Swift while she simultaneously owes up to her mistakes – how many songs can actually do both of those songs at once? I think this song creeps up on this idea that Swift gets high off of these dramatic relationships (“Most fun I’ve ever had and I’d do it over and over again if I could.”) It’s up to you to determine if she’s playing a self-absorbed character or showing apart of her true identity.
Favorite Line: “I never trust a playboy, but they love me / So I fly ’em all around the world / And I let them think they saved me / They never see it comin’, what I do next / This is how the world works / You gotta leave before you get left”
4. “Don’t Blame Me”
I think we can all agree that Taylor collaborating with Zayn for “I Don’t Want to Live Forever” earlier this year was a great step for her musically and that it totally influenced “Don’t Blame Me,” which I personally think is one of her best pieces of work to date. We all have been guilty of calling Swift love hungry, obsessed with love, etc. – so of course she’s going to write a song about being willing to do anything for love (and make it freakin’ amazing).
I think there are some PHENOMENAL influences on this track that sets it apart from the other tracks: I hear so much soul and gospel influence on this song and I just imagine Taylor singing with a chorus of 100 people standing behind her. It’s so unique stylistically yet absolutely belongs on this album and wouldn’t fit in with any of her other albums. If you follow me on Twitter, I started talking about how I LOVE when Swift sings in her lower register and this song is a perfect example of the magic that comes from low notes! I love the vocal power that Swift shows in this song – did you hear that note she belts out at the bridge? OMG!!!
Favorite Line: “My name is whatever you decide / And I’m just gonna call you mine / I’m insane, but I’m your baby (your baby) / Echoes, love your name inside my mind / Halo, hiding my obsession / I once was poison ivy, but now I’m your daisy”
5.”Delicate”
Taylor really must have enjoyed working with Imogen Heap on “Clean” from 1989 because the first moments of the song – along with most of it – is so airy and light and Imogen Heap-esque. This song is one of my favorites off of the album because I feel like it’s the most unique sounding song she has ever released. I am obsessed with the bounciness of the rhythm and the speediness of the lyrics, like she’s trying to get words out before she loses her courage to say them. I think this was a strategic production choice, of course, because when does Taylor ever release anything that’s not thought out?
Swift sings about the fear that she’s spilling too much of her soul in the initial stages of a relationship, worried that she will reveal too much, too soon. This is one of the few moments where she actually addresses that a relationship may be in jeopardy before it’s even begun due to her reputation – a super intimate songwriting choice that is probably one of the most authentic she’s ever made.
Favorite Line: “My reputation’s never been worse / You must like me for me… / Yeah, I want you / We can’t make any promises now, can we, babe? / But you can make me a drink…”
6. “Look What You Made Me Do”
Okay, I’m pretty sure everyone I know dislikes this song and has from the beginning, but I still love it. I’m still wondering if people understand that she released this song to COMPLETELY lead us in the wrong direction in regards to where this album was going. I personally think that the song is clearly satirical, ironic, sarcastic, and intentionally dramatic to cause a stir with the release of her album: which is exactly what she accomplished! Even I was a little worried that Taylor was going to try to create some sort of meta concept album where she addresses every one of her controversies while simultaneously trying to make them successful songs lyrically and production wise.
I am HAPPY that this is not the case, but I am still beyond fascinated with the drama that ensued after this song was released – how can anyone actually think she’s being serious on this track? She even used the title to her advantage of playing the victim – blaming others “look what you made me do” – guys – she’s literally saying in the song that she will “be the actress starring in your bad dreams” – and people bought into it!!!!!!!!! I think it’s honestly one of the best strategic moves she’s ever made. AND THE SONG IS CATCHY.
Favorite Line: “I don’t like your kingdom keys / They once belonged to me / You ask me for a place to sleep / Locked me out and threw a feast”
7. “So It Goes…”
I think that this album is so lyrically and sonically cohesive that it would be impossible for listeners to like every single song – which is how I feel about this song. I don’t necessarily dislike it, but it doesn’t really do anything for me. It’s a little boring and it makes me wonder if it was a filler song – which is something that I tend to avoid saying when I’m discussing a Taylor Swift album because she’s so notorious for writing SO many songs for each album and scrapping the majority of them when deciding the final track list.
Lyrically, I really enjoy this song and I am interpreting it as the moment where Taylor and her man finally realize that they are in it for the long run and that they’re finally falling into place in their relationship. This is an interesting take compared to how a lot of Taylor’s music is written about past and failed relationships, where this one highlights the emotional and physical connections with someone and how they are elevated once a romantic feeling is solidified for both people involved. And I now see that I might like the song more than I realized since I think writing out my thoughts helps me understand her POV more!
Favorite Line: “I’m yours to keep / And I’m yours to lose / You know I’m not a bad girl / But I do bad things with you”
8. “Gorgeous”
I don’t want to go on too much of a rant with this song because I already stated how much I dislike it. I do wonder why Taylor decided to include this song on the album because I think that it sticks out like a sore thumb on an otherwise very cohesive album and I still think it’s one of the worst songs she’s ever decided to release. Guys, she rhymed “face” with “face” !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Favorite Line: The only one that I think is decent is “You should think about the consequence of your magnetic field being a little too strong.”
9. “Getaway Car”
Let’s stop joking that the old Taylor is dead because I think she is alive and well on this song! Immediately after this song started I started crying because I was reminded of “Out Of The Woods” – which is my second fave T.Swift song of all time. I think that this was so successful because of her collab with Jack Antonoff – it sounds like a Bleachers song! As we continue to go through this album, you can hear where Taylor is sharing more and more intimate details of her life and reflecting on her previous decisions she has made – good and bad.
The song is referring to Taylor leaving a guy (Calvin Harris) for a new guy (Tom Hiddleston). She first met Hiddleston at the Met Gala in 2016 – who was essentially a rebound to her very serious relationship with Harris (they broke up a couple months after the Met Gala)…and that she fled the party with him (Hence the GETAWAY CAR!!) If they have to leave a party in a secret speedy mode of transportation of course it was doomed from the start!!!!!!!!!!
“The ties were black / the lies were white / …I wanted to leave him, I needed a reason.”
Taylor and Tom then have a very publicly documented fling…Taylor meets his parents…Tom wears a “I ❤ Taylor” shirt…then she leaves him in the dust soon after.”Don’t pretend it’s such a mystery / think about the place where you first met me” (MET – Met Gala). Sneaky work.
She is otherwise saying “Of course I was going to leave you…think about the first way we met – I left him for you.”We have seen Swift talk about her mistakes in love (of course) in ways like this before: i.e. “Back To December,” but nothing where she basically admits to dating someone as a rebound knowing that he was taking it more seriously than she was.
This sort of honesty has not existed on many of Swift’s previous songs – and the self-reflection on this track is SO important to take note of. One of her best she’s ever done.
Favorite Line: “It was the great escape, the prison break / The light of freedom on my face / But you weren’t thinking / And I was just drinking’ / Well, he was runnin’ after us, I was screamin’, “go, go, go!” / But with three of us, honey, it’s a sideshow / And a circus ain’t a love story / And now we’re both sorry / X marks the spot where we fell apart / he poisoned the well, every man for himself / I knew it from the first Old Fashioned, we were cursed / It hit you like a shot, gunshot to the heart”
10.”King Of My Heart”
It took a few times for me to be on board with this song, but now it’s one of my favorites. I hear a lot of Stevie Nicks influence on the lyrical content of this song – despite the heavy EDM influence that’s embedded in the song. It goes without saying that this track is about her current beau and the realization that he is everything she’s been searching for in a lover – swoon. Pretty unoriginal storyline but I think this is one of the most different styles of songs she’s ever done.
I think that you can understand the sort of man that she is dating and how he has shown her that happiness and living well doesn’t equate to spending thousands of dollars on cars and fancy dinners – Taylor throws some shade at Harris and Hiddleston in this song when she hints at “All the boys and their expensive cars / with their Range Rovers and their Jaguars” (both of these boys – love that she says boys and not men – drive those cars, respectively) and that they “Never took me quite where you do.”
I find the bridge of this song to be SO lyrically and sonically satisfying. I think it sounds SO interesting and different and it’s just so UNIQUE to anything I’ve heard her do. I love it!
Favorite Line: “Is the end of all the endings? / My broken bones are mending / With all the nights we’re spending / Up on the roof with a school-girl crush / Drinking beer out of plastic cups / Say you fancy me, not fancy stuff / Baby, all at once, this is enough.”
11. “Dancing With Our Hands Tied”
Something about this song still throws me off a little bit, but the more I listen to it, the more I enjoy it. I get some serious HAIM vibes from this song and I think it’s super cool that they are influencing Taylor’s style of music! I want to dance to this song under a disco ball. How I am trying to understand this song is the development of a relationship and wanting to explore it while simultaneously trying to keep it under wraps so there’s no outside forces influencing it. Like, “We’re having fun…but we can’t have too much fun because we don’t want anything bad to ruin this.” After all, how fun can dancing with your hands tied actually be? I think this song would be SO incredibly beautiful to hear stripped down on a guitar.
Favorite Line: “I loved you in spite of / Deep fears that the world would divide us / So, baby, can we dance / Oh, through an avalanche? / And say, say that we got it / I’m a mess, but I’m the mess that you wanted / ’cause it’s gravity keeping you with me”
12. “Dress”
THE SONG. Taylor Swift talks about sex. I had heard rumors of this MYTHICAL experience…a line that goes “I only bought this dress so you could take it off…” Ah. The luxury of being able to afford dresses you want to buy solely to remove them from your body. Glad to see what my money goes to when I buy Taylor Swift content! Ha. But in all seriousness, I am all for this Taylor Swift who is comfortable and honest with talking about attraction and sex and all that jazz.
This is a topic that has been visibly absent from her songs for the majority of her career and if she’s confident sharing these details from her love life – I am here to support it! I love the low, raspy quality to her voice that’s on this track. Let’s get this track on the next 50 Shades movie.
Favorite Line: “Inescapable / I’m not even going to try / And if I get burned, at least we were electrified / I’m spilling wine in the bathtub / You kiss my face and we’re both drunk / Everyone thinks that they know us / But they know nothing about us”
13. “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things”
I think we could have done without this song. That doesn’t mean I hate it, but I think it takes away from the overall message of the song. I was worried that we would be getting an entire album of songs about Taylor’s public feuds – and we strayed away from that for the most part – so if these issues are truly still bothering her, I guess that I respect her desire to want to write about them and express feelings about them.
I do think that this song explores interesting topics – like how Taylor felt welcomed into this super elite clique of some of Hollywood’s biggest celebrities – and how she had such a public falling out with – of course – Kanye West. I’m done speculating what actually went on between the two of them – but I think we can all guess as to who I will defend in these scenarios.
This song sounds like old school Avril Lavigne and I still can’t decide if that’s good or bad. Also – just read that she wanted the chorus to have a child-like sound to it because she felt like she was dealing with children during these feuds. Not going to lie, that made me laugh. I just have mixed feelings because I feel like the rest of the album explores similar themes without it sounding immature and I’ve already seen a million articles highlighting this one song as Swift calling out West where this is absent for the most part on the rest of the album.
Favorite Line: “Here’s a toast to my real friends / They don’t care about that he said, she said / And here’s to my baby / He ain’t reading what they call me lately / And here’s to my momma / Had to listen to all this drama”
14. “Call It What You Want”
The MOMENT I heard this song when it was released as a promotional single, I felt so relieved. Like I said before, I knew that this was an important moment for me in this timeline: if the 4th song out of 15 was one I wasn’t excited about, I was worried that the album wouldn’t be for me. But after hearing the entire album, I would say that this song encapsulates everything about Reputation PERFECTLY.
I know it’s not the last song on the album…and New Year’s Day is nice…but I just think that this would have been the PERFECT end song. I think that she’s discussing her relationship, of course, in the song, but I also think it’s saying “Here is my body of work. I had a bad couple years. But I know what this is and I believe in it. But you can say whatever you want about it – I know what’s real.”
This is SUCH an important moment on this album because Swift has been so SO so SO so SOOOOOOO caught up in her reputation (obviously) and I think she’s finally just over it now. She won’t ever be able to change the world’s negative opinions on her but she is finally secure with herself and her love and her talent and her LIFE that she’s just ready for people to say whatever they want to say. I think that it’s SUCH a powerful statement and I still think this could have been the perfect end song. I LOVE THIS SONG!!!!
Favorite Line: “Nobody’s heard from me for months / I’m doing better than I ever was” and “And I know I make the same mistakes every time / Bridges burn, I never learn / At least I did one thing right”
15. “New Year’s Day”
This song is sweet and I enjoy it and I teared up the first time I heard it. I think it’s such a classic Taylor moment – it’s going to be a timeless Taylor Swift song and I love the sentiment that she has found the person she will always be excited to do mundane tasks in life with (i.e. cleaning up the bottles after a party). I just read that she’s been saving specific lyrics for the perfect song and knowing that she’s been wanting to use these lyrics for the perfect person just makes my heart BURST out of my chest!!! I’m still going to hold onto the the idea that “Call It What You Want” would have ended this album better for me.
Favorite Line: “You squeeze my hand three times in the back of the taxi / I can tell that it’s gonna be a long road / I’ll be there if you’re the toast of the town, babe / Or if you strike out and you’re crawling home / Don’t read the last page / But I stay when it’s hard, or it’s wrong / Or we’re making mistakes / I want your midnights / But I’ll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year’s Day”
If you’re still reading, I love you.
My favorite songs (as of right now):
– Getaway Car
– I Did Something Bad
– Delicate
– Don’t Blame Me
– Call It What You want
I did a little experiment where I searched some of the concepts I heard the most through this album. The two concepts I heard repeated the most:
“End Game” – “I don’t wanna hurt you, I just wanna be / Drinking on a beach with you all over me” and “It’s like your eyes are liquor / it’s like your body is gold”
“Delicate” – “But you can make me a drink…”
“Gorgeous” – “You should take it as a compliment / That I got drunk and made fun of the way you talk” and “Whiskey on ice / sunset and vine”
“Getaway Car” – “I knew it from the first old fashion, we were cursed” and “But you weren’t thinkin’ / And I was just drinking'”
“King Of My Heart” – “Drinking beer out of plastic cups”
“Dress” – “You kiss my face and we’re both drunk”
“This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” – “Everyone swimming in a champagne sea”
Gold / golden
“End Game” – “It’s like your eyes are liquor, it’s like your body is gold”
“Dancing With Our Hands Tied” – “My, my love had been frozen / Deep blue, but you painted me golden”
“Dress” – You made your mark on me, golden tattoo” and “Gold cage, hostage to my feelings”
I’m going to take this information and make the assumption that Taylor Swift drank a lot over her break and that she views Joe Alwyn as golden. CUTE!!!!!!!!!!
If you’re still not convinced of Tay’s superstardom, Reputation nearly shut down iTunes the moment it was released last night because 800,000 people – yes – that many – were trying to buy the album / access their pre-orders. The album sold 1.5 million copies in the first FEW HOURS of its release. (1989 sold 1.287 million in its first WEEK). This sort of reception is unprecedented.
Reputation is projected to hit over 2 million sales in its first week alone. Buckle up, guys!
So What Exactly Is This Album About?
Not about Taylor’s reputation – but what happened when she stopped trying to change people’s minds about it. Like the image I posted from the magazine she’s releasing, we as a society only show people versions of ourselves that we want on display. Taylor is no exception.
There will always be perceptions of her (and us) that will never go away – and it gets to a point where you can no longer obsess over trying to win everyone over and simultaneously be happy. That will never bring you true happiness and security with yourself. As long as you find people who know you for you and don’t care about the noise, you will be just fine.
We haven’t seen Swift THIS honest and raw – I don’t care what you say about the multiple love songs we’ve heard that she’s beautifully crafted – these are songs about her public downfalls, her feuds, her screw ups, her wins and losses, and how she has chosen to deal with them – in the most honest, authentic way we’ve seen her. I don’t think I can ask for anything more as a fan.
Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone nailed it for me here:
“From the sounds of her excellent sixth album, Swift spent that time going into deeper, darker, more introspective places. Reputation is her most intimate album – a song cycle about how it feels when you stop chasing romance and start letting your life happen. As one of the all-time great pop masterminds, she’s trying something new, as she always does. But because she’s Taylor Swift, she can’t stop being her own turbulent, excessive, exhausting and gloriously extra self.”
The lyrical content in this album is strong – at least I find it to be. We don’t have anything par with “All Too Well” or “Dear John,” but that’s not what the album calls for. This is Swift’s most sonically different album she’s ever done – she has successfully catapulted to country –> pop country –> 80’s pop –> full on 2017 contemporary pop. I don’t think that 1989 was influenced by the sounds of 2013 and 2014 nearly as much as Reputation is clearly influenced and inspired by 2016 and 2017 pop.
It personally doesn’t bother me but it’s interesting to see whether or not this will distance long time fans. I think Swift is so genius and meticulous at her craft, she knew that she could succeed doing the work in current pop music and do it the best. She will continue to challenge herself in creating different sounds and I think the growth is really interesting to watch.
Where’s she going next? Who knows. I hope that she explores the sounds we heard in “State of Grace” from Red – sounds like The Cranberries meets HAIM meets Stevie Nicks – but obviously I’m not the one who will dictate where she decides to go next.
Have you listened to the album yet? I WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU ARE THINKING! This is the first Taylor Swift release where I have my blog. This is exciting stuff and I never get sick of talking about it. Don’t hesitate to reach out!
Tags: Album Reviews
flyingcolours603 says:
i also loved her album she has matured if you compare her starting songs from album like fearless and taylor swift she has matured as a writer and singer and as a human being people want the old taylor but no one remains 16 forever , my fav song was dress,dancing with our hands tied and getaway car ,gorgeous ,call it what you want , look what you made me do songs and yea she is awesome
plus your post was well written and detailed
Your Favourite Loser says:
Hey Kristin! I’m not a diehard Taylor fan, but I would say she’s one of my guilty pleasures (as I listen to more punk-rock music) because of her emotionally complex lyrics and concepts. I know most of her songs and listen to them to be inspired for my own songwriting because I aspire to create catchy rock bangers that also have a meaning and depth. Once I started listening to her promotional singles again (me, being freshly in love and relating to ALL the love songs), I couldn’t resist buying the album.
I was like, “This album better be worth my $20, it better sound like those songs or I swear to God,” because I rarely buy the latest music – I usually go to thrift stores and find my old-school Avril CDs for like, a dollar. Let me tell you, I think the album was worth most of my money. Basically:
My INSTANT favourites were
– King Of My Heart
– End Game
Songs that grew on me were
– DWOHT
– TIWWCHNT
– Dress
– Getaway Car (although I just hang on for the bridge)
– New Years Day (I didn’t really get the fuss around it, and I still don’t????)
Songs I never wanna hear again are
– Gorgeous
– LWYMMD
– …Ready For It
and ‘So It Goes’ still has to grow on me… or it’ll remain my least favourite on the album. Anyway I know this was long but thank you!!! YFL XXX
Previous Entry A Guide to My Favorite Music Venues in Chicago…and Their Neighboring Bars
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Flying Blind in our Criminal Justice System – Its 2009 and We Still Can’t Answer These Questions
Posted on March 18, 2009 by chicagojustice
The range of issues within the criminal justice system that the public & policy makers know little about is astounding. Innovation in our criminal justice policies and practices will only be driven by greatly increased access to information about how the system operates, who operates it, and with whom the system interacts. Each of the levels within the system, police – prosecutors – judicial – incarceration, generates large amounts of data that they hide from public knowledge, restrict access, or do not collect. A reversal of these current practices will dramatically & permanently alter the way communities and policy makers think about and participate with the criminal justice system in Chicago and Cook County.
Traditional concepts of public accessibility have always been extremely limited in Chicago and Cook County. Requirements for how agencies collect and release data to the public must be completely re-conceptualized from the ground up. Policy makers need to require that public agencies work together to strategize about what information they will collect and in what format it will be released. Standardization protocols need to be created so that multiple agencies within a system, like the criminal justice system, release data in a manner that will allow easy matching of data points across agencies. This will, for example, allow policy makers to track a single case across the entire criminal justice system rather than just within a single agency.
The advances in information technologies allow data to be collected and released to the public in a very efficient manner. Part of the re-conceptualizing process must include forward thinking about how to collect and release data in an actionable format. Actionable format is one that allows community members, policy makers, and journalists to act upon the information without the need for extended time spent requesting access to data through a formal process that screens out potentially politically damaging requests.
Numbers from agencies that support rape survivors detail the belief that 1 to 1.5 in 10 rapes in Chicago are reported to authorities. Another number that I heard academics talk about states that 1 in 10 rape cases brought to the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office for prosecution by the Chicago Police result in prosecutions. The current state of data gathering in the Chicago/Cook County criminal justice system does not allow us to verify these numbers. This made me think, what other questions / facts associated with rape cases (aggravated criminal sexual assault as defined by Illinois law) are we unable of knowing? Here is a list that came to mind:
1. How many community members have filed complaints for rape in our community?
2. What are the demographics of the complainant and the accused?
3. What is the history of complaints filed by the complainant?
4. What is the history of rape or other sexually violent crimes by the accused?
5. How many of these complaints by community members are being judged by the Chicago Police Department as either legitimate or not legitimate?
6. What protocol is the Chicago Police Department using to judge the legitimacy of the complaints?
7. What are the real world differences in the amount of evidence associated with these cases and what role does that play in how the Chicago Police Department judges the legitimacy of each case?
8. How many of these complaints have resulted in arrests by the Chicago Police Department?
9. How long were the individuals arrested in these cases held by the Chicago Police Department?
10. What are the demographics of those held versus those not held?
11. What are the demographics of the victims in the cases where the accused is held versus when the accused is not held?
12. What unit within the department made those arrests?
13. Where were those arrests made?
14. How many of these arrests have resulted in the Chicago Police Department pursuing charges with the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office?
15. What are the demographics of those involved in the cases that the Chicago Police Department chose to pursue charges versus those where charges were not pursued?
16. How many of these complaints have resulted in charges being filed by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office?
17. What protocol is the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office using to judge the legitimacy of the complaints?
18. Why has the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office disagreed with the judgment of the Chicago Police Department and not filed charges in a particular case?
19. What are the demographics of the individuals involved in the cases deemed to be legitimate by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office versus cases deemed to be not legitimate?
20. What are the realities associated with the amount of evidence involved in the cases the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office decides to press charges versus those cases not perused by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office?
21. How many of these complaints have resulted in convictions, what charges are those convictions for, and how long are the sentences?
22. How many of these cases resulted in a plea bargain?
23. What are the demographics of those involved in cases that resulted in a plea bargain versus those that did not result in a plea bargain?
24. How many of these cases went to trial?
25. How many of the cases that went to trial resulted in a conviction?
26. How many of these cases had charges filed but then charges were dropped?
27. How long were the sentences for each case that went to a trial and resulted in a verdict?
28. What are the demographics of the complainant and the accused in the case that went to trial and resulted in a verdict?
29. What are demographics of the judge, prosecutor, and jury for the cases that went to trial and resulted in a verdict?
30. What were the demographics of the members of the jury pool as a whole?
31. What were the demographics of the jury pool members that were excluded from serving on the jury?
32. Why were the jury pool members that were excluded by both the defense and prosecution excluded?
33. How long were the sentences associated with the plea bargains?
34. How did the sentences vary depending on the demographics of the victim & the accused for those that took the plea bargains?
35. How long were the sentences for those that went to trial?
36. How did the sentences vary depending on the demographics of the victim and the accused for those that went to trial?
37. How long did those that took the plea bargains serve in prison?
38. How did this vary depending on the demographics of those involved?
39. How long did those that went to trial serve in prison?
41. Probation?
42. Parole?
Author: Tracy Siska
Tracy Siska is the Founder and Executive Director of the Chicago Justice Project.
This entry was posted in Blog and tagged Criminal justice system. Bookmark the permalink.
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Part 6 - Policies and procedures
Public Participation Scheme
Officers' Code of Conduct
Member/Officer Protocol
Anti-Fraud, Bribery and Corruption Policy
Code of good practice for Members and officers involved in the planning process
Code of good practice for the delegation of planning and enforcement functions
Protocol for notifying local members of key issues
Constitution - Part 6A - Public Participation Scheme
1.1 Cumbria County Council ('the County Council') is committed to the people of Cumbria having a say on its services and its decisions.
1.2 There are many ways for the public to get involved such as attending community meetings, public events, commenting on the council's website or submitting comments through the council's 'have your say' scheme.
1.3 There are also a number of regular County Council meetings where the public are invited to have their say, either by:
(a) Asking a question;
(b) Presenting a petition; or
(c) Making a statement.
1.4 The County Council's Public Participation Scheme explains how members of the public may do this.
2 - Public Participation Scheme
2.1 This scheme applies to the following County Council meetings:
(a) Council - this meets on average seven times a year. For full details about full Council and the decisions it makes please go to Part 2A of this Constitution;
(b) Cabinet - this meets monthly. For full details about Cabinet and the decisions it makes please go to Part 2B of this Constitution; and
(c) Local Committees - for full details about the six Local Committees and the decisions they make, please go to Part 2D of this Constitution.
2.2 The public participation arrangements for Council, Cabinet and Local Committees are the same. However arrangements for the County Council's Development Control and Regulation Committee ("Planning Committee") are different and are set out below in Section 3.
2.3 For more information about when and where council meetings take place visit the Council Meetings page on cumbria.gov.uk. The time set aside for public participation at the formal meetings is normally limited to 30 minutes.
2.4 If you would like to have a say at one of the formal meetings (as listed above), please follow the guidance below for asking a question, presenting a petition, or making a statement. Chairs of meetings understand that members of the public may not be accustomed to addressing formal meetings, and will help you feel comfortable and able to make your voice heard.
Please note that Council meetings are public, and a summary of your contribution, including your name, will appear in the published minutes of the meeting. Minutes are publicly available, including via the Council's website.
NB Please note that the Council treats all participants in meetings with respect and does expect similar standards of behaviour from all attendees. The Council Procedure Rules contain guidance at paragraphs 19 and 20 on the standards which are expected.
2.5 Asking a Question
2.5.1 Asking a question - if you will be attending the meeting:
(a) The question must be provided to the council at least three working days before the date of the meeting. In writing to Democratic Services, Cumbria House, 117 Botchergate, Carlisle CA1 1RD; or via email to democratic.services@cumbria.gov.uk.
(b) Prior to the meeting you will be contacted by the County Council to confirm your attendance and be given a time that you need to attend.
(c) On the day you need to arrive in plenty of time. When it is your turn to speak you will have a few minutes to introduce yourself and then ask your question. You may be asked follow on questions by Members attending the Committee, normally this session will be limited to approximately five minutes. Following this you will receive an answer from the Committee. You may also ask one supplementary question to clarify a particular point relating to your original question.
2.5.2 Asking a question - if you won't be attending the meeting:
(a) Your question must be submitted to the County Council at least three working days before the date of the meeting. You can submit your question either: in writing to Democratic Services, Cumbria House, 117 Botchergate, Carlisle CA1 1RD; or via email to democratic.services@cumbria.gov.uk.
(b) Following the meeting you will be contacted and given an update of the discussion and an answer to the question you asked.
2.6 Submitting a Petition
Anyone can submit a petition to the County Council on any County Council related topic. Petitions can be submitted either online at cumbria.gov.uk or as a hard copy by sending it to Democratic Services, Cumbria House, 117 Botchergate, Carlisle CA1 1RD.
2.7 To submit a petition to one of the meetings listed under 2.1 above, please follow this guidance:
(a) Petitions must be sent to the County Council at least three working days before the date of the meeting. Petitions must include a clear and concise statement covering the subject of the petition. It should state:
(i) What action the 'petitioners' wish the County Council to take; and
(ii) The name, address and signature of any person supporting the petition (the address can be an address where person lives, works or studies).
(iii) Your name and contact details (the person submitting the petition).
(b) Prior to the meeting you will be contacted by the County Council to confirm your attendance and be given a time that you need to attend. When presenting a petition you will be expected to attend. If you can't attend you should arrange for someone else to attend on your behalf.
(c) On the day you need to arrive in plenty of time. When it is your turn to speak you will have a few minutes to introduce yourself and then present your petition. You may be asked follow on questions by members attending the Committee, normally this session will be limited to approximately five minutes.
2.8 You may want to just submit a petition to the County Council about a specific issue and it may not be aimed at any particular meeting - if this is the case then the petition should clearly state:
(i) What action the petitioners (i.e. 'you') want the County Council to take; and
(ii) The name, address and signature of the person submitting the petition/petition organiser. These petitions will be acknowledged within ten working days together with confirmation of what the County Council will do with the petition and confirm when you can expect to hear from the County Council.
2.9 The County Council response to a petition will depend on what the petition asks for and how many people have signed it, but may include one or more of the following:
(a) Taking the action requested in the petition;
(b) Considering the petition at a County Council meeting;
(c) Holding an inquiry into the matter;
(d) Undertaking research into the matter;
(e) Holding a public meeting;
(f) Carrying out consultation;
(g) Holding a meeting with the petitioners;
(h) Referring the petition for consideration by one of the County Council's Scrutiny Boards ; and
(i) Writing to the petition organiser setting out our views about the request in the petition.
2.10 Before submitting a petition we recommend that you check with your local councillor ('member') to see if the County Council is already acting on your concerns and to ensure that the County Council is the most appropriate body to receive your petition.
2.11 Making a statement
2.11.1 Making a Statement - if you will be attending the meeting:
(a) Your statement must be provided to the County Council at least three working days before the date of the meeting. You can submit your statement either: in writing to Democratic Services, Cumbria House, 117 Botchergate, Carlisle CA1 1RD; or via email to democratic.services@cumbria.gov.uk
(c) On the day, you need to arrive in plenty of time. When it is your turn to speak you will have a few minutes to introduce yourself and then read out your statement. You may be asked follow on questions by members attending the Committee. Normally this session will be limited to approximately five minutes. Following this you will receive an answer from the Committee.
2.11.2 Making a statement - when you don't wish to attend the meeting:
(a) Your statement must be submitted to the County Council at least three working days before the date of the meeting. You can submit your statement either: in writing to Democratic Services, Cumbria House, 117 Botchergate, Carlisle CA1 1RD, or via email to democratic.services@cumbria.gov.uk Following the meeting you will be contacted and given an update of the discussion.
2.12 Exclusions
The County Council really does want to hear from the public on matters they feel strongly about. However there are exclusions to this and questions cannot be asked about the following:
(a) Circumstances of an individual or a member of County Council staff;
(b) Matters covered by legal or other proceedings;
(c) Party political matters or confidential information;
(d) A statutory petition (for example requesting a referendum on having an elected mayor);
(e) A matter where there is already an existing right of appeal or a separate complaints process;
(f) Anything the County Council considers to be vexatious, abusive or otherwise inappropriate; or
(g) Where a person, organisation or someone on their behalf has submitted a petition or asked a question which is the same or substantially the same as one submitted within the previous 12 months.
3 - Public Participation at Cumbria's Development Control and Regulation Committee ("Planning Committee")
Cumbria's Development Control and Regulation Committee
3.1 This Committee normally meets every six weeks in Kendal and considers four main areas of business:
(a) Planning Applications for mineral workings and waste management facilities such as quarries, landfill sites and/or waste incinerators;
(b) Planning applications by the County Council for its own development proposals;
(c) Changes to any Public Rights of Way in Cumbria, and
(d) The registration of common land and town and village greens, and to register the variation of rights of common.
3.2 Applicants, any supporters and opponents of the application (or their representatives) and representatives of organisations consulted as part of the determination process may apply to speak at the Committee.
3.3 Procedure for Public Participation
3.3.1 If you wish to speak to the Committee you, (or a representative appointed to act on your behalf, including a legal representative) must notify the County Council's Democratic Services Team, submitting at the same time a written note of the points you wish to make, at least three working days before the meeting where the application is being considered.
3.3.2 Requests received less than three working days before the meeting will only be accepted at the discretion of the Chair of the Committee.
3.3.3 You will be given details of the Committee meeting.
3.3.4 The County Council member who represents the division affected by the application will also be notified of any requests to speak and from whom have been received.
3.3.5 At the Committee, people who have validly applied to speak will be allocated seats in the committee room before the meeting starts.
3.3.6 Speakers will be invited to address the Committee following the presentation of the report on the relevant application by officers of the Council. You will be allowed up to five minutes for your presentation. What you say must be relevant to the application.
3.3.7 Normally, any person who has validly requested to speak at the Committee will have the opportunity to speak. However, the Chair may exercise his/hers discretion to prevent repetition of submissions which the Committee has heard or points which are not material to the application under consideration.
3.3.8 The applicant will be invited to speak after those speakers who are opposing the application.
3.3.9 At the Chair's discretion, any speaker may be questioned, immediately after their presentation, by members of the Committee or by Council officers, on matters of fact relating to the application, to clarify any points raised in their presentation.
3.3.10 If the Committee decide to defer their decision on the application for any reason, you will not be invited to speak at a subsequent meeting, but your views will be considered.
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Johann Rupert disputes Dlamini-Zuma’s 2017 lawsuit claim as ‘fake news’
4th May 2020 Staff Writer Business, South Africa 0
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
Billionaire businessman Johann Rupert has dismissed Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s claim that he lost a lawsuit against her.
Dlamini-Zuma made the claim in November 2017 when she was campaigning for the presidency of the African National Congress (ANC). She eventually lost to President Cyril Ramaphosa.
In a tweet at the time, she wrote, “When I banned smoking in public spaces and advertising, I had discussions with investors including Johann Rupert. We didn’t agree; he took me to court. We won the case.”
‘Not involved in any lawsuit’
Dlamini-Zuma was referring to the period between 1994 and 1999 when she was Health Minister. She spearheaded the legislation that prohibits smoking in public spaces as well as advertising of tobacco products.
However, in a tweet on Monday, Rupert said he has never been involved in any lawsuit anywhere, including against Dlamini-Zuma.
When I banned smoking in public spaces and advertising, I had Discussions with investors including Johan Rupert. We didn’t agree, he took me to court. We won the case.
— Dr Dlamini Zuma (@DlaminiZuma) November 9, 2017
The billionaire was reacting to an article published on The South African which claimed that he and the Minister were headed for a court battle over the extension of the ban on cigarette sales.
He wrote, “More fake news: Despite 2017 tweet by @DlaminiZuma when she was running against @CyrilRamaphosa, and the fake news today, I have never been involved in ANY lawsuit anywhere, including her.”
BAT SA’s ultimatum
Some supporters of Dlamini-Zuma unearthed the tweet following her announcement last week that the ban on cigarette sales would remain. They argued that this was her second “victory” against Rupert, who has often been touted as a member of “white monopoly capital.”
The South African subsidiary of British American Tobacco (BAT) gave Dlamini-Zuma until 10h00 on Monday to clarify the legal basis for the ban or face court action.
More fake news: Despite 2017 tweet by @DlaminiZuma when she was running against @CyrilRamaphosa, and the fake news today, I have never been involved in ANY lawsuit anywhere, including her. @SowetanLIVE https://t.co/t67j4O3JDH
— Cutmaker (@cutmaker) May 4, 2020
Rupert’s Reinet Investments held 2.85 percent of BAT’s issued share capital as at December 2019, according to its management statement published in January.
The value of this investment in BAT stood at €2.5 billion as at 31 December, representing 45.8 percent of Reinet’s net asset value. Rupert’s Remgro also held BAT shares previously, but unbundled them in 2008 at a total value of R55.2 billion.
It was not yet clear at the time of publishing whether Dlamini-Zuma had responded to BAT SA’s ultimatum or not. However, it may not be the only legal challenge she could face.
Fair Trade Independent Tobacco Association (FITA) has also filed court papers against the government in a bid to have the ban lifted. It cited both Ramaphosa and Dlamini-Zuma as respondents.
FITA argued that the ban under level 5 of the lockdown was “unlawful” because it was not gazetted then and that the government has not considered less “onerous” measures of achieving the lockdown’s purpose without undermining business rights.
Bathabile Dlamini
Johann Rupert
Vodacom switches on 5G mobile network in Joburg, Pretoria and Cape Town
ANC NYTT fumes at eNCA’s Dlamini-Zuma diatribe, compares it to ANN7
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It’s Time For Rugby To Address It’s Rampant Doping Culture
Posted On April 9, 2019 By Editor
“What’s the dirtiest sport around?” This was the question that was put to the CEO of UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) recently. Her answer? Not cycling, not athletics, but rugby. Yes, rugby union is the sport considered most at risk of doping in UKAD’s eyes, and it’s not hard to see why. Of the 47 people on their banned list, 16 played rugby union. Throw in rugby league, and a staggering 81% of all banned athletes were rugby players in some shape or form.
And for all the authorities try to duck and dive around such a thorny issue, there is a growing array of evidence which indicates rugby has a significant doping problem. Yet in comparison with other sports, rugby gets a remarkably easy ride; it is, after all, the gentleman’s sport and the media seem intent on keeping it that way. The vitriol and criticism are largely reserved for sports like cycling and athletics. But while the doping problem in both of those sports has markedly improved over the past decade, there has been a steep rise in performance-enhancing drugs in rugby in the same period. Part of the reason has to do with the rapidly changing body shape of players since the dawn of the professional era. In fact, players at this year’s World Cup will be, on average, 2.5 stone heavier than the edition held twenty years previously.
The extent of the doping problem is, in all probability, much greater than is reported. Indeed, one former international coach has cut his ties with the sport given his disillusionment with the “institutionalised doping” which he experienced in his years in England. Brian O’Driscoll’s comments in recent months about the regular use of painkillers in teams he has played for came as a surprise to many, but come to think of it, we shouldn’t be surprised at all. How else do you explain the modern day player taking hit after hit, making tackle after tackle against fellow unnaturally overweight competitors and being able to line up the very next week to do it all again? There is something extremely uncanny about this seemingly inhumane indestructibility of the modern player. Subjecting the body to such repeated stress is bound to have consequences- acute pain being the most obvious outcome. The regular numbing of this pain via painkillers must, therefore, be highly likely to be widespread as O’Driscoll suggests, if not common practice.
The former Ireland captain’s comments smack of a sport in crisis that is unwilling to face up to this reality. “I’d have been part of teams where on the way to a game, a doctor would have walked down the bus on the way to the game and enquired as to who wanted what in advance of it. For me, for the last couple of seasons anyway, part of my match prep would have been a Difene and a couple of Co-codamol – again, just a painkiller if I was carrying something. It almost became like a habit where it gave me a fighting chance if I wasn’t feeling 100pc that it might level it up. And that is the reality of it and I wouldn’t have been the only one doing it.” Worryingly, both drugs mentioned by O’Driscoll are not just mild painkillers, they are stronger than that and are designed to quell quite significant pain. Surely then, a sport has a serious problem if its athletes need to take potent drugs just to get through a game.
The reality is that any time O’Driscoll or any of his teammates used such drugs, they were not in any way fit to play a rugby match. Since the dawn of time, pain has served an extremely useful purpose; it emits a strong signal to the brain that the body is in distress and action needs to be taken. Here, O’Driscoll’s body would have been screaming at him that it could not take any more pain. To suppress this pain is unnatural and must be considered to be nothing other than performance-enhancing. Surely, a drug which prepares one’s body to accept pain that it cannot otherwise take has to be deemed to be performance enhancing, and therefore, must be classified alongside the regularly vilified EPO, corticosteroids, and testosterone. Lance Armstrong and Justin Gatlin took substances to enhance their individual performance and were rightly castigated; why then in rugby is it acceptable to numb pain which would otherwise prevent the player from competing? There should be much more of a fuss about insights offered by former professionals like O’Driscoll, for in this instance it appears as though O’Driscoll is piercing the veil on a shockingly prolific supplement taking culture in one of Ireland’s most popular sports.
Of further concern is the spread of doping into the almost semi-professional setup that is schools rugby. In 2018, six South African schoolboy players tested positive for PEDs, and a total of twelve positive tests had been returned in the preceding three years. Speaking about the ban of his 19-year-old son, former Lions outhalf, Craig Chalmers summed up the growing pressure to “bulk up” that is now widespread at grassroots level: “There is a lot of pressure on young guys. Sam was desperate to put on weight because they said he was not big enough. The message was that if you are not big enough or strong enough then you don’t get picked.”
Yet again, the approach in Ireland is to bury our head in the sand, rather than face up to the unpalatable reality. The evidence of drug-taking is plain for all to see, mostly in the vastly different body shape of schoolboys players in the last ten years. Former Ireland outhalf Tony Ward concedes that there must be “sinister alternatives at work” in trying to explain the freakish body sizes of some underage players. Indeed, how else could you possibly explain such a stark transformation in body shape but the widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs?
The approach of authorities in Ireland until now has been to put their fingers in their ears until the noise becomes too loud. It’s only going to become louder. It’s now time to take action.
By Neil Stokes – Sports Writer
Tagged: doping rugby
Getting Fit and Healthy on a Student Budget Pt. 2- Exercise in the eyes of Andrew Cowan
Hockey Matches Suspended Until Further Notice
Wallabies leave it late to kill off Pumas.
Previous post: Television In Review: ‘Dirty John’
Next post: The Sins Of The Father
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New emergency medicine physicians
Four new physicians joining CMH this summer
Please help us welcome four new physicians to the Emergency Department this summer.
Eileen O’Sullivan, MB BCH BAO
Dr. Eileen O’Sullivan is a board-eligible physician who joins CMH in July. She earned her medical degree from the University College Cork Medical School in Cork, Ireland and completed a residency at Hennepin Healthcare in Minneapolis, Minnesota in emergency medicine and internal medicine. Dr. O’Sullivan is especially interested in resource utilization and critical care. In her free time, she enjoys running, biking, eating and traveling.
Avery Kechter, MD
Dr. Avery Kechter joins the Emergency Department at CMH in July, as well. He attended Chicago Medical School and completed a residency in emergency medicine at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His interests lie in resource utilization, bedside ultrasound and evidence-based practice. When he’s not working, he plays the guitar, travels and likes to make ice cream.
Andrew Richards, MD
Dr. Andrew Richards joins the ED in July, also. He earned his medical degree from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and completed a residency at Oregon Health & Science University in emergency medicine. He was chief resident from 2018-19 at OHSU. He is interested in optimizing intubation and ventilation in the ED, ultrasound guided nerve blocks and multimodal pain control. In his free time, he likes to bike, sail, run and play intramural football.
Nicholas Villalon, MD
Dr. Nicholas Villalon will join CMH in August. He attended medical school at Yale University and completed his residency at the University of California, San Francisco, where he was chief resident in 2013-14. He speaks both English and Spanish and is board-certified by the American Board of Emergency Medicine. He is especially interested in medical education, bedside ultrasound and access to care. When he isn’t working, he enjoys music, surfing, kiteboarding and cooking.
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Holy Fuck Release New Music Teaser | Music News
18 Feb 2016 — Filed Under: Music, Music News
It’s been five years since Canadian electronica band, Holy Fuck, released their last studio album, Latin, in 2010. It was an album that successfully managed to reach No. 14 on the Billboard Dance charts, easily making it their most popular album to date.
Now, six years later, the band have already started teasing a brand new studio album called Congrats. From what we have heard so far off of this album, it appears to be a lot more mature than any of their previous material, and definitely something fans of this genre will want to check out.
Watch the new music teaser below:
#Peace.Love.Congrats
Qurat-ul-anne Sikander
Bi social activist; here for a good time.
Latest posts by Qurat-ul-anne Sikander (see all)
6LACK – Switch | Music Video - July 17, 2018
MNEK – Colour | Music Video - June 29, 2018
Paramore – Caught In The Middle | Music Video - June 27, 2018
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Toni Collette To Lead Drama Series ‘Wanderlust’ From The BBC And Netflix | TV Series
Filed Under: TV, TV News
Toni Collette, perhaps best known for The Sixth Sense and Little Miss Sunshine, is returning to TV in a six-part drama from playwright Nick Payne and director Luke Snellin. Entitled Wanderlust, the series will debut in the UK on BBC One, followed by a global release on Netflix. According to The Wrap, “Wanderlust centers on a multi-generational family[…]
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At a Rehearsal for the Staging of The Storming of the Winter Palace (1920)
pOpen access
PDF, 1 pages
Inke Arns (ed.), Igor Chubarov (ed.), Sylvia Sasse (ed.)
Nikolai Evreinov: »The Storming of the Winter Palace«
Softcover, 320 pages
In 1920, the third anniversary of the October Revolution, The Storming of the Winter Palace was performed with a cast of 10,000. But as a reenactment this mass spectacle, directed by Nikolai Evreinov, was deceptive. It was intended to recall something—the storming of the Winter Palace as the beginning of the revolution—that it itself produced as a theatrical medium. This volume reconstructs the event with texts, photographs, and drawings, and shows how not only in the Soviet Union did the photograph of the theatrical “storming” become a historical document of the October Revolution.
The Storming of the Winter Palace (1920)
Nikolai Evreinov
The Storming of the Winter Palace. An article by the production’s director-in-chief (1920)
The Storming of the Winter Palace. Recollections of the staging to celebrate the third anniversary of the October Revolution (unpublished typescript, 1924)
The Storming of the Winter Palace. Recollections of the staging to celebrate the third anniversary of the October Revolution (1924)
Open-Air Theater (1920)
Konstantin Derzhavin
A Miracle (1920)
The Mass as Such (1920)
The Storming of the Winter Palace. On the fifth anniversary of the staging (1925)
What is required of the Audience during the Production (1920)
Iosif Slepian, Dmitri Tëmkin
November Eight 1920 (1920)
Lev Nikulin
Baltic Sea (1932)
On Mass Actions and More Important Things (1932)
Sergei Radlov
Nikolai Evreinov (1960)
Iuri Annenkov
Mass Spectacles (1960)
Nikolai Petrov
Photographs of the 1920 staging in sequence
Announcement of the Decoration of Petrograd during the Third Anniversary Celebrations of October (1920)
On the October Celebrations (1920)
Vlagin
The Staging of the Storming of the Winter Palace (1920)
An Exhibition in Memory of the Great October (1920)
F. Lenski
Motion Pictures and the Staging of The Storming of the Winter Palace (1920)
The Storming of the Winter Palace. An Eye-Witness Report (1920)
Proletarian Action. At the Staging The Storming of the Winter Palace (1920)
On Uritski Square (Impression of a Muscovite) (1920)
Nikolai Shubski
The Chaos of the Arts (1921)
Arthur Holitscher
The Pageants of 1920 (1922)
Adrian Piotrovski
The Successes of the New Theater (1922)
Platon Kerzhentsev
Theatricalized Life (1926)
René Fülöp-Miller
The Monumentalist Style of the Revolutionary Spectacles (1930)
Nina Gourfinkel
The Theaters and Pageants of Petrograd in the Epoch of War Communism (1933)
Aleksei Gvozdev, Adrian Piotrovski
Cinema and Theater. Nikolai Evreinov (1943)
Sergei Eisenstein
History is Written with the Lens (1971)
Leonid Volkov-Lannit
Photographs of the theatrical storming of the Winter Palace as historical documents
Nikolai Evreinov‘s “Revolution In Itself”
Igor Chubarov
“History is Written with the Lens”: How the Photo of the Theatrical Storming becomes a Historical Document
Battlefield History: Artistic Reenactments as Participatory Deconstructions of History
Inke Arns
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Cinema: Back to the Future Tickets at the The Drive In, London
Back to the Future at The Drive In this summer!
From the latest blockbusters to cult classics, stand-up comedy to live music, The Drive In is this summer’s must-visit London attraction
Marty McFly, a 17-year-old high school student, is accidentally sent thirty years into the past in a time-traveling DeLorean invented by his close friend, the eccentric scientist Doc Brown.
1hr 56min
Performance dates
30 December 2020.
Cinema: Back to the Future
The Drive In Troubadour Meridian Water, Hawley Road, Edmonton, London, London, N18 3QQ
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Current Affairs Quiz for NDA & Other Defence Exams: 13th April
Current Affairs is an important subject in various exams like NDA, CDS, AFCAT, CAPF and other Defence Exams. You cannot master current affairs in one day and so you need to prepare them regularly. Here at Defence Adda, we provide you with the quizzes based on daily event affairs that are important for your exams.
Q1. NMCG was awarded the distinction of “Public Water Agency of the Year” by Global Water Intelligence at the Global Water Summit. What does C stands for in NMCG?
(a) Cristal
(b) Clear
(c) Clean
(d) Credit
Q2. Google launched_____, a new open platform from Google Cloud, that lets users run applications from anywhere.
(a) App Suite
(b) Adsense
(c) Cloud Store
(d) Anthos
Q3. Which of the following Indian education technology startup won a $25,000 tech prize, the Next Billion Edtech Prize 2019?
(a) Unacademy
(b) Adda247
(c) Dost Education
(d) Byjus
Q4. The All India Tennis Association (AITA) has signed an MoU with_______________ to train Indian junior players under world-renowned Serbian coaches.
(a) Italian
(b) Brazilian
(c) Serbian Tennis Federation
(d) Spanish
Q5. Which of the following bank partnered with credit profiler CreditVidya to improve the lender’s customer experience?
(a) PNB
(b) HDFC Bank
(c) RBL Bank
(d) SBI
Q6. The UAE has announced that_____will be the Guest of Honour country at the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, ADIBF 2019, to be held at the end of April 2019.
(a) Qatar
(b) Pakistan
(c) USA
(d) India
Q7. PAISALO Digital Limited signed the first co-origination loan agreement with ________, the first agreement of its kind in the country that the bank has signed.
(a) SBI
(b) Yes Bank
(c) PNB
(d) BoB
Q8. India and______launched a joint programme that will work towards addressing a range of challenges around smart cities and clean technologies among others.
(a) Denmark
(b) Norway
(c) Sweden
(d) Croatia
Q9. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was decorated with Order of St Andrew the Apostle – the highest state decoration of ______, for exceptional services in promoting special and privileged strategic partnership between the two countries.
(a) South Korea
(b) Russia
(c) Croatia
(d) Belgium
Q10. The most powerful operational rocket in the world, SpaceX’s ________, launched its first commercial mission from Florida.
(a) CREAM
(b) DRAGON
(c) Falcon Heavy
(d) FALCON 8
Sol. The National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) was awarded the distinction of “Public Water Agency of the Year” by Global Water Intelligence at the Global Water Summit in London.
Sol. Google launched Anthos, a new open platform from Google Cloud, that lets users run applications from anywhere.
Sol. India’s education technology startup ‘Dost Education’ won a $25,000 tech prize along with two other winners from Tanzania and Egypt. The Next Billion Edtech Prize 2019 is given by UK-based Varkey Foundation.
Sol. The All India Tennis Association (AITA) has signed an MoU with Serbian Tennis Federation (STF) to train Indian junior players under world-renowned Serbian coaches.
Sol. RBL Bank has partnered with credit profiler CreditVidya to improve the lender’s customer experience. Through this partnership, the private sector lender will be able to gain significant insights into its customer base.
Sol. The UAE has announced that India will be the Guest of Honour country at the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, ADIBF 2019, to be held at the end of April 2019.
Sol. PAISALO Digital Limited signed the first co-origination loan agreement with State Bank of India, the first agreement of its kind in the country that State Bank of India has signed.
Sol. India and Sweden launched a joint programme that will work towards addressing a range of challenges around smart cities and clean technologies among others.
Sol. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was decorated with Order of St Andrew the Apostle – the highest state decoration of Russia, for exceptional services in promoting special and privileged strategic partnership between the two countries.
Sol. The most powerful operational rocket in the world, SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, launched its first commercial mission from Florida in a key demonstration for billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s space company in the race to grasp lucrative military launch contracts.
Current Affairs Quiz for NDA & Other Defence Exams: 13th April Reviewed by Anonymous on April 13, 2019 Rating: 5
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Master Chan Cheung
Classes/Timetable
Dragon Style Kung Fu
Book Us Now!
Linda was a senior student of Master Chan Cheung prior to his passing, training in Lung Ying (Dragon Style) Kung Fu since 1997.
Linda was authorised to teach Lung Ying from Master Chan in 2003 when he retired after 30 years of teaching the art in Hong Kong and Australia. She has travelled the globe in her dedication to the art, training and meeting with many top Dragon Style masters in HK, China, USA, UK, Ireland, France, and spent 3 years overseas - 2 years of which was in London training with the UK Dragon Style Association.
Linda has also made several trips to HK and China in continuing her training of Lung Ying, and has performed at annual events held in Waichow China, and Hong Kong.
In 2009, at the Dragon Sign Athletic Association's 40th anniversary celebration in HK, Linda was awarded as the Regional President of Australia, recognising her as the representative of Master Chan Cheung's lung ying legacy in Australia.
Linda also holds certificates in lion dancing; a tradition which comes hand in hand with traditional southern kung fu. Linda was invited to attend the Overseas Chinese Cultural Exchange tour in Shenzhen China 2006, where she spent 2 weeks training 6hrs everyday in the art of lion dance with other attendants from Canada, Mauritius, Philippines, US and Christmas Island.
"Lion Dancing is an integral part of traditional southern kung fu styles. I started learning how to drum a few weeks after I joined the Association, and learnt the head movements from watching my seniors perform whilst I matched the beats to their movements. Considering I was young, female, and very skinny, I didn't get much opportunity to practice being in the lion myself, however my seniors would teach me during free class time whenever possible. I missed many CNY dinners with my family performing with our club at temples around Sydney, so when I was invited to further my lion dance knowledge in 2006 in China, it was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. Training 6hrs eve ryday sounded like a dream! It was very intensive and a lot of hard work, but definitely an experience I will never forget."
Linda lives and beathes Lung Ying, and has also travelled to Thailand and Cambodia training at fight gyms in the nation's capitals to gain experience in furthering Lung Ying training. She is also a qualified Master Trainer with the Australian Institute of Fitness, an Advanced Level 3 Instructor with the Register of Exercise Professionals UK, and spent 3 years overseas in Canada and UK personal training clients in weight loss and strength conditioning.
Linda returned to Australia in 2010 and restarted the club in April 2011, six months after the passing of Master Chan Cheung.
"One of the aims of the Association is to provide people from all backgrounds the opportunity to learn new skills and knowledge to apply in their daily lives, via the disciplined nature of training Dragon Style kung fu, lion dance and volunteering. My goal is to provide an environment where students can train hard, feel welcome and safe, make friends and not only learn kung fu, but to gain skills and abilities to become the best person they can be and give back to the community."
6:00-7:30pm (Kung Fu)
Wednesdays:
6:00-7:00pm (Padwork/Sparring)
7:00-8:00pm (Kung Fu & Lion Dance)
Thursdays:
5:00-5:45pm (Kid's Kung Fu)
Phone No.:+61 480 286 401
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Презентация по английскому языку на тему “The Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage by UNESCO” скачать бесплатно
Текст слайда: The Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage by UNESCO Made by Pupynin Kirill 9A form School 2 Educational Centre Kinel-Cherkassy Russia 2011
Текст$ слайда: What is UNESCO? United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization was founded by 37 countries on a United Nations Conference on the 16th of November 1945. . UNESCO works to create the conditions for dialogue among civilizations, cultures and peoples, based upon respect for commonly shared values. It is through this dialogue that the world can achieve global visions of sustainable development encompassing observance of human rights, mutual respect and the alleviation of poverty, all of which are at the heart of UNESCO’S mission and activities.
Текст слайда: Th$e Constitution of UNESCO The Preamble to the Constitution of UNESCO declares that “since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be$ constructed”. As defined by the Constitution, the purpose of the Organization is: “to contribute to peace and security by promoting collaboration among nations through education, science and culture in order to further universal respect for justice, for the rule of law and for the human rights and fundamental freedoms which are affirmed for the peoples of the world, without distinction of race, sex, language or religion, by the Charter of the United Nations”.
Текст слайд$а: World Heritage Committee The World Heritage Committee establishes the sites to be listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. It is responsible for the implementation of the World Heritage Convention. The Committee meets many times a year to discuss the management of existing World Heritage Sites, and accept the nominations from countries.
Текст слайда: The Protection of World$ heritage The World Heritage List includes 936 properties forming part of the cultural and natural heritage which the World Heritage Committee considers as having outstanding universal value. These include 725 cultural , 183 natural and 28 mixed properties in 153 States Parties. As of November 2011, 188 States Parties have ratified the World Heritage Convention.
Текст слайда: World Heritage in Russia Curre$ntly, there are 24 World Heritage Sites in Russia. 15 properties are cultural and 9 are natural. 27 properties are on UNESCO’s tentative lists.
Текст слайда: The Virgin Komi Forests The Virgin Komi Forests cover 3.28 million ha of tundra and mountain tundra in the Urals, as well as one of the most extensive areas of virgin boreal forest remaining in Europe. This vast area o$f conifers, aspens, birches, peat bogs, rivers and natural lakes has been monitored and studied for over 50 years. It provides valuable evidence of the natural processes affecting biodiversity in the taiga.
Текст слайда: Lake Baikal Situated in south-east Siberia, the 3.15-million-ha Lake Baikal is the oldest (25 million years) and deepest (1,700 m) lake in the world. It contains 20% of the world’s total unfrozen freshwater reserve. Known $as the ‘Galapagos of Russia’, its age and isolation have produced one of the world’s richest and most unusual freshwater faunas, which is of exceptional value to evolutionary science.
Текст слайда: Golden Mountains of Altai The total area covers 1,611,457 ha. The region represents the most complete sequence of altitudinal vegetation zones in central Siberia, from steppe, forest-steppe, mixed forest, subalpine vegetation to alpine vegetation. The site is also an important habitat for enda$ngered animal species such as the snow leopard.
Текст слайда: Architectural Ensemble of the Trinity Sergius Lavra This is a fine example of a working Orthodox monastery, with military features that are typical of the 15th to the 18th century, the period during which it developed. The main church of the Lavra, the Cathedral of the Assumption (echoing the Kremlin Cathedral of the same name), contains the tomb of Boris Godunov. Among the treasures of the La$vra is the famous icon, The Trinity, by Andrei Rublev.
Текст слайда: Ensemble of the Ferapontov Monastery The Ferapontov Monastery, in the Vologda region in northern Russia, is an exceptionally well-preserved and complete example of a Russian Orthodox monastic complex of the 15th-17th centuries, a period of great significance in the development of the unified Russian state and its culture. The architecture of the monastery is outstanding in its inventiveness and purity. Th$e interior is graced by the magnificent wall paintings of Dionisy, the greatest Russian artist of the end of the 15th century.
Текст слайда: Historic and Architectural Complex of the Kazan Kremlin Built on an ancient site, the Kazan Kremlin dates from the Muslim period of the Golden Horde and the Kazan Khanate. It was conquered by Ivan the Terrible in 1552 and be$came the Christian See of the Volga Land. The only surviving Tatar fortress in Russia and an important place of pilgrimage, the Kaz$an Kremlin consists of an outstanding group of historic buildings dating from the 16th to 19th centuries, integrating remains of earlier structures of the 10th to 16th centuries.
Текст слайда: Websites http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Heritage_Site http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/about-us/who-we-are/introducing-unesco/ http://unesco.ru/ru/
Текст слайда: Thank you for attention!
Конспект урока на тему “Л.Н Толстой «Филиппок»”
Конспект урока истории для учащихся 9 класса по теме: «Битва за Москву»
Конспект урока по английскому языку “Необычное приключение Микки Мауса” 1 класс
Дата: 6.10.2014г. Класс: 1 «А» Тема: «Необычное приключение Микки Мауса» (по теме «Знакомство») английский язык$ Учитель:...
Конспект урока на тему “Omar’s day”
$Theme: Omar’s day Цель урока: развитие коммуникативной компетенции на уроке английского языка. Aims of the lesson:...
Конспект урока для 6 класса «ВЕЛИКОБРИТАНИЯ»
Содержание:1 ПРОБНОЕ ОБУЧЕНИЕ В 5-6 КЛАССАХ ПО ТЕМЕ «ВЕЛИКОБРИТАНИЯ» 1.1 Методические приемы и ряд упражнений по...
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Sarah Steele
From the age of seven Sarah has been addicted to Whitby Jet. Like most addicts, it consumes most of her waking day. By the age of eleven she was working jet for pleasure and profit, selling items to friends. By fourteen with the help of her mum Isobel Caldwell, The Ebor Jetworks was established.
However, Sarah was determined to learn more about Whitby Jet scientifically and graduated from University College, Durham with a Degree in Geology in 1992. She has since qualified as a professional gemmologist and was awarded Fellowship of the Gemmological Association of Great Britain (FGA) in 2013, and subsequently Diamond Fellowship (DGA) in 2015. Sarah is also a member of the Canadian Gemmological Association, The Scottish Gemmological Association and is a Senior Accredited Gemmologist of The International Accredited Gemologists Association. Sarah is now considered the world’s leading authority on the Jet Group of gemstones and has recently launched a new branch of gemmology – ‘Hyrdocarbon gemmology’ in order to aid with the understanding of high carbon content gem materials
In 2017 Sarah was appointed Consultant Gemmologist at Whitby Museum, which is home to the most important collection of Victorian Whitby Jet in the world.
Sarah is regularly asked to speak and deliver workshops at conferences around the world. She is also a freelance writer and has had articles published in Gems and Jewellery Magazine and Gemmology Today amongst others.
Her recent research collaborations with the University of Yale are challenging our previous perceptions of Jet.
Sarah has recently accepted an offer from Durham University to continue her postgraduate research on jet which aims to categorise Whitby Jet scientifically.
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Bill Burkett Net Worth
Bill Burkett was the CBS source in the Killian documents affair of 2004. He retired as a Lieutenant Colonel from the Texas Army National Guard. Till the date his net wealth accumulated from his profession has not disclosed by any related site, which means his readers have to wait little longer to get to the core of his information.
While he was still connected to his profession, he had claimed that in 1997, while outside the governor's office in Austin, he allegedly overheard a conversation about "wanting to bury George W. Bush's Vietnam service record." This has been disputed.
To the record, Burkett had received publicity in 2000, after making and then retracting a claim that he had been transferred to Panama for refusing "to falsify personnel records of Governor Bush", and in February 2004, when he claimed to have knowledge of "scrubbing" of Bush's TexANG records. According to the review panel, investigations by major news outlets at the time, including CBS, "revealed inconsistencies... which led to questions regarding his credibility and whether his claims could be proven."
There is no much information about him in any particular site, as a result it has been difficult to summarize anything about him in detail without any specific fact. On according to information updated in Wikipedia, Burkett's claims about the origins of the documents have since changed several times. He admitted to lying to CBS about the origin of the memos when he said he got them from fellow guardsman George Conn, then claiming that he received the Killian documents from a woman calling herself "Lucy Ramirez." To date, she has not been identified. The documents, purported to have been typed in the early seventies, were almost certainly produced with a computer using Microsoft Word on default settings. Burkett claims that he burned the originals after faxing copies of the documents to CBS.
When asked about Burkett's role in the controversy, David Van Os, Burkett's lawyer, responded with the hypothetical that someone may have reconstructed documents that the preparer believed existed in 1972 or 1973.[9
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Lebanese Assistance
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 authorizes the deployment of an international force to prevent Hezbollah attacks on Israel. George W. Bush says, "an effective international force will help the Lebanese army meet its responsibility to secure Lebanon's borders. . . .and stop Hezbollah from acting as a state within a state":
"An effective international force will help give displaced people in both Lebanon and Israel the confidence to return to their homes and begin rebuilding their lives without fear of renewed violence and terror."
Mr. Bush says, "the need is urgent":
"The international community must now designate the leadership of this new international force, give it robust rules of engagement, and deploy it as quickly as possible to secure the peace. America will do our part. We will assist a new international force with logistic support, command and control, communications and intelligence."
The U.S. has led efforts to establish humanitarian corridors so that relief convoys can deliver fuel for Lebanese power plants and automobiles. Deployment of U-N troops to Lebanon, says Mr. Bush, will help speed delivery of assistance:
"Our nation is wasting no time in helping the people of Lebanon. . . .We're acting before the force gets in there. We've been on the ground in Beirut for weeks, and I've already distributed more than half of our fifty-million dollar pledge of disaster relief to the Lebanese people who have lost their homes in the current conflict. I directed twenty-five-thousand tons of wheat be delivered in Lebanon in the coming weeks."
Hezbollah terrorists, and their state sponsors – Iran and Syria – are, "working to thwart the efforts of the Lebanese people, to break free from foreign domination, and build their own democratic future. The terrorists and their sponsors," continues President Bush, "are not going to succeed. The Lebanese people have made clear they want to live in freedom. And now it's up to their friends and allies to help them do so."
The preceding was an editorial reflecting the views of the United States Government.
Helping The Lebanese People
Support For Lebanon
Optimism About Lebanon
Stop Arming Hezbollah
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by Alberto Echegaray Guevara
Le Dictateur, Murano Blown Glass, US Dollars and screws, 2016
Alberto Echegaray Guevara (Cayman) also presented his new artwork “Le Dictateur”. The sculpture was selected as one of the “must seen” artworks at the fair. Le Dictateur is a Murano glass blown head filled with screws and bolts, real money and also authentic blood donated from citizens that lived under dictatorships in Latin America. The three components represent the craziness, the greediness and attraction to money and power , and finally the blood of enemies and friends under a dictatorship. The Art piece was acquired by one of the most prominent art collectors in India.
Gold Moneyball. The presentation of the first One Million Dollar Sphere made in Gold was at the Indian Art Fair 2016. The Sphere was specially made for Asia.
Cayman was mentioned in major newspapers as one of the best artists of the Indian Art Fair; that took place in New Delhi from January 28th till January 31st, 2106
http://indianexpress.com/photos/lifestyle-gallery/9-must-see-artworks-at-the-india-art-fair-2016/
The Tribune (India)
http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/sunday-special/kaleidoscope/when-art-rules-the-capital-for-four-days/189799.html
http://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/art-and-culture/strokes-of-light-and-shade/
MONEY TALKS INDIA
An invitation to encounter the global economy through its monetary system and reflect on the symbolic evolution of society’s relationship with money
In his first presentation in Asia, installation artist Cayman ups the ante yet again with a twist on his experimentation with symbolism and energy. Walk into the Money Talks exhibition at the India Art Fair from January 28 to 31 and you’ll be greeted with a globe containing authentic 100,000,000 Indian Rupees and a $1,000,000 Million Dollars Sphere, all completely destroyed .
To one side of the sphere, there is a piece whose canvas is actually made of sheets of real U.S. dollars, embossed with 24-karat gold appliqués. To the other side, a sculpture of a deranged dictator. A collection of symbols that conjure up ques- tions about the corruption of power, and how our relationship with money shapes the world we live in.
In this collection, Cayman presents his latest take on the global economy with a focus on Asia. What role will emerging economies assume in an increasingly-connected world, and how will the leaders of such economies meet the challenge to lead when the temptation of corruption always looms near?
In 2014, Cayman, took the biggest art show in Latin America, arteBA, by storm with his surprise exhibit featuring a million dollars in a glass sphere in the midst of Argentina’s vulture crisis. And he has had a whirlwind year, as those shredded dollars took him from arteBA to Art Basel Wynwood in Miami, Art Rio in Rio de Janeiro as well as exhibitions in New York City.
Through Money Talks, Cayman continues to insert his particular brand of word play and satire in everything he touches, proving that a seemingly limited material the dollar bill – is for him limitless. “It’s taken me years to shake that cringe factor of feeling like I’m doing something I shouldn’t be doing,” he said. But after sacrificing over the years for his art, the act of intervening in something as sacred as a dollar bill or any national currency is simply a means to an end. “Now I don’t think about it like money,” he said, “and it’s easy to change and transform.”
It was a unique mission—and the world reacted accordingly, as the original installation at ArteBA in 2014 received rave reviews in publications such as Bloomberg, Al Jazeera, the BBC, The Atlantic, Quartz and CNN. Although the exhibited, destroyed money no longer has “value” in the traditional and technical sense of the word, it obtains new significance in the light of Cayman’s work. “This project is ultimately a statement about the unique relationships different cultures have with money, as well as a reflection on the fragility of this monetary system that we have created because of our obsession with acquiring material wealth,” he says. “When a bill is physically destroyed, what does it become? What is its value?”
The pieces being exhibited are unified in theme and in physical properties, exploring different aspects of our relationships and attitudes towards wealth, luxury and power. This time, Cayman developed a special installation for his exhibit in Asia: a sphere filled with one hundred million Indian Rupees, which were destroyed inside the Reserve Bank of India.
Complementing this new piece is Le Dictateur is a sculpture of a man, built entirely by blown Murano glass, whose expression suggests a man driven by a crazed obsession with money and power, his hands stained with the blood of those he felt that he had to destroy. The sculpture is 40 cm tall.
Money Talks also features a new interpretation of the famous artist Antonio Berni’s “La Ramona, the French Ballerina”. Like Berni, Cayman used an embossing plate (using a 3D printing technique) to create the image of Ramona, a fictional character that often appeared in Berni’s works. She was one of Berni’s most famous muses, and serves as inspiration to Echegaray Guevara as well. “To me, Ramona represents the seduction of the material world, luxury and splendor, and the money behind the sex industry that promises a ‘better life.’”
Similarly, the dollar represents ambitions for which so many of us are willing to sacrifice everything. Cayman will also be presenting Good Luck, a piece in which the title is airbrushed on top of a in a light, friendly font that is reminiscent of advertisements aimed at convincing viewers that you, too, can access the American Dream.
LA RAMONA , THE DANCER
Cayman created the piece La Ramona en Medias 2.0 using the same embossing technique as that of famous artist Antonio Berni, who produced much of his work in France. To do so, Cayman developed metal molds using 3D-printing technology to reproduce the print and make the embossing over the sheets of dollar bills. The technique took months to develop, and it is the first time that it has been implemented in this type of embossing using Berni’s work as a model.
Berni began to develop the character of Ramona Montiel while he lived and worked in Paris starting in 1962. Ramona is a young neighborhood girl who lives in the heart of her city. Overwhelmed by her work as a seamstress and seduced by the appeal of luxury as well as false promises of a “better life,” she becomes a cabaret dancer.
For this series, the artist searched flea markets of Paris looking for materials to compose this new character: old sequined dresses, pieces of lace, rope, braids, and other accessories typically used by women from the Belle Époque. Although pho- tographs of brothels in Rosario, Argentina in the 40s appear in Berni’s work, as well as a figure that looks very much like Ramona in the end of the 50s (in the piece La Boda, or The Wedding), Ramona is a product of the artist’s conceptualiza- tion of Paris, growing out of the French cabaret tradition as well one principal figure: the chorus girl.
Through Ramona, the artist explores different aspects of social and historical pressures on women, such as the influence of television and advertising, the configuration of social feminine sensibility and material desires. The artist represents her through her powerful circle of influential friends from all sectors of society: a general, a sailor, a criminal, an ambassador and a bishop, among others, as a star in the café concert circle and in his trips to Spain.
Whether it’s an indian rupee or a dollar bill, currency contains infinite energy. Throughout history, the world’s cultures have developed around a monetary system that increasingly enslaves people in a quest for material wealth. A currency’s value is a reflection of its country’s robustness, while common people infuse paper bills with dreams, using them as tools to achieve what they perceive as stability. All of this occurs despite the fact that the world’s most prominent religious and spiritual traditions consistently warn us of the danger of money and materialism.
Cayman’s work forces the viewer to consider the origins of everyday, ubiquitous symbols and what they reveal about different societies’ relationships with money.
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Tim Burchett is the U.S. Representative for Tennessee's 2nd congressional district, one of
the most Republican districts in the country. He is a Republican and was elected in 2018.
Tim enrolled in the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, where he earned a B.S. degree in
Burchett was mayor of Knox County, Tennessee. As Mayor, he declared November 16
Knox County Bigfoot Day. He served in the Tennessee General Assembly, in both the
Tennessee House and the Tennessee Senate. He sponsored one bill to legalize the eating
of roadkill and another to criminalize production of the active chemical ingredient in the
hallucinogenic plant Salvia Divinorum. While in the Tennessee legislature, Burchett was
responsible for campaign finance irregularities and was fined.
Burchett is a climate change denier and tweeted on the subject, “Al Gore needs to scrape
my dadgum windshield.” He is a wholehearted Trump supporter and votes in line with
Trump 96% of the time. When asked about Trump’s involvement in the Ukraine scandal,
Burchett responded, “If you think a president isn't - when we fund things all over the world,
if there's not some certain criteria attached to it, it just never happens.” He tweeted that he
needed to get his nephew (a high school football player who hoped to be recruited by a
university football program) "some tats and a criminal record so UT will be interested."
Tim married Allison Beaver in an impromptu ceremony conducted by Governor Phil
Bredesen. Four years later Allison filed for divorce, citing "irreconcilable differences."
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We have already introduced you to some of his symphonic music, chamber music, and songs, and a very positive review written in response to the first album will make you eager to hear more. Voilà : The first album with piano works by Georg Schumann, who was the director of the Sing-Akademie in Berlin and a professor of composition at the Prussian Academy of the Arts! Today he is being discovered as a late Romanticist, but during his lifetime he was regarded as a Neoromanticist. Although Georg Schumann was not a descendant of Robert Schumann, he was from the same productive Saxon cultural landscape and from a highly musical family. Early in his life he developed into a brilliant pianist who already as a youth was able to perform challenging piano concertos. It is thus not surprising that the »master of the keys« also composed quality character pieces, impressive "atmospheric pictures," and more works for the piano. This release traces Schumann's path from his first piano compositions through to his more mature late works; in them we not only hear influences from Wagner, Liszt, and Chopin but also witness his gradual discovery of his own personal style.
Label: CPO RECORDS
Piano Works
Artist: Schumann / Krucker
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Kern Latino and African American Students Achieve Victory in Landmark Settlement with Kern High School District
July 26, 2017 May 22, 2018 / Keith Kamisugi
Latino and Black students enrolled in the Kern High School District, together with their parents and community activist organizations Dolores Huerta Foundation, National Brotherhood Association, and Faith in Kern, obtained a historic settlement in their challenge to discriminatory practices.
The plaintiffs were represented by a coalition of civil rights lawyers, including California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc. (CRLA), MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund), Equal Justice Society, Greater Bakersfield Legal Assistance, Inc. (GBLA), and Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, P.C. The settlement with the Kern High School District (KHSD) Board of Trustees is the result of a three-year court battle to stop years of discriminatory discipline practices that deprived African American and Latino students of their right to an education.
The settlement, the first of its kind in California (http://bit.ly/khsd724), includes an immediate change to Kern High School District discipline practices and an acknowledgment by the school district that students of color face higher rates of discipline than white students. KHSD agreed to implement major policy changes to reduce the disproportionate suspensions, expulsions and involuntary school transfers of African American and Latino students.
The lawsuit was filed in October 2014 alleging that KHSD discriminated against African American and Latino students in its suspension, expulsion and school transfer policies.
The immediate and profound policy changes required by the settlement are based on approaches developed by nationally recognized experts, including Dr. Jeffrey Sprague of the University of Oregon, Rachel Godsil of the Perception Institute, Dr. Jon Eyler of Collaborative Learning Solutions, Dr. Nancy Dome of Epoch Education, and Dr. Edward Fergus of New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development Center for Equity and Achievement.
The settlement requires that KHSD specifically:
Implement mandatory training for teachers and staff (including security and police) to include cultural competence, implicit bias, racial anxiety, stereotype threat, Positive Behavioral Intervention Supports (PBIS) and the Uniform Complaint Process that students or parents may use to complain about discriminatory practices;
Issue public reports regarding alternative discipline practices, data on school discipline rates, school survey results, and training that has been done at each of the schools to hold the District accountable, as well as staffing patterns and an annual report assessing the comparative services offered at the continuation high schools;
Organize and facilitate two public forums each school year to report to and get feedback from the community on the student behavior, discipline data, school climate survey results and training;
Provide translation of all documents related to disciplinary actions in the primary language of the parent and/or student and interpretation at all discipline proceedings; and
Provide educational funds to the 14 individual student plaintiffs (a maximum of $5,000 per student, total of $70,000) who were suspended, expelled or involuntarily transferred from their regular school.
Located in California’s Central Valley, the 38,000-student Kern High School District is 62 percent Latino and 6.3 percent African American. In 2009-10, KHSD reported the highest actual number of expulsions in California, even when compared to far larger school districts, such as the Los Angeles Unified School District. In that year, the percentage of African American and Latino students taken out of their local schools and assigned to alternative schools was double that of white students.
The alternative schools offer fewer academic and extracurricular opportunities and limited access to courses required to enroll in California universities. Students in these alternative schools have higher dropout rates and lower graduation rates, hurting their overall ability to succeed in life.
“This settlement provides structure and accountability for addressing the discriminatory effects of the District’s past practices. The Plaintiffs and the community spent years before the lawsuit and nearly three years after it was filed working to have the District comply with their legal requirements to educate all students and to stop discriminating against the most vulnerable students. We are proud to have been at their side helping them obtain this settlement,” said Cynthia L. Rice, CRLA Director of Litigation and Training, “and CRLA will be right here during the next 3 years to make sure the terms of the settlement are met.”
“A primary purpose of the federal ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) is to eliminate achievement gaps,” said Kip Hustace, staff attorney at MALDEF. “To accomplish that goal, all educators—whether in school districts or county and state agencies—must focus on eliminating disparities that contribute to those gaps, especially discipline and transfer disparities. This settlement, with community members’ vigilance and participation, will help the Kern High School District to make good on California’s guarantee that all students will receive a high-quality education regardless of circumstance.”
“While nothing can ever make up for the trauma and struggles experienced by the parent and student plaintiffs, we believe this settlement will bring incredible improvements to the culture and environment of the Kern High School District and ensure future students do not experience the same discrimination within the District,” said Lyndsi Andreas, staff attorney at GBLA.
“Racially biased discipline is often the result of unacknowledged stereotypes of Latino and Black students that result in their being suspended and expelled in disproportionately higher numbers than their white counterparts. The district has retained a number of experts on how to lessen the negative impact of implicit bias, racial anxiety, and other mind science phenomena,” said Eva Paterson, President of the Equal Justice Society.
“This is a major first step, but it will take commitment and continuous effort on behalf of all of the parties involved to bring our students of color in KHSD to the highest level of quality education that all students deserve,” said Dolores Huerta, President of the Dolores Huerta Foundation.
“Faith In Kern looks forward to partnering with the KHSD on continuing to implement restorative justice practices, improving school climate and dismantling the school to prison pipeline,” said Joey Williams, Faith in Kern Chapter Director. “The settlement will help ensure that our children have access to colleges, universities, good jobs and a life of opportunity that God intended, not one dictated by divestment, discrimination and incarceration. We are excited about this settlement, but will be vigilant and active in ensuring all students receive an equitable education and these agreements are kept.”
Parents or adults with complaints about school discipline issues can call 877-622-2652 toll-free, or visit http://kernstudents.com. The toll-free number should only be used for KHSD issues.
Education, School-to-Prison, Schools
← EJS Receives $50,000 Grant from The San Francisco Foundation
EJS Receives Grants from The California Endowment and Maja Kristin Fund →
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LIGO’s 3rd gravitational wave detection
Posted by EarthSky Voices in Space | June 2, 2017
Albert Einstein hypothesized these ripples in the fabric of space-time a century ago. Now scientists have detected them for the 3rd time, from distant black hole collisions.
Artist’s conception of two merging black holes, spinning in a nonaligned fashion. Image via LIGO/Caltech/MIT/Sonoma State (Aurore Simonnet).
By Sean McWilliams, West Virginia University
For the third time in a year and a half, the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) has detected gravitational waves. Hypothesized by Einstein a century ago, the identification of these ripples in space-time – for the third time, no less – is fulfilling the promise of an area of astronomy that has enticed scientists for decades, but had always seemed to lie just out of our reach.
As a gravitational-wave astrophysicist and member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, I am naturally thrilled to see the vision of so many of us becoming a reality. But I’m accustomed to finding my own work more interesting and exciting than other people do, so the extent to which the whole world seems to be fascinated by this accomplishment came as something of a surprise. The excitement is well-deserved, though. By detecting these gravitational waves for the first time, we’ve not only directly verified a key prediction of Einstein’s theory of general relativity in convincing and spectacular fashion, but we’ve opened up an entirely new window that will revolutionize our understanding of the cosmos.
Already these discoveries have affected our understanding of the universe. And LIGO is just getting started.
Tuning in to the universe
At its core, this new way of understanding the universe stems from our newfound ability to hear its soundtrack. Gravitational waves aren’t actually sound waves, but the analogy is apt. Both types of waves carry information in a similar way, and both are completely independent phenomena from light.
Gravitational waves are ripples in space-time that propagate outward from intensely violent and energetic processes in space. They can be generated by objects that don’t shine, and they can travel through dust, matter or anything else, without being absorbed or distorted. They carry unique information about their sources that reaches us in a pristine state, giving us a true sense of the source that can’t be obtained in any other way.
General relativity tells us, among other things, that some stars can become so dense that they close themselves off from the rest of the universe. These extraordinary objects are called black holes. General relativity also predicted that when pairs of black holes orbit tightly around each other in a binary system, they stir up space-time, the very fabric of the cosmos. It’s this disturbance of space-time that sends energy across the universe in the form of gravitational waves.
That loss of energy causes the binary to tighten further, until eventually the two black holes smash together and form a single black hole. This spectacular collision generates more power in gravitational waves than is radiated as light by all the stars in the universe combined. These catastrophic events last only tens of milliseconds, but during that time, they are the most powerful phenomena since the Big Bang.
These waves carry information about the black holes that can’t possibly be gained in any other way, since telescopes can’t see objects that don’t emit light. For each event, we are able to measure the black holes’ masses, their rate of rotation or “spin,” and details about their locations and orientations with varying degrees of certainty. This information allows us to learn how these objects were formed and evolved across cosmic time.
While we have previously had strong evidence for the existence of black holes based on the effect of their gravity on surrounding stars and gas, the detailed information from gravitational waves is invaluable for learning about the origins of these spectacular events.
Aerial view of the LIGO gravitational wave detector in Livingston, Louisiana. Image via Flickr/LIGO.
Detecting the tiniest fluctuations
In order to detect these incredibly quiet signals, researchers constructed two LIGO instruments, one in Hanford, Washington and the other 3,000 miles away in Livingston, Louisiana. They’re designed to leverage the unique effect that gravitational waves have on whatever they encounter. When gravitational waves pass by, they change the distance between objects. There are gravitational waves going through you right now, forcing your head, feet and everything in between to move back and forth in a predictable – but imperceptible – way.
You can’t feel this effect, or even see it with a microscope, because the change is so incredibly tiny. The gravitational waves that we can detect with LIGO change the distance between each end of the 4-kilometer-long detectors by only 10?¹? meters. How small is this? A thousand times smaller than the size of a proton – which is why we can’t expect to see it even with a microscope.
LIGO scientists working on its optics suspension. Image via LIPO Laboratory.
To measure such a minute distance, LIGO uses a technique called “interferometry.” Researchers split the light from a single laser into two parts. Each part then travels down one of two perpendicular arms that are each 2.5 miles long. Finally, the two join back together and are allowed to interfere with each other. The instrument is carefully calibrated so that, in the absence of a gravitational wave, the interference of the laser results in nearly perfect cancellation – no light comes out of the interferometer.
However, a passing gravitational wave will stretch one arm at the same time as it squeezes the other arm. With the relative lengths of the arms changed, the interference of the laser light will no longer be perfect. It’s this tiny change in the amount of interference that Advanced LIGO is actually measuring, and that measurement tells us what the detailed shape of the passing gravitational wave must be.
The sound of two black holes colliding.
LIGO163 KB (download)
All gravitational waves have the shape of a “chirp,” where both the amplitude (akin to the loudness) and the frequency, or pitch, of the signals increase with time. However, the characteristics of the source are encoded in the precise details of this chirp and how it evolves with time.
The shape of the gravitational waves that we observe, in turn, can tell us details about the source that could not be measured in any other way. With the first three confident detections by Advanced LIGO, we’ve already found that black holes are more common than we ever expected, and that the most common variety, which forms directly from the collapse of massive stars, can be more massive than we previously thought was possible. All this information helps us understand how massive stars evolve and die.
The three confirmed detections by LIGO (GW150914, GW151226, GW170104), and one lower-confidence detection (LVT151012), point to a population of stellar-mass binary black holes that, once merged, are larger than 20 solar masses – larger than what was known before. Image via LIGO/Caltech/Sonma State (Aurore Simonnet).
Black holes becoming less of a black box
This most recent event, which we detected on Jan. 4, 2017, is the most distant source we’ve observed so far. Because gravitational waves travel at the speed of light, when we look at very distant objects, we also look back in time. This most recent event is also the most ancient gravitational wave source we’ve detected so far, having occurred over two billion years ago. Back then, the universe itself was 20 percent smaller than it is today, and multicellular life had not yet arisen on Earth.
The mass of the final black hole left behind after this most recent collision is 50 times the mass of our sun. Prior to the first detected event, which weighed in at 60 times the mass of the sun, astronomers didn’t think such massive black holes could be formed in this way. While the second event was only 20 solar masses, detecting this additional very massive event suggests that such systems not only exist, but may be relatively common.
In addition to their masses, black holes can also rotate, and their spins affect the shape of their gravitational-wave emission. The effects of spin are more difficult to measure, but this most recent event shows evidence not only for spin, but potentially for spin that is not oriented around the same axis as the binary’s orbit. If the case for such misalignment can be made stronger by observing future events, it will have significant implications for our understanding of how these black hole pairs form.
In the coming years, we will have more instruments like LIGO listening for gravitational waves in Italy, in Japan and in India, learning even more about these sources. My colleagues and I are still eagerly awaiting the first detection of a binary containing at least one neutron star – a type of dense star that was not quite massive enough to collapse all the way to a black hole.
Most astronomers predicted that pairs of neutron stars would be observed before black-hole pairs, so their continued absence would present a challenge to theorists. Their eventual detection will facilitate a host of new possibilities for discoveries, including the prospect of better understanding extremely dense states of matter, and potentially observing a unique light signature using conventional telescopes from the same source as the gravitational-wave signal.
We also expect to detect gravitational waves within the next few years from space, using very precise natural clocks called pulsars, which send blasts of radiation our way at very regular intervals. Eventually we plan to place extremely large interferometers in orbit, where they can evade the persistent rumbling of the Earth, which is a limiting source of noise for the Advanced LIGO detectors.
Nearly every time scientists have built new telescopes or particle accelerators, they’ve discovered things no one could have predicted. As exciting as the known prospects for discovery are in this new field of gravitational-wave astrophysics, as a theorist I’m most excited by the unknown wonders that still lie in store for us.
Sean McWilliams, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy, West Virginia University
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
EarthSky Voices
Members of the EarthSky community - including scientists, as well as science and nature writers from across the globe - weigh in on what's important to them. Photo by Robert Spurlock.
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Home > Uncategorized > What Makes a Friend a True Friend? Judges as Facebook Friends: Not Enough for a Recusal.
When is a Facebook Friend Friendly Enough to Seek Mandatory Recusal of a Judge who is Facebook Friends with an Implicated Party to the Judge’s Case?
What Makes a Friend a True Friend? Judges as Facebook Friends: Not Enough for a Recusal.
Author: Frank McLaughlin
Case Citation: Law Offices of Herssein and Herssein, P.A. v. United Servs. Auto. Ass’n, 229 So.3d 408 (FL. App. 2017).
Employee/Personnel/Employer Implicated: Company Executive as Witness and Potential Party, Law Firm Plaintiff, Trial Judge
eLesson Learned: If a judge, who is trying a case, is merely Facebook “friends” with any parties in the case, that alone is not enough to seek mandatory recusal of the judge, so do not waste your time and money trying to do recuse a judge in this instance unless there is more proof of the judge’s close, real-life friendship with any of the parties.
What happens when a judge trying your case is friends with the opposing side or a witness in the case? This, without getting into the legalese, usually does not pass the “smell test.” After all, what kind of legal system would we be burdened with if a judge is able to try a case, where he is friends with your enemy? Ultimately, we are all human and the law recognizes there are some unsurmountable levels of bias our human minds cannot ignore, so we are able to petition to have a judge recuse herself in this situation if there is a basis for a well-grounded fear that the judge cannot be impartial or that the judge is under the influence of an involved party.
Typically, if a judge were friends with the defendant or the plaintiff or even a witness, this would help support a reasonable basis to think that judge cannot be impartial. For example, Judge Brown is friendly with Johnny Badstuff, and they play basketball every morning before they part their separate ways. If Johnny Badstuff were to be brought forth on charges of murder in front of Judge Brown, how can Judge Brown impartially weigh the merits both for and against his best bud’s case? BRING ON THE DIGITAL AGE.
In this case, the plaintiff sought to have a judge mandatorily recuse himself based merely on the fact that the judge was a Facebook “friend” with a possible witness and possible party to the case. Reasonable request, right? I mean, if a judge is friends with an involved party to a case, the judge shouldn’t be able to try that case due to lack of impartiality. BUT, is a Facebook “friend” actually a good enough friend to diminish a judge’s impartiality?
Here, the answer was no. The Florida Court of Appeals ruled that a Facebook “friend” and that alone is not enough to force a judge to recuse himself in the case. Their reasoning is rock solid. Just because we are friends on Facebook does not mean I am actually friends with you or that I actually have any real-world connection to you. The Court pointed out that many people are friends with random people on Facebook, thanks to Facebook’s patented algorithm that matches random people that may be similar. Also, the Court pointed out that many people are Facebook “friends” with celebrities when they actually have no real connection to that person other than their Facebook bond.
Ultimately, being a Facebook “friend” and that alone is not enough to prove a judge is actually friends with anyone UNLESS there is more to substantiate that claim.
Frank McLaughlin is currently a law student at Seton Hall University School of Law, and he is in his last semester of his 3L year. Frank has worked throughout law school and continues to work at Lasser Hochman, LLC, where he is a law clerk and focuses on real estate and finance law. Prior to attending law school, he attended George Mason University, where he earned a B.S. in both finance and economics. After graduating from George Mason University, Frank worked as an accountant and a consultant for a public accounting firm in Washington, D.C., for three years and then worked in the CFO’s office at Prudential Financial, Inc. in Newark, NJ.
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krayzie bone new album 2020
Bone Thugs-n-Harmony is an American hip hop group consisting of rappers Bizzy Bone, Wish Bone, Layzie Bone, Krayzie Bone, and Flesh-n-Bone.The group was signed to Ruthless Records in late 1993, when they debuted with their EP Creepin on ah Come Up.The EP included their breakout hit single "Thuggish Ruggish Bone".In 1995, the group released its second album, E. 1999 Eternal, which included … Find Krayzie Bone discography, albums and singles on AllMusic. The album saw Bone further explore a wide variety of subjects and styles, with even more focus on God and family and an overall more ambient, mellow sound. [12] The album contains guest appearances by Mariah Carey, The Game, will.i.am, Akon, Twista, Bow Wow, Yolanda Adams, and Felecia. [37] The following day, Krazyie Bone revealed that the album would be titled E. 1999 Legends. "Bone Thugs-N-Harmony – E. 1999 Eternal." Originally to be called The Thugs Story, Strength & Loyalty was released on May 20, 2007 on Interscope Records imprint Full Surface Records. The Encyclopedia of Popular Music. [32] A third single, "Meet Me in the Sky", was released on March 22. For over a year, Eazy-E nurtured their career, continuing to serve as their executive producer and teaching them the business skills he had taught himself over the years. [29] Also in 2008, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony won the American Music Award for Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Band, Duo or Group. [14] A considerable portion of the album's concept was built upon violent subject matter, yet they also incorporated deeper themes, as its songs dealt with more spirituality and occult mysticism. In November 2007, Layzie Bone confirmed that he had completed the Bone Brothers III album with Bizzy Bone, spurring speculation about a full Bone reunion. London: Muze, 1998. Enterprise early years. They then formed B.O.N.E. The first disc was to contain Bone Thugs-N-Harmony content exclusively, with no features, and would have 18–20 songs. Bone Thugs-N-Harmony's five members officially returned with their new album Uni5: The World's Enemy, released on May 4, 2010 by their own record label, BTNH Worldwide, with distribution by Warner Bros. Uni5 also marks the return of long-time Bone collaborator DJ U-Neek, who was absent from 2007's Strength & Loyalty but had produced for the group throughout their career, including on hits "Thuggish Ruggish Bone" and "Tha Crossroads". [10] Layzie Bone has since re-united with the group, and they toured in 2018. In an interview, Bizzy confirmed his return, the group having reunited in time for Flesh's release.[31]. In August 2013, however, Krayzie Bone announced that he was stepping aside to work more on his solo career. [citation needed]. [citation needed] In August 2015, Krayzie announced that the first bid of at least $1 million had been received for E. 1999 Legends. [38], On February 14, 2015 — Valentine's Day — producer and long-time Bone collaborator Damizza officially presented the single "More Than Thugs", slated to appear on the Damizza Presents album. Briefly, the young rappers thought they had lost everything with the loss of their friend and mentor. The Art of War, the group's third album, was also released in 1997. [40] All five members of the group would appear on rapper Wiz Khalifa's 2018 album Rolling Papers 2, each providing a verse for the song "Reach for the Stars. Released in June 1994, the EP Creepin on ah Come Up was Bone Thugs-N-Harmony's debut with Ruthless. [34] He later confirmed that he was working in the studio with Bone Thugs-N-Harmony on a remix of "Celebration" for his album Jesus Piece.[35]. The group's promotional efforts were dampened by the absence of Bizzy Bone from the album's videos and from large portions of the ensuing tour and other public appearances. Other singles from the album, including "Can't Give it Up", failed to crack the Billboard Hot 100, and the big-budget video for failed to receive any rotation. Peaking at #12 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart and #2 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart,[12] it included the hit singles "Thuggish Ruggish Bone" and "Foe tha Love of $", the second of which featured a verse by Eazy-E. "Thuggish Ruggish Bone" peaked at #22 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and #2 on the Hot Rap Tracks chart, and "Foe tha Love of $" peaked at #41 on the Hot 100 and #4 on Rap Tracks. Damizza would be producing/overseeing the entire E. 1999 Legends album project, which was projected to be distributed through Damizza's Baby Ree Records label. Game also posted a picture on his Twitter showing the word "bone" constructed out of cannabis. Your email address will not be published. [citation needed] They reiterated those plans in a November interview. The group was signed to Ruthless Records by rapper Eazy E in late 1993 and debuted with their EP Creepin on ah Come Up. Bizzy Bone abstained from promoting BTNHResurrection because he felt that Ruthless Records owed him money. The executive producer of the album was Swizz Beatz. Browse all new releases by genre, album, artist, or record label. Billboard Hot 100. In 1996, due to their success, the Cleveland clan established their own label, Mo Thugs Records, and released the Family Scriptures compilation album to introduce many of the Cleveland-based and other artists whom they were developing.
Best Naia Schools, Gino Giant Sauce, Lulu Wilson Net Worth, When An Aquarius Man Has A Crush On You, Uspayserv Pay Stub, Child Emperor Vs Phoenix Man Redraw,
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Centimetre–gram–second system of units
(Redirected from CGS)
Physical system of measurement that uses the centimetre, gram, and second as base units
"CGS" redirects here. For other uses, see CGS (disambiguation).
For a topical guide to this subject, see Outline of the metric system.
The centimetre–gram–second system of units (abbreviated CGS or cgs) is a variant of the metric system based on the centimetre as the unit of length, the gram as the unit of mass, and the second as the unit of time. All CGS mechanical units are unambiguously derived from these three base units, but there are several different ways in which the CGS system was extended to cover electromagnetism.[1][2][3]
The CGS system has been largely supplanted by the MKS system based on the metre, kilogram, and second, which was in turn extended and replaced by the International System of Units (SI). In many fields of science and engineering, SI is the only system of units in use, but there remain certain subfields where CGS is prevalent.
In measurements of purely mechanical systems (involving units of length, mass, force, energy, pressure, and so on), the differences between CGS and SI are straightforward and rather trivial; the unit-conversion factors are all powers of 10 as 100 cm = 1 m and 1000 g = 1 kg. For example, the CGS unit of force is the dyne, which is defined as 1 g⋅cm/s2, so the SI unit of force, the newton (1 kg⋅m/s2), is equal to 100000 dynes.
On the other hand, in measurements of electromagnetic phenomena (involving units of charge, electric and magnetic fields, voltage, and so on), converting between CGS and SI is more subtle. Formulas for physical laws of electromagnetism (such as Maxwell's equations) take a form that depends on which system of units is being used. This is because the electromagnetic quantities are defined differently in SI and in CGS, whereas mechanical quantities are defined identically. Furthermore, within CGS, there are several plausible ways to define electromagnetic quantities, leading to different "sub-systems", including Gaussian units, "ESU", "EMU", and Lorentz–Heaviside units. Among these choices, Gaussian units are the most common today, and "CGS units" often used specifically refers to CGS-Gaussian units.
2 Definition of CGS units in mechanics
2.1 Definitions and conversion factors of CGS units in mechanics
3 Derivation of CGS units in electromagnetism
3.1 CGS approach to electromagnetic units
3.2 Alternative derivations of CGS units in electromagnetism
3.3 Various extensions of the CGS system to electromagnetism
3.4 Electrostatic units (ESU)
3.4.1 ESU notation
3.5 Electromagnetic units (EMU)
3.5.1 EMU notation
3.6 Relations between ESU and EMU units
3.7 Practical CGS units
3.8 Other variants
4 Electromagnetic units in various CGS systems
5 Physical constants in CGS units
6 Advantages and disadvantages
9 General literature
The CGS system goes back to a proposal in 1832 by the German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss to base a system of absolute units on the three fundamental units of length, mass and time.[4] Gauss chose the units of millimetre, milligram and second.[5] In 1873, a committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, including physicists James Clerk Maxwell and William Thomson recommended the general adoption of centimetre, gram and second as fundamental units, and to express all derived electromagnetic units in these fundamental units, using the prefix "C.G.S. unit of ...".[6]
The sizes of many CGS units turned out to be inconvenient for practical purposes. For example, many everyday objects are hundreds or thousands of centimetres long, such as humans, rooms and buildings. Thus the CGS system never gained wide general use outside the field of science. Starting in the 1880s, and more significantly by the mid-20th century, CGS was gradually superseded internationally for scientific purposes by the MKS (metre–kilogram–second) system, which in turn developed into the modern SI standard.
Since the international adoption of the MKS standard in the 1940s and the SI standard in the 1960s, the technical use of CGS units has gradually declined worldwide, in the United States more slowly than elsewhere. CGS units are today no longer accepted by the house styles of most scientific journals, textbook publishers, or standards bodies, although they are commonly used in astronomical journals such as The Astrophysical Journal. CGS units are still occasionally encountered in technical literature, especially in the United States in the fields of material science, electrodynamics and astronomy. The continued usage of CGS units is most prevalent in magnetism and related fields because the B and H fields have the same units in free space and there is a lot of potential for confusion when converting published measurements from CGS to MKS.[7]
The units gram and centimetre remain useful as noncoherent units within the SI system, as with any other prefixed SI units.
Definition of CGS units in mechanics[edit]
In mechanics, the quantities in the CGS and SI systems are defined identically. The two systems differ only in the scale of the three base units (centimetre versus metre and gram versus kilogram, respectively), with the third unit (second) being the same in both systems.
There is a direct correspondence between the base units of mechanics in CGS and SI. Since the formulae expressing the laws of mechanics are the same in both systems and since both systems are coherent, the definitions of all coherent derived units in terms of the base units are the same in both systems, and there is an unambiguous correspondence of derived units:
v = d x d t {\displaystyle v={\frac {dx}{dt}}} (definition of velocity)
F = m d 2 x d t 2 {\displaystyle F=m{\frac {d^{2}x}{dt^{2}}}} (Newton's second law of motion)
E = ∫ F → ⋅ d x → {\displaystyle E=\int {\vec {F}}\cdot \mathrm {d\,} {\vec {x}}} (energy defined in terms of work)
p = F L 2 {\displaystyle p={\frac {F}{L^{2}}}} (pressure defined as force per unit area)
η = τ / d v d x {\displaystyle \eta =\tau /{\frac {dv}{dx}}} (dynamic viscosity defined as shear stress per unit velocity gradient).
Thus, for example, the CGS unit of pressure, barye, is related to the CGS base units of length, mass, and time in the same way as the SI unit of pressure, pascal, is related to the SI base units of length, mass, and time:
1 unit of pressure = 1 unit of force/(1 unit of length)2 = 1 unit of mass/(1 unit of length⋅(1 unit of time)2)
1 Ba = 1 g/(cm⋅s2)
1 Pa = 1 kg/(m⋅s2).
Expressing a CGS derived unit in terms of the SI base units, or vice versa, requires combining the scale factors that relate the two systems:
1 Ba = 1 g/(cm⋅s2) = 10−3 kg / (10−2 m⋅s2) = 10−1 kg/(m⋅s2) = 10−1 Pa.
Definitions and conversion factors of CGS units in mechanics[edit]
Quantity symbol
CGS unit name
Unit symbol
Unit definition
In coherent SI units
length, position
L, x centimetre cm 1/100 of metre 10−2 m
m gram g 1/1000 of kilogram 10−3 kg
t second s 1 second 1 s
v centimetre per second cm/s cm/s 10−2 m/s
a gal Gal cm/s2 10−2 m/s2
F dyne dyn g⋅cm/s2 10−5 N
E erg erg g⋅cm2/s2 10−7 J
P erg per second erg/s g⋅cm2/s3 10−7 W
p barye Ba g/(cm⋅s2) 10−1 Pa
μ poise P g/(cm⋅s) 10−1 Pa⋅s
ν stokes St cm2/s 10−4 m2/s
wavenumber
k kayser (K) cm−1[8] cm−1 100 m−1
Derivation of CGS units in electromagnetism[edit]
CGS approach to electromagnetic units[edit]
The conversion factors relating electromagnetic units in the CGS and SI systems are made more complex by the differences in the formulae expressing physical laws of electromagnetism as assumed by each system of units, specifically in the nature of the constants that appear in these formulae. This illustrates the fundamental difference in the ways the two systems are built:
In SI, the unit of electric current, the ampere (A), was historically defined such that the magnetic force exerted by two infinitely long, thin, parallel wires 1 metre apart and carrying a current of 1 ampere is exactly 2×10−7 N/m. This definition results in all SI electromagnetic units being numerically consistent (subject to factors of some integer powers of 10) with those of the CGS-EMU system described in further sections. The ampere is a base unit of the SI system, with the same status as the metre, kilogram, and second. Thus the relationship in the definition of the ampere with the metre and newton is disregarded, and the ampere is not treated as dimensionally equivalent to any combination of other base units. As a result, electromagnetic laws in SI require an additional constant of proportionality (see Vacuum permeability) to relate electromagnetic units to kinematic units. (This constant of proportionality is derivable directly from the above definition of the ampere.) All other electric and magnetic units are derived from these four base units using the most basic common definitions: for example, electric charge q is defined as current I multiplied by time t,
q = I t {\displaystyle q=I\,t} ,
resulting in the unit of electric charge, the coulomb (C), being defined as 1 C = 1 A⋅s.
The CGS system variant avoid introducing new base quantities and units, and instead defines all electromagnetic quantities by expressing the physical laws that relate electromagnetic phenomena to mechanics with only dimensionless constants, and hence all units for these quantities are directly derived from the centimetre, gram, and second.
Alternative derivations of CGS units in electromagnetism[edit]
Electromagnetic relationships to length, time and mass may be derived by several equally appealing methods. Two of them rely on the forces observed on charges. Two fundamental laws relate (seemingly independently of each other) the electric charge or its rate of change (electric current) to a mechanical quantity such as force. They can be written[9] in system-independent form as follows:
The first is Coulomb's law, F = k C q q ′ d 2 {\displaystyle F=k_{\rm {C}}{\frac {q\,q^{\prime }}{d^{2}}}} , which describes the electrostatic force F between electric charges q {\displaystyle q} and q ′ {\displaystyle q^{\prime }} , separated by distance d. Here k C {\displaystyle k_{\rm {C}}} is a constant which depends on how exactly the unit of charge is derived from the base units.
The second is Ampère's force law, d F d L = 2 k A I I ′ d {\displaystyle {\frac {dF}{dL}}=2k_{\rm {A}}{\frac {I\,I^{\prime }}{d}}} , which describes the magnetic force F per unit length L between currents I and I′ flowing in two straight parallel wires of infinite length, separated by a distance d that is much greater than the wire diameters. Since I = q / t {\displaystyle I=q/t\,} and I ′ = q ′ / t {\displaystyle I^{\prime }=q^{\prime }/t} , the constant k A {\displaystyle k_{\rm {A}}} also depends on how the unit of charge is derived from the base units.
Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism relates these two laws to each other. It states that the ratio of proportionality constants k C {\displaystyle k_{\rm {C}}} and k A {\displaystyle k_{\rm {A}}} must obey k C / k A = c 2 {\displaystyle k_{\rm {C}}/k_{\rm {A}}=c^{2}} , where c is the speed of light in vacuum. Therefore, if one derives the unit of charge from the Coulomb's law by setting k C = 1 {\displaystyle k_{\rm {C}}=1} then Ampère's force law will contain a prefactor 2 / c 2 {\displaystyle 2/c^{2}} . Alternatively, deriving the unit of current, and therefore the unit of charge, from the Ampère's force law by setting k A = 1 {\displaystyle k_{\rm {A}}=1} or k A = 1 / 2 {\displaystyle k_{\rm {A}}=1/2} , will lead to a constant prefactor in the Coulomb's law.
Indeed, both of these mutually exclusive approaches have been practiced by the users of CGS system, leading to the two independent and mutually exclusive branches of CGS, described in the subsections below. However, the freedom of choice in deriving electromagnetic units from the units of length, mass, and time is not limited to the definition of charge. While the electric field can be related to the work performed by it on a moving electric charge, the magnetic force is always perpendicular to the velocity of the moving charge, and thus the work performed by the magnetic field on any charge is always zero. This leads to a choice between two laws of magnetism, each relating magnetic field to mechanical quantities and electric charge:
The first law describes the Lorentz force produced by a magnetic field B on a charge q moving with velocity v:
F = α L q v × B . {\displaystyle \mathbf {F} =\alpha _{\rm {L}}q\;\mathbf {v} \times \mathbf {B} \;.}
The second describes the creation of a static magnetic field B by an electric current I of finite length dl at a point displaced by a vector r, known as Biot–Savart law:
d B = α B I d l × r ^ r 2 , {\displaystyle d\mathbf {B} =\alpha _{\rm {B}}{\frac {Id\mathbf {l} \times \mathbf {\hat {r}} }{r^{2}}}\;,} where r and r ^ {\displaystyle \mathbf {\hat {r}} } are the length and the unit vector in the direction of vector r respectively.
These two laws can be used to derive Ampère's force law above, resulting in the relationship: k A = α L ⋅ α B {\displaystyle k_{\rm {A}}=\alpha _{\rm {L}}\cdot \alpha _{\rm {B}}\;} . Therefore, if the unit of charge is based on the Ampère's force law such that k A = 1 {\displaystyle k_{\rm {A}}=1} , it is natural to derive the unit of magnetic field by setting α L = α B = 1 {\displaystyle \alpha _{\rm {L}}=\alpha _{\rm {B}}=1\;} . However, if it is not the case, a choice has to be made as to which of the two laws above is a more convenient basis for deriving the unit of magnetic field.
Furthermore, if we wish to describe the electric displacement field D and the magnetic field H in a medium other than vacuum, we need to also define the constants ε0 and μ0, which are the vacuum permittivity and permeability, respectively. Then we have[9] (generally) D = ϵ 0 E + λ P {\displaystyle \mathbf {D} =\epsilon _{0}\mathbf {E} +\lambda \mathbf {P} } and H = B / μ 0 − λ ′ M {\displaystyle \mathbf {H} =\mathbf {B} /\mu _{0}-\lambda ^{\prime }\mathbf {M} } , where P and M are polarization density and magnetization vectors. The units of P and M are usually so chosen that the factors λ and λ′ are equal to the "rationalization constants" 4 π k C ϵ 0 {\displaystyle 4\pi k_{\rm {C}}\epsilon _{0}} and 4 π α B / ( μ 0 α L ) {\displaystyle 4\pi \alpha _{\rm {B}}/(\mu _{0}\alpha _{\rm {L}})} , respectively. If the rationalization constants are equal, then c 2 = 1 / ( ϵ 0 μ 0 α L 2 ) {\displaystyle c^{2}=1/(\epsilon _{0}\mu _{0}\alpha _{\rm {L}}^{2})} . If they are equal to one, then the system is said to be "rationalized":[10] the laws for systems of spherical geometry contain factors of 4π (for example, point charges), those of cylindrical geometry – factors of 2π (for example, wires), and those of planar geometry contain no factors of π (for example, parallel-plate capacitors). However, the original CGS system used λ = λ′ = 4π, or, equivalently, k C ϵ 0 = α B / ( μ 0 α L ) = 1 {\displaystyle k_{\rm {C}}\epsilon _{0}=\alpha _{\rm {B}}/(\mu _{0}\alpha _{\rm {L}})=1} . Therefore, Gaussian, ESU, and EMU subsystems of CGS (described below) are not rationalized.
Various extensions of the CGS system to electromagnetism[edit]
The table below shows the values of the above constants used in some common CGS subsystems:
k C {\displaystyle k_{\rm {C}}}
α B {\displaystyle \alpha _{\rm {B}}}
ϵ 0 {\displaystyle \epsilon _{0}}
μ 0 {\displaystyle \mu _{0}}
k A = k C c 2 {\displaystyle k_{\rm {A}}={\frac {k_{\rm {C}}}{c^{2}}}}
α L = k C α B c 2 {\displaystyle \alpha _{\rm {L}}={\frac {k_{\rm {C}}}{\alpha _{\rm {B}}c^{2}}}}
λ = 4 π k C ϵ 0 {\displaystyle \lambda =4\pi k_{\rm {C}}\epsilon _{0}}
λ ′ = 4 π α B μ 0 α L {\displaystyle \lambda '={\frac {4\pi \alpha _{\rm {B}}}{\mu _{0}\alpha _{\rm {L}}}}}
Electrostatic[9] CGS
(ESU, esu, or stat-) 1 c−2 1 c−2 c−2 1 4π 4π
Electromagnetic[9] CGS
(EMU, emu, or ab-) c2 1 c−2 1 1 1 4π 4π
Gaussian[9] CGS 1 c−1 1 1 c−2 c−1 4π 4π
Lorentz–Heaviside[9] CGS 1 4 π {\displaystyle {\frac {1}{4\pi }}} 1 4 π c {\displaystyle {\frac {1}{4\pi c}}} 1 1 1 4 π c 2 {\displaystyle {\frac {1}{4\pi c^{2}}}} c−1 1 1
SI 1 4 π ϵ 0 {\displaystyle {\frac {1}{4\pi \epsilon _{0}}}} μ 0 4 π {\displaystyle {\frac {\mu _{0}}{4\pi }}} ϵ 0 {\displaystyle \epsilon _{0}} μ 0 {\displaystyle \mu _{0}} μ 0 4 π {\displaystyle {\frac {\mu _{0}}{4\pi }}} 1 1 1
Also, note the following correspondence of the above constants to those in Jackson[9] and Leung:[11]
k C = k 1 = k E {\displaystyle k_{\rm {C}}=k_{1}=k_{\rm {E}}}
α B = α ⋅ k 2 = k B {\displaystyle \alpha _{\rm {B}}=\alpha \cdot k_{2}=k_{\rm {B}}}
k A = k 2 = k E / c 2 {\displaystyle k_{\rm {A}}=k_{2}=k_{\rm {E}}/c^{2}}
α L = k 3 = k F {\displaystyle \alpha _{\rm {L}}=k_{3}=k_{\rm {F}}}
Of these variants, only in Gaussian and Heaviside–Lorentz systems α L {\displaystyle \alpha _{\rm {L}}} equals c − 1 {\displaystyle c^{-1}} rather than 1. As a result, vectors E → {\displaystyle {\vec {E}}} and B → {\displaystyle {\vec {B}}} of an electromagnetic wave propagating in vacuum have the same units and are equal in magnitude in these two variants of CGS.
In each of these systems the quantities called "charge" etc. may be a different quantity; they are distinguished here by a superscript. The corresponding quantities of each system are related through a proportionality constant.
Maxwell's equations can be written in each of these systems as:[9][11]
CGS-ESU ∇ ⋅ E → ESU = 4 π ρ ESU {\displaystyle \nabla \cdot {\vec {E}}^{\text{ESU}}=4\pi \rho ^{\text{ESU}}} ∇ ⋅ B → ESU = 0 {\displaystyle \nabla \cdot {\vec {B}}^{\text{ESU}}=0} ∇ × E → ESU = − B → ˙ ESU {\displaystyle \nabla \times {\vec {E}}^{\text{ESU}}=-{\dot {\vec {B}}}^{\text{ESU}}} ∇ × B → ESU = 4 π c − 2 J → ESU + c − 2 E → ˙ ESU {\displaystyle \nabla \times {\vec {B}}^{\text{ESU}}=4\pi c^{-2}{\vec {J}}^{\text{ESU}}+c^{-2}{\dot {\vec {E}}}^{\text{ESU}}}
CGS-EMU ∇ ⋅ E → EMU = 4 π c 2 ρ EMU {\displaystyle \nabla \cdot {\vec {E}}^{\text{EMU}}=4\pi c^{2}\rho ^{\text{EMU}}} ∇ ⋅ B → EMU = 0 {\displaystyle \nabla \cdot {\vec {B}}^{\text{EMU}}=0} ∇ × E → EMU = − B → ˙ EMU {\displaystyle \nabla \times {\vec {E}}^{\text{EMU}}=-{\dot {\vec {B}}}^{\text{EMU}}} ∇ × B → EMU = 4 π J → EMU + c − 2 E → ˙ EMU {\displaystyle \nabla \times {\vec {B}}^{\text{EMU}}=4\pi {\vec {J}}^{\text{EMU}}+c^{-2}{\dot {\vec {E}}}^{\text{EMU}}}
CGS-Gaussian ∇ ⋅ E → G = 4 π ρ G {\displaystyle \nabla \cdot {\vec {E}}^{\text{G}}=4\pi \rho ^{\text{G}}} ∇ ⋅ B → G = 0 {\displaystyle \nabla \cdot {\vec {B}}^{\text{G}}=0} ∇ × E → G = − c − 1 B → ˙ G {\displaystyle \nabla \times {\vec {E}}^{\text{G}}=-c^{-1}{\dot {\vec {B}}}^{\text{G}}} ∇ × B → G = 4 π c − 1 J → G + c − 1 E → ˙ G {\displaystyle \nabla \times {\vec {B}}^{\text{G}}=4\pi c^{-1}{\vec {J}}^{\text{G}}+c^{-1}{\dot {\vec {E}}}^{\text{G}}}
CGS-Lorentz–Heaviside ∇ ⋅ E → LH = ρ LH {\displaystyle \nabla \cdot {\vec {E}}^{\text{LH}}=\rho ^{\text{LH}}} ∇ ⋅ B → LH = 0 {\displaystyle \nabla \cdot {\vec {B}}^{\text{LH}}=0} ∇ × E → LH = − c − 1 B → ˙ LH {\displaystyle \nabla \times {\vec {E}}^{\text{LH}}=-c^{-1}{\dot {\vec {B}}}^{\text{LH}}} ∇ × B → LH = c − 1 J → LH + c − 1 E → ˙ LH {\displaystyle \nabla \times {\vec {B}}^{\text{LH}}=c^{-1}{\vec {J}}^{\text{LH}}+c^{-1}{\dot {\vec {E}}}^{\text{LH}}}
SI ∇ ⋅ E → SI = ρ SI / ϵ 0 {\displaystyle \nabla \cdot {\vec {E}}^{\text{SI}}=\rho ^{\text{SI}}/\epsilon _{0}} ∇ ⋅ B → SI = 0 {\displaystyle \nabla \cdot {\vec {B}}^{\text{SI}}=0} ∇ × E → SI = − B → ˙ SI {\displaystyle \nabla \times {\vec {E}}^{\text{SI}}=-{\dot {\vec {B}}}^{\text{SI}}} ∇ × B → SI = μ 0 J → SI + μ 0 ϵ 0 E → ˙ SI {\displaystyle \nabla \times {\vec {B}}^{\text{SI}}=\mu _{0}{\vec {J}}^{\text{SI}}+\mu _{0}\epsilon _{0}{\dot {\vec {E}}}^{\text{SI}}}
Electrostatic units (ESU)[edit]
Main article: Electrostatic units
In the electrostatic units variant of the CGS system, (CGS-ESU), charge is defined as the quantity that obeys a form of Coulomb's law without a multiplying constant (and current is then defined as charge per unit time):
F = q 1 ESU q 2 ESU r 2 . {\displaystyle F={q_{1}^{\text{ESU}}q_{2}^{\text{ESU}} \over r^{2}}.}
The ESU unit of charge, franklin (Fr), also known as statcoulomb or esu charge, is therefore defined as follows:[12]
two equal point charges spaced 1 centimetre apart are said to be of 1 franklin each if the electrostatic force between them is 1 dyne.
Therefore, in CGS-ESU, a franklin is equal to a centimetre times square root of dyne:
1 F r = 1 s t a t c o u l o m b = 1 e s u c h a r g e = 1 d y n e 1 / 2 ⋅ c m = 1 g 1 / 2 ⋅ c m 3 / 2 ⋅ s − 1 . {\displaystyle \mathrm {1\,Fr=1\,statcoulomb=1\,esu\;charge=1\,dyne^{1/2}{\cdot }cm=1\,g^{1/2}{\cdot }cm^{3/2}{\cdot }s^{-1}} .}
The unit of current is defined as:
1 F r / s = 1 s t a t a m p e r e = 1 e s u c u r r e n t = 1 d y n e 1 / 2 ⋅ c m ⋅ s − 1 = 1 g 1 / 2 ⋅ c m 3 / 2 ⋅ s − 2 . {\displaystyle \mathrm {1\,Fr/s=1\,statampere=1\,esu\;current=1\,dyne^{1/2}{\cdot }cm{\cdot }s^{-1}=1\,g^{1/2}{\cdot }cm^{3/2}{\cdot }s^{-2}} .}
Dimensionally in the CGS-ESU system, charge q is therefore equivalent to M1/2L3/2T−1.
In CGS-ESU, all electric and magnetic quantities are dimensionally expressible terms of length, mass, and time, and none has an independent dimension. Such a system of units of electromagnetism, in which the dimensions of all electric and magnetic quantities are expressible in terms of the mechanical dimensions of mass, length, and time, is traditionally called an 'absolute system'.[13]:3
ESU notation[edit]
All electromagnetic units in ESU CGS system that do not have proper names are denoted by a corresponding SI name with an attached prefix "stat" or with a separate abbreviation "esu".[12]
Electromagnetic units (EMU)[edit]
In another variant of the CGS system, electromagnetic units (EMUs), current is defined via the force existing between two thin, parallel, infinitely long wires carrying it, and charge is then defined as current multiplied by time. (This approach was eventually used to define the SI unit of ampere as well). In the EMU CGS subsystem, this is done by setting the Ampere force constant k A = 1 {\displaystyle k_{\rm {A}}=1} , so that Ampère's force law simply contains 2 as an explicit prefactor.
The EMU unit of current, biot (Bi), also known as abampere or emu current, is therefore defined as follows:[12]
The biot is that constant current which, if maintained in two straight parallel conductors of infinite length, of negligible circular cross-section, and placed one centimetre apart in vacuum, would produce between these conductors a force equal to two dynes per centimetre of length.
Therefore, in electromagnetic CGS units, a biot is equal to a square root of dyne:
1 B i = 1 a b a m p e r e = 1 e m u c u r r e n t = 1 d y n e 1 / 2 = 1 g 1 / 2 ⋅ c m 1 / 2 ⋅ s − 1 {\displaystyle \mathrm {1\,Bi=1\,abampere=1\,emu\;current=1\,dyne^{1/2}=1\,g^{1/2}{\cdot }cm^{1/2}{\cdot }s^{-1}} } .
The unit of charge in CGS EMU is:
1 B i ⋅ s = 1 a b c o u l o m b = 1 e m u c h a r g e = 1 d y n e 1 / 2 ⋅ s = 1 g 1 / 2 ⋅ c m 1 / 2 {\displaystyle \mathrm {1\,Bi{\cdot }s=1\,abcoulomb=1\,emu\,charge=1\,dyne^{1/2}{\cdot }s=1\,g^{1/2}{\cdot }cm^{1/2}} } .
Dimensionally in the EMU CGS system, charge q is therefore equivalent to M1/2L1/2. Hence, neither charge nor current is an independent physical quantity in EMU CGS.
EMU notation[edit]
All electromagnetic units in EMU CGS system that do not have proper names are denoted by a corresponding SI name with an attached prefix "ab" or with a separate abbreviation "emu".[12]
Relations between ESU and EMU units[edit]
The ESU and EMU subsystems of CGS are connected by the fundamental relationship k C / k A = c 2 {\displaystyle k_{\rm {C}}/k_{\rm {A}}=c^{2}} (see above), where c = 29979245800 ≈ 3×1010 is the speed of light in vacuum in centimetres per second. Therefore, the ratio of the corresponding "primary" electrical and magnetic units (e.g. current, charge, voltage, etc. – quantities proportional to those that enter directly into Coulomb's law or Ampère's force law) is equal either to c−1 or c:[12]
1 s t a t c o u l o m b 1 a b c o u l o m b = 1 s t a t a m p e r e 1 a b a m p e r e = c − 1 {\displaystyle \mathrm {\frac {1\,statcoulomb}{1\,abcoulomb}} =\mathrm {\frac {1\,statampere}{1\,abampere}} =c^{-1}}
1 s t a t v o l t 1 a b v o l t = 1 s t a t t e s l a 1 g a u s s = c {\displaystyle \mathrm {\frac {1\,statvolt}{1\,abvolt}} =\mathrm {\frac {1\,stattesla}{1\,gauss}} =c} .
Units derived from these may have ratios equal to higher powers of c, for example:
1 s t a t o h m 1 a b o h m = 1 s t a t v o l t 1 a b v o l t × 1 a b a m p e r e 1 s t a t a m p e r e = c 2 {\displaystyle \mathrm {\frac {1\,statohm}{1\,abohm}} =\mathrm {\frac {1\,statvolt}{1\,abvolt}} \times \mathrm {\frac {1\,abampere}{1\,statampere}} =c^{2}} .
Practical CGS units[edit]
The practical CGS system is a hybrid system that uses the volt and the ampere as the unit of voltage and current respectively. Doing this avoids the inconveniently large and small quantities that arise for electromagnetic units in the esu and emu systems. This system was at one time widely used by electrical engineers because the volt and ampere had been adopted as international standard units by the International Electrical Congress of 1881.[14] As well as the volt and amp, the farad (capacitance), ohm (resistance), coulomb (electric charge), and henry are consequently also used in the practical system and are the same as the SI units.[15]
Other variants[edit]
There were at various points in time about half a dozen systems of electromagnetic units in use, most based on the CGS system.[16] These include the Gaussian units and the Heaviside–Lorentz units.
Electromagnetic units in various CGS systems[edit]
Conversion of SI units in electromagnetism to ESU, EMU, and Gaussian subsystems of CGS[12]
c = 29979245800
SI unit
Gaussian unit
EMU unit
q 1 C ≘ (10−1 c) statC (Franklin) ≘ (10−1) abC
electric flux
ΦE 1 V⋅m ≘ (4π × 10−1 c) statC (Franklin) ≘ (10−1) abC
I 1 A ≘ (10−1 c) statA (Fr⋅s−1) ≘ (10−1) Bi
electric potential / voltage
φ / V 1 V ≘ (108 c−1) statV ≘ (108) abV
E 1 V/m ≘ (106 c−1) statV/cm ≘ (106) abV/cm
electric displacement field
D 1 C/m2 ≘ (10−5 c) statC/cm2 (Fr/cm2) ≘ (10−5) abC/cm2
electric dipole moment
p 1 C⋅m ≘ (10 c) statC⋅cm ≘ (10) abC⋅cm
magnetic dipole moment
μ 1 A⋅m2 ≘ (103 c) statC⋅cm2 ≘ (103) Bi⋅cm2 = (103) erg/G
magnetic B field
B 1 T ≘ (104 c−1) statT ≘ (104) G
magnetic H field
H 1 A/m ≘ (4π × 10−3 c) statA/cm ≘ (4π × 10−3) Oe
Φm 1 Wb ≘ (108 c−1) statWb ≘ (108) Mx
R 1 Ω ≘ (109 c−2) s/cm ≘ (109) abΩ
ρ 1 Ω⋅m ≘ (1011 c−2) s ≘ (1011) abΩ⋅cm
C 1 F ≘ (10−9 c2) cm ≘ (10−9) abF
L 1 H ≘ (109 c−2) cm−1⋅s2 ≘ (109) abH
In this table, c = 29979245800 is the dimensionless numeric value of the speed of light in vacuum when expressed in units of centimetres per second. The symbol "≘" is used instead of "=" as a reminder that the quantities are corresponding but not in general equal, even between CGS variants. For example, according to the next-to-last row of the table, if a capacitor has a capacitance of 1 F in SI, then it has a capacitance of (10−9 c2) cm in ESU; but it is incorrect to replace "1 F" with "(10−9 c2) cm" within an equation or formula. (This warning is a special aspect of electromagnetism units in CGS. By contrast, for example, it is always correct to replace "1 m" with "100 cm" within an equation or formula.)
One can think of the SI value of the Coulomb constant kC as:
k C = 1 4 π ϵ 0 = μ 0 ( c / 100 ) 2 4 π = 10 − 7 N / A 2 ⋅ 10 − 4 ⋅ c 2 = 10 − 11 N ⋅ c 2 / A 2 . {\displaystyle k_{\rm {C}}={\frac {1}{4\pi \epsilon _{0}}}={\frac {\mu _{0}(c/100)^{2}}{4\pi }}=10^{-7}{\rm {N}}/{\rm {A}}^{2}\cdot 10^{-4}\cdot c^{2}=10^{-11}{\rm {N}}\cdot c^{2}/{\rm {A}}^{2}.}
This explains why SI to ESU conversions involving factors of c2 lead to significant simplifications of the ESU units, such as 1 statF = 1 cm and 1 statΩ = 1 s/cm: this is the consequence of the fact that in ESU system kC = 1. For example, a centimetre of capacitance is the capacitance of a sphere of radius 1 cm in vacuum. The capacitance C between two concentric spheres of radii R and r in ESU CGS system is:
1 1 r − 1 R {\displaystyle {\frac {1}{{\frac {1}{r}}-{\frac {1}{R}}}}} .
By taking the limit as R goes to infinity we see C equals r.
Physical constants in CGS units[edit]
Commonly used physical constants in CGS units[17]
Atomic mass constant mu 1.660539066×10−24 g
Bohr magneton μB 9.274010078×10−21 erg/G (EMU, Gaussian)
2.780 278 00 × 10−10 statA⋅cm2 (ESU)
Bohr radius a0 5.2917721090×10−9 cm
Boltzmann constant k 1.380649×10−16 erg/K
Electron mass me 9.10938370×10−28 g
Elementary charge e 4.803 204 27 × 10−10 Fr (ESU, Gaussian)
1.602176634×10−20 abC (EMU)
Fine-structure constant α 7.297352569×10−3
Gravitational constant G 6.67430×10−8 dyn⋅cm2/g2
Planck constant h 6.62607015×10−27 erg⋅s
reduced Planck constant ħ 1.054571817×10−27 erg⋅s
Speed of light in vacuum c 2.99792458×1010 cm/s
Advantages and disadvantages[edit]
While the absence of constant coefficients in the formulae expressing some relation between the quantities in some CGS subsystems simplifies some calculations, it has the disadvantage that sometimes the units in CGS are hard to define through experiment. Also, lack of unique unit names leads to a great confusion: thus "15 emu" may mean either 15 abvolts, or 15 emu units of electric dipole moment, or 15 emu units of magnetic susceptibility, sometimes (but not always) per gram, or per mole. On the other hand, SI starts with a unit of current, the ampere, that is easier to determine through experiment, but which requires extra coefficients in the electromagnetic equations. With its system of uniquely named units, the SI also removes any confusion in usage: 1 ampere is a fixed value of a specified quantity, and so are 1 henry, 1 ohm, and 1 volt.
An advantage of the Gaussian CGS system is that electric and magnetic fields have the same units, 4πε0 is replaced by 1, and the only dimensional constant appearing in the Maxwell equations is c, the speed of light. The Heaviside–Lorentz system has these properties as well (with ε0 equaling 1), but it is a "rationalized" system (as is SI) in which the charges and fields are defined in such a way that there are fewer factors of 4π appearing in the formulas, and it is in Heaviside–Lorentz units that the Maxwell equations take their simplest form.
In SI, and other rationalized systems (for example, Heaviside–Lorentz), the unit of current was chosen such that electromagnetic equations concerning charged spheres contain 4π, those concerning coils of current and straight wires contain 2π and those dealing with charged surfaces lack π entirely, which was the most convenient choice for applications in electrical engineering. However, modern hand calculators and personal computers have eliminated this "advantage". In some fields where formulas concerning spheres are common (for example, in astrophysics), it has been argued[by whom?] that the nonrationalized CGS system can be somewhat more convenient notationally.
Specialized unit systems are used to simplify formulas even further than either SI or CGS, by eliminating constants through some system of natural units. For example, in particle physics a system is in use where every quantity is expressed by only one unit of energy, the electronvolt, with lengths, times, and so on all converted into electronvolts by inserting factors of speed of light c and the reduced Planck constant ħ. This unit system is convenient for calculations in particle physics, but it would be considered impractical in other contexts.
International System of Units
International System of Electrical and Magnetic Units
List of scientific units named after people
Metre–tonne–second system of units
United States customary units
References and notes[edit]
^ "Centimetre-gram-second system | physics". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2018-03-27. [failed verification]
^ "The Centimeter-Gram-Second (CGS) System of Units - Maple Programming Help". www.maplesoft.com. Retrieved 2018-03-27.
^ Carron, Neal J. (21 May 2015). "Babel of units: The evolution of units systems in classical electromagnetism". arXiv:1506.01951. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
^ Gauss, C. F. (1832), "Intensitas vis magneticae terrestris ad mensuram absolutam revocata", Commentationes Societatis Regiae Scientiarum Gottingensis Recentiores, 8: 3–44 . English translation.
^ Hallock, William; Wade, Herbert Treadwell (1906). Outlines of the evolution of weights and measures and the metric system. New York: The Macmillan Co. p. 200.
^ Thomson, Sir W; Foster, Professor GC; Maxwell, Professor JC; Stoney, Mr GJ; Jenkin, Professor Fleeming; Siemens, Dr; Bramwell, Mr FJ (September 1873). Everett, Professor (ed.). First Report of the Committee for the Selection and Nomenclature of Dynamical and Electrical Units. Forty-third Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Bradford: John Murray. p. 223. Retrieved 2012-04-08.
^ Bennett, L. H.; Page, C. H.; Swartzendruber, L. J. (January–February 1978). "Comments on units in magnetism". Journal of Research of the National Bureau of Standards. 83 (1): 9–12. doi:10.6028/jres.083.002.
^ "Atomic Spectroscopy". Atomic Spectroscopy. NIST. Retrieved 25 October 2015.
^ a b c d e f g h Jackson, John David (1999). Classical Electrodynamics (3rd ed.). New York: Wiley. pp. 775–784. ISBN 0-471-30932-X.
^ Cardarelli, F. (2004). Encyclopaedia of Scientific Units, Weights and Measures: Their SI Equivalences and Origins (2nd ed.). Springer. p. 20. ISBN 1-85233-682-X.
^ a b Leung, P. T. (2004). "A note on the 'system-free' expressions of Maxwell's equations". European Journal of Physics. 25 (2): N1–N4. Bibcode:2004EJPh...25N...1L. doi:10.1088/0143-0807/25/2/N01. S2CID 43177051.
^ a b c d e f Cardarelli, F. (2004). Encyclopaedia of Scientific Units, Weights and Measures: Their SI Equivalences and Origins (2nd ed.). Springer. pp. 20–25. ISBN 1-85233-682-X.
^ Fenna, Donald (2002). A Dictionary of Weights, Measures, and Units. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-107898-9.
^ Tunbridge, Paul (1992). Lord Kelvin: His Influence on Electrical Measurements and Units. IET. pp. 34–40. ISBN 0-86341-237-8.
^ Knoepfel, Heinz E. (2000). Magnetic Fields: A Comprehensive Theoretical Treatise for Practical Use. Wiley. p. 543. ISBN 3-527-61742-6.
^ Bennett, L. H.; Page, C. H.; Swartzendruber, L. J. (1978). "Comments on units in magnetism". Journal of Research of the National Bureau of Standards. 83 (1): 9–12. doi:10.6028/jres.083.002.
^ A.P. French; Edwind F. Taylor (1978). An Introduction to Quantum Physics. W.W. Norton & Company.
General literature[edit]
Griffiths, David J. (1999). "Appendix C: Units". Introduction to Electrodynamics (3rd ed.). Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-805326-X.
Jackson, John D. (1999). "Appendix on Units and Dimensions". Classical Electrodynamics (3rd ed.). Wiley. ISBN 0-471-30932-X.
Kent, William (1900). "Electrical Engineering. Standards of Measurement page 1024". The Mechanical Engineer's Pocket-book (5th ed.). Wiley.
Littlejohn, Robert (Fall 2017). "Gaussian, SI and Other Systems of Units in Electromagnetic Theory" (PDF). Physics 221A, University of California, Berkeley lecture notes. Retrieved 2017-12-15.
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Umayyad conquest of Hispania
8th century Muslim conquest of the Iberian peninsula
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El Rey Don Rodrigo arengando a sus tropas en la batalla de Guadalete by Bernardo Blanco y Pérez (1871)
Decisive Umayyad victory
Destruction of the Visigothic Kingdom
Launch of the Reconquista
Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula except for Asturias
Establishment of the Al-Andalus Wilaya
Umayyad Caliphate Visigothic Kingdom (until 721)
Kingdom of Asturias (from 718/722)
Musa ibn Nusayr
Tariq ibn Ziyad
Tarif ibn Malik
Mugith
Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa
Munuza Roderic †
Theodemir
Achila II †
Oppas (MIA)
Pelagius of Asturias
Early Muslim expansion
Byzantine (East Roman) Empire
Armenia and Georgia
Sicily and Southern Italy
Sasanian Persian Empire
Northern Persia
Rasil
Caucasian Albania
Caucasian Iberia
Khazar Khaganate
Transoxiana
Visigothic Kingdom (Hispania)
Frankish Empire (Gaul)
Bilingual Arabic–Latin dinar issued c. 716
The Umayyad conquest of Hispania, also known as the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula or the Umayyad conquest of the Visigothic Kingdom, was the initial expansion of the Umayyad Caliphate over Hispania (in the Iberian Peninsula) from 711 to 718. The conquest resulted in the destruction of the Visigothic Kingdom and the establishment of the Umayyad wilaya of Al-Andalus. The conquest marks the westernmost expansion of both the Umayyad Caliphate and Muslim rule into Europe.
During the caliphate of the Umayyad Caliph Al-Walid I, forces led by Tariq ibn Ziyad disembarked in early 711 in Gibraltar at the head of an army consisting of Berbers from north Africa.[1][2] After defeating the Visigothic king Roderic at the decisive Battle of Guadalete, Tariq was reinforced by an Arab force led by his superior wali Musa ibn Nusayr and continued northward. By 717, the combined Arab-Berber force had crossed the Pyrenees into Septimania. They occupied further territory in Gaul until 759.
2 Invasion
3 New territorial and civil administration
3.1 A preference for treaties
3.2 Taxation
4 Ethnic groups and internal tensions
See also: Protofeudalism and Military campaigns under Caliph Uthman
Roderic, second figure with no face, depicted as one of the "six kings" in an Umayyad fresco in Qasr Amra, modern-day Jordan (710-750)[3][4]
The historian al-Tabari transmits a tradition attributed to the Caliph Uthman who stated that the road to Constantinople was through Hispania, "Only through Spain can Constantinople be conquered. If you conquer (Spain) you will share the reward of those who conquer (Constantinople)." The conquest of Hispania followed the conquest of the Maghreb.[5] Walter Kaegi says Tabari's tradition is dubious, arguing that conquest of the far western reaches of the Mediterranean Sea was motivated by military, political and religious opportunities. He considers that it was not a shift in direction due to the Muslims failing to conquer Constantinople in 678.[5]
Precisely what happened in Iberia in the early 8th century is uncertain. There is one contemporary Christian source, the Chronicle of 754 (which ends on that date), regarded as reliable but often vague.[6] There are no contemporary Muslim accounts, and later Muslim compilations, such as that of Al-Maqqari from the 17th century, reflect later ideological influence.[7] This paucity of early sources means that detailed specific claims need to be regarded with caution.[8]
The Umayyads took control of Hispania from the Visigoths,[9] who had ruled for roughly 300 years.[9] At the time of the conquest, the Visigothic upper class was beginning to fracture,[10] and had many problems with succession and maintaining power.[10] This was partially due to the fact that the Visigoths were only 1-2% of the population,[10] which made it difficult to maintain control over rebelling populations. The ruler at the time was King Roderic,[11] though this is somewhat contentious.
The manner of King Roderic's ascent to the throne is unclear; there are accounts of a dispute with Achila II, son of his predecessor Wittiza. Later regnal lists, which cite Achila and omit Roderic, are consistent with the contemporary account of civil war.[12] Numismatic evidence suggests a division of royal authority, with several coinages being struck, and that Achila II remained king of the Tarraconsense (the Ebro basin) and Septimania until circa 713.[13] The nearly contemporary Chronicle of 754 describes Roderic as a usurper who earned the allegiance of other Goths by deception, while the less reliable late-ninth century Chronicle of Alfonso III shows a clear hostility towards Oppa, bishop of Seville (or Toledo) and probably a brother of Wittiza, who appears in an unlikely heroic dialogue with Pelagius.[14]
There is also a story of one Julian, count of Ceuta, whose wife or daughter was raped by Roderic and who sought help from Tangier.[15] However, these stories are not included in the earliest accounts of the conquest.[16]
Invasion[edit]
According to the later chronicler Ibn Abd al-Hakam, the Tangier governor Tariq ibn Ziyad led a raiding force of approximately 1,700 men from North Africa to southern Spain in 711.[11] However, 12,000 seems a more accurate figure.[17] Ibn Abd al-Hakam reports, one and a half centuries later, that "the people of Andalus did not observe them, thinking that the vessels crossing and recrossing were similar to the trading vessels which for their benefit plied backwards and forwards". They defeated the Visigothic army, led by King Roderic, in a decisive battle at Guadalete in 712. Tariq's forces were then reinforced by those of his superior, the wali Musa ibn Nusayr, who planned a second invasion, and within a few years both took control of more than two-thirds of the Iberian Peninsula. The second invasion comprised 18 thousand mostly Arab troops, who rapidly captured Seville and then defeated Roderick's supporters at Mérida and met up with Tariq's troops at Talavera. The following year the combined forces continued into Galicia and the northeast, capturing Léon, Astorga and Zaragoza.[18][19]
According to the Muslim historian Al-Tabari,[20] Iberia was first invaded some sixty years earlier during the caliphate of Uthman (Rashidun era). Another prominent Muslim historian of the 13th century, Ibn Kathir,[21] quoted the same narration, pointing to a campaign led by Abd Allah bin Nafi al Husayn and Abd Allah bin Nafi al Abd al Qays[22] in 32 AH. However, this putative invasion is not accepted by modern historians.
The first expedition led by Tariq consisted mainly of Berbers, who had themselves only recently come under Muslim influence. It is probable that this army represented a continuation of a historic pattern of large-scale raids into Iberia dating to the pre–Islamic period,[9] and hence it has been suggested that actual conquest was not originally planned. Both the Chronicle of 754 and later Muslim sources speak of raiding activity in previous years, and Tariq's army may have been present for some time before the decisive battle. It has been argued that this possibility is supported by the fact that the army was led by a Berber and that Musa, who was the Umayyad Governor of North Africa, only arrived the following year – the governor had not deigned to lead a mere raid, but hurried across once the unexpected triumph became clear. The historian Abd al-Wāḥid Dhannūn Ṭāhā mentions that several Arab-Muslim writers mention the fact that Tariq decided to cross the strait without informing his superior and wali Musa.[23] The Chronicle of 754 states that many townspeople fled to the hills rather than defend their cities, which might support the view that this was expected to be a temporary raid rather than a permanent change of government.
The Chronicle of 754 stated that "the entire army of the Goths, which had come with him [Roderic] fraudulently and in rivalry out of hopes of the Kingship, fled". This is the only contemporary account of the battle and the paucity of detail led many later historians to invent their own. The location of the battle, though not clear, was probably the Guadalete River.
Roderic was believed to have been killed, and a crushing defeat would have left the Visigoths largely leaderless and disorganized, partly because the ruling Visigoth population is estimated to have been a mere 1 to 2% of the total population.[24] While this isolation is said to have been "a reasonably strong and effective instrument of government"; it was highly "centralised to the extent that the defeat of the royal army left the entire land open to the invaders".[25] The resulting power vacuum, which may have indeed caught Tariq completely by surprise, would have aided the Muslim conquest. It may have been equally welcome to the Hispano-Roman peasants who were probably – as D.W. Lomax claims – disillusioned by the prominent legal, linguistic and social divide between them and the "barbaric" and "decadent" Visigoth royal family.[26]
In 714, Musa ibn Nusayr headed north-west up the Ebro river to overrun the western Basque regions and the Cantabrian mountains all the way to Gallaecia, with no relevant or attested opposition. During the period of the second (or first, depending on the sources) Arab governor Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa (714–716), the principal urban centres of Catalonia surrendered. In 714, his father, Musa ibn Nusayr, advanced and overran Soria, the western Basque regions, Palencia, and as far west as Gijón or León, where a Berber governor was appointed with no recorded opposition. The northern areas of Iberia drew little attention from the conquerors and were hard to defend when taken. The high western and central sub-Pyrenean valleys remained unconquered.
At this time, Umayyad troops reached Pamplona, and the Basque town submitted after a compromise was brokered with Arab commanders to respect the town and its inhabitants, a practice that was common in many towns of the Iberian Peninsula.[27] The Umayyad troops met little resistance. Considering that era's communication capabilities, three years was a reasonable time spent almost reaching the Pyrenees, after making the necessary arrangements for the towns' submissions and their future governance.[28]
New territorial and civil administration[edit]
Northeastern al-Andalus, the Pyrenees and southern Gaul at the time of the Berber rebellion (739–742)
A preference for treaties[edit]
In 713, Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa subdued the forces of the Visigothic count Theodemir (or Tudmir), who had taken over southeastern Iberia from his base in Murcia after the power vacuum following king Roderic's defeat. Theudimer then signed a conditional capitulation by which his lands were made into an autonomous client state under Umayyad rule ("the rule of God").
His government and the Christian beliefs of his subjects were respected; in exchange, he pledged to pay a tax (jizya) and to hand over any rebels plotting against Umayyad rule or the Islamic religion. In this way, the life of many inhabitants remained much the same as before Tariq's and Musa's campaigns.[29] The treaty signed with Theudimer set a precedent for the whole of Iberia, and towns surrendering to Umayyad troops experienced a similar fate, including probably the muwallad Banu Qasi based in the Ebro valley, and other counts and landowners.
In exception to this pattern, some towns (Cordova, Toledo, etc.) were stormed and captured unconditionally by the Umayyads, to be governed by direct Arab rule. In the area thought to be part of King Roderic's territory, Mérida also staged a prolonged resistance to the Umayyad advance, but was ultimately conquered in mid-summer 712.[30] As of 713 (or 714), the last Visigothic king, Ardo, took over from Achila II, with effective control just over Septimania, and probably the eastern Pyrenean threshold and coastal areas of the Tarraconense.
Islamic laws did not apply to all the subjects of the new rulers. Christians were ruled by their own Visigothic law code (Forum Iudicum) as before. In most of the towns, ethnic communities remained segregated and newly arriving ethnic groups (Syrians, Yemenites, Berbers and others) would erect new boroughs outside existing urban areas. However, this would not apply to towns under direct Umayyad rule. In Cordova, the cathedral was partitioned and shared to provide for the religious needs of Christians and Muslims. This situation lasted some 40 years until Abd ar-Rahman's conquest of southern Spain (756).
Taxation[edit]
An early governor (wali) of al-Andalus, al-Hurr ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Thaqafi, spread the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate up to the Ebro valley and the northeastern borders of Iberia, pacifying most of the territory and initiating in 717 the first forays across the Pyrenees into Septimania. In addition, he laid out the foundations of Umayyad civil administration in Iberia, by sending civil administration officials (judges) to conquered towns and lands guarded by garrisons established usually next to the population nuclei.[31]
Moreover, al-Hurr restored lands to their previous Christian landowners, which may have added greatly to the revenue of the Umayyad governors and the caliph of Damascus, by increasingly imposing the vectigalia on the former; this was a tax applied on a specific region or estate, and not per capitation (jizya). Only non-Muslims were subject to taxation, apart from a Muslim subject's compulsory alms-giving.[31] The task of establishing a civil administration in conquered al-Andalus was essentially completed by the governor Yahya ibn Salama al-Kalbi 10 years later.
The period following al-Hurr's office saw the establishment of the Arabs in southern Septimania during Al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlani's tenure as wali. Narbonne fell (720), and no sooner had he garrisoned it than the Arab commander led an offensive against Toulouse. During this Umayyad thrust or its aftermath, King Ardo died (721).
Ethnic groups and internal tensions[edit]
Northeast of Iberia, Duchy of Vasconia, and Septimania just after its conquest by Pepin (760)
In the first stage of the invasion, the armies were made up of Berbers and different Arab groups. These peoples, clustered around the banner of the Umayyads, did not mix together, remaining in separate towns and boroughs. The Berbers, recently subdued and superficially Islamized, were usually in charge of the most difficult tasks and the most rugged terrains, similar to the ones found in their north African homeland, while the Arabs occupied the gentler plains of southern Iberia.[32]
Consequently, the Berbers went on to stations in Galicia (possibly including Asturias) and the Upper Marches (Ebro basin), but these lands remained unpleasant, humid and cold. The grievances resented by the Berbers under Arab rulers (attempts to impose a tax on Muslim Berbers, etc.) sparked rebellions in north Africa that expanded into Iberia. An early uprising took place in 730, when Uthman ibn Naissa (Munuza), master of the eastern Pyrenees (Cerretanya), allied with the duke Odo of Aquitaine and detached from Cordova.
Those internal frictions continually threatened (or sometimes may have spurred) the ever-expanding Umayyad military effort in al-Andalus during the conquest period. Around 739, on learning the news of Charles Martel's second intervention in Provence, Uqba ibn al-Hajjaj had to call off an expedition to the Lower Rhone in order to deal with the Berber revolt in the south instead. The following year, the Berber garrisons stationed in León, Astorga and other north-western outposts gave up their positions, and some of them even embraced the Christian religion.[33] The Muslim settlement was thereafter established permanently south of the Douro's banks.
The Berber rebellions swept the whole of al-Andalus during Abd al-Malik ibn Katan al-Fihri's term as governor. Reinforcements were then called from the other end of the Mediterranean in a military capacity: the "Syrian" junds (actually Yemeni Arabs). The Berber rebellions were quelled in blood, and the Arab commanders came up reinforced after 742. Different Arab factions reached an agreement to alternate in office, but this did not last long, since Yusuf ibn 'Abd al-Rahman al-Fihri (opposed to the Umayyads) remained in power up to his defeat by Abd al-Rahman I in 756, and the establishment of the independent Umayyad Emirate of Cordova. It was in this period of unrest that the Frankish king Pepin finally captured Narbonne from the Andalusians (759).
In Yusuf's and Abd-ar-Rahman's fight for power in al-Andalus, the "Syrian" troops, a mainstay of the Umayyad Caliphate, split. For the most part, Arabs from the Mudhar and Qais tribes sided with Yusuf, as did the indigenous (second or third generation) Arabs from northern Africa, while Yemeni units and some Berbers sided with Abd-ar-Rahman, probably born to a north African Berber mother himself. In 756, south and central al-Andalus (Cordova, Sevilla) were in the hands of Abd-ar-Rahman, but it took still 25 years for him to hold sway over the Upper Marches (Pamplona, Zaragoza and all the northeast).[34]
Aftermath[edit]
The Iberian Peninsula was the westernmost tip of the Umayyad Caliphate of Damascus and was under the rule of the governor of Ifriqiya.[9] In 720, the caliph even considered abandoning the territory.[20] The conquest was followed by a period of several hundred years during which most of the Iberian peninsula was known as Al-Andalus, dominated by Muslim rulers.[9] Only a handful of new small Christian realms managed to reassert their authority across the faraway mountainous north of the peninsula.
In 756, Abd al-Rahman I, a survivor of the recently overthrown Umayyad Dynasty, landed in al-Andalus and seized power in Cordova and Seville, and proclaimed himself emir or malik, removing any mentions of the Abbasid Caliphs from the Friday prayers.[35] In the wake of these events, southern Iberia became de jure and de facto independent from the Abbasid Caliphate.[36] Although this was not accepted outside al-Andalus and those North African territories with which it was affiliated, Abd al-Rahman, and especially his successors, considered that they were the legitimate continuation of the Umayyad caliphate, i.e. that their rule was more legitimate than that of the Abbasids.[36] It seems that Abd ar-Rahman never considered establishing a separate principality. (See Caliphate of Córdoba.)
During the unification of al-Andalus in the reign of Abd ar-Rahman before his death in 788, al-Andalus underwent centralization and slow but steady homogenization. The autonomous status of many towns and regions negotiated in the first years of the conquest was reversed by 778,[37] in some cases much earlier (Pamplona by 742, for example). The Hispanic Church based in Toledo, whose status remained largely undiminished under the new rulers, fell out with the Roman Church during the Adoptionist controversy (late 8th century). Rome relied on an alliance with Charlemagne (in war with the Cordovan emirs) to defend its political authority and possessions, and went on to recognize the northern Asturian principality (Gallaecia) as a kingdom apart from Cordova, and Alfonso II as king.
The population of al-Andalus, especially local nobles who aspired to a share in power, began to embrace Islam and the Arabic language.[38] However, the majority of the population remained Christian (using the Mozarabic Rite), and Latin (Mozarabic) remained the principal language until the 11th century. Historian Jessica Coope of University of Nebraska argues that the pre-modern Islamic conquest was unlike Christianization because the latter was "imposed on everyone as part of a negotiated surrender, and thus lacked the element of personal conviction that modern ideas about religious faith would require" while conquest of dar al-harb was not motivated by a goal of converting the population to Islam, but by the belief that everyone was better off under Islamic rule.[39]
Abd ar-Rahman I founded an independent dynasty that survived until the 11th century.[9] That line was succeeded by a variety of short and small emirates (taifas) unable to stop the push of the expanding northern Christian kingdoms. The Almoravids (1086–1094) and the Almohads (1146–1173) occupied al-Andalus next, and the Marinids in 1269, but that could not prevent the fragmentation of Muslim-ruled territory. The last Muslim emirate, Granada, was defeated by the armies of Castile (successor to Asturias) and Aragon under Isabella and Ferdinand in 1492. The last wave of expulsions of Spaniards of Muslim descent took place in 1614.
Chronology[edit]
History of Al-Andalus
Muslim conquest
Battle of Guadalete
Battle of Toulouse
Battle of Tours
Umayyads of Córdoba
Emirate of Córdoba
Caliphate of Córdoba
Al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir
First Taifa period
Almoravid rule
Battle of Sagrajas
Second Taifa period
Almohad rule
Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa
Third Taifa period
Emirate of Granada
Nasrid dynasty
Battle of the Strait
Granada War
As discussed above, much of the traditional narrative of the Conquest is more legend than reliable history. Some of the key events and the stories around them are outlined below.
710 – Tariq ibn Ziyad, a Berber mawla of Musa ibn Nusayr, lands with 400 men and 100 horses on the tiny peninsula now called Gibraltar (Jebel al Tarik : Mountain of Tariq), after his name.
711 – Musa ibn Nusayr, Governor of Ifriqiya in North Africa, dispatches Tariq into the Iberian Peninsula.
711 (July 19) – King Roderick's army utterly routed in the Battle of Guadalete somewhere in the Guadalquivir valley.
712 – Musa ibn Nusayr joins Tariq after the Battle of Guadalete and both go on to attack towns and strongholds previously avoided. Abu Zora Tarif lands in Algeciras.[40]
713 – Theudimer's conditional surrender, allowing him to remain lord of his south-eastern region around Murcia (Tudmir).
715 – Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa announces first wali of Andalus and marries the widow of King Roderick, Egilona. Seville becomes the capital.
717–18 – Al-Hurr ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Thaqafi starts the first military campaigns into Gothic Septimania.
719 – Al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlani, 4th wali, transfers the seat of Governor from Seville to Cordova. Barcelona and Narbonne captured.
721 – An Umayyad army led by Al-Samh crushed by duke Odo's Aquitanian army at the Battle of Toulouse ("Balat Al Shuhada" of Toulouse).
722 – An Umayyad patrol defeated by Pelagius at the Battle of Covadonga in the mountains of Asturias.
725 – Anbasa ibn Suhaym Al-Kalbi subdues all Septimania, raids the Lower Rhone, and captures Autun.
731 – Munuza defeated in Cerdanya by Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi.
Spring 732 – An expedition led by the wali Al Ghafiqi vanquishes duke Odo at the Battle of the River Garonne.
October 732 – Al Ghafiqi totally routed by Charles Martel (Mayor of the Palace at the Merovingian court) at the Battle of Tours ("Balat Al Shuhada" of Poitiers).
734 – Count Maurontus calls Umayyad forces on a military capacity into Arles, Avignon, and probably Marseille.
740–42 – Berbers in northern Iberia (Galicia, Leon, Astorga, upper Ebro) give up their positions to join the Berber Revolts.
743–757 – Alfonso I of Asturias raids the territory between the rivers Duero and Ebro but doesn't retain it.
743 – Mudarites and Yemenites agree on choosing alternately one of their numbers each year to rule Al–Andalus.
747 – Governor Yusuf ibn 'Abd al-Rahman al-Fihri, a Mudarite and descendant of Uqbah ibn Nafia, refuses to give turn to the Yemenite candidate and rules autonomously.
755 – Rebellion in Zaragoza quashed, and Yusuf's detachment annihilated by the Basques near Pamplona.
755 – Abd Al-Rahman Al Dakhel ("Saqr Quraysh") lands on the southern coast, taking in a quick succession Granada, Seville and Cordova.
756 – After refusing to compromise with Yusuf, Abd ar-Rahman I independent Umayyad emir of Córdova. Yusuf defeated.
759 – Narbonne captured by the Frankish king Pepin the Short.
763 – Pro-Abbasid army defeated by Abd ar-Rahman I in Carmona.
778 – Charlemagne repelled in Zaragoza by Muslim local lords.
779 – Abd ar-Rahman I campaigns to the Upper Marches and subdues its main city, Zaragoza.
781 – Pamplona and the Basque lords south of the Pyrenean fringes subdued. All of Al Andalus unified.
788 – Abd ar-Rahman I dies.
Timeline of the Muslim presence in the Iberian peninsula
Footnotes[edit]
^ Nagy, Luqman (2008). The book of Islamic dynasties: a celebration of Islamic history and culture. Ta-Ha Publishers Ltd. p. 9. ISBN 9781842000915.
^ Andalusí, Fundación El Legado. Maroc et Espagne: une histoire commune publié par Fundación El Legado Andalusí. Books google. ISBN 9788496395046. Retrieved 26 May 2010.
^ Williams, Betsy (2012-04-12). "Qusayr 'Amra". The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
^ Drayson, "Ways of Seeing".
^ a b Walter E. Kaegi (2010). Muslim Expansion and Byzantine Collapse in North Africa. Cambridge University Press. p. 260. ISBN 9780521196772.
^ Collins 1989, p. 28.
^ Collins 1989, pp. 25–26.
^ a b c d e f Kennedy, Hugh (Hugh N.) (1996). Muslim Spain and Portugal: a political history of al-Andalus. London: Longman. ISBN 0-582-49515-6. OCLC 34746098.
^ a b c Catlos, Brian A. Kingdoms of faith : a new history of Islamic Spain (First ed.). New York, N.Y. ISBN 978-0-465-05587-6. OCLC 1003304619.
^ a b Collins, Roger (1983). Early Medieval Spain. New York: St. Martin's Press. p. 151. ISBN 0-312-22464-8.
^ Collins 1989, pp. 17, 32–33.
^ Rucquoi notes that the tale of Count Julian's wife or daughter does not appear in the Chronicle of 754 and considers it to be "probably a legend", but considers there may be more truth in the stories concerning Wittiza's family; Rucquoi, Adèle (1993), Histoire médiéval de la Péninsule ibérique, Éditions du Seuil, p. 71, ISBN 2-02-012935-3
^ Rogers, Clifford J. (2010). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Medieval Warfare and Military Technology. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-533403-6.
^ Esposito, John L. (2000-04-06). The Oxford History of Islam. Oxford University Press. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-19-988041-6.
^ a b See: History of the Prophets and Kings (Tarikh al-Tabari)
^ See: Al-Bidayah wa al-Nihayah (Tarikh ibn Kathir)
^ Humphreys, R. Stephen (1990). The History of al-Tabari Vol. 15. p. 22. ISBN 9780791401545.
^ Ṭāhā, Abd al-Wāḥid Dhannūn (1989-01-01). The Muslim Conquest and Settlement of North Africa and Spain. Routledge. p. 85. ISBN 9780415004749. The historian Abd al-Wāḥid Dhannūn Ṭāhā mentions that several Arab-Muslim writers mention the fact that Tariq has decided to cross the strait without informing his superior.
^ Ripoll López, Gisela (1989). "Características generales del poblamiento y la arqueología funeraria visigoda de Hispania". Espacio, Tiempo y Forma, S. I, Prehist. y Arqueol., t. 2. pp. 389–418. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 12, 2010. Retrieved 27 November 2017. En resumen se puede considerar que el pueblo visigodo – sin diferenciar la población civil de la militar – representó de un uno a un dos por ciento sobre la totalidad de la población de Hispania.
^ Kennedy, Hugh (1996). Muslim Spain and Portugal: A political history of al-Andalus. Longman. pp. 1–14.
^ Lomax, D.W. (1978). The Reconquest of Spain. Longman. pp. 15–16.
^ Collins, Roger (1990). The Basques. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell. p. 116. ISBN 0-631-17565-2.
^ Collins 1990, p. 116.
^ a b Collins 1989, pp. 45–46.
^ a b Catlos, Brian A., author. Infidel kings and unholy warriors : faith, power, and violence in the age of crusade and jihad. ISBN 0-374-53532-9. OCLC 889165096. CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^ Moller, Violet (2020). Map of Knowledge: a thousand-year history of how classical ideas were lost and found. ANCHOR. ISBN 978-1-101-97406-3. OCLC 1111697223.
^ Jessica Coope (2017). The Most Noble of People: Religious, Ethnic, and Gender Identity in Muslim Spain. University of Michigan Press. p. 32. ISBN 9780472130283.
^ Tucker, Spencer C. (2009). A Global Chronology of Conflict: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle East: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle East. ABC-CLIO. p. 208. ISBN 978-1851096725. Retrieved August 6, 2015.
Collins, Roger (1989). The Arab Conquest of Spain 710–797. Oxford, UK / Cambridge, USA: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19405-3.
Umayyad Caliphate topics
Caliphs
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Yazid I
Muawiya II
Abd al-Malik
Sulayman
Umar II
Yazid II
Al-Walid II
Yazid III
Marwan II
First Fitna
First siege of Constantinople
Muslim conquest of the Maghreb
Revolt of Ibn al-Ash'ath
Muslim conquest of Transoxiana
Umayyad campaigns in India
Second siege of Constantinople
Umayyad invasion of Gaul
Second Arab–Khazar War
Revolt of Yazid b. al-Muhallab
Revolt of Harith b. Surayj
Revolt of Zayd b. Ali
Berber Revolt
Third Fitna
Abbasid Revolution
Barid
Shurta
al-Haras
Qays–Yaman rivalry
Mawali
al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf
Umayyad coinage
Arab–Sasanian coinage
Umayyad architecture
Great Mosque of Aleppo
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Umayyad art
Painting of the Six Kings
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Umayyad_conquest_of_Hispania&oldid=998076414"
Invasions by the Umayyad Caliphate
Invasions of Europe
8th-century conflicts
8th-century military history
8th century in the Visigothic Kingdom
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Wars involving the Goths
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Articles lacking in-text citations from May 2020
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Anderson (Scott County)
Located between Highway 80 and Highway 71 along Sweet Gum Lane, Anderson is an unincorporated community in central Scott County one mile northwest of Waldron (Scott County). The agricultural industry was vital to area settlers and later residents.
The area’s first inhabitants included natives from the Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippian periods. Archaeological discoveries suggest that natives of the Caddo Nation made their homes along the Poteau River and other prominent waterways in the area. Thousands of archaeological sites can be found along the Fourche La Fave River and Poteau River valleys nearby.
Throughout the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, French hunters and tradesmen traveled west from Arkansas Post along the Arkansas River. From there, they began traversing smaller tributaries such as the Fourche La Fave and Poteau rivers. It is likely that they traveled through the area where Anderson is now located.
The people of the Choctaw Nation were present for a time in various areas of Scott County from 1820 to 1830. In Waldron, 2nd Street was once known as Choctaw Road.
Early white settlers began arriving in the area near Anderson in the late 1820s and early 1830s. Most families participated in a wide variety of agricultural practices. It is unclear as to when the community of Anderson was officially established; however, it is likely that the community was named after the Anderson family who came to Scott County from Dade County, Georgia, in the 1880s. The family lived near the present location of Anderson, about two miles west of Waldron. Theodore and Sephronia Anderson came to Scott County with their children: William, Joseph, Mary, James, and Benjamin. Theodore died in 1887 shortly after arriving in Scott County, while Sephronia died in 1897. They are both buried in Sehorn Cemetery near the community of Winfield west of Waldron. Joseph F. Anderson was known for the prize-winning Plymouth Rock chickens that he bred. Joseph died in 1946 and is buried at Duncan Cemetery in Waldron. Mary Anderson stayed in Scott County and married George M. Smith; she died in 1942. James Nathan Anderson moved to Del Rio, Texas, where he died from consumption (tuberculosis) in 1909; he is buried in Del Rio. Benjamin Anderson reportedly married three times throughout his life. He died in 1928 from heart disease in Heavener, Oklahoma. There is little information about the oldest brother William F. Anderson.
In 1901, the Arkansas Western Railroad, a subsidiary of the Kansas City Southern, built a 31.7-mile line east from Heavener to Waldron in order to service the timber industry. Anderson was the last community located along the route before the tracks reached Waldron.
Because it is located less than a quarter of a mile from Waldron’s city limits, Anderson is close to becoming absorbed due to expansion and sprawl, although it maintains a few business and churches. Anderson is served by Waldron’s school district. The agricultural industry is still present in Anderson, although it has become less prominent over the years. Cattle and chicken farms make up the majority of agriculture in the area.
For additional information:
Cate, Michael. History of Scott County, Arkansas. Dallas, TX: Curtis Media Corporation, 1991.
Echoes: The Scott County Historical and Genealogical Society Quarterly. Waldron, AR: Scott County Historical and Genealogical Society (1986–).
Goodner, Charles. Scott County in Retrospect. Mansfield, AR: Frank Boyd, 1976.
Goodner, Norman. A History of Scott County, Arkansas. Siloam Springs, AR: Bar D Press, 1941.
McCutcheon, Henry Grady. History of Scott County, Arkansas. Little Rock: H. G. Pugh and Company, 1922.
Ty Richardson
Richardson Preservation Consulting
Cities and Towns / Counties, Cities, and Towns / Scott
Anderson View, East
Anderson View, West
Scott County Map
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← Northern pipeline a sure thing if gas-fired power plant is built
Information-czar candidate under attack: Ex-MP once worked for nuclear association →
A competitive electricity future for New Brunswick
Posted on May 26, 1998 by Other News Sources
Chapter 1 Competition: The Customer’s Best Protection
Chapter 2 Coping with NB Power’s Nuclear Problems
Chapter 3 Public Process
NB Power’s Threatened Defamation Suit
Unfettered Operation of the Press
Response to the Discussion Paper’s Questions
1) Obligation to Serve
2) Cross Subsidies
3) Stranded Costs
4) Forms of Competition
5) Reliability of the Electricity System
6) Conservation and Environmental Considerations
7) Level Playing Field
8) Regulatory and Legislative Issues
1. The Taskforce should recommend that the provincial government not provide any further loan guarantees for NB Power and should treat existing obligations as preferred to new liabilities, as if the existing obligations were a first mortgage and new obligations were a second mortgage.
2.The Taskforce should recommend that the government of New Brunswick promote as much competition in the energy sector between fuels and between producers and marketers of energy products as possible. The role of government is to establish and police the rules that will guide the competitive market.
3.The experience in other jurisdictions which have made the transition to electricity competition should be examined thoroughly to help guide the process in New Brunswick.
4.Energy Probe encourages the Taskforce to recommend that the results of the technical and economic study of Point Lepreau now underway by consultants be released publicly, that a separate nuclear company be set up for Point Lepreau, and that the province begin the process of preparing for a non-nuclear future.
This submission to the Taskforce on Electricity addresses the future direction of the New Brunswick’s power system. Energy Probe’s remarks reflect on the government’s discussion paper in the context of NB Power’s most recently published business plan for the period 1997-2002, NB Power testimony a year ago on this business plan in front of the Standing Committee on Crown Corporations, various public statements of the utility, and NB Power’s most recently issued accounts, which are for fiscal 1997. This report also addresses the need for a strong and open public process to address NB Power’s actions, choices, and priorities.
This study was prepared for Energy Probe and follows my two previous studies on NB Power, prepared for the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies. The two previous studies were, “New Brunswick’s Power Failure: Choosing a Competitive Alternative”, presented to the New Brunswick Legislative Assembly Standing Committee on Crown Corporations, 9 October 1996 and “Energizing New Brunswick Power: A Brighter Future for Consumers and Taxpayers”, February 5, 1997. They are attached as appendices A and B respectively.
The purpose of this study, as it was with my previous two studies, is to encourage wide discussion of important public policy matters related to New Brunswick’s energy industry, to help expand public understanding of some underlying technical and economic issues, and to continue to propose positive solutions to the NB Power’s problems based on privatization, competition, a reduced rate of environmental injury, and enhanced regulation. No other industrial sector is likely to exert as profound an influence on the economic prospects and environment integrity of the province as its electricity sector.
This study discusses Energy Probe’s concerns with the integrity of the public process surrounding discussions of electricity policy in New Brunswick. This concern arises as a result of the utility’s now resolved defamation suit against the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, Energy Probe and myself related to my published analysis. Energy Probe is also concerned about actions the utility has taken against journalists reporting on it.
The central problems facing New Brunswick’s electricity future are NB Power’s financial liabilities and its nuclear problems including nuclear waste disposal and decommissioning costs, production problems, safety problems, and rising costs. With the exception of nuclear waste disposal and decommissioning problems, these problems are recognized in the government’s discussion paper.
Some suggest a “devil makes us do it” justification for adopting competitive reforms, arguing that New Brunswick must keep up with competitive reforms elsewhere. Energy Probe disagrees. Even if there were not powerful forces of electricity system change driving competing, and in some cases neighboring, jurisdictions to open their power markets, the reasons for New Brunswick to embrace this approach would be just as valid. An open, competitive, and private power system will discipline power producers to serve consumer interests, protect taxpayers from further liabilities, and break up the conflict of interest, resulting from government owning a business it should be regulating, that now forecloses effective regulation of the electricity business.
The overall perspective that Energy Probe encourages the Taskforce to adopt is to focus on the interests of consumers, taxpayers, and the natural environment. Too often in energy policy discussions the focus is on the interests of producers. Although the government’s discussion paper has many strengths, a weaknesses is that it frequently adopts a narrow producer-oriented outlook.
In discussing the impetus for change in Canada’s electricity sector, the discussion paper adopts a producer-based perspective, stating that “To a great extent, changes in Canada are due to a desire to maintain or gain further access to U. S. markets through marketing licences and thereby expand the economic benefits that Canadian utilities have received from selling into the U.S.” Even if more liberalized electricity trading across New Brunswick’s borders and the onset of full-blown competition reduces NB Power’s market share and revenues, open borders should be promoted. Competition will have the dual benefits of reducing cost for energy consumers and imposing discipline on NB Power. One of the major drivers for change in Ontario is the desire of consumers to gain access to competitively price power available in neighboring jurisdictions.
Another example of a producer-based perspective in the discussion paper is the statement “Until NB Power’s debt levels are reduced, it is very likely that it would be at a disadvantage to other participants in a competitive environment if the guarantee was removed.” As any firm would, NB Power will seek to maintain access to the provincial loan guarantee. However, the interest of taxpayers lie in ensuring that they are not exposed to future liabilities.
The Taskforce would best serve the long term interests of New Brunswickers by ensuring a level playing field for all energy producers, free from all subsidies and government guarantees. Until privatization, the government should not provide any further loan guarantees and should treat existing obligations as preferred to new liabilities as if the existing obligations were a first mortgage and new obligations were a second mortgage. The Ontario government appears to have decided to limit further loan guarantees. The Ontario energy minister recently announced that the province will not permit Ontario Hydro to expand its debt.(1)
Competition: The Customer’s Best Protection
The ability of businesses, institutions, and residential customers in New Brunswick to benefit from an open electricity market should be a key policy priority. Electricity markets in Quebec and the U.S. Northeast are opening up, a process that is creating both risks and potential benefits for New Brunswick.
An oversight in NB Power’s 1997-2002 business plan is the absence of any discussion of models for electricity competition in use elsewhere. A wealth of competitive electricity transition experience exists in countries such as Australia, the U.K., and New Zealand. Instructive experience also exists in trading block regions such as Mercosur and the Nordic states. Subnational regions such as Alberta, the New England states, and the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland integrated dispatch area also have valuable lessons to share.
Experience in a wide range of jurisdictions and circumstances suggests that competition between energy commodities and between suppliers of particular commodities is the most effective force available to minimize energy costs and protect customers so far invented. Regulation is an unavoidable necessity to protect customers using natural monopoly services such as gas and electricity distribution systems. However, regulation pales in comparison to competition as a means of controlling energy costs over the long term and making producers accountable to their customers.
NB Power’s most recent business plan demonstrates that the utility is not yet prepared to recognize the consequences of true competition in electricity generation and marketing. The business plan states that “Over the next five years, NB Power intends to maintain its position as the prime supplier of electricity to businesses and residents of New Brunswick.” The plan further states that it is NB Power’s intention to “maintain and improve market share”. This statement clearly implies that the utility’s management is not considering customers gaining the right to select alternative suppliers at any time before the year 2002.
One interpretation of the statement in the business plan that NB Power intends to “maintain and improve market share” is that NB Power is intending to extend its influence beyond the electricity market to the gas business and thereby expand its share of the provincial energy market. In its testimony to the Committee, NB Power was more direct stating “We may even get into marketing gas.” (Hansard May 28, 1997 p. 29) Mr. Hankinson said, “We could become natural gas marketers.” (Hansard May 29, 1997 p. 50)
The arrival of natural gas in New Brunswick, particularly if a competitive electricity market is in place to facilitate the development of gas-fired power options, represents an excellent near term opportunity to reduce the province’s reliance on high emission and high cost coal, oil, and bitumen-fired power. In addition, over the medium term, natural gas can significantly ease the transition to a non-nuclear future for the province.
As discussed in my previous studies, there are substantial dangers to the public should NB Power be permitted to influence the development of natural gas in New Brunswick. The electricity and natural gas industries are natural competitors, often seeking sales in the same end-use markets. In New Brunswick, gas will have both price and environmental advantages over electricity. An electric utility’s natural inclination is to fight to protect market share in lucrative markets like water heating. On the other hand, the success of gas in New Brunswick will be enhanced if this fuel takes a large portion of the water heating market. The bests interests of consumers lie in vigorous competition to sort out this tension between gas and electricity interests. In Ontario, falling natural gas prices to consumers during the 1990s, due in large measure to the effects of natural gas deregulation, was one of the main factors driving Ontario Hydro to freeze its rates starting in 1994. If the development of the natural gas system in New Brunswick is curtailed for the benefit of NB Power, consumers and the environment will suffer.
NB Power’s demonstrated inability to invest and operate efficiently, discussed at length in my previous two studies, does not augur well for any foray it might make into the natural gas field. NB Power would be bankrupt if it were not for the protection afforded by its monopoly status and the provincial loan guarantees. It would not be prudent for the province to allow NB Power to expand into a new business with which the utility has no experience.
Based on NB Power’s publicly available statements, it is clear that the utility misunderstands the competitive challenge represented by the arrival of natural gas. The utility has built a provision into its revenue forecast of $10 million in the year 2000, $20 million in 2001, and $30 million in the year 2002 to recognize the potential impact of competition on revenues. Such a provision is prudent. However, the de minimis size of the provision is additional evidence that the utility is not taking competition seriously. By comparison, Consumers Gas, the gas distribution company serving more than half of the Ontario gas market, is anticipating that over the period 1994 through 1998 the volume of gas delivered to customers for self-generation purposes will increase by about 2.7 times, all of this during a period when Ontario Hydro is actively trying to prevent self-generation. (EBRO 497 I/T8/S2) By contrast, NB Power anticipates that after five years of natural gas being available, load loss to gas will only be 1% to 1.5% of sales at the end of that period and concludes that gas availability is “not a major factor” (Hansard May 29 p. 49-50). Ontario Hydro’s sales volume has dropped since 1989 largely due to gas-fired self generation and fuel switching from electricity to gas, as well as energy conservation stimulated by electricity rate increases.
An explanation for NB Power’s assumption of a de minimis effect from direct natural gas competition is its narrow producer perspective on the energy market. NB Power’s business plan notes, “The development of either natural gas pipeline will allow gas-fired generation to be established to produce electricity for local consumption or for export. The structure of transmission tariffs and proposed gas pipeline tariffs will determine the viability of supply to the US market…. NB Power has signed a precedent agreement for gas transportation and is engaged in the overall evaluation of potential power plant projects which could be fired with natural gas.” This comment suggests that NB Power does not understand the nature of the competitive challenge from gas. Gas as a fuel choice for power generation is important but will not impact electricity’s energy market share or the revenues of the utility. Interfuel competition should be expected to cut both electricity’s market share and electricity revenues. Gas-fired power generation on customer premises and fuel switching off electricity to gas for particular heating end uses, particularly space heating, water heating, and industrial process heating, will all cut into the utility’s core markets. Ongoing technology development will increase these competitive pressures.
Some awareness of the implications of electricity competition for the utility is starting to appear, as suggested by the following passage from the business plan. However the statements suggest some misunderstanding of the mechanisms for delivering competition and its benefits:
NB Power is well-positioned in the transmission network, with access to Quebec, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Maine. However, NB Power also faces the following challenges:
* Traditional operating reserve benefits obtained through interconnections could be at risk.
* Large capacity interconnections will provide competitors with direct access to customers.
* NB Power has a large fixed component in its costs.
* Cross-subsidization still exists. This is for entire customer classes and for particular customer groupings within a class.
The reliability benefits of interconnections could be enhanced through the development of efficient markets. A properly constituted and operated independent system operator, as recommended in my paper “New Brunswick’s Power Failure” and as implemented around the world where electricity competition is being promoted, is the primary mechanism to solve the problem identified in the first bullet (“New Brunswick’s Power Failure”, pp. 36-37 and recommendation #13).
The second bullet refers to one of the major benefits of competition for customers. There is no good reason why all customers, both large and small, cannot participate in a competitive electricity market. Ontario’s natural gas market is deregulated and competitive for customers of all sizes, including homeowners. All classes of natural gas customers in Ontario have benefitted.
The third bullet refers to one of the major justifications for introducing competition–to prevent inefficient capital spending from occurring in the future. Competition makes energy producers accountable to customers by allowing customers to opt for alternative suppliers in the event that they can find more attractive arrangements elsewhere. Until competition is introduced, the mechanisms available to promote efficiency and accountability within NB Power-primarily government oversight and potentially regulation-are ineffective or absent.
The fourth bullet is important and should influence rate making decisions in preparation for competition. Rates should be designed on the basis of user pays. Cross-subsidies are inefficient and should be eliminated over a reasonable time horizon to minimize rate shock for those currently benefitting from cross-subsidies. While cross-subsidies are being eliminated, rates should be redesigned to provide customers with more effective options to reduce their costs. For example, the seasonal differential in cost of serving customers at the time of peak usage vs. the cost of serving customers when the demand for power is low should be reflected in price so that customers can manage their power consumption behaviour to minimize their costs.
Energy Probe has concerns with the “wheeling” model of competition put forward by NB Power, particularly in its presentation to the Standing Committee on Crown Corporations (Hansard May 29, 1997 pp. 10-20 ). “Wheeling” is a flawed method of implementing competition because of problems such simple bilateral trading creates for transmission management and load balancing. “Wheeling” can be made for work for a limited number of wholesale transactions but reliance on “wheeling” makes retail customer choice virtually impossible. In an extreme case, uncoordinated use of the transmission system is potentially dangerous since it could lead to a technological collapse of the transmission system. A pool-based alternative using an independent system operation should be pursued instead. As explained in my report “New Brunswick’s Power Failure”, an uncoordinated profusion of simple bilateral “retail wheeling” arrangements between individual producers and consumers is an ill advised approach (pp. 36-37).
It is difficult to understand why NB Power would propose a retail competition model that is unworkable and threatens reliability while overlooking successful models that are functioning to the advantage of customers in other jurisdictions.
A market design objective for New Brunswick is to ensure that owners of existing facilities with full incremental costs below the value of power will have incentives to continue to operate. The system should work such that, in general, facilities are “under-utilized” when their incremental costs (ignoring sunk capital costs) exceed market value. In this situation, although some generating capacity may “under-utilized”, the public interest in cost minimization is best served. From the perspective of planning an orderly transition to new a market environment, including providing employees with information relevant to their future, it is important to figure out what facilities are at risk of economic closure. As discussed in my previous studies, the Grand Lake coal-fired station is an example of a facility that could be beneficially closed immediately. Point Lepreau is also candidate for early closure in the medium term.
NB Power is developing partnerships with interests experienced in gas-fired power production for prospective developments at Coleson Cove, Courtney Bay, and Belledune. It is not clear that these locations and the proposed facilities there represent the highest value opportunities for gas-fired power development in the province. Rather than relying on NB Power to guide development, the interests of consumers and producers mediated through an efficient market should guide decisions on the scope, timing, and location of future electricity ventures. For markets to function best in redeveloping existing facilities, those facilities should be privatized.
3. The experience in other jurisdictions which have made the transition to electricity competition should be examined thoroughly to help guide the process in New Brunswick.
Coping with NB Power’s Nuclear Problems
The high costs and operating difficulties at Point Lepreau are the root cause of many of NB Power’s problems.
NB Power deserves recognition for noting in its most recent business plan that Point Lepreau is the utility’s primary “business challenge”. Although the business plan forecasts production averaging an extremely aggressive and probably unachievable 85% capacity factor for the plan period, it is important to remember that the previous plan assumed a 95% capacity factor.(2) For the first time, NB Power’s plans include financial risk analysis for nuclear production shortfalls.
Ontario Hydro’s reactors have suffered a pronounced decline with age, a pattern being repeated by Point Lepreau. The long term prospects for the reactor appear to be lower production than in the past or in the utility’s plans.
NB Power is assuming that Point Lepreau will operate well for an expected service life of 31 years. The weight of evidence gained from experience around the world suggests that early closure, at some time in the 20th to 25th year of service is likely.
To be prudent and to more accurately reflect its costs, NB Power should accelerate the depreciation of the reactor. One of NB Power’s recent accounting changes has been to effectively slow down the rate of nuclear depreciation. This is the result of the utility’s decision to stop separately depreciating pressure tubes and to report as income over time funds previously accumulated in recognition of depreciation for reactor pressure tubes.
In order to deal with the problems represented by Point Lepreau, a separate nuclear company should be set up. The creation of a separate nuclear company required to keep and report its own accounts would assist the public in tracking nuclear costs. As discussed in “New Brunswick’s Power Failure”, the management options to deal with the cost, production and safety problems at Point Lepreau are completely different than they are for the non-nuclear portion of NB Power. Facing the prospect of continued unfavourable cost and production pressures, it would prudent for the province to begin preparing for Point Lepreau’s replacement.
4. Energy Probe encourages the Taskforce to recommend that the results of the technical and economic study of Point Lepreau now underway by consultants be released publicly, that a separate nuclear company be set up for Point Lepreau, and that the province begin the process of preparing for a non-nuclear future.
Public Process
An open, informed public discussion about NB Power and its activities is necessary to help the province deal with its energy issues. Unfortunately, NB Power has taken some actions to impede this public discussion.
On March 10, 1997, counsel for NB Power wrote to Energy Probe, myself, and the directors of AIMS indicating the utility’s intention to proceed with a defamation suit against us. The letter complained about a number of statements made in the February report “Energizing New Brunswick Power” and the associated press release.
My reply, on behalf of Energy Probe and myself, is attached as Appendix C. The reply defended each of my statements which were impugned as factually correct and neither withdrew nor apologized for any statement Energy Probe has been associated with. Subsequent developments surrounding NB Power, particularly the publication of the AECB 1996 staff report on Point Lepreau, has continued to confirm the factual basis of the impugned statements.
NB Power’s counsel appeared to take particular exception to my procedural recommendation that at future Legislative Assembly reviews of NB Power presenters be required to testify under oath. There are several reasons I made this recommendation. The Legislative Assembly’s Standing Committee on Crown Corporations is NB Power’s de facto regulator. It is normal, as a matter of procedure and policy, for regulatory bodies to receive sworn testimony. As indicated in “Energizing New Brunswick Power”, NB Power’s previous presentations to the Committee were deficient in a number of respects. My concerns relate particularly to the utility’s statements about its reserve margin, and its finances. My conclusion was and is that the legislature and the public are entitled to better information than NB Power has provided. The recent Select Committee of the Ontario Legislature inquiring into Ontario Hydro’s nuclear problems had the power to examine witnesses under oath.
NB Power’s May 23, 1997 notice to the court to withdraw its liable action against us was a welcome decision to allow discussions about the status and future of New Brunswick’s power system take place in the open public arena, not in the courts.
NB Power’s behaviour towards some members of the press who reported on the lawsuit raises an acute concern with Energy Probe.
On May 15, 1997, I spoke to Dr. Stephen Salaff seeking any new information he might have learned about the lawsuit, which at the time was still pending. Dr. Salaff and his co-author, David McArthur are very well respected freelance journalists writing for small circulation energy and environmental journals and newletters.
Dr. Salaff recounted the following sequence of events: He had pursued NB Power to obtain an update on the law suit and the safety condition at Lepreau. He had directed his inquiries first through NB Power’s communications consultant David Hawkins, and then through Marcella Leblanc, NB Power’s director of public affairs. Dr. Salaff started these inquiries on Thursday May 8. Ms. Leblanc had promised him a reply on the lawsuit by May 14, his publication deadline. No reply on the lawsuit was forthcoming by the deadline, although the utility did provide information on the condition of Point Lepreau. Dr. Salaff called on May 15 to indicate that he was still interested in the answer. His call was received Jeffrey Carleton in the public affairs department who indicated that Ms. Leblanc was in meetings all day on the new business plan and that the utility could not comment on anything to do with the suit because everyone was working on the plan. Dr. Salaff indicated that the utility was large enough to find someone to answer his question. Mr. Carleton then asked who Dr. Salaff was working for. Upon being told that Dr. Salaff was writing for Northeast Power Report (NPR) and Electricity Daily, Mr. Carleton said that Dr. Salaff was being abusive. Mr. Carleton then phoned both NPR and Electricity Daily to complain, and while his complaint did not receive support from Robert Maritz, editor of Electricity Daily, NPR’s editor, Ron Dionne, did support Carleton. Subsequently, Mr. Dionne called Dr. Salaff to say that he believed Mr. Carleton’s assertion that Dr. Salaff was abusive and that NPR would no longer do business with him. Mr. Carleton later confirmed to me that he complained to Mr. Dionne about Dr. Salaff.
On May 15, 1997, I called Mr. Dionne to ask him about NB Power’s communication with him. He confirmed that he had spoken with NB Power and that Dr. Salaff would no longer work for NPR but refused to provide an explanation. Since last May, Dr. Salaff and Mr. McArthur have attempted to acquire new freelance assignments from NPR without success.
Energy Probe considers that the press plays an essential role in an open public discussion about NB Power and the province’s electricity future. Interference in the functioning of the press by any party is inappropriate.
This section of the report briefly addresses each of the questions raised in the discussion paper and follows its numbering system.
The entire electricity market is unlikely for the foreseeable future to become “fully competitive” since distribution and transmission entities will have complete or substantial monopoly power and should therefore be regulated. Regulated transmission and distribution entities should bear an obligation to deliver power from the competitive market. Generation entities should not have an obligation to serve, other than any contractual arrangements that they establish. Imposing an obligation to serve carries the quid pro quo of consumers having an obligation to pay the costs of the generator. Just as producers ought to have the freedom of entry to or exit from the electricity market, consumers should be empowered to make commercial supply arrangements with producers of their choice.
The protection of a monopoly franchise allows some of the business risk associated with spending on generating facility to be externalized onto ratepayers. Similarly, the protection of loan guarantees allows business risk to be externalized onto taxpayers. The dangers of an “obligation to serve” for power producers is illustrated by NB Power’s massive excess generation capacity and undue cost. A detailed technical discussion of these problems is provided in “New Brunswick’s Power Failure” pp. 14-17 and recommendation #6 and “Energizing NB Power” pp. 4-7.
As the experience in all other fully competitive electricity jurisdictions indicates, market prices provide a powerful incentive to producers to ensure that sufficient facilities are available to meet future requirements. A well designed and efficient market will ensure that supply and demand interact constructively. Efficient commodity prices for electricity will signal the need for new supply.
An efficient spot market for electricity ensures that freedom of exit for producers poses no reliability issue at the consumer level. In a functioning competitive market, if a supplier defaults or ceases operation, contractual obligations notwithstanding, its customers are left with the spot market to ensure continuity of supply.
b) Do you believe the market place will ensure a safe, continuous, reliable and adequate supply of electricity?
Alberta’s power market illustrates a successful Canadian example of how reliability is achieved. The Alberta experience is discussed in “New Brunswick’s Power Failure” pp. 31-33.
c) What do you think should be the responsibilities or obligations of electricity suppliers competing to supply electricity to New Brunswick customers? How do you enforce such responsibilities or obligations?
A regulatory agency, strengthened as set out in “New Brunswick’s Power Failure” p. 35, should oversee all monopoly functions. A regulatory agency could also undertake licensing of market suppliers to ensure compliance with the rules governing the system. All suppliers should be required to abide by a consistent and stringent set of environmental rules.
d) Should there be a default supplier to ensure that all customers are served?
As set out in “New Brunswick’s Power Failure” pp. 36-38, an efficient spot market can provide this function. Norway currently very successfully uses the spot market as the default supplier. Many customers, including homeowners, use the spot market as their supplier of choice.
Energy Probe considers that subsidies for disadvantaged groups are best delivered by government and, to maximize opportunities for the disadvantaged, best provided in cash rather than in kind. Energy pricing should be based on the principle of user pays.
NB Power alleges that cross-subsidies exist within its rates, however, in the current circumstances, without competitive benchmarks, such assessments are based on assumption-ridden cost of service studies. These studies have not been publicly reviewed in recent times to ensure that they reflect the rapidly changing circumstances in the energy market. NB Power’s assertions about cross subsidies should not be accepted at face value.
In the U.K., the introduction of competition initially led to rate increases for subsidized very large industrial consumers, but eventually the efficiency gains from competition overwhelmed the subsidy loss. As a result, large customers have seen their prices drop along with all other customer classes. See “New Brunswick’s Power Failure p. 29.
Response to Questions:
a) Do you believe the market should ultimately determine prices or should there continue to be subsidies provided to certain customers?
Regulators should set the prices for monopoly services and competitive markets should be allowed to price electricity commodities including kilowatt hours and many ancillary services like black start, regional voltage support, and automatic generation control.
b) If you favour continued subsidies, who should receive the subsidy and who should pay for the subsidy?
Subsidies to disadvantaged groups should be provided by government directly, not indirectly through the power system. The benefits of general rate subsidies designed to assist the disadvantaged confer benefit on many well to do parties.
NB Power’s stranded costs have arisen because of irresponsible decisions and wasteful practices. In an open electricity market, a large portion of NB Power’s liabilities could not be discharged. The bulk of these costs are not new but reflect past actions. However, despite NB Power’s gradual reductions in its capital spending excesses, its ongoing capital program appears to be adding to stranded cost. The current business plan is based on an assumption that capital spending will range between $70 and $85 million annually over the plan period yet no new capacity is being added. The previous plan had assumed annual capital spending of $100 million.
Any discussion of stranded cost minimization should reflect not only on liabilities minimization but also on asset protection. An important deficiency in the current business plan is the absence of any details on how the utility plans to maintaining the public’s assets under its control in good condition in light of reduced capital and operating spending. The trade-off between spending control and maintenance of asset quality is an inherently difficult management issue. The focus of asset management should be the long-term public interest. As noted, relative to the previous business plan, forecasted capital spending is down by up to $15 to $30 million per year. No explanation is provided as to where the cuts will be made or their implications. Based on published information, the public has no assurance that the utility is not “mining” or “harvesting” its assets.
New Brunswickers would be well served by avoiding the mistakes made by Ontario Hydro in failing to maintains is system in adequate condition. During its restructuring, Ontario Hydro has publicly admitted to starving its hydro-electric assets of maintenance over a period of decades. A public audit of NB Power, as previously recommended by the Standing Committee on Crown Corporations, should be charged with independently confirming the current maintenance condition of the system and assessing the planned maintenance programs.
Energy Probe’s assessment is that customers are not currently servicing fully the nuclear waste disposal and decommissioning portion of NB Power’s existing liabilities. One of the most important issues to deal with in developing a program to manage stranded cost is ensuring that nuclear waste disposal and decommissioning requirements are fully funded.
a) In your view, do you believe that the introduction of competition will result in stranded costs for NB Power?
NB Power’s variable costs exceed Hydro Quebec’s industrial power prices and are close to the total cost of power from new gas-fired cogeneration facilities. Therefore, an open power market should be expected to “strand” most NB Power’s obligations.
b) How should the amount of costs be determined? What should be done to minimize or mitigate stranded costs?
The only way to objectively quantify stranded cost is to privatize NB Power’s assets and liabilities as advocated in my previous two studies. Without privatization, estimates of stranded cost are unverifiable. Until privatization, the government should not proffer any further loan guarantees and should treat existing obligations as preferred to new liabilities as if the existing obligations were a first mortgage and new obligations were a second mortgage.
c) How should stranded costs be recovered? In full? Over how long?
My report “New Brunswick’s Power Failure” discusses the options for stranded cost recovery at pp. 37-38 and recommends recovery from taxpayers as the most efficient method and recovery from ratepayers as a second best measure.
Since the government has guaranteed or directly assumed NB Power’s debt, the people of New Brunswick are required to pay the stranded debt cost. As a result, there is no responsible method to avoid recovering the full amount of stranded debt obligations. Similarly, there is no responsible way to avoid fully paying the stranded cost, what ever it might be, of nuclear waste disposal and decommissioning.
d) Should customers be allowed to escape or bypass stranded costs by exiting from the incumbent utility by either installing their own generation or switching to alternative suppliers?
Energy Probe believes that all customers, including self generators, should make an equitable contribution to stranded cost recovery. The purpose of restructuring is not to allow any parties avoid paying their fair share for stranded cost but to create a sustainable system that can avoid creating such problems in future.
a) Which arrangement best meets the needs of New Brunswick?
My previous reports outline a comprehensive program to create a competitive power system in New Brunswick designed to maximize the benefits to consumers while capping the liabilities on taxpayers. The main features of this proposal are: disaggregate transmission, distribution, generation, and system dispatch functions; create strong regulatory mechanisms to oversee monopoly functions; encourage competition among generators; strengthen environmental regulation; and, privatize the former components of NB Power.
b) Should customer choice be provided? For certain customer classes only? For all customer classes?
Energy policy should not attempt to provide customers with choice in the sense of establishing alternative options but it should allow choice so that alternative options can develop in the market place. All customers should have the same rights to shop for power. Discrimination between the rights of customers are inherently subjective, vulnerable to manipulation, unfair, and injurious to efficiency. When Ontario deregulated its natural gas commodity market in 1985, all customers regardless of size gained the same right to shop and all customers have benefitted with reduced energy costs.
c) Which customer class(es) would derive the most benefits from competition and customer choice? Would any be disadvantaged?
With the exception of Peru, all examples around the world of transitions to fully competitive electricity markets have demonstrated a reduction in rates. In Peru, the transition to competition was accompanied by elimination of large-scale subsidies from government.
d) What should be the pace at which competition should be introduced? Should it be introduced in stages?
As advocated in both my previous studies, the transition to full competition should be as rapid as can be achieved consistent with maintenance of reliable service. The process of designing efficient new market mechanisms requires a number of years of effort by qualified experts.
e) Should New Brunswick be part of a larger competitive electricity market? E.g. Maritimes, Eastern Canada, Northeast US.
The best interests of consumers lies in maximizing their competitive purchasing options. The larger the market consumers can access, the better off they will be. In addition, increasing the size of the competing interconnected market should reduce the cost of maintaining reliability reserves.
a) Would having NB Power’s transmission and distribution activities operating under a “code of conduct” be sufficient for competition in New Brunswick?
Integrated monopolies are inconsistent with competition. Effective, competitive markets require competitive institutions. Real separation of ownership rather than paper separation guided by “codes of conduct” are required if competition is to flourish. New Brunwick’s electricity system should be disaggregated into its functional components and divested through privatization.
b) Should an ISO and PX be established in New Brunswick:
i) as separate entities? ii) or as one combined entity?
An integrated ISO/PX would facilitate a competitive market best. See “New Brunswick’s Power Failure” pp. 36-38.
c) Who should be represented on the boards of the ISO and the PX. To whom are the ISO and PX accountable? Who regulates them?
A variety of alternatives are used around the world. The Ontario Market Design committee has considered this question and opted for an “interested” board composed primarily of stakeholders. In Energy Probe’s view, if the ISO/PX is to have any regulatory functions, its board should be independent.
d) How should NB Power plan and operate its system in the interim?
NB Power should be closely overseen by an independent regulator in the interim before its breakup and the introduction of competition to ensure minimization of stranded cost, protection of assets, maintenance of reliability, and an efficient transition to competition. The regulator may also have to prevent anti-competitive activities in the interim period.
e) If conflicts arise in the interim, what mechanisms should be put in place to resolve them?
An independent regulatory agency should resolve potential conflicts in the interim period.
In Energy Probe’s view, some of the key environmental deficiencies of New Brunswick’s electricity system are the absence of secure and adequate funding for nuclear waste disposal, the environmental unacceptability of continuing to mine coal in New Brunswick, and the underutilized potential for cogeneration in New Brunswick. The government discussion paper does not deal with any of these concerns.
Nuclear waste disposal and decommissioning should be funded in an account external to and legal unavailable to the waste producer. NB Coal, a subsidiary of NB Power, should be closed and the environment in the coal mining areas restored as well as possible. For a further discussion of the environmental and economic need to close NB Coal, see “Energizing NB Power” pp. 7-9. Cogeneration, fueled by natural gas and other fuels, should be aggressively promoted, primarily through the creation of an open market where the benefits of cogeneration can best be realize.
a) In your view, should demand side management be maintained in a competitive environment? Should public policy be used to examine/promote the continuation and expansion of demand side management?
One of the benefits of competition in the supply of electricity is to help identify those energy conservation and demand side management (DSM) programs that are cost effective and those that are not. Previously, utilities with the obligation to serve often thought that DSM in general was a low cost option when compared to the development of new generation, yet in many cases found that apparently cost effective programs could not be operated without subsidies. The development of competition has revealed that DSM programs requiring subsidies are generally not cost-effective. In jurisdictions making the switch to competition, debt associated with DSM programs is now recognized as a stranded cost.
Even if the Taskforce were to take the view that subsidized DSM was desirable, that would not justify supporting the continuation of NB Power. NB Power’s demand reduction programs appear to have had little effect on demand.
The provincial government and the regulator should aggressively encourage energy efficiency and discourage waste. Energy producers, like NB Power, have a conflict of interest in promoting conservation since it is inconsistent with maximizing energy sales. Any proposal to rely on energy producers to promote conservation is likely to fail.
b) Do you feel that demand side management programs are necessary in a competitive environment?
Demand side management programs can be accommodated in a competitive environment. Some energy conservation technologies, such as industrial cogeneration, are unlikely to flourish without competition. Experience with competitive markets around the world indicates that rational pricing reflecting the balance of supply and demand is a particularly effective signal to energy conservation at times of scarcity. In addition, the regulator of the transmission and distribution entities can promote demand side management. If subsidies are considered necessary and desirable to maintain DSM programs, the cost of those subsidies can be recovered from transmission users.
c) Should the system operator recognize environmental considerations in making dispatch decisions? Should customers be given appropriate information enabling them to choose to buy “green” power, even if it results in higher energy costs?
One of the guiding principles we recommend for creating an effective independent system operator is that it be a pure intermediary-never holding title to power-only creating the conditions for it to be traded efficiently. Since the independent system operator should not have an interest in power produced or traded, it should not be responsible for the environmental impacts of power production or social considerations related to consumer behaviour. Environmental responsibility should rest with polluters-those whose facilities emit noxious substances, create health risks, or diminish habitat.
System operators can help to facilitate markets for “green” power. Energy Probe’s position on green power is set out at http://www.nextcity.com/EnergyProbe/OntarioHydro/reports/scoping.htm and http://www.nextcity.com/EnergyProbe/OntarioHydro/reports/Macdsup.htm.
d) Should public policy require that a certain portion of power supplied be “green”?
Government should aggressively encourage energy conservation and renewable energy. A variety of mechanisms exist to achieve this. The program for a renewable power auction in the U.K. has proven very successful. Energy Probe’s preference is that the market not be skewed artificially to benefit particular technologies.
a) Do you believe that the Government should change the rules affecting NB Power such that they would be treated the same as private companies in relation to taxation, rate of return, dividends, and debt levels?
All participants in the power market should pay their costs, including taxes. However, since NB Power would be bankrupt if it were not for the protection afforded by its monopoly status and the provincial loan guarantees, there is no economic opportunity make it pay its fair share of taxes.
b) Should the Government change the capitalization of NB Power by using public funds to reduce its debt level thus, placing it on a sound financial footing similar to a private company?
Protection of the taxpayer requires that NB Power be prevented from incurring any new liabilities. Taxpayers are likely to pay a severe penalty if NB Power is allowed to continue operations, particularly if it is excused of any of its costs. Rather, NB Power should be wound up through a process of disaggregation and privatization of the parts.
c) Do you feel that the Electric Power Act should be changed to alter the rules under which NB Power must operate to better match that of a private organization?
See the previous answer.
d) Should NB Power be expected to participate in programs resulting from the social policies of the Provincial government? If so, should the government compensate NB Power for any extra costs it should incur or should these extra costs be included in the regulated tariffs charged to all customers?
The social policies of the provincial government should be carried out outside of the energy system of the province.
e) Would you be in favour of the Government selling all or part of NB Power? If only part, what part do you think should be sold?
Energy Probe advocates privatization of NB Power on grounds of environmental protection, taxpayer protection, and long term cost minimization within the energy system.
a) In your view, how should NB Power be regulated in the future?
Electricity transmission and distribution entities in New Brunswick should be regulated by an independent quasi-judicial body in an open public process. Power producers and marketers may also be subject to licensing administered through the regulator or the ISO/PX.
b) Should all competitors be subject to the same form of regulation?
The principle of regulatory equality for all should apply.
c) Who should regulate the transmission and distribution tariffs?
d) Who should regulate any ISO?
The ISO/PX should be regulated through an independent quasi-judicial regulatory body and also subject to all prevailing competition law.
e) What should be the role of the existing Public Utilities Board?
The existing Public Utilities Board should be strengthened and empowered to oversee NB Power in the interim and also given the responsibility to oversee and participate in the creation of a competitive market.
f) Who should be responsible for overseeing the introduction of competition?
Many models exist around the world. A particularly attractive model was the one used in the State of Victoria in Australia. There a government ministry, supported by recognized experts, supervised the creation of a competitive market. A detailed discussion of the Victoria model is available at http://www.nextcity.com/main/article/ep/97-12-05-EnergyAnalects.htm.
g) How should disputes be settled?
1. The Ottawa Citizen, May 9 199, “Ontario will block Hydro bid to increase debt: Utility has ‘borrowed to the limit,’ energy minister says”.
2. Capacity factor is the ratio of actual production divided by what production would have been had the facility operated at its rated capacity for the entire period. Ontario Hydro’s nuclear capacity factor in 1997 was 60.8% and the capacity factor of Point Lepreau was 61.8% (based on StatsCan 57-001-xpb).
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Frank Leboeuf
ESPN FC Analyst/Commentator
FIFA World Cup champion Frank Leboeuf joined ESPN FC in 2007 as a soccer commentator and analyst. The former French international central defender contributes to ESPN FC programs across television and digital platforms, and will also serve in various studio analyst duties surrounding ESPN’s EURO 2016 coverage from France.
In 1998, Leboeuf helped his home country win the FIFA World Cup, where he put on a near-flawless defensive performance and famously marked out Ronaldo in the France versus Brazil final. In 2000, Leboeuf lifted the trophy once again at the European Championship, where France defeated Italy 2-1.
Leboeuf began his club career in 1986 in the lower divisions of the French leagues before moving to Laval in 1988. From 1991-1996, Leboeuf made his name with Strasbourg before joining Chelsea FC in the English Premier League. He won two Football Association Challenge Cups, one League Cup, one UEFA Super Cup, one Charity Shield and one UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup with The Blues before joining club Olympique Marseille in 2001, and finished his career in Qatar.
Upon retirement from the game, Leboeuf relocated to Los Angeles to become an actor, pursuing a passion he had put on hold for his soccer career. After graduating from the prestigious Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute, Leboeuf has acted in several theater productions, as well as appeared in multiple films and television programs. He was recently seen in the Oscar-nominated Stephen Hawking biopic, “The Theory of Everything,” in which he played a doctor who tells the physicist that he will never be able to speak again. Currently, Leboeuf continues to act in various projects while still contributing his vast soccer knowledge with ESPN FC.
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In the past 20 years, Canadian women have gone backwards. In 1995, Canada was No. 1 on the United Nations Gender Equality Index. Today Canada ranks 25th.
Canada was once a leader in promoting women’s social, economic and political equality. But now basic programs and services that are foundations for women’s equality are missing, or inadequate. Women need affordable childcare, equal pay, adequate housing and legal aid, access to sexual and reproductive care in every part of the country, and just and prompt responses to violence by police and courts.
In November 2016, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) released a comprehensive and detailed set of recommendations to Canada. A summary of the recommendations can be found here.
The recommendations are clear: Federal, provincial and territorial governments must address women’s inequality in a planned, comprehensive, and strategic way. The Committee notes a National Gender Equality Plan must take an intersectional approach to address the diversity of women’s experiences of discrimination in Canada, including the experiences of Indigenous women, women with disabilities, racialized women, single mothers, and LBTI.
FAFIA has launched a national campaign, Step Up for Women’s Equality, to advocate for the implementation of the CEDAW recommendations.
It is time for serious and co‑ordinated action. Canada needs to STEP UP!
The United Nations CEDAW Committee recommends that Canada implement a National Gender Equality Plan, so that all levels of government can work together to fulfill their human rights obligations to women. Women in Canada have waited long enough!
FAFIA and over a hundred organizations and individuals have called on the federal government to implement this recommendation, alongside other recommendations made by the United Nations CEDAW Committee.
Women’s organizations in British Columbia echo the call for action on the CEDAW recommendations and are urging the Government of British Columbia to step up their action on women’s human rights. Read more about the BC call here.
Now is the time for women’s rights in Canada to be fully realized! Join us in calling for a National Gender Equality Plan! Join us in calling for the implementation of the United Nations CEDAW recommendations!
You can support this campaign by contacting your MP. It is time for Canada to step up, take concrete action, and implement a National Gender Equality Plan.
Read the press release here. Watch the press conference here and the Q&A
Support for the Campaign
Senator Marilou McPhedran’s speech to the Senate (February 14, 2017). Listen to the audio clip here.
Ontario Human Rights Commission supports full implementation of CEDAW recommendations and national gender equality plan. Read OHRC’s letter here
Sheila Malcolmson, Status of Women Critic, makes a statement calling on the government to Step Up for Women’s Equality! (February 1, 2017)
Join the campaign
Organizational Affiliation
Thank you, Hitomi Yokota, for supporting the Step Up for Women’s Equality campaign by designing the campaign logo!
100% of our effort come from generous donors. Support us now!
Join the Feminist Alliance for International Action and help change the future!
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Copyright 2021 © FAFIA-AFAI | All Rights Reserved. Website design by Biju Créative.
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Fante's Inferno
A Circle For Fans of Film and Comics
Tag Archives: Bob Layton
Off the Spinner Rack: February 1981
This week I made a return trip to The Newsstand at Mike’s Amazing World of Comics to revisit the comics I bought (and missed out on) in February 1981. Comic book collecting was a big part of my life up to my late teens, and while I can’t remember a time in which my brother and I weren’t buying comic books, it really does amaze me as to how many books we missed out on back then. So here’s a look back at our purchases 35 years ago this month:
Jonah Hex #48
“The Vulture Creek Massacre” – written by Michael Fleisher, penciled by Dick Ayers, inked by Tony DeZuniga
“Devil’s Power” – Written by Ted Skimmer, penciled by Ross Andru, inked by Tony DeZuniga
Moon Knight #7
“The Moon Kings” – written by Doug Moench, penciled by Bill Sienkiewicz, inked by Klaus Janson
Rom #18
“And a Child Shall Deceive Them” – written by Bill Mantlo, penciled by Sal Buscema, inked by Al Milgrom
“Droid World” – Written by Archie Goodwin, penciled by Carmine Infantino, inked by Gene Day
Uncanny X-Men #145
“Kidnapped” – Written by Chris Claremont, penciled by Dave Cockrum, inked by Josef Rubinstein
Five comic books purchased that month (cover dated May 1981) for a total of $2.50 ($6.52 today adjusted for inflation). Jonah Hex #48 is one of only two issues of that title in our collection (the first was #45), and that purchase was most likely based on Tony DeZuniga’s amazing cover. I’m not sure why we didn’t stick with the title, but it’s now on my list to hunt for at the next comic con I attend. Moench and Sinkiewicz’s run on Moon Knight was by far one of my favorites of that era, and by the time the powerful cover for Moon Knight #7 hit the spinner rack that month, we were already hooked on the title. We had purchased Rom sporadically over the first ten issues of the run, but seeing Rom and the X-Men on the cover of issue #18 drawn by two of my favorite artists (if only Frank Miller and Terry Austin had collaborated more!) made this a must have. By February 1981 I was probably a bigger fan of the Star Wars comics than the films (that changed once we got cable TV and Star Wars: A New Hope played about 50 times a month), and those books were my introduction to the art of the great Carmine Infantino. But the Uncanny X-Men was by far my favorite title throughout the 80’s, in part due to Dave Cockrum’s second run on the book which began with issue #145. While I loved the stories from Claremont, Byrne and Austin’s run, it was Claremont and Cockrum’s stories that got me emotionally invested in the characters.
Missed Comics:
“The Kingpin Must Die!” – Written and penciled by Frank Miller, inked by Klaus Janson
“Blacklash – And the Burning” – Written by David Michelinie, penciled by John Romita Jr., inked by Bob Layton
Two more rare misses for titles that were consistent purchases for us back then, though I did recently pick up a copy of Daredevil #170 at a comic con recently. Iron Man #146 was one of only two issues we missed during the Michelinie/Romita Jr./Layton run.
Tagged Al Milgrom, Archie Goodwin, Bill Mantlo, Bill Sienkiewicz, Bob Layton, Carmine Infantino, Chris Claremont, comic books, Comics, Daredevil, Dave Cockrum, David Michelinie, DC Comics, Dick Ayers, Frank Miller, Gene Day, Iron Man, John Romita Jr., Jonah Hex, Josef Rubinstein, Klaus Janson, Marvel Comics, Michael Fleisher, Moon Knight, Rom, Ross Andru, Sal Buscema, Star Wars, Ted Skimmer, Tony DeZuniga, Uncanny X-Men
Comics, Uncategorized
Off the Spinner Rack: April 1981
This week I decided to take another trip down comic book memory lane via the Newsstand Time Machine at Mike’s Amazing World of Comics and look up which comics we had bought (and missed out on) during a particular month of our prime collecting years of the late 70’s to mid 80’s. Rather than using my usual 30 year benchmark I picked a year at random and decided on a look back at the comics that went on sale in April 1981. I narrowed it down to the following purchases:
Written by Doug Moench, art by Bill Sienkiewicz
The Uncanny X-Men #147
Written by Chris Claremont, art by Dave Cockrum and Josef Rubinstein
What If #27
Written by Mary Jo Duffy, art by Jerry Bingham and John Stuart
Written by David Michelinie, art by John Romita Jr. and Bob Layton
Written by Mike W. Barr, art by Walter Simonson and Tom Palmer
Not surprisingly, our purchases (totalling $2.75) were entirely Marvel. But I am surprised at how few comics we bought off the spinner rack that month. I wasn’t reading Amazing Spider-Man or Captain America at that point, though those titles and Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man would soon be consistent purchases. Of the issues listed above, What If? #27 was and still is a particular favorite (see my earlier post revisiting this issue). Each of these issues were part of memorable runs that I still reach into the old box o’ comics to read time and again, particularly Claremont/Cockrum/Rubinstein’s run on Uncanny X-Men. I’ll still take these stories over most of the comics published today.
Story and art by John Byrne
Written by Frank Miller, art by Frank Miller and Klaus Janson
These two missed issues were a surprise to me. Byrne’s run on FF and Miller/Janson’s on Daredevil are still favorites of mine from that era, and I’m still not sure why we hadn’t picked up these two issues off the spinner rack back in April 1981 or as back issues over the last 30 odd years (I finally read FF #232 in its original form in IDW’s John Byrne Artist Edition). They’re now high on my list of books to seek out and buy at the New York based conventions this year, along with several other titles available that month such as Amazing Spider-Man, Captain America, New Teen Titans, Jonah Hex and Warlord.
When I cut back significantly on buying comics over the last year, I wondered if that was pretty much the end of collecting for me. But discovering what I missed out on over the years has lit the fire in me to keep collecting (even if they are primarily back issues), complete runs started way back when, and start a few more along the way.
Tagged Bill Sienkiewicz, Bob Layton, Chris Claremont, comic books, Comics, Daredevil, Dave Cockrum, David Michelinie, DC Comics, Doug Moench, Fantastic Four, Frank Miller, Iron Man, Jerry Bingham, John Byrne, John Romita Jr., John Stuart, Josef Rubinstein, Klaus Janson, Marvel Comics, Mary Jo Duffy, Mike W. Barr, Moon Knight, Star Wars, Tom Palmer, Walt Simonson, What If Phoenix Had Not Died?, What If?
Vision and The Scarlet Witch #1 (Marvel Comics, November 1982)
Digital Comic Pickups – New Comic Book Day 11/4
Cloak and Dagger #1 (Marvel Comics, October 1983)
Off the Spinner Rack: Revisiting Comics from May 1983
Movies for Memorial Day 2020
Fante’s Inferno
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Flo Flo Music
Get the music you want …
Flex News
Ray Flores
Ray Flores has been an educator for 22 years and is the Head Director at Briscoe Middle School in Northside ISD in San Antonio, TX. He has also been named Educator of the Year for his campus twice in the last 10 years.
His primary instrument is percussion, and his experience ranges from concert bands, jazz band, steel drum ensemble, percussion ensembles and marching band. His marching band arrangements have been consistent First Division award winners at UIL as well as UIL State Marching Contest. Ray is also an accomplished concert band director and has had consistent success at UIL Concert and Sightreading Contests.
As a composer, Ray composes for a wide genre. His percussion ensembles are published by Row-Loff Productions & Flo Flo Music. Several of his compositions are on Prescribed Music Lists in several states including the Texas UIL PML. He also does commission work for full orchestra, concert bands and even has written music for digital media.
He has been married to his lovely wife Jennifer for 22 years. They have two wonderful children, Jordan & Callie, and two cats, Mr. Whiskers and Alice.
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QNDE
Virtual Conference: July 28 – 30, 2021
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About QNDE
QNDE, as a field of endeavor, which is a highly interdisciplinary that involves the use of various techniques to characterize materials and to detect both manufacturing and service related anomalies in materials and structures which are important to safety in essentially all industries. The Annual Review is a meeting in which both advances in fundamental knowledge and new engineering applications in several measurement technologies — ultrasonics, eddy currents, X-rays, thermosonics and thermography, among others — are reported and discussed. For more than four decades, the QNDE Conference has been identified as the world's leading research/engineering conference in this specialized engineering field.
The Review of Progress in Nondestructive Evaluation Conference ("RPQNDE Conference") was established by Donald O. Thompson to be a forum for advancing the science of Nondestructive Evaluation ("NDE") and to be a focal point for the growing NDE scientific community. Over most of its history, the Conference has been run by QNDE Programs, a non-profit organization established by Don.
In Spring 2020, in an effort to encourage longevity and continued success, QNDE Programs and ASME entered into discussions to formally transfer the conference over to ASME.
On August 26, 2020 ASME and QNDE Programs announced that going forward ASME will run the RPQNDE Conference. ASME is committed to continue the vision of D.O. Thompson that it be the premier conference in the field.
We hope that you will join us for the 48th Annual Review of Progress in Quantitative Nondestructive Evaluation (and our second virtual conference) scheduled for July 28 – 30, 2021.
About the ASME Nondestructive Evaluation, Diagnosis, & Prognosis Division
The NDE division aims to be the essential resource for mechanical engineers and other technical professionals throughout the world for disseminating technical knowledge associated with diagnosis and prognosis of mechanical systems as well as functional system adaptation to partially damaged state of the mechanical system. The division will interface with other divisions and groups within ASME and other professional engineering societies to enhance public safety and the quality of life.
The NDE division's mission is to serve global engineering communities by advancing, disseminating and applying NDE/NDT knowledge for overall mechanical system safety, reliability improvement; and communicating the excitement of emerging technologies in the NDE discipline.
About ASME
ASME is a not-for-profit membership organization that enables collaboration, knowledge sharing, career enrichment, and skills development across all engineering disciplines, toward a goal of helping the global engineering community develop solutions to benefit lives and livelihoods. Founded in 1880 by a small group of leading industrialists, ASME has grown through the decades to include more than 140,000 members in 151 countries.
For more than 100 years, ASME has successfully enhanced performance and safety worldwide through its renowned codes and standards, conformity assessment programs, training courses, and journals.
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