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__label__cc	0.559678	0.440322	Welcome the Air Commandos Home HarborWalk Village, Destin, FL – April 13, 2017 from 4pm to 5pm – Welcome the Air Commando’s home from their 450 mile Ruck March to honor fallen heroes. The Air Commando Ruckers are coming to HarborWalk village Thursday April 13th between 4pm & 5pm! This local team of sixteen Air Commandos from Hurlburt Field AFB are Ruck Marching 450 miles from Tampa, home of the United States Special Operations Command, to Hurlburt Field, home of the Air Force Special Operations Command in honor of our fallen heroes and as a way to raise donations for the Air Commando Association. The Air Commando Association provides immediate and critically needed support and financial assistance to our wounded Air Force Special Operators, as well as to their families, to include but not limited to: uncovered benevolent expenses, travel, lodging, medical rehabilitation and treatments not otherwise covered. Secondarily, our program supports other charitable organizsations with similar objectives and provides four annual scholarships to children of Air Commandos. Join us at HarborWalk Village! Stop by the main stage this Thursday April 13th, at 4pm to get your free flag and wave the Air Commando’s on as they ruck march through the village! Music will be playing and the crowds will be waving their flags as we support those who have supported us! The Rotary Club of Destin Hosts the 5th Annual Cajun Crawfish Bash Ruth’s Chris Steak House to Host Bourbon Blending Party Featuring Spirits...	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3144
__label__wiki	0.768924	0.768924	Tributes to anti-fracking campaigner Deb Kay By Ruth Hayhurst on July 10, 2020 • ( Leave a comment ) Deb Kay outside Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road site in Lancashire. Photo: Used with the owner’s consent Opponents of fracking have paid tribute to Deb Kay, a long-standing campaigner whose funeral was held this morning in Irlam, Salford. She died, aged 55, on 19 June 2020 after a heart attack. Friends and activists paid their respects by socially-distancing along the road to the suspended exploration site at Barton Moss, near her home. This was where Deb Kay began campaigning against fracking in 2013, when IGas drilled for shale gas. After work ended at Barton Moss in 2014, Deb Kay supported protection camps at Woolston, near Warrington and Upton in Cheshire, Borras near Wrexham, Kirby Misperton in North Yorkshire, Horse Hill in Surrey and Preston New Road in Lancashire. Deb Kay outside Maple Farm, near Cuadrilla’s fracking site in Lancashire. Photo: Used with the owner’s consent Close friend and fellow campaigner, Crissy, remembers her as “caring, principled, honest, loyal, kind, generous and funny and a unique and wonderful friend”. “Debs supported the Barton Moss protection camp as a local. She was passionate about protecting the moss from the oil and gas industry. She was very angry about fracking and she remained on the campaign thereafter, turning out whenever and wherever her work and family commitments would allow. “Debs always did what she thought was right. She would never be silent about something if she thought it was unjust or wrong. “She always spoke out for the underdog. She welcomed new people to the camp and included everyone.” Another campaigner, writing on social media, said: “Big personality. Never afraid to speak her mind and go against the grain. A sad loss.” At the Woolston camp, Deb Kay was described as: “the full-time security officer, mess officer, top cook and bottle-washer, chief camp jester, fearless warrior and universally loved confidante and she was always the last one to bed, ensuring that everyone on camp was safe and well before she retired to bed herself.” Another campaigner said: “Just thinking about Deb’s rota at Woolston. She was a force to be reckoned with.” Crissy said Deb Kay insisted that Woolston camp was cleaned after it closed: “Debs was determined the work would be done and wouldn’t have it any other way. It was a huge job, but through her persistence the camp was cleaned and in the tradition of anti frackers, she ensured the land was left better and cleaner than we found it.” Deb Kay. Photo: Used with the owner’s consent Deb Kay was a small woman but was fearless in the face of people she perceived as her enemy. She was pictured outside Preston New Road standing in front of a row of police officers. Crissy said: “She looked as if she was in charge.” She is also remembered as a camp comedian. Crissy said: “Debs was known as a great source of humour. She was famous for her antics and mischief, boosting the morale of those around her”. Deb Kay lived in Irlam all her life. She worked with reception-age children as a lunchtime supervisor at Fiddlers Lane Primary School. A post on the school’s Facebook page said: “Debbie was a close friend to so many and words cannot describe how much her loss will affect us all. “She was an irreplaceable part of the lives of students and staff. Her love and passion for Fiddlers Lane and our community will never be forgotten. “She touched everyone’s lives with her humour, warmth and enthusiasm. Our staff, governors and pupils send our deepest condolences to her family and friends. “She has left such a massive hole in her community. Everyone loved her, everybody adored her.” Deb Kay had a heart attack at the hospital bedside of her husband, Stephen, who was being treated for cancer. Although surgeons tried to save her life, she did not survive. Stephen died less than two days later. His funeral is also held today. Sharon O’Dell a lifelong family friend and neighbour said : “I have known Ste and Deb for about 40 years, mine and Steve’s family living over the road from each other and our parents being close friends. So, it’s only natural all the kids would be close, Steve’s sister being my best friend still to this day. “It has been an honour being asked and trusted by the children to arrange for their final journey, and it was made so much easier because of the courageous way they have handled it. I just hope I have done them proud. “I’m going to miss them both dearly xx.” Deb Kay leaves a son and daughter, a grandson, her mother and father and an extended family of nephews and nieces. A music video, published earlier this month about the anti-fracking movement, included a tribute to her. Categories: Opposition, slider Tagged as: Barton Moss, Borras, campaigner, Deb Kay, Fiddlers Lane Primary School, Fracking, funeral, Horse Hill, Irlam, Kirby Misperton, opponent, Preston New Road, tribute, Upton, Woolston Campaigners complain to MP as council stands firm on committee lockdown rules Campaigner goes to court over oil and gas clean-up costs	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3146
__label__cc	0.617199	0.382801	Shop Brandy All about brandy How do they make brandy? Brandy originates from the distillation of wine. Distillers use a wide variety of wines to craft the spirit, including fruit wines from apples, pears, cherries, plums and other fruits. That's how they make fruit brandies with many different notes like applejack and French eau-de-vie. After the distilling process, the producers let brandy age in a wooden casket, so the liquor achieves its typical caramel color. If the producer chooses a casket they already used for other liquors, the spirit will have a more complex flavor. Most fruit brandies are unaged. Brandy's beginnings Winemakers invented brandy accidentally centuries ago while trying to make their wines more "compact" to ship them more easily. They wanted to remove some of the water from the wines to transport them more easily, then add the same amount of water once the barrels reached their destinations. Soon, they realized this distilled spirit had a way more complex flavor than the original wine. They changed their minds: instead of watering it down again, they started to sell it as "brandy." What does VS and VSOP mean? These are ratings to determine the age of a brandy. VS brandies have aged at least three years, while the VSOP brandies have aged at least four years. VS stands for "very special" and VSOP for "very special old pale." There are also XO (extra old) brandies, which age for at least six and a half years. Lastly, there are Hors d'Age or vintage spirit aged brandies that originated 10 years or more before sale. Are you ready to choose your own? Search brandy varieties on Driz online or see if we're already in your city. You can click these links to search for Drizly in your city, and look for liquor stores on Drizly near you. Yellow/Amber	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3147
__label__wiki	0.672867	0.672867	The stage-dependent roles of Ldb1 and functional redundancy with Ldb2 in mammalian retinogenesis Keren Gueta, Ahuvit David, Tsadok Cohen, Yotam Menuchin-Lasowski, Hila Nobel, Ginat Narkis, LiQi Li, Paul Love, Jimmy de Melo, Seth Blackshaw, Heiner Westphal, Ruth Ashery-Padan Development 2016 143: 4182-4192; doi: 10.1242/dev.129734 Keren Gueta 1Department of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel Ahuvit David Tsadok Cohen 2Mammalian Genes and Development, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA Yotam Menuchin-Lasowski Hila Nobel Ginat Narkis LiQi Li 3Program on Genomics of Differentiation, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA Paul Love Jimmy de Melo 4Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA Seth Blackshaw Heiner Westphal Ruth Ashery-Padan ORCID record for Ruth Ashery-Padan For correspondence: ruthash@post.tau.ac.il Supp info PDF + SI The Lim domain-binding proteins are key co-factor proteins that assemble with LIM domains of the LMO/LIM-HD family to form functional complexes that regulate cell proliferation and differentiation. Using conditional mutagenesis and comparative phenotypic analysis, we analyze the function of Ldb1 and Ldb2 in mouse retinal development, and demonstrate overlapping and specific functions of both proteins. Ldb1 interacts with Lhx2 in the embryonic retina and both Ldb1 and Ldb2 play a key role in maintaining the pool of retinal progenitor cells. This is accomplished by controlling the expression of the Vsx2 and Rax, and components of the Notch and Hedgehog signaling pathways. Furthermore, the Ldb1/Ldb2-mediated complex is essential for generation of early-born photoreceptors through the regulation of Rax and Crx. Finally, we demonstrate functional redundancy between Ldb1 and Ldb2. Ldb1 can fully compensate the loss of Ldb2 during all phases of retinal development, whereas Ldb2 alone is sufficient to sustain activity of Lhx2 in both early- and late-stage RPCs and in Müller glia. By contrast, loss of Ldb1 disrupts activity of the LIM domain factors in neuronal precursors. An intricate regulatory network exists that is mediated by Ldb1 and Ldb2, and promotes RPC proliferation and multipotency; it also controls specification of mammalian retina cells. LIM domain proteins regulate cell proliferation and cell fate in many regions of the CNS. These proteins function within complexes that assemble together with LIM domain-binding (Ldb) proteins (Matthews et al., 2008). The composition of the Ldb-LIM complex is crucial for determining the stage-specific and cell type-specific gene expression profile in multiple developmental contexts (Matthews and Visvader, 2003; Bhati et al., 2008; Love et al., 2014). In this study, we seek to provide insight into the role of Ldb proteins in the control of mouse retinal development. The retina is a highly specialized extension of the CNS that comprises six major classes of neurons as well as Müller glia cells, organized in three layers: a photoreceptor (PR) layer consisting of cone and rod PR cells; an inner nuclear layer (INL) comprising horizontal, bipolar and amacrine interneurons and Müller glia; and a ganglion cell layer (GCL) consisting of ganglion cells, which extend axons to the brain. The development of the retina, which is initiated during early stages of neurulation, begins with the expression of a combination of proteins known as eye-field transcription factors (Zuber et al., 2003; Zuber, 2010). Among these are the homeodomain transcription factor Rax, the homeodomain and paired domain protein Pax6, and the LIM-homeodomain protein Lhx2 (Zuber, 2010). These factors are expressed in the lateral protrusions from the ventral forebrain, which give rise to the optic vesicle (OV) that becomes the optic cup (OC) (Oliver et al., 1995; Mathers et al., 1997; Porter et al., 1997; Jean et al., 1999). The neuroepithelium of the OC gives rise to several ocular cell types: the most distal regions form the ciliary body (CB) and iris; the outer layer of the OC differentiates into the retinal pigmented epithelium; and the inner layer of the OC contains retinal progenitor cells (RPCs) that will differentiate into the various retinal cell types (Shaham et al., 2012). The temporal order of the processes involved in retinal histogenesis is conserved among vertebrate species. Retinal ganglion cells, cone PR cells, horizontal and amacrine cells are born first, followed by bipolar neurons and Müller glial cells, whereas the rod PR cells are generated throughout retinogenesis (Marquardt, 2003). The generation of the correct numbers of the various retinal cell types is dependent on the availability of a continuous supply of progenitor cells. Therefore, in parallel to cell cycle exit and differentiation, the RPCs continue to proliferate well into the postnatal period. The retina is known to harbor several proteins from the LIM domain family – a family that includes proteins with a LIM homeodomain (LIM-HD/Lhx) in addition to proteins consisting only of a LIM domain (LMO). Lhx2 is a LIM-HD family member that is expressed in proliferating RPCs (Balasubramanian et al., 2014), and is required for the morphogenesis and patterning of the OV and OC, as well as for maintaining the pool of RPCs (Porter et al., 1997; Yun et al., 2009; Hagglund et al., 2011; Gordon et al., 2013; Roy et al., 2013). Lhx2 expression is also maintained in mature Müller glia, where it controls stress responses (de Melo et al., 2012). Unlike proliferating RPCs, post-mitotic neuronal precursors express multiple different types of LIM-HD family proteins. The LIM-HD protein Isl1 was shown to be crucial for the generation of ganglion cells (Wu et al., 2015). Isl1 is also expressed in precursors of bipolar and cholinergic amacrine cells, and Isl1 loss results in a reduction in bipolar cell number and loss of cholinergic amacrine cells (Elshatory et al., 2007; Mu et al., 2008; Pan et al., 2008). The LIM-class homeobox gene Lim1 (Lhx1) is required for the laminar positioning of horizontal cells (Poche et al., 2007). Finally, the LMO transcription factor Lmo4 has an important role in the generation of GABAergic amacrine and OFF-bipolar cells (Duquette et al., 2010). The different types of LIM proteins often function in complexes, together with other transcription factors (Bach et al., 1997; Lee and Pfaff, 2003). The distinct composition of LIM proteins within a complex is termed the ‘LIM code’, as each unique combination dictates the expression of a specific set of target genes (Shirasaki and Pfaff, 2002). As noted above, Ldb proteins are key co-factor proteins that assemble with the LIM domains of the LMO/LIM-HD family and stabilize these protein complexes. They are also essential for transcriptional regulation (Matthews et al., 2008). In mice, there are two Ldb proteins: Ldb1 and Ldb2. Ldb1 plays key roles during development and can compensate for most of the activities of Ldb2 (Mukhopadhyay et al., 2003; Narkis et al., 2012; Leone et al., 2016). Ldb2-null mice are fertile and phenotypically normal, whereas Ldb1-null embryos die at early stages of neurogenesis (E9.5-10.0), owing to multiple developmental aberrations, including the truncation of head structures (Mukhopadhyay et al., 2003). Ldb1 has been shown to fulfill several important functions: it has an essential role in the development of the CNS and is crucial for specification and maintenance of hematopoietic stem cells (Li et al., 2011). Moreover, Ldb1, together with Isl1, is a key early regulator of mammalian limb and cardiac development (Narkis et al., 2012; Caputo et al., 2015). Notably, there are currently no reports on the function of Ldb1 and Ldb2 in mammalian retinal development, or on the manner in which they compensate for the activity of one another during this process. Herein, through comparative analysis of conditional mutations of both Ldb1 and Ldb2 (Ldb1/Ldb2), or of Ldb1, Ldb2 or Lhx2 alone in RPCs, we determine the role of Ldb1 and unravel the selective compensatory potential of Ldb2 during retinal development in mammals. Ldb1 is expressed in retinal progenitors and is maintained in INL and GCL cell types We characterized Ldb1 expression in the developing and differentiated retina as it is considered to play fundamental roles and to compensate for Ldb2 loss in various developmental processes (Mukhopadhyay et al., 2003; Narkis et al., 2012). Indeed, Ldb1 seemed to be sufficient to support retinal development, as we did not detect any alterations in OC morphology, differentiation to retinal cell types and lamination in the Ldb1loxP/loxP;Ldb2−/− embryos (Fig. 1A-E) when compared with wild-type control, testing several antibodies to cell-specific markers at indicated stages (Fig. S1). Moreover, despite Ldb2 loss, the transcript levels of Ldb1 in embryonic eye and adult retina remain unchanged (mean fold change of 1.04, P=0.76; and 1.16, P=0.37, respectively), excluding compensatory transcriptional upregulation of Ldb1 following loss of Ldb2 (Fig. S1E). Ldb1 and Ldb2 are required for maintaining proliferation and multipotency of RPCs. Gene expression and tissue morphology were monitored in control (A-E) and in Ldb1loxP/loxP;Ldb2−/−;α-Cre (F-J) eyes, determined by immunofluorescence analyses (A-D,F-I) and Hematoxylin and Eosin staining (E,J) for Ldb1 (red in A-C,F-H), Ap2a (green in B,C,G,H) and Ki67 (green in D,I) at E12.5 (A,F) and P0 (B-E,G-J). Counterstaining was with DAPI (blue, A,D,F,I). C,H are higher magnifications of staining for Ldb1 and Ap2a. White arrows in F,G,I mark the mutation area. CB, ciliary body; GCL, ganglion cell layer; INL, inner nuclear layer; IPL, inner plexiform layer; Ir, iris; NBL, neuroblastic layer; Re, retina. Scale bars: 100 μm in A,B,D-G,I,J; 50 μm in C,H. During early stages of retinogenesis [embryonic day (E) 12.5] Ldb1 protein was detected in the RPCs and ganglion cell precursors (Fig. 1A, Fig. S1A). At late stages of retinogenesis, postnatal day (P)1, the expression of Ldb1 was maintained in the RPCs and in the ganglion cell layer, and was also detected in INL cells where it partially overlapped with the expression of the amacrine and horizontal cell marker Ap2a (Fig. 1B,C; Fig. S1B) (Bassett et al., 2012). At P14, when retinal differentiation was complete, expression of Ldb1 was not detected in the PR cells but was maintained in the INL and GCL cell types (Fig. S1), including ganglion cells co-labeled with the transcription factor Pou4f2 (Fig. S1F) (Gan et al., 1996), horizontal cells co-labeled with the calcium-binding protein calbindin (Fig. S1G) (Wassle et al., 1998), amacrine cells co-labeled with the transcription factors Pax6 and Isl1 (Fig. S1H,I,I′) (Alexiades and Cepko, 1997), and Müller glia co-labeled with Lhx2 and glutamine synthase (GS) (de Melo et al., 2012) (Fig. S1J,K). Low expression of Ldb1 was detected in bipolar cells co-labeled with Vsx2 (Rowan and Cepko, 2004) and in Isl1-positive bipolar cells in the apical/outer INL (Elshatory et al., 2007) (Fig. S1L,I, and enlargement in I′,I″). These observations indicate that, during retinogenesis, Ldb1 is expressed in RPCs and post-mitotic precursors in the GCL and INL. In the mature retina, Ldb1 expression is maintained in the INL and GCL cells, but is not detectable in PR cells. Ldb1 and Ldb2 are required for maintaining RPC proliferation, and are necessary for the generation of most retinal cell types In order to study the roles of Ldb1 in retinal development, we used the α-Cre transgenic mouse line to induce a mutation of Ldb1 in Ldb1loxP/loxP;Ldb2−/−;α-Cre mice, in the distal RPCs, and in progenitors of iris and CB from E10.5 onwards (Marquardt et al., 2001). The conditional mutation of Ldb1 was induced on a background of Ldb2 deficiency to preclude any possible compensation for Ldb1 loss by Ldb2 (Tzchori et al., 2009; Narkis et al., 2012). Ldb1loxP/loxP;Ldb2−/− embryos exhibited a normal retinal phenotype, and thus were used as controls (Fig. 1, Fig. S1). At E12.5, immunofluorescence analysis indicated a loss of Ldb1 protein expression in the distal OC of Ldb1loxP/loxP;Ldb2−/−;α-Cre embryos (Fig. 1F). Although we did not detect altered morphology in the Ldb1loxP/loxP;Ldb2−/−;α-Cre OC at E12.5, by E18.5 the NBL was reduced, while the relative fraction of postmitotic precursor cells was elevated when compared with control, based on number of Ki67- and VC1.1-expressing cells (Fig. S2A-H). At P1, in the control retina, the separation between the GCL and INL is evident with the establishment of the inner plexiform layer (IPL). By contrast, in the Ldb1 and Ldb2 (Ldb1/Ldb2)--deficient retina, most cells expressed the pan-amacrine/horizontal precursor marker Ap2a (Tfap2a) (Fig. 1G,H), while no proliferating RPCs were observed [Ki67+ (Mki67); Fig. 1I]. In addition, histological analysis indicated that the non-neuronal anterior structures of the eye, i.e. the CB and iris (Fig. 1E), fail to form in the Ldb1/Ldb2-deficient OC (Fig. 1J). These findings reveal that Ldb1 plays essential roles in the maintenance of the retinal progenitor pool, in the generation and differentiation of most retinal cell types, and in the development of the CB and iris. Loss of function of Ldb1/Ldb2 results in depletion of the progenitor pool due to premature cell cycle exit and onset of differentiation Depletion of RPCs could reflect premature neurogenesis in the Ldb1loxP/loxP;Ldb2−/−;α-Cre. We therefore used BrdU pulse-chase analysis to compare the cell cycle exit index between control and Ldb1/Ldb2 mutant cells (Fig. 2A-D). BrdU, which labels cells in S-phase, was injected into pregnant dams at E14.5. Embryos were sacrificed at E15.5, and the proportion of BrdU+/Ki67− from total BrdU+ cells was calculated in order to determine the cell cycle exit index (Fig. 2E). In the Ldb1/Ldb2 mutant retina, the proportion of cells exiting the cell cycle at E14.5 (70%) was significantly higher than that in the controls (24%) (P<0.001; Fig. 2E). In agreement with this observation, p57kip2 (Cdkn1c), which was detected in only few cells in the control retina, was detected in many Ldb1/Ldb2-deficient cells (Fig. S2I-P). The loss of Ldb1 results in premature cell cycle exit. (A-D′) BrdU was administered at E14.5 and was followed by analysis at E15.5 in control OCs (A-B′) and in Ldb1loxP/loxP;Ldb2−/−;α-Cre OCs (C-D′). Immunofluorescence analyses of Ldb1 (A,C, red), BrdU and Ki67 (red and green; B,B′,D,D′). The Ldb1/Ldb2 mutated area is marked with white arrows. (E) The percentage of BrdU+/Ki67− from total BrdU+ cells was calculated in the control and Ldb1loxP/loxP;Ldb2−/−;α-Cre distal retina at E15.5, representing cell cycle exit. Data are mean±s.d., n=3, P<0.001 calculated using a two-tailed t-test. NBL, neuroblastic layer. Scale bars: in A, 100 μm in A,B,C,D; in B′, 50 μm in B′,D′. The high rate of cell cycle exit in the Ldb1/Ldb2-deficient RPCs resulted in depletion of Ki67 at E16.5, and occurred in conjunction with accumulation of ganglion and amacrine precursors, reflected in the expression levels of Vc1.1, Elavl3, Pou4f2 and Ap2a (Fig. 3A-H). Quantitative analyses revealed that the number of cells expressing Pou4f2 at E15.5 was significantly higher in the Ldb1/Ldb2-deficient OC (50.4%) than in the control peripheral OC (34.7%; P<0.002, Fig. 3I). Likewise, at E16.5 the number of cells expressing Ap2a was significantly higher in the mutant peripheral OC (32.6% in the Ldb1loxP/loxP;Ldb2−/−;α-Cre OC when compared with 15.8% in controls; P<0.001, Fig. 3J). In sum, the loss of Ldb1/Ldb2 from RPCs resulted in depletion of the progenitor pool due to premature cell cycle exit, followed by generation of the early-born precursors of the ganglion and amacrine/horizontal cell lineages. Ldb proteins are required first for preventing premature differentiation into ganglion and amacrine lineages and later for ganglion cell survival. (A-H) In control (A-D) and Ldb1loxP/loxP;Ldb2−/−;α-Cre (E-H) retinas, immunofluorescence analyses show the expression of Vc1.1 and Ki67 (red and green; A,E), Elavl3 (B,F), Ldb1 and Pou4f2 (red and green; C,G), and Ldb1 and Ap2a (red and green; D,H). Arrows indicate mutated area. (I) The percentage of Pou4f2+ cells at E15.5 in the control retina (34.7±1.55) and in Ldb1/Ldb2 mutant retina (50.4±0.21). Data are mean±s.d., n=3, P<0.002 calculated using a two-tailed t-test. (J) The percentage of Ap2a+ cells at E16.5 in the control retina (15.8±0.56%) and in Ldb1/Ldb2 mutant retina (32.6±1.3%). Data are mean±s.d., n=3, P<0.001 calculated using a two-tailed t-test. (K-R) In control (K-N) and Ldb1loxP/loxP;Ldb2−/−;α-Cre (O-R) retinas, immunofluorescence analyses show the expression of Isl1 and Pou4f2 at E16.5 (red and green, K,O), Pou4f2 and Ldb1 (green and red, L,P), cCasp3 (red, M,Q) and Ki67 (green, N,R) at E18.5. GCL, ganglion cell layer; NBL, neuroblastic layer. Scale bar: 100 μm. Ldb proteins are required for the differentiation and survival of ganglion cells, possibly by maintaining Isl1 protein levels in GCL precursors Although Pou4f2 expression at E15.5 and E16.5 (Fig. 3C,G,I,K,O) indicated that more ganglion cells are generated in the Ldb1/Ldb2-deficient retina when compared with age-matched controls, at E18.5 when most RPCs are depleted based on reduced expression of Ki67 (Fig. 3N,R), the number of cells expressing Pou4f2 diminished in the Ldb1/Ldb2-deficient retina (Fig. 3L,P). This reduction occurred in conjunction with an elevation of the number of apoptotic cells based on detection of cleaved caspase 3 (cCasp3) (Fig. 3M,Q). This phenotype of GCL cell death is reminiscent of the phenotype resulting from an RPC-specific mutation in Isl1, a LIM-HD protein, which is co-expressed and has shared targets with Pou4f2 in GCL precursors (Mu et al., 2008; Pan et al., 2008). Indeed at E16.5 we detected lower expression of Isl1 protein in the Ldb1/Ldb2 mutant retina when compared with controls (Fig. 3K,O, red; Isl1 protein reduction in Ldb1 mutant INL was quantified at E15.5, Fig. S5). These observations suggest that the maintenance of Isl1 protein in the developing retina is dependent on Ldb1/Ldb2 activity. The loss of Isl1 could at least partly explain the eventual reduction in ganglion cell precursors in the Ldb1/Ldb2-deficient retina. Ldb1 and Ldb2 are required for maintaining the RPC pool through regulation of multiple transcription factors and signaling pathways Vsx2 and Rax are transcription factors expressed in early RPCs and are required for their normal proliferation (Burmeister et al., 1996; Mathers et al., 1997; Andreazzoli et al., 1999; Casarosa et al., 2003). Reduced expression of Vsx2 protein and Rax mRNA were detected in Ldb1/Ldb2 mutants (Fig. 4A,B,G,H). Rax is also a key determinant of the specification and differentiation of PR cells, and it is required for the expression of the PR precursor transcription factor Crx, which is necessary for PR differentiation (Chen et al., 1997; Freund et al., 1997; Furukawa et al., 1997; Mathers et al., 1997; Nishida et al., 2003; Muranishi et al., 2011). Corresponding with Rax mRNA reduction, Crx protein was also reduced in the Ldb1/Ldb2-deficient OC (Fig. 4C,I), suggesting a role for Ldb1/2 proteins in the specification of PR cells during early stages of retinal neurogenesis. The reduction of Vsx2 and Rax expression is likely to contribute to the lower rates of proliferation of RPCs, although it does not explain the abrupt cell cycle exit and premature differentiation observed following loss of Ldb1/Ldb2 activity (Figs 2 and 3) (Green et al., 2003). Loss of Ldb1/2 alters the expression pattern of Notch and Hedgehog pathway genes, and impairs specification of PR cells. Control (A-F) and Ldb1loxP/loxP;Ldb2−/−;α-Cre (G-L) retinas from E14.5 (A-C,G-I) and E16.5 (D-F,J-L) eyes labeled with antibodies to Vsx2 (A,G), and Ldb1 and Crx (red and green; C,I). The expression of Rx (B,H), Hes1 (D,J), Hes5 (E,K) and Gli1 (F,L) were analyzed by in situ hybridization. Arrows indicate mutated area. GCL, ganglion cell layer; NBL, neuroblastic layer. Scale bar: 100 μm. Premature differentiation was previously reported to occur upon loss of Notch signaling factors (Jadhav et al., 2006a; Yaron et al., 2006), and the Notch-target gene Hes1 was recently reported to be downstream of the Ldb co-factor Lhx2 in cortical and late RPCs (Chou and O'Leary, 2013; Gordon et al., 2013; de Melo et al., 2016). Therefore, we sought to determine whether the Ldb1/Ldb2 complex regulates Notch signaling components during retinogenesis. To this end, we characterized the expression of Hes1 and Hes5 in control and Ldb1/Ldb2-deficient E16.5 RPCs (Fig. 4D,E,J,K). Interestingly, Hes1 expression was reduced in all mutant cells, whereas Hes5 expression was maintained or possibly elevated in the residual RPCs (Fig. 4J,K). Hes1 has been found to be a target of Hedgehog protein signaling in the retina (Wall et al., 2009). Indeed, we detected a reduction of the Hedgehog target gene Gli1 (Goodrich and Scott, 1998) in the Ldb1/Ldb2-deficient RPCs compared with controls (Fig. 4F,L). Taken together, these findings suggest a role for Ldb1/Ldb2 in maintaining the RPC progenitor pool through regulating expression of multiple factors required for RPC proliferation, including Rax and Vsx2, as well as Notch and Hedgehog pathway genes. Ldb1 and Lhx2 proteins interact during retinal development, and Ldb1 is associated with the Lhx2-bound regions of Vsx2 and Rax genes Ldb factors are known to be essential to the function and stability of LIM domain proteins. Lhx2 is the LIM-HD protein co-expressed with Ldb1 in RPCs in early and late stages of retinogenesis, and is required for maintaining the RPCs (Gordon et al., 2013; Roy et al., 2013; Balasubramanian et al., 2014). To examine the physical interaction between Ldb1 and Lhx2, we conducted co-immunoprecipitation with Ldb1 antibodies, with IgG used as control, from wild-type E15.5 eyes and P0 retinas (Fig. 5A). Lhx2 was co-precipitated with Ldb1, but not with control IgG antibodies, demonstrating the association of Ldb1 and Lhx2 at both ages. This result provides the biochemical evidence for the in vivo interaction of Lhx2 and Ldb1. Importantly, we demonstrate that this interaction occurs in the developing retina, implying shared functions for Lhx2 and Ldb1 during retina development. Ldb1 interacts with Lhx2 in the eye, is bound to the same regulatory regions as Lhx2 in Vsx2 and Rax genes, but is dispensable for Lhx2 stability. (A) Endogenous Ldb1 was immunoprecipitated (IP) from a lysate prepared from E15.5 eyes and P0 retinas (IP anti LDB1). As a negative control, parallel lysate was incubated with normal rabbit IgG control (IgG). The precipitated complex, whole cell lysates (Input) and supernatant (Sup; P0) were subjected to western analysis for detection of endogenous Lhx2 (IB-LHX2) and Ldb1 (IB-LDB1). (B-G) In control retinas (B-D) and in Ldb1loxP/loxP;Ldb2−/−;α-Cre retinas (E-G), antibody labeling was used to detect Lhx2 (B,C,E,F) and Ccnd1 (cyclin D1, D,G) during retinogenesis. The arrows mark the peripheral retina where α-Cre transgenes are active. Scale bar: 100 μm. (H) Ldb1 ChIP was performed on retinal tissue collected at P0. Scatter plot represents fold enrichment for the immunoprecipitated fractions relative to the isotype controls at regulatory sites of Vsx2 and Rax genes that were found to be bound by Lhx2 at positive sites (blue dots; de Melo et al., 2016) and at negative sites (orange diamonds). The horizontal lines indicate the mean fold enrichment of Vsx2 (n=3, P=0.02) and Rax (n=4, *P=0.037) calculated using a one-tailed paired-t-test. Given the observed association between Ldb1 and Lhx2 proteins in RPC we expected that Ldb1/Ldb2 deficiency would lead to compromised stability and/or activity of Lhx2. Interestingly, the expression of Ldb1 does not seem to be necessary for maintaining the stability of Lhx2; vice versa, Ldb1 levels were maintained in Lhx2-deficient OCs (Fig. 5, Fig. S3). Nevertheless, in support of functional dependency between these proteins, the phenotype of the Ldb1loxP/loxP;Ldb2−/−;α-Cre RPCs mimicked main features of the phenotype of Lhx2-deficient RPCs (Lhx2loxP/loxP;α-Cre) (Gordon et al., 2013; Roy et al., 2013) (Fig. S3), including early reduction of Vsx2 levels (E13.5), depletion of RPCs, which exit mitosis and express markers of ganglion and amacrine precursors (Pou4f2, Vc1.1), reduction in the levels of Gli1 and Notch pathway genes, Rax and the photoreceptor precursor transcription factor Crx (Fig. S3). We also noted ectopic misexpression of the hypothalamic gene Lhx5 in the Ldb1/Ldb2 mutant at E16.5, similar to ectopic expression reported for Lhx2 mutants (Fig. S3) (Roy et al., 2013; de Melo et al., 2016). The observed interaction between Lhx2 and Ldb1, along with the phenotypic similarity between the Ldb1/Ldb2- and Lhx2-deficient RPCs, supports the notion that Ldb proteins are required for Lhx2 function in RPCs. However, we also noted differences between the phenotypes of Ldb1loxP/loxP;Ldb2−/−;α-Cre and Lhx2loxP/loxP;α-Cre mice, suggesting that Lhx2 also has Ldb-independent roles. In particular, we noted that amacrine cells generated in the Ldb1/Ldb2 mutants expressed Ap2a, whereas in the Lhx2-deficient retina Ap2a expression was substantially reduced (Fig. 3, Fig. S3), suggesting that Lhx2 also contributes to the maturation of amacrine precursors. Having shown a physical interaction between Ldb1 and Lhx2 in P0 retinas and a role for Ldb1/Ldb2 in maintaining the RPC progenitor pool through regulation of the expression of factors required for RPC proliferation, we further investigated [using chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP)-qPCR on P0 retina] whether Ldb1 directly binds candidate cis-regulatory sequences targeted by Lhx2 at this stage (de Melo et al., 2016). Ldb1 was found to be highly enriched in the regulatory regions of Vsx2, compared with IgG controls and with regions located downstream of these sites (termed ‘negative sites’). Significant enrichment of Ldb1 was also observed in the regulatory regions of Rax, although at lower affinity than that observed for Vsx2 (Fig. 5H). Taken together, Ldb1 and Lhx2 seem to maintain the RPC pool by positive transcriptional regulation of both Vsx2 and Rax. Ldb2 is sufficient to sustain the RPC pool and Müller glia differentiation, but not for the differentiation of a subset of retinal neurons Genetic and molecular studies conducted on Ldb1 and Ldb2 have revealed functional redundancy between the two factors (Tzchori et al., 2009; Narkis et al., 2012). To determine directly the potential for Ldb2 to compensate for Ldb1 deficiency during retinal development, we analyzed the retinal phenotype of embryos deficient in Ldb1 in which Ldb2 remained intact (Ldb1loxP/loxP;α-Cre). Ldb2 transcript levels remain unchanged (mean fold change of 0.88, P=0.62) in the embryonic Ldb1 mutant retina (Fig. S4). However, the phenotype of the Ldb1loxP/loxP;α-Cre retina was strikingly different from that of the Ldb1loxP/loxP;Ldb2−/−;α-Cre retina, and further analysis led us to determine that Ldb2 is sufficient for maintaining the pool of retinal progenitors and for generation of Müller glia, both of which are known to require Lhx2 (Gordon et al., 2013; de Melo et al., 2016). This was already evident at E14.5, as in the Ldb1loxP/loxP;α-Cre retina the expression level of Vsx2 was similar to that of the control retina (Fig. 6A,F), and at E18.5 the progenitor pool was not depleted and Lhx2 expression was retained in the NBL (Fig. 6B,G). Furthermore, in the Ldb1loxP/loxP;α-Cre retina, PR precursors expressing Crx were detected in the prospective ONL at E18.5 (Fig. 6B,G) at levels similar to control based on QPCR (fold change of 1.19, P=0.47, Fig. S4). The activity of Ldb2 also eventually enabled the formation of a laminated retinal tissue, and was also sufficient for the development of auxiliary structures of the CB and iris (Fig. 6C,H), neither of which develop normally in Ldb1/Ldb2-deficient mutants (Fig. 1). Interestingly, Lhx2 activity was also preserved in the Ldb1loxP/loxP;α-Cre retina at postnatal stages. In these mice, Müller glia were generated, expression of the Müller glia factors Lhx2, Sox9, p27kip1 and Ccnd3 was maintained and properly localized in the INL, and upregulation of GFAP expression was not detected (Fig. 6D,E,I,J, data not shown). These stand in sharp contrast to in the phenotype detected following loss of Lhx2 in late-stage RPCs or in committed Müller glia precursors (de Melo et al., 2016). Taken together, these results reveal that Ldb2 alone, in the presence of Lhx2, is sufficient to fulfill the functions of the Ldb1/Ldb2 complex in maintaining the progenitor pool, generating PR cells, driving differentiation of Müller glia and contributing to the development of the auxiliary structures of the CB and iris. Ldb1 is not essential for maintaining the retinal progenitors but is required for activities of LIM domain proteins in retinal precursors. Control (A-E,K-O) and Ldb1loxP/loxP;α-Cre (F-J,P-T) retinas were analyzed by antibody labeling, at the indicated developmental stages, for detection of Vsx2 (A,F), Lhx2 and Crx (red and green; B,G), Sox9 and Lhx2 (red and green; D,I), cyclin D3 and p27 (red and green; E,J), Isl1 and Pou4f2 (red and green; K,P), Ldb1 and Isl1 (red and green; L,Q,N,S, yellow arrowheads indicate a few cells that escape Cre activity based on maintained expression of Ldb1), Pou4f2 (M,R), and GABA (red; O,T). Hematoxylin and Eosin staining (C,H). CB, ciliary body; GCL, ganglion cell layer; INL, inner nuclear layer; NBL, neuroblastic layer; OC, optic cup; ONL, outer nuclear layer. White arrows indicate mutated areas. Scale bars: in A and K, 100 μm for A-M,P-R; in N, 50 μm in N,O,S,T. By contrast, Ldb2 did not fully compensate for those functions of Ldb1 that are mediated by other LIM domain proteins, such as Isl1 and Lmo4. Specifically, the phenotype of the Ldb1loxP/loxP;α-Cre retina mimicked the phenotype associated with the combined loss of Isl1 and Lmo4, which is characterized by loss of GCLs, and a reduction in the number of GABAergic amacrine cells and subsets of bipolar cells (Elshatory et al., 2007; Duquette et al., 2010). We observed a reduction in Isl1 levels in the Ldb1loxP/loxP;α-Cre retina relative to controls (E14.5, E18.5, Fig. 6K,L,P,Q). This was further corroborated by fluorescence quantification of Isl1 levels in INL regions with or without Ldb1, showing a significant halving of Isl1 levels at E15.5 (Fig. S5), which was reminiscent of the Isl1 reduction detected in Ldb1loxP/loxP;Ldb2−/−;α-Cre retina (Fig. 4, Fig. S5). However, Isl1 mRNA levels were significantly elevated in the Ldb1loxP/loxP;α-Cre retina, based on QPCR analysis (1.64 mean fold change, P=0.04) (Fig. S4). Ldb1 may therefore be required to maintain stability of Isl1 protein in retina, similar to observations made in cardiac progenitors (Caputo et al., 2015). The reduction in Isl1 protein levels in the Ldb1-deficient retina likely contributes to the depletion of GCLs from the Ldb1loxP/loxP;α-Cre retina at E18.5 (Fig. 6M,R), even though at E14.5 the pattern of GCL production in this mutant resembled that seen in control OC (Fig. 6K,P). In Ldb1-deficient retina at P14, we did not detect Isl1+ GCLs, nor did we detect Isl1 expression in the inner portion of the INL, where Isl1+ starburst amacrine cells are normally located (Fig. 6N,S). Thus Ldb2 alone is not sufficient for the generation of the Isl1+ early-born retinal neurons. At postnatal stages, we detected some Isl1-expressing cells in the outer region of the INL where bipolar cells are normally found, although their number was 40% lower than in the control [31.2±2.07 (s.d.) cells/100 µm in control and 19.4±2.4 cells/100 µm in the Ldb1loxP/loxP;α-Cre retina; P<0.01, Fig. 6N,S]. Lmo4 is an LMO protein that is essential for the generation of GABAergic amacrine cells and a subset of bipolar cells. The number of GABAergic amacrine cells in Ldb1loxP/loxP;α-Cre was reduced when compared with control (Fig. 6O,T), suggesting compromised activity of Lmo4. Lmo4 mRNA levels, however, remain unchanged in the E15.5 Ldb1loxP/loxP;α-Cre retina, implying that Lmo4 translation and/or stability or function is dependent on Ldb1 (Fig. S4). Taken together, these findings suggest that, in the absence of Ldb1, Ldb2 – most likely in conjunction with Lhx2 – is sufficient to maintain RPCs during both early and late stages of embryogenesis, as well as to support Muller glia differentiation. However, Ldb2 alone is not sufficient to carry out all of the functions associated with the LIM domain proteins Isl1 and Lmo4, including production of ganglion cells and generating the diversity of amacrine and bipolar lineages. Ldb1 and Ldb2 are scaffold proteins that assemble modular, tissue-specific transcriptional complexes containing LIM-homeodomain factors. Herein, through detailed comparative phenotypic analyses of mutants in both Ldb1 and Ldb2, and co-immunoprecipitation of Ldb1, we obtain a comprehensive overview of the functions of Ldb1 and Ldb2 during mammalian retinal development. Ldb1 and Ldb2 are obligatory co-factors of Lhx2 in retinal progenitors The activity of Lhx2 has been shown to be dependent on Ldb proteins during both wing development and neuronal differentiation in Drosophila, and during limb development in vertebrates (van Meyel et al., 1999, 2000). However, the role of Ldb factors in regulating Lhx2 function has not been directly studied in the context of CNS development. Here, we show by immunoprecipitation of endogenous Ldb1 from embryonic eye and P0 retina that Ldb1 interacts with Lhx2 in RPCs, where they are co-expressed. This, together with the striking similarity in the phenotypes seen following loss of function of Ldb1/Ldb2 or Lhx2 in RPCs, demonstrates the importance of Ldb factors in regulating Lhx2 function in the developing retina. The finding that Ldb2 alone is sufficient for maintenance of RPC proliferation and Müller glia differentiation further implies similar interaction of Ldb2 with Lhx2, although this should be directly tested once appropriate antibodies to Ldb2 are available. Several studies have provided insights into the roles of Lhx2 in retinogenesis. The systemic inactivation of Lhx2, or its conditional deletion at the OV stage, resulted in aberrant OC morphogenesis and elevation of genes specifically expressed in the hypothalamus and prethalamus (Yun et al., 2009; Hagglund et al., 2011; Roy et al., 2013). These phenotypes suggest a role for Lhx2 in maintaining retinal fate that is reminiscent of its roles in early stages of corticogenesis (E10.5; Mangale et al., 2008). The inactivation of either Lhx2 or Ldb1/Ldb2 following the onset of retinal neurogenesis results in abrupt cell cycle exit and onset of differentiation into early-born retinal precursors that express Pou4f2 and Vc1.1 (Gordon et al., 2013; Roy et al., 2013; this study). The striking similarity between the phenotypes of Lhx2 and of Ldb1/Ldb2 mutants suggests that Lhx2 is the main LIM domain protein functioning in early RPCs, that the functions of Ldb1/Ldb2 and Lhx2 depend on the formation of an Ldb-Lhx2 complex, and that at the OC stage this complex is primarily required for maintaining the pool of proliferating and multipotent RPCs (Fig. 7). The proposed dose-dependent roles of Ldb complexes in retinogenesis. (A) The expression of Ldb2 alone (Ldblow) is sufficient to execute activities of the Ldb complex, which, probably through an interaction with Lhx2, is required for maintaining the RPC pool and Müller glia differentiation and function. High Ldb (Ldb1 alone; Ldbhigh) is required for maturation of ganglion and amacrine (AC) precursors, and for generation of a subset of bipolar cells (BPL). Ldb1 probably contributes to these activities by maintaining the stability and function of LIM proteins that are expressed in these precursors: Isl1 and Lmo4. (B) The levels of Ldb available for interaction with the neuronal LIM proteins (Lhx2 vs Isl1) may be involved in regulating the balance between progenitors and precursors, and eventually in generating the correct numbers of retinal cell types. To our surprise, the inactivation of either Lhx2 or Ldb1/Ldb2 prevented PR differentiation, despite the fact that neither Ldb1 nor Lhx2 is expressed in PR precursors. This observation suggests that the Ldb-Lhx2 complex is required for the competence of early RPCs to generate PR precursors, probably by directly regulating the expression of Rax (Roy et al., 2013; de Melo et al., 2016), an RPC-expressed transcription factor that is essential for specification of PR cells and expression of Crx (Fig. 4, Fig. S3) (Nishida et al., 2003; Muranishi et al., 2011). This role of Ldb1/Ldb2 and Lhx2 in promoting generation of PR cells is restricted to early-born PR cells, as inactivation of Lhx2 at later stages of retinogenesis results in an increase in the number of PR precursors (Gordon et al., 2013), probably owing to the activity of other transcription factors and epigenetic determinants. Phenotypic analysis, however, also implies that some of the activities of Lhx2 do not require maintained expression of Ldb proteins. This is suggested because the amacrine/horizontal precursors are generated in both mutants, as reflected in the expression of Vc1.1 and Pax6; however, in Lhx2-deficient cells, these precursors fail to express Ap2a, although they do express Ap2a in the Ldb1/Ldb2-deficient retina. This difference suggests a direct role for Lhx2 in regulating the expression of a subset of factors that are required for interneuron maturation. It is more likely, however, that the loss of Lhx2 alters the composition of the Ldb1/Ldb2 complex with other LIM domain proteins, as has been observed in the spinal cord and hematopoietic system (Song et al., 2009; Kitajima et al., 2013). The change in composition of the Ldb-LIM complex is expected to result in misexpression of genes, such as hypothalamic genes or retinal LIM domain proteins that may interfere with amacrine/horizontal differentiation. Ldb1/Ldb2 and Lhx2 are required for maintaining the pool of retinal progenitors through regulation of RPC-enriched transcription factors, as well as Notch and Hedgehog pathway genes Lhx2 is known to be required for maintaining the proliferation and stem cell properties of diverse lineages, including hair follicles, hematopoietic stem cells and neuronal progenitors in the telencephalon and the retina; yet, the mechanism by which Lhx2 functions in the regulation of the cell cycle remains unknown (Pinto do et al., 2002; Rhee et al., 2006; Chou and O'Leary, 2013; Gordon et al., 2013; Roy et al., 2013). Vsx2 is known to be required for the proliferation of RPCs and for regulating the temporal onset of Hedgehog pathway activity (Burmeister et al., 1996; Green et al., 2003; Sigulinsky et al., 2008). The reduction in Vsx2 expression seen in both Lhx2 and Ldb1/Ldb2 retinal mutants occurred soon after the onset of Cre activity, suggesting that at least some of the activities of Ldb1/Ldb2 and Lhx2 in regulation of cell proliferation could be mediated by Vsx2. In the retina, Hes1 expression is regulated by both Notch and Hedgehog signaling, and both pathways are required for proliferation of the RPCs; notably, loss of Notch1 leads to premature generation of PR cells but not GCL cells (Wang et al., 2005; Jadhav et al., 2006b; Yaron et al., 2006; Wall et al., 2009). We observed a reduction of Hes1 levels in the Ldb1/Ldb2 mutant OC, whereas Hes5 was detected in the residual NBL at E16.5 (Fig. 5). Misexpression of Hes1 prevents cell differentiation in the retina, whereas Hes1 knockout mice exhibit premature retinal neurogenesis (Tomita et al., 1996; Kageyama et al., 2008). Thus, the loss of Hes1 observed in the Ldb1/Ldb2 and Lhx2 mutant RPCs probably contributes to the premature differentiation observed following their inactivation. The reduced expression of the Hedgehog target Gli1 observed in Lhx2 and Ldb1/Ldb2-deficient RPCs suggests that loss of Hedgehog activity may be responsible for the observed reduction in cell proliferation, as well as for the elevation in the number of GCL cells observed in the mutant retinas. Lhx2 has been reported to be required for Hedgehog signaling in the zone of polarizing activity during limb development; thus, intersection with this pathway may reflect a regulatory network that functions downstream of Lhx2 in progenitors from multiple tissues (Tzchori et al., 2009). The findings above suggest that the Ldb1/Ldb2-Lhx2 complex functions by regulating expression of Hedgehog and Notch pathway components during retinogenesis, in addition to Vsx2. The ChIP analysis for Ldb1 (Fig. 5) and for Lhx2 (de Melo et al., 2016) further supports their association with the same regulatory regions of both Rax and Vsx2, which are both important for RPC proliferation (Burmeister et al., 1996; Green et al., 2003; Muranishi et al., 2012). The RPC depletion observed in the Ldb1/Ldb2 mutants reflects the combined loss of several key regulators that dictate the timing of cell cycle exit and the proliferation rate of neuronal progenitors. Selective roles of Ldb factors in stabilization of LIM-HD proteins could influence the balance between retinal progenitors and precursors In Drosophila, expression of the Lhx2 homolog Apterous (Ap), is regulated by proteosomal degradation, and this proteolysis has been found to be inhibited by association of Ap with the Ldb homolog Chip (Weihe et al., 2001). Similar regulation has been observed in the vertebrate LIM-HD proteins Lhx3 and Isl1 (Ostendorff et al., 2002; Gungor et al., 2007). Deletion of the Ldb1/Ldb2 complex from RPCs enabled us to gain insight into the role of Ldb/LIM-HD complex formation in regulating the expression and stability of LIM-HD proteins during mammalian retinal development. Indeed, although Isl1 transcription was initiated (and even elevated) in the Ldb1/Ldb2- and Ldb1-deficient retinas, Isl1 protein levels gradually fell in the post-mitotic precursors compared with controls, even when only Ldb1, but not Ldb2, was deleted (Figs 3 and 6 and Fig. S5). Ldb1 was already shown to function in stabilizing the Isl1 protein in cardiac progenitors, these results suggest a similar role in the retina (Caputo et al., 2015). In contrast to the loss of Isl1 protein seen in Ldb1/Ldb2-deficient retinas, Lhx2 was maintained in the mutant cells throughout most of embryogenesis and was reduced only close to birth (E18.5, Fig. 4, not shown). This dependency of the precursor protein Isl1 on Ldb for its stability suggests a mechanism whereby the ratio between progenitor maintenance and cell cycle exit is regulated by the availability of Ldb. Lhx2 may maintain the RPC pool in embryonic retina by sequestering the Ldb and thus preventing stabilization of Isl1, a factor that is required for post-mitotic precursors (Fig. 7). Intrinsic differences in the binding affinities of the LIM domains to Ldb proteins, and their interactions with other proteins present in developing retina, are likely to be crucial in regulating the stability of each of the multiple LIM-HD proteins that form complexes with Ldb1/Ldb2 in retinal development. The unequal role of Ldb1 and Ldb2 in retinogenesis Ldb1 and Ldb2 show distinct functions during retinal development. The loss of Ldb2 in the retina has no apparent retinal phenotype, suggesting that Ldb1 may be sufficient to execute the functions of Ldb in the retina. However, the loss of both Ldb1 and Ldb2 resulted in early depletion of most RPCs, while the inactivation of Ldb1 (but not of Ldb2) resulted in a phenotype that resembled a combination of the phenotypes associated with mutation of Isl1 and Lmo4, including loss of GCLs, reduction in bipolar cell number and a marked reduction in the number of GABAergic amacrine cells (Mu et al., 2008; Pan et al., 2008; Duquette et al., 2010). By contrast, Lhx2-dependent functions seemed to be preserved following loss of function of Ldb1, RPCs were maintained throughout retinogenesis, and Müller glia differentiation occurred normally. One possible explanation for the preservation of Lhx2-dependent functions by Ldb2 could be the physical differences between Ldb1 and Ldb2, which may contribute to differences in the capacity of these proteins to selectively associate with different LIM domain proteins within functional transcriptional complexes. This notion is supported by self-association studies that reveal distinct patterns of oligomerization for Ldb1 and Ldb2, indicating that the two proteins form different transcription complexes and exert distinct biological activities (Cross et al., 2010). These studies, however, were performed in vitro with isolated self-association domains, and thus their relevance to the in vivo Ldb1 and Ldb2 transcriptional complexes remains to be explored. Moreover, in the progenitors of the hind limb bud, Ldb2 mediates Isl1 functions, rather than Lhx2 functions (Tzchori et al., 2009; Narkis et al., 2012). Thus, if there is a preferred interaction between Ldb2 and Lhx2, it is clearly context dependent. Another possible explanation for this selective compensatory activity of Ldb2 may relate to its levels of expression (Caqueret et al., 2006), which may not be sufficient to fully compensate for Ldb1 loss at all developmental stages and in all cell types. Our experiments indicate that, in the RPCs, Ldb2 is sufficient to mediate Lhx2 activity, whereas studies in the limb bud show that Ldb2 is necessary for Isl1 activity (Tzchori et al., 2009; Narkis et al., 2012). Therefore, it is possible that only relatively low levels of Ldb-Lhx2 are required to drive expression of RPC and glial-specific genes, but that higher levels of Ldb are needed for formation of Ldb/LIM complexes required for generation of neuronal lineages. Thus, our findings suggest (Fig. 7) that Ldb expression levels in RPCs are sufficient for execution of Lhx2-dependent functions, whereas in postmitotic precursors, higher levels of Ldb are required for execution of complete neurogenic differentiation programs. Mouse lines The mouse lines employed in this study are: Ldb1loxP, Ldb2−/− (Tzchori et al., 2009; Narkis et al., 2012), Lhx2 (Mangale et al., 2008) and α-Cre (Marquardt et al., 2001). All animal work was conducted according to national and international guidelines and approved by the Tel Aviv University review board. Histology, immunoﬂuorescence and BrdU-incorporation assays Immunofluorescence analyses and Hematoxylin and Eosin staining was performed as described previously (Ashery-Padan et al., 2000). The antibodies are listed in Table S1. Cell cycle exit analysis was performed as described previously (Farhy et al., 2013). Slides were viewed with an Olympus BX61 ﬂuorescent microscope, and images were analyzed using the AnalySIS. The measurements were conducted on serial sections, with well-preserved morphology, that were central according to the detection of the lens. The distal region of the OC, where α-Cre is active, was analyzed. The mutant region was defined by labeling with Ldb1 antibodies on the same section or on a section from the same series. For each eye, an average value for the presented parameter was calculated from at least three sections ∼20 µm apart. The presented ratio values are the averages from analysis of at least three eyes (n=3). For each developmental stage and genotype, all values were averaged, and the standard deviation (s.d.) was calculated. Values obtained for control and mutant animals were compared using Student's t-test to determine statistical significance. In situ hybridization Hybridization was conducted overnight at 65°C with digoxigenin-labeled probes (3 µg/ml) on de-waxed paraffin sections. The slides were then treated with RNaseA, washed, blocked with 10% normal goat serum (NGS) and incubated with sheep anti-digoxigenin Fab fragments conjugated to alkaline phosphatase (1:250, Roche) in PBST with 1% NGS overnight at 4°C and incubated in BM Purple (Roche). RNA isolation and quantitative PCR Retinas separated from mature mouse eyes and total eyes from E15.5 mouse embryos were snap-frozen in dry ice and RNA was isolated using RNeasy kit (QIAGEN). cDNA was synthesized with the qScript cDNA Synthesis Kit (Quanta BioSciences) and quantitative PCR (QPCR) was performed using the FastStart Universal SYBR Green Master (Roche) on Applied Biosystems Viia7 real-time PCR detection system. The cycle numbers were normalized to Actin. Primer pairs are listed in Table S2. Quantification of Isl1 and Ldb1 protein levels Images of sections stained for Ldb1 and Isl1 were acquired by LeicaSP8 confocal microscope and subsequently were analyzed by ImageJ for their corrected total cell fluorescence (CTCF). A calculation was made as CTCF=integrated density–(area of selected cell×mean fluorescence of background readings) for regions defined as ‘Ldb1 positive’ and ‘Ldb1 negative’ based on Ldb1 fluorescent signal and equivalently for Isl1 signals in the same defined regions. Eyes of E15.5 embryos and retinas of P0 mice were lysed with RIPA lysis buffer [50 mM Tris-HCl (pH 8.0), 50 mM NaCl, 1% NP-40, 0.5% Na-deoxycholate and 0.1% SDS] and protease inhibitors (Complete mini, Roche). Preclearing by incubation with protein-A agarose beads (Millipore) was followed by centrifugation and incubation of the supernatants with goat anti-Lhx2 antibody (Santa Cruz) overnight at 4°C. Then beads were added for an additional 2 h. Samples were washed four times with RIPA buffer and analyzed by western blotting using anti-Lhx2 and anti-Ldb1 antibodies for blotting. For the immunoprecipitation negative control, lysates were precipitated with normal rabbit control IgG (Santa Cruz). P0 retinas were dissected in HBSS and dissociated by 30 min incubation with papain. Cross-linking, DNA shearing and immunoprecipitations were performed as previously described (Sailaja et al., 2012). Rabbit anti-Ldb1 antibody or normal rabbit IgG (Santa Cruz) were used for the immunoprecipitations. Enrichment levels were quantified by qPCR. Primers for positive regions (de Melo et al., 2016) and downstream negative regions are listed in Table S2. We thank Drs Ryoichiro Kageyama, Takahisa Furukawa and Alex Joyner for the in situ probes. We thank Leonid Mittelman for confocal images. These studies were performed as partial requirements of K.G. for a PhD degree from Tel Aviv University. The authors declare no competing or financial interests. K.G., T.C., A.D. and R.A.-P. conceived and designed the experiments. K.G., T.C., A.D., Y.M.-L., H.N., G.N. and R.A.-P. performed the experiments. K.G., A.D., Y.M.-L., H.N., S.B. and R.A.-P. analyzed the data. T.C., L.L., P.L., J.d.M., S.B. and H.W. provided essential reagents. A.D., S.B., J.d.M. and R.A.-P. wrote the manuscript. This work was funded by the United States - Israel Binational Science Foundation (2013016), Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities (228/14) and by the Claire and Amédée Maratier Institute for the Study of Blindness and Visual Disorders, Tel-Aviv University. The S.B. lab is funded by the National Institutes of Health (EY02056). Deposited in PMC for release after 12 months. Supplementary information available online at http://dev.biologists.org/lookup/doi/10.1242/dev.129734.supplemental Received August 13, 2015. Accepted September 20, 2016. © 2016. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd http://www.biologists.com/user-licence-1-1/ Alexiades, M. R. and Cepko, C. L. (1997). Subsets of retinal progenitors display temporally regulated and distinct biases in the fates of their progeny. Development 124, 1119-1131. 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Development 130, 5155-5167. doi:10.1242/dev.00723 Isl1 Ldb1 Lhx2 Retinogenesis You are going to email the following The stage-dependent roles of Ldb1 and functional redundancy with Ldb2 in mammalian retinogenesis E2F1 regulates testicular descent and controls spermatogenesis by influencing WNT4 signaling Androgen action in cell fate and communication during prostate development at single-cell resolution A csf1rb mutation uncouples two waves of microglia development in zebrafish Show more RESEARCH ARTICLE	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3153
__label__cc	0.588684	0.411316	Android 3.0 and later platform versions are optimized to support multiprocessor architectures. This document introduces issues that can arise when writing multithreaded code for symmetric multiprocessor systems in C, C++, and the Java programming language (hereafter referred to simply as “Java” for the sake of brevity). It's intended as a primer for Android app developers, not as a complete discussion on the subject. SMP is an acronym for “Symmetric Multi-Processor”. It describes a design in which two or more identical CPU cores share access to main memory. Until a few years ago, all Android devices were UP (Uni-Processor). Most — if not all — Android devices always had multiple CPUs, but in the past only one of them was used to run applications while others manage various bits of device hardware (for example, the radio). The CPUs may have had different architectures, and the programs running on them couldn’t use main memory to communicate with each other. Most Android devices sold today are built around SMP designs, making things a bit more complicated for software developers. Race conditions in a multi-threaded program may not cause visible problems on a uniprocessor, but may fail regularly when two or more of your threads are running simultaneously on different cores. What’s more, code may be more or less prone to failures when run on different processor architectures, or even on different implementations of the same architecture. Code that has been thoroughly tested on x86 may break badly on ARM. Code may start to fail when recompiled with a more modern compiler. The rest of this document will explain why, and tell you what you need to do to ensure that your code behaves correctly. Memory consistency models: Why SMPs are a bit different This is a high-speed, glossy overview of a complex subject. Some areas will be incomplete, but none of it should be misleading or wrong. As you will see in the next section, the details here are usually not important. See Further reading at the end of the document for pointers to more thorough treatments of the subject. Memory consistency models, or often just “memory models”, describe the guarantees the programming language or hardware architecture makes about memory accesses. For example, if you write a value to address A, and then write a value to address B, the model might guarantee that every CPU core sees those writes happen in that order. The model most programmers are accustomed to is sequential consistency, which is described like this (Adve & Gharachorloo): All memory operations appear to execute one at a time All operations in a single thread appear to execute in the order described by that processor's program. Let's assume temporarily that we have a very simple compiler or interpreter that introduces no surprises: It translates assignments in the source code to load and store instructions in exactly the corresponding order, one instruction per access. We'll also assume for simplicity that each thread executes on its own processor. If you look at a bit of code and see that it does some reads and writes from memory, on a sequentially-consistent CPU architecture you know that the code will do those reads and writes in the expected order. It’s possible that the CPU is actually reordering instructions and delaying reads and writes, but there is no way for code running on the device to tell that the CPU is doing anything other than execute instructions in a straightforward manner. (We’ll ignore memory-mapped device driver I/O.) To illustrate these points it’s useful to consider small snippets of code, commonly referred to as litmus tests. Here’s a simple example, with code running on two threads: Thread 1 B = 5 reg0 = B reg1 = A In this and all future litmus examples, memory locations are represented by capital letters (A, B, C) and CPU registers start with “reg”. All memory is initially zero. Instructions are executed from top to bottom. Here, thread 1 stores the value 3 at location A, and then the value 5 at location B. Thread 2 loads the value from location B into reg0, and then loads the value from location A into reg1. (Note that we’re writing in one order and reading in another.) Thread 1 and thread 2 are assumed to execute on different CPU cores. You should always make this assumption when thinking about multi-threaded code. Sequential consistency guarantees that, after both threads have finished executing, the registers will be in one of the following states: reg0=5, reg1=3 possible (thread 1 ran first) reg0=0, reg1=3 possible (concurrent execution) reg0=5, reg1=0 never To get into a situation where we see B=5 before we see the store to A, either the reads or the writes would have to happen out of order. On a sequentially-consistent machine, that can’t happen. Uni-processors, including x86 and ARM, are normally sequentially consistent. Threads appear to execute in interleaved fashion, as the OS kernel switches between them. Most SMP systems, including x86 and ARM, are not sequentially consistent. For example, it is common for hardware to buffer stores on their way to memory, so that they don't immediately reach memory and become visible to other cores. The details vary substantially. For example, x86, though not sequentially consistent, still guarantees that reg0 = 5 and reg1 = 0 remains impossible. Stores are buffered, but their order is maintained. ARM, on the other hand, does not. The order of buffered stores is not maintained, and stores may not reach all other cores at the same time. These differences are important to assembly programmers. However, as we will see below, C, C++, or Java programmers can and should program in a way that hides such architectural differences. So far, we've unrealistically assumed that it is only the hardware that reorders instructions. In reality, the compiler also reorders instructions to improve performance. In our example, the compiler might decide that some later code in Thread 2 needed the value of reg1 before it needed reg0, and thus load reg1 first. Or some prior code may already have loaded A, and the compiler might decide to reuse that value instead of loading A again. In either case, the loads to reg0 and reg1 might be reordered. Reordering accesses to different memory locations, either in the hardware, or in the compiler, is allowed, since it doesn't affect the execution of a single thread, and it can significantly improve performance. As we will see, with a bit of care, we can also prevent it from affecting the results of multithreaded programs. Since compilers can also reorder memory accesses, this problem is actually not new to SMPs. Even on a uniprocessor, a compiler could reorder the loads to reg0 and reg1 in our example, and Thread 1 could be scheduled between the reordered instructions. But if our compiler happened to not reorder, we might never observe this problem. On most ARM SMPs, even without compiler reordering, the reordering will probably be seen, possibly after a very large number of successful executions. Unless you're programming in assembly language, SMPs generally just make it more likely you'll see problems that were there all along. Data-race-free programming Fortunately, there is usually an easy way to avoid thinking about any of these details. If you follow some straightforward rules, it's usually safe to forget all of the preceding section except the "sequential consistency" part. Unfortunately, the other complications may become visible if you accidentally violate those rules. Modern programming languages encourage what's known as a "data-race-free" programming style. So long as you promise not to introduce "data races", and avoid a handful of constructs that tell the compiler otherwise, the compiler and hardware promise to provide sequentially consistent results. This doesn't really mean they avoid memory access reordering. It does mean that if you follow the rules you won't be able to tell that memory accesses are being reordered. It's a lot like telling you that sausage is a delicious and appetizing food, so long as you promise not to visit the sausage factory. Data races are what expose the ugly truth about memory reordering. What's a "data race"? A data race occurs when at least two threads simultaneously access the same ordinary data, and at least one of them modifies it. By "ordinary data" we mean something that's not specifically a synchronization object intended for thread communication. Mutexes, condition variables, Java volatiles, or C++ atomic objects are not ordinary data, and their accesses are allowed to race. In fact they are used to prevent data races on other objects. In order to determine whether two threads simultaneously access the same memory location, we can ignore the memory-reordering discussion from above, and assume sequential consistency. The following program doesn't have a data race if A and B are ordinary boolean variables that are initially false: if (A) B = true if (B) A = true Since operations are not reordered, both conditions will evaluate to false, and neither variable is ever updated. Thus there cannot be a data race. There is no need to think about what might happen if the load from A and store to B in Thread 1 were somehow reordered. The compiler is not allowed to reorder Thread 1 by rewriting it as "B = true; if (!A) B = false". That would be like making sausage in the middle of town in broad daylight. Data races are officially defined on basic built-in types like integers and references or pointers. Assigning to an int while simultaneously reading it in another thread is clearly a data race. But both the C++ standard library and the Java Collections libraries are written to allow you to also reason about data races at the library level. They promise to not introduce data races unless there are concurrent accesses to the same container, at least one of which updates it. Updating a set<T> in one thread while simultaneously reading it in another allows the library to introduce a data race, and can thus be thought of informally as a "library-level data race". Conversely, updating one set<T> in one thread, while reading a different one in another, does not result in a data race, because the library promises not to introduce a (low-level) data race in that case. Normally concurrent accesses to different fields in a data structure cannot introduce a data race. However there is one important exception to this rule: Contiguous sequences of bit-fields in C or C++ are treated as a single "memory location". Accessing any bit-field in such a sequence is treated as accessing all of them for purposes of determining the existence of a data race. This reflects the inability of common hardware to update individual bits without also reading and re-writing adjacent bits. Java programmers have no analogous concerns. Avoiding data races Modern programming languages provide a number of synchronization mechanisms to avoid data races. The most basic tools are: Locks or Mutexes Mutexes (C++11 std::mutex, or pthread_mutex_t), or synchronized blocks in Java can be used to ensure that certain section of code do not run concurrently with other sections of code accessing the same data. We'll refer to these and other similar facilities generically as "locks." Consistently acquiring a specific lock before accessing a shared data structure and releasing it afterwards, prevents data races when accessing the data structure. It also ensures that updates and accesses are atomic, i.e. no other update to the data structure can run in the middle. This is deservedly by far the most common tool for preventing data races. The use of Java synchronized blocks or C++ lock_guard or unique_lock ensure that locks are properly released in the event of an exception. Volatile/atomic variables Java provides volatile fields that support concurrent access without introducing data races. Since 2011, C and C++ support atomic variables and fields with similar semantics. These are typically more difficult to use than locks, since they only ensure that individual accesses to a single variable are atomic. (In C++ this normally extends to simple read-modify-write operations, like increments. Java requires special method calls for that.) Unlike locks, volatile or atomic variables can't be used directly to prevent other threads from interfering with longer code sequences. It's important to note that volatile has very different meanings in C++ and Java. In C++, volatile does not prevent data races, though older code often uses it as a workaround for the lack of atomic objects. This is no longer recommended; in C++, use atomic<T> for variables that can be concurrently accessed by multiple threads. C++ volatile is meant for device registers and the like. C/C++ atomic variables or Java volatile variables can be used to prevent data races on other variables. If flag is declared to have type atomic<bool> or atomic_bool(C/C++) or volatile boolean (Java), and is initially false then the following snippet is data-race-free: A = ... flag = true while (!flag) {} ... = A Since Thread 2 waits for flag to be set, the access to A in Thread 2 must happen after, and not concurrently with, the assignment to A in Thread 1. Thus there is no data race on A. The race on flag doesn't count as a data race, since volatile/atomic accesses are not "ordinary memory accesses". The implementation is required to prevent or hide memory reordering sufficiently to make code like the preceding litmus test behave as expected. This normally makes volatile/atomic memory accesses substantially more expensive than ordinary accesses. Although the preceding example is data-race-free, locks together with Object.wait() in Java or condition variables in C/C++ usually provide a better solution that does not involve waiting in a loop while draining battery power. When memory reordering becomes visible Data-race-free programming normally saves us from having to explicitly deal with memory access reordering issues. However, there are several cases in which reordering does become visible: If your program has a bug resulting in an unintentional data race, compiler and hardware transformations can become visible, and the behavior of your program may be surprising. For example, if we forgot to declare flag volatile in the preceding example, Thread 2 may see an uninitialized A. Or the compiler may decide that flag can't possibly change during Thread 2's loop and transform the program to flag = true reg0 = flag; while (!reg0) {} When you debug, you may well see the loop continuing forever in spite of the fact that flag is true. C++ provides facilities for explicitly relaxing sequential consistency even if there are no races. Atomic operations can take explicit memory_order_... arguments. Similarly, the java.util.concurrent.atomic package provides a more restricted set of similar facilities, notably lazySet(). And Java programmers occasionally use intentional data races for similar effect. All of these provide performance improvements at a large cost in programming complexity. We discuss them only briefly below. Some C and C++ code is written in an older style, not entirely consistent with current language standards, in which volatile variables are used instead of atomic ones, and memory ordering is explicitly disallowed by inserting so called fences or barriers. This requires explicit reasoning about access reordering and understanding of hardware memory models. A coding style along these lines is still used in the Linux kernel. It should not be used in new Android applications, and is also not further discussed here. Debugging memory consistency problems can be very difficult. If a missing lock, atomic or volatile declaration causes some code to read stale data, you may not be able to figure out why by examining memory dumps with a debugger. By the time you can issue a debugger query, the CPU cores may have all observed the full set of accesses, and the contents of memory and the CPU registers will appear to be in an “impossible” state. What not to do in C Here we present some examples of incorrect code, along with simple ways to fix them. Before we do that, we need to discuss the use of a basic language feature. C/C++ and "volatile" C and C++ volatile declarations are a very special purpose tool. They prevent the compiler from reordering or removing volatile accesses. This can be helpful for code accessing hardware device registers, memory mapped to more than one location, or in connection with setjmp. But C and C++ volatile, unlike Java volatile, is not designed for thread communication. In C and C++, accesses to volatile data may be reordered with accessed to non-volatile data, and there are no atomicity guarantees. Thus volatile can't be used for sharing data between threads in portable code, even on a uniprocessor. C volatile usually does not prevent access reordering by the hardware, so by itself it is even less useful in multi-threaded SMP environments. This is the reason C11 and C++11 support atomic objects. You should use those instead. A lot of older C and C++ code still abuses volatile for thread communication. This often works correctly for data that fits in a machine register, provided it is used with either explicit fences or in cases in which memory ordering is not important. But it is not guaranteed to work correctly with future compilers. In most cases you’d be better off with a lock (like a pthread_mutex_t or C++11 std::mutex) rather than an atomic operation, but we will employ the latter to illustrate how they would be used in a practical situation. MyThing* gGlobalThing = NULL; // Wrong! See below. void initGlobalThing() // runs in Thread 1 MyStruct* thing = malloc(sizeof(thing)); memset(thing, 0, sizeof(thing)); thing->x = 5; thing->y = 10; /* initialization complete, publish / gGlobalThing = thing; void useGlobalThing() // runs in Thread 2 if (gGlobalThing != NULL) { int i = gGlobalThing->x; // could be 5, 0, or uninitialized data The idea here is that we allocate a structure, initialize its fields, and at the very end we “publish” it by storing it in a global variable. At that point, any other thread can see it, but that’s fine since it’s fully initialized, right? The problem is that the store to gGlobalThing could be observed before the fields are initialized, typically because either the compiler or the processor reordered the stores to gGlobalThing and thing->x. Another thread reading from thing->x could see 5, 0, or even uninitialized data. The core problem here is a data race on gGlobalThing. If Thread 1 calls initGlobalThing() while Thread 2 calls useGlobalThing(), gGlobalThing can be read while being written. This can be fixed by declaring gGlobalThing as atomic. In C++11: atomic<MyThing> gGlobalThing(NULL); This ensures that the writes will become visible to other threads in the proper order. It also guarantees to prevent some other failure modes that are otherwise allowed, but unlikely to occur on real Android hardware. For example, it ensures that we cannot see a gGlobalThing pointer that has only been partially written. What not to do in Java We haven’t discussed some relevant Java language features, so we’ll take a quick look at those first. Java technically does not require code to be data-race-free. And there is a small amount of very-carefully-written Java code that works correctly in the presence of data races. However, writing such code is extremely tricky, and we discuss it only briefly below. To make matters worse, the experts who specified the meaning of such code no longer believe the specification is correct. (The specification is fine for data-race-free code.) For now we will adhere to the data-race-free model, for which Java provides essentially the same guarantees as C and C++. Again, the language provides some primitives that explicitly relax sequential consistency, notably the lazySet() and weakCompareAndSet() calls in java.util.concurrent.atomic. As with C and C++, we will ignore these for now. Java's "synchronized" and "volatile" keywords The “synchronized” keyword provides the Java language’s in-built locking mechanism. Every object has an associated “monitor” that can be used to provide mutually exclusive access. If two threads try to "synchronize" on the same object, one of them will wait until the other completes. As we mentioned above, Java's volatile T is the analog of C++11's atomic<T>. Concurrent accesses to volatile fields are allowed, and don't result in data races. Ignoring lazySet() et al. and data races, it is the Java VM's job to make sure that the result still appears sequentially consistent. In particular, if thread 1 writes to a volatile field, and thread 2 subsequently reads from that same field and sees the newly written value, then thread 2 is also guaranteed to see all writes previously made by thread 1. In terms of memory effect, writing to a volatile is analogous to a monitor release, and reading from a volatile is like a monitor acquire. There is one notable difference from C++'s atomic: If we write volatile int x; in Java, then x++ is the same as x = x + 1; it performs an atomic load, increments the result, and then performs an atomic store. Unlike C++, the increment as a whole is not atomic. Atomic increment operations are instead provided by the java.util.concurrent.atomic. Here’s a simple, incorrect implementation of a monotonic counter: (Java theory and practice: Managing volatility). class Counter { private int mValue; public int get() { return mValue; public void incr() { mValue++; Assume get() and incr() are called from multiple threads, and we want to be sure that every thread sees the current count when get() is called. The most glaring problem is that mValue++ is actually three operations: reg = mValue reg = reg + 1 mValue = reg If two threads execute in incr() simultaneously, one of the updates could be lost. To make the increment atomic, we need to declare incr() “synchronized”. It’s still broken however, especially on SMP. There is still a data race, in that get() can access mValue concurrently with incr(). Under Java rules, the get() call can be appear to be reordered with respect to other code. For example, if we read two counters in a row, the results might appear to be inconsistent because the get() calls we reordered, either by the hardware or compiler. We can correct the problem by declaring get() to be synchronized. With this change, the code is obviously correct. Unfortunately, we’ve introduced the possibility of lock contention, which could hamper performance. Instead of declaring get() to be synchronized, we could declare mValue with “volatile”. (Note incr() must still use synchronize since mValue++ is otherwise not a single atomic operation.) This also avoids all data races, so sequential consistency is preserved. incr() will be somewhat slower, since it incurs both monitor entry/exit overhead, and the overhead associated with a volatile store, but get() will be faster, so even in the absence of contention this is a win if reads greatly outnumber writes. (See also AtomicInteger for a way to completely remove the synchronized block.) Here’s another example, similar in form to the earlier C examples: class MyGoodies { public int x, y; class MyClass { static MyGoodies sGoodies; void initGoodies() { // runs in thread 1 MyGoodies goods = new MyGoodies(); goods.x = 5; goods.y = 10; sGoodies = goods; void useGoodies() { // runs in thread 2 if (sGoodies != null) { int i = sGoodies.x; // could be 5 or 0 This has the same problem as the C code, namely that there is a data race on sGoodies. Thus the assignment sGoodies = goods might be observed before the initialization of the fields in goods. If you declare sGoodies with the volatile keyword, sequential consistency is restored, and things will work as expected. Note that only the sGoodies reference itself is volatile. The accesses to the fields inside it are not. Once sGoodies is volatile, and memory ordering is properly preserved, the fields cannot be concurrently accessed. The statement z = sGoodies.x will perform a volatile load of MyClass.sGoodies followed by a non-volatile load of sGoodies.x. If you make a local reference MyGoodies localGoods = sGoodies, then a subsequent z = localGoods.x will not perform any volatile loads. A more common idiom in Java programming is the infamous “double-checked locking”: private Helper helper = null; public Helper getHelper() { if (helper == null) { synchronized (this) { helper = new Helper(); return helper; The idea is that we want to have a single instance of a Helper object associated with an instance of MyClass. We must only create it once, so we create and return it through a dedicated getHelper() function. To avoid a race in which two threads create the instance, we need to synchronize the object creation. However, we don’t want to pay the overhead for the “synchronized” block on every call, so we only do that part if helper is currently null. This has a data race on the helper field. It can be set concurrently with the helper == null in another thread. To see how this can fail, consider the same code rewritten slightly, as if it were compiled into a C-like language (I’ve added a couple of integer fields to represent Helper’s constructor activity): synchronized() { newHelper = malloc(sizeof(Helper)); newHelper->x = 5; newHelper->y = 10; helper = newHelper; There is nothing to prevent either the hardware or the compiler from reordering the store to helper with those to the x/y fields. Another thread could find helper non-null but its fields not yet set and ready to use. For more details and more failure modes, see the “‘Double Checked Locking is Broken’ Declaration” link in the appendix for more details, or Item 71 (“Use lazy initialization judiciously”) in Josh Bloch’s Effective Java, 2nd Edition.. There are two ways to fix this: Do the simple thing and delete the outer check. This ensures that we never examine the value of helper outside a synchronized block. Declare helper volatile. With this one small change, the code in Example J-3 will work correctly on Java 1.5 and later. (You may want to take a minute to convince yourself that this is true.) Here is another illustration of volatile behavior: int data1, data2; volatile int vol1, vol2; void setValues() { // runs in Thread 1 data1 = 1; vol1 = 2; void useValues() { // runs in Thread 2 if (vol1 == 2) { int l1 = data1; // okay int l2 = data2; // wrong Looking at useValues(), if Thread 2 hasn’t yet observed the update to vol1, then it can’t know if data1 or data2 has been set yet. Once it sees the update to vol1, it knows that data1 can be safely accessed and correctly read without introducing a data race. However, it can’t make any assumptions about data2, because that store was performed after the volatile store. Note that volatile cannot be used to prevent reordering of other memory accesses that race with each other. It is not guaranteed to generate a machine memory fence instruction. It can be used to prevent data races by executing code only when another thread has satisfied a certain condition. In C/C++, prefer C++11 synchronization classes, such as std::mutex. If not, use the corresponding pthread operations. These include the proper memory fences, providing correct (sequentially consistent unless otherwise specified) and efficient behavior on all Android platform versions. Be sure to use them correctly. For example, remember that condition variable waits may spuriously return without being signaled, and should thus appear in a loop. It's best to avoid using atomic functions directly, unless the data structure you are implementing is extremely simple, like a counter. Locking and unlocking a pthread mutex require a single atomic operation each, and often cost less than a single cache miss, if there’s no contention, so you’re not going to save much by replacing mutex calls with atomic ops. Lock-free designs for non-trivial data structures require much more care to ensure that higher level operations on the data structure appear atomic (as a whole, not just their explicitly atomic pieces). If you do use atomic operations, relaxing ordering with memory_order... or lazySet() may provide performance advantages, but requires deeper understanding than we have conveyed so far. A large fraction of existing code using these is discovered to have bugs after the fact. Avoid these if possible. If your use cases doesn't exactly fit one of those in the next section, make sure you either are an expert, or have consulted one. Avoid using volatile for thread communication in C/C++. In Java, concurrency problems are often best solved by using an appropriate utility class from the java.util.concurrent package. The code is well written and well tested on SMP. Perhaps the safest thing you can do is make your objects immutable. Objects from classes like Java's String and Integer hold data that cannot be changed once an object is created, avoiding all potential for data races on those objects. The book Effective Java, 2nd Ed. has specific instructions in “Item 15: Minimize Mutability”. Note in particular the importance of declaring Java fields “final" (Bloch). Even if an object is immutable, remember that communicating it to another thread without any kind of synchronization is a data race. This can occasionally be acceptable in Java (see below), but requires great care, and is likely to result in brittle code. If it's not extremely performance critical, add a volatile declaration. In C++, communicating a pointer or reference to an immutable object without proper synchronization, like any data race, is a bug. In this case, it is reasonably likely to result in intermittent crashes since, for example, the receiving thread may see an uninitialized method table pointer due to store reordering. If neither an existing library class, nor an immutable class is appropriate, the Java synchronized statement or C++ lock_guard / unique_lock should be used to guard accesses to any field that can be accessed by more than one thread. If mutexes won’t work for your situation, you should declare shared fields volatile or atomic, but you must take great care to understand the interactions between threads. These declarations won’t save you from common concurrent programming mistakes, but they will help you avoid the mysterious failures associated with optimizing compilers and SMP mishaps. You should avoid "publishing" a reference to an object, i.e. making it available to other threads, in its constructor. This is less critical in C++ or if you stick to our "no data races" advice in Java. But it's always good advice, and becomes critical if your Java code is run in other contexts in which the Java security model matters, and untrusted code may introduce a data race by accessing that "leaked" object reference. It's also critical if you choose to ignore our warnings and use some of the techniques in the next section. See (Safe Construction Techniques in Java) for details A little more about weak memory orders C++11 and later provide explicit mechanisms for relaxing the sequential consistency guarantees for data-race-free programs. Explicit memory_order_relaxed, memory_order_acquire (loads only), and memory_order_release(stores only) arguments for atomic operations each provide strictly weaker guarantees than the default, typically implicit, memory_order_seq_cst. memory_order_acq_rel provides both memory_order_acquire and memory_order_release guarantees for atomic read-modify write operations. memory_order_consume is not yet sufficiently well specified or implemented to be useful, and should be ignored for now. The lazySet methods in Java.util.concurrent.atomic are similar to C++ memory_order_release stores. Java's ordinary variables are sometimes used as a replacement for memory_order_relaxed accesses, though they are actually even weaker. Unlike C++, there is no real mechanism for unordered accesses to variables that are declared as volatile. You should generally avoid these unless there are pressing performance reasons to use them. On weakly ordered machine architectures like ARM, using them will commonly save on the order of a few dozen machine cycles for each atomic operation. On x86, the performance win is limited to stores, and likely to be less noticeable. Somewhat counter-intuitively, the benefit may decrease with larger core counts, as the memory system becomes more of a limiting factor. The full semantics of weakly ordered atomics are complicated. In general they require precise understanding of the language rules, which we will not go into here. For example: The compiler or hardware can move memory_order_relaxed accesses into (but not out of) a critical section bounded by a lock acquisition and release. This means that two memory_order_relaxed stores may become visible out of order, even if they are separated by a critical section. An ordinary Java variable, when abused as a shared counter, may appear to another thread to decrease, even though it is only incremented by a single other thread. But this is not true for C++ atomic memory_order_relaxed. With that as a warning, here we give a small number of idioms that seem to cover many of the use cases for weakly ordered atomics. Many of these are applicable only to C++. Non-racing accesses It is fairly common that a variable is atomic because it is sometimes read concurrently with a write, but not all accesses have this issue. For example a variable may need to be atomic because it is read outside a critical section, but all updates are protected by a lock. In that case, a read that happens to be protected by the same lock cannot race, since there cannot be concurrent writes. In such a case, the non-racing access (load in this case), can be annotated with memory_order_relaxed without changing the correctness of C++ code. The lock implementation already enforces the required memory ordering with respect to access by other threads, and memory_order_relaxed specifies that essentially no additional ordering constraints need to be enforced for the atomic access. There is no real analog to this in Java. Result is not relied upon for correctness When we use a racing load only to generate a hint, it's generally also OK to not enforce any memory ordering for the load. If the value is not reliable, we also can't reliably use the result to infer anything about other variables. Thus it's OK if memory ordering is not guaranteed, and the load is supplied with a memory_order_relaxed argument. A common instance of this is the use of C++ compare_exchange to atomically replace x by f(x). The initial load of x to compute f(x) does not need to be reliable. If we get it wrong, the compare_exchange will fail and we will retry. It is fine for the initial load of x to use a memory_order_relaxed argument; only memory ordering for the actual compare_exchange matters. Atomically modified but unread data Occasionally data is modified in parallel by multiple threads, but not examined until the parallel computation is complete. A good example of this is a counter that is atomically incremented (e.g. using fetch_add() in C++ or atomic_fetch_add_explicit() in C) by multiple threads in parallel, but the result of these calls is always ignored. The resulting value is only read at the end, after all updates are complete. In this case, there is no way to tell whether accesses to this data was reordered, and hence C++ code may use a memory_order_relaxed argument. Simple event counters are a common example of this. Since it is so common, it is worth making some observations about this case: Use of memory_order_relaxed improves performance, but may not address the most important performance issue: Every update requires exclusive access to the cache line holding the counter. This results in a cache miss every time a new thread accesses the counter. If updates are frequent and alternate between threads, it is much faster to avoid updating the shared counter every time by, for example, using thread-local counters and summing them at the end. This technique is combinable with the previous section: It is possible to concurrently read approximate and unreliable values while they are being updated, with all operations using memory_order_relaxed. But it is important to treat the resulting values as completely unreliable. Just because the count appears to have been incremented once does not mean another thread can be counted on to have reached the point at which the increment has been performed. The increment may instead have been reordered with earlier code. (As for the similar case we mentioned earlier, C++ does guarantee that a second load of such a counter will not return a value less than an earlier load in the same thread. Unless of course the counter overflowed.) It is common to find code that tries to compute approximate counter values by performing individual atomic (or not) reads and writes, but not making the increment as a whole atomic. The usual argument is that this is "close enough" for performance counters or the like. It's typically not. When updates are sufficiently frequent (a case you probably care about), a large fraction of the counts are typically lost. On a quad core device, more than half the counts may commonly be lost. (Easy exercise: construct a two thread scenario in which the counter is updated a million times, but the final counter value is one.) Simple flag communication A memory_order_release store (or read-modify-write operation) ensures that if subsequently a memory_order_acquire load (or read-modify-write operation) reads the written value, then it will also observe any stores (ordinary or atomic) that preceded the A memory_order_release store. Conversely, any loads preceding the memory_order_release will not observe any stores that followed the memory_order_acquire load. Unlike memory_order_relaxed, this allows such atomic operations to be used to communicate the progress of one thread to another. For example, we can rewrite the double-checked locking example from above in C++ as atomic<Helper> helper {nullptr}; mutex mtx; Helper getHelper() { Helper* myHelper = helper.load(memory_order_acquire); if (myHelper == nullptr) { lock_guard<mutex> lg(mtx); myHelper = helper.load(memory_order_relaxed); myHelper = new Helper(); helper.store(myHelper, memory_order_release); return myHelper; The acquire load and release store ensure that if we see a non-null helper, then we will also see its fields correctly initialized. We've also incorporated the prior observation that non-racing loads can use memory_order_relaxed. A Java programmer could conceivably represent helper as a java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicReference<Helper> and use lazySet() as the release store. The load operations would continue to use plain get() calls. In both cases, our performance tweaking concentrated on the initialization path, which is unlikely to be performance critical. A more readable compromise might be: if (myHelper != nullptr) { lock_guard&ltmutex> lg(mtx); if (helper == nullptr) { This provides the same fast path, but resorts to default, sequentially-consistent, operations on the non-performance-critical slow path. Even here, helper.load(memory_order_acquire) is likely to generate the same code on current Android-supported architectures as a plain (sequentially-consistent) reference to helper. Really the most beneficial optimization here may be the introduction of myHelper to eliminate a second load, though a future compiler might do that automatically. Acquire/release ordering does not prevent stores from getting visibly delayed, and does not ensure that stores become visible to other threads in a consistent order. As a result, it does not support a tricky, but fairly common coding pattern exemplified by Dekker's mutual exclusion algorithm: All threads first set a flag indicating that they want to do something; if a thread t then notices that no other thread is trying to do something, it can safely proceed, knowing that there will be no interference. No other thread will be able to proceed, since t's flag is still set. This fails if the flag is accessed using acquire/release ordering, since that doesn't prevent making a thread's flag visible to others late, after they have erroneously proceeded. Default memory_order_seq_cst does prevent it. Immutable fields If an object field is initialized on first use and then never changed, it may be possible to initialize and subsequently read it using weakly ordered accesses. In C++, it could be declared as atomic and accessed using memory_order_relaxed or in Java, it could be declared without volatile and accessed without special measures. This requires that all of the following hold: It should be possible to tell from the value of the field itself whether it has already been initialized. To access the field, the fast path test-and-return value should read the field only once. In Java the latter is essential. Even if the field tests as initialized, a second load may read the earlier uninitialized value. In C++ the "read once" rule is merely good practice. Both initialization and subsequent loads must be atomic, in that partial updates should not be visible. For Java, the field should not be a long or double. For C++, an atomic assignment is required; constructing it in place will not work, since construction of an atomic is not atomic. Repeated initializations must be safe, since multiple threads may read the uninitialized value concurrently. In C++, this generally follows from the "trivially copyable" requirement imposed for all atomic types; types with nested owned pointers would require deallocation in the copy constructor, and would not be trivially copyable. For Java, certain reference types are acceptable: Java references are limited to immutable types containing only final fields. The constructor of the immutable type should not publish a reference to the object. In this case the Java final field rules ensure that if a reader sees the reference, it will also see the initialized final fields. C++ has no analog to these rules and pointers to owned objects are unacceptable for this reason as well (in addition to violating the "trivially copyable" requirements). While this document does more than merely scratch the surface, it doesn’t manage more than a shallow gouge. This is a very broad and deep topic. Some areas for further exploration: The actual Java and C++ memory models are expressed in terms of a happens-before relation that specifies when two actions are guaranteed to occur in a certain order. When we defined a data race, we informally talked about two memory accesses happening "simultaneously". Officially this is defined as neither one happening before the other. It is instructive to learn the actual definitions of happens-before and synchronizes-with in the Java or C++ Memory Model. Although the intuitive notion of "simultaneously" is generally good enough, these definitions are instructive, particularly if you are contemplating using weakly ordered atomic operations in C++. (The current Java specification only defines lazySet() very informally.) Explore what compilers are and aren’t allowed to do when reordering code. (The JSR-133 spec has some great examples of legal transformations that lead to unexpected results.) Find out how to write immutable classes in Java and C++. (There’s more to it than just “don’t change anything after construction”.) Internalize the recommendations in the Concurrency section of Effective Java, 2nd Edition. (For example, you should avoid calling methods that are meant to be overridden while inside a synchronized block.) Read through the java.util.concurrent and java.util.concurrent.atomic APIs to see what's available. Consider using concurrency annotations like @ThreadSafe and @GuardedBy (from net.jcip.annotations). The Further Reading section in the appendix has links to documents and web sites that will better illuminate these topics. Implementing synchronization stores (This isn’t something most programmers will find themselves implementing, but the discussion is illuminating.) For small built-in types like int, and hardware supported by Android, ordinary load and store instructions ensure that a store will be made visible either in its entirety, or not at all, to another processor loading the same location. Thus some basic notion of "atomicity" is provided for free. As we saw before, this does not suffice. In order to ensure sequential consistency we also need to prevent reordering of operations, and to ensure that memory operations become visible to other processes in a consistent order. It turns out that the latter is automatic on Android-supported hardware, provided we make judicious choices for enforcing the former, so we largely ignore it here. Order of memory operations is preserved by both preventing reordering by the compiler, and preventing reordering by the hardware. Here we focus on the latter. Memory ordering on ARMv7, x86, and MIPS is enforced with "fence" instructions that roughly prevent instructions following the fence from becoming visible before instructions preceding the fence. (These are also commonly called "barrier" instructions, but that risks confusion with pthread_barrier-style barriers, which do much more than this.) The precise meaning of fence instructions is a fairly complicated topic that has to address the way in which guarantees provided by multiple different kinds of fences interact, and how these combine with other ordering guarantees usually provided by the hardware. This is a high level overview, so we will gloss over these details. The most basic kind of ordering guarantee is that provided by C++ memory_order_acquire and memory_order_release atomic operations: Memory operations preceding a release store should be visible following an acquire load. On ARMv7, this is enforced by: Preceding the store instruction with a suitable fence instruction. This prevents all prior memory accesses from being reordered with the store instruction. (It also unnecessarily prevents reordering with later store instruction.) Following the load instruction with a suitable fence instruction, preventing the load from being reordered with subsequent accesses. (And once again providing unneeded ordering with at least earlier loads.) Together these suffice for C++ acquire/release ordering. They are necessary, but not sufficient, for Java volatile or C++ sequentially consistent atomic. To see what else we need, consider the fragment of Dekker’s algorithm we briefly mentioned earlier. flag1 and flag2 are C++ atomic or Java volatile variables, both initially false. flag1 = true if (flag2 == false) critical-stuff flag2 = true critical-stuff Sequential consistency implies that one of the assignments to flagn must be executed first, and be seen by the test in the other thread. Thus, we will never see these threads executing the “critical-stuff” simultaneously. But the fencing required for acquire-release ordering only adds fences at the beginning and end of each thread, which doesn't help here. We additionally need to ensure that if a volatile/atomic store is followed by a volatile/atomic load, the two are not reordered. This is normally enforced by adding a fence not just before a sequentially consistent store, but also after it. (This is again much stronger than required, since this fence typically orders all earlier memory accesses with respect to all later ones.) We could instead associate the extra fence with sequentially consistent loads. Since stores are less frequent, the convention we described is more common and used on Android. As we saw in an earlier section, we need to insert a store/load barrier between the two operations. The code executed in the VM for a volatile access will look something like this: volatile load volatile store reg = A fence for "acquire" (1) fence for "release" (2) A = reg fence for later atomic load (3) Real machine architectures commonly provide multiple types of fences, which order different types of accesses and may have different cost. The choice between these is subtle, and influenced by the need to ensure that stores are made visible to other cores in a consistent order, and that the memory ordering imposed by the combination of multiple fences composes correctly. For more details, please see the University of Cambridge page with collected mappings of atomics to actual processors. On some architectures, notably x86, the "acquire" and "release" barriers are unnecessary, since the hardware always implicitly enforces sufficient ordering. Thus on x86 only the last fence (3) is really generated. Similarly on x86, atomic read-modify-write operations implicitly include a strong fence. Thus these never require any fences. On ARMv7 all fences we discussed above are required. ARMv8 provides LDAR and STLR instructions that directly enforce the requirements of Java volatile or C++ sequentially consistent loads and stores. These avoid the unnecessary reordering constraints we mentioned above. 64-bit Android code on ARM uses these; we chose to focus on ARMv7 fence placement here because it sheds more light on the actual requirements. Web pages and documents that provide greater depth or breadth. The more generally useful articles are nearer the top of the list. Shared Memory Consistency Models: A Tutorial Written in 1995 by Adve & Gharachorloo, this is a good place to start if you want to dive more deeply into memory consistency models. http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/Compaq-DEC/WRL-95-7.pdf Memory Barriers Nice little article summarizing the issues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_barrier Threads Basics An introduction to multi-threaded programming in C++ and Java, by Hans Boehm. Discussion of data races and basic synchronization methods. http://www.hboehm.info/c++mm/threadsintro.html Java Concurrency In Practice Published in 2006, this book covers a wide range of topics in great detail. Highly recommended for anyone writing multi-threaded code in Java. http://www.javaconcurrencyinpractice.com JSR-133 (Java Memory Model) FAQ A gentle introduction to the Java memory model, including an explanation of synchronization, volatile variables, and construction of final fields. (A bit dated, particularly when it discusses other languages.) http://www.cs.umd.edu/~pugh/java/memoryModel/jsr-133-faq.html Validity of Program Transformations in the Java Memory Model A rather technical explanation of remaining problems with the Java memory model. These issues do not apply to data-race-free programs. Overview of package java.util.concurrent The documentation for the java.util.concurrent package. Near the bottom of the page is a section entitled “Memory Consistency Properties” that explains the guarantees made by the various classes. java.util.concurrent Package Summary Java Theory and Practice: Safe Construction Techniques in Java This article examines in detail the perils of references escaping during object construction, and provides guidelines for thread-safe constructors. http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-jtp0618.html Java Theory and Practice: Managing Volatility A nice article describing what you can and can’t accomplish with volatile fields in Java. http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-jtp06197.html The “Double-Checked Locking is Broken” Declaration Bill Pugh’s detailed explanation of the various ways in which double-checked locking is broken without volatile or atomic. Includes C/C++ and Java. http://www.cs.umd.edu/~pugh/java/memoryModel/DoubleCheckedLocking.html [ARM] Barrier Litmus Tests and Cookbook A discussion of ARM SMP issues, illuminated with short snippets of ARM code. If you found the examples in this document too un-specific, or want to read the formal description of the DMB instruction, read this. Also describes the instructions used for memory barriers on executable code (possibly useful if you’re generating code on the fly). Note that this predates ARMv8, which also supports additional memory ordering instructions and moved to a somewhat stronger memory model. (See the "ARM® Architecture Reference Manual ARMv8, for ARMv8-A architecture profile" for details.) http://infocenter.arm.com/help/topic/com.arm.doc.genc007826/Barrier_Litmus_Tests_and_Cookbook_A08.pdf Linux Kernel Memory Barriers Documentation for Linux kernel memory barriers. Includes some useful examples and ASCII art. http://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt ISO/IEC JTC1 SC22 WG21 (C++ standards) 14882 (C++ programming language), section 1.10 and clause 29 (“Atomic operations library”) Draft standard for C++ atomic operation features. This version is close to the C++14 standard, which includes minor changes in this area from C++11. http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2015/n4527.pdf (intro: http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/2008/HPL-2008-56.pdf) ISO/IEC JTC1 SC22 WG14 (C standards) 9899 (C programming language) chapter 7.16 (“Atomics <stdatomic.h>”) Draft standard for ISO/IEC 9899-201x C atomic operation features. For details, also check later defect reports. http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n1570.pdf C/C++11 mappings to processors (University of Cambridge) Jaroslav Sevcik and Peter Sewell's collection of translations of C++ atomics to various common processor instruction sets. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~pes20/cpp/cpp0xmappings.html Dekker’s algorithm The “first known correct solution to the mutual exclusion problem in concurrent programming”. The wikipedia article has the full algorithm, with a discussion about how it would need to be updated to work with modern optimizing compilers and SMP hardware. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekker's_algorithm Comments on ARM vs. Alpha and address dependencies An e-mail on the arm-kernel mailing list from Catalin Marinas. Includes a nice summary of address and control dependencies. http://linux.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/Kernel/2009-05/msg11811.html What Every Programmer Should Know About Memory A very long and detailed article about different types of memory, particularly CPU caches, by Ulrich Drepper. http://www.akkadia.org/drepper/cpumemory.pdf Reasoning about the ARM weakly consistent memory model This paper was written by Chong & Ishtiaq of ARM, Ltd. It attempts to describe the ARM SMP memory model in a rigorous but accessible fashion. The definition of “observability” used here comes from this paper. Again, this predates ARMv8. http://portal.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id=1353528&type=pdf&coll=&dl=&CFID=96099715&CFTOKEN=57505711 The JSR-133 Cookbook for Compiler Writers Doug Lea wrote this as a companion to the JSR-133 (Java Memory Model) documentation. It contains the initial set of implementation guidelines for the Java memory model that was used by many compiler writers, and is still widely cited and likely to provide insight. Unfortunately, the four fence varieties discussed here are not a good match for Android-supported architectures, and the above C++11 mappings are now a better source of precise recipes, even for Java. http://g.oswego.edu/dl/jmm/cookbook.html x86-TSO: A Rigorous and Usable Programmer’s Model for x86 Multiprocessors A precise description of the x86 memory model. Precise descriptions of the ARM memory model are unfortunately significantly more complicated. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~pes20/weakmemory/cacm.pdf	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3154
__label__wiki	0.565897	0.565897	Social engineering is content that tricks visitors into doing something dangerous, such as revealing confidential information or downloading software. If Google detects that your website contains social engineering content, the Chrome browser may display a "Deceptive site ahead" warning when visitors view your site. You can check if any pages on your site are suspected of containing social engineering attacks by visiting the Security Issues report. Open the Security Issues Report What is social engineering? A social engineering attack is when a web user is tricked into doing something dangerous online. There are different types of social engineering attacks: Phishing: The site tricks users into revealing their personal information (for example, passwords, phone numbers, or credit cards). In this case, the content pretends to act, or looks and feels, like a trusted entity — for example, a browser, operating system, bank, or government. Deceptive content: The content tries to trick you into doing something you'd only do for a trusted entity — for example, sharing a password, calling tech support, downloading software, or the content contains an ad that falsely claims that device software is out-of-date, prompting users into installing unwanted software. Insufficiently labeled third-party services: A third-party service is someone that operates a site or service on behalf of another entity. If you (third party) operate a site on behalf of another (first) party without making the relationship clear, that might be flagged as social engineering. For example, if you (first party) run a charity website that uses a donation management website (third party) to handle collections for your site, the donation site must clearly identify that it is a third-party platform acting on behalf of that charity site, or else it could be considered social engineering. Google Safe Browsing protects web users by warning users before they visit pages that consistently engage in social engineering. Web pages are considered social engineering when they either: Pretend to act, or look and feel, like a trusted entity, like your own device or browser, or the website itself, or Try to trick you into doing something you'd only do for a trusted entity, like sharing a password, or calling a tech support number, or downloading software. Social engineering in embedded content Social engineering can also show up in content that is embedded in otherwise benign websites, usually in ads. Embedded social engineering content is a policy violation for the host page. Sometimes embedded social engineering content will be visible to users on the host page, as shown in the examples below. In other cases, the host site does not contain any visible ads, but leads users to social engineering pages via pop-ups, pop-unders, or other types of redirection. In both cases, this type of embedded social engineering content will result in a policy violation for the host page. But I don't engage in social engineering! Deceptive social engineering content may be included via resources embedded in the page, such as images, other third-party components, or ads. Such deceptive content may trick site visitors into downloading unwanted software. Additionally, hackers can take control of innocent sites and use them to host or distribute social engineering content. The hacker could change the content of the site or add additional pages to the site, often with the intent of tricking visitors into parting with personal information such as credit card numbers. You can find out if your site has been identified as a site that hosts or distributes social engineering content by checking the Security Issues report in Search Console. See our Help for Hacked Sites if you believe that your site has been hacked. Examples of social engineering violations Deceptive content examples Here are some examples of pages that engage in social engineering practices: Deceptive popup intended to trick the user into installing malware. Deceptive popup claiming to help the user update their browser Fake Google login page. Note the deceptive URL. Other phishing sites like this could trick you into giving up other personal information such as credit card information. Phishing sites may look exactly like the real site—so be sure to look at the address bar to check that the URL is correct, and also check to see that the website begins with https:// Deceptive ad examples Here are some examples of deceptive content inside embedded ads. These ads appear to be part of the page interface rather than ads. Deceptive popup claiming that the user's software is out of date. Deceptive popup claiming to come from the FLV developer Ads masquerading as page action buttons. If your site is flagged for containing social engineering (deceptive content), ensure that your page doesn't engage in any of the practices described above, and then follow these steps: Check in with Search Console. Verify that you own your site in Search Console and that no new, suspicious owners have been added. Check the Security Issues report to see if your site is listed as containing deceptive content (the reporting term for social engineering). Visit some sample flagged URLs listed in the report, but use a computer that's not inside the network that is serving your website (clever hackers can disable their attacks if they think the visitor is a website owner). Remove deceptive content. Ensure that none of your site's pages contain deceptive content. If you believe Safe Browsing has classified a web page in error, please report it here. Check the third-party resources included in your site. Ensure that any ads, images, or other embedded third-party resources on your site's pages are not deceptive. Note that ad networks may rotate the ads shown on your site's pages. You therefore might need to refresh a page a few times before you're able to see any social engineering ads appear. Some ads may appear differently on mobile devices and desktop computers. You can use the URL Inspection tool to view your site in both mobile and desktop views. Follow the third-party service guidelines described below for any third-party services, such as payment services, that you use in your site. Request a review. After you remove all social engineering content from your site, you can request a security review in the Security Issues report. A review can take several days to complete. Third-party service guidelines If you include a third-party service in your site, you should meet the following conditions in order to avoid being labeled as social engineering: On every page, the third-party site should clearly include the third party brand in a way that ensures users understand who is operating the site. For example, by including the third party brand at the top of the page. On every page that contains first-party branding, explicitly state the relationship between the first and third party, and provide a link for more information. For example, a statement like this: This service is hosted by Example.com on behalf of Example.charities.com. More information A good usability guideline is whether a user viewing the page in isolation understands which site they are on, and the relationship between the first and third party at all times. Best practice: If you need a third-party to perform a basic support service for your site, a best practice is to use an industry standard third party for that service. For example, to manage user authentication on your site, you should use OAuth rather than managing authentication yourself.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3155
__label__wiki	0.931524	0.931524	News tip/Upcoming event 6-Day Index Moscow, ID (83843) Overcast. High near 35F. Winds light and variable.. Clear to partly cloudy. Low near 25F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Moscow’s Hicke, Sprague earn Rosa Parks awards A Moscow High School senior and a longtime “pillar” in the Moscow community were celebrated Saturday for their commitment to social justice causes during a virtual event celebrating the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. ‘We just went with it’ Latah County Sheriff’s Office looking for missing 82-year-old man Vehicle catches fire outside Pullman McDonald's No. 25 WSU forces OT again, but can't close out UCLA LOS ANGELES — For the third consecutive game, the 25th-ranked Washington State women's basketball team stormed back from a double-digit second-half deficit. For the third contest in a row, one of the Leger-Walker sisters sent it into overtime. After a flurry, Bears hold on Vandals get burned from the arc, lose to UNC High school roundup: Spence pours in 22 as Genesee boys top Clearwater Valley His View: Course correct: Donald Trump is the worst president ever As I write this column, two weeks after my last take that Trump was not the worst president in history, impeachment proceedings have concluded in the House of Representatives. In between my last column and now, rioters stormed the Capitol, and attempted to kidnap and potentially execute both… Letters to the Editor I Letters to the Editor II Letters to the Editor III If not for the taps behind the counter, you might think Pour Company in Moscow is a coffeehouse. Small tables line the walls and friends catch up in cozy corners over frothy pint glasses. On a recent weekday afternoon, the space was filled with sunlight and quiet chatter. ‘It was so frenetic:’ HBO Max follows Wolfgang Puck Catering Winter wonders: frost like ferns, flowers PRH to explore expanding taxing district The Pullman Regional Hospital Board of Commissioners voted Wednesday to explore placing an expansion of the hospital’s taxing district on the November general election ballot. Their World just got bigger Private offices take shape in heart of Moscow Pullman restaurant starts free pet pantry Idaho Sen. Michelle Stennett, of Ketchum, claps as the newly sworn-in pages file back to their seats at the Idaho State Capitol Building in Boise on Wednesday. Rebecca Noble/Lewiston Tribune Sen. Cherie Buckner-Webb (center), of Boise, smiles as she says the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of an Idaho Senate floor session at the Idaho State Capitol Building in Boise on Wednesday. Idaho Sen. Cherie Buckner-Webb (right) poses for a picture with former President Barack Obama during his second visit to Idaho. Idaho Sens. Cherie Buckner-Webb (left), of Boise, and Michelle Stennett, of Ketchum, talk during an Idaho Senate floor session at the Idaho State Capitol Building in Boise on Wednesday. Rebecca Noble/Tribune David Nelson Sen. Michelle Stennett had her eyes opened 35 years ago in Africa By William L. Spence, for the Daily News BOISE — By her own admission, Michelle Stennett was “pitching a fit.” That’s something few people in the Idaho Statehouse have ever seen, and probably can’t even imagine. Stennett, the Senate Democratic leader, is one of the softest-spoken lawmakers in the building. She is always dignified, rarely raises her voice — rarely even displays her frustration at a legislative process that’s sometimes stacked against her caucus. But 35 years ago, on a dirt road somewhere in Africa, she lost it. “I was in western Kenya, near Lake Victoria,” Stennett said. “I caught a bus in Nairobi and ended up in the Great Rift Valley. The bus broke down for a couple of days.” Stennett grew up in Wisconsin and earned a degree in international relations and environmental studies at the University of Oregon. After graduating, she spent two years working on disaster relief and rural development projects in Kenya, Ethiopia and Bangladesh. She did not work in an office. She was out in the field, riding camels and drinking “blood milk” with the desert nomads, meeting with tribal chiefs in their villages, experiencing ways of life that were vastly different from anything she’d ever known. In situations like that, Stennett said, you need to pay attention. The local values and norms are so unfamiliar, it’s easy to offend people unintentionally. “You’re the stranger in the room,” she said. “You want to be helpful, but you need to be incredibly respectful.” That was not her mindset, though, on that road to Lake Victoria. She was heading for a village she’d never seen, working with someone she didn’t know very well. She was cold and tired and hungry — and after the bus broke down, she still had a full day of walking to reach her destination. While on the trail, she saw a group of people approaching. They were carrying someone in a stretcher. “He had horrible, gaping wounds to his head and eye,” Stennett said. “It looked like he’d been attacked by lions.” Leaping into action, she pulled out her first-aid kit and tried to remember how to fix a broken skull. But while she was putting a compress on the guy’s head, people started plucking at her, pulling her away. “I was like, ‘What? This guy needs help,’ ” she said. “But they said no, they’d done that to him. I was shocked, but that was tribal law in an area that didn’t have local police.” Stennett asked where they were taking the guy. They said they were carrying him to the village infirmary. That’s when she really lost it. She started lecturing them on how backward that was, to nearly beat someone to death and then take him to a doctor. “How is that OK?” Stennett said. “I was so angry. But then someone told me, ‘You (Americans) have people walking into McDonald’s shooting complete strangers, and you’re telling us we need to do better?’ That totally put me in my place.” Such experiences taught Stennett to get all sides of a story. She also, to this day, remains very watchful and sensitive to the people around her. Just because her intentions are good, she doesn’t assume they need or want her help. If she could wave a wand and grant one wish, it would be for all Idahoans to have similar experiences of being the stranger in the room. “You realize that not everyone lives the way you do or thinks like you do, but they still have some of the same needs and wants,” Stennett said. “I think that knowledge would make us a much more tolerant society.” An example for life When David Nelson was assigned to the Senate Transportation Committee in the fall of 2018, it gave him a chance to build on a family tradition. For the better part of 60 years, Nelson’s father and/or grandfather had served as volunteer commissioners in the South Latah Highway District. The tradition began in the 1930s and carried on until 2005. “My brother and I both failed when we didn’t inherit that responsibility,” said Nelson, a first-term senator from Moscow. “It motivated me to do transportation things once I got here (to the Statehouse). And it gave me a step up; some of the other legislators here served as highway commissioners and knew my dad.” One of those was Rep. Clark Kauffman, R-Filer. He remembered the elder Nelson as being a pleasant, upstanding gentleman. One thing he couldn’t recall, though, was his political affiliation. “I don’t remember if he was a Republican or a Democrat,” Kauffman said. Besides his highway commission work, Nelson’s dad also served as a Latah County commissioner in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Nelson, who grew up on the family farm near Genesee, said the way his father interacted with others has been an example in his own life. “I just remember the way he worked with people,” Nelson said. “He was quiet, not emotional. He’d get people into a room and talk about things. That was always my example — I want to be available to people. And it has worked for me; down here I get along pretty well with Republicans.” Lost in the wilderness When she announced this week that she won’t be running for reelection, Boise Sen. Cherie Buckner-Webb paid tribute to her mother. “My mother’s credo was ‘Disturb the peace,’ ” she said in a news release. “I plan to carry on that legacy, as a private citizen, to advocate for the issues that matter to me and other Idahoans.” Inside the Statehouse, Buckner-Webb has been a friendly and persistent advocate for 10 years now, including one term in the House and four in the Senate. She currently serves as the Senate assistant Democratic leader. She’s also part of the 0.7 percent of Idaho’s population that is black. “I grew up in a family that was 100 percent black, but everywhere else I was the only black person in the room, or one of the only,” Buckner-Webb said. “That informed my approach to the world. You can’t walk in the world like everyone else.” When she was 5 years old, someone burned a cross in front lawn of her family’s Boise home. After her dad doused the flames, her mom insisted he put it on the front porch. “We’d already lived there a year,” Buckner-Webb recalled. “My mom said, ‘Those silly SOBs. They too late. We ain’t moving.’ She was a fearless woman. She made me do things I knew I couldn’t do.” Buckner-Webb tells these stories without any hint of bitterness. In fact, what stands out about her most is her sense of humor regarding race relations. In 2015, for example, she had an opportunity to meet President Barack Obama during a campaign stop in Boise. “I told him, ‘I bet you didn’t know there were any black people in Idaho,’ ” she said. “ ‘Are you kidding,’ he said. ‘I doubled the population when I stepped off the plane.’ I love that man.” Buckner-Webb’s family has roots in Arkansas and the Deep South on her mother’s side, but on her father’s side she is a fifth-generation Idahoan. “I tell people we got lost in the desert,” she said. She grew up in Boise, surrounded by multiple generations of relatives, all of whom had a hand in shaping her. “They’d remind me of their journey through life,” she said. “They said how you carry yourself creates the expectations for how someone like you should be treated. ‘Who said it’s supposed to be easy?’ they’d ask. ‘Go do your work.’ ” And now, that work includes disturbing the peace. Spence may be contacted at bspence@lmtribune.com or (208) 791-9168. This is the latest in a series of stories this Idaho legislative session talking with elected officials about the formative experiences in their lives. The stories are based on the work of the National Institute of Civil Discourse, which maintains that it’s harder to demonize people when you know something about their journey in life. Michelle Stennett Cherie Buckner-webb Clark Kauffman Where you go for what you do. The region's best source for events, arts, culture ... everything. Get me to 360! Subscriber email options Sign up to have headlines and breaking news delivered to your inbox. Ask a pro: Your go-to source for information from local professionals What your neighbors are reading Moscow mayor’s emergency powers could see changes Washington releases phase 1B vaccine guidelines Ronald Henry Bielenberg Moscow residents express speeding concerns Latah County DMV asks for patience from public Potlatch approves plan for four days of in-person learning Travel safe with road and snow reports Go to webcams Search archives for the Daily News and Lewiston Tribune here. Go to archives Inland360 Reader rules of conduct Filehub dnews.com 220 E. Fifth St., Suite 314 Email: editor@dnews.com © Copyright 2021 Moscow-Pullman Daily News , 220 E. Fifth St., Suite 314 Moscow, ID \| Terms of Service \| Privacy Policy	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3164
__label__cc	0.525535	0.474465	ARID LANDS is a documentary feature about the land and people of the Columbia Basin in southeastern Washington state. Sixty years ago, the Hanford nuclear site produced plutonium for the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, and today the area is the focus of the largest environmental cleanup in history. It is a landscape of incredible contradictions: coyotes roam among decommissioned nuclear reactors, salmon spawn in the middle of golf courses, wine grapes grow in the sagebrush, and federal cleanup dollars spur rapid urban expansion. ARID LANDS takes us into a world of sports fishermen, tattoo artists, housing developers, ecologists, and radiation scientists living and working in the area. It tells the story of how people changed the landscape over time, and how the landscape affected their lives. Marked by conflicting perceptions of wilderness and nature, ARID LANDS is a moving and complex essay on a unique landscape of the American West. 'Exquisitely filmed and carefully crafted...The multiple perspectives showcased in the film highlight debates and issues that go far beyond the local environs - land development vs. ecology; science vs. real-world experience; and how to determine `acceptable risk.' Minimal narration allows viewers to weigh the various economic, ecological, cultural and political vectors of the problems facing the Hanford area and reach their own conclusions, making this film an excellent launching point for classroom debates.' Melissa Checker, Assistant Professor of Urban Studies, City University of New York, Queens College 'Arid Lands is an engaging and thought-provoking film about shifting human adaptations and transformations of a particular landscape, and the incongruous absurdities sometimes generated in the process...[The film] provides a compelling springboard for discussion of some of the most important issues defining our times.' Dr. Lene Pedersen, Department of Anthropology and Museum, Central Washington University 'Arid Lands does not offer easy answers. Is it truly safe? What does it mean if a town is desensitized to nuclear waste? When will the federal money run out? Will tourism be the answer to economic development and at what cost? The film presents a richly textured view on a community that battles nuclear waste, wrestles with development, and worries about the water. Arid Lands does what most sociology professors want to teach: the ultimate sociological paradox of examining how societal influences shape individuals and, at the same time, how individuals shape the outcome of community, institutions, and society.' Dr. Marisol Clark-Ibanez, Assistant Professor of Sociology, California State University - San Marcos 'Arid Lands has won several environmental film festivals, and rightly so. The producers have documented a complex story that affects all Americans...Would work well in high school and college geography, U.S. history, ethics, political science, and environmental studies courses.' AAAS's Science Books and Films 'A geographer explains that to understand a place ecologically, we must examine the sequence of habitation patterns, and that's just what Arid Lands does...Do not expect a linear narrative in Arid Lands and today's other best environmental films. Indeed, be highly suspicious if someone tries to feed you one, because ecological discourse demands detecting and understanding connections, networks, and implications. The films take you far afield. Enjoy the hike.' Randy Malamud, The Chronicle of Higher Education 'An insightful look into...the concerns of the people who work and develop the land...An excellent job of showing how the choices made now will not only influence future lives, but, more important, the viability of a fragile landscape that the people cannot help but depend upon.' City Pages 'A love song for the ailing, if resilient, expanse of sagebrush and bunch grass that still thrives on the Hanford nuclear site...a comprehensive and, at times, profound and entertaining narrative.' Minnesota Daily 'In this age of golf courses in the desert, this honest look at the state of the west is as refershing as a tall drink of water.' Missoula Independent 'Excellent viewing...Encourage[s] the viewer to think of geography on personal terms, and this no-frills passion elevates Arid Lands above so many other eco-documentaries that are rarely seen beyond classrooms.' Jeff Shannon, The Seattle Times 'A smart, comprehensive, and beautiful film.' Williamette Week 'I'll let you in on a little secret here...I was leery of reviewing this film. I was afraid it might be dry and boring, or cornponishly hokey, or off-puttingly biased, and that I'd have to slag on it like some sort of bone-chewing, Tri-Cities-hating ogre. I was cleared of those doubts within about two minutes. Well-shot, well-edited and refreshingly even-handed, Arid Lands finds wider meaning through a close look at a unique place.' Tri-City Herald's www.atomictown.com 'Stunning documentary...a provocative, complex portrait of Eastern Washington as it grapples with the legacy of Hanford and the future of its arid but starkly beautiful landscape.' Crosscut 'Fascinating story...This video is highly recommended in support of high school and college curricula in environmental studies, geography, and urban studies. It fully supports the broader topic of American studies, the consideration of the choices our citizens will have to make in order to maintain controlled growth of our country and our economy while considering the cost of abandoning or choosing to maintain our national and regional heritage.' Cliff Glaviano, Bowling Green State University Libraries, Educational Media Reviews Online 'Recommended for all libraries in Washington State and others building up environmental collections.' Library Journal Aaker, Grant (film producer) Aaker, Grant (film director) Aaker, Grant (cinematographer) Aaker, Grant (editor of moving image work) Wallaert, Josh (film producer) Wallaert, Josh (film director) Wallaert, Josh (screenwriter) Camera and editing, Grant Aaker. Environmental Anthropology Environmental Geography The Northwest Tourism Sector American West, Hanford site, Washington state, Columbia Basin, nuclear power plant, plutonium, atomic bomb, Nagasaki, environmental cleanup, coyotes, decommissioned nuclear reactors, salmon, wineries, urban expansion, Superfund, sprawl; "Arid Lands"; Bullfrog Films Grade: 10-12, College, Adult Included in Collections: The Docuseek2 Complete Collection 2nd Edition, The Docuseek Canadian Collection 2nd Edition, The Docuseek2 International Collection, The Bullfrog Films Collection, The Psychology and Mental Health Collection, The Anthropology Collection, The Sustainability Collection Docuseek Build 2.0.b247-c7-e	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3166
__label__cc	0.704669	0.295331	Sales Projections For Premium PC Games We here at Elite Game Developers got the chance to work on a premium PC games sales projection spreadsheet with Jussi Autio, Co-Founder and Creative Director of Resistance Games. Jussi approached us with the idea of providing his knowledge on projecting sales in PC games so that the fans of Elite Game Developers could benefit from Jussi’s extensive understanding. Here is the template that you can use for “Premium PC Games sales projections.” You can also use this link. Jussi also wrote a guide to go along with the spreadsheet. Before diving deeper, please read the following article. The spreadsheet There are four areas in the spreadsheet. Green area. Basic math about the base game sales. Shows expected income with given conditions. Top most part shows the main things fast and you need to edit just the details rights. Blue area. This part is about potential DLCs. The only thing to edit are the two first figures, but they are set to what we believe to be relatively “standard” case if there ever is one. If you have plans for less or more DLCs just add more and copy the formulas or forcibly change the text to ‘No’ in “DLC X will be made”. Yellow area. This does the same math as the green area, but for the DLCs. Most likely you will sign separate deal with your publisher or make separate commitment in self-publishing deal to make DLCs. The formulas assume they are done if DLC would make a profit. White area. The scenarios. These are used to calculate expected income for your project. If real-life had save & load and you did your game 1000 times – some becoming hits and others failing – this calculates what you could expect. You will have to do the manual labour to move numbers you get to green area with given sales and put them to the scenarios. When you’re working in premium PC games, many unique aspects need to be taken into consideration. The business model of premium PC games has many revenue share caveats, and future revenue can be secured with additional content being sold at a premium cost. Let’s first cover the costs side of things. Price of the game In the spreadsheet example, the game has been priced at $40. This price is what the customer will pay for the game, and this is the money that will show up as the developer’s net revenue from the game. VAT Different VAT rates may apply geographically, but the spreadsheet uses a rate of 6% as a baseline and average. This rate is deducted from the net revenue before anybody gets a share of the revenue. Engine and platform cut The developer is starting the development of their game, and they want to project sales that will happen once the game goes out on Steam. As they are working on these projections, they can take a few things from granted: the platform cut and the revenue share with the game engine provider. Steam takes a 30% cut from the revenue, and an engine provider like Unreal will receive a 5% cut. The platform and engine will earn their revenue share from the net revenue after VAT has been removed. Publisher business terms: Often, publishers have different business terms. In the spreadsheet, we are only looking at two requirements that affect how much money the developer will see from their game. All of the calculations for the publisher’s revenues will happen after the VAT, engine, and platform cuts have been calculated and deducted. 1) The recoup of the publisher’s development costs. These can be R&D payments that the developer received from the publisher and extra costs like marketing, PR, etc. The recoup means that the publisher first wants to get their investments back from the revenue before the developer receives their share. 2) The publisher/developer revenue share agreement. A common revenue share is an even split of 50% going to the publisher and 50% going to the developer. The game sells 100,000 copies at $40 per box, makes $4m. VAT of 6% = $3,760,000 left Unreal cut of 5% = $188,000 Steam cut of 30% = $1,128,000 Now we have $3,760,000 – $1,316,00 = $2,444,000 Publisher is recouping $200,000 Now we have $2,444,000 – $200,000 = $2,244,000 Publisher 50% = $1,122,000 Developer 50% = $1,122,000 There’s one essential aspect to Premium PC games sales which we need to look at. It’s a component that helps developers keep their game in the market and make money in the future. This component is called the DLC. DLCs (Downloadable Content) are additional gaming content that has been created for a previously released game. The DLC is distributed through the same storefront (i.e., Steam). Downloadable content can be of several types, ranging from new game modes, extensive storyline extensions, aesthetic outfits for characters. DLCs are expansion packs, and the developer can make lots of money by keeping the game alive and selling these DLCs for years to come. In the spreadsheet, we look at several possible DLCs that will get created. The math isn’t that different from selling the original game, but the spreadsheet uses a few industry averages for calculating the sales rate for DLCs. How many players, who bought the original game, will buy a DLC? Jussi Autio points out that this can vary between 20% to 45%, with 35% being a somewhat good average. This value is called an Attach Rate. With each new DLC, the attach rate is about 90% from the previous. Meaning that if a game sold 100k copies, DLC #1 will sell 35k copies, DLC #2 will sell 31,5k, DLC #3 will sell 28,35k, etc. More information on the template can be found inside the template itself. Here is the recording from the webinar with Jussi. Before you start playing around with the spreadsheet, please take a look at this video for further instructions.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3172
__label__cc	0.519219	0.480781	Hungarian Radiology [Forces exerted on the plaques during in vitro measurements by various carotid stent delivery systems and embolic protection devices] SZIKRA Péter, VÖRÖS Erika, SZTRIHA László, SZÓLICS Alex, PALKÓ András Hungarian Radiology - 2008;82(05-06) [PURPOSE - During the endovascular treatment of internal carotid artery stenosis, one of the most important aspects is reducing of embolic complications. Degree of embolization may be influenced by the force exerted by stent delivery systems and embolic protection devices. We assessed the force emersion produced by various devices on vessel walls and plaques. MATERIAL AND METHOD - Six different commercially available devices were investigated. The force load on vessel wall was measured in a carotid model with vessel angulations of 25, 50 and 75 degree, respectively. The IDTE 2000 CE marked measurement system was used. A transparent, flexible PVC tube was used as a model of the carotid bifurcation, which was 6 mm in width, 1.5 mm wall thickness and 12 mm length. 75-85% stenosis were created in it. The measured data were evaluated and different conclusions were drawn. RESULTS - Forces exerted on vessel walls varied widely among different stent delivery systems. The magnitude of force exertion caused by stent delivery systems significantly exceeded that caused by protecting devices. Protecting devices showed only 30% increase in vessel load at angulation of 75 degrees compared to those at 25-50 degrees. Above 50 degrees of vessel angulation the forces exerted by stent delivery systems considerably increases. CONCLUSIONS - Our results showed that selection of the most proper stent can contribute to decrease in the load of vessel wall. Protecting devices exert significantly lower forces than stent delivery systems, therefore, it seems to be a better choice to advance a protecting device before introducing a stent delivery system. If the vessel angulation exceeds 50 degrees, endarterectomy should be considered, because the vessel wall load will increase radically in that case.] carotid stenosiscarotid stentcerebral embolizationexperimental model [Sixty years, fourty years - milestones in ultrasound diagnostics] HARKÁNYI Zoltán [Radiological diagnostics in bone metastases] GŐDÉNY Mária, BODOKY György [Imaging plays a crucial role in defining bone metastases, and thus, therapy planning. We are responsible for accurate data collection, pre-treatment evaluation, evaluation of therapy response and post-treatment evaluation. Precision highly depends on the expertise and experience of the evaluating radiologist, and therefore, being familiar with the latest literature is essential. The bone status can be detected well by bone scan, analysed by conventional X-ray examination and by the cross sectional digital imaging modalities. The whole body PET/CT functional imaging is becoming increasingly popular in the metastatic workup of patients and for monitoring response to therapy. MRI has been found to be the most accurate method for bone metastasis in most comparative evaluations in the literature. This article is a review of the latest papers focusing on the clinical significance of the imaging results in bone metastasis diagnostics.] [Rheumatoid arthritis: significance and methodology of cervical spine X-rays in everyday practice] NÉMETH Ildikó, BUDAY Ilona, MOLNÁR Éva, NYITRAI Márta, SAÁRY Krisztina, TARKOVÁCS Andrea, VARSÁNYI Nóra, FARBAKY Zsófia [Cervical spine joint destruction in rheumatoid arthritis may lead to progressive vertebral instability. It is a severe risk factor for cord compression, which may even lead to sudden death. Many patients with atlantoaxial subluxation may have no symptoms referable to the neck. True degree of subluxation may occur during anaesthesia when the neck muscles are relaxed and protective spasm is absent. The cervical deformities can be visualised on conventional, transoral and functional lateral view in the flexion and extension positions of the neck. The aim of our study is to demonstrate the usefulness of cervical dynamic X-ray for patients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. This is the first classical radiological imaging method in the diagnosis and in radiographic follow-up. It is a very important method in the preoperative evaluation to prevent definitive neurologic injury. We describe the method for screening, measuring and grading cervical subluxations and instability in our everyday routine.] [Role of radiofrequency ablation in the treatment of malignant liver tumors - Possibilities and limitations] BÁNSÁGHI Zoltán [Radiofrequency tumour therapy is a minimally invasive procedure. It has been used in several specialities independently of the type and location of the tumour, and has shown its worth. In primary hepatic malignancies, radiofrequency ablation (RFA) is a curative procedure. Recent publications reveal that hepatocellular carcinomas which were of cirrhotic origin and not larger than 5 cm have shown similar responses to both RFA and surgery. In cases of metastatic hepatic tumours, RFA showed slightly poorer results as compared to surgery. But, in tumour foci less than 3 cm or in patients in whom the perioperative risks were high (and they presented with tumor foci less than 3 cm and 3 foci), RFA proved to be a better alternative to surgery. RFA, when used percutaneously, is a cheaper procedure as compared to surgical resection. It can be performed on an out-patient basis with a maximum of 24 hours of observation. Local anesthetic or slight sedation may be employed. Greatest advantage of RFA is its ability to cause tumour degradation. Its results are not well known in our country. Under the existing financial system, RFA is not feasible.] [Use of plain and intravenous contrast material multidetector CT examinations in acute abdomen] TÓTH László, TÓTH Géza, TURUPOLI Emőke, LOMBAY Béla, PAVLIKOVICS Gábor [Through most of Europe, multidetector computed tomography is used as the first-line modalitiy for examining the acute abdomen. Acute abdominal pain, symptoms referring to abnormal bowel movements, gastrointestinal bleeding, worsening general state, and other typical clinical signs require quick and precise diagnosis since these conditions are frequently life-threatening. The sensitivity and specificity of CT examinations have significantly improved due to the development of the machinary. Thus, the scope of indications are also expanding. Almost all acute abdominal disorders, that may lead to an acute surgical procedure, can be diagnosed with the help of multidetector CT. Unnecessary surgical procedures, the risk to the patients and also the cost of hospitalization can be reduced using multidetector CT examination.] [Transcranial Doppler monitoring of distal embolism during of carotid stenting] SZIKRA Péter, VÖRÖS Erika, SZTRIHA László, SZÓLICS Alex [INTRODUCTION - Reducing the risk of embolisation during endovascular treatment of internal carotid artery stenosis is very important. The rate of embolisation is affected by the different steps of stenting manipulation. Using transcranial Doppler equipment we studied the embolic signals during the different phases of carotid dilatation and stenting. MATERIAL AND METHOD - 50 patients (33 male, 17 female; mean age 64 years) were intraproceduraly monitorized with transcranial Doppler. Predilatation was necessary in nine cases, postdilatation was performed in 39 cases. The number of emboli were measured in seven different steps of endovascular treatment of carotid stenosis. Different type of commercial available endovascular devices were used. RESULTS - Intraprocedural embolisation was observed in every case. In different phases of carotid stenting the rate of embolisation showed marked differences in each phase of carotid stenting. Crossing the stenosis with stent delivery system were accompanied by a low rate of embolism (5.3) compared to the level during stent opening (9.16) and balloon dilatation (9.96). The highest level of embolisation was observed during predilatation (15.9) without the protection of the stent. CONCLUSIONS - We detected embolisation in all of the cases, however the number of embolic signals varied in different phases of carotid artery stenting. Embolisation can be reduced if the most dangerous steps (i.e. pre- and postdilatation) are avoided. Using TCD monitorisation the physician can be informed by the degree of embolisation that may alarm the interventionalist to perform the procedure more carefully, furthermore it can be employed during the training of carotid stenting.] [Stroke prevention: Experience with endovascular therapy of carotid artery stenosis] SZENTGYÖRGYI Réka, VÖRÖS Erika, PÓCSIK Anna, MAKAI Attila, BARZÓ Pál, SZTRIHA László, SZIKRA Péter, PALKÓ András [INTRODUCTION - Carotid artery stenting as an alternative to carotid endarterectomy is still not accepted by many Hungarian vascular surgeons. The purpose of our study was to prove that carotid artery stenting is effective in the treatment of primary atherosclerotic lesions and it carries a low risk of complications. PATIENTS AND METHODS - 149 patients (86 men, 63 women, 33-82 years old, mean age 57.5 years) were evaluated angiographically. 146 primary atherosclerotic lesions, and 8 post-endarterectomy restenoses were considered for carotid artery stenting. All patients had significant, over 60% stenosis according to NASCET criteria. Atherosclerotic plaques were classified as smooth, irregular and ulcerated. Subtotal occlusions (stenoses over 95%) were noted. The necessity of pre- or postdilation and the types of stent used were registered. Procedural success and periprocedural complication rates were noted. Followup colour Doppler sonography was performed at 1, 6 and 12 months. RESULTS - Subtotal occlusions were detected in 28% of the lesions. Procedural success rate was 149/150 (99%). Stenting was carried out in 86% with Monorail Carotid Wallstent. Predilation or use of protecting device was avoided in 96%. Postdilation was avoided in 6 cases of ulcerated plaques to prevent distal embolisation. Residual stenosis was always less than 30%. Stroke occured in 2.6%, TIA in 0.7%. Two of our patients developed restenosis. CONCLUSION - Carotid artery stenting is a safe alternative to carotid endarterectomy for most patients with primary atherosclerotic stenosis, as it can be carried out with clinical complication rate as low as published in the ACAS.] [The force transmission of the distal endings of stent delivery systems] SZIKRA Péter, VÖRÖS Erika, SZTRIHA László, SZÓLICS Alex, CSIKÁSZ Tamás [INTRODUCTION - In cases of endovascular treatment of internal carotid artery stenosis, one of the most important aspects is to minimise embolic complications. Dislodging emboli may be influenced by the shape and size of tapered endings of stent delivery systems. Our team performed measurements and calculations on the emergence of force of the various tapered endings. MATERIAL AND METHOD - Five different commercially available stent dilivery systems were investigated. The thickness of the devices were measured and taking 5 mm normal artery diameter, the lumen size was calculated, above which the delivery system should dilate the lumen mechanically. By means of geometrical computer-constructions and measurements, we analysed the forces directed ahead and laterally, emerging on the surface of tapered endings during the passing through the stenosis. RESULTS - The stent delivery systems were between 5.0 and 5.9 F in diameter, and even the stent delivery system of lowest profile would dilate a stenosis of over 89%. The different endings are tapered with variable lengths. The force transmission on the vessel wall of different directions was distinct at the various points of the cone surfaces. The forces directed ahead were less than those directed laterally on the larger part of a cone surface. Irregularity of the cone surfaces distributed the forces unfavorably. Considering the features of tapered endings, the atraumatic introduction of the devices required a range of upper limits of stenoses between 89.76-98.04%, which are more feasible values than those deternined by shaft sizes. CONCLUSIONS - Our experimental work suggests, that the shape and size of the endings of stent delivery systems influence the forces affecting vessel wall plaques, and in this manner, embolic complications, during carotid stenting. The lowest risk of embolisation could be induced by using the longest and smoothest tapered endings.] [Efficacy of maximal dose rosuvastatin therapy in significant carotis stenosis] KONCSOS Péter [The main role of atherogenic dyslipidemia is known for decades. Several studies have proven the beneficial effect of statin therapy on cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. The following case report demonstrates the efficacy of high dose statin therapy regarding lipid goals and clinical signs. The presented 65 year-old female patient had a history of dyslipidemia and hypertension for over 15 years and positive cardiovascular family history. Carotid ultrasound examination showed 15-20% bilateral stenosis in 2008 whereas four years later, control ultrasound showed significant progression with 65% left-sided asymptomatic stenosis. At this time, LDL-cholesterol level was above the target; we managed to reach the recommended level with high-dose statin treatment in combination therapy with ezetimibe. Besides the lipid levels, regression of the carotid stenosis could be observed without statin-associated side effects.]	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3174
__label__cc	0.672076	0.327924	Why can adjectives like “cool” and “stupid” and the adverb “proudly” modify the verb “play”? She plays it cool. He plays / acts stupid. The headlines showed you played them proudly. In Collins, the explanations are: You can describe how someone deals with a situation by saying that they play it in a certain way. For example, if someone plays it cool, they keep calm and do not show much emotion, and if someone plays it straight, they behave in an honest and direct way. Why can adjectives like "cool" and "stupid" and the adverb "proudly" modify the verb "play"? What kind of constructions are they? How can I understand them? sentence-construction Not sure but I think its a difference between what is technically correct and what we say as set phrases. You could use adverb forms for "cool" and "stupid" and to me it still reads OK. – user3169 May 15 '14 at 2:14 Short answer: adjectives following these verbs are predicate adjectives, and don't modify the verb. – John Lawler May 15 '14 at 17:13 In this case, it's because the adjective is functioning as a manner for the verb; She plays it cool Verb Manner He plays/acts stupid Verb Manner The headlines showed you played them proudly Verb Manner The probe for Manner (which is a Circumstance) is: How did they do X? Although traditionally associated with adverbs, adjectives can do this also. He acts smart. He plays dumb. Tensions ran hot. The reason for this is that these verbs, while usually Behavioural or Material, in this case represent Relational or Attributive processes - note that in each of the above cases, you can replace the verb with "be" or "makes": He is smart. He is dumb. Tensions were hot. She makes it cool. He is stupid. The headlines showed you made them proud (but not proudly) jimsugjimsug So how to determine which adjectives can be used this way, and which are not? – Man_From_India May 15 '14 at 2:27 @Man_From_India Well, typically, we don't use it with adjectives that describe appearance - you wouldn't say He acts/plays green. You could use it with size, but only metaphorically - He acts tall might mean that someone does things only tall/large people would do. Essentially, you can use one of those constructions with any adjective, but in some cases it might be metaphoric. – jimsug May 15 '14 at 2:31 @jimsug: is "The building stands tall" a metaphor? – oerkelens May 15 '14 at 7:41 @oerkelens nope. Stand can be an attributive or existential process as well, so in this case it's agnate to the building is tall. – jimsug May 15 '14 at 8:00 Yeah, I would simply note that the verbs that govern this construction (act, look, sound, appear, seem, play, work, ...) are perception verbs, and the adjectives are all perceived attributes, so that the construction X Vᵖ Adjᵖ (X looks smart, acts stupid, sounds cool, seems tired, ...) simply means 'X Vᵖ like X is Adjᵖ'. X looks smart means X looks like X is smart'. They're normally substitutable, though there are always odd wrinkles, like any idiomatic construction. Especially those involving sense verbs and flip perception verbs. – John Lawler May 15 '14 at 17:11 As an adverb, "proudly" can modify the verb "play" without a problem. The others aren't actually modifying the verb at all! There are certain verbs that link an adjective to their subject: "to be" is the most obvious one. I am stupid. You are cool. Other verbs, like "play" and "act", do the same thing. The only difference is that they mean the subject tries or pretends to be whatever the adjective describes. I act stupid. You play cool. Finally, note that this last one ("You play cool") is unlikely to actually be said by anyone. "Play it cool" has become idiomatic—the "it" doesn't really refer to anything, but it can't be removed or replaced. Tim PederickTim Pederick I disagree with the answers stating that "cool" and "stupid" are used as adjectives here. If someone "plays it cool," that person might be a "cool" person, but that is not what the sentence is saying. And "cool" can't be a predicate adjective because "play" is not a linking verb! Moreover, the first comment on the question, stating that the sentences don't change much when the adverb forms of "cool" and "stupid" are used, seems to me to be exactly correct: She plays it coolly. He acts stupidly. Therefore, I believe this is simply an instance in which adjectival forms are used instead of adverbial forms, probably because they simply "sound better". Another common example of this is the use of "bad" instead of "badly." Rarely does anyone one say "I feel badly" to describe how they feel (though I've seen a grammar book recommend this!), but it seems unlikely that in the sentence "I feel bad", the speaker is trying to describe themself ("I") with the descriptor "bad". As for "proudly", that's just a standard adverb modifying a verb, which is perhaps the primary function of adverbs. Kyle StrandKyle Strand Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged sentence-construction or ask your own question. What is the basic order of noun, verb, adjective, adverb etc? A very general format? Verb forms, and the usage of commas Can I use the verb pass with another verb When someone is trying to use your own words against you or just sophisticates the topic of discussion (In AmE) How to ask someone to continue the play when they have stopped playing for some reasons like thinking or looking at their phones? You have to consider all the probabilities (A comparison between possibility and probability / likelihood) Can I write something like this: “I found an answer on is and why is it important to do that.” what does the adverb “newly” modify in this sentence? Is “all” used as an adverb to modify the following adjective? adverb between the verb and object	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3175
__label__cc	0.522848	0.477152	Essen on Main European Menu + Handcrafted Coffee A family owned + operated restaurant featuring an authentic European menu, highlighting our German + French heritage. Sweet Indulgence Room for Dessert? Yes please! An assortment of fresh desserts, served daily. The Flavors of Europe Featuring freshly made hot breakfast and lunch, handcrafted espresso, soups, sandwiches, and delicious desserts. John and Katheleen Hanselman David and Katheleen Hanselman joined the Royal Oak community in 1972 with the purchase of Royal Oak Tire. In 1995, they retired and leased out the property. After 46 years, a new adventure begins! David and Katheleen's son, John, shares his family's German heritage through the opening of Essen on Main, featuring a variety of authentic, European-inspired plates. Meet the Chef de Cuisine Brian Kraemer Brian's career as a chef began in Germany after a year studying abroad. It was in his host-family's kitchen where he discovered his interest in European cuisine. Brian continued his career in Germany, working in various fine-dining restaurants, including a Michelin restaurant, before deciding to complete his three-year apprenticeship in the city of Wuppertal, Germany, where he was classically trained. With a European culinary degree in his hands and an award as 2nd-place winner of a cooking competition in North-Rhine Westphalia, Brian returned to the US and was a Chef de Partie at the French fine-dining restaurant Bistro 82 here in Royal Oak before becoming the Chef de Cuisine of the German club Carpathia in Sterling Heights. Now the Chef de Cuisine of Essen on Main, Brian offers guests the authentic and classic tastes of Germany, France, and other continental European cuisines. Superior Quality + Taste Some of our featured dishes	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3178
__label__cc	0.74142	0.25858	Eurasia, Eurasia Northwest, Featured No Comments August 27, 2015 eurasiacommunity History Maker: First Georgian Bible Translation On July fourth, A truck pulled into Georgia’s postal service carrying a promising package. A package that represented four years of research and work, thousands of dollars in support and decades of prayer. A study Bible. The first Bible with a commentary in the Georgian language. It’s been one of the cornerstones of Eurasia Northwest to Finish the Task in Georgia. Vision and Prayer of the Word Bishops Oleg Khubashvili and Roman Gachechiladze, leaders of the Pentecostal Union, the primary Evangelical church, had prayed for this day. Georgian believers already possessed a Bible in their language for many years. Evangelicals knew the power of the Word. But they longed for a Bible with context and more clarity in their language. A team of five people came together to produce the new Bible. Tony Rybarczyk, Assemblies of God missionary and Managing Editor, led the project. The project began in 2011 and was finished in the Spring of 2015. But as Rybarczyk pointed out, a translation of this size normally takes 8 – 12 years. They were able to produce it much quicker, due to the aid and resources of other Georgian editors, readers, Christian churches and Bible organizations. Every person, every member of this team was crucial for this project, Guram Imerlishvili, Project Manager, said. The current Georgian Bible’s effectiveness was stunted without a commentary. To begin with, the team found that the commentary and text weren’t consistent with each other. “We had to address those textual issues because the comments did not match the text,” Kote Dzebisashvili, Co-translator/Editor, said. Ministers and laymen needed a commentary to compare and contrast as they studied their Bible. It breathed life into the historical and literary context of the time period in which it was written. Daunting Task: Revising the Greater Work At first, a translated commentary was the only objective. Then, they began to pore through the current translation, verse by verse, comparing to other versions. By the time they worked through Genesis, it was clear that the entire Georgian Bible must be revised. Grammatical and spelling errors existed within the text, due to the speedy translation of the original text. In addition, some portions also contained phrases that were heavily influenced from the Georgian Orthodox Church, the dominant religion of the country. Guram and the team were aware of these influences, so they took advantage of the many translations available to them to compare. “We were digging in many modern and old translations to discover what is the truth there. And thanks to God, we did it.” Financial Miracles The team had many difficulties ahead. Besides the work, the biggest obstacle was finances. “We’ve had some challenges, but God always gave the right timing with everything that happened, everything that transitioned,” Jim said. Back in 1999, Pastor Jim McNabb and his congregation at The Bridge Assembly of God first began working with the Georgian church. When he heard about the lack of a study Bible in their language, he felt God move on his heart. After prayer, he and his church began raising support for the Georgian Bible Translation project. Over a period of several years, they raised over half a million dollars to see the project through. “When God tells me something – because God doesn’t speak to me every day like he does some people – when God tells me something, I know God speaks to my heart; the funds will be there,” Jim said. In each phase of the project, the church partnered closely with the translation team, communicating and focusing on the need. Multifaceted Focus The Bible translation was worked on from several angles. Kote, Co-translator/Editor, focused on comparison to English Bible versions and technical editing. Guram, Project Manager, used his background in Greek for the New Testament translation and looked at other Georgian versions. And the overall contextual revisions were led by Bishop Oleg, who also served as the Theological Editor. When it was completed, the new Georgian Bible included several monumental characteristicsthey’d never had before: Complete commentary from the Thomas Nelson Publishing House. Reorganized chapter numbering of Psalms to match English and many other Bible versions Colored, historical maps and indexes Tabs for each book of the Bible Jesus’ words were notated in red “What we’ve done is, we’ve tried to bring it up to the next level,” Kote said. [Shared with permission from our friends at Eurasia Northwest. ]	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3181
__label__wiki	0.587669	0.587669	The End of Sparta This is the story of the great march against Sparta, the dream of the general Epaminondas of classical Thebes, whom the ancient Greeks and Romans acclaimed as the greatest man the classical world produced. Today we hear little of him. We know even less about all that his armies accomplished in a dramatic two-year period between 371 and 369 B.C. Most contemporary accounts of that war were long ago lost. Our few extant historians apparently did not like the Thebans and so often misrepresented them or left them out of their narratives entirely. Most often Greek writers focused instead on Sparta and Athens. All that helps to explain why Epaminondas has faded from our memories—and why I offer a novel about what he accomplished. Sometime in July 371 B.C., the Theban Epaminondas and his Boiotian Greeks shattered the phalanx of the supposedly invincible Spartans at the battle of Leuktra. They killed the Spartan king Kleombrotos, and crushed his warrior elite. The next year, not content with that stunning victory, Epaminondas—a follower of the philosopher Pythagoras who believed that our souls lived beyond our bodies and were judged by our deeds during our incarnate existence—led a grand coalition of Greeks southward to overrun Sparta. The plan was to liberate the people of the Peloponnesos and apparently to reorder Greece itself. They were to found great citadels to hem in a weakened Sparta, and to free forever the serfs of its colony across the mountains in Messenia. That way, Epaminondas might cripple Sparta by robbing it of agricultural labor and thus ensure that no Greek people should be serfs to other Greeks—and that the Spartans, like other Greek militiamen, would finally have to grow their own food rather than train constantly for war. Still, we cannot quite fathom all the reasons why tens of thousands followed this mystic general—plunder of course, strategic necessity probably, idealism perhaps. We only know that his preemptive invasion of the Peloponnesos began the end of Sparta—at least as the preeminent power as the Greeks had known it for centuries. Nor do classical scholars understand the degree to which Pythagorean idealism energized these Theban liberators. Pythagoras was always a shadowy figure even to the Greeks. He had long been dead by the time of Epaminondas. Contemporaries derided Pythagoreans and their practices as a subversive cult. They certainly seemed strange. The embrace of vegetarianism, equality between the classes and sexes, reincarnation, reverence for nature’s harmony and order, avoidance of extremes, and fascination with numerical symmetries all frightened traditional Greeks. Apparently the soul could achieve its lasting perfection and rest only by denying the earthly appetites. It was almost considered trapped within matter of some sort—in cyclical fashion reentering a plant, an animal, or a human until it was cleansed of temptation, and at last set free to become incorporeal and immortal. The divine was visible around us for those willing to train hard to appreciate it. Prime numbers cannot be divided. Man, not nature, creates artificial and unnatural notions of diet. Social intercourse and rank should be dissolved. Plants and animals have souls and are one with men and thus sacrosanct. Suppression of the ego and material acquisition alone help us to glimpse the godly. For the Pythagorean farmer, the divine was found by cultivating symmetry out of savage chaos. For the statesmen, the ideal was to return men to their naturally free state without arbitrary rank. For the citizen, he should avoid eating meat and not be embarrassed of using the left—and traditionally unlucky—hand. Somehow for Epaminondas and his circle all that translated into an idealism of freeing the serfs of Sparta—or at least the philosophical veneer of a shrewd strategy to weaken rival Spartan military power. The catalysts of this story of Epaminondas are the farmers of the clan of the Malgidai—Mêlon, his slaves Chiôn and Nêto, and their fellow rustics from the highland orchards and vineyards of Mt. Helikon. These characters—unlike most others in the novel—are not found in the historical record, but they are the sort of people who so often appear as farmers in the Works and Days of Hesiod, various comedies of Aristophanes, and the letters about rural life that have come down to us under the name of Alciphron. A word is needed on the use of dialogue. How can Greek-speaking literary characters, belonging to a foreign world some 2,500 years past, sound authentically ancient and yet be understandable to a modern English reader? Classical Greek authors themselves wrote in what we today might call a formal style. Their own elevated vocabulary and complex syntax certainly were not realistic, and would have been recognized as such by the proverbial man in the street. Indeed, both public orations and recorded private dialogue—whether found in Thucydides’s history, Plato’s repartee, or the verses of Sophocles—were not intended to reflect actual speech. Much less did Greek prose mimic the spoken word heard daily in a Thebes or Athens. Even at their most colloquial expression, Greek literary prose and poetry were a world away from the accessibility of American popular slang. So I have tried to strike a balance—avoiding both the extremes of the formal prose of nineteenth-century English historical fiction (written in large part by novelists who knew Greek and Latin and emulated the complex syntax of ancient authors), and the now common practice of making ancient people sound as if they were American suburbanites.1 My editor at Bloomsbury Press, Peter Ginna, offered countless editorial suggestions that have improved the narrative. Glen Hartley and Lynn Chu of Writers’ Representative once again proved invaluable friends, advisors, and agents. I profited a great deal from close readings of the manuscript by Curtis Easton, Susannah Hanson, Jennifer Heyne, Raymond Ibrahim, Yishai Kabaker, and Bruce Thornton. I would also like to thank the editorial staff at Bloomsbury Press for editing, advice, and patience in bringing the book to fruition.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3186
__label__wiki	0.610294	0.610294	Game Review, Games, PC, PS4, Xbox One by Clint Prentice December 18, 20145:57 pm December 18, 2014 Dragon Age: Inquisition Review: Dawn of A New Age Dragon Age: Origins was one of the best RPGs of the last generation. Bioware looked back to its Baulder’s Gate roots and crafted a new world. Dragon Age 2 is often considered a misstep for the series, an incredibly rushed product that reuses environments too often and fails to consider the breadth and depth of the world. Dragon Age: Inquisition is a direct answer to the complaints of Dragon Age 2 meshed with some of the design sensibilities of Origins. Bioware excels at telling character-focused stories in rich and detailed worlds and Dragon Age: Inquisition is no different. It’s a game of immense scope that still manages to be incredibly engaging and personal. The world of Dragon Age has always been that of off-kilter high fantasy, with various twists on the genre that give it more flavor. Mages are feared by many as being too powerful, instead of being revered as wizened, bearded, wisemen. Elves have lost their ancestry and live either deep in the woods struggling to regain their heritage, or as indentured servants to the more noble races. In fact, Inquisition removes itself so far from generic fantasy tropes that it almost doesn’t feel like the same world of Dragon Age: Origins. This is a problem at times, just in terms of old and new characters interacting with each other. Old characters pop into the world and feel out of touch with how society has changed and adapted over the years. Origins dealt in more of the socioeconomic underpinnings of fantasy racial tensions. Inquisition distances itself from these tropes and asks much more difficult questions about identity. It can feel like a bit off-putting, but also natural. The Dragon Age games have taken place over a series of thirty years so seeing change within society isn’t so disjointed. The problem comes when attempting to shoehorn in mentions of Dragon Age: Origins, outside of Morrigan’s character. Luckily, these nods are few and far between and Inquisition is much better off looking towards the future away from those characters. It is as if the world grew up and acknowledged its short comings and worked to fix itself. The times when the old and new clash together show two different design philosophies struggling to communicate with each other just to please the fans. Inquisition also boasts one of the more engaging representations of religion in fantasy or video games. Instead of the omnipresent Maker being a real and proven entity, their religions are more based on faith in ideas. They believe a Maker or God exists in some form, but it’s just a belief. People go to wars over beliefs and get into arguments over religion — it’s a welcome change from the “One True God” kind of fantasy we normally get. Your character can choose whether or not to be religious at all, you can spit in the face of those that call you the Herald of Andraste or commit to a lie to give the people something to believe in. And people will react accordingly. In my playthrough, I committed to telling people I was their Herald in an attempt to win favor and rally those to my cause; whether or not I truly believed in it didn’t matter. The thrust of the main narrative lies in someone believing themselves to be the next coming of a god in this world. It is the idea of a delusional person who will do whatever it takes to see their beliefs realized. As soon as you hit “Start New Game,” a massive explosion rips a hole in the sky during peace talks between Templars and Mages. At first, the world reacts as if this were a terrorist attack trying to denounce the Chantry and spin the world into chaos. You, as the lone survivor of this attack are accused of the crime. You are immediately flung into a years long conflict between Templars and Mages and a conflict surrounding religions. This is all while trying to find a way to seal a giant hole tearing the sky apart and threatening to swallow the world. Once you encounter the main threat, Inquisition falls into some of the same narrative inconsistencies of Mass Effect 3 where the ever-present threat sits idly by as you solve the problems of the world. Inquisition does more to combat this logical leap by suggesting your threat is spending time building their forces, just as you are yours. Many of the main story missions focus on this directly. You only encounter the Big Bad a few times throughout the story, but each time he appears, he is a force to be reckoned with. The Inquisition gets knocked down more times than in most “save the world stories” with each victory costing some variation of sacrifice. The main narrative is engaging enough on its own, with deep introspective looks at faith and the unknown. The story is only further strengthened by the side stories told throughout. Inquisition boasts a cast of varying social and economic identities that attempts to show the world through the many different lenses of the Dragon Age universe. It is, in many ways, the Star Trek: The Next Generation of fantasy casts. Everyone forms a much-needed view on the rest of the world, giving each story beat multiple different contexts and filling in pockets of detail where necessary. It creates a unique cast that feels alive; they are people you want to learn more about. But, as is the problem with Star Trek: The Next Generation, Inquisition finds itself lacking in conflict between characters. This isn’t the worst thing in the world, after all there is always the looming threat of world ending bad guys, so everyone puts aside their differences and works together as a group. Of course, when some new, shadier characters come about, some party members may find them off-putting or request you not take them in. But, you’re the Inquisitor and they always defer to you for final say. While inter-character dramatic beats are few and far between, Inquisition does like to present scenes of characters interacting with each other in often comical or light-hearted moments. These scenes give a sense of a larger ensemble cast, rather than just scattered personalities. The drama for characters, then, is relegated to their individual stories. These quests mimic those of Mass Effect’s companion-specific quests, but never quite reach the highs of some of that series’ best efforts. Most quests revolve around talking through issues and killing a few random enemies, nothing all that different from the main narrative thrust. While they may not reach the explosive heights of Mass Effect’s companion quests, Inquisition makes up for it with one of the better casts in a Bioware game. The characters are some of the most varied and personable Bioware has ever written; the problems they deal with are incredibly human and relatable to the real world. Dorian, for instance, wants his father to accept his sexuality and not try to change him. Or Cassandra, who worries about her wavering faith in the Chantry (the main human religion in Dragon Age). Most of the companion quests in Inquisition somehow link to the larger ongoing threat while still being personal to the individual, giving even more gravitas to completing them. Some characters, on the other hand, are given shorter shrift than others: Vivienne, for example, hardly gets much time for her story to develop, all the while her personality is clouded in mystery that makes connecting with her difficult. Better yet, Bioware doesn’t allow you to romance all of your companions; some have other people in their lives or just don’t want to start a relationship right now. For the first time, Bioware seems to be treating romance with more reverence and forethought than just banging everyone for the faint praise of an achievement/trophy pop-up. Even the sex scenes themselves have more weight and personality to them. No longer are you just looking to hook up with someone, but form a genuine relationship with them — something Bioware has had trouble with in the past. While you got to know them and formed a bond with them, most Bioware relationships before Inquisition were silent montages of polygons bumping together in feigned animations. Inquisition takes a different route, placing you in romantic situations of foreplay, or scenes where characters talk about their relationship, or your friends accidentally walking in during an intimate moment. Sex in Inquisition removes itself from those stilted animations and moves into a much more affectionate territory. And relationships themselves have very different connotations: my relationship with Iron Bull started off as casual sex that developed into something much more over time. Inquisition also boasts one of the most eclectic casts of various genders, sexualities, and races. The characters aren’t defined by their gender or sexuality either; they much broader and well-realized characters that surpass any basic qualification. It’s the opposite of generic fantasy with extremely racist and sexist tones. Here, women are in positions of power all across the world and anyone can be free to be in a relationship with anyone else. It still dabbles in a small bit of fantasy racism, but even that seems to be lifted and polished off — my female elf was originally talked down to and called “knife ear” until people understood that I was just as much a person as them (also being the chosen one certainly helped). Of course, I didn’t spend 66 hours talking to characters and working the political and religious game, I also fought a bunch of monsters. Combat, like most of Inquisition, takes nods from both Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2, trying to make combat a sweet spot of tactical action. However, that’s mostly only true when you’re fighting in story missions or dragons, really. You can engage with the more dynamic skill combinations to take down enemies, if you wish. Through most of the early game, though, you can hold down the main attack button and fire off a couple of spells or abilities and be fine. I didn’t bother with the tactical camera much, only using it during late-game fights when I needed to micromanage my party’s abilities. I did reallot my skills and my party’s skills a number of times for better cool-down management and crowd control. Later in the game, you unlock class specializations that add more complexity to skill combinations. Once you get into more powerful and higher-leveled enemies, tactics take a much greater focus. I eventually turned my mage into a debuff, damage-dealing character. The depth of combat exists, if you’re willing to engage with it. When traveling the world fighting random mobs, combat is much more Dragon Age 2 than Origins. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, the combat is fine, it’s just nothing of any specific note. Spells fire off in dazzling effects and everything looks really great, but you’re not particularly challenged on the normal difficulty. They arbitrarily add a level of challenge by not refilling party health outside of battle and removing all healing spells from the game, forcing you to use the limited number of potions you can refill at any camp. Inquisition is broken up into a number of large zones filled with a number of quests all their own. Most of these boil down to “return the ring to its rightful owner” or killing a number of enemy forces. Some, however, are much more dynamic quest designs that can change the makeup of an area. These quests give meaning to all the running around you’re doing, but they don’t change the fact that most quests are of the “go here, do a thing” variety. At times, the moment to moment gameplay of Inquisition can seem more inspired by the basic quests in Skyrim, which isn’t entirely a bad thing. Skyrim is a great game with a gluttony of content, same as Inquisition, yet the more engaging quest designs of both games are what people tend to remember, rather than what some might consider filler content. The world you explore in Inquisition is vast and varied. The opening area of the Hinterlands is one inspired by generic fantasy, with green rolling hills dotted with tall pine trees and rocky terrain. Moving outward, you come across frozen landscapes and vast deserts.One area is a dense and beautiful old forest with trees taller than giants, almost glowing in vibrant green; you can hardly see the sky through the thickness of the trees. Architecture varies depending on geographical location and the culture of that area’s people. One area sees a forest burned to the ground by an ongoing war; spirits and demons now populate the deadened world. Each area is just as beautiful as the last, and many times it feels like absolute wonder exploring a new place. You see places that gives the world Dragon Age a larger sense of identity, further pushing it away from most fantasy environments. Inquisition also features a war table where you send your advisor’s troops out on missions to further your reach. These missions are more about assigning people to carry out tasks for you, or open up new avenues for you to explore. Each of these missions (and all the quests you do) give you Power and Influence, two of the lesser systems in the game. Power opens up new areas for you to explore, while Influence gives you certain rewards. However, by the end of the game you are drowning in Power, I had a spare 203 Power at the end of the game with nothing to spend it on. It feels like an undercooked system to give weight to you controlling outcomes of the world. I also ran into a number of small bugs that tended to pull me out of the world. Sometimes sound would cut out, or my party members would get hung up on geometry. Once, my save failed to load properly and another time I had the game completely crash. Luckily, the auto save is generous enough to where I never lost too much progress, and the recently released patch fixed most of my issues. But some characters and furniture still pop into the world which sort of takes you out of what is otherwise a terrific game. While counting issues in Inquisition, something should be said for the stilted character animations. In some cutscenes my female elf slumped her shoulders and held her arms out in a wider frame, as if there was a base set of character animations for the player character that don’t necessarily fit all the different character builds. Sometimes heads would bob and move like they were disjointed from the neck and other times characters would just kind of fidget in weird ways, as if there weren’t enough frames of animation. It’s a small complaint, mostly, but it seems like Bioware has been getting by on the same style of animations since the original Mass Effect, and maybe with a new generation we could get more varied and lifelike animations to match the personalities and writing of the characters. Even with those complaints, Dragon Age: Inquisition remains a fantastic RPG with a wonderful cast of characters and a nuanced world. The environments are all beautiful and varied and ache with story to be told. Inquisition represents the culmination of the Dragon Age world so far and also a new beginning for the franchise moving forward. Dragon Age: Inquisition is the game that has stayed in my mind for hours after playing, a game I want to keep talking about with other people. Not because I want to know what choices they made or who they romanced (although, those are interesting conversations to have and Iron Bull is the only answer), but because the world it presents is so unlike most fantasy and the characters are so well-realized. Bioware claimed Inquisition represents their design philosophy for RPGs in this generation, and if that’s the case, they are off to a terrific start. Tagged with: Dragon Age dragon age 2 dragon age inquisition dragon age origins PC ps4 review Xbox One Clint’s Top 10 Games of 2014 – Error! Not Found on January 7, 2015 at 5:10 pm […] I have talked at length in a number of podcasts and wrote my longest review on Inquisition (which you should read, please). It is a game that I really latched onto and never wanted to stop playing. Even the […] Dragon Age: Inquisition Review: Dawn of A New Age \| Clint Prentice on March 6, 2015 at 3:59 pm […] This review was originally posted here. […] ERROR! REPORT -- A podcast about video games. Airs weekly on Mondays. Starring Clint Prentice, Evan Tognotti, Matthew Milewski, and Ryan McGinley. FAMILY GAME NIGHT -- Like Dungeons & Dragons, but also Call of Cthulhu, and an improv show, and a radio drama? Airs weekly on Wednesdays. Starring Clint Prentice, Evan Tognotti, Matthew Milewski, and Ryan McGinley. SUPERHERO SUPER SHOW -- Two super friends watch all of TV's superhero shows and talk about them. Starring Clint Prentice and Ryan McGinley. SHREKTALK: A SHREKSVERSATION -- A podcast where two friends and one Shrek-spert watch all the Shrek movies and talk about their cultural significance. Starring Evan Tognotti and Matthew Milewski. Guest Starring Clint Prentice. THE SERIES REGULAR -- A big-picture look at TV, new and old. Currently on hiatus. Starring Evan Tognotti and Matthew Milewski. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE... -- We make you mixtapes. We talk about music. Airs on the first of each month. Starring Evan Tognotti and Matthew Milewski. VFS VARIETY HOUR -- Two students in Vancouver Film School's writing program discuss their "craft." Airs weekly on Saturdays. Starring Evan Tognotti and Ross Jenkins, with weekly special guests. THE CREW 2 -- A special edition podcast dedicated to discussing the impending announcement of the sequel to 2014's hit open-world driving game. Airs sporadically. Starring Evan Tognotti. The Hosts On Twitter	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3187
__label__wiki	0.591096	0.591096	Tablehopper.com reporting Actual Cafe space to become “Paradise Park Cafe” Published On April 5, 2017 \| By Rob Arias \| Food & Drink, In the Neighborhood, News & Commentary, Restaurants When we conducted a recent interview with former Actual Cafe owner Sal Bednarz last February, he noted optimism in finding a new owner soon. “I’m in contract with a great buyer. Fingers crossed that the process will unfold smoothly.” Well apparently things did unfold smoothly as Tablehopper.com is reporting that the space will soon be taken over by a San Francisco based restaurant group. The Park Café Group, who currently own Dolores Park Café (Mission District), Precita Park Café (Bernal Heights) and Duboce Park Café (Duboce Triangle) will be opening “Paradise Park Cafe” at the San Pablo Avenue space. Paradise Park is a somewhat obscure neighborhood nickname for the North Oakland area that most refer to as either “Golden Gate” or “Gaskill”. Restaurant group partner Rachel Herbert, who lives in the neighborhood, recognized that Actual was an important part of the neighborhood and wanted to bring something good to the area. “I believe that giving back is a part of doing business, and as a small business owner, it’s my responsibility to play an active role in supporting the community,” Rachel says in her bio. The menu of their current restaurants sound fairly similar to what Actual was offering including breakfast items, sandwiches, salads, juices and smoothies. Ingredients will primarily be organic and they will offer vegan options. The adjacent Victory Burger space will become “Paradise Kitchen Pop-up” and primarily host dinner pop-ups. They are targeting opening in June. Read More on Tablehopper.com → Rob Arias is a third generation Californian and East Bay native who moved to Emeryville in 2003. A new parent in the community, he can often be seen walking his French Bulldog rescue "Fiona" around his Park Avenue District neighborhood, traversing the greenway on his bike or enjoying his favorite Emeryville small businesses. Rob's "day job" is as a creative professional.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3189
__label__cc	0.729686	0.270314	Fern And Her Food Fern eats food. Fern tells you about it. London Deals The Cliff Barbados Review Posted by Fern Thomson on May 31, 2017 May 31, 2017 The view of the lit-up, crystal clear sea water was breath-taking, the torches lining the restaurant balcony were romance at its finest, and the warm sea breeze caressing my face was the final touch to creating what was the perfect romantic date setting. If you had a boyfriend. Which I do not. My romantic date night was shared with none other than my Mum and Dad… But hey, there was still a whole lot of love flying around for the fact that they’d taken me to arguably Barbados’s best restaurant in a bid to satiate my gluttonous greed that had followed me half way round the world. I’d obviously stalked the shit out of The Cliff before arriving, but the pictures and videos posted all over Instagram just cannot do the place justice. After nights of complaining about what a shame it was to dine by the beach every night but not be able to see the beautiful Caribbean waters, I was so happy to see that here at The Cliff, lights had been put in place to illuminate the shoreline I was so sad to leave behind upon my return to the not-so-idyllic river Thames. If you’re going to The Cliff, it’s definitely worth having a drink at the bar before sitting down to soak up this beautiful view over a delicious cocktail from their extensive menu. The dishes at The Cliff aren’t priced individually… You choose any starter and any main course for BDS $265 which works out at just over £100 so this isn’t exactly the cheapest meal, but I’ve got to say the portions were generous, the food was cooked beautifully, and you are of course paying for that epic setting, so I think it’s worth it for the experience and the memory. After my parents patiently waited for me to photograph everything before touching their plates (as I have trained them well to do since becoming a food blogger, and is always warmly welcomed by many an eye roll and a ‘well can I eat now while it’s still actually hot Fern?!’), I tucked into our starters (note my use of ‘our’ starters, since I have also trained my parents to understand and accept that I will, without fail, want to try every dish on the table). The snow crab cake was one of the best I think I’ve ever had. Hallelujah, it was indeed a crab cake, and not a potato cake with a bit of crab thrown in, as in most restaurants. The coating around this deliciously moist, fresh crabmeat was dry and crisp, and the coriander cream, coriander vinaigrette and red curry oil were not only beautifully presented, as can be seen in the image below, but they were also the perfect flavour pairings to round off this standout starter. The carpaccio of beef tenderloin was also delicious. The fresh, clean flavour of the beef was contrasted with the truffled rocket leaves, aged parmesan, capers, and the little dollops of English mustard mayonnaise surrounding the dish. The fact that my critical carnivore of a father was pleased with this dish kind of says it all really. The third starter was the lobster spaghetti, which again hallelujahhhhhhhhh was loaded with lobster! Kudos to The Cliff for not being stingy piss-takers. The pasta tasted freshly-made, the chunks of lobster were succulent, and the dish was given depth by the addition of chilli flakes and aged parmesan cheese. Just like the other two starters (yeah, this review is going to get repetitive since I literally had nothing bad to say about the food I ate here), this dish was a hit. For main course, I went for the roasted loin of lamb which was cooked perfectly pink, just how I like it, and was tender as hell. The mashed potato was silky smooth and the madeira jus was the most comforting addition to this rich, hearty dish. My dad nicked some of my lamb to try it and it got an almighty thumbs up from the critical carnivore once again. My dad’s own dish was the veal chop which was a tender cut accompanied by a mustard and tarragon sauce… One of my favourite flavour combinations in a sauce! My dad can’t eat a lot of starch so he swapped out the gratin potatoes for extra vegetables, much to my horror. Gratin potatoes make for an extra happy Fern, but alas, ‘twas not meant to be on this particular evening. This also made for a pretty boring dish photography wise… Hmmph! My mum, who’s a pescatarian (don’t ask how such fussy eaters created the vacuum of human being that is yours truly), went for the Caribbean shrimp in a Thai green curry coconut sauce with coriander rice, chargrilled vegetables and fried basil. The dish was nice, but I expected there to be more heat in a Thai green curry sauce, and so was left feeling slightly underwhelmed by what I thought sounded like a thoughtful combination of flavours on the menu. That’s not to say the dish wasn’t nice… It was… I just didn’t think it held its own among the heavyweights we’d been served up as the other dishes, and it didn’t leave much of an impression on me when I think back to that meal. After blissfully polishing off every generous portion of our banquet, we didn’t have room for dessert, although if the standard of the starters and main courses were anything to go by, I’m sure the desserts would have been just as dreamy. Basically, if you’re going to Barbados, go to The Cliff. And if you think it’s too expensive and unaffordable, stay in one weekend before you head to Barbados and use that money to go to The Cliff. Either way, you’re going to go to The Cliff. Because you have to. I said so. The Cliff Open Monday through Saturday, and Sundays during the high season. For dinner service only. barbadoscaribbeancookingdiningfinediningfoodfoodblogfoodbloggerfoodcriticholetownholidayislandmeatnutritionreviewtheclifftraveltravelblog Previous Post Joe’s Southern Review Next Post Jujube Fruit Energy Ball Recipe An Evening of Beef with Marks and Spencer 25% off the total bill at Neo Bistro, Mayfair 50% off food at Tom’s Kitchen, Chelsea World Food in London… on Pastaio Review Fern About Town on Sexy Fish Review Zing Zing Goes Veggi… on Zing Zing Review Tarshish Review… on Goodman Mayfair Review Tarshish Review… on The Banc Review fernandherfood@gmail.com	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3197
__label__wiki	0.797151	0.797151	LeSoCo principal Maxine Room to stand down Freddie Whittaker Tue 13th May 2014, 19.14 The principal of LeSoCo in south east London is to stand down at the end of the academic year, the college’s governors have announced. Maxine Room has been in the role at the 17,000-learner college, which has a current Skills Funding Agency allocation of £26.2m, for five years, and oversaw the merger which joined Lewisham College with Southwark College in 2012. Ms Room also presided over an Ofsted inspection last November which resulted in a grade four “inadequate” rating in January, and has previously maintained that she planned to stay in post, despite criticism of the college in a follow-up inspection and the loss of an appeal against the grading. She also pledged not to resign after FE commissioner Dr David Collins reported that he had identified “weaknesses” in leadership and governance at the college. A spokesperson for the board of governors said: “LeSoCo is today announcing that after five years as Principal of Lewisham and then LeSoCo, Maxine Room CBE has decided that at the end of this academic year she will retire from her post as Principal and CEO, although she intends to remain active in the FE sector. “Maxine led the successful merger between Lewisham College and Southwark College and has led on the transformation of both Colleges into one vibrant, ambitious and enterprising college – LeSoCo. The governing body is very grateful for the commitment, passion and leadership that Maxine has shown during her time as Principal. “We will now begin the search for Maxine’s successor, who we hope to have in place by the beginning of the 2014/2015 academic year.” Ms Room has yet to comment. A Bravo I think it’s really sad for Maxine, who I think is a really great person. Must have been very difficult. I wish her luck. S Joseph I’m sure she’ll find something Anthony. R.Slicker What a tragedy to see the demise of this great and inspirational leader, who was just hitting her stride as a cost-cutter. Maxine lead the repositioning of LeSoCo in terms of OFSTED ratings, which is surely one of her lasting legacies. From the start she made her mark, cutting wasteful provision such as the Lewisham College nursery and strengthening the upper – and underpaid – echelons of college management. How brave of her to shake off the shackles of grammar and convention, calling the newly merged college LeSoCo. A name which seemed to blend echoes of a minor African republic with the branding of a chain of pan-european brasseries. Then there was her visionary embracing of the Gazelle group and her inspired development of an inspirational entrepreneurial curriculum which could have done so much to rescue local youth from the gutter. Alas we weep for her passing. We will not see her like again. Dipun Dacova This is indeed a tragedy and yet another blow to FE. Through her unwavering determination to drive entrepreneurialism and to focus on English and maths as the basic employable essentials for young people, Maxine’s direct leadership has brought these to the forefront and has ensured they feature so prominently in the recent Ofsted report. She will be truly missed. R. Sullivan I’ve noticed that any comments that challenge this article and the principal have been deleted. In your ‘about’ section you claim to offer a ‘mixture of views.’ What about a mixture of opinions? Makes one wonder if this publication has an agenda. I wonder if this comment will be deleted too. J.O.Kerr Mr Sullivan might be interested in my comments on the other FE Week page about the grade 4 for Ms Room’s ex-college. J.O.Kerr. Andrew Kenworthy Maxine is a fantastic leader irrespective of fe. There are lots of other sectors such as health that will welcome the opportunity to take on such a talent. I can’t believe what I’m reading: the support for Ms Room. Maxine Room and Tom Kay were wrecking ball of Southwark College. They coveted the Waterloo centre of Southwark College: arguably one of the best locations in London. I’m glad the Waterloo centre is out of their reach now. Southwark college students and staff were treated with utter contempt in the merger. Room and Kay were a sad, sad chapter in the story of Southwark College. A lot of talented staff were lost in the merger. But it was appeasing management, not what they found to be in the best interests of the students. ofsted are coming…hide! @ Andrew Kenworthy – So was Sadam Hussien, irrespective of all he had done, but we have to draw the line somewhere Andrew, these people were deluded and arrogant. They steamrolled their way introducing irrational polices and changes that virtually ruined the fantastic reputation that the college had prior to Room’s appointment. I would like to see you employ either of them Andrew, it would not be long before you’d be echoing LB’s comments! Responses to R. Sullivan	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3199
__label__cc	0.550866	0.449134	Ch 94 Art IV Standards § 94-4 General requirements. § 94-5 Architectural design plan. § 94-6 Bikeways and pedestrian paths. § 94-7 Blocks. § 94-8 Buffers. § 94-9 Community impact statement. § 94-10 Off-tract improvement costs. § 94-11 Curbs and gutters. § 94-12 Easements. § 94-13 Energy conservation techniques. § 94-14 Environmental impact statement. § 94-15 Electric power. § 94-16 (Reserved) § 94-17 Fill areas. § 94-18 Fire protection. § 94-19 Flag lot subdivision. § 94-20 Floodplain regulations. § 94-21 Grading, topsoil and seeding. § 94-22 Landscaping. § 94-23 Lighting. § 94-24 Lots. § 94-25 Manufacturing/processing performance standards. § 94-26 Monuments. § 94-28 Open and recreation space. § 94-29 Ownership and maintenance of recreational areas and open space. § 94-30 Open space dedication. § 94-31 Homeowners' association. § 94-32 Specimen trees. § 94-33 Reduced design standards for residential development in RA District. § 94-34 Reservation of public areas. § 94-35 Sanitary sewers. § 94-36 Lot disturbance. § 94-37 Shade trees. § 94-38 Sidewalks. § 94-39 Sight triangles. § 94-40 Signs. § 94-41 Soil erosion and sediment control. § 94-42 Soil removal and redistribution. § 94-43 Solid waste management. § 94-44 Stormwater management. § 94-45 Streets. § 94-46 Street design and performance standards. § 94-47 Coordination with surrounding streets. § 94-48 Street layout. § 94-49 Street and traffic control signs. § 94-50 Street furniture. § 94-51 Streetlighting. § 94-52 Telephone service. § 94-53 Underground utilities. § 94-54 Public utilities. § 94-55 Water supply. § 94-57 Personal wireless telecommunications facilities and equipment. Township of Egg Harbor, NJ / Part II, General Legislation / Design, Performance and Improvement Standards Article IV Standards All construction shall be performed in accordance with the details and specifications of the Township as described herein. The developer shall employ a New Jersey licensed professional planner, engineer and/or architect to prepare appropriate reports, plans and specifications for site improvements and a New Jersey licensed professional land surveyor to make land surveys and subdivision maps. Construction of all required improvements shall be inspected by the Township Engineer and/or Township Planner. Minor modifications or changes in the approved plans and specifications may be affected only upon written approval of the Township Engineer or Planner; however, some changes may require further review and approval of the Planning Board. Any application for development shall demonstrate conformance to design standards that will encourage sound development patterns within the Township. Where either an Official Map and/or Master Plan has been adopted, the development shall conform to the proposals and conditions shown thereon. Proposed development shall also conform to the standards and management programs of the New Jersey Pinelands Comprehensive Management Plan as contained within this chapter and in Chapter 225 of this code. In accordance with good design practices, extreme deviations from rectangular lot shapes and straight lot lines shall not be allowed unless made necessary by special topographical conditions or other special conditions acceptable to the approving authority. All improvements shall be installed and connected with existing facilities or installed in required locations to enable future connections with approved systems or contemplated systems and shall be adequate to handle all present and probable future development. Whenever a development abuts or crosses a municipal boundary, access to those lots within the Township shall be from within the Township as the general rule. Wherever access to a development is required across land in an adjoining community as the exception, the approving authority may require documentation that such access is legally established and that the access road is adequately improved. The proposed name of a development or street shall not duplicate or closely approximate the name of any other development or street in the Township. The approving board shall have final authority to designate the name of the development or street. An architectural design plan shall be submitted with all site plan applications which indicates the anticipated appearance of the project upon completion. This plan shall include the following information: A description of the general design of the proposed facility, complete with cross sections of the building in conjunction with the landscaped or natural environment, elevations, sketches, renderings and photographs or scale models of any structures or construction associated with the facility. Building materials, textures and color schemes described in detail. Perspective views of the facility from several on-site and off-site vantage points. If the application is for a development project which exhibits a repetitive design theme, an architectural plan which is representative of each typical design shall be required. The approving authority may waive any or all of the above provisions depending upon the circumstances of each particular application. General standards. The Township of Egg Harbor encourages the appropriate and efficient use of land, the development of appropriate transportation systems and the promotion of a desirable, visual environment through creative development techniques and establishes the policy that a coordinated bikeway and pedestrian path system be developed within the community. Regulations. Bikeways or pedestrianways shall be required at the approving authority's discretion depending on the probable volume of bicycle and foot traffic, the development's location in relation to other populated areas or its location with respect to any overall bike or pedestrian route plan adopted by the Township. Bicycle traffic shall be separated from motor vehicle and pedestrian traffic as much as possible. Bikeways and pedestrian paths shall generally not exceed a grade of 3%, except for short distances, and they should be a minimum of five feet wide for one-way and eight feet wide for two-way travel. Bikeways shall have a minimum four-inch base of crushed stone on the subgrade and a two-inch FABC-l surface course. Where separate bike paths intersect streets, the curbing shall be ramped for bicycle access to the street grade. Bikeways designated for one-way travel shall only be located along streets. The minimum width for bikeways built in locations other than along streets is eight feet. Bikeways constructed as part of the street shall be four to six feet in width, depending on the street classification. General standards. Block length and width or acreage within bounding roads shall be such as to accommodate the size of lot required by the Township ordinances and to provide for convenient access, circulation control and safety of street traffic. For commercial, group housing or industrial use, block size shall be sufficient to meet all area and yard requirements for such use. Block lengths. It is recognized that setting minimum and maximum block length standards must be related to sound planning principles and to the varying densities and lot widths specified in this chapter. To provide for this needed flexibility, the minimum and maximum length of a block shall be governed by the minimum and maximum number of lots specified in each lot width category in the following schedule: Schedule of Minimum and Maximum Block Length Standards Lot Width Category Minimum Number of Lots Maximum Number of Lots Standard Number of Lots A block shall fit into a specific lot width category when the width of not less than 75% of the lots measured at the front building setback line fall within a specific ten-foot lot frontage category. Block lengths shall fall within the minimum and maximum required standards; however, a developer should take notice of the recommended standard for block lengths. This recommended standard is set forth as an ideal standard for the majority of the blocks in the proposed subdivision. Some deviation from this recommended standard, however, is considered desirable in the interest of variety and good subdivision design. Block end planting. In cases where lot and block design results in undesirable sighting down rear property lines from block ends, a landscape screen of evergreen trees not less than six feet in height shall be provided at block ends by the developer. The screen shall be a minimum of 30 feet in length and centered on the rear property line. [Amended 2-24-1993 by Ord. No. 6-1993; 7-14-1993 by Ord. No. 30-1993; 6-8-1994 by Ord. No. 25-1994] Buffer areas are required along all lot lines and street lines which separate a nonresidential use from an existing residential zoning district. Buffer areas shall be developed in an aesthetic manner for the primary purposes of screening views and reducing noise perception beyond the lot. Buffer widths shall be measured horizontally and perpendicularly to lot and street lines. No structure, including basins, activity, storage of materials or parking of vehicles shall be permitted in a buffer area. The only improvements to be constructed in this buffer area, other than bus shelters, sidewalks, landscaping and signs, are to be those improvements necessary to provide ingress and egress to the subject site. The standards for the location and design of buffer areas are intended to provide flexibility in order to provide effective buffers. The location and design of buffers shall consider the use of the portion of the property being screened; the distance between the use and the adjoining property line; differences in elevations; the type of buffer, such as dense planting, existing woods, a wall or fence; buffer height; buffer width; and other combinations of man-made and natural features. The buffer shall be designed, planted, graded, landscaped and developed with the general guideline that the closer a use or activity is to a property line or the more intense the use or activity is to a property line or the more intense the use, the more effective the buffer area must be in obscuring light and vision and reducing noise beyond the lot. Notwithstanding the above, a minimum of 1/2 but in no case less than 10 feet of the horizontal width of any buffer required along a periphery shall have an area which shall be designed, planted, graded, landscaped and developed in accordance with § 94-22C of this chapter. The preservation of all natural wooded tracts shall be an integral part of all site plans and may be calculated as part of the required buffer area, provided that the growth is of a density and the area has sufficient width to serve the purpose of a buffer as determined by the Township Planner. Wherever this chapter imposes a landscaping or seeding requirement, natural vegetation may be substituted in all areas, provided that such buffer is acceptable to the Township Planner. The landscaping and seeding requirement shall still apply, however, in all areas not so covered. Within the Pinelands Area of the Township, all proposed landscaping shall conform to § 225-50.9 of Chapter 225. In order to provide adequate buffering between differing classifications and intensities of land use, including but not limited to commercial property and residentially zoned property or property improved with a conforming residential use, a buffer zone shall be provided in conjunction with any nonresidential use abutting a residentially zoned lot or a lot used for a conforming residential purpose. Such buffer requirements shall apply to every property line that abuts a residentially zoned lot or lot improved with a conforming residential use. The minimum width of such buffer zone shall be not less than 25 feet for a building or group of buildings up to a maximum buffer width of 100 feet, except that, for light industrial uses, the minimum buffer width abutting a residential district shall be not less than 50 feet. Where a nonresidential operation or activity is proposed within any zone which will exceed 20,000 square feet and will abut existing conforming residential uses, the Board may require an earth mound with screen plantings to provide a sight and sound barrier. Such mound shall be not less than 10 feet in height nor 36 feet in width at its base and shall be greater if required to visually screen, to the maximum extent feasible, parking, lighting and buildings from the residential area or to provide for a minimum noise level at the property line. In the Neighborhood Business, Community Business, Highway Business, Special Highway Development, Regional Commercial, Light Industrial, Restricted Industrial, General Commercial and Recreation Park Districts there shall be a minimum buffer equal to the parking setbacks in the district unless a more stringent standard is imposed in Chapter 225 or Chapter 94. The only improvements to be constructed in this buffer area, other than bus shelters, sidewalks, landscaping and signs, are to be those improvements necessary to provide ingress and egress to the subject site. [Amended 10-11-2006 by Ord. No. 49-2006[1]; 6-22-2011 by Ord. No. 21-2011] Editor’s Note: This ordinance also repealed former Subsections I and J (see now Subsection H) and redesignated former Subsections K and L as Subsection I and J, respectively. Aboveground emergency generating facilities, switching complexes, pumping stations, storage tanks and substations shall be screened from adjacent uses with continuous evergreen vegetation to the satisfaction of the Township Planner.[2] Editor’s Note: Former Subsection J, Major site plan/subdivisions, added 12-27-2000 by Ord. No. 46-2000, which immediately followed this subsection, was repealed 4-13-2011 by Ord. No. 15-2011. All applications for preliminary major subdivision approval where 25 or more lots are proposed, all applications for multifamily residential developments and all applications for preliminary major site plan approval shall be accompanied by a community impact statement analyzing the proposed development and its expected impacts upon existing municipal facilities and services. Individual lots situated within an approved major subdivision or within an approved industrial or commercial park shall not be subject to this requirement. The community impact statement shall indicate why, in the applicant's opinion, the proposed development is in the public interest, as well as provide data and opinions concerning the following specific items: Population impact: an analysis of the number of people expected to be added to the municipal population as a result of the proposed development according to the following age cohort: children, adults and other information about age cohort. School impact: an analysis of the anticipated number of pupils who will be added to the student population in the municipality and the ability of the existing public school facilities to absorb the expected student population during a ten-year period. Should expanded or new school facilities and/or increased teaching staff be required, the projected cost for such additions shall be specified. Facilities impact: an analysis of the existing facilities available to serve the proposed development and the impact of the development upon the facilities, including the adequacy of existing public water facilities, public sewerage facilities, recreational facilities and library facilities. Should such facilities be determined inadequate to serve the proposed development, the remedies, either expected or proposed by the applicant, shall be indicated along with the estimated costs for such additional facilities. Service impact: an analysis of the existing services provided by the Township to serve the proposed development and the impact of the development upon the services, including police protection, fire protection, solid waste disposal and street maintenance services. Traffic impact: an analysis of the existing road network available to serve the proposed development, as well as the proposed road network within the development itself and the surrounding road network which will be affected by the proposed development, including the capacity of the existing and proposed roadways, the anticipated traffic volumes as a result of the proposed development, the physical structure of both road networks; and any problem areas in the road network affected by the development, including unsafe intersections, and vertical or horizontal alignments. Financial impact: an analysis of the revenues expected to be generated from the development compared to the anticipated costs which the proposed development is expected to generate. Revenues and costs shall be projected for the Township, the Township school system and the county. All factors, multipliers and values used in the preparation of the community impact statement shall have been provided by a reliable and recognized source and shall be subject to verification as to their accuracy and applicability by the Planning Board. If the Township demonstrates reasonable cause to question any representations made in the impact statement, the applicant shall be liable for any additional expense incurred during the review of said statement. The applicant shall prepare a reference list of all published materials, reports, manuscripts or other written sources of information which were consulted and employed in the preparation of the community impact statement. A separate reference list of all governmental agencies and individuals that provided information or coordinated the statement shall be prepared, with the dates and locations of all meetings specified. The documentation shall also indicate the person(s) that prepared each major section of the statement, including their qualifications. Waiver. The Planning Board may waive any or all provisions of this section that it deems unnecessary. A developer, as a condition for approval of a subdivision or site plan, shall pay his pro rata share of the cost of providing only reasonable and necessary street improvements and water, sewerage and drainage facilities, and easements therefor, located outside the property limits of the subdivision or tract for which site plan approval is requested but necessitated or required by construction or improvements within such subdivision or tract. The Planning Board shall determine the reasonableness of and necessity for such improvements and shall also determine such pro rata share as follows: The total cost thereof shall be estimated by the Planning Board Engineer. The Planning Board shall next consider the circulation plan and utility service plan elements of the Master Plan and shall ascertain: The benefit accruing to the proposed subdivision or site plan by the improvements and/or facilities. The benefit accruing to lands outside of the property limits of the subdivision or tract. The Planning Board shall determine said pro rata share by establishing a ratio between the benefit accruing to the proposed subdivision or site plan and the total benefit accruing by reasons of the improvements and/or the facilities and applying it to the total cost. The final cost of the completed improvements and/or facilities shall be ascertained by the Planning Board Engineer, who shall advise the Planning Board and the developer of the final cost. The estimated pro rata share shall be modified by the actual final cost and appropriate adjustments made. The standards established to determine such pro rata share shall not be altered subsequent to preliminary approval to apply to such subdivision or site plan. Where a developer pays, under protest, the amount determined as his pro rata share, he shall institute legal action within one year of such payment in order to preserve the right to a judicial determination as to the fairness and reasonableness of such amount. Such payment shall be made by a deposit of cash, and the developer shall agree to make additional payment upon determination of the actual cost, if there is any. Such payment shall be made within 30 days of the determination by the Planning Board of the pro rata share. The developer and the Planning Board may enter into an agreement providing for payment of the full cost of the required off-tract improvements by the developer with a provision for future reimbursement for an agreed time as the improvements shall be utilized by others. The Planning Board shall act within the applicable period for approval of the application by the Planning Board. Curbing shall be required for drainage purposes, safety and delineation and protection of pavement edge. The Board shall require the applicant to install the curb or contribute payment in lieu of the actual installation of curb as a condition of the land development approval. All streets shall be curbed and guttered in all major developments on both sides except where the subdivision border coincides with an accepted Township street, in which case the subdivider shall provide improvements along the frontage of the accepted Township street to which the development abuts. Where curbing is not required, some sort of edge definition and stabilization shall be furnished for safety reasons and to prevent pavement unraveling. Curbing may be required: For stormwater management. For road stabilization. For delineation of parking areas. Ten feet on each side of drainage inlets. At intersections. At corners. At tight radii. The curb section to be used shall be not more than 10 feet in length, shall be set in accordance with approved lines and grades, and radial curbs shall be formed in an arc segment, in a smooth curve. Chord segments are prohibited. Monolithic curb and gutter shall be constructed using air entrained Class B concrete, having twenty-eight-day compressive strength of 3,500 pounds per square inch. The dimensions of the particular parts of the monolithic curb and gutter shall be as follows: The top of the curb shall be six inches in width. The rear face of the curb shall be 12 inches in height. The width of the curb at the gutter elevation shall be seven inches. The width of the gutter shall be 18 inches. The height of the curb face at the gutter shall be six inches, and the depth of the gutter at the street face shall be seven inches. All exposed edges shall be rounded with a radius of 3/4 inch to one inch. If poured separately, the curb and gutter shall each be six inches by 18 inches. The gutter shall be set to provide a six-inch curb face and graded in accordance with cross slopes on the proposed or existing street. In those streets in which the road grade exceeds 6%, the paved edge of the road shall be dished to drain surface water to catch basins. All materials used on road construction and methods and work procedures shall be in accordance with the standard form of specifications for New Jersey State highways and in accordance with standard construction details, as amended. At locations specified by the approving authority and at all intersections, the curbing shall have a barrier-free design to provide a ramp for bicycles and/or wheelchairs, details for which may be obtained from the Engineer. In certain instances it may be necessary or desirable to construct alternate curb types. For example, these may be required by the Planning Board on the perimeter of channelizing islands or in areas of unusually heavy gutter drainage flow or may be desired by the subdivider for decorative purposes or to preserve vegetation (e.g., granite block curb, rolled concrete curb, etc.). If alternate curb types are to be permitted, an appropriate construction detail shall be submitted for approval with the preliminary and final plat. For all major subdivisions requiring Belgian block curbing, upon completion of the curb installation and prior to acceptance by the Township, the applicant shall contribute a reserve supply of 10% of the total used Belgian block curb to the Township for future maintenance by the Township. Easements outside of street rights-of-way and along rear property lines or elsewhere for utility installation may be required, but are generally discouraged. Such easements shall be at least 20 feet wide for one utility and five additional feet for each additional utility and be located in consultation with the companies, municipal departments concerned or other jurisdictional agencies and, to the fullest extent possible, be centered on or adjacent to rear or side lot lines. Floodplain and conservation easements shall be indicated on the preliminary and final plats and shown in such a manner that their boundaries can be accurately determined. The removal of trees and ground cover shall be prohibited in a conservation easement or floodplain, except for the following purposes: The removal of dead or diseased trees. Limited thinning of trees and growth to encourage more desirable growth. The removal of trees to allow for structures designed to impound water or in areas to be flooded in the creation of ponds or lakes or approved conservation plan by the Soil Conservation District. Where a subdivision is traversed by a watercourse, drainageway channel or street, there shall be provided a stormwater easement or drainage right-of-way conforming substantially to the lines of such watercourse and such further width or construction, or both, as is deemed adequate for the purpose by the Township Engineer. All easement dedications shall be expressed on the final plat as indicated in the relevant subsections of Chapter 198, Subdivision of Land and Site Plan Review.[1] Editor's Note: Former Subsection F, which provided that lands to be dedicated for easement purposes be deducted from the minimum lot area, was repealed 6-8-1994 by Ord. No. 25-1994. Easement lines shall be considered as property lines when locating building setbacks. The board shall, when reviewing all major development applications, consider energy conservation techniques. Such techniques shall include but not be limited to: The orientation of streets and structures to gain the best solar advantage. The use of clustering. The provision of bike paths and public transportation amenities such as bus shelters. The incorporation of active and passive solar power and designs. Intent. Given the fact that major portions of the Township are environmentally sensitive and stand to suffer adverse environmental effects without proper land use control, it is the intent of the environmental impact statement requirement to provide for the Township of Egg Harbor a basis for making determinations in order to protect its natural resource base and balanced biological systems. Applicability. An environmental impact statement shall be required for all major subdivisions and major site plans. Additionally, an environmental impact statement shall be required for all minor site plans where the property for which a minor site plan approval has been sought contains wetlands or is within 200 feet of wetlands. The Planning Board may require an environmental impact statement in regard to any application before the Board. Submission criteria. Where required, the applicant shall provide an environmental impact statement in accordance with the requirements of this section. The environmental impact statement shall be prepared and submitted with the preliminary application, and the application may be deemed incomplete without it. Environmental impact statements shall be certified by a licensed professional engineer or licensed professional planner. Details. As a minimum, the environmental impact statement shall include the following information: Composite environmental constraints map at the same scale as the preliminary plat or site plan. The applicant shall, utilizing existing map sources, present a plan indicating: The features for preservation. Features which represent any constraints for development: Generally indicating the area most suitable for development. The areas least suitable for development or critical impact areas. Critical impact areas include, but are not limited to, stream corridors, streams, wetlands, estuaries, slopes greater than 15%, highly acid or highly erodible soils, areas of high-water table, mature stands of native vegetation, aquifer recharge areas and archaeologically sensitive areas. Various degrees of suitability between these two extremes. When field investigations are performed to determine existing conditions, methods used shall be addressed. A statement describing and explaining the impact and effect of proposed subdivision or site plan upon the ecological systems and environment of Egg Harbor Township's land and waters giving consideration to the applicable natural processes and social values of: Geology. Aquifers, subsurface water supply. Hydrology. Depth of seasonal high-water table (referencing both designations in the Atlantic County Soil Survey and the results of on-site field investigations). Stormwater runoff, management technique proposed. Soils (especially their development potential utilizing the construction standards in the Atlantic County Soil Survey). Potential soil loss. Soil nutrient retention. Vegetation, including a description of proposed landscaping, buffers, etc. Wetland and coastal vegetation. Recreation value of vegetation. Historic value. Scenic features. Wildlife; high-value areas. Wildlife; threatened and endangered. Water quality; potential impacts on surface and subsurface resources. Air quality, including potential traffic increases. Solid waste management technique proposed. Specific plans proposed by the subdivider or developer to alter, preserve or enhance and mitigate or minimize adverse impacts on the natural resources and natural features of the land within the proposed subdivision or site. Samples. Test boring, percolation rates, water levels and groundwater samples in accordance with the following standards: (acres) Number of Test Holes These borings shall be distributed over the tract to adequately represent site conditions and shall be to a minimum depth of 10 feet. Surface water quality. All surface water bodies shall be sampled and analyzed by a New Jersey certified laboratory before construction of the proposed project and not later than 90 days after construction is complete. A water sample to be analyzed shall consist of a composite sample of three grab samples collected on successive days. In the case of streams, two composite samples shall be collected: one immediately upstream and one immediately downstream of the site. Parameters to be analyzed for shall include, but not be limited to, the following: Total bacterial count Fecal coliform Fecal streptococcus Cadmium, total Chromium, total Arsenic, total Mercury, total Lead, total Zinc, total Nitrate nitrogen Total phosphate Total orthophosphate Total dissolved phosphate Methyl chloride Petroleum hydrocarbons 1, 1, 2-trichloromethane 1, 2-dichlorobenzene Vinyl chloride Phenols (if greater than 3.5 mg/l, do acid extricable test for phenols) Gamma-BHC Subsurface water. Describe subsurface water conditions of the site in terms of depth to groundwater and water supply capabilities of the site. Provide information regarding existing wells within 500 feet of the site relative to well depth, yield and water quality. Indicate the water recharge capabilities of the site and the effect that the proposed project will have on the groundwater of the site and adjacent areas. These tests shall be performed at locations prescribed by the Township Engineer. All monitoring results submitted to the Township for either surface and/or groundwater shall be accompanied by an interpretive statement prepared by the testing laboratory which describes each constituent tested in reference to existing state and federal standards for maximum concentrations. Alternatives to the proposed project. The report should describe alternatives to the proposed design which were considered and the reasons these alternative designs were not chosen from an environmental perspective. Unavoidable adverse impacts. A statement of impacts upon critical impact areas as described in Subsection C(4)(a)[1][b] and a listing of adverse impacts which cannot be avoided in the proposed design shall be included. Mitigation measures. Environmental protection measures, procedures and schedules to minimize damage to all critical impacts areas shall be indicated, and their implementation schedule in regards to the proposed construction sequence shall be included. All publications, file reports, manuscripts or other written sources of information and all agencies and individuals from whom pertinent information was obtained orally or in writing which were employed in compilation of the environmental impact statement shall be listed. Dates and locations of all meetings shall be specified. A list of all licenses, permits and other approvals that are required by municipal, county, regional or state law and a status of each shall be included. Approval process. No application for development shall be approved unless it has been affirmatively determined, after a thorough review of the submitted environmental impact statement by the Township and its professionals, that the proposed project: Will not result in a significant adverse impact on the local or regional environment, especially on the identified critical impact areas. Has been conceived and designed in such a manner that it will not significantly impair natural processes. Will not place a disproportionate or excessive demand upon the total resources available to the project site or to the impact area. Every principal use and every lot within a subdivision shall have available to it a source of electric power adequate to accommodate the reasonable needs of such use and every lot within such subdivision. Compliance with this requirement shall be determined as follows: If the use is not a subdivision and is located on a lot that is served by an existing power line and the use can be served by a simple connection to such power line (as opposed to a more complex distribution system, such as would be required in an apartment complex or shopping center), then no further certification is needed. If the use is a subdivision or is not located on a lot served by an existing power line or a substantial internal distribution system will be necessary, then the electric utility service provider must review the proposed plans and certify to the Township that it can provide service that is adequate to meet the needs of the proposed use and every lot within the proposed subdivision. § 94-16 (Reserved) [1] Editor's Note: Former § 94-16, Fences, as amended, was repealed 10-11-2006 by Ord. No. 49-2006. No trees, brush or debris shall be used as landfill or in lieu thereof, nor shall any landfill operation be performed in such a manner as to cover unremoved trees and debris on any streets, lots or other areas. Sufficient additional soils information regarding bearing capacity and load settlement must be provided where any building construction is proposed on filled areas or where any street improvements are proposed on fill exceeding four feet. Every development (subdivided or unsubdivided) that is served by a public water system shall include a system of fire hydrants sufficient to provide adequate fire protection for the buildings located or intended to be located within such development. The average area per hydrant typically should not exceed 120,000 square feet. The presumption established by this chapter is that to satisfy the standard set forth in Subsection A, fire hydrants located on Township property must be located so that all parts of every building within the development may be served by a hydrant by laying not more than 500 feet of hose connected to such hydrant. However, the Fire Chief may authorize or require a deviation from this standard if, in his professional opinion, another arrangement more satisfactorily complies with the standard set forth in Subsection A. The Fire Chief shall determine the precise location of all fire hydrants, subject to the other provisions of this section. If these locations are not acceptable to the developer, he may request the opinion of another fire professional. The ultimate resolution of any dispute shall rest with the Planning Board. In general, fire hydrants shall be placed six feet behind the curbline of publicly dedicated streets that have curb and gutter and shall be located at all low points and at all high points with adequate means of drainage provided. The Fire Chief shall determine the design standards of all hydrants based on fire flow needs. Unless otherwise specified by the Fire Chief, the size, type and installation of hydrants shall conform to generally accepted standards. Water lines that serve hydrants shall be at least six-inch lines, and unless no other practicable alternative is available, no such lines shall be dead-end lines. Whenever a central water supply system services a development, provision shall be made for fire hydrants along streets and/or on the walls of nonresidential structures as required by the Planning Board and approved by the Township Engineer and Fire Chief in accordance with Fire Insurance Rating Organization Standards. Fire hydrants shall have an independent below-ground shutoff valve and are to be installed in conformance with the specifications contained in this section. Where streams or ponds exist or are proposed on lands to be developed, facilities will be provided to draft water for fire-fighting purposes. This shall include access to a public street suitable for use by fire-fighting equipment and construction of or improvements to ponds, dams or similar on-site and off-site development, where feasible. Such facilities shall be constructed to the satisfaction of the Township Engineer and Fire Chief and in accordance with Fire Insurance Rating Organization Standards. All major site plans and major subdivisions, including cluster developments and multifamily developments, shall be reviewed by the Township Fire Marshal. The applicant shall submit to the Fire Marshal or other appropriate fire officials complete plans of the proposed development and shall obtain from the Fire Marshal or appropriate officials written comments as to what items shall be incorporated in the design of the proposed development to allow at all times adequate access for fire fighting and emergency vehicles. The applicant shall incorporate in the site development all firesafety and fire protection devices and provisions as required by the Township Fire Marshal or the appropriate fire official. In the case of all major site plans, fire hydrants conforming to the spacing and recommendations of either the National Fire Protection Association or the Township Fire Marshal or appropriate fire official shall be provided on the site plan and shall be a specific requirement of Egg Harbor Township. All development within the Pinelands Area of the Township shall conform to the provisions for fire management contained in § 225-50.3 of Chapter 225. Fire lanes. Every commercial or industrial building or group of contiguous buildings on a single lot, the total gross floor area of which is over 20,000 square feet and the facade(s) of which abut(s) on a parking area, or which is only separated from such parking area by a pedestrian walkway, shall have a fire lane in each parking area abutting such facade or walkway. The fire lane shall be at least 12 feet wide and shall be so designed as to provide full access to every side of the building bordering on a parking area for fire and other emergency vehicles. The perimeter of fire lanes shall be clearly delineated with yellow paint and the words "Fire Lane - No Parking" shall be painted on the pavement at least every 200 linear feet and signs erected in conspicuous locations not more than 100 feet apart indicating "Fire Lane - No Parking." The fire lane shall not include loading areas as approved pursuant to any development applications. Major subdivisions which are remote from public water supply are required to install a six-thousand-gallon underground water storage tank. It is the intention of this section to permit a subdivision of large, narrow lots for the development of one additional dwelling. With the exception of lot width, flag lots shall meet all required area and yard requirements prescribed in the Schedule of Minimum Area, Yard and Building Requirements of Chapter 225, Zoning, for the respective zone. The non-flag lot created shall meet or exceed all dimensional and bulk requirements for the subject zone. A lot may be subdivided by means of this option only one time without the necessity of variance approval. Any additional request to subdivide either the original or the newly created lot(s) into a flag lot shall require subdivision and variance approval. Not more than one flag-shape lot may be created by the subdivision. An applicant requesting a flag lot subdivision may not own any contiguous lot or lots which would, if combined, provide sufficient lot frontage and lot width to create conforming, non-flag-type lots. The lot being subdivided shall have sufficient lot width to provide the flag lot with a minimum lot width of 50 feet and provide the second lot created with a lot width equal to or greater than the required minimum lot width for the respective zone. However, the lot being subdivided shall have a lot width which is less than double the minimum lot width for the zone. That portion of the flag lot providing access to the rear of said lot must be no less than 50 feet in width nor more than 400 feet in length extending uniformly from the lot frontage line to the rear lot line of the non-flag-type lot. This area shall be known as the "pole" of the flag. If the access strip is more than 400 feet long or serves more than one dwelling unit, access to the rear shall be only by a standard municipal street and a cul-de-sac dedicated as a public street. No structures may be constructed in the pole area nor in the areas of the pole as extended to the rear of the lot. Any structure constructed on a flag lot adjoining a non-flag lot shall have a minimum setback from the rear lot line of the front lot equal to the minimum building setback for the respective zone. Placement of a private driveway within the required access strip shall provide for a minimum fifteen-foot open space grass or landscaped area between the adjacent property line and edge of the access driveway. The purposes of the following floodplain regulations are to implement the land use rules and regulations promulgated by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection for floodways and the flood fringe portion of a flood hazard area, to discourage construction and regrading in flood hazard areas, to prevent encroachments into flood hazard areas which would obstruct or constrict the area through which water must pass and to prevent pollution of watercourses during low- or high-water periods by preventing the placing or storing of unsanitary or dangerous substances in the flood hazard areas. The flood hazard design elevation shall be determined on an individual basis upon stream encroachment line data from the Division of Water Resources or, in the absence of that data, the flood elevation based on a one-hundred-year storm frequency. One or the other shall be delineated on the plat. In addition, the Planning Board Engineer may, upon receipt of the application and with the consent of the landowner and at the landowner's expense, determine the precise location of a floodway and flood fringe area by close inspection, field survey or other appropriate method and cause, if requested, the same to be marked on the ground and on the plat and notify the owner, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Division of Water Resources and the approving authority. The assistance of the United States Department of Agriculture, Soil Conservation Service, United States Corps of Engineers and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Division of Water Resources, may be sought to aid in delineating the flood hazard design elevation, except that, where state and federal agencies shall subsequently publish any reports which delineate the flood hazard design elevation of a watercourse, the report shall be the officially delineated flood hazard area as if the report were published in this chapter. Any lot containing a floodway portion of a drainage course and on which it is proposed to regrade and/or construct an improvement shall not be permitted unless the proposed use is permitted by this chapter, plat approval has been granted and a floodway permit has been issued by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Division of Water Resources, where required by the state. Any lot containing a flood fringe portion of the flood hazard area and on which it is proposed to regrade and/or construct an improvement shall not be permitted unless the proposed use is permitted by this chapter and until plat approval has been granted. The procedure for reviewing any proposed regrading and/or construction shall be the same as set forth for plat review. No application shall be approved and no permit granted until all zoning violations have either been corrected or a variance has been granted. Regulation of the flood fringe portion of the flood hazard area shall be consistent in the approving authority's determination with the criteria and standards promulgated by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection governing the flood fringe area. The applicant shall submit maps, reports and other appropriate documents permitting the approving authority to evaluate whether the proposal has an inherent low flood damage potential; does not obstruct flood flows or increase flood heights and/or velocities; does not affect adversely the water-carrying capacity of any delineated floodway and/or channel; does not increase local runoff and erosion; does not unduly stress the natural environment of the floodplain or degrade the quality of surface water or the quality and quantity of groundwaters; does not require channel modification or relocation; does not require fill or the erection of structures; and does not include the storage of equipment and materials. Where a development is traversed by a watercourse, surface or underground drainageway or drainage system, channel or stream, there shall be provided and dedicated a drainage right-of-way easement of the municipality conforming substantially to the lines of such watercourse and such further width or construction, or both, as will be adequate to accommodate expected stormwater runoff in the future, based upon reasonable growth potential in the municipality. The minimum width of easement for channel sections shall be the maximum design top width of the channel sections segment plus 20 feet, rounded to the next highest five-foot increment. However, if the floodway is not ascertainable for a stream or open channel, the width of drainage easement shall extend 50 feet beyond the top of bank on both sides of the drainage course. All lots, open spaces and planting areas shall be graded to secure proper drainage and to prevent the collection of stormwater. The grading shall be performed in a manner which will minimize the damage to or destruction of trees growing on the land. Topsoil shall be provided and/or redistributed on the surface as cover and shall be stabilized by seeding or planting. Grading plans shall have been submitted with the preliminary and final plats, and any departure from these plans must be approved in accordance with the requirements of this chapter for the modification of improvements. Wherever possible, the land shall be graded so that the stormwater from each lot shall drain directly to the street. If impossible to drain directly to the street, it shall be directed to a system of interior yard drainage designed in accordance with this chapter. Unless otherwise required by this chapter, all tree stumps, masonry and other obstructions shall be removed to a depth of two feet below existing or finished grade, whichever is lower. The minimum slope for lawns and disturbed areas shall be 1 1/2% and, for smooth, hard-finished surfaces other than roadways and parking lots, 4/10 of 1%. The maximum grade for lawns and disturbed areas within five feet of a building shall be 10% and, for lawns more than five feet from a building, 25%; except that, for the driveway, the maximum grade shall be 15%. Retaining walls installed in slope-control areas shall be constructed of heavy creosoted timber or logs, reinforced concrete, other reinforced masonry or of other construction acceptable to the Board Engineer and shall be adequately designed and detailed on the final plat to carry all earth pressures, including any surcharges. The heights of retaining walls shall not exceed 1/3 of the horizontal distance from the foundation wall of any building to the face of the retaining wall. The subdivider shall take all necessary precautions to prevent any siltation of streams during the construction of the subdivision. The subdivider shall provide adequate provisions to prevent all deposition of silt or other eroded material in any stream or watercourse. Such provisions may include, but are not limited to, construction and maintenance of siltation basins or holding ponds and diversion berms throughout the course of construction and planting areas. All lots, open space and planting areas shall be seeded with a suitable stabilizing ground cover approved by the Township Planner. On any waterfront lots or open spaces, the Board may allow a suitable stabilizing ground cover other than seeding if approved by the Township Planner. No topsoil shall be removed from the site or used as soil. Topsoil moved during the course of construction shall be redistributed so as to provide at least four inches of spread cover to all seeding and planting areas of the subdivision and shall be stabilized by seeding or planting. In the event that the quantity of topsoil at the site is insufficient to provide four inches of cover for all seeding and planting areas, the developer shall provide and distribute a sufficient quantity of topsoil to provide such a cover. Topsoil shall be approved by the Township Engineer. In order to conserve the Township's limited natural resources, no soil, sand, gravel or other natural resources shall be stripped, excavated or otherwise removed for sale or for use other than on the premises from which the soil, sand, gravel or other natural resources shall be taken except for excavating or grading incidental to the construction or alteration of a building on such premises or an approved site plan or subdivision, provided that the amount to be removed does not exceed 20,000 cubic yards for every development site. Editor's Note: This chapter also provided for the redesignation of former Subsection I as Subsection J. This section shall be applicable to all subdivisions, site plans and all individual dwelling unit(s) site disturbances. All applications for site plan and major subdivision approval shall include a landscaping plan prepared by a qualified professional. At a minimum, the information contained on the plan shall include the following: The name of the professional responsible for preparing the plan. The location of existing on-site vegetation, including but not limited to specimen trees as identified in § 94-32 of this chapter and all individual trees over 15 inches diameter breast height (dbh) including species type. Trees over 15 inches (dbh) shall be an integral part of the landscape plan and incorporated into the landscape plan to the maximum extent possible. Species, density and approximate size of trees to be preserved shall be indicated on plans. The location of proposed plantings drawn to scale at maturity and keyed to plant list. Plant material proposed indicating the botanical and common name of each species. The quantity of each species proposed. The size of the proposed plant material at installation. The root condition of proposed plant material (bare root, balled and burlapped, container grown). Planting details illustrating method of plant installation, including but not limited to provisions for tree support and tree wrapping, specifications of planting pit size and backfill mix, mulching, etc. A note indicating that survival of all plant material shall be guaranteed for a period of one year or one growing season. Irrigation systems which will assure survival of plant material in planting beds and open space areas for all commercial developments. Existing vegetation preservation. Existing vegetation is to be preserved during construction indicated in the following manner: The location of all such plant material. Field markings for identification. All plant materials to be preserved shall be protected from damage during construction by fencing or similar barrier. Tree protection devices shall be installed before any excavation or grading is initiated and shall be maintained for the duration of the construction period. The location and extent of all protection devices shall be indicated on the landscaping plan. As a minimum precaution, the contractor shall install snow fencing supported by steel posts adjacent to the areas where plant materials are to be protected. Any damage incurred to existing trees shall be immediately repaired. Roots exposed and/or damaged during grading operations shall be immediately trimmed, treated and covered with topsoil. If trees designated for preservation are damaged, the applicant shall replace them with plant material similar in size and type as the original specimen. The specific replacement policy with respect to size/survival criteria shall be developed by an independent landscape architect and shall be submitted for review by the Township professionals. Trees may be preserved in areas where less than 24 inches of fill is proposed by observing the following procedures: Such trees shall be protected by a cylindrical sheath of galvanized metal placed within six inches of the trunk on all sides. Before soil is placed over the root area, a layer of broken stone or coarse gravel shall be laid down to within six inches of finished grade. A one-half-inch-thick fiberglass blanket with seams lapped at least six inches shall be spread over the gravel to enhance air circulation to the root zone. The remaining elevation shall be filled with topsoil. The area to be treated in this manner shall extend to the outer dripline of the branches. A maintenance plan for all plant material which specifies a schedule for the following activities, if applicable: Lawn, tree, shrub and ground cover care. Seasonal planting. Weed disease and pest control. Fertilization and land preparation. Irrigation system service. The name and address of the entity responsible for implementing the maintenance policy. Within the Pinelands Area, incorporate the elements set forth in § 225-50.9E of Chapter 225. Open areas. Portions of all front, rear and side yards which are not used for driveways, sidewalks, parking, loading, accessory buildings or recreational areas shall be planted with trees, shrubs, plants and lawns or ground cover in order to ensure the attractiveness of the premises and the protection of the soil thereon. Existing trees of four-inch caliper or over and any other significant natural features shall, if located in the landscape area, be preserved. Buffer areas. All uses with required buffers shall provide landscaped planting areas at a width as prescribed in § 94-8 of this chapter. These landscaped areas shall include evergreen trees, shade trees, ornamental trees and shrub plantings as prescribed for each specific use or zone. Those portions of the buffer outside of the landscaped area shall be green space stabilized with turf or other approved ground cover. The following guidelines shall be utilized in designing the required landscaped portion of all buffer areas: Buffers separating a nonresidential use from a residential use or zone. Landscaped plantings within these buffer areas shall be of an average width as prescribed in § 94-8 of this chapter and shall provide a continuous evergreen screen of at least eight feet in height at maturity. Plantings shall consist of a combination of evergreen trees, evergreen shrubs and shade trees combined in the following manner: Evergreen trees shall be a minimum height of seven feet at planting and shall comprise a minimum of 75% of the landscape screen measured linearly along the buffer. Trees shall be planted in masses with a staggered configuration and plant spacings a maximum of eight feet on center. Evergreen shrubs shall be a minimum of three feet in height at time of planting and shall be planted in masses consisting of at least 12 shrubs. Each shrub mass shall be a minimum of six feet wide at time of planting to assure a solid screen at maturity. Shade trees shall be installed at a minimum size of three-inch caliper and shall be provided at a rate of three trees for every 100 linear feet of buffer. Linear planting configurations are discouraged. The actual width of the planting area may vary if the overall average width of buffer plantings is consistent with the standards outlined in § 94-8 of this chapter. Front, side and rear yard buffers (nonresidential zones and residential uses requiring buffers). Landscape plantings within these buffer areas shall be continuous, with an average width as prescribed in § 94-8 of this chapter. Plantings shall consist of a combination of evergreen trees, shade trees, ornamental trees and shrub massings in accordance with the following guidelines: Plantings shall be combined in a naturalistic manner avoiding linear configurations and providing significant masses of shrub plantings. At least 50% of all plantings in these areas shall be evergreen. Shade trees shall be a minimum of three inches caliper and shall be provided at a rate of three trees for every 100 linear feet of buffer. Within side and rear yard buffer areas, evergreen trees shall be provided at a rate of four trees for every 100 linear feet of buffer at a minimum height of six feet at planting. Should the site plan indicate that an existing natural buffer will be used in lieu of a planted buffer as specified above, the natural buffer will be used only if, in the opinion of the Construction Code Official, Zoning Officer, Township Planner or Township Engineer, such existing natural buffer is adequate and dense enough to provide proper screening; furthermore, if, in the opinion of either the Construction Code Official, Zoning Officer, Township Planner or Township Engineer, this existing natural buffer screening becomes inadequate at any time, the applicant or the owner of the site shall be required to provide additional dense buffer screening in accordance with all applicable requirements of this chapter current at the time and to the satisfaction of the above-mentioned officials. Screen plantings and landscaping shall be broken at points of vehicular ingress and egress to assure a clear sight triangle at all street and driveway intersections. Parking area landscaping. In all parking lots a minimum of 5% of the interior parking area shall be landscaped with plantings, and a minimum of one shade tree for every 10 parking spaces shall be installed. Plantings required within the parking lot are exclusive of other planting requirements, such as for street trees and/or buffer plantings. All landscaping should be located in protected areas such as along walkways, in center islands, at the end of bays and in diamonds between parking stalls. All landscaping in parking areas shall be placed so that it will not obstruct sight distances. Plant type. A mixture of hardy flowering and/or decorative evergreen and deciduous trees may be planted. The area between trees shall be planted with shrubs or ground cover or covered with suitable mulch. No paving may be placed within 12 1/2 feet (measured from the center of the trunk) of any tree retained to comply with this section, and new trees shall be planted so that they are surrounded by at least 200 square feet of unpaved area. Stormwater management basin landscaping. Stormwater management areas include retention and detention basins, drainage ditches and swales and wetland areas. Sensitively designed basins and swales can benefit the health, welfare and safety of Egg Harbor Township residents. This may involve integration of these areas as aesthetic landscape features, naturalized wetland areas or active and passive recreation areas, in addition to their stormwater management function. The Township encourages, where possible, that stormwater management basins be designed to imitate naturalistic land forms with irregular perimeters that subtly blend into the surrounding topography. Where enclosures are required, fence alignments shall follow, as closely as possible, the configuration of the basin. Rectilinear fence alignments are to be avoided. One of the following landscaped concepts for stormwater detention areas or an alternative concept complying with the standards set forth herein or as approved by the Township Planner shall be used: Reforestation. This landscape treatment is appropriate for detention basins and drainage areas that are not highly visible or are adjacent to areas of mature woodlands, greenbelts or wetlands. It reverts the disturbed area to a revegetated, stable, low-maintenance, natural landscape asset over time. The area shall be graded creatively to blend into the surrounding landscape and imitate a natural depression with an irregular edge. This shall include gentle berming. Linear, geometric basins are unacceptable. The quantity of trees to be planted on the interior of the basins shall be equal to the number of trees that would be necessary to cover the entire area, based upon a twenty-foot-by-twenty-foot grid to the high-water line or outflow elevation. Of this number, 10% shall be 2 1/2 inches to three inches caliper, 20% shall be one inch to two inches caliper, and 70% shall be whips six feet to eight feet in height. The trees shall be planted in groves and spaced five feet to 15 feet on center. The ground plane shall be seeded with a naturalization, wildflower and/or meadow grass mix. The specific blend shall be approved by the Township Planner. All woody and herbaceous plants shall be species indigenous to the area and/or tolerant of typical wet/dry floodplain conditions. Planting shall not be located within 20 feet of low-flow channels to allow for maintenance. The perimeter area (slopes above the high-water line) shall include shade trees (approximately 80 per 1,000 linear feet), evergreen trees (approximately 40 per 1,000 linear feet), ornamental trees and shrubs screening drainage structures and creating visual interests. Provisions for emergency access as well as general maintenance of the basins shall be reviewed by the Township Engineer. Plantings shall be designed to disguise yet not hinder vehicular access. Recreation/open space feature. This landscape concept is appropriate in situations where a basin is the largest or only portion of open space in an area or is adjacent to existing open space and recreational open space is desired. It is also appropriate for smaller, highly visible basins where a visually pleasing open area is desired. The objective in these situations is to integrate the area into the landscape using topography and plantings in order to complement the function of the area and to provide a visually interesting landscape feature and/or recreation space. The area shall be graded creatively to blend into the surrounding landscape and imitate a natural depression with an irregular edge. This shall include gentle berming. Provide perimeter plantings, including shade trees, formally or informally, evergreen trees to create and screen views and small trees and shrubs to provide a continuous landscape strip screening drainage structures and creating visual interest. Integrate buffer plantings with perimeter plantings where applicable. The following are guidelines for plant quantities: (per 1,000 linear feet) To provide recreational open space, concentrate frequently flooded detention in a basin area (five- to ten-year storm volume) and provide a gently sloping, less often flooded, area (ten- to one-hundred-year storm volume) as a recreational open field space. Provide ballfields and/or open play areas integrated with plantings in a parklike manner. Where fences are required, the following standards shall apply: The perimeter of the basin shall be planted in a naturalistic manner with a combination of evergreen trees, shade trees and shrub massings. The minimum width of the basin perimeter landscaping shall be 10 feet. A minimum of 50% of all plantings are to be evergreen. Perimeter basin landscape plantings shall meet the following minimum sizes: 3 inches caliper 10 feet high 8 feet high Evergreen and deciduous shrubs 3 feet high or greater Plantings shall be arranged to allow for maintenance access to all basin facilities. All required basin perimeter plantings are to be located outside of the required fence enclosure. Basins located in front yard areas are subject to all previously stated landscaping standards for stormwater management facilities, with the following additions: Maximum basin depth will be 24 inches. Geometrically shaped basins are unacceptable. Minimum width of plant massings shall be 10 feet. Ornamental trees should be planted along the basin perimeter for visual interest. Landscape plantings are to be encouraged along the slopes and bottom of detention basins and on the side slopes of retention basins above the high-water line. These plantings shall consist of herbaceous plants which are indigenous to the area and/or tolerant of typical wet/dry floodplain conditions. Plantings shall not be located within 10 feet of low-flow channels and drainage structures to allow for maintenance. Shade trees. Shade trees shall be provided along all new streets in the Township in accordance with § 94-37 of this chapter. Within the Pinelands Area of the Township, all landscaping shall conform to § 225-50.9 of Chapter 225. Plant type classifications. The following are acceptable vegetation for each of the above-referenced plant types. Additional species may be used upon approval from the Township Planner. Shade trees: Red maple. Pin oak. White oak. Scarlet oak. Chestnut oak. Ornamental trees: Flowering dogwood. Black cherry. Evergreen trees: Eastern white pine. Eastern white cedar. Shortleaf pine. Inkberry. Red chokeberry. All public streets, sidewalks and other common areas or facilities in subdivisions created after the effective date of this chapter shall be sufficiently illuminated for the safety of persons using such areas. Streetlighting of a type supplied by the utility and of a type and number approved by the Township shall be provided at all street intersections and along all arterial, collector and local streets as deemed necessary by the approving authority for the protection of public health, safety and welfare. All roads, driveways, sidewalks, parking lots and other common areas and facilities in unsubdivided developments shall be sufficiently illuminated to ensure the safety of persons using such roads, driveways, sidewalks, parking lots and other common areas and facilities. All entrances and exits in substantial buildings used for nonresidential purposes and in two-family or multifamily residential developments containing more than four dwelling units shall be adequately lighted to ensure personal safety. All parking areas and walkways thereto and appurtenant passageways and driveways serving commercial, public, office, multiple-family or other uses having common off-street parking and/or loading areas shall have lighting fixtures spaced a distance not to exceed five times the mounting height. The maximum height of standards shall not exceed the maximum building height permitted or 25 feet, whichever is less. The height of shielding of lighting standards shall provide proper lighting without hazard to drivers or nuisance to residents, and the design of lighting standards shall be of a type appropriate to the development and the Township. Spotlights, if used, shall be placed on standards pointing toward the buildings and positioned so as not to blind the residents, rather than on the buildings and directed outward, which creates dark shadows adjacent to the buildings. All exterior lighting shall be designed to provide a minimum lighting intensity of 0.5 lumens per square foot. Lighting shall be of a soft or glare-free type and shall not cast an illumination color which shall be distractive, obliterate or obscure the view, be ultraviolet, strobe, pulsating, flashing or of any unnatural kind or create a public nuisance, discomfort or hazard. The maximum illumination at the property line shall not exceed 0.1 footcandle except at points of ingress and egress. All exterior lighting fixtures shall be designed, manufactured, installed and aimed in such a manner as to shield glare from reflecting onto adjacent streets, properties, residences or public areas. All lighting fixtures shall conform to all applicable requirements of the BOCA Basic Energy Conservation Code and the Lighting Power Budget Determination Procedure, EMS-1, of the Illuminating Engineer's Society and revisions thereof. All site plans or other development plans proposing the use of exterior lighting, either freestanding or building-mounted, shall include complete data regarding the proposed exterior illumination, including the proposed direction and location of illumination; intensity of illumination, as expressed either in horizontal footcandles or lumens per square foot; the hours of illumination; detail drawings and specifications of lighting fixtures, including but not limited to type of lighting, fixture details, mounting details, mounting height and lighting isobar patterns; illumination areas as shown on the site plan; and provisions to shield glare from reflecting onto adjacent thoroughfares and properties. In addition, any additional specific and special detailed data deemed appropriate for the particular lighting application as required by the Township Planner, Township Engineer, Construction Code Official, Zoning Officer, Planning Board, Environmental Commission, Electrical Subcode Official, Police Department, Zoning Board of Adjustment or other agency shall be included. Building lot abutting street. No permit for the erection of any building or structure shall be issued unless the lot abuts a street giving access to such proposed building or structure. Such street shall have been duly placed on the Official Map or shall be an existing state, county or Township street or highway or a street shown upon a plat approved by the Township or a street on a plat duly filed in the office of the County Clerk prior to the passage of an ordinance under this chapter or any prior law which required prior approval of plats by the governing body or other authorized body. Before any such permit shall be issued, such street shall have been certified to be suitably improved to the satisfaction of the Township Committee, or such suitable improvement shall have been assured by means of a performance guaranty, in accordance with standards and specifications for road improvements approved by the Township Committee, as adequate in respect to the public health, safety and general welfare of the special circumstance of the particular street. Relaxation of abutment requirement. Where the enforcement of Subsection A above would entail practical difficulty or unnecessary hardship or where the circumstances of the case do not require the building or structure to be related to a street, the Zoning Board of Adjustment or Planning Board may, upon application or appeal, vary the application of Subsection A and direct the issuance of a permit subject to conditions that will provide adequate access for fire-fighting equipment, ambulances and other emergency vehicles necessary for the protection of health and safety and that will protect any future street layout shown on any official map or in the general circulation plan element of the Township Master Plan [N.J.S.A. 40:55D-28b(4)]. Lot dimensions and areas shall not be less than the requirements of the zoning provisions.[1] Editor's Note: See Ch. 225, Zoning. Insofar as is practical, side lot lines shall be either at right angles or radial to street lines. Any new through lot with frontage on two streets will be permitted only under the following conditions: Where the length of the lot between both streets is such that future division of the lot into two lots is improbable. Access shall be to the street with the lower traffic function, and the portion of the lot abutting the other street shall be clearly labeled on the plat, and in any deed, that street access is prohibited. Where extra width has either been dedicated or anticipated for widening of existing streets, zoning considerations shall begin at such new street line, and all setbacks shall be measured from such new line. Two or more contiguous lots under the same ownership, regardless of whether or not each may have been approved as portions of a subdivision, acquired by separate conveyance or by other operation of law, where one or more of said lots does not conform to the minimum area and/or dimension requirements for the zone in which it is located, the contiguous lots shall be considered as a single lot, and the provisions of this chapter shall prevail. Whenever land has been dedicated or conveyed to the Township by the owner of a lot in order to meet the minimum street width requirements or to implement the Master Plan and which lot existed at the effective date of this chapter, the Construction Code Official shall not withhold a building and/or occupancy permit when the lot depth and/or area was rendered substandard due to such dedication and where the owner has no adjacent lands to meet the minimum requirements. Any portion of a lot dedicated for future road widening and other improvements shall not be included when calculating lot area. [Amended 7-14-1993 by Ord. No. 30-1993; 6-8-1994 by Ord. No. 25-1994; 9-13-1995 by Ord. No. 19-1995] Whenever a single lot two acres or less in size is located within two or more different zoning districts, the district regulations applicable to the district within which the larger portion of the lot lies shall apply to the entire lot. Whenever a single lot greater than two acres in size is located within two or more different zoning districts, each portion of that lot shall be subject to all the regulations applicable to the district in which it is located. Double frontage. Double frontage and reverse frontage lots shall be avoided except where essential to provide separation of residential development from traffic arteries as to overcome specific disadvantages of topography and orientation. A landscaped easement at least 25 feet wide shall be provided along the line of lots abutting such a traffic artery or other disadvantageous use. There shall be no right of access across such easement. Odd-shaped lots. Where there is a question as to the shape and boundary line of a lot or lots for their optimum use by a future occupant, including such conditions as narrow or unduly elongated lots and other awkward appearing angles or appendages, the approving authority may withhold approval of such lot or lots. Extra lot depth. Residential lots fronting on arterial streets, lots having reverse frontage on arterial streets and lots backing on streams shall be provided with 30 feet extra depth which may include utility easements. Frontage. No single-family residential dwelling unit shall be permitted to front on secondary traffic or arterial streets or on a controlled-access highway except where no acceptable alternate access is available. Lots backing on railroads. Lots backing on railroad rights-of-way shall have additional depth equal to no less than 25% of the depth of the majority of lots in the proposed subdivision. A protective fence and landscaped buffer shall be erected by the subdivider, the type and location of which shall be subject to the approval of the Township Planner. Where issue exists as to the suitability of a lot or lots for their intended use due to factors such as flood conditions, septic suitability or similar circumstances, the Planning Board may withhold approval of such lots or require the applicant to document utility of the land for development purposes. A development application for land generally described hereafter shall comply with regulations set forth hereinafter and applicable state law. For purposes of this subsection, "low," "wet" or "swampy" areas are defined as those areas classified as wetlands, having seasonal high-water tables within two feet of the ground level, shown on the National Wetlands Inventory Maps as wetlands, classified as floodplains or having elevations less than 10 feet mean sea level. Prior to preliminary development decision, the applicant shall provide the following additional information to the Planning Board: Official boundary designations of all wetlands, swamps, marshes, floodplains, flood hazard areas, etc., and a letter of interpretation from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and Energy (NJDEPE). Soil classifications with expected seasonal high-water levels as provided by the Atlantic County Soil Survey. All lands, for the purposes of this chapter, which possess seasonal high-water tables at or within two feet of the surface shall be considered wetlands. Soil borings and percolation tests taken at the rate of one per five acres. Proposed fill materials and fill depths accompanied by surface water grading plans. If deemed appropriate, a subsurface drainage system may also be required at the discretion of the Planning Board. Permeability tests. It shall be unlawful to subdivide any parcel of land for purposes of constructing dwelling units on any part thereof resulting from said subdivision unless the parcel is serviced by public water and sewerage or conforms to the minimum lot area requirements contained herein. All lots created which contain existing dwelling units serviced by on-site septic systems are also subject to these requirements. The minimum lot area and lot frontage shall be as required in the Schedule of Minimum Area, Yard and Building Requirements.[2] All zoning districts within the Township shall be subject to these additional requirements with the exception of those districts in the Pinelands Regional Growth Area. Lot area increase requirements. Lot area requirements necessary for subdivision approval shall increase in addition to the minimum requirement in the Schedule of Minimum Area, Yard and Building Requirements according to the following calculation: Lot Area Increment (square feet) = Lot Area Factor x 43,560 square feet Lot Area Factor = (2 - Permeability Rate) + 72 inches — DSHT* * NOTE: Depth to seasonal high water (inches) Lot area increments shall be based solely upon calculations involving positive numerical values. Any negative values derived during calculations shall be disregarded. A permeability rate greater than 20 inches per hour or less than 0.2 inch per hour is not acceptable. Additionally, a depth to seasonal high-water table of three feet or less shall require a minimum lot size of 150,000 square feet regardless of the permeability rate. The permeability rating shall be based on analysis of a soil sample taken from the most restrictive soil horizon. The Township Engineer's office shall be notified at least 24 hours in advance of any soil boring/permeability test required by this section and shall witness said boring. The applicant shall submit the fees required for all such witnessing by the Township Engineer. All state standards, specifically NJDEPE Standards for the Construction of Individual Subsurface Sewage Disposal Systems, July 1, 1978, as amended, shall apply. No building or structure may be so situated so as to deprive adjacent properties of their rights to adequate light, air and open space. Further, all developments and uses shall conform to the following regulations: All public streets, sidewalks and other common areas or facilities in subdivisions created after the effective date of this chapter shall be sufficiently illuminated for the safety of persons using such areas. Spacing of standards shall be equal to approximately four times the height of the standard. Electricity. Electronic equipment shall be shielded so there is no interference with any radio or television reception beyond the operator's property as the result of the operation of such equipment. Glare. No use shall direct or reflect a steady or flashing light beyond the lot lines on which it is located. Exterior lighting and lighting resulting from any manufacturing or assembly operations shall be shielded, buffered and directed as approved on the site plan so that any glare, direct light, flashes or reflection will not interfere with the normal use of nearby properties, dwelling units and streets. Heat. Sources of heat, including but not limited to steam, gases, vapors, products of combustion or chemical reaction, shall not discharge onto or directly contact structures, plant life or animal life on neighboring uses or impair the function or operation of a neighboring use. No use, occupation, activity, operation or device shall cause an increase in ambient temperature, as measured on the boundary between neighboring uses. Radioactivity. No use, activity, operation or device concerned with the utilization or storage of radioactive materials shall be established, modified, constructed or used without having first obtained valid permits and certificates from the Office of Radiation Protection, NJDEPE. Proof of compliance with this requirement shall be the submission of duplicate copies of said permits and certificates. Vibrations. Standard. Ground-transmitted vibrations shall be measured with a seismograph or complement of instruments capable of recording vibration displacement and frequency in the three mutually perpendicular directions, simultaneously. Vibration level restrictions. Vibration levels shall not exceed a particle velocity of 0.05 inch per second in any district. During the hours of 9:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. in residential districts, vibration levels shall not exceed a particle velocity of 0.02 inch per second. Measurements shall be made at the points of maximum vibration intensity and on or beyond adjacent lot lines or neighboring uses, whichever is more restrictive. Airborne emissions. In all districts, no use, activity, operation or device shall be established, modified, constructed or used without having obtained valid permits and certificates from the Bureau of Air Pollution Control, NJDEPE. Specifically, no use, activity, operation or device shall be established, modified or constructed without a valid permit to construct. No use, activity, operation or device shall be operated, occupied or used without a valid certificate to operate control apparatus or equipment. Proof of compliance with this requirement shall be the submission of duplicate copies of the permit to construct and certificate to operate. In addition to the requirements of NJDEPE, the following shall also apply: Steam emissions. No visible emissions of steam, having an equivalent capacity greater than 60%, and excepting direct results of combustion shall be permitted within 500 feet of a residential district. Toxic matter. Emissions of chemicals, gases, components or elements, listed as being toxic matter by the American Conference of Governmental Hygienist, New Jersey Department of Labor and Industry or the EPA, shall not exceed the threshold level, as determined in accordance with A.S.T.M.D. 1391. The emission of concentrations, levels or mass loadings in excess of the threshold value shall be permitted only if the emissions of said toxic matter comply with the applicable regulations of the NJDEPE, New Jersey Department of Labor and Industry and the EPA. Proof of compliance shall require the submission of duplicate copies of certifications or permits from NJDEPE and New Jersey Department of Labor and Industry approving the concentrations, level or loading proposed by the applicant. Odorous matter. No odor shall be emitted that is detectable by the human olfactory sense at or beyond an adjacent lot line. Noise emissions. Standard. Noise shall be measured with a sound level meter complying with the standards of the American National Standards Institute, American Standards Specifications for General Purpose Sound Level Meters (ANSI S1.4-1961 or its latest revisions). The instrument shall be set to the A-weighted response scale and the metering to the slow response. Measurement shall be conducted in accordance with the American Standard Method for the Physical Measurement of Sound (ANSI S1.2-1961 or its latest revision). Noise level restrictions. Noises shall not exceed the maximum sound levels specified in the table, except as designated below: Noise Level Restrictions Performance Category Maximum Level Permitted (dBA) Where Measured Residential districts On or beyond the neighboring use or lot line Agricultural districts On or beyond the neighboring use All other districts On or beyond the district boundary Exclusion and permitted variations. The levels specified in the table may be exceeded once by 10 dBA in a single period of 15 minutes, during one day. Peak values of short duration also known as "impact noises" may exceed the values specified in the table by 20 dBA or have a maximum noise level of 80 dBA, whichever is more restrictive. Noises such as alarms, sirens, emergency warning devices, motor vehicles and other sources not under the direct control of a use are excluded from the above limitations when they do not operate more than one minute in any one-hour period. The noise restrictions of this section should not apply to permitted agricultural activities. Storage and waste disposal. In all districts permitting such an operation, use or any activity involving the manufacture, utilization or storage of flammable, combustible and/or explosive materials, such storage shall be conducted in accordance with the regulations promulgated by the Department of Labor and Industry of New Jersey or the Fire Code of the National Fire Protection Association, whichever is more restrictive. All flammable, explosive and/or combustible material shall be stored in accordance with the National Fire Protection Association or the New Jersey Department of Labor and Industry Codes, whichever is more restrictive. All outdoor storage facilities for fuel, raw materials and products, where permitted, shall be enclosed by an approved safety fence and visual screen and shall conform to the requirements imposed upon the principal buildings in the district. No materials or wastes shall be deposited upon a lot in such form or manner that they may be transferred off the lot by natural causes or forces into a stream or watercourse thereby rendering such stream or watercourse unfit as a source of water supply or recreation or destroying aquatic life. All materials or wastes which might cause fumes or dust or which constitute a fire hazard or which may be edible or otherwise attractive to rodents or insects shall be stored outdoors only if enclosed in containers that are adequate to eliminate such hazards. All storage facilities for deicing chemicals shall be lined to prevent leaking into the soil and shall be covered with an impermeable surface which shields the facility from precipitation. No material or waste shall be deposited in any water body which may render such water body unfit as a source of water supply or recreation or destroy aquatic life. The discharge of boat wastes, whether organic or inorganic, is strictly prohibited in waters adjacent to or under Township jurisdiction. Monuments shall be the size and shape required by N.J.S.A. 46:23-9.11 of the Map Filing Law, as amended, and shall be placed in accordance with said statute and indicated on the final plan. Editor's Note: Former § 94-27, Off-street parking; loading and unloading, was repealed 2-24-1993 by Ord. No. 6-1993 and 7-14-1993 by Ord. No. 30-1993. These general requirements apply only to planned unit developments located throughout the Township and developments within the Pinelands area of the Township. [Amended 7-14-2004 by Ord. No. 41-2004; 11-10-2004 by Ord. No. 60-2004; 9-9-2009 by Ord. No. 38-2009] Prior to preliminary approval, the applicant shall submit, for approval by the Township Planner, manufacturer's descriptive data and supporting information for all park and recreation equipment and playground apparatus. In the designation of common open space areas, consideration shall be given to providing for continuity of open space between sections of a development and between open space within a development and open space on adjacent lands. Open space shall be distributed throughout the development so that there is a hierarchy of activities from preservation areas to passive open space adjacent to and between each residential cluster. Designating all open space in one portion of a development is discouraged. Usable recreation space should be provided for active recreation within 1/4 mile of all units. Part of this recreation component may consist of a lake or pond having a constant water level, but excluding therefrom detention and retention basins. Any larger preservation spaces shall be contiguous to and directly related to dwelling structures. Usable recreation space may be improved with facilities for swimming pools, tot-lots, playgrounds and quiet outdoor sports such as, but not limited to, tennis, paddle tennis, golf, baseball, basketball, soccer, lacrosse and the like and accessory buildings such as clubhouses and pavilions. The approving authority shall have complete and final determination as to the adequacy, usefulness and functionability of lands set aside for open spaces. Recreational facilities should be operated for the benefit of the residents of the development. They should not be commercial enterprises open to anyone who pays a fee. Common open space for recreational purposes shall be provided in all major subdivisions and residential site plans in an amount as required by Chapter 225, Zoning, and by this section, where applicable. The developer shall improve this area for active and passive recreation as specified herein. Plans for the improvement of this recreation area shall be an integral component of any preliminary plat and final construction drawings for any major subdivision or residential site plan. The developer shall have the option to except in planned unit developments, to post an assessment in an amount calculated pursuant to Subsection H if he or she determines that the on-site construction of active recreation facilities and/or provisions of open space for passive recreation would result in a loss of potential dwelling units on the subject parcel. The common open space shall be easily accessible from all parts of the development and shall include, at a minimum, all floodplain and wetland areas; provided, however, that in no case shall areas of floodplain or wetland be counted for more than 75% of the required open space. Notwithstanding the minimum area requirements for open space and recreation in Chapter 225, Zoning, the following minimum requirements shall be met by all major residential developments within the Township. Such open space areas shall be developed with appropriate recreational facilities sufficient to meet the needs of the residents of the proposed development. These areas shall provide recreational opportunities based on the following formula: eight acres for each 1,000 persons or fraction thereof as developed recreation, plus 5% of the gross site area for undeveloped (passive) recreation. Where feasible, the common open space shall connect to existing Township park, recreation or conservation lands or connect into an adjacent development's common open space. Public pedestrian and/or bicycle paths shall be included in the open space whenever feasible and shall be designed to connect into a larger-scale Township system if applicable or feasible. There should be a close visual and physical relationship between open space and as many dwelling units as is reasonably possible. Open space areas should weave between dwelling units generally respecting a minimum width of 50 feet and periodically widening out into significant and usable recreation areas. Distribution requirements applicable to planned residential developments. The common open space requirements as required for certain planned residential developments permitted by Chapter 225, Zoning, shall be distributed generally as outlined below: Minimum Distribution Percentages of Open Space (expressed as percent of gross tract area) Recreation Feature When at least 50% open space required When less than 50% open space required In usable recreation facilities as set forth in this section In natural features, significant wooded areas, vegetation and in other usable open space which shall be defined as lands other than in channels, floodways or water bodies whether used for recreation, retention or detention purposes In lands excluded in the above entry Open space/recreation design guidelines. An effective open space system should tie together a number of diverse recreational activity areas with adequate pedestrian pathways and auto/bicycle access for the residents it is intended to serve. As many homes as possible should have direct access to the open space of a development. Developed open space generally should not be isolated in one corner of a project. Active recreation should be visibly close but shall not interfere with the privacy of adjacent residents. It should be designed to accommodate the recreation needs of the project's intended age groups. Recreational facilities. In all residential developments which require recreation facilities, the developer shall install, as a minimum, the following recreational facilities on the land which has been set aside for recreational purposes. The Planning Board may, at its discretion, alter the schedule of active recreation facilities required, or require equivalent facilities. [Amended 6-8-1994 by Ord. No. 25-1994; 7-14-2004 by Ord. No. 41-2004] Dwelling Units Lots1 Tot Courts1 Tennis Courts2 Basketball Grounds2 Play Fields3 Multi- Neighbor- hood Park 1Plus one for every 100 additional units. Tot-lots. Tot-lots shall be a minimum of 5,000 square feet excluding areas required for fencing, buffering or walkways and shall contain, as a minimum, the following improvements: Four-foot-high chain link fence with gate or other buffering or screening bordering residential properties and roadways. Two benches, each to be eight feet long and constructed of aluminum. Two table and bench sets. Ground cover shall be in accordance with the requirements of the New Jersey Uniform Construction Code, Playground Safety Subcode. One swing set with four swings, two of which shall be tot swings, one tot chair and one slashproof belt seat 2 3/8 inches outside diameter; legs and top rails with 2 7/8 inches outside diameter fittings, eight feet in height. One single-platform whirl seven feet eight inches in diameter. Two saddle mates with metal "c" springs. One climber, two feet by 12 feet, with a height of approximately four feet seven inches. One sandbox, 15 feet by 15 feet. One slide, two feet by 14 feet, with a height of approximately six feet, and must have wraparound top rails with nonskid steps. One trash receptacle with retractable bottom, ten-gallon capacity, green in color. Playgrounds. Playgrounds shall be not less than three acres in size, excluding areas required for fencing, buffering or walkways, and shall contain, as a minimum, the following improvements: Not fewer than one tot-lot as defined above. Not fewer than one play lot which shall contain, as a minimum, the following improvements: One heavy-duty swing set with legs and top rail not less than 2 3/8 inches outside diameter and with two-and-seven-eighths-inch fittings. The swing set is to be at least 10 feet in height with not fewer than four slash-proof belt-type seats. One bicycle rack not less than 10 feet in length, of aluminum construction or such other materials as may be approved by the Township Planner. Playing fields and courts. Not less than 2.25 acres of seeded or sodded open space (not otherwise utilized as a tot-lot and/or playground) which shall, as a minimum, contain one of the following: Two basketball and two tennis courts. One baseball and one softball field. One football and one soccer field. Football and soccer fields may share all or portions of the same open area. Baseball and softball fields may share portions of the same open area. Where playing fields as noted above share all or portions of the same area, the layout of such fields shall be subject to the approval of the Township Planner. Tennis courts. Tennis courts shall be of regulation sealer and in all cases shall be constructed in pairs (two courts) and shall be constructed as follows: The courts shall be four inches of bituminous stabbed base on a properly prepared subgrade as set forth by the Township Engineer, on 1.5 inches of FABC leveling course, and a one-and-one-half-inch SP-1 vinyl latex top course and shall be color-coated with light green for the in-play and brick red for the out-of-play. The sealer shall be California Products Corporation or equal as approved by the Township Planner. There shall be one set of ground sockets set in concrete on each court. There shall be one set of tennis posts 3 1/2 inches outside diameter with heavy-duty nylon tennis nets on each court. There shall be one reel per court. Tennis courts shall be surrounded with a twelve-foot-high green vinyl chain link fence with entrance gate and buffered planting as designated by the Township Planner. There shall be nightlighting with timers at courts to be designated by the Township Planner. One bench eight feet in length and constructed of aluminum shall be installed at each court. Basketball courts. Basketball courts shall be a minimum size of 50 feet by 84 feet and shall contain, as a minimum, the following requirements: Two fan-shaped aluminum basketball backstops. Two four-and-one-half-inch outside diameter basketball posts with forty-eight-inch extension. Two double-ring and double-brace goals with metal nets. Four inches of bituminous stabbed base course on a properly prepared subgrade as set forth by the Township Engineer, 1.5 inches of FABC leveling course, and a one-inch SP-1 vinyl latex top course. Nightlighting with timers at courts as designated by the Township Planner. Baseball or softball fields. The baseball/softball fields shall have a minimum slope of 2% and not to exceed 3%, with grading to be approved by the Township Engineer, and shall contain, as a minimum, the following requirements: Baseball/softball field combinations should conform to the recommended standards in design. There shall be one backstop with four panels: two ten-foot back panels and two side panels 10 feet high with complete overhang over the back and side panels. There shall be two side fences, four feet high and 20 feet long, with chain link fencing on both sides of the side panels. There shall be two fifteen-foot-long players' benches, constructed of aluminum. The infield should be covered with infield dirt as required by the Township Engineer. Football/soccer fields. Football/soccer fields should be a minimum of 1 3/4 acres and shall have a minimum of two-percent slope and not to exceed three-percent slope and shall be approved by the Township Engineer. All fields should be designed so as to face north to south and should contain, as a minimum, the following requirements: Football/soccer field combinations should conform to the recommended standards in design. There shall be two combination football/soccer posts. There shall be two heavy-duty nylon soccer nets. There shall be two aluminum benches, each 15 feet in length. Multipurpose fields. Multipurpose fields shall be a minimum size of 250 feet by 420 feet, exclusive of area required for fencing, screening, buffering and parking facilities or other ancillary facilities, and shall contain, as a minimum, the following improvements: Completely grassed field. Baseball/softball backstop in one corner of the site. Football/soccer field goal posts made of pipe at each end of the field. A minimum of two-percent and maximum of three-percent slope. Nightlighting with timers at fields to be designated by the Township Planner. Pedestrian, bicycle and fitness trails. Pedestrian and bicycle trails when constructed as one trail shall be a minimum of six feet wide. Fitness trails are to be a minimum of three feet wide. Trails should be constructed free of branches or other obstructions, are to have a minimum slope of 2% and should follow the contour of the area where possible. Trails should be constructed of two-inch FABC-1 surface course over six inches of quarry blend. Paths should generally follow ground contours, streams, lakes, ponds or other natural features and shall have a destination. When crossing roadways in a development, appropriate depressed curbing, signs and crosswalk striping shall be provided. Walkways and bicycle paths shall have information signs. If trails are designed to be specifically used for bicycles, then a sign marked with the international bicycling symbol shall be used. The path system shall meet the following requirements: Fitness trails shall be a twenty-piece unit with information signs explaining use of each apparatus (wooden units). Pedestrian walkways shall have one aluminum park bench, six feet in length, for every 1/2 mile. Information signs shall be placed at various points of interest along the trail. Neighborhood parks. A neighborhood park shall be a minimum of seven acres. Included in the minimum acreage is fencing, screening, buffering and landscaping bordering residential properties or any roadway and shall contain, as a minimum, the following requirements: Tot-lot: one fully enclosed with four-foot-high chain link fence, one entrance gate. Playground: one. Multipurpose paved courts: two basketball and two tennis courts. Multipurpose field: one baseball/softball and one combination football/soccer field. Picnic area: a minimum of 1/2 acre and shall have, as a minimum, five aluminum picnic tables and three grills. Parking area: a minimum of one car per 300 persons of population served with not fewer than 10 parking spaces, with two parking spaces for the disabled. Barrier-free site designs for the disabled. All tot-lots, playgrounds, tennis/basketball courts, parks and any other recreation areas shall be barrier-free so as to allow accessibility for the disabled. Such areas are to be fully accessible, both in the active areas as well as in the passive areas, and shall contain, as a minimum, the following requirements: There shall be two parking spaces for the handicapped with international disabled person symbol. Walkways shall be a minimum of six feet wide for easy mobility. There shall be access ramps where steps are otherwise required on entrance to any recreational site. Ramps shall be four feet wide with two continuous handrails 32 inches high. Gates on all chain link fences shall have a clear opening of 34 inches. On all walkways which cross roads or sidewalks, a depressed curb shall be provided for accessibility by the handicapped. Community buildings. In planned developments of over 150 dwelling units, consideration shall be given toward a recreation center/community multipurpose building. Such facilities should be within walking or easy biking distance of the majority of the residents it is intended to serve. Other amenities. Consider jogging trails and exercise areas in an adult-oriented project. Provide benches and sitting areas along pathways where appropriate and particularly where they can incorporate or provide views of a significant landscape feature, recreational facility or interesting site design of the project. Consider an area reserved for small garden plots in larger developments. The Board may require a developer to make certain site preparation improvements to the open spaces and may require that the site preparation improvements are made a part of the plan and are noted therein. These improvements may include the following: Removal of dead or diseased trees. Thinning of trees or other growth to encourage more desirable growth. Grading and seeding. Improvements or protection of the natural drainage system by the use of protective structures, stabilization measures and similar devices. Development of open space and recreational facilities shall proceed at the same rate as development of the dwelling units. To assure compliance with this section, the Planning Board shall require the approval of an open space and recreational amenity phasing map which shall become part of an overall phasing plan and approval for any subdivision, planned and/or clustered development. The requirements of this section relating to the construction of active and passive recreation facilities and the total percentage of open space required within a development may be modified and/or waived by the Planning Board's determination that both the area local to the development and Egg Harbor Township's park and recreation needs would be better served by an agreed cash bequest to the designated parks and recreation budget, which sums shall be added to the current year municipal budget when received as a dedication by rider, in accordance with the provisions of N.J.S.A. 40A:4-39. Contributions in-lieu of facilities. The amount of the contribution required pursuant hereto shall be determined by the Township based upon the cost to the Township to provide active recreational facilities and the value of the land for the passive recreation area. This would apply to all residential development with the exception of a remainder lot from a subdivision that contains an existing single-family dwelling that would remain. An evaluation of the costs will annually be reviewed by the Township in order to determine if the per lot contribution needs to be adjusted. The cost per lot is established at $6,300. [Amended 7-14-2004 by Ord. No. 41-2004; 12-14-2005 by Ord. No. 65-2005; 2-28-2007 by Ord. No. 6-2007; 12-17-2014 by Ord. No 29-2014; 2-20-2019 by Ord. No. 2-2019] Payment of the contribution required pursuant hereto shall be made prior to the signing of the final plans by the Planning Board Chairman, Planning Board Secretary and Township Engineer and shall be equal to the per-lot amount times the number of building lots shown on the final plans to be signed and filed and shall be made payable to the designated parks and recreation fund. For good cause shown, the Planning Board may enter into an agreement to provide that the payment or payments shall be made at some later time, subject to the posting of adequate performance guaranties in an amount of 120% of the agreed contribution, subject, however, that the delayed period of time shall in no event be later than the issuance of the first certificate of occupancy. The cash bequest shall be used exclusively for park and recreation purposes and shall be placed in the current budget line item designated "parks and playgrounds, other expenses." Egg Harbor Township reserves the right to use said funds for proper purposes anywhere within the Township of Egg Harbor. All development within the Pinelands Area of the Township shall conform to the recreation requirements contained in Section 7:50-6.141 to 7:50-6.144 of the CMP. Except as provided in § 94-30, recreation facilities and usable open space required to be provided by the developer in accordance with this article shall not be dedicated to the public but shall remain under the ownership and control of the developer (or his successor) or a homeowners' association or similar organization that satisfies the criteria established in § 94-31. The person or entity identified in Subsection A as having the right of ownership and control over such recreational facilities and open space shall be responsible for the continuing upkeep and proper maintenance of the same. If common open space is not accepted and dedicated to public ownership, responsibility for maintaining common open space shall lie with the development's homeowners' association or other similar entity. No planned and/or cluster development shall receive preliminary approval unless the applicant presents an adequate plan for the organization and administration of such an association. Such plan shall ensure that the homeowners' association or other entity responsible for the maintenance of common open space shall provide adequate funding for the maintenance, repair and replacement of such open space and its structures by a system of fees assessed against residents of the development. The financial soundness of such a homeowners' association or other entity shall include fee arrangements guaranteed by assessments levied on the land in the development through permanent deed restrictions or other suitable guaranties. The applicant will comply with all the standards of § 94-31 for the establishment of homeowners' associations. No planned and/or clustered development shall receive final approval by the Township until all elements of the homeowners' association have been satisfactorily reviewed and approved by the Planning Board and the Department of Community Affairs. If any portion of any lot proposed for residential development lies within an area designated on the officially adopted Recreation Master Plan as a neighborhood park or part of the greenway system or bikeway system, the area so designated (not exceeding 5% of the total lot area) shall be included as part of the area set aside to satisfy the requirement of this section. This area shall be dedicated for public use. If more than 5% of a lot proposed for residential development lies within an area designated as provided in Subsection A, the Township may attempt to acquire the additional land in the following manner: The developer may be encouraged to resort to the procedures authorized in this section and to dedicate the common space thereby created; or The Township may purchase or condemn the land. Any land offered to the Township shall be subject to approval by the Township Committee after review and recommendation by the approving authority. The approving authority shall be guided by the Master Plan, the ability to assemble and relate such lands to an overall plan, the accessibility and potential utility of such lands and such existing features as may enhance or detract from the intended use of the lands. The approving authority may request an opinion from other agencies or individuals as to the advisability of accepting any lands to be offered. Every parcel offered to and accepted by the Township shall be conveyed by deed at the time final plat approval is granted, with such acceptance being subject to any conditions the Township may impose. The deeds shall contain restrictions stating to what use(s) such land(s) shall be restricted. Any lands dedicated for open space purposes shall contain appropriate covenants and deed restrictions approved by the Planning Board which ensure that: The open space area will not be further subdivided in the future. The use of the open space areas will continue in perpetuity for the purpose specified. All open space shall be clearly indicated on the final plat by metes and bounds. Land so dedicated for open spaces shall include, wherever feasible, natural features such as streams, wetlands, brooks, wooded areas, steep slopes and other natural features of environmental scenic and conservation value. The developer may be required to plant trees or make other similar landscaping improvements to enhance these open space areas. A homeowners' association will be established for the purposes of owning and assuming maintenance responsibilities for the common open space and common property designed within a planned and/or clustered development. The organization shall incorporate the following provisions: Membership by all property owners in the project shall be mandatory. Required membership and the responsibilities upon the members shall be in writing between the organization and each member in the form of a covenant with each agreeing to liability for his pro rata share of the organization's costs. The organization shall be responsible for liability insurance, taxes, maintenance and any other obligations assumed by the organization and shall hold the Township harmless from any liability. The organization shall not be dissolved and shall not dispose of any open space or property by sale or otherwise, except to an organization conceived and established to own and maintain the open space or property for the benefit of such development, and, thereafter, such organization shall not be dissolved or dispose of any of its open space or property. The assessment levied by the organization upon each member may become a lien on each member's property. The organization shall be allowed to adjust the assessment to meet changing needs. The organization shall clearly describe in its bylaws all the rights and obligations of each tenant and owner, including a copy of the covenant, model deeds and articles of incorporation of the organization and the fact that every tenant and property owner shall have the right to use all common properties. These shall be set forth as a condition of approval and shall be submitted prior to the granting of final approval. Failure to maintain; notice. The articles of incorporation, covenants, bylaws, model deeds and other legal instruments shall ensure that control of the organization shall be transferred to the members based on a percentage of the dwelling units sold and/or occupied and shall clearly indicate that, in the event that such organization shall fail to maintain the common open space or common property in reasonable order and condition, the Township may serve written notice upon such organization or upon the owners of the development setting forth the manner in which the organization has failed to maintain the common open space or common property in reasonable condition, and the notice shall include a demand that such deficiencies of maintenance be corrected within 35 days thereof and shall state the date and place of a hearing thereon which shall be held within 15 days of the notice. At such hearing, the designated Township body or officer, as the case may be, may modify the terms of the original notice as to deficiencies and may give a reasonable extension of time not to exceed 65 days within which they shall be corrected. If the deficiencies set forth in the original notice or in the modification thereof shall not be corrected within 35 days or any permitted extension thereof, the Township, in order to preserve the common open space and common property and maintain the same for a period of one year, may enter upon and maintain such land. The entry and maintenance shall not vest in the public any rights to use the common open space and common property except when the same is voluntarily dedicated to the public by the owners. Before the expiration of the year, the Township shall, upon its initiative or upon the request of the organization theretofore responsible for the maintenance of the common open space and common property, call a public hearing upon 15 days' written notice to such organization and to the owners of the development, to be held by the Township, at which hearing such organization and the owners of the development shall show cause why such maintenance by the Township shall not, at the election of the Township, continue for a succeeding year. If the Township shall determine that such organization is ready and able to maintain the open space and property in reasonable condition, the Township shall cease to maintain the open space and property at the end of the year. If the Township shall determine such an organization is not ready and able to maintain the open space and property in a reasonable condition, the Township may, in its discretion, continue to maintain the open space and property during the next succeeding year, subject to a similar hearing and determination in each year thereafter. The cost of such maintenance by the Township shall be assessed pro rata against the properties within the development that have a right of enjoyment of the common open space and common property in accordance with the assessed value at the time of imposition and be added to and be a part of the taxes to be levied and assessed thereon, and enforced and collected with interest in the same offices and in the same manner as other taxes. The homeowners' association shall, on or before July 1 of each and every year, furnish the Township Committee with an annual report, including but not limited to the present disposition of all common areas and park areas owned, operated and maintained by the association. The report shall also include a list of current officers, their addresses and telephone numbers. The report shall contain a list of emergency telephone numbers at which one or more officers of the association can be reached by a Township official during any twenty-four-hour period. As used in this section, the term "specimen trees" means the largest known individual trees of each species in the State of New Jersey. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and Energy, Bureau of Forestry, maintains a list of such trees which are equal to or larger than said listed trees. Also included are any trees so designated by the Egg Harbor Environmental Commission. Statement of legislative policy. Specimen trees are an irreplaceable scientific and scenic resource. Often these trees have also been associated with historical events. As such, it is the declared legislative policy of Egg Harbor Township to preserve and protect specimen trees. Development interfering with specimen trees prohibited. All development is prohibited that would significantly reduce the amount of light reaching the crown of a specimen tree, alter the drainage patterns within the site where the specimen tree is located, adversely affect the quality of water reaching the site where the specimen tree is located, cause erosion or the depositing of material in or directly adjacent to the specimen tree or otherwise injure the specimen tree. The site of the specimen tree extends to the outer limit of the buffer area to avoid adverse impact or 50 feet from the tree, whichever is greater. Enforcement. The Zoning Officer of the Township of Egg Harbor or his designee shall be the enforcement officer charged with the administration and enforcement of this section. An applicant for a major conventional subdivision in the RA Zoning District may elect to prepare such a subdivision under the following reduced design standards, provided that all other applicable criteria of this chapter and the following requirements are met: Every lot in the development shall contain a minimum of 100,000 square feet in area, regardless of zoning district lot area requirements, and shall also be subject to the requirements of § 94-24P. The design of the development shall blend with the rural agricultural atmosphere of the RA District. Local streets. The proposed local street shall not interconnect with existing or proposed streets in other adjoining zoning classifications. Where not practical due to overall area traffic needs, such local streets shall terminate in T-intersections with other existing or proposed streets in a subdivision where reduced roadway design options are not intended. The pavement width for all local streets shall be reduced to 24 feet with a stabilized grass shoulder 13 feet in width on both sides of the street. Subject to constraints of existing overall stormwater drainage conditions and future impacts of new development on such conditions, the Planning Board may approve a system of surface stormwater drainage in open grass ditches or other suitable drainage facilities as may be approved by the Township Engineer. Concrete curb and gutter along streets contained within a subdivision will not be required except where grades exceed 5% or other site conditions require their installation (e.g., at street intersections, catch basins or where site engineering or safety considerations warrant). In lieu of concrete sidewalk, a walkway of bituminous asphalt of a minimum width of five feet shall be installed along both side of the street. Such walkway shall be designed as part of a comprehensive system within the subdivision providing access to individual lots and common areas. If the Master Plan or Official Map provides for the reservation of designated streets, public drainageways, flood control basins or public areas within the proposed development, before approving a subdivision or site plan the Planning Board may further require that such street ways, basins or areas be shown on the plat in locations and sizes suitable to their intended uses. The Planning Board may reserve the location and extent of such streets, ways, basins or areas shown on the plat for a period of one year after the approval of the final plat or within such further time as may be agreed to by the developer. Unless during such period or extension thereof the Township shall have entered into a contract to purchase or institute condemnation proceedings according to law for the fee or a lesser interest in the land comprising such streets, ways, basins or areas, the developer shall not be bound by such reservations shown on the plat and may proceed to use such land for private use in accordance with applicable development regulations. The provisions of this section shall not apply to streets and roads, flood control basins or public drainageways necessitated by the subdivision or site plan and required for final approval. The developer shall be entitled to just compensation for actual loss found to be caused by such temporary reservation and deprivation of use. In such instance, unless a lesser amount has previously been mutually agreed upon, just compensation shall be deemed to be the fair market value of an option to purchase the land reserved for the period of reservation, provided that determination of such fair market value shall include, but not be limited to, consideration of the real property taxes apportioned to the land reserved and prorated for the period of reservation. The developer shall be compensated for the reasonable increased cost of legal, engineering or other professional services incurred in connection with obtaining subdivision or site plan approval, as the case may be, caused by the reservation. Sanitary sewer system. Every principal use and every lot within a subdivision shall be served by a sewage disposal system that is adequate to accommodate the reasonable needs of such use or subdivision lot and that complies with all applicable health regulations prior to the issuance of a certificate of occupancy. Primary responsibility for determining whether a proposed development will comply with the standards set forth in this section often lies with an agency other than the Township, and the developer must comply with the detailed standards and specifications of such other agency. Whenever any such agency requires detailed construction or design drawings before giving its official approval to the proposed sewage disposal system, the authority issuing a permit under this section may rely upon a preliminary review by such agency of the basic design elements of the proposed sewage disposal system to determine compliance with Subsection A. However, construction of such system may not be commenced until the detailed plans and specifications have been reviewed and any appropriate permits issued by such agency. Connection to existing system. Subdivisions shall be connected to an existing sanitary sewer system if public service is available within the following distances: Two hundred feet for one-unit developments. Four hundred feet for two-unit developments. One thousand feet for five-unit to fifteen-unit developments. For developments of greater than 15 units which are within one mile of an existing public sanitary sewer system, adequate justification should be provided as to why they should not provide a connection to the existing public sanitary sewer system. For developments of greater than 15 units which are more than one mile from an existing system, the sanitary sewer strategy shall be determined on a case-by-case basis, taking into consideration the density of development and economic considerations. If a public system is not in place or cannot be extended, the developer may provide individual subsurface disposal systems subject to applicable Board of Health, NJDEPE regulations and Pinelands Commission approval where applicable. If a public sanitary sewer system will be provided to the area within a six-year period as indicated in the Township's Sewer Master Plan, Official Map or other official document, the Township may require installation of a capped system (mains only) within the road right-of-way, or alternatively the Township may require a payment in lieu of the improvement. Capped sanitary sewers shall be allowed only in areas indicated for sewer service in the State of New Jersey Statewide Water Quality Management (WQM) Plans and where permitted by the NJDEPE through sewer connection approval. System planning, design and placement. The planning, design, construction, installation, modification and operation of any treatment works shall be in accordance with the applicable NJDEPE regulations implementing the New Jersey Water Pollution Control Act and the New Jersey Water Quality Planning Act.[1] Editor's Note: See N.J.S.A. 58:10A-1 et seq. and 58:11A-1 et seq., respectively. All sanitary sewers, including outfalls, shall be designed to carry at least twice the estimated average design flow when flowing half full. In the case of large interceptor sewer systems, consideration may be given to modified designs. Average daily residential sewer flow shall be calculated using acceptable engineering standards. System design and placement shall comply with the specifications promulgated by the Egg Harbor Township Municipal Utilities Authority. Schedule of lot disturbance permitted for various fee simple residential lot sizes. Of the trees that are to remain on the lot, a minimum of 25% of deciduous trees must be preserved in the front yard of the home, a minimum of 25% of deciduous trees must be preserved in the side yards of the home, and a maximum of 50% of the deciduous preservation area may be in the rear yard of the home. Maximum Lot Disturbance Permitted (percentage) In the event the developer exceeds the lot disturbance, the following tree planting schedule shall be enforced. The trees may be evergreen and/or deciduous. Lots Less Than 10,000 Square Feet: Max Clearing 65% Number of Trees Lots 10,001 to 20,000 Square Feet: Max Clearing 55% There will be a maximum 55% lot disturbance per site permitted for all town homes, condominiums, garden apartments and zero lot line applications. For all residential applications, the initial clearing will be limited to the clearing necessary to construct all roadways and drainage facilities only. In no case will the developer be permitted to clear any building lots during this initial clearing phase. All building lots may only be cleared on an individual basis upon the issuance of a building permit. Should the applicant not be able to meet the lot disturbance requirements, a landscaping plan must be submitted for approval by the Planning Board that addresses all areas of additional disturbance. The applicant will be required to show the replacement of all trees removed in excess of the maximum lot disturbance regulations. The replacement trees shall be provided at a rate listed in § 94-36A(2) above and be a minimum four-inch caliper (diameter breast height) or twelve-foot-to-fifteen-foot-planting height or a substitute approved by the Planning Board. The applicant will also be required to flag and well all eight-inch or greater diameter trees that are outside the building envelope to be saved as part of the landscaping plan. [Amended 5-8-2002 by Ord. No. 24-2002; 10-11-2006 by Ord. No. 49-2006] All individual plot plans must conform to all provisions of the lot disturbance requirements. All plot plans must contain the limits of disturbance, existing and proposed grading, existing trees to be preserved and any trees to be installed in conjunction with the landscaping plan. The Township Engineer will complete an inspection of all building lots prior to the issuance of a building permit to ensure compliance with the lot disturbance regulations. All plant material to be preserved shall be protected from damage during construction by fencing or similar barrier. Tree protection devices shall be installed before any excavation or grading is initiated and shall be maintained for the duration of the construction period. The location and extent of all protection devices shall be indicated on the landscaping plan. As a minimum precaution, the contractor shall install snow fencing supported by steel posts adjacent to the areas where plant materials are to be protected. Any damage incurred to existing trees shall be immediately repaired. Roots exposed and/or damaged during grading operations shall be immediately trimmed, treated and covered with topsoil. [Added 5-8-2002 by Ord. No. 24-2002[2]] Editor's Note: This ordinance also provided for the redesignation of former Subsections F and G as H and I, respectively. Trees may be preserved in areas where less than 24 inches of fill is proposed by observing the following procedures: Such trees shall be protected by a cylindrical sheath of galvanized metal placed within six inches of the trunk on all sides. Before soil is placed over the root area, a layer of broken stone or coarse gravel shall be laid down to within six inches of the finished grade. A one-half-inch thick fiberglass blanket with seams lapped at least six inches shall be spread over the gravel to enhance air circulation to the root zone. The remaining elevation shall be filled with topsoil. The area to be treated in this manner shall extend to the outer dripline of the branches. This section will apply only to residential uses up to the issuance of a certificate of occupancy for the dwelling. Selective clearing. An owner or developer shall remove only such trees, vegetation and underbrush as is necessary to construct and install the structure and improvements authorized by the Planning Board or Board of Adjustment. Such clearing shall only be authorized subsequent to the applicant/developer having satisfactorily addressed all conditions of development approval. All sites should be developed, to the extent possible, in a manner which will result in the least amount of disturbance to the natural environment. A developer may be permitted to perform selective clearing to remove dead or damaged trees, underbrush and undesirable vegetation. The areas and extent of selective clearing must be indicated on the plan of the development. All selective clearing must be approved by the Egg Harbor Township Zoning Officer prior to the commencement of any clearing. Where selective clearing is to occur in a required buffer area of a site or major subdivision, the developer shall be required to maintain a screening buffer in accordance with the buffer and landscape requirements as set forth in this chapter and shall be required to replace any planting removed in the course of selective clearing operations, which is required as part of the buffer. All selective clearing operations shall be performed in strict accordance with all applicable state, federal and local regulations. All cleared material, including but not limited to trees, branches, stumps, brush, refuse and other deleterious matter, shall be removed from the site and disposed of in a sanitary landfill licensed by the State of New Jersey to accept such waste. Editor's Note: This ordinance also repealed former § 94-36, Selective clearing. Shade trees shall meet the following minimum specifications and be planted as follows: Shade trees shall be planted around all tot-lots, playgrounds, tennis courts, basketball courts, baseball, softball, football, soccer and multipurpose fields and along all pedestrian walkways, jogging paths, bicycle trails and fitness trails. All shade trees planted in and around all properties as required herein shall be: Nursery-grown and certified thereby to be disease free. Balled and burlapped. Single trunk with said trunk having a minimum diameter of three inches at a point one foot above ground level. Species of trees to be in accordance with Township standards and those of § 225-50.9 of Chapter 225, where applicable. Installed at such locations as set forth below: Along property boundaries at intervals of not more than 25 feet between each tree. Along all pedestrian walkways, jogging paths, bicycle trails and fitness trails at intervals of not more than 60 feet between each tree. In satisfaction of this requirement, naturally growing trees meeting minimum size requirements as set forth herein and located within 20 feet of the center line of the paths or trails and within 10 feet of the location where a tree is required to be planted shall be considered to satisfy the requirement of this subsection on a tree-for-tree basis. Within 10 feet of each corner of each tot-lot. At intervals of not greater than 25 feet along the boundaries of all playgrounds, play lots and multipurpose fields in addition to such trees as are elsewhere required to be planted. At intervals of not greater than 25 feet along the boundaries of all football, soccer, baseball and softball fields, but not within 20 feet of the playing area thereof. Not fewer than four trees at each end and four trees at each side of every basketball or tennis court except where multiple courts are constructed and courts are therefore joined together. Trees which would otherwise be planted along such joined sides shall be placed along the ends or sides of the courts. One tree within six feet of the end of each bench and/or table. All shade trees planted in the right-of-way shall be: Single trunk, with said trunk having a minimum diameter of three inches at a point one foot above ground level, except that linden and sweet gum trees shall have a minimum diameter of 2 1/2 inches at a point one foot above ground level. As determined by species by the Township Planner. Street trees shall be planted within the right-of-way of all public streets between the sidewalk and the property line. These trees shall be planted at intervals of not more than 50 feet. All street trees are required to be single trunk with said trunk having a minimum diameter of three inches at a point one foot above ground level. For use within the Pinelands Area, the following trees shall be planted: Southern red oak (Quercus falcata). Chestnut oak (Quercus prinus). Scarlet oak (Quercus coccinea). Red maple (Acer rubrum). White oak (Quercus alba). For use outside of the Pinelands Area, the following trees shall be planted: Marshal's seedless ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica lanceolata). Little leaf linden (Tilia cordata). Crimean linden (Tilia euchlora). Norway maple (Acer platanoides). Sugar maple (Acer saccharum). Northern red oak (Quercus borealis). Willow oak (Quercus phellos). English oak (Quercus robur). London plane (Plantanus acerifolia). Japanese zelkova (Zelkova serrata). Regent scholar tree (Sophora japonica regent). Sweet gum (Liquidambar styraciflua). Amur cork tree (Phellodendron amurense). Sugar hackberry (Celtis laevigata). Katsura tree (Cercidiphyllum japonicum). For use under utility lines outside of the Pinelands Area, the following trees shall be planted: Amur maple (Acer ginnala) tree form. Redspire pear (Pyrus calleryana Redspire). Goldenrain tree (Koelreuteria paniculata). Street tree plans. Street tree plans shall include a planting schedule which describes the quantity, common name, botanical name, size and comments for each species. Street tree plans shall be noted to indicate the following: All trees shall be certified as nursery-grown, free of pests and diseases and shall have a branching structure which is true to that species. No street tree shall be planted underneath utility lines, other than those species which are specifically permitted by this chapter. The Township Planner shall be notified 48 hours in advance of any street tree installation. No shade tree shall be planted within 10 feet of a sewer line. Plantings which do not live shall be replaced within six months after formal notification by the Township Planner. Street tree plans shall include a graphic tree-planting detail which shall address the following: The thinning of branches and foliage by 1/3. The leader shall not be cut. The staking of a tree by two stakes. The minimum size of stakes shall be two inches by three inches. The support of a tree shall be a double strand of No. 12 gauge wire. All trees shall be protected from injury due to wire by a rubber hose or acceptable equal. The trunk shall be protected by a tree wrap. A tree shall be mulched with three inches of approved organic material. A three-inch saucer shall be constructed around the planting area. The top of the burlap shall be untied and removed. The ball shall sit on compacted soil. The diameter of the hole shall be two feet larger than the diameter of the ball. Sidewalks shall be installed in all types of major development and shall be installed along both sides of all streets and wherever pedestrian traffic is expected. In nonresidential development, sidewalks will be installed at the discretion of the Board depending upon the probable volume of pedestrian traffic, the development's location in relation to other populated areas and the general type of improvement needed. Where sidewalks are optional, they may be required if close to pedestrian generators, to continue a walk on an existing street, to link areas or depending on probable future development as indicated in the Master Plan. Sidewalks shall be located within the right-of-way, parallel to the street 3 1/2 feet back from the curbline (face of the curb at the gutter), unless an exception has been permitted to preserve topographical or natural features or to provide visual interest or unless the applicant shows that an alternative pedestrian system provides safe and convenient circulation. In planned developments, sidewalks may be located away from the road system to link dwelling units with other dwelling units, the street and on-site activity centers such as parking areas and recreational areas. They may also be required parallel to the street for safety and other reasons. Pedestrianway easements may be required by the Planning Board through the center of blocks to provide circulation or access to schools, playgrounds, shopping or other community facilities. Sidewalk width shall be a minimum of four feet; wider widths may be necessary near pedestrian generators and employment centers. Where sidewalks occur in parking areas, parked vehicles shall not overhang or extend over the sidewalk unless an additional two feet of sidewalk is provided to accommodate such overhang. Sidewalks and graded areas shall be constructed according to the specifications set forth below: Materials and construction. Sidewalks shall be of Portland cement concrete. Concrete shall be NJDOT Class B having a twenty-eight-day verification strength of 4,500 psi. At points of vehicular crossing, sidewalks shall be reinforced with six inches by six inches of 10/10 welded steel wire fabric. The materials for concrete and the materials and methods used for air entrainment shall be as specified in Articles 3.12.2 and 4.1.2 of the New Jersey Department of Transportation Standard Specifications. Joint fillers shall be of the preformed bituminous cellular type and preformed bituminous type. Dimensions of the concrete walks shall be at least four inches in thickness, except that, at points of vehicular crossing, the minimum thickness shall be six inches. Expansion joints shall be provided with filler material not more than 20 feet apart and where concrete aprons abut curbing or sidewalks. Transverse surface grooves shall be cut in the walk between expansion joints at intervals equal to the walk width. All edges shall be neatly rounded to 1/4 inch. The finish shall be made with a wood float, followed by brushing with a wet soft-hair brush to a neat and workmanlike surface. Handicap ramps shall be provided at all intersections and other areas of expected pedestrian crossing. The walk should be gently graded toward the gutter line with a slope of 2% (1%, or 1/4 inch per one foot). The Board shall require the applicant to install the sidewalk or contribute payment in lieu of the actual installation of sidewalk as a condition of the land development approval. [Added 2-28-2001 by Ord. No. 3-2001; amended 4-14-2010 by Ord. No. 8-2010] Sight triangles shall be required at all intersections of streets, and streets and driveways in addition to the required right-of-way width and driveway width. The area within sight triangles shall be either dedicated as part of the street right-of-way or maintained as part of the lot adjoining the street and set aside on any development plan as a sight triangle easement. Within a sight triangle, no grading, planting or structure shall be erected or maintained more than 30 inches above the center line grade of either intersecting street or driveway or lower than eight feet above their center lines, including utility poles but excluding fire hydrants, street name signs and official traffic regulation signs. Where any street or driveway intersection involves earth banks or vegetation, including trees, the developer shall trim such vegetation and trees as well as establish proper excavation and grading to provide the sight triangle. Sight points. The "sight triangle" is defined as that area outside the right-of-way which is bounded by the intersecting street lines and the straight line connecting sight points, one each located on the two intersecting street center lines: Arterial streets at 300 feet. Collector streets at 200 feet. Local streets at 90 feet. Where the intersecting streets are both arterial, both collectors or one arterial and one collector, two overlapping sight triangles shall be required, formed by connecting the sight points noted above with a sight point 90 feet away on the intersecting street. Any proposed development requiring site plan approval shall provide sight triangle easements at each driveway with the driveway classified as a local street for purposes of establishing distance. The boundaries shall be as defined above using the following dimensions: Collector streets at 60 feet. The classification of existing and proposed streets shall be those shown on the adopted Master Plan or as designated by the Planning Board at the time of the application for approval for a new street not included in the Master Plan. Portions of a lot set aside for a sight triangle may be included in the lot area calculation and may be included in establishing the minimum setbacks required by this chapter. The dedication of a sight triangle easement shall be expressed on the plan as follows: "Sight triangle easement granted to the Township of Egg Harbor for the purposes provided for and expressed in the Township Ordinance." If the sight triangle easement is part of the lot adjoining the street, then it shall be the responsibility of the lot owner to maintain this area. All site plans and major subdivisions shall incorporate soil erosion and sediment control programs phased according to the scheduled progress of the development, including anticipated starting and completion dates. The purpose is to control soil erosion and sediment damages and related environmental damage by requiring adequate provisions for surface water retention and drainage and for the protection of exposed soil surfaces in order to promote the safety, public health, convenience and general welfare of the community. No building permit shall be issued for any development application until all provisions of the State of New Jersey Soil Erosion and Sediment Control Act, Chapter 251 of the Laws of 1975,[1] have been satisfied or waived. Editor's Note: See N.J.S.A. 4:24-39 et seq. Development applicants shall submit to the approving authority and Construction Official copies and documentation of the approval and certification of the soil erosion and sediment control plan by the Soil Conservation District, or proof of waiver of the same. Prior to the release of any performance guaranties, or the issuance of a certificate of occupancy in the case of a site plan, evidence of the acceptance of all soil erosion control measures by the Soil Conservation District must be submitted to the Construction Official and Township Engineer. The excavation and grading for completion of a development shall be done in accordance with the Soil Conservation District approved plan which contains soil erosion and sediment control provisions in conjunction with all applicable Township ordinances and permits. Excavation of soil, other than that required for the construction of approved structures and supporting facilities, such as but not limited to streets, driveways and parking areas, except when resource extraction is authorized by the Township Committee, shall be prohibited. Regrading of property so as to redistribute topsoil throughout the site from areas excavated for such approved structures and supporting facilities shall be permitted, but shall be done to minimize or eliminate the erosion of soil. These areas shall be stabilized by seeding and planting in accordance with § 94-21. Indoor or enclosed storage areas for nonresidential uses and multifamily housing. [Amended 2-9-1994 by Ord. No. 2-1994] In all nonresidential and multifamily housing developments requiring subdivision or site plan approval, provisions shall be made for the indoor or enclosed storage of all garbage, refuse and recyclable materials. For major developments, each single-family unit or unit within a two-family dwelling should provide at least 12 square feet of floor area conveniently arranged and located as a holding area for a four-week accommodation of materials. Such an area may be within a laundry room, basement or garage. Nonresidential uses which utilize 1,000 square feet or more of land shall include provisions for the collection, disposition and recycling of recyclable materials. Each application shall quantify the amount of recyclable material it will generate as part of its weekly operation, including newspapers, white high-grade paper, glass, aluminum, cardboard, tin and bimetal cans. The application shall provide a storage area sized to contain a one-week accumulation of recyclable material. Outside storage, when permitted, shall only be permitted in areas approved by the municipal agency. Such areas shall, as nearly as may be practicable, be shielded from public view and protected by adequate fencing and/or landscape screening and shall conform to all yard requirements imposed by Chapter 225, Zoning, upon the principal buildings in the district. Every major development that, under the Township's solid waste and recycling collection policies, is or will be required to provide areas for collection of solid waste and recyclable material shall provide sites that are: Conveniently located, but clearly separated from a refuse dumpster, so as to facilitate disposition and collection and minimize any negative impact on persons occupying the development site, neighboring properties or public rights-of-way. Designed in consultation with the Municipal Recycling Coordinator to be consistent with the District Recycling Plan and Municipal Master Plan so as to provide protection against adverse environmental conditions which might render the collected materials unmarketable. Any bins or containers which are used for the collection of recyclable paper or cardboard, and which are located in an outdoor recycling area, shall be equipped with a lid or otherwise covered so as to keep the paper or cardboard dry. Constructed and lighted according to specifications established by the Township Engineer to allow for collection without damage to the development site or the collection vehicle. Collection vehicles shall be able to access the recycling area without interference from parked cars or other obstacles. Identified by signs posted adjacent to all points of access which clearly identify the recycling area and the materials accepted therein. Individual bins or containers shall be equipped with signs indicating the materials to be placed therein. All such storage areas and containers shall be screened with fencing and/or landscaping, if and to the extent that, in the absence of screening, they would be clearly visible to: Persons located within any dwelling unit on residential property other than that where the storage area or container is located. Occupants, customers or other invitees located within any building on center lines property other than that where the storage area or container is located, unless such other property is used primarily for purposes permitted exclusively in an industrial zoning district. Persons traveling on any public street, sidewalk or other public way. Where refuse disposal units are used in townhouse or apartment dwellings, the following requirements shall apply: No more than one disposal unit will be permitted for each 10 dwelling units. Refuse disposal units shall be conveniently located within a minimum of 25 feet but not more than 100 feet of the building. [Amended 7-14-1993 by Ord. No. 30-1993; 6-25-1997 by Ord. No. 24-1997; 4-22-1998 by Ord. No. 14-1998; 12-27-2000 by Ord. No. 49-2000; 12-23-2002 by Ord. No. 81-2002; 10-11-2006 by Ord. No. 52-2006] Scope and purpose. It is hereby determined that: Land development projects and associated disturbance of vegetation and soil and changes in land cover, including increases in impervious cover, alter the hydrologic response of local watersheds and increase stormwater runoff rates and volumes. If inadequately or improperly managed, this stormwater runoff can deplete groundwater resources and increase flooding, stream channel erosion, and sediment transport and deposition. This stormwater runoff contributes to increased quantities of waterborne pollutants. Increases of stormwater runoff, soil erosion and nonpoint source pollutants have occurred in the past as a result of land development, and contribute to the degradation of the water resources of Egg Harbor Township. Certain lands of Egg Harbor Township lie within the Pinelands Area, and therefore development in this portion of Egg Harbor Township is subject to the requirements of the Pinelands Protection Act (N.J.S.A. 13:18A-1 et seq.) and the implementing regulations and minimum standards contained in the Pinelands Comprehensive Management Plan (N.J.A.C. 7:50-1.1 et seq.) (CMP). The purpose and intent of these regulations and standards is to promote orderly development of the Pinelands so as to preserve and protect the significant and unique natural, ecological, agricultural, archaeological, historical, scenic, cultural and recreational resources of the Pinelands. Pinelands Area resources are to be protected in accordance with the Pinelands Comprehensive Management Plan at N.J.A.C. 7:50 et seq., New Jersey's Stormwater Management Rules at N.J.A.C. 7:8-1.1 et seq. and New Jersey's surface water quality antidegradation policies contained in the New Jersey Surface Water Quality Standards at N.J.A.C. 7:9B-1.1 et seq. Permitted uses shall maintain the ecological character and quality of the Pinelands, including good water quality and natural rates and volumes of flow. Increased stormwater rates and volumes and the sediments and pollutants associated with stormwater runoff from future development projects within the Pinelands Area have the potential to adversely affect Egg Harbor Township's streams and water resources and the streams and water resources of downstream municipalities. Stormwater runoff, soil erosion and nonpoint source pollution can be controlled and minimized through the regulation of stormwater runoff from development sites. It is in the public interest to regulate the discharge of stormwater runoff from major development projects, as defined in § 94-44G, conducted within the Pinelands Area, as provided in this section, in order to control and minimize increases in stormwater runoff rates and volumes, to maintain groundwater recharge, and to control and minimize soil erosion, stream channel erosion and nonpoint source pollution associated with stormwater runoff. Therefore, it is the purpose of this section to establish minimum stormwater management requirements and controls for major development, consistent with the statewide stormwater requirements at N.J.A.C. 7:8, the regulations and standards contained in the Pinelands CMP, and the provisions of the adopted Master Plan and land use ordinances of Egg Harbor Township. Goals and techniques. Through this section Egg Harbor Township has established the following goals for stormwater control: To reduce flood damage, including damage to life and property; To minimize any increase in stormwater runoff from new development; To reduce soil erosion from any development or construction project; To assure the adequacy of existing and proposed culverts and bridges, and other in-stream structures; To maintain groundwater recharge; To minimize any increase in nonpoint pollution; To maintain the integrity of stream channels for their biological functions, as well as for drainage; To restore, protect, maintain and enhance the quality of the streams and water resources of Egg Harbor Township and the ecological character and quality of the Pinelands Area; To minimize pollutants in stormwater runoff from new and existing development in order to restore, protect, enhance and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the surface and groundwaters of Egg Harbor Township, to protect public health and to enhance the domestic, municipal, recreational, industrial and other uses of water; Flood control, groundwater recharge, and pollutant reduction through nonstructural or low-impact techniques shall be explored before relying on structural BMPs. Structural BMPs should be integrated with nonstructural stormwater management strategies and proper maintenance plans. Nonstructural strategies include both environmentally sensitive site design and source controls that prevent pollutants from being placed on the site or from being exposed to stormwater. Source control plans should be developed based upon physical site conditions and the origin, nature, and the anticipated quantity or amount of potential pollutants. Multiple stormwater management BMPs may be necessary to achieve the established performance standards for water quality, quantity, and groundwater recharge; and To protect, maintain and enhance both the immediate and long-term health and general welfare of its citizens through the proper design and management of stormwater basins. In order to achieve the goals for stormwater control set forth in this section, Egg Harbor Township has identified the following management techniques: Implementation of multiple stormwater management best management practices (BMPs) may be necessary to achieve the performance standards for stormwater runoff quantity and rate, groundwater recharge, erosion control, and stormwater runoff quality established through this section. Compliance with the stormwater runoff quantity and rate, groundwater recharge, erosion control, and stormwater runoff quality standards established through N.J.A.C. 7:8-1.1 et seq., and this section, shall be accomplished to the maximum extent practicable through the use of nonstructural BMPs before relying on structural BMPs. Nonstructural BMPs are also known as low-impact development (LID) techniques. Nonstructural BMPs shall include both environmentally sensitive site design and source controls that prevent pollutants from being placed on the site or from being exposed to stormwater. Source control plans shall be developed based upon physical site conditions and the origin, nature and the anticipated quantity or amount of potential pollutants. Structural BMPs, where necessary, shall be integrated with nonstructural stormwater management strategies and proper maintenance plans. When using structural BMPs, multiple stormwater management measures, smaller in size and distributed spatially throughout the land development site, shall be used wherever possible to achieve the performance standards for water quality, quantity and groundwater recharge established through this section before relying on a single, larger stormwater management measure to achieve these performance standards. Applicability. This section shall be applicable to all site plans and subdivisions for the following major developments that require preliminary or final site plan or subdivision review: All site plans and subdivisions for major developments occurring within the Pinelands Area that require preliminary or final site plan or subdivision review; and Aspects of residential major developments that are not pre-empted by the Residential Site Improvement Standards at N.J.A.C. 5:21. All major development projects undertaken by Egg Harbor Township shall comply with this section. This section applies to any construction of one or more of the following uses, except where permitted and subject to a New Jersey Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NJPDES) permit or an approved discharge pollutant contamination control (DPCC) plan: Confined feeding and holding areas that provide for more than 100 head of cattle, 15,000 head of poultry, 500 swine, 4,000 turkeys or 10,000 ducks; this section shall also apply to all other equivalent numbers of animal units as determined by the SCS procedure for measuring BOD-producing potential. Pipelines, storage or distribution systems for petroleum products or chemicals. Storage, distribution or treatment facilities (excluding on-site sewage disposal systems) for liquid waste. Solid waste storage, disposition, incineration or landfill. Quarries, mines or borrow pits. Land application of sludge or effluents. Storage, distribution or treatment facilities for radioactive wastes. In the case of projects for which county and/or state as well as municipal approval of proposed drainage facilities is required, the applicants shall be required to comply with all provisions of this chapter. In cases where county and/or state standards differ from those defined in this chapter, the strictest standard shall apply. Procedures. In addition to other development review procedures set forth in the Code of Egg Harbor Township, major developments located within the non-Pinelands and Pinelands Area shall comply with the stormwater management requirements and specifications set forth in this section. New agricultural development that meets the definition of major development in Subsection G of this section shall be submitted to the appropriate Soil Conservation District for review and approval in accordance with the requirements of N.J.A.C. 7:8-5.4(b). Compatibility with other permit and ordinance requirements. Development approvals issued for subdivisions and site plans pursuant to this section are to be considered an integral part of development approvals under the subdivision and site plan review process and do not relieve the applicant of the responsibility to secure required permits or approvals for activities regulated by any other applicable ordinance, code, rule, regulation, statute, act or other provision of law. In their interpretation and application, the provisions of this section shall be held to be the minimum requirements for the promotion of the public health, safety, and general welfare. This section is not intended to interfere with, abrogate, or annul any other ordinances, rule or regulation, statute, or other provision of law except that, where any provision of this section imposes restrictions different from those imposed by any other ordinance, rule or regulation, or other provision of law, the more restrictive or stringent provisions or higher standards shall control. In the event that a regional stormwater management plan(s) is prepared and formally adopted pursuant to N.J.A.C. 7:8-1.1 et seq. for any drainage area(s) or watershed(s) of which Egg Harbor Township is a part, the stormwater provisions of such a plan(s) shall be adopted by Egg Harbor Township within one year of the adoption of a regional stormwater management plan (RSWMP) as an amendment to an areawide water quality management plan. Local ordinances proposed to implement the RSWMP shall be submitted to the Commission for certification within six months of the adoption of the RSWMP per N.J.A.C. 7:8 and the Pinelands CMP (N.J.A.C. 7:50). In the Pinelands Jurisdictional Area, the applicants/owners of all development applications which propose any type of stormwater management improvements will be required to enter into an agreement with the Township which saves harmless this Township and its officials from any and all claims resulting from the design, construction and maintenance of said improvements. This agreement is to be in a form acceptable to the Board Solicitor and Township Solicitor and must be executed by all parties prior to the start of any construction. Requirements for a site development stormwater plan. Submission of site development stormwater plan. Whenever an applicant seeks municipal approval of a site development that is subject to this section, the applicant shall submit all of the required components of the checklist for the site development stormwater plan at Subsection B(3) below as part of the applicant's application for subdivision or site plan approval. These required components are in addition to any other information required under any provisions of Egg Harbor Township's land use ordinance or by the Pinelands Commission pursuant to N.J.A.C. 7:50-1.1 et seq. The applicant shall demonstrate that the site development project meets the standards set forth in this section. The applicant shall submit five copies of the materials listed in the checklist for site development stormwater plans in accordance with Subsection B(3) of this section. Site development stormwater plan approval. The applicant's site development stormwater plan shall be reviewed as a part of the subdivision or site plan review process by the municipal board or official from which municipal approval is sought. That municipal board or official shall consult the engineer retained by the Planning and/or Zoning Board (as appropriate) to determine if all of the checklist requirements have been satisfied and to determine if the project meets the standards set forth in this section. Checklist requirements. Any application for approval of a major development shall include at least the following information. All required engineering plans shall be submitted to Egg Harbor Township in AutoCAD 2000 or higher on a CD-ROM format, registered and rectified to NJ State Plane Feet NAD 83 or Shape Format NJ State Plan Feet NAD 83, and all other documents shall be submitted in both paper and commonly used electronic file formats such as pdf, word processing, database or spreadsheet files. Three copies of each item shall be submitted. Topographic base map. The applicant shall submit a topographic base map of the site which extends a minimum of 300 feet beyond the limits of the proposed development, at a scale of one inch equals 200 feet or greater, showing one-foot contour intervals. The map shall indicate the following: existing surface water drainage, shorelines, steep slopes, soils, highly erodible soils, perennial or intermittent streams that drain into or upstream of any Category One or Pinelands waters, wetlands and floodplains along with their appropriate buffer strips, marshlands and other wetlands, pervious or vegetative surfaces, existing surface and subsurface human-made structures, roads, bearing and distances of property lines, and significant natural and man-made features not otherwise shown. Egg Harbor Township or the Pinelands Commission may require upstream tributary drainage system information as necessary. Environmental site analysis. The applicant shall submit a written description along with the drawings of the natural and human-made features of the site and its environs. This description should include: A discussion of environmentally critical areas, soil conditions, slopes, wetlands, waterways and vegetation on the site. Particular attention should be given to unique, unusual or environmentally sensitive features and to those that provide particular opportunities for or constraints on development; and Detailed soil and other environmental conditions on the portion of the site proposed for installation of any stormwater BMPs, including, at a minimum: soils report based on on-site soil tests; locations and spot elevations in plan view of test pits and permeability tests; permeability test data and calculations; and any other required soil data (e.g., mounding analyses results) correlated with location and elevation of each test site; cross section of proposed stormwater BMP with side-by-side depiction of soil profile drawn to scale and seasonal high water table elevation identified; and any other information necessary to demonstrate the suitability of the specific proposed structural and nonstructural stormwater management measures relative to the environmental conditions on the portion(s) of the site proposed for implementation of those measures. Project description and site plan(s). The applicant shall submit a map (or maps) at the scale of the topographical base map indicating the location of existing and proposed buildings, roads, parking areas, utilities, structural facilities for stormwater management and sediment control, and other permanent structures. The map(s) shall also clearly show areas where alterations will occur in the natural terrain and cover, including lawns and other landscaping, and seasonal high groundwater elevations. A written description of the site plan and justification for proposed changes in natural conditions shall also be provided. Land use planning and source control plan. The applicant shall submit a detailed land use planning and source control plan which provides a description of how the site will be developed to meet the erosion control, groundwater recharge and stormwater runoff quantity and quality standards at § 94-44D through use of nonstructural or low-impact development techniques and source controls to the maximum extent practicable before relying on structural BMPs. The land use planning and source control plan shall include a detailed narrative and associated illustrative maps and/or plans that specifically address how each of the following nine nonstructural strategies identified in Subchapter 5 of the NJDEP Stormwater Management Rules (N.J.A.C. 7:8-5) and set forth below {§ 94-44B(3)(d)[1][a] through [i]} will be implemented to the maximum extent practicable to meet the standards at Subsection D of this section on the site. If one or more of the nine nonstructural strategies will not be implemented on the site, the applicant shall provide a detailed rationale establishing a basis for the contention that use of the strategy is not practicable on the site. Protect areas that provide water quality benefits or areas particularly susceptible to erosion and sediment loss; Minimize impervious surfaces and break up or disconnect the flow of runoff over impervious surfaces; Maximize the protection of natural drainage features and vegetation; Minimize the decrease in the predevelopment time of concentration; Minimize land disturbance including clearing and grading; Minimize soil compaction and all other soil disturbance; Provide low-maintenance landscaping that provides for the retention and planting of native plants and minimizes the use of lawns, fertilizers and pesticides, in accordance with N.J.A.C. 7:50-6.24; Provide vegetated open-channel conveyance systems discharging into and through stable vegetated areas; and Provide other source controls to prevent or minimize the use or exposure of pollutants at the site in order to prevent or minimize the release of those pollutants into stormwater runoff. These source controls shall include, but are not limited to: Site design features that help to prevent accumulation of trash and debris in drainage systems; Site design features that help to prevent discharge of trash and debris from drainage systems; Site design features that help to prevent and/or contain spills or other harmful accumulations of pollutants at industrial or commercial developments; and [iv] Applying fertilizer in accordance with the requirements established under the Soil Erosion and Sediment Control Act, N.J.S.A. 4:24-39 et seq., and implementing rules, when establishing vegetation after land disturbance. For sites where stormwater will be generated from high pollutant loading areas or where stormwater will be exposed to source material, as defined in Subsection G of this section, the applicant shall also demonstrate in the land use planning and source control plan that the requirements of § 94-44D have been met. The use of nonstructural strategies to meet the performance standards in § 94-44D is not required for development sites creating less than one acre of disturbance. However, each application for major development and any other application where Egg Harbor Township otherwise requires a landscaping plan shall contain a landscaping or revegetation plan in accordance with either the CMP standards at N.J.A.C. 7:50-6.24(c) for projects located in Pinelands Areas or with Egg Harbor Township landscape requirements at § 94-22 for non-Pinelands Areas. In addition, the applicant shall demonstrate that, at a minimum, existing trees and vegetation on the development site will be preserved and protected according to the minimum standards established by provisions of the Egg Harbor Township Land Use Ordinance, Zoning Ordinance or by conditions of zoning or variance approval. Stormwater management facilities map. The applicant shall submit a map, at the same scale as the topographic base map, depicting the following information: The total area to be disturbed, paved and/or built upon, proposed surface contours, land area to be occupied by the stormwater management facilities and the type of vegetation thereon, and details of the proposed plan to manage and dispose of stormwater; and Details of all stormwater management facility designs, during and after construction, including discharge provisions, discharge capacity for each outlet at different levels of detention (if applicable) and emergency spillway provisions with maximum discharge capacity of each spillway. Calculations (groundwater recharge and stormwater runoff rate, volume and quality). The applicant shall submit comprehensive hydrologic and hydraulic design calculations for the predevelopment and postdevelopment conditions for the design storms specified in § 94-44C. The standards for groundwater recharge and stormwater runoff rate, volume and quality required by § 94-44D shall be met using the methods, calculations and assumptions provided in § 94-44C. Inspection, maintenance and repair plan. The applicant shall submit a detailed plan describing how the proposed stormwater management measure(s) shall meet the maintenance and repair requirements of § 94-44F. Said plan shall include, at a minimum, the following elements: The frequency with which inspections will be made; The specific maintenance tasks and requirements for each proposed structural and nonstructural BMP; The name, address and telephone number for the entity responsible for implementation of the maintenance plan; The reporting requirements; and Copies of the inspection and maintenance reporting sheets. Exception from submission requirements. An exception may be granted from submission of any of these required components except Subsection B(3)(g) above, Inspection, maintenance, and repair plan) if its absence will not materially affect the review process. However, items required pursuant to the application requirements in Chapter 225, Article VI, shall be submitted to the NJ Pinelands Commission unless the Executive Director waives or modifies the application requirements when the project is located within the Pinelands Area. Methodologies for the calculation of stormwater runoff rate and volume, stormwater runoff quality, and groundwater recharge. Method of calculating stormwater runoff rate and volume. In complying with the stormwater runoff quantity and rate standards in § 94-44D(2), the design engineer shall calculate the stormwater runoff rate and volume using the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Runoff Equation, Runoff Curve Numbers, and Dimensionless Unit Hydrograph, as described in the NRCS National Engineering Handbook Part 630 - Hydrology and Technical Release 55 - Urban Hydrology for Small Watersheds, incorporated herein by reference, as amended and supplemented. Alternative methods of calculation may be utilized, provided such alternative methods are at least as protective as the NRCS methodology when considered on a regional stormwater management basis. In calculating stormwater runoff using the NRCS methodology, the design engineer shall separately calculate and then combine the runoff volumes from pervious and directly connected impervious surfaces within each drainage area within the parcel. Calculation of stormwater runoff from unconnected impervious surfaces shall be based, as applicable, upon the Two-Step method described in the current New Jersey Stormwater Best Management Practices Manual or the NRCS methodology. In calculating stormwater runoff using the NRCS methodology, the design engineer shall use appropriate twenty-four-hour rainfall depths as developed for the project site by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at http://hdsc.nws.noaa.gov/hdsc/pfds/index.html. When calculating stormwater runoff for predeveloped site conditions, the design engineer shall use the following criteria: When selecting or calculating Runoff Curve Numbers (CNs) for predeveloped project site conditions, the project site's land cover shall be assumed to be woods in good condition. However, another land cover may be used to calculate runoff coefficients if: Such land cover has existed at the site or portion thereof without interruption for at least five years immediately prior to the time of application; and The design engineer can document the character and extent of such land cover through the use of photographs, affidavits, and/or other acceptable land use records. If more than one land cover has existed on the site during the five years immediately prior to the time of application, the land cover with the lowest runoff potential shall be used for the computations. All predeveloped land covers shall be assumed to be in good hydrologic condition and, if cultivated, shall be assumed to have conservation treatment. In calculating predeveloped site stormwater runoff, the design engineer shall include the effects of all land features and structures, such as ponds, wetlands, depressions, hedgerows, and culverts, that affect predeveloped site stormwater runoff rates and/or volumes. Where tailwater will affect the hydraulic performance of a stormwater management measure, the design engineer shall include such effects in the measure's design. Calculations shall be computed on the basis of all areas upstream of the parcel(s) in question. Peak rates of runoff shall be computed for the entire design area and design release rates computed on the basis of existing conditions for the entire watershed. Maximum curve number values. Maximum curve number values suitable for use in computing runoff values for on-site undeveloped conditions are as follows: Hydrologic Soil Group Curve Number In addition, all existing uses must be considered to be in good condition. Type III rainfall distribution must be used when calculating flow rates. Rainfall values for each of the storms used in designing detention/infiltration facilities include: Storm Event (year) The applicant must identify: The peak rate of runoff, making adjustments as required for percentage of watershed that is ponding and swampy area as described in TR-55. The tabular method described in TR-55 shall be used for calculating runoff rates. The relative timing of the peak rate of discharge following the onset of the storm shall be identified within the stormwater calculations. All stormwater management facilities shall be sized by routing each of the required design storms using reservoir routing or other acceptable routing methods [See § 94-44D(2)]. Percolation shall not be considered as outflow or a portion of the outflow during a storm event when sizing a detention/infiltration facility. Existing and proposed drainage subareas and site soil conditions shall be shown on the plans. In addition, the actual acreage of each drainage subarea and the total drainage area acreage shall be labeled on the plans. Also, the flow path used for the calculation of time of concentration shall be shown graphically for each drainage area within the drainage calculations and plans. For storm sewer design, the Rational Method (Q=CiA) shall be utilized for calculating runoff (unless a more sophisticated method is required), subject to the following criteria: The minimum design requirements for a storm sewer shall be the ten-year storm. Runoff generated by storms of greater intensity (up to and including the one-hundred-year storm) shall be directed towards detention basins or alternative detention/infiltration facilities on the site. Coefficient values. The coefficient of runoff (C) shall not be less than the values stated below unless well documented and approved by the approving authority: Minimum C Structures, pavements Cultivated dense or clay soils Cultivated sand or loam soils Meadows, rural areas Heavily wooded areas Overall drainage runoff factors will not, in general, be less than the following: Proposed Development Site Plans To the limits of the improvements 1/4 acre residential 1 acre residential The above tables are intended as minimum design standards. They are not mandated design criteria. Actual C values should be calculated as a composite of the proposed coverages. Rainfall intensity (i) shall be computed as a function of time of concentration by generally accepted procedures found in Seeleys, algebraic equations, TR-55, etc. Area (A) shall include all off-site acreage draining onto or through the site. Inlets shall be specified with cast curb piece inlets attached. Inlets shall be depressed two inches to increase capacities on grade and to reduce ponding at low points. Single Type B inlets shall not be designed to receive more than 5 1/2 cubic feet per second in sump, regardless of head, or be in accordance with N.J.A.C. 5:21. Inlets on grade shall be designed to intercept the gutter flow in accordance with accepted engineering practice. Hydraulics shall be computed using Manning's Equation or generally accepted nomographs for pipe flow. In general, pipes shall be designed flowing full without head conditions for the twenty-five-year storm (minimum). The only exception to this criteria is parking lot ponding where the depth, extent and duration of ponding must be identified and shown on the plans. Minimum friction factors (n) are listed below: Minimum n Corrugated aluminum (inches) Helical 42 and greater Plus paved invert: subtract 0.003. The minimum pipe diameter shall be 15 inches. Maximum distances between manholes or inlets shall be 400 feet. Where surface water is collected from two directions at cone street corner, inlets shall be placed at or near the tangent points of both ends of the radius. The use of one inlet in the radius will not be permitted. All piping shall be maintained within the cartway path whenever possible. Curb inlets (Type B) shall be placed near or at property lines where possible to avoid driveway access to residential dwellings. Downstream crown inverts shall be placed equal to or lower than upstream crown inverts in all manholes and inlets. In general, a cover of one pipe diameter shall be maintained over the drainage pipe. If this is not possible, the proposed design must be justified based on pipe class, bedding, loading, etc., with appropriate manufacturer details provided on the plans. Velocities in closed conduits shall be at least two feet per second but not more than the velocity which would cause scour erosion damage to the conduit per the manufacturer's specifications. Minimum allowable pipe slopes shall produce velocity of at least three feet per second when the flow depth is full or half the pipe diameter per N.J.A.C. 5:21-7.3(c). When calculating hydraulic capacity, the design engineer shall consider head losses due to excessive velocities, bends, junctions, etc. Where such losses are significant, further calculations shall be performed to determine the extent and effect of these losses. Where appropriate, hydraulic capacity shall be based on tailwater analysis and/or the one-year high tide. Calculations shall be submitted for all outlet structures. Design criteria shall be detailed with length, width, stone size and mat thickness of all proposed outlet protection structures. This information shall also appear on the plan. All curb inlets and manholes located within cartways shall be set at base paving grade and then raised to design elevation when final paving is to occur. All type 'B' inlets shall be in conformance with NJPDES Municipal Stormwater Regulation Program requirements for Tier "A" municipalities. Campbell Foundry curb piece (Type J-Eco) or approved equal. Method of calculating stormwater runoff quality. In complying with the stormwater runoff quality standards in § 94-44D(4)(a), the design engineer shall calculate the stormwater runoff rate and volume using the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Runoff Equation, Runoff Curve Numbers, and Dimensionless Unit Hydrograph, as described in the NRCS National Engineering Handbook Part 630 - Hydrology and Technical Release 55 - Urban Hydrology for Small Watersheds, as amended and supplemented. The design engineer shall also use the NJDEP water quality design storm, which is 1.25 inches of rainfall falling in a nonlinear pattern in two hours. Details of the water quality design storm are shown in Table 1. Calculation of runoff volumes, peak rates, and hydrographs for the water quality design storm may take into account the implementation of nonstructural and structural stormwater management measures. Table 1: Water Quality Design Storm Distribution1 (minutes) Cumulative/ Rainfall 1 NOTE: Source: N.J.A.C. 7:8-5.5(a). Total suspended solids (TSS) reduction calculations. If more than one stormwater BMP in series is necessary to achieve the required eighty-percent TSS reduction for a site, the applicant shall utilize the following formula to calculate TSS reduction: R = A + B - (A x B)/100, where: Total TSS percent load removal from application of both BMPs; The TSS percent removal rate applicable to the first BMP; and The TSS percent removal rate applicable to the second BMP. If there is more than one on-site drainage area, the eighty-percent TSS removal rate shall apply to each drainage area, unless the runoff from the subareas converge on site, in which case the removal rate can be demonstrated through a calculation using a weighted average. TSS removal rates for stormwater BMPs. For purposes of TSS reduction calculations, Table 2 presents the presumed removal rates for certain BMPs designed in accordance with the New Jersey BMP Manual.[1] The BMP Manual may be obtained from the address identified in § 94-44L(1) or found on the NJDEP's website at www.njstormwater.org. TSS reduction shall be calculated based on the removal rates for the BMPs in Table 2. Editor's Note: Table 2 is included at the end of this chapter. Alternative stormwater management measures, removal rates and methods of calculating removal rates may be used if the design engineer provides documentation demonstrating the capability of these alternative rates and methods to Egg Harbor Township. Any alternative stormwater management measure, removal rate or method of calculating the removal rate shall be subject to approval by Egg Harbor Township and a copy shall be provided to the following: The Division of Watershed Management, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, P.O. Box 418, Trenton, NJ 08625-0418; and The New Jersey Pinelands Commission, P.O. Box 7, New Lisbon, NJ 08064. Nutrient removal rates for stormwater BMPs. For purposes of postdevelopment nutrient load reduction calculations, Table 2 presents the presumed removal rates for certain BMPs designed in accordance with the New Jersey BMP Manual.[2] If alternative stormwater BMPs are proposed, the applicant shall demonstrate that the selected BMPs will achieve the nutrient removal standard required in § 94-44D(4). The water quality design storm shall be controlled by one of the following practices: In dry detention basins, provisions shall be made to ensure that the runoff from the water quality design storm shall only pass through a single stage outflow structure, and that not more than 90% of the storm will be evacuated from the basin prior to 36 hours for nonresidential development and 18 hours for residential projects. The detention time shall be considered a brim drawdown time and, therefore, shall begin at the time of peak storage. The detention time shall be reduced in any case which would require an outlet size diameter of three inches or less. Therefore, a three-inch-diameter orifice shall be the minimum allowed. In permanent ponds or wet detention basins, the water quality requirements of this chapter shall be satisfied where the volume of permanent water is at least three times the volume of runoff produced by the water quality design storm. Where permitted, infiltration practices such as dry wells, infiltration basins, infiltration trenches, etc., may be used to satisfy this requirement, provided that they produce zero runoff from the water quality design storm and allow for complete infiltration within 24 hours. In all cases, multiple-level outlets or other fully automatic outlets shall be designed so that discharge rates from the development for the design storms will not be increased from what would occur if the development were not constructed. Outlet waters shall be discharged from the development at such locations and velocities as not to cause additional erosion or channels downstream of the development. If detention basins or other detention facilities are provided through which water passes at times other than following rainfall, the approving authority should be consulted concerning design criteria. It will be necessary for detention requirements to be met, despite the necessity of passing certain low flows. This applies to all on-stream or on-line detention basins. Dams. Any stormwater basin that impounds water through the use of an artificial dike, levee or other barrier and raises the water level five feet or more above the usual, mean low-water height, when measured from the downstream toe-of-dam to the emergency spillway crest, is classified as a dam and subject to N.J.A.C. 7:20, the New Jersey Dam Safety Standards. All such dams must be designed, constructed, operated and maintained in compliance with the rules of N.J.A.C. 7:20. In many instances, the provisions of separate detention facilities for a number of single sites may be more expensive and more difficult to maintain than provisions of joint facilities for a number of sites. In such cases, the municipality will be willing to consider provisions of joint detention facilities, including existing and proposed, which will fulfill the requirements of this regulation. In such cases, a properly planned staged program of detention facilities may be approved by the municipality in which compliance with some requirements may be postponed during the early stages while preliminary phases are being undertaken and funds are being accumulated. The necessary planning to facilitate such arrangements may be accomplished by Phase II planning under provisions of N.J.A.C. 7:8. In such cases, an initial money contribution will be levied upon each developer, proportionate to the runoff excess of his proposed development. Such funds will be held in escrow for use in carrying out the joint plan. Construction and maintenance responsibility for the joint facilities will be determined and specified as part of the plan. Methods of calculating groundwater recharge. In complying with the groundwater recharge requirements in § 94-44D(5)(a)[1], the design engineer may calculate groundwater recharge in accordance with the New Jersey Groundwater Recharge Spreadsheet (NJGRS) computer program incorporated herein by reference as amended and supplemented. Information regarding the methodology is available in § 94-44K(1) or from the New Jersey BMP Manual. Alternative groundwater recharge calculation methods to meet these requirements may be used upon approval by the municipal engineer. In complying with the groundwater recharge requirements in § 94-44D(5)(a)[2], the design engineer shall: Calculate stormwater runoff volumes in accordance with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) methodology, including the NRCS Runoff Equation and Runoff Curve Numbers, as described in the NRCS National Engineering Handbook Part 630 - Hydrology and Technical Release 55 - Urban Hydrology for Small Watersheds as amended and supplemented; and Use appropriate two-year, twenty-four-hour rainfall depths as developed for the project site by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, available online at http://hdsc.nws.noaa.gov/hdsc/pfds/index.html. When calculating groundwater recharge or stormwater runoff for predeveloped site conditions, the design engineer shall use the following criteria: When selecting land covers or calculating Runoff Curve Numbers (CNs) for predeveloped project site conditions, the project site's land cover shall be assumed to be woods. However, another land cover may be used to calculate runoff coefficients if: If more than one land cover, other than woods, has existed on the site during the five years immediately prior to the time of application, the land cover with the lowest runoff potential (including woods) shall be used for the computations. Stormwater management performance standards for major development. Nonstructural stormwater management strategies. To the maximum extent practicable, the performance standards in § 94-44D for major development shall be met by incorporating the nine nonstructural strategies identified in Subchapter 5 of the NJ Stormwater Management Rules (N.J.A.C. 7:8-5), and set forth in § 94-44B(3)(d)[1], into the design. The applicant shall identify within the land use planning and source control plan required by § 94-44 Subsection B(3)(d) of this section how each of the nine nonstructural measures will be incorporated into the design of the project to the maximum extent practicable. If the applicant contends that it is not practical for engineering, environmental or safety reasons to incorporate any of the nine nonstructural strategies into the design of a particular project, the applicant shall provide a detailed rationale establishing a basis for the contention that use of the strategy is not practical on the site. This rationale shall be submitted in accordance with the checklist requirements established by § 94-44B to Egg Harbor Township. A determination by Egg Harbor Township that this rationale is inadequate or without merit shall result in a denial of the application unless one of the following conditions are met: The land use planning and source control plan is amended to include a description of how all nine nonstructural measures will be implemented on the development site, and the amended plan is approved by Egg Harbor Township; The land use planning and source control plan is amended to provide an alternative nonstructural strategy or measure that is not included in the list of nine nonstructural measures, but still meets the performance standards in § 94-44D and the amended plan is approved by Egg Harbor Township; or The land use planning and source control plan is amended to provide an adequate rationale for the contention that use of the particular strategy is not practical on the site, and the amended plan is approved by Egg Harbor Township. In addition to all other requirements of this section, each applicant shall demonstrate that, at a minimum, existing trees and vegetation on the development site will be preserved, protected and maintained according to the minimum standards established by provisions of the Egg Harbor Township Land Use Ordinance, Zoning Ordinance or by conditions of zoning or variance approval. Existing trees and vegetation shall be protected during construction activities in accordance with the Standard for Tree Protection During Construction provided in the NJ State Soil Conservation Committee Standards for Soil Erosion and Sediment Control in New Jersey, which is incorporated herein by reference as amended and supplemented. In addition to all other requirements of this section, each application for major development, and any other application where Egg Harbor Township otherwise requires a landscaping plan, shall contain a landscaping or revegetation plan in accordance with the Pinelands CMP standards at N.J.A.C. 7:50-6.24(c) or Egg Harbor Township requirements when not in Pinelands Areas. Any land area used as a nonstructural stormwater management measure to meet the performance standards in § 94-44D shall be dedicated to a government entity; shall be subjected to a conservation easement filed with the appropriate county clerk's office; or shall be subjected to an equivalent form of restriction approved by Egg Harbor Township that ensures that the measure, or equivalent stormwater management measure, is maintained in perpetuity, as detailed in Subsection D of this section. Guidance for nonstructural stormwater management strategies is available in the New Jersey BMP Manual, which may be obtained from the address identified in § 94-44L(1) or found on the NJDEP's website at www.njstormwater.org. Exception for major development sites creating less than one acre of disturbance. The use of nonstructural strategies to meet the performance standards in Subsection D of this section is not required for major development creating less than one acre of disturbance. However, the following requirements shall be met: Each application for major development and any other application where Egg Harbor Township otherwise requires a landscaping plan shall contain a landscaping or revegetation plan prepared in accordance with the Pinelands CMP standards [N.J.A.C. 7:50-6.24(c)] or Egg Harbor Township requirements when not in Pinelands Area; Each applicant shall demonstrate that, at a minimum, existing trees and vegetation on the development site will be preserved and protected according to the minimum standards established by provisions of the Egg Harbor Township Land Use Ordinance, Zoning Ordinance or by conditions of zoning or variance approval; and Existing trees and vegetation shall be protected during construction activities in accordance with the Standard for Tree Protection During Construction provided in the NJ State Soil Conservation Committee Standards for Soil Erosion and Sediment Control in New Jersey, which is incorporated herein by reference as amended and supplemented. Stormwater runoff quantity and rate standards. There shall be no direct discharge of stormwater runoff from any point or nonpoint source to any wetland, wetlands transition area or surface water body. In addition, stormwater runoff shall not be directed in such a way as to increase the volume and/or rate of discharge into any surface water body from that which existed prior to development of the site. To the maximum extent practical, there shall be no direct discharge of stormwater runoff onto farm fields so as to protect farm crops from damage due to flooding, erosion and long-term saturation of cultivated crops and cropland. For all major developments located with in the Pinelands Area, the total runoff volume generated from the net increase in impervious surfaces by a ten-year, twenty-four-hour storm shall be retained and infiltrated on site. In addition, the design engineer, using the assumptions and factors for stormwater runoff and groundwater recharge calculations contained in § 94-44C, shall either: Demonstrate through hydrologic and hydraulic analysis that the postdeveloped stormwater runoff hydrographs from the project site for the two-, ten-, fifty-, and one-hundred-year storms do not exceed, at any point in time, the site's predeveloped runoff hydrographs for the same storms; Demonstrate through hydrologic and hydraulic analysis that under postdeveloped site conditions: There is no increase in predeveloped stormwater runoff rates from the project site for the two-, ten-, fifty-, and one-hundred-year storms; and Any increased stormwater runoff volume or change in stormwater runoff timing for the two-, ten-, fifty-, and one-hundred-year storms will not increase flood damage at or downstream of the project site. When performing this analysis for predeveloped site conditions, all off-site development levels shall reflect existing conditions. When performing this analysis for postdeveloped site conditions, all off-site development levels shall reflect full development in accordance with current Zoning and Land Use ordinances; or Demonstrate that the peak postdeveloped stormwater runoff rates from the project site for the two-, ten-, and one-hundred-year storms are 50%, 75% and 80%, respectively, of the site's peak predeveloped stormwater runoff rates for the same storms. Peak outflow rates from on-site stormwater measures for these storms shall be adjusted where necessary to account for the discharge of increased stormwater runoff rates and/or volumes from project site areas not controlled by the on-site measures. These percentages do not have to be applied to those portions of the project site that are not proposed for development at the time of application, provided that such areas are: Protected from future development by imposition of a conservation easement, deed restriction, or other acceptable legal measures; or Would be subject to review under these standards if they are proposed for any degree of development in the future. In tidal flood hazard areas, a stormwater runoff quantity analysis in accordance with Subsection D(2)(d)[1], [2] and [3] above shall only be applied if the increased volume of stormwater runoff could increase flood damages below the point of discharge. The standards for stormwater runoff quantity and rate required by this section shall be met using the methods, calculations and assumptions provided in § 94-44C. All major development proposing a residential subdivision shall demonstrate Subsection D(2)(d)[3] analysis in addition to Subsection D(2)(d)[1] or [2]. Flood and erosion control. A detention/infiltration facility must accommodate site runoff generated from two-, ten-, fifty-, and one-hundred-year, twenty-four-hour storms considered individually (in each case, a Type III rainfall distribution as defined in the Soil Conservation Publications). Runoff greater than that occurring from the one-hundred-year, twenty-four-hour storm will be passed over an emergency spillway. Detention will be provided such that, after development, neither the peak rate of flow from the site nor the total flow during the hour of maximum release will exceed the corresponding flows which would have been created by similar storms prior to development. All stormwater management facilities (SMF) must provide one foot of freeboard to the top of the SMF above the one-hundred-year peak storage elevation. All residential stormwater management facilities shall not have more than two feet of water within the basin during the twenty-four-hour, fifty-year design storm. (The distance is measured from the bottom of the basin to the peak storage elevation). An inflow/outflow hydrograph and a performance curve must be developed for each detention/infiltration basin along with calculations for time versus storage relationships. Stormwater runoff quality standards. There shall be no direct discharge of stormwater runoff from any point or nonpoint source to any surface water body. Stormwater management measures shall be designed to reduce the total suspended solids (TSS) load in the stormwater runoff from the postdeveloped site by 80%, expressed as an annual average. Stormwater management measures shall also be designed to reduce the nutrient load in the stormwater runoff from the postdeveloped site by the maximum extent practicable. In achieving this reduction, the design of the development site shall include nonstructural and structural stormwater management measures that optimize nutrient removal while still achieving the groundwater recharge, runoff quantity and rate, and TSS removal standards in this section. The standards for stormwater runoff quality required by this section shall be met using the methods, calculations, assumptions and pollutant removal rates provided in § 94-44C. Exceptions. The preceding stormwater runoff quality standards shall not apply to the following major development sites: Major development sites where less than 0.25 acre of additional impervious surface is proposed; or Major residential development sites that create less than one acre of disturbance. The TSS reduction requirement in § 94-44C(2)(d) shall not apply to any stormwater runoff in a discharge regulated under a numeric effluent limitation for TSS imposed under the NJPDES rules (N.J.A.C. 7:14A) or in a discharge specifically exempt under a NJPDES permit from this requirement. The stormwater runoff quantity and rate standards in § 94-44D(2) shall still be met for all major development sites. Additional stormwater quality standards for high pollutant loading areas and areas where stormwater runoff is exposed to source material. This subsection applies to the following areas of a major development as defined in Subsection G of this section: High pollutant loading areas (HPLAs); and Areas where stormwater is exposed to source material. For a major development in areas described in Subsection D(4)(a)[1] or [2] above, in addition to the infiltration requirements specified in § 94-44D(2)(b) and the groundwater recharge requirements specified in § 94-44D(5), the applicant shall demonstrate in the land use planning and source control plan required in § 94-44B(3)(d) that the following requirements have been met: The extent of the areas described in Subsection D(4)(a)[1] and [2] above have been minimized on the development site to the maximum extent practicable; The stormwater runoff from the areas described in Subsection D(4)(a)[1] and [2] above is segregated to the maximum extent practicable from the stormwater runoff generated from the remainder of the site such that comingling of the stormwater runoff from the areas described in Subsection D(4)(a)[1] and [2] above and the remainder of the site will be minimized; The amount of precipitation falling directly on the areas described in Subsection D(4)(a)[1] and [2] above is minimized to the maximum extent practicable by means of a canopy, roof or other similar structure that reduces the generation of stormwater runoff; and The stormwater runoff from or comingled with the areas described in Subsection D(4)(a)[1] and [2] above for the water quality design storm, defined in § 94-44C(2), Table 1, shall be subject to pretreatment by one or more of the following stormwater BMPs, designed in accordance with the New Jersey BMP Manual to provide ninety-percent TSS removal: Bioretention system; Sand filter; Wet ponds which shall be hydraulically disconnected by a minimum of two feet of vertical separation from the seasonal high water table and shall be designed to achieve a minimum eighty-percent TSS removal rate; Constructed stormwater wetlands; and/or Media filtration system manufactured treatment device with a minimum eighty-percent TSS removal as verified by the New Jersey Corporation for Advanced Technology and as certified by NJDEP. If the potential for contamination of stormwater runoff by petroleum products exists on site, prior to being conveyed to the pretreatment BMP required in § 94-44D(4)(b) above, the stormwater runoff from the areas described in Subsection D(4)(a)[1] and [2] above shall be conveyed through an oil/grease separator or other equivalent manufactured filtering device to remove the petroleum hydrocarbons. The applicant shall provide the reviewing agency with sufficient data to demonstrate acceptable performance of the device. Groundwater recharge standards. For all major developments, the design engineer, using the assumptions and factors for stormwater runoff and groundwater recharge calculations contained in § 94-44C, shall either: Demonstrate through hydrologic and hydraulic analysis that the postdeveloped project site maintains 100% of the site’s predeveloped average annual groundwater recharge volume; or Demonstrate through hydrologic and hydraulic analysis that any increase in the project site’s stormwater runoff volume for the two-year, twenty-four-hour storm from predeveloped to postdeveloped conditions is infiltrated on site. The design engineer shall assess the hydraulic impact on the groundwater table and design the project site and all site groundwater recharge measures so as to avoid adverse hydraulic impacts. Adverse hydraulic impacts include but are not limited to raising the groundwater table so as to cause surface ponding; flooding of basements and other subsurface structures and areas; preventing a stormwater infiltration basin from completely draining via infiltration within 72 hours of a design storm event; and interference with the proper operation of subsurface sewage disposal systems and other surface and subsurface facilities in the vicinity of the groundwater recharge measure. The standards for groundwater recharge required by this section shall be met using the methods, calculations and assumptions provided in § 94-44C.[3] Editor's Note: Former Subsection D(5)(d), Exceptions, which immediately followed this subsection, was repealed 3-13-2013 by Ord. No. 5-2013. Erosion control standards. The minimum design and performance standards for erosion control are those established under the Soil Erosion and Sediment Control Act, N.J.S.A. 4:24-39 et seq., and its implementing regulations, N.J.A.C. 2:90-1.1 through 2:90-1.4. Threatened and endangered species and associated habitat standards. Stormwater management measures shall avoid adverse impacts of the development on habitats for threatened and endangered species, in accordance with N.J.A.C. 7:8-5.2(c), 7:50-6.27, 7:50-6.33 and 7:50-6.34. Exceptions and mitigation requirements. Exceptions from strict compliance from the groundwater recharge, stormwater runoff quantity, and stormwater runoff quality requirements established by this section may be granted, at the discretion of the Egg Harbor Township, and subject to approval by the Pinelands Commission, provided that all of the following conditions are met: The exception is consistent with that allowed by Egg Harbor Township; Egg Harbor Township has an adopted and effective municipal stormwater management plan in accordance with N.J.A.C. 7:8-4.4, which includes a mitigation plan in accordance with N.J.A.C. 7:8-4.2(c)11, and is also certified by the Pinelands Commission and NJDEP. The mitigation plan shall identify what measures are necessary to offset the deficit created by granting the exception, and the municipality shall submit a written report to the county review agency and the NJDEP describing the exception and the required mitigation. Guidance for developing municipal stormwater management plans, including mitigation plans, is available from the NJDEP, Division of Watershed Management, and the New Jersey BMP Manual. The applicant demonstrates that mitigation, in addition to the requirements of a mitigation plan discussed in Subsection D(8)(a)[2] above, will be provided consistent with one of the following options: Mitigation may be provided off site, but within the jurisdictional area of which the applicant's site is located and within the same drainage watershed area as the development site, and shall meet or exceed the equivalent recharge, quality or quantity performance standard which is lacking on the development site due to the exception; or In lieu of the required mitigation, a monetary in-lieu contribution may be provided by the applicant to Egg Harbor Township in accordance with the following: The amount of the in-lieu contribution shall be determined by Egg Harbor Township, but the maximum in-lieu contribution required shall be equivalent to the cost of implementing and maintaining the stormwater management measure(s) for which the exception is granted; The in-lieu contribution shall be used to fund an off-site stormwater control mitigation project(s) located within the jurisdictional area of which the applicant's site is located, within the same drainage watershed area as the development site, and shall meet or exceed the equivalent recharge, quality or quantity performance standards which is lacking on the development site. Such mitigation project shall be identified by Egg Harbor Township in Egg Harbor Township's adopted municipal stormwater management plan. The stormwater control project to which the monetary contribution will be applied shall be identified by Egg Harbor Township at the time the exception is granted. The applicant shall amend the project description and site plan required in § 94-44B(3)(c) to incorporate a description of both the standards for which an on-site exception is being granted and of the selected off-site mitigation project. Egg Harbor Township shall expend the in-lieu contribution to implement the selected off-site mitigation project within five years from the date that payment is received. Should Egg Harbor Township fail to expend the in-lieu contribution within the required time frame, the mitigation option provided in Subsection D(8)(a)[3][b] of this section shall be void and Egg Harbor Township shall be prohibited from collecting in-lieu contributions. An exception from strict compliance granted in accordance with Subsection D(8)(a) above shall not constitute a waiver of strict compliance from the requirements of the Pinelands Comprehensive Management Plan at N.J.A.C. 7:50 or NJDEP CAFRA N.J.A.C. 7:7. An applicant should contact the Pinelands Commission or CAFRA to determine whether a waiver of strict compliance is also required in accordance with N.J.A.C. 7:50 and 7:7, Subchapter 4, Part V. Design, construction, and safety standards for structural stormwater management measures. General design and construction standards. Structural stormwater management measures shall be designed to meet the standards established in this section. These standards have been developed to protect public safety, conserve natural features, create an aesthetically pleasing site and promote proper on-site stormwater management. The following structural stormwater management measures may be utilized as part of a stormwater management system at a major land development in the Pinelands, provided that the applicant demonstrates that they are designed, constructed and maintained so as to meet the standards and requirements established by this section. If alternative stormwater management measures are proposed, the applicant shall demonstrate that the selected measures will achieve the standards established by this section. Bioretention systems; Constructed stormwater wetlands; Extended detention basins; Infiltration basins; Vegetated filter strips; Infiltration basins and trenches; Wet ponds with suitable liners; Pervious paving systems; and Manufactured treatment devices, provided their pollutant removal rates are verified by the New Jersey Corporation for Advanced Technology and certified by the NJDEP. Structural stormwater management measures shall be designed to take into account the existing site conditions, including environmentally critical areas, wetlands, flood-prone areas, slopes, depth to seasonal high water table, soil type, permeability and texture, and drainage area and drainage patterns. Structural stormwater management measures shall be designed and constructed to be strong, durable, and corrosion resistant (measures that are consistent with the relevant portions of the Residential Site Improvement Standards at N.J.A.C. 5:21-7.3, 5:21-7.4, and 5:21-7.8 shall be deemed to meet this requirement); to minimize and facilitate maintenance and repairs; and to ensure proper functioning. For all stormwater management measures at a development site, each applicant shall submit a detailed inspection, maintenance and repair plan consistent with the requirements of Subsection F of this section. To the maximum extent practicable, the design engineer shall design structural stormwater management measures on the development site in a manner that: Limits site disturbance, maximizes stormwater management efficiencies, and maintains or improves aesthetic conditions; Utilizes multiple stormwater management measures, smaller in size and distributed spatially throughout the land development site, instead of a single larger structural stormwater management measure; Incorporates pretreatment measures. Pretreatment can extend the functional life and increase the pollutant removal capability of a structural stormwater management measure. Pretreatment measures may be designed in accordance with the New Jersey BMP Manual or other sources approved by the municipal engineer. Stormwater management basins shall be designed in a manner that complements and mimics the existing natural landscape, including but not limited to the following design strategies: Use of natural, nonwetland wooded depressions for stormwater runoff storage; and Establishment of attractive landscaping in and around the basin that mimics the existing vegetation and incorporates native Pinelands plants, including, but not limited to, the species listed in N.J.A.C. 7:50-6.25 and 7:50-6.26 when located within the Pinelands Area. Stormwater management basins shall be designed with gently sloping sides. The maximum allowable basin side slop shall be four horizontal to one vertical (4:1) within residential developments. Basin side slopes of all detention/infiltration basins shall have sod provided to all side slopes. Commercial developments shall be permitted to have steeper slopes and/or vertical retaining walls so long as they are not conducive to erosion or impractical to maintain. Design standards for detention/infiltration basins. Detention/infiltration basins will not be permitted within the required front and/or side yard setback areas, sight triangle areas and buffers, nor within 10 feet of any property line unless the following standards are met: The depth of the basin shall not exceed two feet (one foot for infiltration basin) as measured from the maximum water surface elevation of the fifty-year storm to the bottom of the basin. A landscaped buffer around the perimeter of the basin designed in accordance with § 94-22E(4) shall be provided where a fence is proposed. All detention/infiltration basins must maximize to the greatest extent practicable the distance between basin inflow and outflow and the recharge of groundwater. The bottom of all detention basins must be at least two feet or more above the seasonal high groundwater level unless a method of underdraining the basin is provided which is acceptable to the approving authority. In no case shall a basin bottom be constructed below seasonal high groundwater. A minimum of two soil borings shall be required for all detention basins. For all basins with a surface area of 1/2 acre or more, borings will be required at a rate of one boring per each 1/2 acre in addition to the initial two borings per facility. Proposed boring locations shall be distributed throughout the proposed basin area to accurately represent the soil conditions of the total basin area. All borings must extend at least five feet below the proposed bottom of the detention facility. The applicant shall notify the Township Engineer at least five working days in advance of conducting the necessary borings to schedule a date and time for the Township Engineer or his representative to witness said borings. Soil boring information shall be displayed on preliminary plans and include: Soil texture as described in the U.S.D.A. Soil Texture Classification System. Soil colors as described in the Munsell Color Chart. Estimated depth to seasonal high groundwater based on mottling characteristics of the soil. Depth to static water level at time of boring. Vegetation types immediately surrounding the area of the boring. Percolation tests results. Date of borings. A minimum accessway 15 feet in width shall be provided around the entire perimeter of all residential infiltration basins at the top of the embankment. Fencing shall be placed outside of this accessway. At inflow points to detention/infiltration basins, energy dissipators must be incorporated to reduce the velocity of inflowing waters to nonerosive levels. All outlet control structures shall be designed to prevent the formation of a vortex within the basin. Antivortex devices shall be implemented as required. All principal outlet structures shall be concrete block or reinforced concrete. All construction joints are to be watertight, and all exposed concrete edges shall have a one-inch, forty-five-degree chamfer unless otherwise approved by the approving authority. Outlets from detention/infiltration facilities shall be designed to function without manual, electrical or mechanical controls. To minimize the chance of clogging and to facilitate cleaning, outlet pipes shall be at least 15 inches in diameter. Where necessary, twelve-inch-thick concrete antiseep collars are to be installed along outlet pipes, Reinforcement steel shall be No. 5 bars at 12 inches both ways with two inches of cover on both faces (minimum). Where necessary, a concrete cradle shall be provided for outlet pipes. Landscaping is required for all stormwater management facilities as specified in § 94-22E of this chapter. Fence is required around all detention/infiltration basins. This fence shall be four-foot-high white vinyl split-rail fence with one-quarter-inch black mesh wire attached to the street side of the fence with fittings and frame. A twelve-foot-wide opening shall be provided for permanent vehicular access to a paved street by means of a fifteen-foot-wide paved access and, within subdivisions, a twenty-five-foot-wide right-of-way or easement. The fence shall not extend beyond the building setback line or interfere with critical sight distances. The Planning Board reserves the right to have this fencing be changed in style and height or not have it installed at all. Access must be provided into the bottom of all detention basins by means of a stable accessway at a maximum slope of 5:1. The use of concrete pavers is a suggested method of stabilizing accessways against erosion problems caused by maintenance vehicles. Detention/infiltration facility embankments. Minimum top widths. The minimum top widths of all dams and embankments are listed below. These values have been adopted from the Standards for Soil Erosion and Sediment Control in New Jersey, published by the New Jersey State Soil Conservation Committee. Minimum Top Width For infiltration basins, the minimum top width shall be 15 feet to accommodate the required accessway. An emergency spillway and freeboard shall be provided for all detention/infiltration basins that require the construction of an embankment. The emergency spillway shall be designed to pass the one-hundred-year storm under a maximum of nine inches of head considering the outlet control structure to be entirely ineffective. In the case of infiltration basins, the facility shall be considered to be fifty-percent full at the start of the storm. A minimum of 12 inches of freeboard shall be provided above the invert of the emergency spillway. All earth fill shall be free from brush, fill and organic material subject to decomposition and construction debris. The design top elevation of all dams and embankments, after all settlement has taken place shall meet the emergency freeboard requirements as listed in Subsection E(1)(j)[2] above. Therefore, the design height of the dam or embankment, defined as the vertical distance from the top down to the bottom of the deepest cut, shall be increased by the amount needed to ensure that the design top elevation will be maintained following all settlement. This increase shall not be less than 5%. Where necessary, consolidation tests of the undisturbed foundation soil shall be required to more accurately determine the necessary increase. The fill material in all earth dams and embankments shall be compacted to at least 95% of the maximum density from compaction tests performed by the appropriate method in ASTM D698. Maximum side slopes for all dams and embankments are 4:1. Safety ledges shall be constructed on the side slopes of all detention basins having a permanent pool of water. The ledges shall be four feet to six feet in width and located approximately 2 1/2 feet to three feet below and one foot to 1 1/2 feet above the permanent water surface. The upstream face of all dams and/or embankments of detention basins having permanent pools of water shall be stabilized to protect against wave erosion. Detention facilities in flood hazard areas. Wherever practicable, developments and their detention/infiltration facilities should be beyond the flood hazard area of a stream. When that is not possible and detention facilities are proposed to be located partially or wholly within the flood hazard area (as defined by the New Jersey Division of Coastal Resources, Bureau of Floodplain Management) or other areas which are frequently flooded, some storm conditions could potentially make the facility ineffective at providing detention of site runoff. This will happen if the stream is overflowing its banks, resulting in a backwater effect in the basin. In such cases, the full effects of the backwater shall be taken into account within the calculations, and various parameters of the tailwater, such as the relative timing of the peak, duration and magnitude, shall be identified. Where the detention facility is located within the one-hundred-year floodplain, detention storage shall not be calculated as a part of the net fill volume for the site (required as part of a stream encroachment permit, N.J.A.C. 7:13). All fill, such as basin berms, structures, etc., should be included as part of the net fill volume. Guidance on the design and construction of structural stormwater management measures may be found in the New Jersey BMP Manual. Other guidance sources may also be used upon approval by the municipal engineer. After all construction activities and required field testing have been completed on the development site, as-built plans depicting design and as-built elevations of all stormwater management measures shall be prepared by a licensed land surveyor and submitted to the municipal engineer. This shall be done prior to any base paving operations to ensure the constructed stormwater management measures were built in accordance with the approved plans. Based upon the municipal engineer's review of the as-built plans, all corrections or remedial actions deemed by the municipal engineer to be necessary due to the failure to comply with the standards established by this section and/or any reasons of public health or safety shall be completed by the applicant. In lieu of review by the municipal engineer, Egg Harbor Township reserves the right to engage a professional engineer to review the as-built plans. The applicant shall pay all costs associated with such review. This note shall be placed on the drainage plan. As-built percolation test results on the same quantity basis as described in § 94-44K(3)(c) may be required if the basin has been used as a place for sediment accumulation during the construction process. As-built permeability and specific yield tests shall be provided for all infiltration basins meeting the same requirements as and on the same quantity basis as § 94-44E(1)(i)[4] above. As-built certification. Horizontal/vertical datum. The horizontal datum to be used on all as-builts shall be the State Plane Coordinate System (NAD 83). The vertical datum to be used on all as-builts shall be the National Geodetic Vertical Datum (NGVD 88). Requirements for as-built plans. All as-builts must indicate all grate elevations, invert elevations, slopes of lines, lengths of runs, types of pipe, locations of utilities and all other improvements located within the public right-of-way or utility easements. All as-builts must show the location of all stormwater basins along with top-of-bank and bottom-of-bank elevations. All plans must be signed and sealed by a licensed professional engineer or professional land surveyor. Submission requirements. Four paper copies must be submitted. Two disks in .dwg or .dxf format in AutoCAD Release 2000 or higher must be submitted on CD-ROM format. All stormwater facilities to be owned by the Township must be cleaned and inspected before Township acceptance. Design and construction standards for stormwater infiltration BMPs. Stormwater infiltration BMPs, such as bioretention systems with infiltration, dry wells, infiltration basins, pervious paving systems with storage beds, and sand filters with infiltration shall be designed, constructed and maintained to completely drain the total runoff volume generated by the basin's maximum design storm within 72 hours after a storm event. Runoff storage for greater times can render the BMP ineffective and may result in anaerobic conditions, odor and both water quality and mosquito breeding problems. Stormwater infiltration BMPs shall be designed, constructed and maintained to provide a minimum separation of at least two feet between the elevation of the lowest point of the bottom of the infiltration BMP and the seasonal high water table. A stormwater infiltration BMP shall be sited in suitable soils verified by field testing to have permeability rates between one inch and 20 inches per hour. If such site soils do not exist or if the design engineer demonstrates that it is not practical for engineering, environmental or safety reasons to site the stormwater infiltration BMP(s) in such soils, then the stormwater infiltration BMP(s) may be sited in soils verified by field testing to have permeability rates in excess of 20 inches per hour, provided that a bioretention system, designed, installed and maintained in accordance with the New Jersey BMP Manual is installed to meet one of the following conditions: The bioretention system is constructed as a separate measure designed to provide pretreatment of stormwater and to convey the pretreated stormwater into the infiltration BMP; or The bioretention system is integrated into and made part of the infiltration BMP and, as such, does not require an underdrain system. If this option is selected, the infiltration BMP shall be designed and constructed so that the maximum water depth in the bioretention system portion of the BMP during treatment of the stormwater quality design storm is 12 inches in accordance with the New Jersey BMP Manual. The minimum design permeability rate for the soil within a BMP that relies on infiltration shall be 0.5 inch per hour. A factor of safety of two shall be applied to the soil's field-tested permeability rate to determine the soil's design permeability rate. For example, if the field-tested permeability rate of the soil is four inches per hour, its design permeability rate would be two inches per hour. The minimum design permeability rate for the soil within a stormwater infiltration basin shall also be sufficient to achieve the minimum seventy-two-hour drain time described in Subsection E(2)(a) above. The maximum design permeability shall be 10 inches per hour. A soil's field-tested permeability rate shall be determined in accordance with the following: The predevelopment field-test permeability rate shall be determined according to the methodologies provided in Subsection K(3)(c) of this section; The results of the required field permeability tests shall demonstrate a minimum tested infiltration rate of one inch per hour; After all construction activities have been completed on the site and the finished grade has been established in the infiltration BMP, postdevelopment field permeability tests shall also be conducted according to the methodologies provided in Subsection K(3)(c) of this section; If the results of the postdevelopment field permeability tests fail to achieve the minimum required design permeability rates in Subsection E(2)(d) above utilizing a factor of safety of two; the stormwater infiltration BMP shall be renovated and retested until such minimum required design permeability rates are achieved; and The results of all field permeability tests shall be certified by a professional engineer and transmitted to the municipal engineer. To help ensure maintenance of the design permeability rate over time, a six-inch layer of K5 soil shall be placed on the bottom of a stormwater infiltration BMP. This soil layer shall meet the textural and permeability specifications of a K5 soil as provided at N.J.A.C. 7:9A, Appendix A, Figure 6, and be certified to meet these specifications by a professional engineer licensed in the State of New Jersey. The depth to the seasonal high water table shall be measured from the bottom of the K5 sand layer. The design engineer shall assess the hydraulic impact on the groundwater table and design the project site and all stormwater infiltration basins so as to avoid adverse hydraulic impacts. Adverse hydraulic impacts include but are not limited to raising the groundwater table so as to cause surface ponding; flooding of basements and other subsurface structures and areas; preventing a stormwater infiltration basin from completely draining via infiltration within 72 hours of a design storm event; and interference with the proper operation of subsurface sewage disposal systems and other surface and subsurface structures in the vicinity of the stormwater infiltration basin. Additional standards for infiltration facilities. The Township is limiting the use of infiltration basins to projects located only in the Pinelands Jurisdictional Area, provided that they meet the following additional standards: All subsections mentioned previously and hereafter for infiltration basins shall apply as well. The amount of stormwater required to be recharged for each facility shall be minimized. For example, where stormwater recharge is required and an infiltration basin is proposed, the use of partial infiltration basins will be required. The maximum amount of retention storage volume in the basin before discharge occurs shall be equal to the amount of required calculated recharge volume. The following are the vertical design constraints: Infiltration basin: d less than (Pv) (Tp); d1 greater than d/Sy. Stone recharge facilities: d less than (Pv) (Tp)/Vr d1 greater than d/Sy, where: d = One-year design depth of the facility. Pv = Vertical permeability. This must be determined as outlined in Subsection E(2)(i) of this section. Tp = Ponding time (24 hours). Vr = Void of ratio of stone, equal to the volume of voids divided by the total volume. d1 = Depth to seasonal high groundwater from the bottom of the infiltration facility (two feet minimum). Sy = Specific yield. This must be determined as outlined in Subsection E(2)(i). A minimum value of 0.30 is to be used. In lieu of this criteria, another method for modeling lateral groundwater flow, such as the Hantush method for modeling groundwater mounding, may be used at the discretion of the approving authority. Soil testing. Soil borings shall conform to § 94-44K(3)(c). The applicant shall notify the Township Engineer at least five working days in advance of conducting the necessary borings to schedule a date and time for the Township Engineer or his representative to witness said borings. Soil boring information shall be displayed on preliminary plans and include in addition to § 94-44K(3)(c): Soil texture as described in the United States Department of Agriculture Soil Texture Classification System. Depth to static water level at the time of boring. In addition, soil tests shall be performed for each boring location to determine the soil permeability and specific yield (also known as "storage in unconfined aquifers"). Permeability tests shall be performed to determine the vertical permeability of the soil. These parameters shall be determined for the soil horizon between the proposed basin bottom and seasonal high groundwater that will yield the lowest values of vertical permeability and specific yield. When the value of vertical permeability or specific yield varies in a specific boring location, the lowest value shall be assumed to represent that location. If a test boring location yields results that the applicant feels are not representative of the area, additional borings and tests may be taken to more accurately determine soil conditions in the area. The actual value of vertical permeability or specific yield to be used in determining the basin dimensions as outlined in Subsection E(2)(h)[3] shall be determined by taking a weighted average of the representative boring location values with respect to the basin bottom area. When clay layers or other unsuitable soil lenses are located under proposed infiltration facilities, such layers shall be removed and replaced with select fill material. If such a soil replacement is required, an analysis showing that the system will work must be provided, which is acceptable to the approving authority. Devices designed to aid in infiltrating through poor subsoil conditions, such as stone wicks, shall not be considered as an acceptable alternative to this criteria unless supporting data and analysis is presented which is acceptable to the approving authority. Construction practices should be considered to ensure that adequate infiltration rates will be maintained. Where possible, a positive gravity flow discharge structure shall be constructed in such a manner so as to allow the complete drainage of the infiltration facility to a stream, storm sewer or other point of positive discharge. This structure shall be designed in such a manner that it can be left closed and locked at all times and opened only when the basin needs to be drained for repair and maintenance purposes. The locked condition shall keep the stormwater from draining from the basin. The structure shall be designed to completely empty the basin in approximately 48 hours unless this requirement would necessitate an outlet smaller than three inches in diameter, in which case a three-inch-diameter outlet shall be used. If the drainage structure/pipe is under municipal ownership, control and maintenance, it shall be the responsibility of the Director of Public Works to determine when and if the structure/pipe must be unlocked to drain the basin, to seek the approval of the Township Committee to do so and to give notice to the Pinelands Commission if located within the Pinelands Area. The Director of Public Works shall be responsible for keeping the keys for these locks, routinely checking to assure that they are normally locked and in good working order and relocking them upon completion of the maintenance of the basin, except as designated or approved. If the drainage structure/pipe is under private ownership, control and maintenance, it shall be the responsibility of the property owner to request permission from the Township Committee to unlock the structure/pipe and to give notice to the Pinelands Commission if located within the Pinelands Area. In order to obtain permission to open the locked structure/pipe, a statement, signed by the owner, must be presented to the Township Committee, stating that it is in the public's best interest that the structure/pipe be opened in order to drain the basin which has continued to retain water beyond its normal period and that it must be drained in this manner to facilitate the maintenance of the basin. The statement must also indicate the date on which the structure/pipe will be closed and locked. Upon receipt of permission from the Township, the property owner shall contact the Director of Public Works, who shall exclusively maintain the keys for the lock for this structure/pipe and who shall unlock it to drain and relock it upon completion of the maintenance of the basin. The Township will not accept subsurface infiltration measures (porous pavement, dry wells, stone recharge trenches, etc.) for approval on any projects which are proposed to be maintained by the Township. Subsurface infiltration measures may only be utilized for management of runoff from roofs or grassed areas not likely to contain suspended sediment. Approved subsurface infiltration facilities shall be constructed after the site is stabilized and desilted. The applicant shall consider, and design if necessary, interim flood control measures for operation during construction. In any case, the municipality shall be held harmless for any damage caused by flooding during construction. Subsurface infiltration facilities should be designed to provide an emergency release in the event of failure. Subsurface infiltration measures may be utilized for privately maintained projects, where necessary, provided that additional storage capacity is provided for 20 years of sediment accumulation as calculated using the procedures found in the Standards for Soil Erosion and Sediment Control in New Jersey. In addition, the municipality may require that money be placed in escrow for the replacement of the facility at the end of 20 years and an annual amount set aside for each subsequent twenty-year period. The design engineer shall conduct a mounding analysis, as defined in § 94-44G, of all stormwater infiltration BMPs. The mounding analysis shall be conducted in accordance with the requirements in § 94-44K(3)(c). Where the mounding analysis identifies adverse impacts, the stormwater infiltration BMP shall be redesigned or relocated as appropriate. Stormwater infiltration BMPs shall be constructed in accordance with the following: To avoid sedimentation that may result in clogging and reduce the basin's permeability rate, stormwater infiltration basins shall be constructed according to the following: Unless the conditions in Subsection E(2)(5)[1][b] below are met, a stormwater infiltration basin shall not be placed into operation until its drainage area is completely stabilized. Instead, upstream runoff shall be diverted around the basin and into separate, temporary stormwater management facilities and sediment basins. Such temporary facilities and basins shall be installed and utilized for stormwater management and sediment control until stabilization is achieved in accordance with the Standards for Soil Erosion and Sediment Control in New Jersey, which is incorporated herein by reference as amended and supplemented. If the design engineer determines that, for engineering, environmental or safety reasons, temporary stormwater management facilities and sediment basins cannot be constructed on the site, the stormwater infiltration basin may be placed into operation prior to the complete stabilization of its drainage area, provided that the basin's bottom during this period is constructed at a depth at least two feet higher than its final design elevation. All other infiltration BMP construction requirements in this section shall be followed. When the drainage area is completely stabilized, all accumulated sediment shall be removed from the infiltration BMP, which shall then be excavated to its final design elevation in accordance with the construction requirements of this section and the performance standards in § 94-44D. To avoid compaction of subgrade soils of BMPs that rely on infiltration, no heavy equipment such as backhoes, dump trucks or bulldozers shall be permitted to operate within the footprint of the BMP. All excavation required to construct a stormwater infiltration BMP shall be performed by equipment placed outside the BMP. If this is not possible, the soils within the excavated area shall be renovated and tilled after construction is completed to reverse the effects of compaction. In addition, postdevelopment soil permeability testing shall be performed in accordance with Subsection E(2)(e) of this section. Earthwork associated with stormwater infiltration BMP construction, including excavation, grading, cutting or filling, shall not be performed when soil moisture content is above the lower plastic limit. Safety standards for structural stormwater management measures. If a structural stormwater management measure has an outlet structure, escape provisions shall be incorporated in or on the structure. "Escape provisions" means the permanent installation of ladders, steps, rungs, or other features that provide readily accessible means of ingress and egress from the outlet structure. A trash rack is a device intended to intercept runoff-borne trash and debris that might otherwise block the hydraulic openings in an outlet structure of a structural stormwater management measure. Trash racks shall be installed upstream of such outlet structure openings as necessary to ensure proper functioning of the structural stormwater management measure in accordance with the following: The trash rack should be constructed primarily of bars aligned in the direction of flow with one-inch spacing between the bars to the elevation of the water quality design storm. For elevations higher than the water quality design storm, the bars shall be spaced no greater than one-third the width of the hydraulic opening it is protecting or six inches, whichever is less. Transverse bars aligned perpendicular to flow should be sized and spaced as necessary for rack stability and strength. The trash rack shall not adversely affect the hydraulic performance of either the outlet structure opening it is protecting or the overall outlet structure. The trash rack shall have sufficient net open area under clean conditions to limit the peak design storm velocity through it to a maximum of 2.5 feet per second. The trash rack shall be constructed and installed to be rigid, durable, and corrosion resistant, and shall be designed to withstand a perpendicular live loading of 300 pounds per square foot. An overflow grate is a device intended to protect the opening in the top of a stormwater management measure outlet structure. If an outlet structure has an overflow grate, such grate shall meet the following requirements: The overflow grate shall be secured to the outlet structure but removable for emergencies and maintenance; The overflow grate spacing shall be no more than two inches across the smallest dimension; and The overflow grate shall be constructed and installed to be rigid, durable, and corrosion resistant, and shall be designed to withstand a perpendicular live loading of 300 pounds per square foot. The maximum side slope for an earthen dam, embankment, or berm shall not be steeper than four horizontal to one vertical. Safety ledges. Safety ledges shall be constructed on the slopes of all new structural stormwater management measures having a permanent pool of water deeper than 2 1/2 feet. Such safety ledges shall be comprised of two steps. Each step shall be four feet to six feet in width. One step shall be located approximately 2 1/2 feet below the permanent water surface, and the second step shall be located one foot to 1 1/2 feet above the permanent water surface. See Subsection E(3)(e)[2] below for an illustration of safety ledges in a stormwater management basin. Illustration of safety ledges. Source: N.J.A.C. 7:8-6, Appendix A. Standards for storm sewer collection systems. For both major and minor developments, blocks and lots shall be graded at a minimum grade of 1 1/2% to ensure proper drainage away from all buildings to prevent the collection of stormwater in pools and to avoid concentrations of stormwater on adjacent lots. Dished gutters shall not be permitted in cases where: They would cross over through streets. They would cross arterial or collector streets. The depth of flow would exceed two inches. The width of flow would exceed five feet. Drainage structures. All drainage structures, including manholes, inlets, headwalls, sections and box culverts, shall conform to the current details of the New Jersey Department of Transportation. Unless approved otherwise by the approving authority, all curb inlets shall be Standard Type B with curb piece heights equal to the exposed curb face of the adjacent curb, plus two inches. All lawn inlets shall be Standard Type E. When the pipe size is such as to require a larger structure, Standard Type B1, B2, E1 or E2 shall be used. If still larger sizes are required, they shall be specifically detailed using standard frames and grates. Bicycle safe grates shall be utilized for all inlets in roadway and parking areas. Pipe bedding shall be provided as specified in the latest edition of Design and Construction of Sanitary and Storm Sewers, ASCE Manual and Reports on Engineering Practice No. 37, prepared by a Joint Committee of the Society of Civil Engineers and the Water Pollution Control Federation, New York, 1969. Concrete pipe shall be utilized beneath roadways and parking areas or any area of expected vehicular traffic. RSIS will govern within major subdivisions. Storm drain pipes. Storm drain pipes shall be reinforced concrete or corrugated aluminum or other materials acceptable to the approving authority and shall be of the size specified and laid to the exact lines and grades acceptable to the approving authority. Circular reinforced concrete pipe and fittings shall conform to ASTM Specification C-76. Elliptical reinforced concrete pipe shall meet the requirements of ASTM Specification C-507. Joint design and joint material for circular pipe shall conform to ASTM C-443. Joints for elliptical pipe shall be bell-and-spigot or tongue-and-groove sealed with butyl, rubber tape or external bands conforming to ASTM C-877. All pipes shall be Class III strength except where stronger pipe is necessary. Joints shall be made with O-ring rubber gaskets where necessary. Corrugated aluminum pipe shall comply with the Standard Specifications for Corrugated Aluminum Alloy Culvert Pipe and Pipe Arch ASSHO designation M-211-65. The minimum thickness of the aluminum pipe to be used shall be: Diameter or Equivalent 0.075 (14-gauge) 24 but less than 48 72 and larger 0.164 (8-gauge) All discharge pipes shall terminate with a precast concrete or corrugated metal end section or a cast-in-place concrete headwall, with or without wingwalls, as conditions require. Inspection, maintenance and repair of stormwater management measures. Applicability. Projects subject to review pursuant to Subsection A(3) of this section shall comply with the requirements of § 94-44F(2) and (3) below. General inspection, maintenance and repair plan. The design engineer shall prepare an inspection, maintenance and repair plan for the stormwater management measures, including both structural and nonstructural measures incorporated into the design of a major development. This plan shall be submitted as part of the checklist requirements established in § 94-44B(3). Inspection and maintenance guidelines for stormwater management measures are available in the New Jersey BMP Manual. The inspection, maintenance and repair plan shall contain the following: Accurate and comprehensive drawings of the site's stormwater management measures; Specific locations of each stormwater management measure identified by means of longitude and latitude as well as block and lot number; Specific preventative and corrective maintenance tasks and schedules for such tasks for each stormwater BMP; Cost estimates, including estimated cost of sediment, debris or trash removal; and The name, address and telephone number of the person or persons responsible for regular inspections and preventative and corrective maintenance (including repair and replacement). If the responsible person or persons is a corporation, company, partnership, firm, association, municipality or political subdivision of this state, the name and telephone number of an appropriate contact person shall also be included. The person responsible for inspection, maintenance and repair identified under § 94-44F(2)(b) above shall maintain a detailed log of all preventative and corrective maintenance performed for the site's stormwater management measures, including a record of all inspections and copies of all maintenance-related work orders in the inspection, maintenance and repair plan. Said records and inspection reports shall be retained for a minimum of five years. If the inspection, maintenance and repair plan identifies a person other than the developer (for example, a public agency or homeowners' association) as having the responsibility for inspection and maintenance, the plan shall include documentation of such person's agreement to assume this responsibility, or of the developer's obligation to dedicate a stormwater management measure to such person under an applicable ordinance or regulation. If the person responsible for inspection, maintenance and repair identified under § 94-44F(2)(b) above is not a public agency, the maintenance plan and any future revisions based on § 94-44F(2)(f) below shall be recorded upon the deed of record for each property on which the maintenance described in the maintenance plan shall be undertaken. The person responsible for inspection, maintenance and repair identified under § 94-44F(2)(b) above shall evaluate the effectiveness of the inspection, maintenance and repair plan at least once per year and update the plan and the deed as needed. The person responsible for inspection, maintenance and repair identified under § 94-44F(2)(b) above shall submit the updated inspection, maintenance and repair plan and the documentation required by § 94-44F(2)(b) and (c) above to Egg Harbor Township once per year. The person responsible for inspection, maintenance and repair identified under § 94-44F(2)(b) above shall retain and make available, upon request by any public entity with administrative, health, environmental or safety authority over the site, the inspection, maintenance and repair plan and the documentation required by § 94-44F(2)(b) and (c) above. Responsibility for inspection, repair and maintenance shall not be assigned or transferred to the owner or tenant of an individual property in a residential development or project, unless such owner or tenant owns or leases the entire residential development or project. Preventative and corrective maintenance shall be performed to maintain the function of the stormwater management measure, including but not limited to repairs or replacement to any associated appurtenance of the measure; removal of sediment, debris, or trash; restoration of eroded areas; snow and ice removal; fence repair or replacement; restoration of vegetation; repair or replacement of linings; and restoration of infiltration function. Stormwater management measure easements shall be provided by the property owner as necessary for facility inspections and maintenance and preservation of stormwater runoff conveyance, infiltration, and detention areas and facilities. The purpose of the easement shall be specified in the maintenance agreement. In the event that the stormwater management measure becomes a public health nuisance or danger to public safety or public health, or if it is in need of maintenance or repair, Egg Harbor Township shall so notify the responsible person in writing. Upon receipt of that notice, the responsible person shall have 14 days to effect maintenance and repair of the facility in a manner that is approved by the municipal engineer or the municipal engineer's designee. Egg Harbor Township, at its discretion, may extend the time allowed for effecting maintenance and repair for good cause. If the responsible person fails or refuses to perform such maintenance and repair within the allowable time, Egg Harbor Township may immediately proceed to do so with its own forces and equipment and/or through contractors. The costs and expenses of such maintenance and repair by Egg Harbor Township shall be entered on the tax roll as a special charge against the property and collected with any other taxes levied thereon for the year in which the maintenance and repair was performed. Requirements for inspection, maintenance and repair of stormwater BMPs that rely on infiltration. If a stormwater infiltration BMP is incorporated into the design of a major development, the applicant shall include the following requirements in its inspection, maintenance and repair plan: Once per month (if needed): mow side slopes, remove litter and debris, stabilize eroded banks, repair erosion at inflow structure(s); After every storm exceeding one inch of rainfall: ensure that infiltration BMPs drain completely within 72 hours after the storm event. If stored water fails to infiltrate 72 hours after the end of the storm, corrective measures shall be taken. Raking or tilling by light equipment can assist in maintaining infiltration capacity and break up clogged surfaces; Four times per year (quarterly): inspect stormwater infiltration BMPs for clogging and excessive debris and sediment accumulation within the BMP, remove sediment (if needed) when completely dry; Two times per year: inspect for signs of damage to structures, repair eroded areas, check for signs of petroleum contamination and remediate; Once per year: inspect BMPs for unwanted tree growth and remove if necessary, disc or otherwise aerate bottom of infiltration basin to a minimum depth of six inches; and After every storm exceeding one inch of rainfall: inspect and, if necessary, remove and replace K5 sand layer and accumulated sediment to restore original infiltration rate. Additional guidance for the inspection, maintenance and repair of stormwater infiltration BMPs can be found in the New Jersey BMP Manual. Financing of inspection, maintenance and repair of stormwater BMPs. An adequate means of ensuring permanent financing of the inspection, maintenance and repair of stormwater BMPs shall be implemented and detailed in the inspection, maintenance and repair plan. Permanent financing of the inspection, maintenance and repair of stormwater BMPs shall be accomplished by: The assumption of the inspection and maintenance program by a municipality, county, public utility or homeowner's association. The required payment of fees to a municipal stormwater fund in an amount equivalent to the cost of both ongoing maintenance activities and necessary structural replacements. The fee schedule is attached hereto as follows.[4] Editor's Note: The fee schedule is included at the end of this chapter. In the Pinelands Jurisdictional Area, prior to the granting of any site development approval, the applicant shall enter into an agreement with the municipality to ensure the continued operation and maintenance of the stormwater facility. This agreement shall be in a form satisfactory to the municipal attorney and may include, but may not necessarily be limited to, personal guaranties, deed restrictions, covenants and bonds. In cases where the property is subdivided and sold separately, a homeowners' association or responsible entity should be established as the responsible entity, absent an agreement by a governmental agency to assume responsibility. The agreement shall also provide for regular inspection at the expense of the applicant and the applicant's successors in interest, and for the undertaking by the applicant and successors of such corrective measures as are shown by such inspection to be required for the proper functioning of the facilities. In addition, the applicant shall: Describe in detail the mechanisms for maintenance, including: Types and quantities of equipment necessary for maintenance. Maintenance schedule in terms of maintenance activities required on an annual basis. The methodology of maintaining all detention/infiltration facilities on the site. The entity responsible for the maintenance activity. The life expectancy of the stormwater facility. Itemize costs associated with each of the items described in Subsection F(8)(c)[1], in addition to manpower, capital costs for equipment and foreseeable costs associated with repair of a system which fails. Obtain approval from the approving authority for all arrangements and values described in Subsection F(8)(c)[1] and [2]. Provide a twenty-year maintenance guaranty for the entire stormwater management system. The agreement required by Subsection F(8)(c) above shall provide for an inspection and maintenance program of at least 20 years in duration. Time for completion of stormwater facilities. Stormwater control improvements shall be completely installed and as-built certification per § 94-44E(1)(j), except for final landscaping, prior to issuance of any certificates of occupancy for the development. Final landscaping shall be completed in accordance with the schedule established for completion of all other improvements. Definitions. Unless specifically defined below, words or phrases used in this section shall be interpreted so as to give them the meaning they have in common usage and to give this section its most reasonable application. When used in this section, the following terms shall have the meanings herein ascribed to them: The propagation, rearing and subsequent harvesting of aquatic organisms in controlled or selected environments, and their subsequent processing, packaging and marketing, including but not limited to activities to intervene in the rearing process to increase production such as stocking, feeding, transplanting and providing for protection from predators. Either a written statement signed and sealed by a licensed New Jersey professional engineer attesting that a BMP design or stormwater management system conforms to or meets a particular set of standards or to action taken by the Commission pursuant to N.J.A.C. 7:50-3, Part II or Part IV. Depending upon the context in which the term is used, the terms "certify" and "certified" shall be construed accordingly. The increase in soil bulk density caused by subjecting soil to greater-than-normal loading. Compaction can also decrease soil infiltration and permeability rates. The construction, erection, reconstruction, alteration, conversion, demolition, removal or equipping of buildings, structures or components of a stormwater management system, including but not limited to collection inlets, stormwater piping, swales and all other conveyance systems and stormwater BMPs. COUNTY REVIEW AGENCY An agency designated by the County Board of Chosen Freeholders to review municipal stormwater management plans and implementing ordinance(s). The county review agency may either be: A county planning agency; or A county water resource association created under N.J.S.A. 58:16A-55.5, if the ordinance or resolution delegates authority to approve, conditionally approve, or disapprove municipal stormwater management plans and implementing ordinances. A person professionally qualified and duly licensed in New Jersey to perform engineering services that may include, but not necessarily be limited to, development of project requirements, creation and development of project design and preparation of drawings and specifications. DESIGN PERMEABILITY The tested permeability rate with a factor of safety of two applied to it (e.g., if the tested permeability rate of the soils is four inches per hour, the design rate would be two inches per hour). The change of or enlargement of any use or disturbance of any land, the performance of any building or mining operation, the division of land into two or more parcels, and the creation or termination of rights of access or riparian rights including, but not limited to: A change in type of use of a structure or land; A reconstruction, alteration of the size, or material change in the external appearance of a structure or land; A material increase in the intensity of use of land, such as an increase in the number of businesses, manufacturing establishments, offices or dwelling units in a structure or on land; Commencement of resource extraction or drilling or excavation on a parcel of land; Demolition of a structure or removal of trees; Commencement of forestry activities; Deposit of refuse, solid or liquid waste or fill on a parcel of land; In connection with the use of land, the making of any material change in noise levels, thermal conditions, or emissions of waste material; and Alteration, either physically or chemically, of a shore, bank, or floodplain, seacoast, river, stream, lake, pond, wetlands or artificial body of water. In the case of development on agricultural land, i.e., lands used for an agricultural use or purpose as defined at N.J.A.C. 7:50-2.11, "development" means any activity that requires a state permit; any activity reviewed by the County Agricultural Boards (CAB) and the State Agricultural Development Committee (SADC), and municipal review of any activity not exempted by the Right to Farm Act, N.J.S.A. 4:1C-1 et seq. DEVELOPMENT, MAJOR Any division of land into five or more lots; any construction or expansion of any housing development of five or more dwelling units; any construction or expansion of any commercial or industrial use or structure on a site of more than three acres; or any development, grading, clearing or disturbance of an area in excess of 5,000 square feet. "Disturbance" for the purpose of this section is the placement of impervious surface or exposure and/or movement of soil or bedrock or clearing, cutting or removing of vegetation. DEVELOPMENT, MINOR All development other than major development. DRAINAGE AREA A geographic area within which stormwater, sediments, or dissolved materials drain to a BMP, a stormwater management system, a particular receiving water body or a particular point along a receiving water body. The Planning Board, Zoning Board of Adjustment or other board, agency or official of Egg Harbor Township with authority to approve or disapprove subdivisions, site plans, construction permits, building permits or other applications for development approval. For the purposes of reviewing development applications and ensuring compliance with the requirements of this section, Egg Harbor Township may designate the municipal engineer or other qualified designee to act on behalf of Egg Harbor Township. ENVIRONMENTALLY CRITICAL AREA An area or feature which is of significant environmental value, including but not limited to stream corridors; natural heritage priority sites; habitats of endangered or threatened animal species; threatened or endangered plants of the Pinelands pursuant to N.J.A.C. 7:5-6.27(a); large areas of contiguous open space or upland forest; steep slopes; and wellhead protection and groundwater recharge areas. T & E habitat constitutes habitat that is critical for the survival of a local population of threatened and endangered species or habitat that is identified using the Department's Landscape Project as approved by the Department's Endangered and Nongame Species Program, whichever is more inclusive. Threatened and endangered wildlife shall be protected in conformance with N.J.A.C. 7:50-6.33. The detachment and movement of soil or rock fragments by water, wind, ice or gravity. The approval by the approving authority of a variance or other material departure from strict compliance with any section, part, phrase or provision of this section. An exception may be granted only under certain specific, narrowly defined conditions described herein and does not constitute a waiver of strict compliance with any section, part, phrase or provision of the Pinelands Comprehensive Management Plan (N.J.A.C. 7:50-1.1 et seq.). EXTENDED DETENTION BASIN A facility constructed through filling and/or excavation that provides temporary storage of stormwater runoff. It has an outlet structure that detains and attenuates runoff inflows and promotes the settlement of pollutants. An extended detention basin is normally designed as a multistage facility that provides runoff storage and attenuation for both stormwater quality and quantity management. The term "stormwater detention basin" shall have the same meaning as "extended detention basin." FINISHED GRADE The elevation of the surface of the ground after completion of final grading, either via cutting, filling or a combination thereof. Modification of a land slope by cutting and filling with the native soil or redistribution of the native soil which is present at the site. Water below the land surface in a zone of saturation. GROUNDWATER MOUNDING ANALYSIS A test performed to demonstrate that the groundwater below a stormwater infiltration basin will not "mound up," encroach on the unsaturated zone, break the surface of the ground at the infiltration area or downslope, and create an overland flow situation. See Vertical Design Constraints calculation.[5] Equipment, machinery, or vehicles that exert ground pressure in excess of eight pounds per square inch. HIGH POLLUTANT LOADING AREA An area in an industrial or commercial development site where solvents and/or petroleum products are loaded/unloaded, stored, or applied; where pesticides are loaded/unloaded or stored; where hazardous materials are expected to be present in greater than reportable quantities as defined by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) at 40 CFR 302.4; where recharge would be inconsistent with NJDEP-approved remedial action work plan or landfill closure plan; and/or where a high risk exists for spills of toxic materials, such as gas stations and vehicle maintenance facilities. The term "HPLA" shall have the same meaning as "high pollutant loading area." IMPERVIOUS SURFACE Any surface that has been compacted or covered with a layer of material so that it prevents, impedes or slows infiltration or absorption of fluid, including stormwater, directly into the ground, and results in either reduced groundwater recharge or increased stormwater runoff sufficient to be classified as impervious in urban areas by the United States Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service Title 210-Engineering, 210-3-1-Small Watershed Hydrology (WINTR-55) Version 1.0, as amended and supplemented. The process by which precipitation enters the soil through its surface. IN-LIEU CONTRIBUTION A monetary fee collected by Egg Harbor Township in lieu of requiring strict on-site compliance with the groundwater recharge, stormwater runoff quantity and/or stormwater runoff quality standards established in this section. To assemble, construct, put in place or connect components of a stormwater management system. Acts necessary to prevent, limit, remedy or compensate for conditions that may result from those cases where an applicant has demonstrated the inability or impracticality of strict compliance with the stormwater management requirements set forth in N.J.A.C. 7:8, in an adopted regional stormwater management plan, or in a local ordinance which is as protective as N.J.A.C. 7:8, and an exception from strict compliance is granted by Egg Harbor Township and the Pinelands Commission. NEW JERSEY STORMWATER BEST MANAGEMENT PRACTICES MANUAL Guidance developed by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, in coordination with the New Jersey Department of Agriculture, the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs, the New Jersey Department of Transportation, municipal engineers, county engineers, consulting firms, contractors, and environmental organizations to address the standards in the New Jersey Stormwater Management Rules, N.J.A.C. 7:8. The BMP Manual provides examples of ways to meet the standards contained in the rule. An applicant may demonstrate that other proposed management practices will also achieve the standards established in the rules. The Manual, and notices regarding future versions of the Manual, are available from the Division of Watershed Management, NJDEP, P.O.Box 418, Trenton, New Jersey 08625; and on the NJDEP's website, www.njstormwater.org. The term "New Jersey BMP Manual" shall have the same meaning as "New Jersey Stormwater Best Management Practices Manual." NJDEP The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. NJPDES The New Jersey Pollutant Discharge Elimination System as set forth in N.J.S.A. 58:10A-1 et seq. and in N.J.A.C. 7:14A. NJPDES PERMIT A permit issued by the NJDEP pursuant to the authority of the Water Pollution Control Act, N.J.S.A. 58:10A-1 et seq., and N.J.A.C. 7:14A for a discharge of pollutants. NONPOINT SOURCE Any human-made or human-induced activity, factor, or condition, other than a point source, from which pollutants are or may be discharged; Any human-made or human-induced activity, factor, or condition, other than a point source, that may temporarily or permanently change any chemical, physical, biological, or radiological characteristic of waters of the state from what was or is the natural, pristine condition of such waters, or that may increase the degree of such change; or Any activity, factor, or condition, other than a point source, that contributes or may contribute to water pollution. The term "NPS" shall have the same meaning as "nonpoint source." NONSTRUCTURAL BMP A stormwater management measure, strategy or combination of strategies that reduces adverse stormwater runoff impacts through sound site planning and design. Nonstructural BMPs include such practices as minimizing site disturbance, preserving important site features, reducing and disconnecting impervious cover, flattening slopes, utilizing native vegetation, minimizing turf grass lawns, maintaining natural drainage features and characteristics and controlling stormwater runoff and pollutants closer to the source. The term "low-impact development technique" shall have the same meaning as "nonstructural BMP." A chemical element or compound, such as nitrogen or phosphorus, which is essential to and promotes the development of organisms. The rate at which water moves through a saturated unit area of soil or rock material at hydraulic gradient of one, determined as prescribed in N.J.A.C. 7:9A-6.2 (Tube permeameter test), N.J.A.C. 7:9A-6.5 (Pit-bailing test) or N.J.A.C. 7:9A-6.6 (Piezometer test). Alternative permeability test procedures may be accepted by the approving authority provided the test procedure attains saturation of surrounding soils, accounts for hydraulic head effects on infiltration rates, provides a permeability rate with units expressed in inches per hour and is accompanied by a published source reference. Examples of suitable sources include hydrogeology, geotechnical, or engineering text and design manuals, proceedings of American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) symposia, or peer-review journals. Neither a soil permeability class rating test, as described in N.J.A.C. 7:9A-6.3, nor a percolation test, as described in N.J.A.C. 7:9A-6.4, are acceptable tests for establishing permeability values for the purpose of complying with this section. Having a permeability of one inch per hour or faster. The terms "permeable soil," "permeable rock" and "permeable fill" shall be construed accordingly. Any individual, corporation, company, partnership, firm, association, municipality or political subdivision of this state subject to municipal jurisdiction pursuant to the Municipal Land Use Law, N.J.S.A. 40:55D-1 et seq. PINELANDS COMMISSION or COMMISSION The Commission created pursuant § 5 of the Pinelands Protection Act, N.J.S.A. 13:18A-5. PINELANDS CMP The New Jersey Pinelands Comprehensive Management Plan (N.J.A.C. 7:50-1.1 et seq). Any discenible, confined, and discrete conveyance, including, but not limited to, any pipe, ditch, channel, tunnel, conduit, well, discrete fissure, container, rolling stock, concentrated animal feeding operation, landfill leachate collection system, vessel, or other floating craft, from which pollutants are or may be discharged. This term does not include return flows from irrigated agriculture. Any dredged spoil, solid waste, incinerator residue, filter backwash, sewage, garbage, refuse, oil, grease, sewage sludge, munitions, chemical wastes, biological materials, medical wastes, radioactive substances [except those regulated under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (42 U.S.C. 2011 et seq.)], thermal waste, wrecked or discarded equipment, rock, sand, suspended solids, cellar dirt, industrial, municipal, agricultural, and construction waste or runoff, or other residue discharged directly or indirectly to the land, groundwaters or surface waters of the state, or to a domestic treatment works. "Pollutant" includes both hazardous and nonhazardous pollutants. A person licensed to practice professional engineering in the State of New Jersey pursuant to N.J.S.A. 48:8-27 et seq. The amount of water from precipitation that infiltrates into the ground and is not evapotranspired. One of two or more soil samples or tests taken at the same location (within five feet of each other) and depth within the same soil horizon or substratum. In the case of fill material, replicate tests are tests performed on subsamples of the same bulk sample packed to the same bulk density. A particle size category consisting of mineral particles which are between 0.05 millimeter and 2.0 millimeters in equivalent spherical diameter. Also, a soil textural class having 85% or more of sand and a content of silt and clay such that the percentage of silt plus 1.5 times the percentage of clay does not exceed 15, as shown in § 94-44K(3)(a) (USDA Soil Textural Triangle). SEASONALLY HIGH WATER TABLE The upper limit of the shallowest zone of saturation which occurs in the soil, identified as prescribed in N.J.A.C. 7:9A-5.8. Solid material, mineral or organic, that is in suspension, is being transported, or has been moved from its site of origin by air, water or gravity as a product of erosion. The lot or lots upon which a major development is to occur or has occurred. All unconsolidated mineral and organic material of any origin which is not a rock substratum, including sediments below the biologically active and/or weathered zones. Any material(s) or machinery, located at an industrial facility, that is directly or indirectly related to process, manufacturing or other industrial activities, which could be a source of pollutants in any industrial stormwater discharge to groundwater. Source materials include, but are not limited to, raw materials; intermediate products; final products; waste materials; by-products; industrial machinery and fuels, and lubricants, solvents, and detergents that are related to process, manufacturing, or other industrial activities that are exposed to stormwater. Water resulting from precipitation (including rain and snow) that runs off the land's surface, is transmitted to the subsurface, or is captured by separate storm sewers or other sewage or drainage facilities, or conveyed by snow removal equipment. STORMWATER INFILTRATION BMP A basin or other facility constructed within permeable soils that provides temporary storage of stormwater runoff. An infiltration BMP does not normally have a structural outlet to discharge runoff from the stormwater quality design storm. Instead, outflow from an infiltration BMP is through the surrounding soil. The terms "infiltration measure" and "infiltration practice" shall have the same meaning as "stormwater infiltration basin." STORMWATER MANAGEMENT BASIN An excavation or embankment and related areas designed to retain stormwater runoff. A stormwater management basin may either be normally dry (that is detention basin or infiltration basin), retain water in a permanent pool (a retention basin), or be planted mainly with wetland vegetation (most constructed stormwater wetlands). STORMWATER MANAGEMENT MEASURE Any structural or nonstructural strategy, practice, technology, process, program, or other method intended to control or reduce stormwater runoff and associated pollutants, or to induce or control the infiltration or groundwater recharge of stormwater or to eliminate illicit or illegal nonstormwater discharges into stormwater conveyances. This includes, but is not limited to, structural and nonstructural stormwater best management practices described in the New Jersey BMP Manual and designed to meet the standards for stormwater control contained within this section. The terms "stormwater best management practice" and "stormwater BMP" shall have the same meaning as "stormwater management measure." STORMWATER RUNOFF Water flow on the surface of the ground or in storm sewers resulting from precipitation. SUITABLE SOIL Unsaturated soil, above the seasonally high water table, which contains less than 50% by volume of coarse fragments and which has a tested permeability rate of between one inch and 20 inches per hour. Any waters of the state which are not groundwater. TIDAL FLOOD HAZARD AREA A flood hazard area which may be influenced by stormwater runoff from inland areas, but which is primarily caused by the Atlantic Ocean. TIME OF CONCENTRATION The time it takes for runoff to travel from the hydraulically most distant point of the drainage area to the point of interest within a watershed. The insoluble solid matter suspended in water and stormwater that is separable by laboratory filtration in accordance with the procedure contained in the "Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater," prepared and published jointly by the American Public Health Association, American Water Works Association and the Water Pollution Control Federation. The term "TSS" shall have the same meaning as "total suspended solids." The ocean and its estuaries, all springs, streams and bodies of surface and groundwater, whether natural or artificial, within the boundaries of New Jersey or subject to its jurisdiction. The upper surface of a zone of saturation. A bored, drilled or driven shaft, or a dug hole, which extends below the seasonally high water table and which has a depth which is greater than its largest surface dimension. Those lands which are inundated or saturated by water at a magnitude, duration and frequency sufficient to support the growth of hydrophytes. Wetlands include lands with poorly drained or very poorly drained soils as designated by the National Cooperative Soils Survey of the Soil Conservation Service of the United States Department of Agriculture. Wetlands include coastal wetlands and inland wetlands, including submerged lands. The "New Jersey Pinelands Commission Manual for Identifying and Delineating Pinelands Area Wetlands: A Pinelands Supplement to the Federal Manual for Identifying and Delineating Jurisdictional Wetlands," dated January 1991, as amended, may be utilized in delineating the extent of wetlands based on the definitions of wetlands and wetlands soils contained in this section, N.J.A.C. 7:50-2.11, 7:50-6.4 and 7:50-6.5. The term "wetland" shall have the same meaning as "wetlands." WET POND A stormwater facility constructed through filling and/or excavation that provides both permanent and temporary storage of stormwater runoff. It has an outlet structure that creates a permanent pool and detains and attenuates runoff inflows and promotes the settling of pollutants. A stormwater retention basin can also be designed as a multistage facility that also provides extended detention for enhanced stormwater quality design storm treatment and runoff storage and attenuation for stormwater quantity management. The term "stormwater retention basin" shall have the same meaning as "wet pond." Editor's Note: See § 94-44E(2)(h)[3]. Violations and penalties. Any person who erects, constructs, alters, repairs, converts, maintains, or uses any building, structure or land in violation of this section shall be subject to the penalties contained in § 225-94. When effective. This section shall take effect immediately upon the following: Certification by the Pinelands Commission in accordance with N.J.A.C. 7:50, Subchapter 3; and Approval by the county review agency, or 60 days from the receipt of the ordinance by the county review agency if the county review agency should fail to act. Severability. If the provisions of any section, subsection, paragraph, subdivision, or clause of this section shall be judged invalid by a court of competent jurisdiction, such order of judgment shall not affect or invalidate the remainder of any section, subsection, paragraph, subdivision or clause of this section. Methods; calculations; procedures; strategies. Methods for calculating groundwater recharge: The New Jersey Geological Survey Report GSR-32: A Method for Evaluating Ground-Water Recharge Areas in New Jersey; available at http://www.njgeology.org/geodata/dgs99-2.htm. The New Jersey Groundwater Recharge Spreadsheet (NJGRS); available in the New Jersey BMP Manual, Chapter 6, at http://www.njstormwater.org/bmp_manual2.htm. NJDEP nonstructural strategies point system. The New Jersey Stormwater Management Rules at N.J.A.C. 7:8-5.2(a), and Subsection D(1) of this section, require nonstructural stormwater management strategies to be incorporated into the site design of a major development. A total of nine strategies are to be used to the maximum extent practical to meet the groundwater recharge, stormwater quality and stormwater quantity requirements of the rules prior to utilizing structural stormwater management measures. The New Jersey Nonstructural Stormwater Management Strategies Point System (NSPS) provides a tool to assist planners, designers and regulators in determining that the strategies have been used to the maximum extent practical at a major development as required by the rules. Refer to http://www.njstormwater.org for information on the NSPS. USDA Soil Textural Triangle. Source: US Department of Agriculture. Definitions. For the purposes of this Subsection K, the following terms shall have the meanings herein ascribed to them: A-HORIZON The uppermost mineral horizon in a normal soil profile. The upper part of the A-horizon is characterized by maximum accumulation of finely divided, dark-colored organic residues, known as "humus," which are intimately mixed with the mineral particles of the soil. ARTESIAN ZONE OF SATURATION A zone of saturation which exists immediately below a hydraulically restrictive horizon, and which has an upper surface which is at a pressure greater than atmospheric, either seasonally or throughout the year. The relative purity or strength of a color, a quantity which decreases with increasing grayness. Chroma is one of the three variables of soil color as defined in the Munsell system of classification. A particle size category consisting of mineral particles which are smaller than 0.002 millimeter in equivalent spherical diameter. Also, a soil textural class having more than 40% clay, less than 45% sand, and less than 40% silt, as shown in § 94-44K(3)(a) (USDA Soil Textural Triangle). CLAY LOAM A soil textural class having 27% to 40% clay and 20% to 45% sand, as shown in § 94-44K(3)(a) (USDA Soil Textural Triangle). COARSE FRAGMENT A rock fragment contained within the soil which is greater than two millimeters in equivalent spherical diameter or which is retained on a two-millimeter sieve. COUNTY SOIL SURVEY REPORT A report prepared by the US Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service, which includes maps showing the distribution of soil mapping units throughout a particular county together with narrative descriptions of the soil series shown and other information relating to the uses and properties of the various soil series. DIRECT SUPERVISION Control over and direction of work carried out by others with full knowledge of and responsibility for such work. EQUIVALENT SPHERICAL DIAMETER OF A PARTICLE The diameter of a sphere which has a volume equal to the volume of the particle. EXCESSIVELY COARSE HORIZON A horizon of limited thickness within the soil profile which provides inadequate removal of pollutants from stormwater due to a high coarse fragment content, excessively coarse texture and/or excessively rapid permeability. EXCESSIVELY COARSE SUBSTRATUM A substratum below the soil profile which extends beyond the depth of soil profile pits and borings and which provides inadequate removal of pollutants from stormwater due to a high coarse fragment content, excessively coarse texture and/or excessively rapid permeability. EXTREMELY FIRM CONSISTENCE A type of soil material whose moist aggregated mass crushes only under very strong pressure; cannot be crushed between the thumb and forefinger and shall be broken apart bit by bit. FIRM CONSISTENCE A type of soil material whose moist aggregated mass crushes under moderate pressure between the thumb and forefinger but resistance is distinctly noticeable. HARD CONSISTENCE A type of soil material whose dry aggregated mass is moderately resistant to pressure; can be broken in the hands without difficulty but is barely breakable between the thumb and forefinger. The dominant spectral color, one of the three variables of soil color defined within the Munsell system of classification. HYDRAULICALLY RESTRICTIVE HORIZON A horizon within the soil profile which slows or prevents the downward or lateral movement of water and which is underlain by permeable soil horizons or substrata. Any soil horizon which has a saturated permeability less than one inch per hour is hydraulically restrictive. HYDRAULICALLY RESTRICTIVE SUBSTRATUM A substratum below the soil profile which slows or prevents the downward or lateral movement of water and which extends beyond the depth of profile pits or borings or to a massive substratum. A substratum which has a saturated permeability less than one inch per hour is hydraulically restrictive. LOAMY SAND A soil textural class, as shown in § 94-44K(3)(a) (USDA Soil Textural Triangle), that has a maximum of 85% to 90% sand with a percentage of silt plus 1.5 times the percentage of clay not in excess of 15; or a minimum of 70% to 85% sand with a percentage of silt plus 1.5 times the percentage of clay not in excess of 30. LOWER PLASTIC LIMIT The moisture content corresponding to the transition between the plastic and semisolid states of soil consistency. This corresponds to the lowest soil moisture content at which the soil can be molded in the fingers to form a rod or wire, 1/8 inch in thickness, without crumbling. MOTTLING A color pattern observed in soil consisting of blotches or spots of contrasting color. The term "mottle" refers to an individual blotch or spot. The terms "color variegation," "iron depletion" and "iron concentration" are equivalent to the term "mottling." Mottling due to redoximorphic reactions is an indication of seasonal or periodic and recurrent saturation. MUNSELL SYSTEM A system of classifying soil color consisting of an alphanumeric designation for hue, value and chroma, such as "7.5 YR 6/2," together with a descriptive color name, such as "strong brown." O-HORIZON A surface horizon, occurring above the A-horizon in some soils, which is composed primarily of undecomposed or partially decomposed plant remains which have not been incorporated into the mineral soil. PERCHED ZONE OF SATURATION A zone of saturation which occurs immediately above a hydraulically restrictive horizon and which is underlain by permeable horizons or substrata which are not permanently or seasonally saturated. PIEZOMETER A device consisting of a length of metal or plastic pipe, open at the bottom or perforated within a specified interval, and used for the determination of depth to water, permeability or hydraulic head within a specific soil horizon or substratum. PLATY STRUCTURE Characterized by a soil aggregate which has one axis distinctly shorter than the other two and are oriented with the short axis vertical. REGIONAL ZONE OF SATURATION A zone of saturation which extends vertically without interruption below the depth of soil borings and profile pits. A soil textural class having 35% or more of clay and 45% or more of sand, as shown in § 94-44K(3)(a) (USDA Soil Textural Triangle). SANDY LOAM A soil textural class, as shown in § 94-44K(3)(a) (USDA Soil Textural Triangle), that has a maximum of 20% clay, and the percentage of silt plus twice the percentage of clay exceeds 30, and contains 52% or more sand; or less than 7% clay, less than 50% silt, and between 43% and 52% sand. A particle size category consisting of mineral particles which are between 0.002 millimeter and 0.05 millimeter in equivalent spherical diameter. It also means a soil textural class having 80% or more of silt and 12% or less of clay, as shown in § 94-44K(3)(a) (USDA Soil Textural Triangle). SILT LOAM A soil textural class having 50% or more of silt and 12% to 27% of clay; or 50% to 80% of silt and less than 12% of clay, as shown in § 94-44K(3)(a) (USDA Soil Textural Triangle). SILTY CLAY A soil textural class having 40% or more of clay and 40% or more of silt, as shown in § 94-44K(3)(a) (USDA Soil Textural Triangle). SILTY CLAY LOAM A soil textural class having 27% to 40% of clay and less than 20% of sand, as shown in § 94-44K(3)(a) (USDA Soil Textural Triangle). SOIL AGGREGATE A naturally occurring unit of soil structure consisting of particles of sand, silt, clay, organic matter, and coarse fragments held together by the natural cohesion of the soil. SOIL COLOR The soil color name and Munsell color designation determined by comparison of the moist soil with color chips contained in a Munsell soil color book. SOIL CONSISTENCE The resistance of a soil aggregate or clod to being crushed between the fingers or broken by the hands. Terms for describing soil consistence described are in N.J.A.C. 7:9A-5.3(h). SOIL HORIZON A layer within a soil profile differing from layers of soil above and below it in one or more of the soil morphological characteristics including color, texture, coarse fragment content, structure, consistence and mottling. SOIL LOG A description of the soil profile which includes the depth, thickness, color, texture, coarse fragment content, mottling, structure and consistence of each soil horizon or substratum. SOIL MAPPING UNIT An area outlined on a map in a county soil survey report and marked with a letter symbol designating a soil phase, a complex of two or more soil phases, or some other descriptive term where no soil type has been identified. SOIL PHASE A specific type of soil which is mapped by the Natural Resources Conservation Service and which belongs to a soil series described within the county soil survey report. SOIL PROFILE A vertical cross section of undisturbed soil showing the characteristic horizontal layers or horizons of the soil which have formed as a result of the combined effects of parent material, topography, climate, biological activity and time. SOIL SERIES A grouping of soil types possessing a specific range of soil profile characteristics which are described within the county soil survey report. Each soil series may consist of several soil phases which may differ in slope, texture of the surface horizon or stoniness. SOIL STRUCTURAL CLASS One of the shape classes of soil structure described in N.J.A.C. 7:9A-5.3(g). The naturally occurring arrangement, within a soil horizon, of sand, silt and clay particles, coarse fragments and organic matter, which are held together in clusters or aggregates of similar shape and size. SOIL TEST PIT An excavation made for the purpose of exposing a soil profile which is to be described. SOIL TEXTURAL CLASS One of the classes of soil texture defined within the USDA system of classification. (Soil Survey Manual, Agricultural Handbook No. 18, USDA Soil Conservation Service 1962.) The relative proportions of sand, silt and clay in that portion of the soil which passes through a sieve with two-millimeter openings. STATIC WATER LEVEL The depth below the ground surface or the elevation with respect to some reference level of the water level observed within a soil profile pit or boring, or within a piezometer, after this level has stabilized or become relatively constant with the passage of time. A layer of soil or rock material present below the soil profile and extending beyond the depth of soil borings or profile pits. UNSUITABLE SOIL All soil other than suitable soil. USDA SYSTEM OF CLASSIFICATION The system of classifying soil texture used by the United States Department of Agriculture which defines 12 soil textural classes based upon the weight percentages of sand, silt and clay in that portion of the soil which passes through a sieve with two-millimeter openings. The soil textural classes are shown graphically on the USDA Soil Textural Triangle, as shown in § 94-44K(3)(a). The relative lightness or intensity of a color, one of the three variables of soil color defined within the Munsell system of classification. VERY FIRM CONSISTENCE Characterized by a moist soil which crushes under strong pressure; barely crushable between thumb and forefinger. VERY HARD CONSISTENCE Characterized by a dry soil which is resistant to pressure, can be broken in the hands only with difficulty; not breakable between the thumb and forefinger. ZONE OF SATURATION A layer within or below the soil profile which is saturated with groundwater either seasonally or throughout the year. This includes both regional and perched zones. Methods for assessing soil suitability for infiltration stormwater management BMPs. The results of a subsurface investigation shall serve as the basis for the site selection and design of stormwater infiltration BMPs. The subsurface investigation shall include, but not be limited to, a series of soil test pits and soil permeability tests conducted in accordance with the following: All soil test pits and soil permeability results shall be performed under the direct supervision of a professional engineer. All soil logs and permeability test data shall be accompanied by a certification by a professional engineer. The results and location (horizontal and vertical) of all soil test pits and soil permeability tests, both passing and failing, shall be reported to Egg Harbor Township. During all subsurface investigations and soil test procedures, adequate safety measures shall be taken to prohibit unauthorized access to the excavations at all times. It is the responsibility of persons performing or witnessing subsurface investigations and soil permeability tests to comply with all applicable federal, state and local laws and regulations governing occupational safety. A minimum of two soil test pits shall be excavated within the footprint of any proposed infiltration BMP to determine the suitability and distribution of soil types present at the site. Placement of the test pits shall be within 20 feet of the basin perimeter, located along the longest axis bisecting the BMP. For BMPs larger than 10,000 square feet in area, a minimum of one additional soil test pit shall be conducted within each additional area of 10,000 square feet. The additional test pit(s) shall be placed approximately equidistant to other test pits, so as to provide adequate characterization of the subsurface material. In all cases, where soil and/or groundwater properties vary significantly, additional test pits shall be excavated in order to accurately characterize the subsurface conditions below the proposed infiltration BMP. Soil test pits shall extend to a minimum depth of eight feet below the lowest elevation of the basin bottom or to a depth that is at least two times the maximum potential water depth in the proposed infiltration BMP, whichever is greater. A soil test pit log shall be prepared for each soil test pit. The test pit log shall, at a minimum, provide the elevation of the existing ground surface, the depth and thickness (in inches) of each soil horizon or substratum, the dominant matrix or background and mottle colors using the Munsell system of classification for hue, value and chroma, the appropriate textural class as shown on the USDA Textural Triangle, the volume percentage of coarse fragments (larger than two millimeters in diameter), the abundance, size, and contrast of mottles, the soil structure, soil consistence, and soil moisture condition, using standard USDA classification terminology for each of these soil properties. Soil test pit logs shall identify the presence of any soil horizon, substratum or other feature that exhibits an in-place permeability rate less than one inch per hour. Each soil test pit log shall report the depth to seasonally high water level, either perched or regional, and the static water level based upon the presence of soil mottles or other redoximorphic features, and observed seepage or saturation. Where redoxomorphic features, including soil mottles resulting from soil saturation are present, they shall be interpreted to represent the depth to the seasonal high water table unless soil saturation or seepage is observed at a higher level. When the determination of the seasonally high water table shall be made in ground previously disturbed by excavation, direct observation of the static water table during the months of January through April shall be the only method permitted. Any soil horizon or substratum which exists immediately below a perched zone of saturation shall be deemed by rule to exhibit unacceptable permeability (less than one inch per hour). The perched zone of saturation may be observed directly, inferred based upon soil morphology, or confirmed by performance of a hydraulic head test as defined at N.J.A.C. 7:9A-5.9. Stormwater infiltration BMPs shall not be installed in soils that exhibit artesian groundwater conditions. A permeability test shall be conducted in all soils that immediately underlie a perched zone of saturation. Any zone of saturation which is present below a soil horizon which exhibits an in-place permeability of less than 0.2 inch per hour shall be considered an artesian zone of saturation unless a minimum one-foot-thick zone of unsaturated soil, free of mottling or other redoximorphic features and possessing a chroma of four or higher, exists immediately below the unsuitable soil. A minimum of one permeability test shall be performed at each soil test pit location. The soil permeability rate shall be determined using test methodology as prescribed in N.J.A.C. 7:9A-6.2 (Tube permeameter test), 7:9A-6.5 (Pit bailing test) or 7:9A-6.6 (Piezometer test). When the tube permeameter test is used, a minimum of two replicate samples shall be taken and tested. Alternative permeability test procedures may be accepted by the approving authority provided the test procedure attains saturation of surrounding soils, accounts for hydraulic head effects on infiltration rates, provides a permeability rate with units expressed in inches per hour and is accompanied by a published source reference. Examples of suitable sources include hydrogeology, geotechnical or engineering text and design manuals, proceedings of American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) symposia, or peer-review journals. Neither a soil permeability class rating test, as described in N.J.A.C. 7:9A-6.3, nor a percolation test, as described in N.J.A.C. 7:9A-6.4, are acceptable tests for establishing permeability values for the purpose of complying with this section. Soil permeability tests shall be conducted on the most hydraulically restrictive horizon or substratum to be left in place below the basin as follows. Where no soil replacement is proposed, the permeability tests shall be conducted on the most hydraulically restrictive horizon or substratum within four feet of the lowest elevation of the basin bottom or to a depth equal to two times the maximum potential water depth within the basin, whichever is greater. Where soil replacement is proposed, the permeability tests shall be conducted within the soil immediately below the depth of proposed soil replacement or within the most hydraulically restrictive horizon or substratum to a depth equal to two times the maximum potential water depth within the basin, whichever is greater. Permeability tests may be performed on the most hydraulically restrictive soil horizons or substrata at depths greater than those identified above based upon the discretion of the design or testing engineer. The tested infiltration rate should then be divided by two to establish the soil's design permeability rate. Such division will provide a one-hundred-percent safety factor to the tested rate. The minimum acceptable tested permeability rate of any soil horizon or substratum shall be one inch per hour. Soil materials that exhibit tested permeability rates slower than one inch per hour shall be considered unsuitable for stormwater infiltration. The maximum reportable tested permeability rate of any soil horizon or substratum shall be no greater than 20 inches per hour regardless of the rate attained in the test procedure. After all construction activities have been completed on the development site and the finished grade has been established in the infiltration BMP, a minimum of one permeability test shall be conducted within the most hydraulically restrictive soil horizon or substratum below the as-built BMP to ensure the performance of the infiltration BMP is as designed. Hand tools and manual permeability test procedures shall be used for the purpose of confirming BMP performance. In addition, the infiltration BMP shall be flooded with water sufficient to demonstrate the performance of the BMP. Test results shall be certified to the municipal engineer. A groundwater mounding analysis shall be provided for each stormwater infiltration BMP. The groundwater mounding analysis shall calculate the maximum height of the groundwater mound based upon the volume of the maximum design storm. The professional engineer conducting the analysis shall provide the municipal engineer with the methodology and supporting documentation for the mounding analysis used and shall certify to Egg Harbor Township, based upon the analysis, that the groundwater mound will not cause stormwater or groundwater to breakout to the land surface or cause adverse impact to adjacent surface water bodies, wetlands or subsurface structures including but not limited to basements and septic systems. If there is more than one infiltration BMP proposed, the model shall indicate if and how the mounds will interact. The mounding analysis shall be calculated using the most restrictive soil horizon that will remain in place within the explored aquifer thickness unless alternative analyses is authorized by the municipal engineer. The mounding analysis shall be accompanied by a cross section of the infiltration BMP and surrounding topography and the mound analysis shall extend out to the point(s) at which the mound intersects with the preexisting maximum water table elevation. The applicant shall demonstrate that stormwater infiltration BMPs meet the seventy-two-hour drain time requirement established in Subsection E(2)(a) of this section. Pretreatment measures for infiltration BMPs. By reducing incoming velocities and capturing coarser sediments, pretreatment can extend the functional life and increase the pollutant removal capability of infiltration measures. Therefore, the installation of pretreatment measures is recommended for all development sites. Pretreatment measures may include, but are not limited to, the following: Vegetative filter strips; Bioretention systems. Used in conjunction with a bioretention system, the infiltration basin takes the place of the standard underdrain; Sand filters; Grassed swales; and Detention basins. Collection and conveyance. Bicycle-safe inlet grates. Site development plans that incorporate site design features that help to prevent discharge of trash and debris from drainage systems shall comply with the following standard to control passage of solid and floatable materials through storm drain inlets. For purposes of this Subsection, "solid and floatable materials" means sediment, debris, trash, and other floating, suspended, or settleable solids. Design engineers shall use either of the following grates whenever they use a grate in pavement or another ground surface to collect stormwater from that surface into a storm drain or surface water body under that grate: The New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) bicycle safe grate, which is described in Chapter 2.4 of the NJDOT Bicycle Compatible Roadways and Bikeways Planning and Design Guidelines (April 1996); or A different grate, if each individual clear space in that grate has an area of no more than seven square inches, or is no greater than 0.5 inch across the smallest dimension. Examples of grates subject to this standard include grates in grate inlets, the grate portion (non-curb-opening portion) of combination inlets, grates on storm sewer manholes, ditch grates, trench grates, and grates of spacer bars in slotted drains. Examples of ground surfaces include surfaces of roads (including bridges), driveways, parking areas, bikeways, plazas, sidewalks, lawns, fields, open channels, and stormwater basin floors. Whenever design engineers use a curb-opening inlet, the clear space in that curb opening (or each individual clear space, if the curb opening has two or more clear spaces) shall have an area of no more than seven square inches, or be no greater than two inches across the smallest dimension. This standard does not apply: Where the review agency determines that this standard would cause inadequate hydraulic performance that could not practicably be overcome by using additional or larger storm drain inlets that meet these standards; Where flows from the water quality design storm as specified in § 94-44C are conveyed through any device (e.g., end-of-pipe netting facility, manufactured treatment device, or a catch basin hood) that is designed, at a minimum, to prevent delivery of all solid and floatable materials that could not pass through one of the following: A rectangular space four inches and 5/8 inches long and 1.5 inches wide (this option does not apply for outfall netting facilities); or A bar screen having a bar spacing of 0.5 inch. Where flows are conveyed through a trash rack that has parallel bars with one-inch spacing between the bars, to the elevation of the water quality design storm as specified in Subsection C of this section; or Where the NJDEP determines, pursuant to the New Jersey Register of Historic Places Rules at N.J.A.C. 7:4-7.2(c), that action to meet this standard is an undertaking that constitutes an encroachment or will damage or destroy the New Jersey Register-listed historic property. Catch basins. Catch basins are storm drain inlets with or without sumps. Catch basins may provide pretreatment for other stormwater BMPs by capturing large sediments. The sediment and pollutant removal efficiency of catch basins depends on the size of the sump and the performance of routine maintenance to retain the available sediment storage space in the sump. Where catch basins with sumps are proposed, the minimum two-feet separation between the bottom of the sump and seasonally high water table shall be provided. Open or perforated conveyance piping. Where adequate separation to the seasonal high water table exists, stormwater from the development site may be conveyed to a stormwater basin via a system of perforated pipes. These pipes may be made of PVC or corrugated metal and are available with perforations of varying size and spacing. Perforated pipe specifications shall be certified by a professional engineer. A professional engineer shall certify that perforated conveyance piping will not act to intercept the seasonal high water table and convey groundwater to the stormwater basin. All open or perforated stormwater conveyance systems shall be installed with a minimum separation of two feet from the seasonal high water table. Additional sources for technical guidance. NJDEP technical guidance sources: New Jersey BMP Manual; available from the Division of Watershed Management, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, P.O. Box 418, Trenton, New Jersey 08625; or online at http://www.njstormwater.org. NJDEP Stormwater Management Facilities Maintenance Manual; available from the Division of Watershed Management, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, P.O. Box 418, Trenton, New Jersey 08625; or online at http://njedl.rutgers.edu/ftp/PDFs/1188.pdf. Additional guidance sources: New Jersey Pinelands Commission, P.O. Box 7, 15 Springfield Road, New Lisbon, New Jersey 08064; phone: 609-894-7300; website: http://www.state.nj.us/pinelands. State Soil Conservation Committee Standards for Soil Erosion and Sediment Control in New Jersey; available from all State Soil Conservation District, including Burlington County Soil Conservation District, Tiffany Square, Suite 100, 1289 Route 38, Hainesport, New Jersey 08036; phone: 609-267-7410; fax 609-267-3347; website: http://bscd.org. State Soil Conservation Districts. New Jersey Department of Transportation, P.O. Box 600, Trenton, New Jersey 08625-0600; phone: 609-530-3536; website: http://www.state.nj.us/transportation. Every principal building to be constructed shall be built upon a lot with frontage directly upon an improved street as herein defined under § 94-24, Lots, which has been improved in accordance with the standards of this chapter or the improvement to which Township standards have been guaranteed by surety. All development shall be served by paved streets with an all-weather base and surfaced with an adequate crown. The arrangement of streets not shown on the Master Plan or Official Map as adopted by the Township shall, to the maximum extent practical, provide for the appropriate extension of existing streets and conform to existing topography. When a new development adjoins land capable of being developed, suitable provisions must be made for optimum access of the remaining and/or adjoining tract to existing or proposed streets. Local streets shall be planned to discourage through traffic. In all residential districts, development bounded by any arterial or collector street shall control access to said streets by having all driveways intersect minor streets. Where the size, shape, location or some other unique circumstance dictates no alternative than to have a driveway enter an arterial or collector, a turnaround area shall be provided on site to prevent the backing of any vehicle onto such street, and abutting lots must share a common access drive. No subdivision shall be approved showing reserved strips controlling access to streets or other areas, either developed or undeveloped, except where the control and disposal of land comprising such strips has been given to the governing body after recommendation by the Board. Additional land dedicated. In the event that a subdivision adjoins or includes existing municipal streets that do not conform to the widths as shown on the adopted Master Plan, Official Map or the street width requirements of this chapter, additional land along either or both sides of said street sufficient to conform to the right-of-way requirements shall be dedicated to the Township for the location, installation, repair and maintenance of streets, drainage facilities, utilities and other facilities and structures customarily located within street rights-of-way and shall be expressed on the final plat as follows: foot-wide strip of land dedicated to the Township of Egg Harbor for the purposes provided for and expressed in Chapter 198, Subdivision of Land and Site Plan Review, of the Code of the Township of Egg Harbor. This statement on an approved plat shall in no way reduce the subdivider's responsibility to provide, install, repair or maintain the facilities in the area dedicated by ordinance and/or as shown on the plat and/or as provided for by any maintenance or performance guaranties. In all developments, the minimum street right-of-way shall be measured from lot line to lot line and shall be in accordance with Table 1, but in no case shall a new street that is a continuation of an existing street be continued at a width less than the existing street although a greater width may be required in accordance with Table 1. Where any arterial or collector street intersects another arterial or collector street, the right-of-way and cartway requirements shall be increased by 10 feet on the right side of the street(s) approaching the intersection for a distance of 200 feet from the intersection of the center lines. [Amended 7-14-1993 by Ord. No. 30-1993; 6-8-1994 by Ord. No. 25-1994; 7-12-2000 by Ord. No. 7-2000; 2-4-2004 by Ord. No. 3-2004] Street Design Guidelines Design Item Local Street Collector Street Right-of-way width Pavement width Type of curb Belgian Block Vertical (curb type to be determined by the Planning Board) Sidewalk width Separation between curb and sidewalk Combination sidewalk/bicycle path width Minimum center line offset of adjacent intersection Local-local Local-collector Collector-arterial Minimum spacing along major traffic route Minimum sight distance Minimum center line radius of curves Superelevated Not superelevated Minimum tangent between adjacent curves Minimum curb return radius at intersections Minimum/maximum cul-de-sac (length) Minimum radius of right-of-way for cul-de-sac turnaround area 1Varies with terrain. The Township has classified certain existing streets as arterial, collector and connector roadways and established a corresponding right-of-way for each one. The minimum street right-of-way shall be measured from lot line to lot line and shall be in accordance with Table 2. Roadway Functional Classification System Road Name Terminal Points Ridge Avenue Black Horse Pike to Mill Road, CR 662 West Jersey Avenue Black Horse Pike to Hamilton Township Reega Avenue Hamilton Township to English Creek Avenue Black Horse Pike to Delilah Road, CR 646 Mill Road, CR 662 to Leap Street Leap Street Ocean Heights Avenue, CR Alt 559 to Delaware Avenue Delaware Avenue Mill Road, CR 662 to Old Zion Road Robert Best Road Zion Road, CR 615 to Steelmanville Road, CR 651 Fernwood Avenue Black Horse Pike to Main Street Tremont Avenue Delilah Road to Ivins Avenue Black Horse Pine to West Jersey Avenue Doughty Road Pleasantville to Westcoat Road, CR 685 Dogwood Avenue Hamilton Township to Tremont Avenue Ninth Avenue Tremont Avenue to Ridge Avenue Atlas Lane Road Hamilton Township to Sycamore Avenue Spruce Avenue Goldenrod Lane Black Horse Pike to Tilton Road Main Avenue to Delaware Avenue West Jersey Avenue to Delaware Avenue West Jersey Avenue to Mill Road, CR 662 Winnipeg Avenue Dogwood Avenue to Ocean Heights Ave, CR Alt 559 Alder Avenue Dogwood Avenue to Ocean Heights Avenue, CR Alt 559 The pavement width of streets and the quality of surfacing and base materials shall adhere to the minimum standards set forth by the Township, county or state engineers when said paving concerns roads under their jurisdiction and where such standards exist. Streets under the jurisdiction of the Township shall be designated with the following standards: The minimum requirements of any new street shall be according to the specifications and procedures as set forth in the New Jersey Department of Transportation Standard Specifications (1993) with addenda or the New Jersey Residential Site Improvement Standards. The minimum design requirements for local streets shall be as follows: Total asphalt thickness for all pavements shall be five inches; three inches of HMA base course mix 19M-64 to be laid and used as running surface until all settlement is complete, then brought to final grade with a two-inch hot mix asphalt surface course mix 9.5M-64 overlay and such additional material as shall be needed to repair and compensate for settlement. The minimum subbase shall be six inches of soil aggregate designation 1-5, recycled asphalt pavement (RAP), recycled concrete or other material as may be approved by the Board Engineer. The minimum design requirements for collector streets shall be as follows: Total asphalt thickness for all pavements shall be five inches; three inches of HMA base course mix 19M-64 to be laid and used as running surface until all settlement is complete, then brought to final grade with a two-inch hot mix asphalt surface course mix 9.5M-64 overlay and such additional material as shall be needed to repair and compensate for settlement. The minimum subbase shall be six inches of soil aggregate designation 1-5, recycled asphalt pavement (RAP), recycled concrete or other material as may be approved by the Board Engineer. Longitudinal grades on all streets shall not exceed 8% and shall be no less than 1/2 of 1%. The maximum grade of any new street approaching an intersection shall not exceed 2% within 100 feet of the middle of the intersection. A parabolic crown shall be provided on all roadways. Where the cartway is banked to facilitate a curve in the street alignment, the crown shall conform to accepted engineering design. All changes in grade where the algebraic difference in grade is 1% or greater shall be connected by a vertical curve having a length of at least 50 feet for each two-percent difference in grade or portion thereof. A tangent of at least 100 feet shall be introduced between reverse curves. Horizontal curves at all ninety-degree bends shall have a minimum radius of 100 feet along the inside curve line. Intersecting street center lines shall be as nearly at right angles as possible, and in no case shall they be less than 75º at the point of intersection. The curblines shall be parallel to the center line. Approaches to all intersections shall follow a straight line for at least 50 feet measured from the curbline of the intersecting street to the beginning of the curve. No more than two street center lines shall meet or intersect at any one point. Streets intersecting another street from opposite sides shall have at least 250 feet between the two street center lines. Intersections shall be rounded at the curbline with the street having the highest radius requirement as outlined below determining the minimum standard for all curblines: Arterials: 40 feet. Collectors: 35 feet. Local: 30 feet. Any development abutting an existing street classified as an arterial or collector shall be permitted only one new street connecting with the same side of the existing street, except that, where frontage is sufficient, more than one street may intersect the arterial or collector street, provided that the streets shall not intersect with the same side of the existing street at intervals of less than 1,300 feet. Cul-de-sacs of a permanent nature (where provision for future extension of the street to the boundary of the adjoining property is impractical or impossible) or of a temporary nature (where provisions is made for the future extension of the street to the boundary line of adjoining property) shall conform to the following standards: [Amended 7-14-1993 by Ord. No. 30-1993; 6-8-1994 by Ord. No. 25-1994] The length varies inversely with the density of development; however, in no case shall such length exceed 1,000 feet. A turnaround at the end with a curbline radius of 50 feet, plus a utility strip of 10 feet around the entire cul-de-sac. The center point for the radius shall be on the center line of the associated street or, if offset, offset to a point where the radius becomes tangent to one of the curblines of the associated street. The cul-de-sac must be designed to maintain a minimum grade of 1/2 of 1% around the curbline. If temporary, provisions shall be made by the developer for removal of the turnaround and reversion of the excess right-of-way to the adjoining properties when the street is extended. Cul-de-sacs shall not be used to provide access to more than 25 lots. No street shall have a name which will duplicate or so nearly duplicate the name of an existing street that confusion results. The continuation of an existing street shall have the same name. Curvilinear streets shall change their names only at street intersections. The Board shall reserve the right to approve the names of streets within a proposed development. The approval of the Planning Board or other Township agency of any map of land delineating streets shall in no way be construed as an acceptance of any street indicated thereon. In major developments, there should be at least two means of site ingress and egress to distribute traffic safely and ensure adequate access by emergency vehicles. Four-way stop intersections should be avoided. The street system of a subdivision shall be coordinated with existing, proposed and anticipated streets outside the subdivision or outside the portion of a single tract that is being divided into lots (surrounding streets) as provided in this section. Collector streets shall intersect with surrounding collector or arterial streets at safe and convenient locations. Local streets shall connect with surrounding streets where necessary to permit the convenient movement of traffic between residential neighborhoods or to facilitate access to neighborhoods by emergency service vehicles or for other sufficient reasons, but connections shall not be permitted where the effect would be to encourage the use of such streets by substantial through traffic. Whenever connections to anticipated or proposed surrounding streets are required by this section, the street right-of-way shall be extended and the street developed to the property line of the subdivided property (or to the edge of the remaining undeveloped portion of a single tract) at the point where the connection to the anticipated or proposed street is expected. In addition, the permit-issuing authority may require temporary turnarounds to be constructed at the end of such streets pending their extension when such turnarounds appear necessary to facilitate the flow of traffic or accommodate emergency vehicles. Notwithstanding the other provisions of this section, no temporary dead-end street in excess of 1,000 feet may be created unless no other practical alternative is available. Subcollector, local and minor residential streets shall be curved whenever practicable to the extent necessary to avoid conformity of lot appearance. Cul-de-sacs and loop streets are encouraged so that through traffic on residential streets is minimized. Similarly, to the extent practicable, driveway access to collector streets shall be minimized to facilitate the free flow of traffic and avoid traffic hazards. Half streets (i.e., streets of less than the full required right-of-way and pavement width) shall not be permitted except where such streets, when combined with a similar street (developed previously or simultaneously) on property adjacent to the subdivision, create or comprise a street that meets the right-of-way and pavement requirements of this chapter. Design and placement of traffic signs shall follow the requirements specified in the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways, published by the United States Department of Transportation and adopted by the New Jersey Department of Transportation and any addenda. At least two street name signs shall be placed at each four-way street intersection and one at each T-intersection. Signs shall be installed under light standards and free of visual obstruction. The design of street name signs should be consistent, of a style appropriate to the community, of a uniform size and color and erected in accordance with local standards. Stop and street name signs shall be required at all intersections involving bicycle paths. Site information signs in planned developments shall follow a design theme related and complementary to other elements of the overall site design. The subdivider shall provide and install one two-inch galvanized iron pipe, firmly set in concrete. The top of the pipe shall be 10 feet above final grade. Street signs and mounting brackets shall be provided by the Township. The subdivider shall submit a written request to the Superintendent of Public Works to provide the necessary street signs and shall allow 15 working days for preparation of the signs. All signs shall be installed to the satisfaction of the Township Engineer. Street furniture should be provided throughout the development and be located where demand requires. Street furniture shall be of good quality and be consistent with the surrounding environment. Such furniture may include phone booths, benches, mail and meter boxes, lighting standards, directional signs, fire hydrants, fences and walls, trash receptacles, bike racks, paving and steps and bus shelters. Bus shelters should be provided at major intersections, if necessary. Trash receptacles should be provided near recreation activities, bus shelters and places where people naturally congregate. Benches should be provided in areas of recreation and other waiting or resting areas. Summer shade and winter sun should be considered in their placement. A sign and street furniture plan must be submitted for review and approval as part of the development application. Streetlighting of a type and standard supplied by the utility company and a type and number approved by the Township shall be installed for safety at street intersections, along walkways, at entryways, between buildings and in parking areas as deemed necessary by the Township Planner and/or Engineer. Wherever this chapter requires the installation of electric utility installations underground, the developer shall provide for the installation of underground service for streetlighting. Lighting shall be provided in accordance with a plan designed by the utility company or using as a guideline the standards set forth in the IES Lighting Handbook and revisions. Every principal use and every lot within a subdivision must have available to it a telephone service cable adequate to accommodate the reasonable needs of such use and every lot within such subdivision. Compliance with this requirement shall be determined as follows: If the use is not a subdivision and is located on a lot that is served by an existing telephone line and the use can be served by a simple connection to such power line (as opposed to a more complex distribution system, such as would be required in an apartment complex or shopping center), then no further certification is necessary. If the use is a subdivision or is not located on a lot served by an existing telephone line or a substantial internal distribution system will be necessary, then the telephone utility company must review the proposed plans and certify to the Township that it can provide service that is adequate to meet the needs of the proposed use and every lot within the proposed subdivision. All electric power lines (not to include transformers or enclosures containing electrical equipment, including but not limited to switches, meters or capacitors which may be pad mounted), telephone, gas distribution and cable television lines in subdivisions constructed after the effective date of this chapter shall be placed underground in accordance with the specifications and policies of the respective utility service providers when practical. Utility and distribution lines located on or adjacent to active agricultural operations shall be exempt from this requirement. Whenever an unsubdivided development is hereafter constructed on a lot that is undeveloped on the effective date of this chapter, then all electric power, telephone, gas distribution and cable television lines installed to serve the development that are located on the development site outside of a previously existing public street right-of-way shall be placed underground in accordance with the specifications and policies of the respective utility companies. Where overhead lines are permitted as the exception, the placement and alignment of poles shall be designed to lessen the visual impact of these lines as follows: alignments and pole locations shall be carefully routed to avoid locations along horizons; clearing swaths through treed areas shall be avoided by selective cutting and a staggered alignment; trees shall be planted in open areas and at key locations to minimize the view of the poles and the alignments; and alignments shall follow rear lot lines and other alignments. Year-round screening with vegetation from adjacent uses in accordance with § 225-50.9 of Chapter 225 shall be required of any utility apparatus appearing above the surface of the ground, other than utility poles. Whenever it can reasonably be anticipated that utility facilities constructed in one development will be extended to serve other adjacent or nearby developments, such utility facilities (e.g., water or sewer lines) shall be located and constructed so that extensions can be made conveniently and without undue burden or expense or unnecessary duplication of service. All utility facilities shall be constructed in such a manner as to minimize interference with pedestrian or vehicular traffic and to facilitate maintenance without undue damage to improvements or facilities located within the development. All public services shall be connected to an approved public utilities system where one exists. Except as permitted under the provisions of Subsection B of this section, the developer shall arrange with the servicing utility for the underground installation of all utility distribution supply lines and service connections. The developer may be required to submit to the approving authority, prior to the granting of final approval, a written instrument from each serving utility which shall evidence full compliance or intended full compliance with the provisions of this section; provided, however, that lots which abut existing streets where overhead electric or telephone distribution supply lines and service connections have heretofore been installed may be supplied with electric and telephone service utilities overhead. In the case of existing overhead utilities, should a road widening or an extension of service or other such condition occur as a result of the development and necessitate the replacement, relocation or extension of overhead lines, such new facilities shall be installed underground as per § 94-53. Any installation under this section to be performed by a servicing utility shall be exempt from required performance guaranties. Public utility uses, such as water towers, pumping stations, electric substations, radio towers, transmission lines and switching stations, which must be provided aboveground, may be permitted as a conditional use in those zones specified, provided that the use and/or structures shall adhere to the minimum standards of the particular zone and the following: A statement is submitted setting forth the reasons that the proposed installation must be provided aboveground in a specific location and why it is necessary and convenient for the efficiency of the public utility system or for the satisfactory and convenient provision of service by the utility to the neighborhood or area in which the particular use is to be located. The design of any building in connection with such facility conforms to the general character of the area and will not adversely affect the safe and comfortable enjoyment of property rights of the zone in which it is located. Adequate and attractive fences and other safety devices will be provided. Sufficient landscaping, including shrubs, trees and lawn, are provided and will be regularly maintained. All electric transmission lines shall be located on existing towers or underground to the maximum extent practical. Water supply system. Subdivisions shall be connected to an existing public water system if public service is available within the following distances: Six hundred feet for three-unit developments. Eight hundred feet for four-unit developments. For developments of greater than 15 units which are within one mile of an existing public water system, adequate justification should be provided as to why they should not provide a connection to the existing public water system. For developments of greater than 15 units which are more than one mile from an existing system, the water supply strategy shall be determined on a case-by-case basis taking into consideration the density of the development, economic considerations and groundwater availability and quality. If a public water supply system will be provided to the area within a six-year period as indicated in the Township's Master Plan, Official Map or other official document, the Township may require installation of a capped system or dry lines (mains only) within the road right-of-way; or, alternatively, the Township may require a payment in lieu of the improvement. All proposals for new public community water supplies or extensions to existing public community water supply systems exceeding $150,000 in construction costs must receive a permit from the Bureau of Safe Drinking Water in the NJDEPE prior to the construction and use of the water supply facilities. All installations shall be properly connected with an approved and functioning public community water system, either regulated by the Board of Public Utilities or owned and operated by the Township or its utility authority, prior to the issuance of a certificate of occupancy. The developer shall arrange for the construction of water mains in such a manner as to make adequate water service available to each lot, dwelling unit or use within the development. The entire system shall be designed in accordance with the requirements and standards of the Township and/or state agency having approval authority and shall be subject to their approval. The system shall also be designed with adequate capacity and sustained pressure for present and probable future development needs. Where water distribution systems are installed outside streets, easements or rights-of-way shall be required. Every principal use and every lot within a subdivision shall be served by a water supply system that is adequate to accommodate the reasonable needs of such use or subdivision lot and that complies with all applicable health regulations. Primary responsibility for determining whether a proposed development will comply with the standards set forth in Subsection C often lies with an agency other than the Township, and the developer must comply with the detailed standards and specifications of such other agency. Whenever any such agency requires detailed construction or design drawings before giving its official approval to the proposed water supply system, the authority issuing a permit under this section may rely upon preliminary review by such agency of the basic design elements of the proposed water supply system to determine compliance with Subsection C. However, construction of any such system may not be commenced until the detailed plans and specifications have been reviewed and any appropriate permits issued by such agency. Capacity. The water supply system shall be adequate to handle the necessary flow based on complete development. The demand rates for all uses shall be considered in computing the total system demand. Where fire protection is provided, the system should be capable of providing the required fire demand plus the required domestic demand. Average daily residential consumption can be computed in accordance with the housing unit type and size data as derived from recognized standards. Nonresidential flows can be computed in accordance with recognized standards. Fire protection shall be furnished for any development connected to the municipally owned or centralized water supply system. Minimum fire flows shall be based on recommendations by the American Insurance Association and the National Board of Fire Underwriters. System design and placement. System design and placement shall comply with all applicable NJDEPE, American Water Works Association (AWWA) and municipal standards, with the strictest standards governing. Editor's Note: Former § 94-56, Wetlands, was repealed 2-24-1993 by Ord. No. 6-1993. The purpose of this section is to provide procedures and regulations for personal wireless telecommunications facilities to protect the Egg Harbor Township community from the visual or other adverse impacts of these facilities, while encouraging their unobtrusive development to provide the benefits of comprehensive wireless telecommunications services to the Egg Harbor Township community, its residents and businesses. The Township expresses a preference that antennas be located on existing buildings and towers, on municipal or other public property, rather than newly constructed telecommunications towers; and further encourages collocation and site sharing of new and existing PWTFs. As used in this section, the following terms shall be defined as indicated: A system of electrical conductors that transmit or receive radio frequency signals for wireless communications. ANTENNA SUPPORT STRUCTURE A structure other than a telecommunications tower which is attached to a building upon which one or more antennas are located. Use of a common PWTF or a common site by two or more wireless license holders or by one wireless license holder for more than one type of communications technology and/or placement of a PWTF on a structure owned or operated by a utility or other public entity. EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP COMMUNITY Included in the community is all area within the borders of the Township of Egg Harbor, in the County of Atlantic, State of New Jersey. PERSONAL WIRELESS TELECOMMUNICATIONS EQUIPMENT FACILITIES (PWTEFs) Accessory facilities serving and subordinate in area, extent and purpose to, and on the same lot as, a telecommunications tower or antenna location. Such facilities include, but are not limited to, transmission equipment, storage sheds, storage buildings, and security fencing. PERSONAL WIRELESS TELECOMMUNICATIONS FACILITIES (PWTFs) Facilities for the provision of wireless communications services, including, but not limited to, antennas, antenna support structure, telecommunications towers, and related facilities other than PWTEFs. TELECOMMUNICATIONS TOWER A freestanding structure on which one or more antennas are located, including lattice towers, guyed towers, monopoles and similar structures. Any personal wireless services as defined in the Federal Telecommunications Act of 1996 (FTA) which includes FCC licensed commercial wireless telecommunications services, including cellular, personal communication services (PCS), specialized mobile radio (SMR), enhanced specialized mobile radio (ESMR), paging, and similar services that currently exist or that may in the future be developed. It does not include any amateur radio facility that is owned and operated by a federally licensed amateur radio station operator or is used exclusively for receive-only antennas, nor does it include noncellular telephone service. Application. Applications shall be submitted to the appropriate land use board for new PWTFs, modification to existing PWTFs, and collocation on existing PWTFs or on existing buildings. Height standards. Where permitted, new PWTFs may be constructed to a maximum height of 120 feet above ground level. The maximum height of 150 feet above ground level shall be approved, provided the proposed installation of the PWTF is for the collocation of at least three other carriers on the PWTF. Any PWTF mounted on an existing building or structure shall not extend beyond the overall height of any such building or structure by more than 10 feet. PWTEFs are limited to 15 feet in height. Setback standards. All PWTF and PWTEF shall be subject to a minimum yard requirement of 1/2 the height of the PWTF or the minimum yard requirements of the zoning district in which it is located, whichever is greater. The appropriate land use board, where necessary to address safety concerns, may increase the minimum setback requirement. If PWTEFs are located on the roof of a building, the area of the PWTEFs and other equipment and structures shall not occupy more than 25% of the roof area. Pinelands Comprehensive Management Plan. All PWTF and PWTEF subject to the provisions herein which are located within the Pinelands Area shall comply with the standards of N.J.A.C. 7:50-5.4 of the Pinelands Comprehensive Management Plan and any comprehensive plan for such facilities approved by the Pinelands Commission in accordance with N.J.A.C. 7:50-5.4(c)6. Location priority. If needed in accordance with an overall comprehensive plan for the provision of full wireless communications service within the Egg Harbor Township community, PWTFs and PWTEFs shall be permitted at the following prioritized locations: The first priority location shall be on lands or structures in any nonresidential zone owned by Egg Harbor Township or government entities; The second priority location shall be on lands or structures in any nonresidential zone owned by the Egg Harbor Township Regional School District; The third priority location shall be collocation on existing PWTFs (or existing water tanks), provided that the new installation does not increase the height by more than 10 feet; and The fourth priority location shall be such locations as the applicant proves are essential to provide required service to the Egg Harbor Township community. Locations approved in the Pinelands Comprehensive Management Plan shall serve as evidence of the need for a PWTF in a general area but not as to the need for any specific site. Conditional use standards. All PWTF and PWTEF shall be located to minimize visual impacts on the surrounding area in accordance with the following standards. In applying these standards, locations in a higher priority category under § 94-57D shall be deemed more acceptable than lower priority sites. Sites for PWTFs and PWTEFs must demonstrate that they provide the least visual impact on residential areas and public rights-of-way. All potential visual impacts must be analyzed to demonstrate that the selected site provides the best opportunity to minimize the visual impact of the proposed facility. PWTEFs should be located to avoid being visually solitary or prominent when viewed from residential areas and the public right-of-way. The facility should be obscured by vegetation, tree cover, topographic features and/or other structures to the maximum extent feasible. PWTFs and PWTEFs shall be placed to ensure that existing viewscapes, streetscapes, and landscapes are protected. The views of and vistas from architecturally and/or significant structures should not be impaired or diminished by the placement of telecommunication facilities. Site design standards. The following design standards shall apply to PWTFs and PWTEFs installed or constructed pursuant to the terms of this section: Collocation. Ordinance limitation on the number and placement of structures on a lot (e.g., §§ 225-12 and 225-13 of the Township Code) shall not apply when PWTF and PWTEF are located on a lot with buildings or structures already on it. Fencing and other safety devices. PWTFs and PWTEFs shall be surrounded by a security fence. The security fence shall be chain link, eight feet in height and shall be topped with three strands of barbed wire placed at a forty-five-degree outward angle. All towers shall be designed with anti-climbing devices in order to prevent unauthorized access. Additional safety devices shall be permitted or required, as needed, and as approved by the Planning Board. Landscaping. Landscaping shall be provided along any side of the security fence that is adjacent to residential property. The landscaping shall consist of an evergreen hedge eight feet to 10 feet in height at planting time. Required front yard setback areas shall be landscaped with low-growing shrubs that will not impair the view of the security area by public safety personnel. Signs. Signs shall not be permitted except for signs displaying owner contact information, warnings, equipment information, and safety instructions. Such signs shall not exceed two square feet in area. No commercial advertising shall be permitted on any PWTF or PWTEF. Color. PWTFs shall be of a color appropriate to the tower's locational context and to make it as unobtrusive as possible, unless otherwise required by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Activity and access. All equipment shall be designed and automated to the greatest extent possible in order to reduce the need for on-site maintenance and thereby to minimize the need for vehicular trips to and from the site. Access shall be from established site access points whenever possible. Minimal off-street parking shall be permitted as needed and as approved by the Planning Board. Dish antennas. Dish antennas shall be colored, camouflaged or screened to make them as unobtrusive as possible, and in no case shall the diameter of a dish antenna exceed six feet. Any dish antenna installed to meet federal, state, county, or local government public safety requirements is exempt from this requirement. Lighting. No lighting is permitted except as follows: PWTEFs enclosing electronic equipment may have security and safety lighting at the entrance, provided that the light is attached to the facility, is focused downward and is on timing devices and/or sensors so that the light is turned off when not needed for safety or security purposes; and No lighting is permitted on a PWTF except lighting that specifically is required by the Federal Aviation Administration, and any such required lighting shall be focused and shielded to the greatest extent possible so as not to project towards adjacent and nearby properties. Monopole. Any proposed new telecommunications tower shall be a monopole unless the applicant can demonstrate that a different type pole is necessary for the collocation of additional antennas on the tower. Such towers may employ camouflage technology. Noise. No equipment shall be operated so as to produce noise in excess of the limits set by the local Noise Ordinance,[1] except for in emergency situations requiring the use of a backup generator. Editor's Note: See Ch. 158, Noise. Radio frequency emissions. The FTA gives the FCC sole jurisdiction of the field of regulation of radio frequency (RF) emission and PWTFs which meet the FCC standards shall not be conditioned or denied on the basis of RF impacts. Applicants shall provide current FCC information concerning PWTFs and radio frequency emission standards. PWTFs shall be required to provide information on the projected power density of the proposed facility and how this meets the FCC standards. Structural integrity. PWTFs must be constructed to the Electronic Industries Association/Telecommunications Industries Association 222 Revision F Standard (ANSI/TIA/EIA-222-F-96) entitled "Structural Standards for Steel Antenna Towers and Antenna Supporting Structures" (or equivalent), as it may be updated or amended. Maintenance. PWTFs shall be maintained to assure their continued structural integrity. The owner of the PWTF shall also perform such other maintenance of the structure and of the site as to assure that it does not create a visual nuisance. Collocation policy. The Municipal Engineer shall maintain an inventory of existing PWTF locations within or near the Egg Harbor Township community. An applicant proposing a PWTF at a new location as defined under § 94-57D shall first demonstrate that it made a reasonable attempt to find a collocation site acceptable to engineering standards and that none was practically or economically feasible. Each application for a PWTF shall be accompanied by a plan which shall reference all existing PWTF locations in the applicant's Egg Harbor Township community inventory, any such facilities in the abutting towns which provide service to areas within the Egg Harbor Township community and any changes proposed within the following twelve-month period, including plans for new locations and the discontinuance or relocation of existing facilities. Each application shall include a site location alternative analysis describing the location of other sites considered, the availability of those sites, the extent to which other sites do or do not meet the provider's service or engineering needs, and the reason why the subject site was chosen. The analysis shall address the following issues: How the proposed location of the PWTF relates to the objective of providing full wireless communications services within the Egg Harbor Township community at the time full service is provided by the applicant throughout the Egg Harbor Township community; How the proposed location of the proposed PWTF relates to the location of any existing antennas within and near the Egg Harbor Township community; How the proposed location of the proposed PWTF relates to the anticipated need for additional antennas within and near the Egg Harbor Township community by the applicant and by other providers of wireless communications services within the Egg Harbor Township community; How the proposed location of the proposed PWTF relates to the objective of collocating the antennas of many different providers of wireless communications services on the same PWTF; and How its plan specifically relates to and is coordinated with the needs of all other providers of wireless communications services within the Egg Harbor Township community. The appropriate land use board may retain technical consultants as it deems necessary to provide assistance in the review of the site location alternatives analysis. The applicant shall bear the reasonable cost associated with such consultation, which cost shall be deposited in accordance with Egg Harbor Township's escrow provisions. Abandonment or discontinued use of PWTFs. Abandonment. Any PWTF that is not operated for a continuous period of 12 months shall be considered abandoned. If there are two or more users of a single PWTF, then the abandonment shall not become effective until all users cease using the PWTF for a continuous period of 12 months. The owner of such PWTF shall remove same within 90 days of notice from the Zoning Officer that the PWTF is abandoned. If such PWTF is not removed within said 90 days, the municipality may remove such PWTF at the owner's expense. Discontinuance. In the event of discontinuance, if the facility is to be retained, the owner shall establish, in writing, to the Township that the facility will be reused within one year of such discontinuance. If a facility is not reused within one year, a demolition permit shall be obtained and the facility removed. At the discretion of the Zoning Officer, upon good cause shown, the one-year reuse period may be extended for a period not to exceed one additional year. Nonconforming PWTFs. PWTFs in existence on the date of the adoption of this section, which do not comply with the requirements of this section (nonconforming PWTFs) are subject to the following provisions. Nonconforming PWTFs may continue in use for the purpose now used, but may not be expanded without complying with this section. Nonconforming PWTFs which are partially damaged or destroyed due to any reason or cause may be repaired and restored to their former use, location and physical dimensions subject to obtaining a building permit therefor, but without otherwise complying with this section. If this destruction is greater than 50%, then repair or restoration will require compliance with this section. The owner of any nonconforming PWTF may repair, rebuild and/or upgrade (but not expand such PWTF or increase its height or reduce its setbacks) in order to improve the structural integrity of the facility, to allow the facility to accommodate collocated antennas or facilities, or to upgrade the facilities to current engineering, technological or communications standards, without having to conform to the provisions of this section. Additional site plan submission requirements. In addition to the applicable documentation and items of information required for site plan approval, the following additional documentation and items of information are required to be submitted to the land use board for review and approval as part of the site plan submission: Report, signed by a qualified expert, documenting the capacity of any proposed PWTF for the number and type of antennas; Report, signed by a qualified expert, documenting that any proposed PWTF will have sufficient structural integrity to support the proposed antennas and the anticipated future collocated antennas and that the structural standards developed for antennas by the Electronic Industries Association (EIA) and/or the Telecommunication Industry Association (TIA) have been met; A letter of intent by the applicant, in a form which is reviewed and approved by the Township Solicitor, indicating that the applicant will share the use of any PWTF with other approved providers of wireless communication services; and A visual impact study, graphically simulating through models, computer-enhanced graphics, or similar techniques, the appearance of any proposed tower and indicating its view from at least the five locations around and within one mile of the proposed PWTF where the PWTF will be most visible. Aerial photographs of the impact area shall also be submitted.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3208
__label__wiki	0.541769	0.541769	Written by Dan Williams on May 28, 2020 in Charred Timber Cladding, Shou Sugi Ban® An Education in Charred Timber Cladding Eton College has long been the learning establishment of choice for the sons of royal families. It has also educated many Prime Ministers. First opened in 1440 by Henry VI, it is an institution rich in heritage and tradition. Sports education plays an essential part in the curriculum, with The Wall, Rackets and Fives being offered alongside better-known games of Rugby, Tennis and Cricket. At the turn of this century, the sports pavilion was a pre-fabricated building, far beyond its life expectancy. As part of a programme of development to modernise the school’s facilities, plans for a new pavilion were devised. Willowbrook Pavilion Lewandowski Architects were selected to create a new, single-storey pavilion that was fitting of this prestigious school. The building would need to provide accessible changing facilities, storage for sports equipment and social spaces, with views for spectators. The original pavilion was out on a limb, so the project began with the selection of a new location next to the floodlit, all-weather pitches. Being close to the River Thames near Windsor, the architects devised a plan to elevate the building off the ground. The raised floor minimises the risk of flooding. This was a practical consideration, yet the aesthetic effect gives a sense that the building is floating. Finished with Shou Sugi Ban® Charred Timber Cladding The Willowbrook Outdoor Sports Centre is carefully positioned to give broad views across the sports facilities. This is enhanced by floor to ceiling glazed screens, which open up to connect the inside and out. The 290sqm building is finished with Shou Sugi Ban®, dark charred timber cladding, supplied by Exterior Solutions Ltd. The charred timbers provide a contemporary finish, which blends into the surrounding trees and landscape. It is also a low-maintenance cladding solution, as the charring process helps to protect and preserve the timber. The exterior theme continues inside, with birch ply interior cladding and black accessories. Whilst being stunning to look at, the building is a practical, accessible, hardwearing and durable design. With a Community Use Agreement in place, the timber-clad pavilion is also available to hire. Many spectators have already visited the roof terrace and clubhouse to cheer on their team. “We are delighted with the quality of the design and the development has made a substantial addition to the College’s facilities” – Ian Mellor, Buildings & Facilities Director, Eton College Regeneration of Bishop Stortford College At another Independent school, Shou Sugi Ban® charred timber cladding is the material of choice for an extensive regeneration project. Founded in 1868, when an existing school was acquired, Bishop Stortford College has some fantastic architecture. It includes Art and Craft buildings designed by former pupil Herbert Ibberstone and a Georgian Colonial Hall. This was the vision of Clough William Ellis, who was made famous by the creation of Portmeirion. Whilst part of the school’s history, many of the heritage buildings required modernisation to ensure they could meet the needs of current and future students. Hawkins/Brown Architects were selected to work on this extensive project. One of the buildings to receive an upgrade was Wynch Cottage, an Arts & Crafts style property. The historic building was retained and refurbished, with a contemporary extension being added to create bright, multi-purpose spaces. Hawkins/Brown decided that the best way to blend the extension into the existing building was to use Shou Sugi Ban®. This high-quality charred timber cladding is a sustainable, low maintenance material that delivers a contemporary, yet sensitive finish. As such, it met the requirements of the brief. Charred timber cladding, coupled with red brick, is the theme that has been carried through the other buildings in the wider renovation project. This helps to create a sense of cohesion and blends the buildings into their surroundings. The quality of the design, build and finish has resulted in the Bishop Stortford College being shortlisted for the RIBA East Awards in 2017 for Wynch Cottage and again 2019 for the College Boarding Houses. Leading Suppliers of Charred Timber Cladding As holders of the Shou Sugi Ban® trademark, Exterior Solutions Ltd is committed to delivering the highest quality charred timber cladding to architects and building developers. Our experienced workshop team have learnt the traditional Japanese art of yakisugi. Each plank of timber undergoes the controlled finishing process on-site. If charred timber cladding meets the requirements of your client’s brief, you can download a Shou Sugi Ban® catalogue from our website. Please contact Exterior Solutions Ltd on 01494 711800 to request samples of our treated timbers or a quote. Leading the way with building supplies Charred Accoya® Charred cedar timber Charred Kebony Charred Timber Cladding Hardwood Cladding Kebony Koshikijima Larch Charred Light Brush Magnet Decking MEDITE TRICOYA EXTREME Millboard Project Evolution Yakisugi Yūkari	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3209
__label__cc	0.727508	0.272492	You are here:Dorset Council > … > Family Information Service > Family Information Directory > Finance/legal Search Results Main Directory CategoriesAdvice and supportFinance/legal Beaminster (2) Ferndown (1) Upton, Poole (1) Grants4 is a new and innovative service that enables local organisations such as community and voluntary groups, social enterprises, local partnerships and local businesses to search for and identify relevant grant funding sources. info@grantsonline.org.uk 26 Eastworth Road, Verwood, Dorset, BH31 7PJ Turn2us is a free service that helps people in financial need to access welfare benefits, charitable grants and other financial help – online, by phone and face to face through our partner organisations. Our website can help you find financial support, quickly and easily, based… www.turn2us.org.uk Ipsea - Independent Parental Special Education Advice Independent Parental Special Education Advice (known as IPSEA) is a registered charity operating in England. IPSEA offers free and independent legally based information, advice and support to help get the right education for children and young people with all kinds of special educational needs and… www.ipsea.org.uk 24-26 Gold Street, Saffron Walden, Essex, CB10 1EJ Beaminster Citizens Advice The Beaminster Citizens Advice offers free confidential, impartial advice on debt, consumer issues, benefits, housing, legal matters, employment and immigration and further information for families including education, health and relationships.. Beaminster advice@bridport-cab.org.uk www.citizensadvice.org.uk/ The Yarn Barton Centre, Beaminster, Dorset, DT8 3DR Skills Funding Agency We fund skills training for further education (FE) in England. We support over 1,000 colleges, private training organisations, and employers with more than £4 billion of funding each year. SFA is an executive agency of the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills. info@sfa.bis.gov.uk www.gov.uk/.../skills-funding-agency Cheylesmore House Quinton Road, Coventry, CV1 2WT Dorset Macmillan Citizens Advice Service Providing welfare benefits advice across Dorset to all people affected by cancer (patients, carers and family). macmillan@dorchester.cabnet.org.uk www.macmillan.org.uk Dorchester & District Citizens Advice 1 Acland Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1JW Weymouth And Portland Citizens Advice Weymouth & Portland Citizens Advice offers free, confidential, impartial and independent advice on debt, consumer issues, benefits, housing, legal matters, employment & immigration and further information for families including education, health and relationships. Citizens Advice 2 Mulberry Terrace, Great George Street, Weymouth, Dorset, DT4 8NQ Care To Learn Scheme The Care to Learn scheme can help with childcare costs while you study. To qualify you must be aged under 20 years at the start of your course. The scheme is available for publicly-funded courses in England. This includes courses in: Schools, 6th forms in… c2l@efalearnersupport.co.uk www.gov.uk/.../care-to-learn Freepost RSHC-XEXS-TGXE Learner Support Service, Darlington, DL1 4WD The Pitt-Rivers Charitable Trust Eligibility: People who live in rural Dorset and North Dorset in particular who are in need, for example due to hardship, disability or sickness. Exclusions: Type of grants One-off grants, ranging from £100 and £1,000. Applications In writing to the correspondent. Applications can be submitted… GA Pitt-Rivers Hinton St Mary Estate Office, Sturminster Newton, Dorset, DT10 1NA Wyvern Savings And Loans We are the co-operative savings and loans organisation for Dorset and Somerset, a community based organisation staffed by local volunteers. We provide our members with a safe and ethical place to save up to £15,000. We can offer loans from £50 to £7,500 depending on… admin@wyvernsandl.co.uk www.wyvernsandl.co.uk/ Wyvern Savings and Loans 40 High East Street, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1HN	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3215
__label__wiki	0.97437	0.97437	GRACE POTTER SHARES CATHARTIC NEW MUSIC VIDEO FOR “RELEASE” Acclaimed singer-songwriter Grace Potter has shared the brand-new official music video for the arresting piano ballad “Release.” Directed by Catherine Fordham, the striking, impassioned clip finds Grace unbinding herself from the past and stepping into a brighter future. Co-written by Grace and the late Mike Busbee, “Release” is the new single from her latest album, Daylight, which is nominated for Best Rock Album and Best Rock Performance at the upcoming 63rd GRAMMY Awards. Watch the official music video for “Release” below or see it on YouTube HERE Listen to/purchase Daylight HERE Grace Potter on the meaning of “Release”: “I wrote ‘Release’ about letting go of grief & pain in order to forge a better way forward. It’s the most personal song I have ever written – but since I wrote it, it’s taken on a far more powerful meaning. Everything changed this past year and never has a song felt more relevant or connected to the human experience as it does in this moment. We are all ready to heal. We’re all ready for a little release.” Produced by Eric Valentine, the emotionally raw Daylight is a resilient rollercoaster of sparkling songwriting and unforgettable performances — a commanding, career-defining statement of power and purpose. The album was released in October of 2019 to wide acclaim by both fans and critics alike. The twin GRAMMY nominations are the second and third of Grace’s career. The 63rd GRAMMY Awards will be broadcast on CBS on Sunday, March 14th, 2021 at 8pm ET / 5pm PT. Photo credit: Pamela Neal Daylight Grace Potter grammy official music video release CAUSES WE PROUDLY SUPPORTFARM AIDNATHANIEL RATELIFF & THE MARIGOLD PROJECTVALERIE JUNE & MIGHTY WRITERSLUKAS NELSON & AMERICAN WILD HORSE CAMPAIGN ©2020 Fantasy Records. All rights reserved. Click to read our Privacy Policy. \| Terms of Use	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3219
__label__cc	0.693756	0.306244	New Order’s Blue Monday: Was it inspired by Kurt Vonnegut? An artist’s step by step guide to Instagram marketing Musicians, actors, models, poets, and television personalities all belong to that club of people collectively called artists. All of them without exception, thrive on that one word, ‘recognition’. In their world, you are a nobody if you are not recognized. An artist needs recognition from fans, from promoters, and from the world at large. Granted, one needs to have talent, to have skill, to be creative in order to make headway in their endeavors. However, ability alone is not enough. Moreso, in this modern world of cutthroat competition. An artist now more than ever needs to promote themselves to the outside world. To make themselves known. Tell the world what they have to offer. Tell the world why they think they are the best in the field. One great way of doing this is to buy Instagram accounts. In short, artists need to market themselves. Now two decades into the twenty-first century, there is a marketing tool all waiting and ready for anyone smart enough to recognize its immense potential. That marketing tool is social media. This article focuses on one particular platform of social media, Instagram. How can artists use it? What steps should artists take to make effective use of the Instagram platform to market themselves? That’s the logical first step. Whether you are a musician wishing to promote your music and connect with anyone around the world, or an actor wishing to impress producers, or a poet trying to catch the ear of a publisher, you need Instagram. To use Instagram, it is important that you open or create a business account. If one holds a personal account it is a simple matter of switching to a business account by adding special features like direct touch buttons. A clear concise bio The bio is letting your audience know who you are, and where you are going. So the language used should be interesting. The bio is telling the world and your fans a story about your unique talents. Know your fanbase Your fanbase is your audience. You want to know who this is before you start posting content. It is a waste of time and effort to just post randomly on your site. If you are a musician for example, identify the age group, sex, and the habits of the people who are likely to listen to the music you play. Jazz, reggae, soul, or rap music appeal to different age groups. There are different age groups active on Instagram on different days of the week and at different times of the day. If you are an aspiring poet, you want to know the likely age of publishers. If you are an aspiring actress, you want to know the habits of theater directors, casting directors, and so on Posting the content When it comes to posting the content, different categories of artists will of necessity have to do things differently. Below are guidelines different artists could follow; Actors and aspiring actors post different content. They are not trying to catch the eye of fans, as musicians do, but they want to catch the eye of casting directors, theatre directors, and established actors who might take notice and recommend them. This is not to say an actress should completely ignore her fanbase. Movie houses are interested in actors following because it is those fans who will pay to watch the films the actor or actress features on. A musician has to know the audience from which the fanbase is. A Jazz musician targets the older people whilst a hip hop artist targets the youth. The two different age groups are active on Instagram on different days and at different times. The artist should know all this information. Careful thought should go into the actual content. Instagram is primarily a visual medium. It uses videos and photos with captions. Good videos can be shot with a cellphone handset. Videos can be of a live performance, rehearsals or the artists talking about themselves. The musician could shoot short videos giving lessons on how to play instruments, or explaining the meaning of lyrics, or explaining how they got the inspiration to compose a particular song. They could even display how they set up their gear. It’s important for the aspiring musician to engage and communicate with fans. Ask the fans about their comments and opinions. Learn their interests, know and understand what they like and not dislike. This provides a guiding handle on the future route the musician can take. The emails from fans should always be replied to. Learn how to email fans and to reply to their queries. This creates a family of followers. When posting photos, make sure they are appropriate to the genre you play. A Jazz player wearing jeans? No ways! And the captions accompanying the photos have to be original and captivating. Instagram marketing for artists is therefore not as hard as one might think. Why not try Accfarm, a perfect place to buy social media accounts. This will help boost your marketing strategy. Instagrammarketingsocial media See her ad prices: How much does Selena Gomez make from Instagram? Is Kim Kardashian divorced? Her latest Instagram pic raises questions Step By Step Guide On Writing An Essay On The Film Modern marketing for your small project Kim Kardashian on her latest Instagram drama How much do Instagram influencers really make per post?	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3222
__label__cc	0.708709	0.291291	ON, Canada: 2020 Mumps - cases in London Source: https://london.ctvnews.ca/mumps-case...nder-1.4838400 Mumps cases tied to downtown London prompt vaccine reminder Amanda Taccone Web Producer Published Wednesday, March 4, 2020 11:47AM EST LONDON, ONT. -- London residents are being urged to check their immunizations after multiple mumps cases have surfaced connected to downtown bars. So far, the Middlesex-London Health Unit (MLHU) says two cases have been identified among people who visited bars in the city's core. Dr. Alex Summers, associate medical officer of health with the MLHU, said in a media release, “We want to get the word out to people who may have headed downtown to enjoy the nightlife recently, that they may have been exposed to the mumps virus unknowingly."...	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3227
__label__wiki	0.629012	0.629012	Use of starter cultures of lactic acid bacteria and yeasts as inoculum enrichment for the production of gowé, a sour beverage from Benin Use of starter cultures of lactic acid bacteria and yeasts as inoculum enrichment for the production of gowé, a sour beverage from Benin. / Vieira-Dalodé, G.; Madodé, Y.E.; Hounhouigan, J.; Jespersen, Lene; Jakobsen, Mogens. In: African Journal of Microbiology Research, Vol. 2, No. 7, 2008, p. 179-186. Vieira-Dalodé, G, Madodé, YE, Hounhouigan, J, Jespersen, L & Jakobsen, M 2008, 'Use of starter cultures of lactic acid bacteria and yeasts as inoculum enrichment for the production of gowé, a sour beverage from Benin', African Journal of Microbiology Research, vol. 2, no. 7, pp. 179-186. Vieira-Dalodé, G., Madodé, Y. E., Hounhouigan, J., Jespersen, L., & Jakobsen, M. (2008). Use of starter cultures of lactic acid bacteria and yeasts as inoculum enrichment for the production of gowé, a sour beverage from Benin. African Journal of Microbiology Research, 2(7), 179-186. Vieira-Dalodé G, Madodé YE, Hounhouigan J, Jespersen L, Jakobsen M. Use of starter cultures of lactic acid bacteria and yeasts as inoculum enrichment for the production of gowé, a sour beverage from Benin. African Journal of Microbiology Research. 2008;2(7):179-186. Vieira-Dalodé, G. ; Madodé, Y.E. ; Hounhouigan, J. ; Jespersen, Lene ; Jakobsen, Mogens. / Use of starter cultures of lactic acid bacteria and yeasts as inoculum enrichment for the production of gowé, a sour beverage from Benin. In: African Journal of Microbiology Research. 2008 ; Vol. 2, No. 7. pp. 179-186. @article{60dd1240ca9d11dd9473000ea68e967b, title = "Use of starter cultures of lactic acid bacteria and yeasts as inoculum enrichment for the production of gow{\'e}, a sour beverage from Benin", abstract = "Lactobacillus fermentum, Weissella confusa, Kluyveromyces marxianus and Pichia anomala, previously isolated during natural fermentation of traditional gow{\'e}, were tested as inoculum enrichment for controlled fermentation of gow{\'e}. The final product was subjected to chemical analysis and sensory evaluation. Growth of the lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and yeasts were verified by determination of colony forming units (CFU) and molecular biology techniques. A significant decrease in pH from 6.1 to 3.3, with a concomitant increase in titratable acidity (11 to 60 g/kg as lactic acid, dry weight), was observed after 24 h of fermentation when LAB was used either alone or in combination with yeasts. The LAB count increased significantly from 6.1 to 9.4 log CFU/ml, while the yeast count remained constant throughout fermentation. Repetitive-polymerase chain reaction (rep-PCR) assays performed on isolates during the fermentation confirmed the dominance of the added LAB strains. Sensory evaluation revealed that the product fermented for 7 h with L. fermentum alone or in combination with K. marxianus was as acceptable as the traditional product normally obtained after a minimum of 24 h of fermentation. Consequently, gow{\'e} can be obtained by controlled fermentation, using L. fermentum as inoculum enrichment, in a small scale industry. ", author = "G. Vieira-Dalod{\'e} and Y.E. Madod{\'e} and J. Hounhouigan and Lene Jespersen and Mogens Jakobsen", journal = "African Journal of Microbiology Research", publisher = "Academic Journals", T1 - Use of starter cultures of lactic acid bacteria and yeasts as inoculum enrichment for the production of gowé, a sour beverage from Benin AU - Vieira-Dalodé, G. AU - Madodé, Y.E. AU - Hounhouigan, J. AU - Jespersen, Lene AU - Jakobsen, Mogens N2 - Lactobacillus fermentum, Weissella confusa, Kluyveromyces marxianus and Pichia anomala, previously isolated during natural fermentation of traditional gowé, were tested as inoculum enrichment for controlled fermentation of gowé. The final product was subjected to chemical analysis and sensory evaluation. Growth of the lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and yeasts were verified by determination of colony forming units (CFU) and molecular biology techniques. A significant decrease in pH from 6.1 to 3.3, with a concomitant increase in titratable acidity (11 to 60 g/kg as lactic acid, dry weight), was observed after 24 h of fermentation when LAB was used either alone or in combination with yeasts. The LAB count increased significantly from 6.1 to 9.4 log CFU/ml, while the yeast count remained constant throughout fermentation. Repetitive-polymerase chain reaction (rep-PCR) assays performed on isolates during the fermentation confirmed the dominance of the added LAB strains. Sensory evaluation revealed that the product fermented for 7 h with L. fermentum alone or in combination with K. marxianus was as acceptable as the traditional product normally obtained after a minimum of 24 h of fermentation. Consequently, gowé can be obtained by controlled fermentation, using L. fermentum as inoculum enrichment, in a small scale industry. AB - Lactobacillus fermentum, Weissella confusa, Kluyveromyces marxianus and Pichia anomala, previously isolated during natural fermentation of traditional gowé, were tested as inoculum enrichment for controlled fermentation of gowé. The final product was subjected to chemical analysis and sensory evaluation. Growth of the lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and yeasts were verified by determination of colony forming units (CFU) and molecular biology techniques. A significant decrease in pH from 6.1 to 3.3, with a concomitant increase in titratable acidity (11 to 60 g/kg as lactic acid, dry weight), was observed after 24 h of fermentation when LAB was used either alone or in combination with yeasts. The LAB count increased significantly from 6.1 to 9.4 log CFU/ml, while the yeast count remained constant throughout fermentation. Repetitive-polymerase chain reaction (rep-PCR) assays performed on isolates during the fermentation confirmed the dominance of the added LAB strains. Sensory evaluation revealed that the product fermented for 7 h with L. fermentum alone or in combination with K. marxianus was as acceptable as the traditional product normally obtained after a minimum of 24 h of fermentation. Consequently, gowé can be obtained by controlled fermentation, using L. fermentum as inoculum enrichment, in a small scale industry. JO - African Journal of Microbiology Research JF - African Journal of Microbiology Research	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3228
__label__wiki	0.664669	0.664669	Kyleran Member LegendaryPosts: 37,004 DMKano said: k61977 said: The word niche does not mean anything bad at all. Too many people are attaching subjective views to the word. It means it will cater to a specific playstyle which is what the devs have set out to do from day one. That is how you get a better game, by not trying to do this one game that does everything for everyone. Wish more devs would realize this and stop trying to make games that make everyone happy while not making a good one at anything. Oh but in terms of wanting to have a game that sells millions of copies (which I know that Pantheon is not aiming for) - but many MMOs are Niche does mean something bad: "denoting or relating to products, services, or interests that appeal to a small, specialized section of the population." "small" - that's the bad part Well, you did locate and stop looking once you found a definition which included the word small. In fact you seem to have located the only dictionary (unsourced, Google's? ) which uses small instead of "specific" So niches are specific, but can be quite large. It could be argued even WOW appeals to a specific niche, albeit quite a large one. Merriam/Webster " the situation in which a business's products or services can succeed by being sold to a particular kind or group of people" pertaining to or intended for a market niche; having specific appeal (business) an opportunity to sell a particular product to a particular group of peopleThey spotted a niche in the market, with no serious competition.a niche marketthe development of niche marketing (still no reference to small) YourDictionary.Com The definition of a niche is a specialized part of a market for products or services or a little separated area in a room. An example of a niche is a market for beagle products, which is a niche in the market of dog products as a whole. Or the Paragon of definition, Urban Dictionary 2. An area of the market specializing in one type of product or service "See normal people, I'm not one of them" \| G-Easy & Big Sean "I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing FO76 at the moment. Fools find no pleasure in understanding, but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™ "This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon k61977 Member RarePosts: 1,336 In your view if a game is stable and doing great with it's niche it is a bad thing because it is small. Small does not equal bad if you were not promoting larger than life. If a developer is being realistic with their design and expectations a small game can outshine the larger than life failures that are produced every year. A small game that runs for years is a hell of a lot better than a large failure that only runs for a couple years and is shut down. A game designed from the beginning to be a niche is already ahead of the game. It knows what it's player base is most likely and will design the game around that itself and end up a huge success. If the game is also a great game and gets a good rep that niche could turn into something larger and end up pulling in more than a large failure. Once again I have to disagree that small does not equal bad. A great game developed with a smaller budget can outdo many of the massive failures we have today and actually take in more in the long run because of it. So again smaller especially talking about what this thread was about Pantheon this is a good thing not a bad thing. svann Member RarePosts: 2,223 Rhoklaw Member LegendaryPosts: 7,412 Well, all I know is... I will be enjoying this "niche" game called Pantheon. I would play EQ, but I've been doing that off and on for the past 18 years. There's nothing wrong with appealing to the old school players with something fresh and new. I think people confuse success within the MMO genre with games like WoW, TESO, FFXIV, GW2 and BDO. Yes, all those games are very successful. However, you could have a total of 50,000 subscribers and still be making money. Maybe not millions, but enough for a decent living, or enough to branch out and create additional games, expansions or whatever. You don't need millions of subscribers to be successful. delete5230 Member EpicPosts: 6,573 Kyleran said: I just googled it - it was the first thing I did. Didn't look any further as google definitions are probably by far what the most people use. Google just pulls defintions that it finds - it's not like they have their own - the one that shows up on google is Oxford's dictionary: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/niche When used as and adjective - niche does also mean small: denoting or relating to products, services, or interests that appeal to a small, specialized section of the population. "other companies in this space had to adapt to being niche players" http://www.thefreedictionary.com/niche 4. (Commerce) (modifier) relating to or aimed at a small specialized group or market There are other dictionaries that clearly have the world small in the definitions. It's not like niche = small is unheard of, it's certainly one of the acceptable definitions. I could settle this argument and will all be happy. I'll give into Pantheon being niche, knowing 90% of players will be playing a niche game and 10% will be playing mainstream. Being hung up on a word is arbitrary and their is no linear, in other words, it is what it is. We are talking about 2 entirely different things You are talking about niche that was planned from the beginning, and delivered a sustainable game that can stay in the black with a small playerbase. I am talking about MMO that were designed for millions but under delivered and ended up having a few thousand players - in my case "small" is not what the developers hoped - hence BAD My example was simply to show how in 100mil+ dollar AAA MMO - niche is BAD - it was an example of how niche can indeed be a bad thing in games that have a huge budget and need a massive playerbase to pay for the dev cost. If a game is being design for millions I wouldn't say it was developed for a niche to start with. Assigning the term after development isn't how it works really when talking about development. Either you made your game for a niche like a PVE group based only, or a full loot PVP group, from the start with that in mind. With that in mind the developers should have some idea of what their target number is also for them to consider it a success. Not all MMO's try to pull in the millions like some other games do. Hell no game will ever pull in the millions like WoW did ever again most likely, right place and right time was what did that. Those AAA games that failed were not designed to be niche games. They were designed most likely for every play style and failed at most of it, which is why they only have a small player base left. That is were if they had developed to a niche instead they would have came out on top, because their game would have been built from the ground up with a particular play style. Just throwing the word niche in to describe a small player base that is left in a failed game isn't correct either, because that small base could have all different kinds of players that found something they liked which isn't all the same. When you talk about niche in gaming it is talking about a particular playstyle not just small player base. That is were me and you are disagreeing. Kulharin Member UncommonPosts: 11 I'm ready for Niche games, every online PVE focused game I play now is exactly the same in presentation; super easy, casual tutorial content up until max level/end game... everyone rush to end game effortlessly... new expansion is released; previous challenging content is nerfed and old items made irrelevant to get you to the new end game tier... rinse and repeat... I'm over this crap. We need niche games. Mendel Member EpicPosts: 4,232 Kulharin said: I don't know about this. It seems to me that a game made by the same people that created those easy versions that you don't like, leading severely understaffed teams, with nebulous schedules, and functioning on a shoestring budget aren't likely to be the solution. I agree that new ideas are needed, perhaps desperately so, but looking to the past to find those ideas just doesn't seem the best way to get new and innovative games to play. Squeezing lemons doesn't usually produce chardonnay. Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority. Dullahan Member EpicPosts: 4,534 Mendel said: The pursuit of whats new and innovative is a mirage. Doing away with features that defined the genre and bringing in "the new", was exactly what got us where we are today: vapid single player mmos that offer more back-patting than challenge, more convenience than immersion, and a lack of a reason to keep playing, leaving virtual worlds virtually empty. You talk about old design as if it's incompatible with the new, but the old is only the foundation. Pantheon will have plenty of new stuff or improved old stuff built on top of it. This game is not made by Blizzard.. Dullahan said: I will agree with you that EQ1 was a solid foundation. Where we disagree is the 'changes' and 'the new' were a problem. Genres have to evolve to remain relevant. I can even agree somewhat that subsequent games made some decisions that appear to be 'bad' to a segment of the player base. Even EQ1 made some of those 'bad' choices. Mercenaries, definitely. Alternate Advancement, to a degree. But everyone threw the baby out with the bathwater by reinventing the genre over and over, with no designer trying to build on the shoulders of giants. I don't agree at all that the evolution of the genre is the problem. I think the problem is in the other direction -- the genre hasn't grown enough. Pantheon may be a good step for the genre to take, but it's fifteen years too late and really doesn't attempt to expand the concept of MMORPG games enough. It's going to play very much like EQ1 did in 1999-2000. VR hasn't shown anything that EQ1 has already done. It may look nicer, but in the end, there will be a pile of 6 people beating on one mob at a time. The sameness will be a hurdle for them to attract new players. Sure, it will attract some old-timers, but the question ultimately remains, will there be enough players for the game to be fiscally successful. Convenience isn't a bad feature, inherently. It does allow players to immerse themselves in more of the content, without a mind-numbing trek through 'safe' territory. Progression in MMORPGs has been linear, and with progression comes further distances to more dangerous lands for worthy content. So, secondary and tertiary hubs become necessary to prevent players from having to run back to their home city to bank and visit merchants. In a game as big as EQ1 currently is, a run from Qeynos to Loping Plains is easy for a 75th level to negotiate without using PoK books, but who really wants to run for 40 to 90 minutes in order to play? That's a long run -- Qeynos to Qeynos Hills to West Karana to North Karana to East Karana to Beholders Maze to Runnyeye to Misty Thicket to Rivervale to Kithicor Forest to Commonlands (new) to East Freeport to West Freeport to Ocean of Tears (boat) to Butcherblock Mountains to Greater Feydark to Lesser Feydark to Steamfont Mountains to Loping Plains. I don't know that anyone would do that run more than once before breaking down and using the Qeynos to PoK (book) to Frontier Mountains (book) to Loping Plains route. Yes, you could stand around in Qeynos begging for a druid port to Frontier Mountains, but how many druids hang around Qeynos waiting to port people around? I'd wager than it would be faster to run the long way. Okay, EQ1 expansions have been developed with the convenience of PoK in mind. Maybe that wasn't in the best interest of some people. Yes, there's no direct route from any of the home cities to some expansions like Seeds of Destruction. The game outgrew the overland zone concept because there just weren't enough places to expand the maps, and partially because the players wouldn't have accepted too many 18-zone trips in order to find things to fight. Convenience became a necessary and wanted feature. A group of veterans pleading for 'immersion over convenience', blaming anything 'new and innovative', and shouting down anyone advising for 'realistic expectations' should never drive the entire genre back into the stone age, but that's what appears to be happening with Pantheon and its followers on this site. I don't agree at all that the evolution of the genre is the problem. I think the problem is in the other direction -- the genre hasn't grown enough. You seem to think my remarks were merely subjective, but mmos are clearly not in a good way in 2017. Not only are less people playing them, but their design has encouraged transience. In the name of making things more accessible, players are now able to complete content that takes years to create, in a matter of weeks. This is objectively bad, and runs contrary to the original intent of online role playing games, which was persistence and establishing a community among virtual inhabitants of a fantasy world. Pantheon may be a good step for the genre to take, but it's fifteen years too late and really doesn't attempt to expand the concept of MMORPG games enough. It's going to play very much like EQ1 did in 1999-2000. VR hasn't shown anything that EQ1 has already done. It may look nicer, but in the end, there will be a pile of 6 people beating on one mob at a time. The sameness will be a hurdle for them to attract new players. Sure, it will attract some old-timers, but the question ultimately remains, will there be enough players for the game to be fiscally successful. In a game as big as EQ1 currently is, a run from Qeynos to Loping Plains is easy for a 75th level to negotiate without using PoK books, but who really wants to run for 40 to 90 minutes in order to play? ... The rest of your comments are a total strawman, as EQ has always had a form of fast travel by the way of portals. It's up to the player to interact with players in order to utilize that convenience. That's a cute way of putting it, but I can just as easily say the current bunglings of mainstream games are the those who have really moved things backwards. I'm also not against people having the option to play a more casual MMO that allows players to succeed with less time devotion. You on the other hand are outwardly hostile to the alternative. If you can't keep people playing your game, flashy graphics or other new mechanics don't really matter, now do they? Xthos Member UncommonPosts: 2,734 Well, a lot of people are interested in this game for a lot of the throw back aspects, included in that the thought of no cash shop (unless this has changed, but I have not seen it), not f2p (sub only), large open world dungeons (very limited instancing). I don't have to have book meditation to the level of beginning EQ...Some things aren't needed, but a lot of people are looking forward to many of these older aspects, in a new game, along with some newer things (they say boss mechanics and such will be newer and have a set of random scripts, so make them not the exact same fight, but maybe 3-5 different fights that you have to figure out, probably pretty quickly). We will not know till we see it, but I personally want a large world, numerous starting cities, lots of faction stuff, good pve/dungeons...I am not a huge fan of the floor lighting up (telling you to move), everything quest hub, lfg tool in a lot of its current makeup (making games feel like a lobby game in a instance), I am ok with some instant travel, but I don't want it to be everywhere (Sure, don't need people to run 20-30 minutes, but 5-10 if you are going to the other side of the world isn't too crazy imo). We will see what they do, but some people do not want this to turn into just another new mmo, with all the same mechanics and 'problems' of everything else coming out. If people want all modern, they have a lot to chose from. Pantheon will have to balance old school, with enough modern to get old and new players. Mikeha Member EpicPosts: 9,163 No excuses.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3235
__label__wiki	0.984542	0.984542	Shapiro will ‘shed no tears’ for Indians’ Chief Wahoo logo (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images) TORONTO — Blue Jays president and CEO Mark Shapiro spent more than two decades working for the Cleveland Indians. He’ll “shed no tears” when the Chief Wahoo logo disappears from Indians uniforms next season. The Indians are wearing grey road uniforms without the controversial logo on the left sleeve during their current four game series at Toronto. During his time with the Indians, Shapiro played a lead role in establishing a block “C” as Cleveland’s logo. “I never said it when I was in Cleveland, but I struggled with Chief Wahoo from the day I got there in 1992 to the day I left,” said Shapiro, who joined Toronto in November, 2015. “I was happy to see it consistently get diminished, and I will shed no tears when it’s gone completely.” In January, the Indians announced plans to remove the logo from their uniforms next year. The move came after decades of protests and complaints that the grinning, red-faced caricature used in one version or another since 1947 is racist. That decision not to wear the controversial logo in Toronto was partly driven by a failed legal challenge against the Indians when they played north of the border during the 2016 American League Championship Series. During the playoffs, a lawsuit was filed while the club was playing in Toronto to get the logo and team name banned from Canadian TV. A judge dismissed the case. Shapiro said he wasn’t especially moved by getting a first glimpse at how the Indians will look full-time next year. “I’m focused on the Blue Jays,” Shapiro said. “I guess there’s a small part of me that kind of says ‘Good, it’s about time.'” Cleveland will host the All-Star Game next season. The Indians will return to their regular uniforms when they visit Tampa Bay next week. Continuing coverage Trademark and Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. Around the Buckeye State Ohio residents 80 and older eligible for COVID-19 vaccine this week Ohio launches website of COVID-19 vaccine providers as it expands to older residents Here’s how you’ll be able to look up vaccine locations in Ohio Ohio deals with vaccine scarcity while expanding to older residents More Ohio News by Talia Naquin / Jan 18, 2021 Editor's Note: The video above is about Ohio State preparing for the National Championship. COLUMBUS, Ohio (WJW) – Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields has officially declared for the 2021 NFL Draft. CLEVELAND, Ohio (WJW) – “I wasn’t ready to stop.” In one sentence, former Cleveland Browns running back Greg Pruitt described what fans and players were feeling after their postseason run came to a halt in Kansas City Sunday night. CLEVELAND (WJW) — Following a heartbreaking playoff loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, a bevy of die-hard Cleveland Browns fans gathered at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport Sunday evening to greet their team. That the team's plane had been delayed did not deter the crowd. Participants evacuated at inaugural rehearsal after fire in homeless camp Happening Headlines: I-Team / 1 hour ago FOX 8 Forecast	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3237
__label__cc	0.575612	0.424388	Ford ‘easy fuel’ system deters vehicle fuel thefts Ford’s Easy Fuel system that prevents the expensive mistake of misfuelling is also proving a deterrent to petrol and diesel thieves, the company has said. The escalating value of fuel has led to thefts from vehicles increasing by 25% in the past year to a reported 4,500 cases in the UK annually. While Ford Easy Fuel – fitted as standard to top-selling models including Ford Fiesta, Ford Focus and Ford Mondeo – was designed to make refuelling simple and error-free, it also makes siphoning extremely difficult. Andy Barratt, Ford Britain sales director, said: “Our novel Easy Fuel feature ensures that Ford owners put the right fuel in their car. Another customer benefit is that it acts as a deterrent by slowing down the fuel thief.” The technology behind Easy Fuel adds extra layers of security behind the external fuel filler opening, which is anyway secured as part of the vehicle’s central locking, to inhibit forced entry and syphoning. Easy Fuel’s spring-loaded flap is held closed by two latches that can only be released by a standard-size fuel nozzle. When the proper nozzle is inserted into the filler neck of the system, the latches release and the nozzle pushes the spring-loaded flap to the open position. When the nozzle is removed, the flap is automatically and firmly closed by the spring. Easy Fuel also has a patented inhibitor designed to prevent improper fuelling and siphoning. The inhibitor consists of a fuel nozzle detector that guides the nozzle to the opening. If a nozzle or foreign tube of a different size – a diesel nozzle or plastic hose, for example – is placed in the filler neck of a petrol-powered vehicle, the latches will not release. For a diesel-powered vehicle, the inhibitor will keep out the smaller nozzles. Another deterrent in Ford vehicles stems from its refuelling vapour recovery system. The purpose is to prevent vapours from escaping during fuelling, but siphoning efforts are also thwarted because it closes automatically after the process starts by detecting the pressure of liquid fuel as it passes.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3238
__label__wiki	0.6192	0.6192	Kenworth moves third site to Nisa branding Kenworth Ltd, which already operates two Nisa-branded forecourts in the North East of England, has taken the decision to move its third site to Nisa after seeing “staggering increases” in fuel and shop sales at its other two sites. Located at Catterick Garrison in North Yorkshire, Beacon Service Station has undergone major alteration over the past few weeks to include a large Nisa convenience store which will be open round the clock, new pumps, a new forecourt surface and full Nisa rebranding. Further work to increase the number of high speed HGV pumps will start soon. Kenworth says that despite all the disruptions and having half the forecourt closed due to the alterations, the fuel sales have been maintained at the pre alteration level – indicating the positive impact of the new Nisa forecourt and customer acceptance of the new brand. The family business previously operated all three of its sites under the Jet brand and was one of the first companies to sign up to the new Nisa/Greenergy deal in July 2013, when it refurbished Redworth Service Station on the outskirts of Bishop Auckland with a Nisa branded forecourt and a new Nisa shop. Later that year the family introduced Nisa branding at its second site at Wheatley Hill near Durham. The company says both sites have since experienced a substantial rise in forecourt and shop sales and a positive customer experience including “excellent delivery reliability” from Greenergy.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3239
__label__wiki	0.649923	0.649923	Your RepresentativeLatest NewsNational Halifa Sallah Asks Government to Tell Gambians Their Plans Regarding Constitutional Reform By Yankuba Jallow Honourable Halifa Sallah, the member for Serrekunda has on Wednesday, 23rd September 2020 requested answers from the Vice-President, Dr. Isatou Touray on what their Government will do to achieve constitutional reform. Page 6 of the National Development Plan states its agenda is constitutional review advancing transitional justice and strengthening legal systems and the objective is to conduct a comprehensive review of the constitution of the Gambia and formulate appropriate amendments that reflect the social and economic development, the aspiration of Gambian citizens. “That is the agenda. I would want the Executive to tell me whether that agenda has been dumped into the high seas or it is still the agenda. And I would want to know from the Executive what route is it going to take to effect this constitutional reform to bring a new constitution into being which is fundamentally different from the 1997 Constitution. I would want that answer,” Sallah said. At page 16 of President Adama Barrow’s address last week before the National Assembly he stated ‘At this juncture, let me reiterate my appreciation and gratitude to the CRC for submitting the Draft Constitution within the specified timeframe. The draft copy has gone through the required processes and was tabled recently by this august assembly [National Assembly] to allow for the remaining faces, finalising and adopting a new constitution.’ Sallah said: “Am I really reading what the President has said or am I inventing because what I see here is a mind intending for us to adopt a new constitution. It appears to be the letter and spirit of the Executive.” The President emphasized under page 54 paragraph 4, “in March 2020 the Constitutional Review Commission submitted the final draft constitution – the new Constitution Bill 2020 was gazetted and tabled before the National Assembly after the 3 months period stipulated by the law. “Honourable Speaker, I see the President anticipating a Third Republic.” He asked how there can be a Third Republic without a Third Republican Constitution. He also asked how there can be a Republic without a Constitution. Previous articleHOPE IS BEING REKINDLED Next articleSelection of Three Gambian Journalists for 2020 U.S. Election Coverage Dr. Barry Urges Writers to Embrace WAG National January 17, 2021 By Foroyaa Staff Dr. Cherno Omar Barry, the President of the Writers Association of The Gambia (WAG), has called on writers in the country to... Philanthropist Constructs Borehole worth D278,000 for Toro Alasan Village By Nelson Manneh Musa Sanago, a Pan African, has recently constructed and handed over a borehole worth two hundred and seventy-eight thousand dalasi (D278, 000.00)... Gambia to Improve Enrollment in Schools at three Regions By Ndey Sowe Stakeholders in the education sector in The Gambia have disclosed their commitment to improve enrollment and retention of students in basic education... Gambians in Provinces Unhappy with Delay in Voter Registration By: Kebba AF Touray Gambians in the provinces have expressed their dissatisfaction with the delay in voter registration and are calling on the Independent Electoral...	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3241
__label__cc	0.550293	0.449707	Strategy & Tactics #317 Moscow Wydawca: Decision Games Moscow is a two-player game covering the advance of Army Group Center, Autumn 1941. It is a simulation of the campaign by the Germans to capture Moscow from the Soviets in from October until January 1941. This game’s system is a progeny of the foregoing Leningrad game published by Decision Games (2010) with some slight differences (such as the stacking limit). Players whom are familiar with the Leningrad game will be able to play this game with only a perusal of these rules where they are specifically relevant to this game. Each hex represents 30 miles with each unit representing a division and in some cases brigades. Components: One 22" x 34" map & 176 counters Magazine: Strategy & Tactics #317 Strategy & Tactics #280 Soldiers 1918 Strategy & Tactics #279 Reconquista Strategy & Tactics #282 War of the Pacific Strategy & Tactics #278 Tobruk Strategy & Tactics #254 Hannibal's War Counter Tray (tacka na żetony) GMT	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3242
__label__cc	0.620734	0.379266	Religion & Belief (Alor Pothay) » Some features on Buddhism Author Topic: Some features on Buddhism (Read 5654 times) The Life of Siddhartha Gautama Dr. C. George Boeree There was a small country in what is now southern Nepal that was ruled by a clan called the Shakyas. The head of this clan, and the king of this country, was named Shuddodana Gautama, and his wife was the beautiful Mahamaya. Mahamaya was expecting her first born. She had had a strange dream in which a baby elephant had blessed her with his trunk, which was understood to be a very auspicious sign to say the least. As was the custom of the day, when the time came near for Queen Mahamaya to have her child, she traveled to her father's kingdom for the birth. But during the long journey, her birth pains began. In the small town of Lumbini, she asked her handmaidens to assist her to a nearby grove of trees for privacy. One large tree lowered a branch to her to serve as a support for her delivery. They say the birth was nearly painless, even though the child had to be delivered from her side. After, a gentle rain fell on the mother and the child to cleanse them. It is said that the child was born fully awake. He could speak, and told his mother he had come to free all mankind from suffering. He could stand, and he walked a short distance in each of the four directions. Lotus blossoms rose in his footsteps. They named him Siddhartha, which means "he who has attained his goals." Sadly, Mahamaya died only seven days after the birth. After that Siddhartha was raised by his motherâ€™s kind sister, Mahaprajapati. King Shuddodana consulted Asita, a well-known sooth-sayer, concerning the future of his son. Asita proclaimed that he would be one of two things: He could become a great king, even an emperor. Or he could become a great sage and savior of humanity. The king, eager that his son should become a king like himself, was determined to shield the child from anything that might result in him taking up the religious life. And so Siddhartha was kept in one or another of their three palaces, and was prevented from experiencing much of what ordinary folk might consider quite commonplace. He was not permitted to see the elderly, the sickly, the dead, or anyone who had dedicated themselves to spiritual practices. Only beauty and health surrounded Siddhartha. Siddhartha grew up to be a strong and handsome young man. As a prince of the warrior caste, he trained in the arts of war. When it came time for him to marry, he won the hand of a beautiful princess of a neighboring kingdom by besting all competitors at a variety of sports. Yashodhara was her name, and they married when both were 16 years old. As Siddhartha continued living in the luxury of his palaces, he grew increasing restless and curious about the world beyond the palace walls. He finally demanded that he be permitted to see his people and his lands. The king carefully arranged that Siddhartha should still not see the kind of suffering that he feared would lead him to a religious life, and decried that only young and healthy people should greet the prince. As he was lead through Kapilavatthu, the capital, he chanced to see a couple of old men who had accidentally wandered near the parade route. Amazed and confused, he chased after them to find out what they were. Then he came across some people who were severely ill. And finally, he came across a funeral ceremony by the side of a river, and for the first time in his life saw death. He asked his friend and squire Chandaka the meaning of all these things, and Chandaka informed him of the simple truths that Siddhartha should have known all along: That all of us get old, sick, and eventually die. Siddhartha also saw an ascetic, a monk who had renounced all the pleasures of the flesh. The peaceful look on the monks face would stay with Siddhartha for a long time to come. Later, he would say this about that time: When ignorant people see someone who is old, they are disgusted and horrified, even though they too will be old some day. I thought to myself: I donâ€™t want to be like the ignorant people. After that, I couldnâ€™t feel the usual intoxication with youth anymore. When ignorant people see someone who is sick, they are disgusted and horrified, even though they too will be sick some day. I thought to myself: I donâ€™t want to be like the ignorant people. After that, I couldnâ€™t feel the usual intoxication with health anymore. When ignorant people see someone who is dead, they are disgusted and horrified, even though they too will be dead some day. I thought to myself: I donâ€™t want to be like the ignorant people. After than, I couldnâ€™t feel the usual intoxication with life anymore. (AN III.39, interpreted) At the age of 29, Siddhartha came to realize that he could not be happy living as he had been. He had discovered suffering, and wanted more than anything to discover how one might overcome suffering. After kissing his sleeping wife and newborn son Rahula goodbye, he snuck out of the palace with his squire Chandara and his favorite horse Kanthaka. He gave away his rich clothing, cut his long hair, and gave the horse to Chandara and told him to return to the palace. He studied for a while with two famous gurus of the day, but found their practices lacking. He then began to practice the austerities and self-mortifications practiced by a group of five ascetics. For six years, he practiced. The sincerity and intensity of his practice were so astounding that, before long, the five ascetics became followers of Siddhartha. But the answers to his questions were not forthcoming. He redoubled his efforts, refusing food and water, until he was in a state of near death. One day, a peasant girl named Sujata saw this starving monk and took pity on him. She begged him to eat some of her milk-rice. Siddhartha then realized that these extreme practices were leading him nowhere, that in fact it might be better to find some middle way between the extremes of the life of luxury and the life of self-mortification. So he ate, and drank, and bathed in the river. The five ascetics saw him and concluded that Siddhartha had given up the ascetic life and taken to the ways of the flesh, and left him. In the town of Bodh Gaya, Siddhartha decided that he would sit under a certain fig tree as long as it would take for the answers to the problem of suffering to come. He sat there for many days, first in deep concentration to clear his mind of all distractions, then in mindfulness meditation, opening himself up to the truth. He began, they say, to recall all his previous lives, and to see everything that was going on in the entire universe. On the full moon of May, with the rising of the morning star, Siddhartha finally understood the answer to the question of suffering and became the Buddha, which means â€œhe who is awake.â€ It is said that Mara, the evil one, tried to prevent this great occurrence. He first tried to frighten Siddhartha with storms and armies of demons. Siddhartha remained completely calm. Then he sent his three beautiful daughters to tempt him, again to no avail. Finally, he tried to ensnare Siddhartha in his own ego by appealing to his pride. That, too, failed. Siddhartha, having conquered all temptations, touched the ground with one hand and asked the earth to be his witness. Siddhartha, now the Buddha, remained seated under the tree -- which we call the bodhi tree -- for many days longer. It seemed to him that this knowledge he had gained was far too difficult to communicate to others. Legend has it that Brahma, king of the gods, convinced Buddha to teach, saying that some of us perhaps have only a little dirt in our eyes and could awaken if we only heard his story. Buddha agreed to teach. At Sarnath near Benares, about one hundred miles from Bodh Gaya, he came across the five ascetics he had practiced with for so long. There, in a deer park, he preached his first sermon, which is called â€œsetting the wheel of the teaching in motion.â€ He explained to them the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. They became his very first disciples and the beginnings of the Sangha or community of monks. King Bimbisara of Magadha, having heard Buddhaâ€™s words, granted him a monastery near Rahagriha, his capital, for use during the rainy season. This and other generous donations permitted the community of converts to continue their practice throughout the years, and gave many more people an opportunity to hear the teachings of the Buddha. Over time, he was approached by members of his family, including his wife, son, father, and aunt. His son became a monk and is particularly remembered in a sutra based on a conversation between father and son on the dangers of lying. His father became a lay follower. Because he was saddened by the departures of his son and grandson into the monastic life, he asked Buddha to make it a rule that a man must have the permission of his parents to become a monk. Buddha obliged him. His aunt and wife asked to be permitted into the Sangha, which was originally composed only of men. The culture of the time ranked women far below men in importance, and at first it seemed that permitting women to enter the community would weaken it. But the Buddha relented, and his aunt and wife became the first Buddhist nuns. The Buddha said that it didnâ€™t matter what a personâ€™s status in the world was, or what their background or wealth or nationality might be. All were capable of enlightenment, and all were welcome into the Sangha. The first ordained Buddhist monk, Upali, had been a barber, yet he was ranked higher than monks who had been kings, only because he had taken his vows earlier than they! Buddhaâ€™s life wasnâ€™t without disappointments. His cousin, Devadatta, was an ambitious man. As a convert and monk, he felt that he should have greater power in the Sangha. He managed to influence quite a few monks with a call to a return to extreme asceticism. Eventually, he conspired with a local king to have the Buddha killed and to take over the Buddhist community. Of course, he failed. Buddha had achieved his enlightenment at the age of 35. He would teach throughout northeast India for another 45 years. When the Buddha was 80 years old, he told his friend and cousin Ananda that he would be leaving them soon. And so it came to be that in Kushinagara, not a hundred miles from his homeland, he ate some spoiled food and became very ill. He went into a deep meditation under a grove of sala trees and died. His last words were... Impermanent are all created things; Strive on with awareness. Re: Some features on Buddhism The History of Buddhism Soon after Buddha's death or parinirvana, five hundred monks met at the first council at Rajagrha, under the leadership of Kashyapa. Upali recited the monastic code (Vinaya) as he remembered it. Ananda, Buddha's cousin, friend, and favorite disciple -- and a man of prodigious memory! -- recited Buddha's lessons (the Sutras). The monks debated details and voted on final versions. These were then committed to memory by other monks, to be translated into the many languages of the Indian plains. It should be noted that Buddhism remained an oral tradition for over 200 years. In the next few centuries, the original unity of Buddhism began to fragment. The most significant split occurred after the second council, held at Vaishali 100 years after the first. After debates between a more liberal group and traditionalists, the liberal group left and labeled themselves the Mahasangha -- "the great sangha." They would eventually evolve into the Mahayana tradition of northern Asia. The traditionalists, now referred to as Sthaviravada or "way of the elders" (or, in Pali, Theravada), developed a complex set of philosophical ideas beyond those elucidated by Buddha. These were collected into the Abhidharma or "higher teachings." But they, too, encouraged disagreements, so that one splinter group after another left the fold. Ultimately, 18 schools developed, each with their own interpretations of various issues, and spread all over India and Southeast Asia. Today, only the school stemming from the Sri Lankan Theravadan survives. One of the most significant events in the history of Buddhism is the chance encounter of the monk Nigrodha and the emperor Ashoka Maurya. Ashoka, succeeding his father after a bloody power struggle in 268 bc, found himself deeply disturbed by the carnage he caused while suppressing a revolt in the land of the Kalingas. Meeting Nigrodha convinced Emperor Ashoka to devote himself to peace. On his orders, thousands of rock pillars were erected, bearing the words of the Buddha, in the brahmi script -- the first written evidence of Buddhism. The third council of monks was held at Pataliputra, the capital of Ashoka's empire. There is a story that tells about a poor young boy who, having nothing to give the Buddha as a gift, collected a handful of dust and innocently presented it. The Buddha smiled and accepted it with the same graciousness he accepted the gifts of wealthy admirers. That boy, it is said, was reborn as the Emperor Ashoka. Ashoka sent missionaries all over India and beyond. Some went as far as Egypt, Palestine, and Greece. St. Origen even mentions them as having reached Britain. The Greeks of one of the Alexandrian kingdoms of northern India adopted Buddhism, after their King Menandros (Pali: Milinda) was convinced by a monk named Nagasena -- the conversation immortalized in the Milinda PaÃ±ha. A Kushan king of north India named Kanishka was also converted, and a council was held in Kashmir in about 100 ad. Greek Buddhists there recorded the Sutras on copper sheets which, unfortunately, were never recovered. It is interesting to note that there is a saint in Orthodox Christianity named Josaphat, an Indian king whose story is essentially that of the Buddha. Josaphat is thought to be a distortion of the word bodhisattva. Sri Lanka and Theravada Emperor Ashoka sent one of his sons, Mahinda, and one of his daughters, Sanghamitta, a monk and a nun, to Sri Lanka (Ceylon) around the year 240 bc. The king of Sri Lanka, King Devanampiyatissa, welcomed them and was converted. One of the gifts they brought with them was a branch of the bodhi tree, which was successfully transplanted. The descendants of this branch can still be found on the island. The fourth council was held in Sri Lanka, in the Aloka Cave, in the first century bc. During this time as well, and for the first time, the entire set of Sutras were recorded in the Pali language on palm leaves. This became Theravada's Pali Canon, from which so much of our knowledge of Buddhism stems. It is also called the Tripitaka (Pali: Tipitaka), or three baskets: The three sections of the canon are the Vinaya Pitaka (the monastic law), the Sutta Pitaka (words of the Buddha), and the Abhidamma Pitaka (the philosophical commentaries). In a very real sense, Sri Lanka's monks may be credited with saving the Theravada tradition: Although it had spread once from India all over southeast Asia, it had nearly died out due to competition from Hinduism and Islam, as well as war and colonialism. Theravada monks spread their tradition from Sri Lanka to Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, and Laos, and from these lands to Europe and the west generally. Mahayana began in the first century bc, as a development of the Mahasangha rebellion. Their more liberal attitudes toward monastic tradition allowed the lay community to have a greater voice in the nature of Buddhism. For better or worse, the simpler needs of the common folk were easier for the Mahayanists to meet. For example, the people were used to gods and heroes. So, the Trikaya (three bodies) doctrine came into being: Not only was Buddha a man who became enlightened, he was also represented by various god-like Buddhas in various appealing heavens, as well as by the Dharma itself, or Shunyata (emptiness), or Buddha-Mind, depending on which interpretation we look at -- sort of a Buddhist Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! More important, however, was the increased importance of the Bodhisattva. A Bodhisattva is someone who has attained enlightenment, but who chooses to remain in this world of Samsara in order to bring others to enlightenment. He is a lot like a saint, a spiritual hero, for the people to admire and appeal to. Along with new ideas came new scriptures. Also called Sutras, they are often attributed to Buddha himself, sometimes as special transmissions that Buddha supposedly felt were too difficult for his original listeners and therefore were hidden until the times were ripe. The most significant of these new Sutras are these: PrajÃ±aparamita or Perfection of Wisdom, an enormous collection of often esoteric texts, including the famous Heart Sutra and Diamond Sutra. The earliest known piece of printing in the world is, in fact, a copy of the Diamond Sutra, printed in China in 868 ad. Suddharma-pundarika or White Lotus of the True Dharma, also often esoteric, includes the Avalokiteshwara Sutra, a prayer to that Bodhisattva. Vimalakirti-nirdesha or Vimalakirti's Exposition, is the teachings of and stories about the enlightened householder Vimalakirti. Shurangama-samadhi or Hero's Sutra, provides a guide to meditation, shunyata, and the bodhisattva. It is most popular among Zen Buddhists Sukhavati-vyuha or Pure Land Sutra, is the most important Sutra for the Pure Land Schools of Buddhism. The Buddha tells Ananda about Amitabha and his Pure Land or heaven, and how one can be reborn there. There are many, many others. Finally, Mahayana is founded on two new philosophical interpretations of Buddhism: Madhyamaka and Yogachara. Madhyamaka means "the middle way." You may recall that Buddha himself called his way the middle way in his very first sermon. He meant, at that time, the middle way between the extremes of hedonistic pleasure and extreme asceticism. But he may also have referred to the middle way between the competing philosophies of eternalism and annihilationism -- the belief that the soul exists forever and that the soul is annihilated at death. Or between materialism and nihilism.... An Indian monk by the name of Nagarjuna took this idea and expanded on it to create the philosophy that would be known as Madhyamaka, in a book called the Mulamadhyamaka-karika, written about 150 ad. Basically a treatise on logical argument, it concludes that nothing is absolute, everything is relative, nothing exists on its own, everything is interdependent. All systems, beginning with the idea that each thing is what it is and not something else (Aristotle's law of the excluded middle), wind up contradicting themselves. Rigorous logic, in other words, leads one away from all systems, and to the concept of shunyata. Shunyata means emptiness. This doesn't mean that nothing exists. It means that nothing exists in and of itself, but only as a part of a universal web of being. This would become a central concept in all branches of Mahayana. Of course, it is actually a restatement of the central Buddhist concepts of anatman, anitya, and dukkha! Yogachara The second philosophical innovation, Yogachara, is credited to two brothers, Asanga and Vasubandhu, who lived in India in the 300's ad. They elaborated earlier movements in the direction of the philosophy of idealism or chitta-matra. Chitta-matra means literally mind only. Asanga and Vasubandhu believed that everything that exists is mind or consciousness. What we think of as physical things are just projections of our minds, delusions or hallucinations, if you like. To get rid of these delusions, we must meditate, which for the Yogachara school means the creation of pure consciousness, devoid of all content. In that way, we leave our deluded individual minds and join with the universal mind, or Buddha-mind. The last innovation was less philosophical and far more practical: Tantra. Tantra refers to certain writings which are concerned, not with philosophical niceties, but with the basic how-to of enlightenment, and not just with enlightenment in several rebirths, but enlightenment here-and-now! In order to accomplish this feat, dramatic methods are needed, ones which, to the uninitiated, may seem rather bizarre. Tantra was the domain of the siddhu, the adept -- someone who knows the secrets, a magician in the ways of enlightenment. Tantra involves the use of various techniques, including the well-known mandalas, mantras, and mudras. mandalas are paintings or other representations of higher awareness, usually in the form of a circular pattern of images, which may provide the focus of one-pointed meditation. Mantras are words or phrases that serve the same purpose, such as the famous "Om mani padme hum." Mudras are hand positions that symbolize certain qualities of enlightenment. Less well known are the yidams. A yidam is the image of a god or goddess or other spiritual being, either physically represented or, more commonly, imagined clearly in the mind's eye. Again, these represent archetypal qualities of enlightenment, and one-pointed meditation on these complex images lead the adept to his or her goal. These ideas would have enormous impact on Mahayana. They are not without critics, however: Madhyamaka is sometimes criticized as word-play, and Yogachara is criticized as reintroducing atman, eternal soul or essence, to Buddhism. Tantra has been most often criticized, especially for its emphasis on secret methods and strong devotion to a guru. Nevertheless, these innovations led to a renewed flurry of activity in the first half of the first millenium, and provided the foundation for the kinds of Buddhism we find in China, Tibet, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and elsewhere in east Asia. Legend has it that the Chinese Emperor Ming Ti had a dream which led him to send his agents down the Silk Road -- the ancient trade route between China and the west -- to discover its meaning. The agents returned with a picture of the Buddha and a copy of the Sutra in 42 Sections. This Sutra would, in 67 ad, be the first of many to be translated into Chinese. The first Buddhist community in China is thought to be one in Loyang, established by "foreigners" around 150 ad, in the Han dynasty. Only 100 years later, there emerges a native Chinese Sangha. And during the Period of Disunity (or Era of the Warring States, 220 to 589 ad), the number of Buddhist monks and nuns increase to as many as two million! Apparently, the uncertain times and the misery of the lower classes were fertile ground for the monastic traditions of Buddhism. Buddhism did not come to a land innocent of religion and philosophy, of course. China, in fact, had three main competing streams of thought: Confucianism, Taoism, and folk religion. Confucianisim is essentially a moral-political philosophy, involving a complex guide to human relationships. Taoism is a life-philosophy involving a return to simpler and more "natural" ways of being. And the folk religion -- or, should we say, religions -- consisted of rich mythologies, superstitions, astrology, reading of entrails, magic, folk medicine, and so on. (Please understand that I am simplifying here: Certainly Confucianism and Taoism are as sophisticated as Buddhism!) Although these various streams sometimes competed with each other and with Buddhism, they also fed each other, enriched each other, and intertwined with each other. Over time, the Mahayana of India became the Mahayana of China and, later, of Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. Pure Land The first example historically is Pure Land Buddhism (Ching-T'u, J: Jodo). The peasants and working people of China were used to gods and goddesses, praying for rain and health, worrying about heaven and hell, and so on. It wasn't a great leap to find in Buddhism's cosmology and theology the bases for a religious tradition that catered to these needs and habits, while still providing a sophisticated philosophical foundation. The idea of this period of time as a fallen or inferior time -- traditional in China -- led to the idea that we are no longer able to reach enlightenment on our own power, but must rely on the intercession of higher beings. The transcendent Buddha Amitabha, and his western paradise ("pure land"), introduced in the Sukhavati-vyuha Sutra, was a perfect fit. Ch'an Another school that was to be particularly strongly influenced by Chinese thought was the Meditation School -- Dhyana, Ch'an, Son, or Zen. Tradition has the Indian monk Bodhidharma coming from the west to China around 520 ad. It was Bodhidharma, it is said, who carried the Silent Transmission to become the First Patriarch of the Ch'an School in China: From the very beginning, Buddha had had reservations about his ability to communicate his message to the people. Words simply could not carry such a sublime message. So, on one occasion, while the monks around him waited for a sermon, he said absolutely nothing. He simply held up a flower. the monks, of course, were confused, except for Kashyapa, who understood and smiled. The Buddha smiled back, and thus the Silent Transmission began. Zen Buddhism focuses on developing the immediate awareness of Buddha-mind through meditation on emptiness. It is notorious for its dismissal of the written and spoken word and occasionally for his rough-house antics. It should be understood, however, that there is great reverence for the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, even when they are ostensibly ignoring, poking fun, or even turning them upside-down. Zen has contributed its own literature to the Buddhist melting-pot, including The Platform Sutra, written by Hui Neng, the Sixth Patriarch, around 700 ad., The Blue Cliff Record, written about 1000 ad., and The Gateless Gate, written about 1200 ad. And we shouldn't forget the famous Ten Ox-Herding Pictures that many see as containing the very essence of Zen's message. The Blossoming of Schools During the Sui dynasty (581-618) and T'ang dynasty (618-907), Chinese Buddhism experienced what is referred to as the "blossoming of schools." The philosophical inspirations of the Madhyamaka and Yogachara, as well as the Pure Land and Ch'an Sutras, interacting with the already sophisticated philosophies of Confucianism and Taoism, led to a regular renaissance in religious and philosophical thought. We find the Realistic School, based on the "all things exist" Hinayana School; the Three-Treatises School, based on Madhyamaka; the Idealist School, based on Yogachara; the Tantric School; the Flower Adornment School (Hua-Yen, J: Kegon), which attempted to consolidate the various forms; and the White Lotus School (T'ien-T'ai, J: Tendai), which focused on the Lotus Sutra. All the Chinese Schools had their representatives in neighboring countries. Korea was to develop its own powerful form of Ch'an called Son. Vietnam developed a form of Ch'an that incorporated aspects of Pure Land and Hinayana. But it was Japan that would have a field day with Chinese Buddhism, and pass the Mahayana traditions on to the US and the west generally. Again, we begin with the legendary: A delegation arrived from Korea with gifts for the Emperor of Japan in 538 ad., including a bronze Buddha and various Sutras. Unfortunately a plague led the Emperor to believe that the traditional gods of Japan were annoyed, so he had the gifts thrown into a canal! But the imperial court on the 600's, in their constant effort to be as sophisticated as the courts of their distinguished neighbors, the Chinese, continued to be drawn to Buddhism. Although starting as a religion of the upper classes, in the 900's, Pure Land entered the picture as the favorite of the peasant and working classes. And in the 1200's, Ch'an, relabeled Zen, came into Japan, where it was enthusiastically adopted by, among others, the warrior class or Samurai. Zen was introduced into Japan by two particularly talented monks who had gone to China for their educations: Eisai (1141-1215) brought Lin-chi (J: Rinzai) Ch'an, with its koans and occasionally outrageous antics; Dogen (1200-1253) brought the more sedate Ts'ao-tung (J: Soto) Ch'an. In addition, Dogen is particularly admired for his massive treatise, the Shobogenzo. Ch'an has always had an artistic side to it. In China and elsewhere, a certain simple, elegant style of writing and drawing developed among the monks. In Japan, this became an even more influential aspect of Zen. We have, for example, the poetry, calligraphy, and paintings of various monks -- Bankei (1622-1698), Basho (1644-1694), Hakuin (1685-1768), and Ryokan (1758-1831) -- which have become internationally beloved. One last Japanese innovation is usually attributed to a somewhat unorthodox monk named Nichiren (1222-1282). Having been trained in the Tendai or White Lotus tradition, he came to believe that the Lotus Sutra carried all that was necessary for Buddhist life. More than that, he believed that even the name of the Sutra was enough! So he encouraged his students to chant this mantra: Namu-myoho-renge-kyo, which means "homage to the Lotus Sutra." This practice alone would ensure enlightenment in this life. In fact, he insisted, all other forms of Buddhism were of little worth. Needless to say, this was not appreciated by the Buddhist powers of the day. He spent the rest of his life in relative isolation. The Nichiren School nevertheless proved to be one of the most successful forms of Buddhism on the planet! Finally, let's turn out attention to the most mysterious site of Buddhism's history, Tibet. Its first encounter with Buddhism occurred in the 700's ad, when a Tantric master, Guru RinpochÃ©, came from India to battle the demons of Tibet for control. The demons submitted, but they remained forever a part of Tibetan Buddhism -- as its protectors! During the 800's and 900's, Tibet went through a "dark age," during which Buddhism suffered something of a setback. But, in the 1000's, it returned in force. And in 1578, the Mongol overlords named the head of the Gelug School the Dalai Lama, meaning "guru as great as the ocean." The title was made retroactive to two earlier heads of the school. The fifth Dalai Lama is noted for bringing all of Tibet under his religious and political control. The lineage continues down to the present 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, born 1935. In 1989, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts on behalf of his people and nation, which had been taken over by the Communist Chinese in 1951. It was in the latter half of the 1800's that Buddhism first came to be known in the west. The great European colonial empires brought the ancient cultures of India and China back to the attention of the intellectuals of Europe. Scholars began to learn Asian languages and translate Asian texts. Adventurers explored previously shut-off places and recorded the cultures. Religious enthusiasts enjoyed the exotic and mystical tone of the Asian traditions. In England, for example, societies sprang up for devotees of "orientalia," such as T. W. Rhys Davids' Pali Text Society and T. Christmas Humphreys' Buddhist Society. Books were published, such as Sir Edwin Arnold's epic poem The Light of Asia (1879). And the first western monks began to make themselves know, such as Allan Bennett, perhaps the very first, who took the name Ananda Metteya. In Germany and France as well, Buddhism was the rage. In the United States, there was a similar flurry of interest. First of all, thousands of Chinese immigrants were coming to the west coast in the late 1800's, many to provide cheap labor for the railroads and other expanding industries. Also, on the east coast, intellectuals were reading about Buddhism in books by Europeans. One example was Henry Thoreau, who, among other things, translated a French translation of a Buddhist Sutra into English. A renewal of interest came during World War II, during which many Asian Buddhists -- such as the Zen author D. T. Suzuki -- came to England and the U.S., and many European Buddhists -- such as the Zen author Alan Watts -- came to the U.S. As these examples suggest, Zen Buddhism was particularly popular, especially in the U.S., where it became enmeshed in the Beatnik artistic and literary movement as "beat Zen." One by one, European and Americans who studied in Asia returned with their knowledge and founded monasteries and societies, Asian masters came to Europe and America to found monasteries, and the Asian immigrant populations from China, Japan, Vietnam and elsewhere, quietly continued their Buddhist practices. Today, it is believed that there are more than 300 million Buddhists in the world, including at least a quarter million in Europe, and a half million each in North and South America. I say "at least" because other estimates go as high as three million in the U.S. alone! Whatever the numbers may be, Buddhism is the fourth largest religion in the world, after Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism. And, although it has suffered considerable setbacks over the centuries, it seems to be attracting more and more people, as a religion or a philosophy of life. Snelling, John (1991). The Buddhist Handbook. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions. The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion (1994). Boston: Shambhala. The Encyclopaedia Britannica CD (1998). Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica. The Basics of Buddhist Wisdom The Four Noble Truths 1. Life is suffering; 2. Suffering is due to attachment; 3. Attachment can be overcome; 4. There is a path for accomplishing this. 1. Suffering is perhaps the most common translation for the Sanskrit word duhkha, which can also be translated as imperfect, stressful, or filled with anguish. Contributing to the anguish is anitya -- the fact that all things are impermanent, including living things like ourselves. Furthermore, there is the concept of anatman -- literally, "no soul". Anatman means that all things are interconnected and interdependent, so that no thing -- including ourselves -- has a separate existence. 2. Attachment is a common translation for the word trishna, which literally means thirst and is also translated as desire, clinging, greed, craving, or lust. Because we and the world are imperfect, impermanent, and not separate, we are forever "clinging" to things, each other, and ourselves, in a mistaken effort at permanence. Besides trishna, there is dvesha, which means avoidance or hatred. Hatred is its own kind of clinging. And finally there is avidya, ignorance or the refusal to see. Not fully understanding the impermanence of things is what leads us to cling in the first place. 3. Perhaps the most misunderstood term in Buddhism is the one which refers to the overcoming of attachment: nirvana. It literally means "blowing out," but is often thought to refer to either a Buddhist heaven or complete nothingness. Actually, it refers to the letting go of clinging, hatred, and ignorance, and the full acceptance of imperfection, impermanence, and interconnectedness. 4. And then there is the path, called dharma. Buddha called it the middle way, which is understood as meaning the middle way between such competing philosophies as materialism and idealism, or hedonism and asceticism. This path, this middle way, is elaborated as the eightfold path. The Eightfold Path 1. Right view is the true understanding of the four noble truths. 2. Right aspiration is the true desire to free oneself from attachment, ignorance, and hatefulness. These two are referred to as prajÃ±a, or wisdom. 3. Right speech involves abstaining from lying, gossiping, or hurtful talk. 4. Right action involves abstaining from hurtful behaviors, such as killing, stealing, and careless sex. 5. Right livelihood means making your living in such a way as to avoid dishonesty and hurting others, including animals. These three are refered to as shila, or morality. 6. Right effort is a matter of exerting oneself in regards to the content of one's mind: Bad qualities should be abandoned and prevented from arising again; Good qualities should be enacted and nurtured. 7. Right mindfulness is the focusing of one's attention on one's body, feelings, thoughts, and consciousness in such a way as to overcome craving, hatred, and ignorance. 8. Right concentration is meditating in such a way as to progressively realize a true understanding of imperfection, impermanence, and non-separateness. The last three are known as samadhi, or meditation. The Kalama Sutta In the Kalama Sutta, we find the Kalamas, a people of apparently skeptical natures, asking Buddha for guidance in distinguishing good teachers from bad ones, and proper teachings from evil ones. The Buddha answers in three parts, which are treasures of wisdom. First, he outlines the criteria we should use to distinguish good from bad teachers and teachings: "It is proper for you, Kalamas, to doubt, to be uncertain.... Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another's seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, 'The monk is our teacher....' "What do you think, Kalamas? Does greed appear in a man for his benefit or harm? Does hate appear in a man for his benefit or harm? Does delusion appear in a man for his benefit or harm?" -- "For his harm, venerable sir." -- "Kalamas, being given to greed, hate, and delusion, and being overwhelmed and vanquished mentally by greed, hate, and delusion, this man takes life, steals, commits adultery, and tells lies; he prompts another too, to do likewise. Will that be long for his harm and ill?" -- "Yes, venerable sir...." "Kalamas, when you yourselves know: 'These things are bad; these things are blamable; these things are censured by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to harm and ill,' abandon them. " Next, Buddha presents The Four Exalted Dwellings or Brahma Vihara: "The disciple of the Noble Ones, Kalamas, who in this way is devoid of coveting, devoid of ill will, undeluded, clearly comprehending and mindful, dwells, having pervaded, with the thought of amity, all corners of the universe; he dwells, having pervaded because of the existence in it of all living beings, everywhere, the entire world, with the great, exalted, boundless thought of amity that is free of hate or malice. "He lives, having pervaded, with the thought of compassion, all corners of the universe; he dwells, having pervaded because of the existence in it of all living beings, everywhere, the entire world, with the great, exalted, boundless thought of compassion that is free of hate or malice. "He lives, having pervaded, with the thought of gladness, all corners of the universe; he dwells, having pervaded because of the existence in it of all living beings, everywhere, the entire world, with the great, exalted, boundless thought of gladness that is free of hate or malice. "He lives, having pervaded, with the thought of equanimity, all corners of the universe; he dwells, having pervaded because of the existence in it of all living beings, everywhere, the entire world, with the great, exalted, boundless thought of equanimity that is free of hate or malice. And finally, Buddha reveals how, no matter what our philosophical orientation, following this path will lead to happiness, The Four Solaces: "The disciple of the Noble Ones, Kalamas, who has such a hate-free mind, such a malice-free mind, such an undefiled mind, and such a purified mind, is one by whom four solaces are found here and now. "'Suppose there is a hereafter and there is a fruit, result, of deeds done well or ill. Then it is possible that at the dissolution of the body after death, I shall arise in the heavenly world, which is possessed of the state of bliss.' This is the first solace found by him. "'Suppose there is no hereafter and there is no fruit, no result, of deeds done well or ill. Yet in this world, here and now, free from hatred, free from malice, safe and sound, and happy, I keep myself.' This is the second solace found by him. "'Suppose evil (results) befall an evil-doer. I, however, think of doing evil to no one. Then, how can ill (results) affect me who do no evil deed?' This is the third solace found by him. "'Suppose evil (results) do not befall an evil-doer. Then I see myself purified in any case.' This is the fourth solace found by him. "The disciple of the Noble Ones, Kalamas, who has such a hate-free mind, such a malice-free mind, such an undefiled mind, and such a purified mind, is one by whom, here and now, these four solaces are found." (quotations adapted from The Anguttara Nikaya 3.65, Soma Thera Trans., emphases added.) For other original sutras concerning the basics of Buddhist wisdom, see the following: Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion -- http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/samyutta/sn56-011a.html An Analysis of the Path -- http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/samyutta/sn45-008.html Ignorance -- http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/samyutta/sn45-001.html Assumptions -- http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/samyutta/sn22-047.html The River -- http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/samyutta/sn22-093.html The Shorter Instructions to Malunkya -- http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/majjhima/mn063.html The Dhammapada -- http://eawc.evansville.edu/anthology/dhammapada.htm Rahula, Walpola (1959). What the Buddha Taught. NY: Grove Press. Gard, Richard (1962). Buddhism. NY: George Braziller. Access in Insight: Gateways to Theravada Buddhism. (world.std.com/~metta/index.html) Buddhist Cosmology The following sections explain some of the concepts and ideas in Buddhism that are taken by most Buddhists as metaphorical or even plain mythological. Nevertheless, these things show up even in the most sophisticated texts, and so the student of Buddhism should be familiar with them -- even if they seem at times to take away rather than contribute to the deeper meaning of the Dharma. Westerners are often less comfortable with these things than are easterners, who have grown up with these terms. But a little thought and the reader will recognize that we have very similar concepts in the west, which we use in a similar fashion: Heavens and hells, ghosts and angels, the trinity, the saints.... Whether we take them literally or not, they are a part of how we tell our stories. The Buddhists, following the traditions of their Indian fore-fathers, saw the universe as infinite in time and space, and filled with an infinite number of worlds like our own. Above our ordinary world, there are two realms: the realm of form (rupa-dhatu) and the even higher realm of formlessness (arupa-dhatu). Below these is the realm of desire (kama-dhatu) which contains six domains (gatis), each with its own kinds of beings: 1. Devas or gods. 2. Asuras or titans (or jealous gods, or demigods), 3. Manusyas or humans. 4. Tiryaks or animals. 5. Pretas or hungry ghosts. 6. Narakas or demons (hell beings) All of the above, even the realms of form and formlessness, are in samsara , imperfect existence, and therefore governed by karma and its fruits (vipaka). The world extends around Mount Meru. Above the peak is the realm of the Buddha fields (or heavens). On the upper slopes you find the gods. The titans live on the lower slopes. Animals and humans live on the plains around the mountain. Hungry ghosts live on or just below the surface. And hell is deep under the earth. All this is surrounded by a great ocean. Time in Buddhist cosmology is measured in kalpas. Originally, a kalpa was considered to be 4,320,000 years. Buddhist scholars expanded it with a metaphor: rub a one-mile cube of rock once every hundred years with a piece of silk, until the rock is worn away -- and a kalpa still hasnâ€™t passed! During a kalpa, the world comes into being, exists, is destroyed, and a period of emptiness ensues. Then it all starts again. Some of the actors in the Buddhist mythological drama include... Brahma -- the supreme deva, who convinced Buddha to teach. Indra -- a major deva, originally the Hindu sky god. PrajÃ±a -- goddess of knowledge. Buddhaâ€™s mother was considered an incarnation. Mara -- a deva associated with death and hindrances to enlightenment. It was Mara who tempted Buddha under the bodhi tree. Yama -- the king of the 21 hells (see image above). Nagas -- great serpents (or dragons, or water creatures). The king of the Nagas protected Buddha from a storm. Gandharvas -- angelic beings who provide the gods with music Trikaya In Mahayana and especially Vajrayana, the idea of the Buddha and his Dharma evolved into a more elaborate system called the Trikaya, or three bodies of Buddha: 1. Nirmanakaya -- The earthly Buddhas (and Bodhisattvas), especially as personified by Siddhartha Gautama. In Tibet, the intentional human embodiment of a reborn master. 2. Sambhogakaya -- Buddhas in their heavens, the result of accumulated merit. Or, in Zen, enlightenment. In Tibetan buddhism, this refers to the means of achieving the Dharmakaya, i.e. the power of meditation on the various visualized dieties called yidams which are archetypal symbols of different qualities of enlightenment. 3. Dharmakaya -- The teachings of the Buddha, and the true nature of the Buddha, which is everything. Buddha mind, or Shunyata. In Tibet, they also refer to the body, speech, and mind of a master. And they are represented by the mudra, the mantra, and the mandala, respectively. Buddha Families Transcendent (or Dhyani) Buddhas These symbolize aspects of enlightened consciousness: 1. Vairochana -- center, white, tathagata family, ignorance and wisdom, the primordial Buddha. 2. Akshobhya -- east, blue, vajra (diamond) family, aggression and mirrorlike wisdom. 3. Ratnasambhava -- south, yellow, ratna (jewel) family, pride and equanimity. 4. Amitabha1 -- west, red, padma (lotus) family, passion and discriminating awareness, governs the present age. 5. Amoghasiddhi -- north, green, karma family, envy and all-accomplishing wisdom. Bodhisattvas and Buddhas Corresponding to these five transcendent Buddhas, there are five Bodhisattvas and five earthly Buddhas: 1. Samantabhadra Krakucchanda 2. Vajrapani Kanakamuni 3. Ratnapani Kashyapa 4. Avalokiteshvara (Kuan Yin)2 Shakyamuni (Siddhartha Gotama) 5. Vishvapani Maitreya (the future Buddha)3 1 Amitabha is the transcendent Buddha of the Western â€œPure Land.â€ Amitabha rules over this period of time. 2 Avalokiteshwara (Chenrezi, Kwan Yin, Kwannon) is the boddhisattva of compassion. Avalokiteshwara is often represented by a female figure, or an ambiguous one, in the Mahayana tradition. (See image at right) The Taras are a set of 21 female saviors, born from Avalokiteshwaraâ€™s tears. Green Tara and White Tara are the best known. 3 Maitreya is the future Buddha, who will be born 30,000 years from now. The Chinese monk called Pu-tai (Ho-tei in Japanese) -- â€œthe laughing buddhaâ€ -- is considered a pre-incarnation of Maitreya. Samsara is this world, filled as it is with so much pain and sorrow. All beings in this world are subject to the law of karma. Karma means volitional act, that is, something you do, say, or think that is in fact in your control. Any such act has moral consequences, called vipaka, which means fruit. In traditional Buddhism, this consequences can occur in this life, or in a future life. Most Buddhists believe in rebirth. For many, rebirth is no different from what the Hindus believed, i.e. reincarnation or transmigration -- moving from one's old body at death to a new body at birth or conception. A little more precisely, rebirth is nothing more than the transmission of one's karma. Buddha likened it to the flame that passes from one candle to another. So the idea of an immortal soul, a continuing personality, is definitely not part of the rebirth idea. Rebirth and similar concepts are not a part of most westerners' cultures, so many western Buddhists, as well as some eastern Buddhists, take rebirth as a metaphor, rather than literally. Buddhism has never been a particularly literalist religion, so this is not at all taboo. In fact, Buddha often avoids discussing the reality of one metaphysical idea or another as irrelevant to the practice of the Dharma. The image to the right is the Tibetan Wheel of Life, which represents Samsara. In the very center, there is a rooster chasing a pig chasing a snake chasing the rooster -- craving, hatred, and ignorance. Around that are people ascending the white semicircle of life, and others descending the black semicircle of death. The greatest portion of the Wheel is devoted to representations of the six realms -- the realm of the gods, the realm of the titans, the realm of humans, the realm of animals, the realm of the hungry ghosts, and the realm of demons -- each realm looked over by its own boddhisattva. The outermost circle is the 12 steps of dependent origination. The entire Wheel is held by Yama, the Lord of Death. Pratitya-Samutpada This is dependent origination, also known as conditioned arising, interdependent arising, conditional nexus, causal nexus.... It refers to the idea that, as long as we remain ignorant, clinging, and hateful, we will continue to create karma, and so continue to be reborn into this world full of suffering and pain. It is described using the metaphor of a wheel of life, wherein one thing inevitably leads to another. â€œAll psychological and physical phenomena constituting individual existence are interdependent and mutually condition each other...â€ which is what entangles us in samsara. (The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion) 1. Ignorance (avidya). "A" is ignorant of the dharma. The blind man cannot see the truth 2. Impulses (samskara). "A" therefore has intentions (karma), good, bad, or neutral, and acts on them. A potter creates a new pot from clay and water. 3. Consciousness (vijÃ±ana). These create a new conscious being, "B," who enters a womb. A monkey, with no self control, jumps from one branch to another. 4. Name and form (namarupa). "B" takes form. Three or four men in a boat: The body is the vehicle that carries us through life. 5. The six bases (shadayatana). "B" comes into a world of objects ready to be experienced. House with doors and windows: The senses let in the world, like windows let light into a house. 6. Contact (sparsha). "B" has contact with that world of objects. Lovers symbolize the intimate contact between world and mind. 7. Sensation (vedana). "B" has perceptions of that world of objects. A man with an arrow in his eye: Sensations can be so strong that they blind us to the truth. 8. Craving (trishna). "Bâ€™s" perceptions give rise to desires. A man drinking: The promise of satisfaction only leads to intoxication. 9. Clinging (upadana). Desire leads "B" to cling to life, even at death. Like a monkey clinging to a fruit tree, we cling to things. 10. Becoming (bhava). And another conscious being, "C," is begun. A pregnant woman: A new life has begun. 11. Birth (jati). Thus, "C" is born. A woman gives birth. 12. Old age and death (jara-maranam). And "Câ€™s" birth leads inevitably to his or her old age and death. An old man carries a corpse to its resting place. And the cycle continues, one thing leading to another.... Samyojana The Ten Fetters (Samyojana) bind us to samsara. 1. Belief in a separate personality or individuality (drishti) 2. Doubt that has no desire for satisfaction (vichikitsa) 3. Uncritical attachment to rules and rituals (silabbata-paramasa) 4. Sensuous craving (kama-raga) 5. Ill will, wishing harm on others (vyapada) 6. Craving for a higher material existence (rupa-raga) 7. Craving for non-material existence (arupa-raga) 8. Conceit or egotism (mana) 9. Restlessness (udhacca) 10. Ignorance (avidya) Dharmas are the ultimate elements or particles of the universe . A little like atoms, they are very small, but they exist for only a split second, in keeping with the doctrine of impermanence. And while atoms are purely material, dharmas include all phenomena, mental and physical. I like to think of them as little flashes of colored light, and I would translate the word as scintilla. Donâ€™t get confused between these and the Dharma, meaning the teachings of the Buddha! Like the ancient Greeks, the ancient Buddhists thought there were four basic elements: earth, water, air, and fire. The dharma theory turns these elements into qualities, or even verbs: fire becomes hot becomes burning; air becomes cool becomes blowing.... Ultimately, then, all â€œthingsâ€ are nothing more than bundles of these qualities or actions, and are â€œemptyâ€ inside. This led to one of the most important ideas of the Madhyamaka School of Mahayana Buddhism: Shunyata, which means emptiness. In Mahayana Buddhism, the dharmas were considered something more like phenomena than atoms, and the Yogachara School took the change even further, and considered them something more like ideas in the universal mind. The Skandhas Skandhas or aggregates are the parts of the self. Sometimes they are called the aggregates of attachment, which bring about suffering. Just like a car is nothing more than the sum of its parts, so we are nothing more than the sum of our parts. There is no atman, meaning soul, self, or ego, holding the pieces together. Nevertheless, just like the car can run despite being nothing but a collection of pieces, so we can live as a person. Traditionally, there are five skandhas: 1. The body, matter or form (rupa). Includes the body and the sense organs. 2. Feelings or sensations (vedana). Pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral feelings, coming out of contact between sense organs and objects, plus out of the contact between mind (manas) and mental objects (ideas, images...). 3. Thoughts or perceptions (samjÃ±a). Recognition of objects -- form, sound, smell, taste, bodily impressions, mental objects. 4. Will, mental acts, or mental formations (samskara). Volition, attention, discrimination, joy, happiness, equanimity, resolve, exertion, compulsion, concentration, etc. 5. Consciousness (vijÃ±ana). Awareness prior to recognition -- seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, kinesthesia, ideation. The last four are called naman, name, meaning the psyche. Namarupa (name-form) is therefore the buddhist term for the person, mental and physical, which is nevertheless anatman, without soul or essence. Ayatana is the six fields of naman: sight, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and mind, as well as the objects of these six senses. The Yogachara school adds alaya-vijÃ±ana, a â€œstorehouseâ€ consciousness, similar to Jungâ€™s idea of the collective unconscious. What is stored there are called bijas or seeds, which are inborn and result from our karmic history. They combine with manas or ego-mind to form the illusion of ordinary existence. By stilling mind, storehouse consciousness becomes identical with tathagata, â€œsuchness,â€ or the Buddha-mind. Chitta means mind or consciousness. In Yogachara, everything is ultimately chitta. For this reason, Yogachara is also called the chitta-matra, â€œnothing but consciousness,â€ or idealistic school. For more original sutras on the nature of samsara, rebirth, and karma, please see the following: The Hole -- http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/samyutta/sn56-048.html Fallen on Hard Times -- http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/samyutta/sn15-011.html Happy -- http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/samyutta/sn15-012.html Mother -- http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/samyutta/sn15-014.html Living in Tune -- http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/anguttara/an04-055.html Sister Soma -- http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/samyutta/sn05-002a.html The Monk with Dysentery -- http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/vinaya/mv8-26-1.html Old Age -- http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/samyutta/sn48-041.html Buddhist Morality The Pancha Shila The Pancha Shila, or five moral precepts: 1. Avoid killing, or harming any living thing. 2. Avoid stealing -- taking what is not yours to take. 3. Avoid sexual irresponsibility, which for monks and nuns means celibacy. 4. Avoid lying, or any hurtful speech. 5. Avoid alcohol and drugs which diminish clarity of consciousness. To these, monks and nuns add... 6. One simple meal a day, before noon. 7. Avoid frivolous entertainments. 8. Avoid self-adornment. 9. Use a simple bed and seat. 10. Avoid the use of money. Full monastic life adds over two hundred more rules and regulations! The Paramita The Perfections or Virtues -- noble qualities that we should all strive to achieve. Here are two versions: 1. Generosity (P: dana) 2. Moral discipline (P: sila) 3. Patience and tolerance (P: khanti) 4. Wisdom or (full-) consciousness (P: paÃ±Ã±a) 5. Energy (P: viriya) 6. Renunciation (P: nekkhamma) 7. Truthfulness (P: sacca) 8. Determination (P: adhitthana) 9. Loving kindness (P: metta) 10. Equanimity (P: upekkha) 1. Generosity (dana) 2. Moral discipline (shila) 3. Patience and tolerance (kshanti) 4. Energy (virya) 5. Meditation (dhyana) 6. Wisdom or (full-) consciousness (prajÃ±a) 7. Skilled methods (upaya) 8. Vow or resolution (pranidhana) 9. The ten powers or special abilities (dashabala) 10. Knowledge (jÃ±ana) The Brahma Vihara The Brahma Vihara are the four "sublime states" to which we all should aspire. They are the great signs of the Bodhisattva, who vows to remain in samsara -- this world of pain and sorrow -- until all creation can be brought into the state of Nirvana together. 1. Maitri is caring, loving kindness displayed to all you meet. 2. Karuna is compassion or mercy, the kindness shown to those who suffer. 3. Mudita is sympathetic joy, being happy for others, without a trace of envy. 4. Upeksa is equanimity or peacefulness, the ability to accept the ups and downs of life with equal dispassion. The Sigalovada Sutta This Sutra is a record of the words of the Buddha to Sigalo, a young middle class man, who was on his way to worship the six directions, east, west, north, south, up, and down. His father had died and asked him to worship in this very ancient fashion in remembrance of him. The Buddha, wishing this ritual to have more meaning for the young man, advised him in detail about how to live a good life as a layman. He phrased himself, as he apparently so often did, using lists, and begins by warning him against many of the evils of the layman's life. The four vices: 1. The destruction of life 2. Stealing 3. Sexual misconduct The four things which lead to evil: 1. Desire, meaning greed, lust, clinging 2. Anger and hatred 3. Ignorance 4. Fear and anxiety The six ways one dissipates ones wealth: 1. Drinking and drugs 2. Carousing late at night 3. Wasting away your time at shows 4. Gambling 5. Keeping bad company 6. Laziness And he provides details regarding these last six that demonstrate the manners in which drink, etc., lead to one's downfall. Then he provides a lesson on friendship -- how to distinguish good friends from bad friends. There are four types that are not really your friends, but will make your life miserable in the long run: 1. The leech who appropriates your possessions 2. The bull-shitter who manipulates you 3. The boot-licker who flatters you 4. The party-animal who encourages you to do the same A good friend, on the other hand, is one who... 1. is always ready to help you 2. is steady and loyal 3. provides good advice 4. is sympathetic The Buddha even gives some advice regarding one's finances: 1. One quarter of your earnings should be used to cover your expenses. 2. Two quarters should be re-invested in your business. 3. One quarter should be put into savings for times of need. Finally, the Buddha discusses how one might best benefit from worshipping the six directions. Regarding the east, a child should be good to his or her parents: support them, help them, keep their traditions, be worthy of your inheritance, and offer alms in their honor when they die. A parent should be good to his or her children as well: keep them from getting into trouble, encourage them to be good, train them for a profession, make sure they are suitably married, and provide a good inheritance. Regarding the south, a student should be good to his or her teachers: show respect, work hard, and be eager to learn. A teacher should be good to his or her students: teach them well, make sure they understand, help them achieve their goals. Regarding the west, a husband should be good to his wife: treat her well, be faithful to her, share authority with her, and give her jewelry ;-) A wife should be good to her husband: be gracious, faithful, industrious, and frugal. Regarding the north, a friend should be good to his or her friends: be generous, helpful, loyal, protective, and so on. Regarding the nadir ("down"), an employer should be good to his or her employees: assign work according to their abilities, provide food and wages, take care of them when they are sick, share delicacies with them, and grant them occasional leave. Employees should be good to their employers: Get to work early, leave late, perform their duties well, don't pilfer from the supply closet, and uphold their employer's good name. And finally, regarding the zenith ("up"), lay people should be good to people who have devoted themselves to the spiritual life: kind deeds, kind words, kind thoughts, opening one's home to them, and supplying them with their physical needs. And people in the spiritual life should be good to lay people: keep them from doing evil, encourage them to do good, make sure they hear the dharma, clarify what they don't understand, point out the way, and generally love them. Keep these relationships in mind, he tells Sigalovada, and the ritual your father asked you to keep will have greater benefits than he ever dreamed of. Although some of the details may be a bit dated -- it has been some 2500 years, after all -- it can still serve quite well as a guide to moral behavior for the common man or woman of today! Buddha concludes with a poem: Who is wise and virtuous, Gentle and keen-witted, Humble and amenable, Such a one to honor may attain. Who is energetic and not indolent, In misfortune unshaken, Flawless in manner and intelligent, Who is hospitable and friendly, Liberal and unselfish, A guide, an instructor, a leader, Generosity, sweet speech, Helpfulness to others, Impartiality to all, As the case demands. These four winning ways make the world go round, As the linchpin in a moving car. If these in the world exist not, Neither mother nor father will receive, Respect and honor from their children. From The Sigalovada Sutta, DN31, translated by Narada Thera (http://world.std.com/~metta/canon/digha/dn31.html). The Ten Duties of a King (from the Pali Jatakas) But the common man or woman is not the only one for whom Buddha provides guidance... 1. Dana: Liberality, generosity, charity, concern with the welfare of the people. 2. Sila: High moral character, observing at least the Five Precepts. 3. Parccaga: Willing to sacrifice everything for the people -- comfort, fame, even his life. 4. Ajjava: Honesty and integrity, not fearing some or favoring others. 5. Maddava: Kindness and gentleness. 6. Tapa: Austerity, content in the simple life. 7. Akkodha: Free from hatred, ill-will, and anger. 8. Avihimsa: Non-violence, a commitment to peace. 9. Khanti: Patience, tolerance, and the ability to understand othersâ€™ perspectives. 10. Avirodha: Non-obstruction, ruling in harmony with the will of the people and in their best interests. The Buddha's Words on Kindness (Metta Sutta) This is what should be done By one who is skilled in goodness, And who knows the path of peace: Let them be able and upright, Straightforward and gentle in speech. Humble and not conceited, Contented and easily satisfied. Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways. Peaceful and calm, and wise and skillful, Not proud and demanding in nature. Let them not do the slightest thing That the wise would later reprove. Wishing: In gladness and in saftey, May all beings be at ease. Whatever living beings there may be; Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none, The great or the mighty, medium, short or small, The seen and the unseen, Those living near and far away, Those born and to-be-born, May all beings be at ease! Let none deceive another, Or despise any being in any state. Let none through anger or ill-will Wish harm upon another. Even as a mother protects with her life Her child, her only child, So with a boundless heart Should one cherish all living beings: Radiating kindness over the entire world Spreading upwards to the skies, And downwards to the depths; Outwards and unbounded, Freed from hatred and ill-will. Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down Free from drowsiness, One should sustain this recollection. This is said to be the sublime abiding. By not holding to fixed views, The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision, Being freed from all sense desires, Is not born again into this world. From The Buddhist Reading Room (http://www.geocities.com/~wtwilson3/metta-su.htm). For more original sutras on Buddhist morality, please see the following: At Sedaka: The Acrobat -- http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/samyutta/sn47-019.html Half of the Holy Life -- http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/samyutta/sn45-002.html A Meal -- http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/anguttara/an05-037.html An Angry Person -- http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/anguttara/an07-060.html Instructions to Rahula -- http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/majjhima/mn061.html The Discourse to Gotami -- http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/anguttara/an08-053.html The Discourse to Sigala: The Layperson's Code of Discipline -- http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/digha/dn31.html Buddhism began by encouraging its practitioners to engage in smrti (sati) or mindfulness, that is, developing a full consciousness of all about you and within you -- whether seated in a special posture, or simply going about oneâ€™s life. This is the kind of meditation that Buddha himself engaged in under the bodhi tree, and is referred to in the seventh step of the eightfold path. Soon, Buddhist monks expanded and formalized their understanding of meditation. The bases for all meditation, as it was understood even in the earliest years of Buddhism, are shamatha and vipashyana. Shamatha is often translated as calm abiding or peacefulness. It is the development of tranquility that is a prerequisite to any further development. Vipashyana is clear seeing or special insight, and involves intuitive cognition of suffering, impermanence, and egolessness. Only after these forms were perfected does one go on to the more heavy-duty kinds of meditation. Samadhi is concentration or one-pointed meditation. It involves intense focusing of consciousness. Samadhi brings about the four dhyanas, meaning absorptions. Buddha refers to samadhi and the dhyanas in the eighth step of the eightfold path, and again at his death. Dhyana is rendered as Jhana in Pali, Châ€™an in Chinese, Son in Korean, and Zen in Japanese, and has, in those cultures, become synonymous with meditation as a whole. Basic Meditation The most basic form of meditation involves attending to one's breath. Begin by sitting in a simple chair, keeping your back erect if you can. The more traditional postures are the lotus position, sitting on a pillow with each foot upon the opposite thigh, and variations such as the half lotus (one foot on the opposite thigh, the other out in front of the opposite knee). This is difficult for many people. Some people kneel, sitting back on their legs or on a pillow between their legs. Many use a meditation bench: kneel, then place a little bench beneath your behind. But meditation is also done while standing, slowly walking, lying on the floor, or even in a recliner! Traditionally, the hands are placed loosely, palms up, one on top of the other, and with the thumbs lightly touching. This is called the cosmic mudra, one of a large number of symbolic hand positions. You may prefer to lay them flat on your thighs, or any other way that you find comfortable. Your head should be upright, but not rigid. The eyes may be closed, or focussed on a spot on the ground a couple of feet ahead of you, or looking down at your hands. If you find yourself getting sleepy, keep your eyes open! Beginning meditators are often asked to count their breath, on the exhale, up to ten. Then you begin back at one. If you loose track, simply go back to one. Your breath should be slow and regular, but not forced or artificially controlled. Just breathe naturally and count. A few weeks later, you may forego the counting and try to simply follow your breath. Concentrate on it entering you and exiting you. Best is to be aware as fully as possible of the entire process of breathing, but most people focus on one aspect or another: the sensation of coolness followed by warmth at the nostrils, or the rise and fall of the diaphragm. Many meditators suggest imagining the air entering and exiting a small hole an inch or two below your navel. Keeping your mind lower on the body tends to lead to deeper meditation. If you are sleepy, then focus higher, such as at the nostrils. You will inevitably find yourself distracted by sounds around you and thoughts within. The way to handle them is to acknowledge them, but do not attach yourself to them. Do not get involved with them. Just let them be, let them go, and focus again on the breath. At first, it might be wise to scratch when you itch and wiggle when you get uncomfortable. Later, you will find that the same scant attention that you use for thoughts and sounds will work with physical feelings as well. A more advanced form of meditation is shikantaza, or emptiness meditation. Here, you don't follow anything at all. There is no concentration -- only quiet mindfulness. You hold your mind as if you were ready for things to happen, but don't allow your mind to become attached to anything. Things -- sounds, smells, aches, thoughts, images -- just drift in and out, like clouds in a light breeze. This is my own favorite. Many people have a hard time with their thoughts. We are so used to our hyperactive minds, that we barely notice the fact that they are usually roaring with activity. So, when we first sit and meditate, we are caught off guard by all the activity. So some people find it helpful to use a little imagination to help them meditate. For example, instead of counting or following your breath, you might prefer to imagine a peaceful scene, perhaps floating in a warm lagoon, until the noise of your mind quiets down. Meditate for fifteen minutes a day, perhaps early in the morning before the rest of the house wakes up, or late at night when everything has quieted down. If that's too much, do it once a week if you like. If you want, do more. Don't get frustrated. And don't get competitive, either. Don't start looking forward to some grand explosion of enlightenment. If you have great thoughts, fine. Write them down, if you like. Then go back to breathing. If you feel powerful emotions, wonderful. Then go back to breathing. The breathing is enlightenment. The Ananda Sutta Ananda, Buddha's cousin, friend, and devoted disciple, once asked him if there was one particular quality one should cultivate that would best bring one to full awakening. Buddha answered: Being mindful of breathing. "There is the case where a monk, having gone to the wilderness, to the shade of a tree, or to an empty building, sits down folding his legs crosswise, holding his body erect, and setting mindfulness to the fore. Always mindful, he breathes in; mindful he breathes out. "Breathing in long, he discerns that he is breathing in long; or breathing out long, he discerns that he is breathing out long. Or breathing in short, he discerns that he is breathing in short; or breathing out short, he discerns that he is breathing out short. He trains himself to breathe in sensitive to the entire body, and to breathe out sensitive to the entire body. He trains himself to breathe in calming the bodily processes, and to breathe out calming the bodily processes. "He trains himself to breathe in sensitive to rapture, and to breathe out sensitive to rapture. He trains himself to breathe in sensitive to pleasure, and to breathe out sensitive to pleasure. He trains himself to breathe in sensitive to mental processes, and to breathe out sensitive to mental processes. He trains himself to breathe in calming mental processes, and to breathe out calming mental processes. "He trains himself to breathe in sensitive to the mind, and to breathe out sensitive to the mind. He trains himself to breathe in satisfying the mind, and to breathe out satisfying the mind. He trains himself to breathe in steadying the mind, and to breathe out steadying the mind. He trains himself to breathe in releasing the mind, and to breathe out releasing the mind. "He trains himself to breathe in focusing on inconstancy, and to breathe out focusing on inconstancy. He trains himself to breathe in focusing on dispassion, and to breathe out focusing on dispassion. He trains himself to breathe in focusing on cessation, and to breathe out focusing on cessation. He trains himself to breathe in focusing on relinquishment, and to breathe out focusing on relinquishment." (adapted from The Samyutta Nikaya 54.13,) The Five Hindrances (Nivarana) are the major obstacles to concentration. 1. Sensual desire (abhidya) 2. Ill will, hatred, or anger (pradosha) 3. Laziness and sluggishness (styana and middha) 4. Restlessness and worry (anuddhatya and kaukritya) 5. Doubt (vichikitsa) -- doubt, skepticism, indecisiveness, or vacillation, without the wish to cure it, more like the common idea of cynicism or pessimism than open-mindedness or desire for evidence. For more original sutras on Buddhist meditation, see the following: The Arrow -- http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/samyutta/sn36-006.html Analysis of Mental Faculties -- http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/samyutta/sn48-010.html The Ship -- http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/samyutta/sn22-101.html Analysis of the Frames of Reference -- http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/samyutta/sn47-040.html The Relaxation of Thoughts -- http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/majjhima/mn020.html The Simile of the Cloth -- http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/majjhima/mn007.html Some simple instructions for living a happy life, courtesy of the Buddha Here are three brief sutras, which I have edited even further, that show how the idea of rebirth contributes to our compassion for others, as well as giving us a little comfort for ourselves. Duggata Sutta -- The hard-times sutra When you see someone who has fallen on hard times, overwhelmed with hard times, you should conclude: 'We, too, have experienced just this sort of thing in the course of that long, long time.' Sukhita Sutta -- The happy sutra When you see someone who is happy & well-provided in life, you should conclude: 'We, too, have experienced just this sort of thing in the course of that long, long time.' Mata Sutta -- The mother sutra A being who has not been your mother at one time in the past is not easy to find... A being who has not been your father... your brother... your sister... your son... your daughter at one time in the past is not easy to Not everyone desires enlightenment. Sometimes, all we want is to be able to meet once again the ones we love: Samajivina Sutta -- Living in Tune Translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Once the Blessed One was staying among the Bhaggas in the Deer Park at Bhesakala Grove, near Crocodile Haunt. Then early in the morning the Blessed One put on his robes and, carrying his bowl and outer robe, went to the home of the householder, Nakula's father. On arrival, he sat down on a seat made ready. Then Nakula's father & Nakula's mother went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, having bowed down to him, sat to one side. As they were sitting there, Nakula's father said to the Blessed One: "Lord, ever since Nakula's mother as a young girl was brought to me [to be my wife] when I was just a young boy, I am not conscious of being unfaithful to her even in mind, much less in body. We want to see one another not only in the present life but also in the life to come." And Nakula's mother said to the Blessed One: "Lord, ever since I as a young girl was brought to Nakula's father [to be his wife] when he was just a young boy, I am not conscious of being unfaithful to him even in mind, much less in body. We want to see one another not only in the present life but also in the life to come." [The Blessed One said:] "If both husband & wife want to see one another not only in the present life but also in the life to come, they should be in tune [with each other] in conviction, in tune in virtue, in tune in generosity, and in tune in discernment. Then they will see one another not only in the present life but also in the life to come." Husband & wife, both of them having conviction, being responsive, being restrained, living by the Dhamma, addressing each other with loving words: they benefit in manifold ways. To them comes bliss. Their enemies are dejected when both are in tune in virtue. Having followed the Dhamma here in this world, both in tune in precepts & practices, they delight in the world of the devas, enjoying the pleasures they desire. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/anguttara/an04-055.html Although traditional Buddhism suffers from the sexism prevalent then and now in India, China, and elsewhere, it seems Buddha recognized the essential equality between men and women. After all, we have all been men and women at some time in our cycle of births and rebirths! Soma Sutta -- Sister Soma Translated from the Pali by Bhikkhu Bodhi. ...(I)n the morning, the bhikkhuni [nun] Soma dressed and, taking bowl and robe, entered Savatthi for alms. When she had walked for alms in Savatthi and had returned from her alms round, after her meal she went to the Blind Men's Grove for the day's abiding. Having plunged into the Blind Men's Grove, she sat down at the foot of a tree for the day's abiding. Then Mara the Evil One, desiring to arouse fear, trepidation, and terror in the bhikkhuni Soma, desiring to make her fall away from concentration, approached her and addressed her in verse: "That state so hard to achieve Which is to be attained by the seers, Can't be attained by a woman With her two-fingered wisdom." Then it occurred to the bhikkhuni Soma: "Now who is this that recited the verse -- a human being or a non-human being?" Then it occurred to her: "This is Mara the Evil One, who has recited the verse desiring to arouse fear, trepidation, and terror in me, desiring to make me fall away from concentration." Then the bhikkhuni Soma, having understood, "This is Mara the Evil One," replied to him in verses: "What does womanhood matter at all When the mind is concentrated well, When knowledge flows on steadily As one sees correctly into Dhamma. One to whom it might occur, 'I'm a woman' or 'I'm a man' Or 'I'm anything at all' -- Is fit for Mara to address." Then Mara the Evil One, realizing, "The bhikkhuni Soma knows me," sad and disappointed, disappeared right there. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/samyutta/sn05-002a.html Anger is, of course, not conducive to enlightenment. But Buddha explains that anger actually makes us miserable here and now! Kodhana Sutta -- An Angry Person (paraphrased) Seven things happen to people who are angry, which end up making their enemies happy: Some people wish that their enemies become ugly. But when people are angry, even if they are well bathed, beautifully dressed, and their hair neatly cut, they become ugly themselves! This is exactly what their enemies would wish for them! Some people wish that their enemies sleep poorly. But when people are angry, even if they sleep on luxurious beds, with white sheets, fluffy pillows, and beautiful blankets, they will sleep poorly because of their anger. This, too, is exactly what their enemies would wish! Some wish that their enemies not profit in business. But when people are angry, they become confused: When they suffer a loss, they think they are making a profit; when they make a profit, they think they are suffering a loss. This leads to constant worry, which is exactly what is enemy would wish! Some wish that their enemies not have any wealth. But when people are angry, even if they start out with wealth that they have worked hard to accumulate, they will behave badly and may wind up in jail or paying fines for their misbehavior, and eventually lose their fortunes. This is exactly what his enemy would wish! Some wish that ther enemies lose their reputation. But when people are angry, whatever reputation they have, and however well earned it may be, will disappear, which is exactly what their enemies would wish! Some wish that their enemies have no friends. But when people are angry, their friends and relatives avoid them because of their temper. This is exactly what their enemies would wish! And finally, some people wish that their enemies would go to hell. But when people are angy, they commit all kinds of sins, in their behavior, their speech, and in their minds. When they die, they may find themselves in hell, which is exacly what their enemies would wish! These are the seven things which happen to angry people, which end up making their enemies happy. Paraphrased from translation by Thanissaro Bhikkhu (www.accesstoinsight.org). Lying is such an institutionalized part of modern society it is hard for many of us to imagine a world without it. Buddha has a lesson for his son in this sutra: Ambalatthikarahulovada Sutta -- Lesson for Rahula at Mango Stone (paraphrased) When Rahula, Buddha's son, was seven, he set out some water for his father to wash his feet. Buddha picked up a ladle full of the water and began to wash. He showed his son the ladle with a little bit of water left in it and said "This is how little worth is left in someone who isn't ashamed at telling a lie." Tossing away the little bit of water, he said "What little honor is left in someone who is not ashamed when telling a lie is tossed away just like that." Turning the ladle upside down, he said "What little honor there is in someone who is not ashamed is turned upside down just like that." And showing Rahula the empty ladle, he said "What little honor there is in someone who is not ashamed is empty and hollow just like that." "A royal elephant going into battle who holds back in the fight hasn't given of himself fully. But when he gives his all, there is nothing he will not do. The same thing is true of someone who is not ashamed when they tell a lie: There is no evil he will not do! So train yourself not to lie, even in jest. "What do your think a mirror is for?" "For reflection, sir." "Just like a mirror, you actions, whether they are physical, verbal, or mental, should be done with constant reflectiion. "When you are considering doing something, reflect on it: Is this something which will cause harm to myself or others? If so, stop yourself from doing it. If not, if it leads to happy consequences, you may feel free to do it. While you are doing something, reflect on it: Is this act harming anyone? If so, stop. If not, go ahead. After you have done something, reflect on what you have done. If it resulted in harm to yourself or others, confess it to your teacher or companions, and resolve to restrain yourself in the future. If the act had happy consequences, then be joyful. "The same things apply to verbal acts. Before, during, and after you say something, reflect on it. If it seems that your speech will have or does have negative consequences, then restrain yourself or, if you are too late, confess and resolve to do better in the future. If what you have to say has positive consequences, then go ahead. "And the same thing applies to mental acts. Reflect on them, before, during, and after. If a thought has negative consequences, abandon it or, if it is too late, be ashamed and resolve to improve. If the thought has positive qualities, then act upon it. "Before, during, and after, reflect on your behavior, and purify yourself this way." Liberally paraphrased from That the True Dhamma Might Last a Long Time: Readings Selected by King Asoka, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu (www.accesstoinsight.org). Even unpleasant people need to be cared for when they are ill. In this sermon, Buddha tells us to care for anyone who needs our help, and goes on to describe how to be a good patient and a good nurse. Kucchivikara-vatthu -- The Monk with Dysentery Now at that time a certain monk was sick with dysentery. He lay fouled in his own urine & excrement. Then the Blessed One, on an inspection tour of the lodgings with Ven. Ananda as his attendant, went to that monk's dwelling and, on arrival, saw the monk lying fouled in his own urine & excrement. On seeing him, he went to the monk and said, "What is your sickness, monk?" "I have dysentery, O Blessed One." "But do you have an attendant?" "No, O Blessed One." "Then why don't the monks attend to you?" "I don't do anything for the monks, lord, which is why they don't attend to me." Then the Blessed One addressed Ven. Ananda: "Go fetch some water, Ananda. We will wash this monk." "As you say, lord," Ven. Ananda replied, and he fetched some water. The Blessed One sprinkled water on the monk, and Ven. Ananda washed him off. Then -- with the Blessed One taking the monk by the head, and Ven. Ananda taking him by the feet -- they lifted him up and placed him on a bed. Then the Blessed One, from this cause, because of this event, had the monks assembled and asked them: "Is there a sick monk in that dwelling over there?" "Yes, O Blessed One, there is." "And what is his sickness?" "He has dysentery, O Blessed One." "But does he have an attendant?" "Then why don't the monks attend to him?" "He doesn't do anything for the monks, lord, which is why they don't attend to him." "Monks, you have no mother, you have no father, who might tend to you. If you don't tend to one another, who then will tend to you? Whoever would tend to me, should tend to the sick. "If one's preceptor is present, the preceptor should tend to one as long as life lasts, and should stay until one's recovery. If one's teacher is present, the teacher should tend to one as long as life lasts, and should stay until one's recovery. If one's student is present, the student should tend to one as long as life lasts, and should stay until one's recovery. If one's apprentice is present, the apprentice should tend to one as long as life lasts, and should stay until one's recovery. If one who is a fellow student of one's preceptor is present, the fellow student of one's preceptor should tend to one as long as life lasts, and should stay until one's recovery. If one who is a fellow apprentice of one's teacher is present, the fellow apprentice of one's teacher should tend to one as long as life lasts, and should stay until one's recovery. If no preceptor, teacher, student, apprentice, fellow student of one's preceptor, or fellow apprentice of one's teacher is present, the sangha should tend to one. If it does not, [all the monks in that community] incur an offense of wrong-doing. "A sick person endowed with five qualities is hard to tend to: he does what is not amenable to his cure; he does not know the proper amount in things amenable to his cure; he does not take his medicine; he does not tell his symptoms, as they actually are present, to the nurse desiring his welfare, saying that they are worse when they are worse, improving when they are improving, or remaining the same when they are remaining the same; and he is not the type who can endure bodily feelings that are painful, fierce, sharp, wracking, repellent, disagreeable, life-threatening. A sick person endowed with these five qualities is hard to tend to. "A sick person endowed with five qualities is easy to tend to: he does what is amenable to his cure; he knows the proper amount in things amenable to his cure; he takes his medicine; he tells his symptoms, as they actually are present, to the nurse desiring his welfare, saying that they are worse when they are worse, improving when they are improving, or remaining the same when they are remaining the same; and he is the type who can endure bodily feelings that are painful, fierce, sharp, wracking, repellent, disagreeable, life-threatening. A sick person endowed with these five qualities is easy to tend to. "A nurse endowed with five qualities is not fit to tend to the sick: He is not competent at mixing medicine; he does not know what is amenable or unamenable to the patient's cure, bringing to the patient things that are unamenable and taking away things that are amenable; he is motivated by material gain, not by thoughts of good will; he gets disgusted at cleaning up excrement, urine, saliva, or vomit; and he is not competent at instructing, urging, rousing, & encouraging the sick person at the proper occasions with a talk on Dhamma. A nurse endowed with these five qualities is not fit to tend to the sick. "A nurse endowed with five qualities is fit to tend to the sick: He is competent at mixing medicine; he knows what is amenable or unamenable to the patient's cure, taking away things that are unamenable and bringing things that are amenable; he is motivated by thoughts of good will, not by material gain; he does not get disgusted at cleaning up excrement, urine, saliva, or vomit; and he is competent at instructing, urging, rousing, & encouraging the sick person at the proper occasions with a talk on Dhamma. A nurse endowed with these five qualities is fit to tend to the sick." http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/vinaya/mv8-26-1.html 1. This is what I have heard: Once, the Buddha was staying at Anathapindikaâ€™s retreat in the Jeta Grove near the city of Sravasti, with a gathering of 1250 monks. After dressing and making his begging rounds in the city and eating his one meal, he sat with the monks. 2. The monk Subhuti paid his respects to the Buddha and asked a question: â€œWhat should one who wants to travel the Bodhisattva path keep in mind?â€ 3. The Buddha answered, â€œA Bodhisattva should keep this in mind: All creatures, whether they are born from the womb or hatched from the egg, whether they transform like butterflies or arise miraculously, whether they have a body or are purely spirits, whether they are capable of thought or not capable of thought: All of these I vow to help enter nirvana before I rest there myself! â€œBut keep in mind, Subhuti, that in reality there is no such thing as an I who helps, and no such thing as an other whom I help. A Bodhisattva who does not recognize this reality is no true Bodhisattva! 4. â€œA true Bodhisattva takes no pleasure in this act of compassion and has no interest in appearances. He simply helps others selflessly. â€œCan you measure the east, the west, the north, and the south, Subhuti?â€ â€œNo, Lord.â€ â€œNeither can you measure the merit of someone who can help others without thought of himself.â€ 5. â€œSubhuti! Can anyone tell who is a Buddha on the basis of physical characteristics?â€ â€œNo, Lord. You have taught that Buddhahood is not a matter of physical characteristics.â€ â€œSo one who is concerned with appearances will never see the Buddha, but one is not concerned with appearances may.â€ 6. Subhuti asked, â€œLord, will there always be people who understand your message?â€ Buddha answered, â€œDonâ€™t doubt it, Subhuti! There will always be people who, hearing the message, will adhere to the precepts and practice our way. Our message will reach people simply because it is true! There will come a time when many will no longer need words, but will be beyond words. We must all strive to go beyond the words, because words can be clung to, and we should not cling to things. Understand that the words of the Buddha are like a raft built to cross a river: When its purpose is completed, it must be left behind if we are to travel further! 7. â€œSo tell me, Subhuti. Have I taught the ultimate teaching?â€ â€œNo, Lord. The ultimate teaching is not something which can be taught, because the ultimate teaching is not a thing which can be grasped or clung to.â€ 8. The Buddha said, â€œTell me, Subhuti. If someone gave away a universe full of treasures to help others, would he gain great merit?â€ â€œYes, Lord. His merit would be great. But you have also taught us that, in order for this act of generosity to be genuine, he would not have thought of gaining merit. In fact, he would not have thought of himself at all!â€ The Buddha said, â€œNow, if someone understands and passes on even four sentences of my message to another, his generosity is even greater. He is not just giving something, he is helping to create future Buddhas!â€ 9. â€œTell me, Subhuti. Would someone who is beginning to understand my message say to himself â€˜I have accomplished something grandâ€™?â€ â€œNo, Lord. Saying something like that would mean that the beginner doesnâ€™t understand that there is no ego there to take credit for anything at all!â€ â€œAnd would someone who is highly advanced in his understanding of my message say to himself â€˜I have accomplished something grandâ€™?â€ â€œNo, Lord. Anyone saying such a thing would also be saying that there is indeed an ego that attains something, and something to attain. These are not the thoughts of someone who understands your message. â€œLord, you have said that I have been successful in achieving peace and freedom from passions. In fact, I no longer crave the status of a saint. If I did, I am sure that you would never have thought so much of me!" 10. â€œSubhuti, If I say, â€˜Bodhisattvas adorn the heavens,â€ would I be speaking the truth?â€ â€œNo, Lord. Adornments are illusions, and illusions have no place in the heavens.â€ â€œAnd so Bodhisattvas should rid their minds of ego, and cease their preferences for one odor or another, one sound or another, one sight or another. A Bodhisattva should have no attachment or aversion to anything.â€ The Buddha asked, â€œSubhuti, if a man had a body as huge as a mountain, would he be a great man?â€ â€œNo, Lord. Because â€œa great manâ€ is only words, and being a great man is an illusion, created by the belief in ego.â€ 13. Then Subhuti asked the Buddha, â€œLord, what shall we call this sermon?â€ The Buddha answered, â€œCall it â€˜The Diamond Sutra on the Perfection of Wisdom.â€™ Like a diamond blade, it can cut through all delusion!â€ 14. Then Subhuti suddenly had a full awareness of the meaning of the sermon, and was moved to tears. â€œLord, thank you for this sermon. Anyone who hears it and understands it with a pure mind will be moved by it. Even hundreds of years into the future, its clarity will be appreciated." 32. â€œSubhuti, if someone gave away enough treasure to fill a universe, he would still not gain as much merit as someone who manages to understand and pass on a few lines of this sermon. â€œSo what should be on oneâ€™s mind as one begins the Bodhisattva journey? "Like a falling star, like a bubble in a stream, Like a flame in the wind, like frost in the sun, Like a flash of lightning or a passing dream -- So should you understand the world of the ego.â€ Subhuti and the rest of the monks were filled with joy at hearing the Buddhaâ€™s sermon. Towards a Buddhist Psychotherapy C. George Boeree, Ph.D. What follows is my effort at showing the relevance of Buddhism to western psychotherapy, especially existential therapy. Although it may not sit well with purists, I hope that this article captures the spirit of the Buddha's message. The Four Noble Truths sound like the basics of any theory with therapeutic roots: 1. Life is suffering. Life is at very least full of suffering, and it can easily be argued that suffering is an inevitable aspect of life. If I have senses, I can feel pain; if I have feelings, I can feel distress; if I have a capacity for love, I will have the capacity for grief. Such is life. Duhkha, the Sanskrit word for suffering, is also translated as stress, anguish, and imperfection. Buddha wanted us to understand suffering as a foundation for improvement. One key to understanding suffering is understanding anitya, which means that all things, including living things, our loved ones, and ourselves, are impermanent. Another key concept is anatman, which means that all things -- even we -- have no "soul" or eternal substance. With no substance, nothing stands alone, and no one has a separate existence. We are all interconnected, not just with our human world, but with the universe. In existential psychology, we speak of ontological anxiety (dread, angst). It, too is characterized as an intrinsic part of life. It is further understood that in order to improve one's life, one needs to understand and accept this fact of life, and that the effort one makes at avoiding this fact of life is at the root of neurosis. In other words, denying anxiety is denying life itself. As the blues song points out, "if you ain't scared, you ain't right!" Impermanence also has its correlate in the concept of being-towards-death. Our peculiar position of being mortal and being aware of it is a major source of anxiety, but is also what makes our lives, and the choices we make, meaningful. Time becomes important only when there is only so much of it. Doing the right thing and loving someone only have meaning when you don't have an eternity to work with. Anatman -- one of the central concepts of Buddhism -- is likewise a central concept in existential psychology. As Sartre put it, our existences precede our essences. That is to say, we are a kind of "nothingness" that strains to become a "something." Yet only by acknowledging our lives as more a matter of movement than substance do we stand a chance at authentic being. 2. Suffering is due to attachment. We might say that at least much of the suffering we experience comes out of ourselves, out of our desire to make pleasure, happiness, and love last forever and to make pain, distress, and grief disappear from life altogether. My feeling, not quite in line with some Buddhist interpretations, is that we are not therefore to avoid pleasure, happiness, and love. Nor are we to believe that all suffering comes from ourselves. It's just that it is not necessary, being shot once with an arrow, to shoot ourselves again, as the Buddha put it. Attachment is one translation of the word trishna, which can also be translated as thirst, desire, lust, craving, or clinging. When we fail to recognize that all things are imperfect, impermanent, and insubstantial, we cling to them in the delusion that they are indeed perfect, permanent, and substantial, and that by clinging to them, we, too, will be perfect, permanent, and substantial. Another aspect of attachment is dvesha, which means avoidance or hatred. To Buddha, hatred was every bit as much an attachment as clinging. Only by giving those things which cause us pain permanence and substance do we give them the power to hurt us more. We wind up fearing, not that which can harm us, but our fears themselves. A third aspect of attachment is avidya, meaning ignorance. At one level, it refers to the ignorance of these Four Noble Truths -- not understanding the truth of imperfection and so on. At a deeper level, it also means "not seeing," i.e. not directly experiencing reality, but instead seeing our personal interpretation of it. More than that, we take our interpretation of reality as more real than reality itself, and interpret any direct experiences of reality itself as illusions or "mere appearances!" Existential psychology has some similar concepts here, as well. Our lack of "essence" or preordained structure, our "nothingness," leads us to crave solidity. We are, you could say, whirlwinds who wish they were rocks. We cling to things in the hopes that they will provide us with a certain "weight." We try to turn our loved ones into things by demanding that they not change, or we try to change them into perfect partners, not realizing that a statue, though it may live forever, has no love to give us. We try to become immortal, whether by anxiety-driven belief in fairy-tales, or by making our children and grand-children into clones of ourselves, or by getting into the history books or onto the talk shows. We even cling to unhappy lives because change is too frightening. Or we try to become a piece of a larger pie: The most frightening things we've seen in this century are the mass movements, whether they be Nazis or Red Guard or Ku Klux Klan or... well, you name them. If I'm just a little whirlwind, maybe by joining others of my kind, I can be a part of a hurricane! Beyond these giant movements are all the petty ones -- political movements, revolutionary ones, religious ones, antireligious ones, ones involving nothing more than a style or fashion, and even the local frat house. And note the glue that holds them together is the same: hatred, which in turn is based on the anxiety that comes from feeling small. Finally, existential psychology also discusses its version of ignorance. Everyone holds belief systems -- personal and social -- that remain forever untested by direct experience. They have such staying power because built in to them is a catch-22, a circular argument, that says that evidence or reasoning that threatens the belief system is, ipso facto, incorrect. These belief systems can range from the great religious, political, and economic theories to the little beliefs people hold that tell them that they are -- or are not -- worthy. It is a part of therapy's job to return us to a more direct awareness of reality. As Fritz Perls once said, "we must lose our minds and come to our senses!" 3. Suffering can be extinguished. At least that suffering we add to the inevitable suffering of life can be extinguished. Or, if we want to be even more modest in our claims, suffering can at least be diminished. I believe that, with decades of practice, some monks may be able to transcend even simple, direct, physical pain. I don't think, however, that us ordinary folk in our ordinary lives have the option of devoting those decades to such an extreme of practice. My focus, then, is on diminishing mental anguish rather than eliminating all pain. Nirvana is the traditional name for the state of being (or non-being, if you prefer) wherein all clinging, and so all suffering, has been eliminated. It is often translated as "blowing out," with the idea that we eliminate self like we blow out a candle. This may be a proper understanding, but I prefer the idea of blowing out a fire that threatens to overwhelm us, or even the idea of taking away the oxygen that keeps the fires burning. By this I mean that by "blowing out" clinging, hate, and ignorance, we "blow out" unnecessary suffering. I may be taking a bit of a leap here, but I believe that the Buddhist concept of nirvana is quite similar to the existentialists' freedom. Freedom has, in fact, been used in Buddhism in the context of freedom from rebirth or freedom from the effects of karma. For the existentialist, freedom is a fact of our being, one which we often ignore, and which ignorance leads us to a diminished life. 4. And there is a way to extinguish suffering. This is what all therapists believe -- each in his or her own way. But this time we are looking at what Buddha's theory --dharma -- has to say: He called it the Eightfold Path. The first two segments of the path are refered to as prajÃ±a, meaning wisdom: Right view -- understanding the Four Noble Truths, especially the nature of all things as imperfect, impermanent, and insubstantial and our self-inflicted suffering as founded in clinging, hate, and ignorance. Right aspiration -- having the true desire to free oneself from attachment, hatefulness, and ignorance. The idea that improvement comes only when the sufferer takes the first step of aspiring to improvement is apparently 2500 years old. For the existential psychologist, therapy is something neither the therapist nor the client takes lying down -- if you will pardon the pun. The therapist must take an assertive role in helping the client become aware of the reality of his or her suffering and its roots. Likewise, the client must take an assertive role in working towards improvement -- even though it means facing the fears they've been working so hard to avoid, and especially facing the fear that they will "lose" themselves in the process. The next three segments of the path provide more detailed guidance in the form of moral precepts, called sila: Right speech -- abstaining from lying, gossiping, and hurtful speech generally. Speech is often our ignorance made manifest, and is the most common way in which we harm others. Modern psychologists emphasize that one should above all stop lying to oneself. But Buddhism adds that by practicing being true to others, and one will find it increasingly difficult to be false to oneself. Right action -- behaving oneself, abstaining from actions that hurt others (and, by implication, oneself) such as killing, stealing, and irresponsible sex. Right livelihood -- making one's living in an honest, non-hurtful way. Here's one we don't talk about much in our society today. One can only wonder how much suffering comes out of the greedy, cut-throat, dishonest careers we often participate in. This by no means means we must all be monks: Imagine the good one can do as an honest, compassionate, hard-working accountant, business person, lawyer, or politician! I have to pause here to add another Buddhist concept to the picture: karma. Basically, karma refers to good and bad deeds and the consequences they bring. In some branches of Buddhism, karma has to do with what kind of reincarnation to expect. But other branches see it more simply as the negative (or positive) effects one's actions have on one's integrity. Beyond the effects of your selfish acts have on others, for example, each selfish act "darkens your soul," and makes happiness that much harder to find. On the other hand, each act of kindness, as the gypsies say, "comes back to you three times over." To put it simply, virtue is its own reward, and vice its own hell. The nature of moral choice has been a central concern of existentialism as well. According to existentialists, we build our lives through our moral choices. But they view morality as a highly individualistic thing -- not based on simple formulas beginning with "thou shalt not..." and handed down to us directly from God. Actually, moral choice is something involving a real person in a real situation, and no one can second guess another's decisions. The only "principle" one finds in existentialism is that the moral decision must come from a certain position, i.e. that of authenticity. Perhaps I should also pause here to explain what is meant by the existential idea of authenticity. The surface meaning is being real rather than artificial or phony. More completely, it means living one's life with full acceptance of one's freedom and the responsibility and anxiety that freedom entails. It is often seen as a matter of living courageously. To me, it sounds suspiciously like enlightenment. There is another similar ethical philosophy I'd like to mention: the situated ethics of Joseph Fletcher. He is a Christian theologian who finds the traditional, authoritarian brand of Christian ethics not in keeping with the basic message of Christ. Needless to say, he has raised the hackles of many conservative Christians by saying that morality is not a matter of absolutes, but of individual conscience in special situations. He believes that, if an act is rooted in genuine love, it is good. If it is rooted in hatred, selfishness, or apathy, it is bad. Mahayana (northern) Buddhism says very much the same thing. It is always a matter of amusement to me that my students, unaware of all the great philosophical and religious debates on morality, all seem quite aware that intentionally hurting others (or oneself) is bad, and doing one's best to help others (and oneself) is good. If you look at Buddha's pronouncements on morality -- or Christ's -- you find the same simplicity. The last three segments of the path are the ones Buddhism is most famous for, and concern samadhi or meditation. I must say that, despite the popular conception, without wisdom and morality, meditation is worthless, and may even be dangerous. Right effort -- taking control of your mind and the contents thereof. Simple, direct practice is what it takes, the developing of good mental habits: When bad thoughts and impulses arise, they should be abandoned. This is done by watching the thought without attachment, recognizing it for what it is (no denial or repression!), and letting it dissipate. Good thoughts and impulses, on the other hand, should be nurtured and enacted. Make virtue a habit, as the stoics used to say. There are four "sublime states" (brahma vihara) that some Buddhists talk about. These sublime states are fully experienced by saintly creatures called boddhisattvas, but the rest of us should practice them every moment of every day as an exercise in self-improvement. They are loving kindness to all you meet, compassion for those who are suffering, joy for others without envy, and equanimity or a peaceful, evenly balanced attitude towards the ups and downs of life. Right mindfulness -- mindfulness refers to a kind of meditation involving an acceptance of thoughts and perceptions, a "bare attention" to these events without attachment. It is called vipassana in the Theravada (southern Buddhism) tradition, and shikantaza in the Ch'an (Zen) tradition. But it is understood that this mindfulness is to extend to daily life as well. It becomes a way of developing a fuller, richer awareness of life, and a deterent to our tendency to sleepwalk our way through life. One of the most important moral precepts in Buddhism is the avoidance of consciousness-diminishing or altering substances -- i.e. alcohol or drugs. This is because anything that makes you less than fully aware sends you in the opposite direction of improvement into deeper ignorance. But there are other things besides drugs that diminish consciousness. Some people try to avoid life by disappearing into food or sexuality. Others disappear into work, mindless routine, or rigid, self-created rituals. Drowning oneself in entertainment is one of today's favorite substitutes for heroin. I think that modern media, especially television, make it very difficult to maintain our balance. I would like to see a return to the somewhat Victorian concept of "edifying diversions:" see a good movie on PBS or videotape -- no commercials, please -- or read a good book, listen to good music, and so on. We can also drown awareness in material things -- fast cars, extravagant clothes, and so on. Shopping has itself become a way of avoiding life. Worst of all is the blending of materiality with entertainment. While monks and nuns avoid frivolous diversions and luxurious possessions, we surround ourselves with commercials, infomercials, and entire shopping networks, as if thery were effective forms of "pain control!" Right concentration -- meditating in such a way as to empty our natures of attachments, avoidances, and ignorance, so that we may accept the imperfection, impermanence, and insubstantiality of life. This is usually thought of as the highest form of Buddhist meditation, and full practice of it is pretty much restricted to monks and nuns who have progressed considerably allong the path. But just like the earlier paths provide a foundation for later paths, later ones often support earlier ones. For example, a degree of "calm abiding" (shamatha), a beginning version of concentration, is essential for developing mindfulness, and is taught to all beginning meditators. This is the counting of breaths or chanting of mantras most people have heard of. This passifying of the mind is, in fact, important to mindfulness, effort, all moral practice, and even the maintaining of view and aspiration. I believe that this simple form of meditation is the best place for those who are suffering to begin -- though once again, the rest of the eightfold path is essential for long-term improvement. Most therapists know: Anxiety is the most common manifestation of psychological suffering. And when it's not anxiety, it's unresolved anger. And when it's not anger, it's pervasive sadness. All three of these can be toned done to a manageable level by simple meditation. Meditation will not eliminate these things -- that requires wisdom and morality and the entire program -- but it will give the sufferer a chance to acquire the wisdom, morality, etc! Beyond recommending simple meditation, therapists might recommend simplification of lifestyle, avoidance of sensationalistic or exploitative entertainment, a holiday from the news, a retreat to a monastery, or a simple weekend vacation. One of my favorite expressions is "less is more!" As I mentioned earlier, some Buddhists have an expression "nirvana is samsara," which means that the perfected life is this life. While there is much talk about great insights and amazing enlightenments and even paranormal events, what Buddhism is really all about, in my humble opinion, is returning to this life, your very own little life, with a "new attitude." By being more calm, more aware, a nicer person morally, someone who has given up envy and greed and hatred and such, who understands that nothing is forever, that grief is the price we willingly pay for love.... this life becomes at very least bearable. We stop torturing ourselves and allow ourselves to enjoy what there is to enjoy. And there is a good deal to enjoy! My Buddhist friends often use the term "practice" for what they do. They encourage each other to "keep on practicing." Nobody is too terribly concerned if they aren't perfect -- they don't expect that. As long as you pick yourself up and practice a little more. A good basis for therapy. Navayana Buddhism Many of us, easterners and westerners, have been profoundly influenced by our study of Buddhism, and yet do not find ourselves attached to any one particular sect or interpretation of Buddhism. Further, many of us, especially westerners, find the fundamental ideas of Buddhism deeply meaningful, but cannot, without being dishonest with ourselves, accept certain other ideas usually associated with Buddhism. This leaves us with a somewhat ambiguous sense of who and what we are. For example, many of us are unable, or do not desire, to attach ourselves to one or another of the monastic traditions. And we are often unable and unwilling to take certain beliefs literally. The many gods and demons, heavens and hells, that some traditional Buddhists accept as real, are things that strain our credibility. And rebirth strikes many of us as a metaphor rather than a literal reality. Because of these things, to some traditional Buddhists we are just not Buddhists at all. We are heartened by the fact that Buddha himself seems to have considered arguments about cosmology and gods and the reality of life after death as irrelevant to the more immediate concern, which is the practice of the eight-fold path. It is, of course, a little presumptuous to say which of the many sutras are the ones we should pay attention to, and which should be considered some kind of later addition or modification. We will never know exactly what the Buddha said and did not say. We can only be "lights unto ourselves" and do the best we can. This by no means suggests that we look down upon other Buddhist orientations or that we have a better or purer understanding of Buddhist life. We only want to acknowledge our debt to the teachings of the Buddha. For this reason, I would like to recommend the term Navayana Buddhism ("new vehicle of awakening") to all those who wish to so identify themselves. Links and Suggested Readings Access in Insight: Gateways to Theravada Buddhism. (www.accesstoinsight.org) Fantastic set of translations of suttas from the Pali Canon Osel Shen Phen Ling: The Tibetan Buddhist Center. (www.fpmt-osel.org) A particularly beautiful web site, with lovely teachings from modern lamas. BuddhaNet: Buddhist Information Network. (www.buddhanet.net) Rich site, with a great glossary by Ven. S. Dhammika, and many downloadable texts of all traditions. The White Path Temple: Shin Buddhism. (www.mew.com/shin/) Many articles and resources regarding the popular Shin tradition. The Buddhist Library (worldtrans.org/CyberSangha/csindex.html) A very large collection of Buddhist texts and commentary. Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. (www.tricycle.com) A site associated with the magazine Tricycle. Some articles are are available right here! The Journal of Buddhist Ethics. (jbe.la.psu.edu) Very technical, philosophical free internet publication. The E-Sangha. (www.e-sangha.com) A large and active Buddhist discussion forum. Walpola Rahula -- What the Buddha Taught -- A really good explanation of basic ideas, using lots of Pali Sutra quotes. Kogen Mizuno -- The Beginnings of Buddhism -- A great review of the Buddha's teachings, presented in the form of a biography. John Snelling -- The Elements of Buddhism and The Buddhist Handbook -- Great introductions (the first short, the second long), especially to the history of Buddhism, up to the present. The Dhammapada -- The most beautiful summation of Buddhism in the sutras! Many translations available. The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion -- Shambhala, publisher -- Every Buddhist, Hindu, and Taoist word in Sanskrit, Pali, Chinese, and Japanese, you are ever going to come across. Also available in more limited versions (e.g. one for Zen...)! Shunryu Suzuki -- Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind -- IMHO the very best book ever written on Zen. Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki -- Introduction to Zen Buddhism and Manual of Zen Buddhism -- Classic introduction and selection of readings on Zen. Philip Kapleau -- The Three Pillars of Zen -- Great introduction. Follow-up books also available. Thich Nhat Hanh -- Being Peace -- Suggestions for meditation by the originator of Engaged Buddhism. He's written many others. Robert Thurman -- Essential Tibetan Buddhism -- Collection of Tibetan texts by the father of Uma. Tough reading! Dalai Lama -- The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living -- It's by the Dalai Lama! He has written many others as well. Stephen Batchelor -- Buddhism Without Beliefs -- A wonderful effort at fitting Buddhism together with Western society (not an easy task!). Sylvia Boorstein -- That's Funny, You Don't Look Buddhist -- Buddhism from the Jewish perspective. Charlotte Joko Beck -- Everyday Zen: Love and Work -- Zen in ordinary life. David Brazier -- Zen Therapy -- An expanation of how Zen contributes to therapy. And The Feeling Buddha -- a great introduction to Buddhist Psychology. Mark Epstein -- Thoughts Without a Thinker -- Zen blended with Freud. Alan Watts -- wrote lots of great books, introducing a generation of hippies to "beat" Zen. Thomas Cleary -- good modern translator of many Buddhist texts. Stephen Mitchell -- another good modern translator of many Buddhist texts. John Stevens -- a third good translator. See especially Wild Ways: Zen Poems of Ikkyu and Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf: Zen Poems of Ryokan. Lao Tsu -- The Tao te Ching -- It's not really Buddhism, but it has contributed to Zen enormously. And it is one of the greatest little books ever written. I would recommend the translation by Ursula K. leGuin. Epictetus -- The Art of Living -- Ancient Greek Buddhism? A translation of this great Stoic work by Sharon Lebell. Short and easy to read.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3245
__label__cc	0.603187	0.396813	Shaping the Future of African Cities Exploring the minds of visionaries, innovators and key decision makers who are determining the future of African Cities. Featured Discussions on Future Cities Africa Explore the minds of thought leaders and experts on major trends, technologies, innovations, projects, challenges and opportunities impacting African citizens, business and cities. Smart City Initiatives and Future Plans at City of Tshwane Musa Khumalo is the Group Head for Shared Services at the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality. He is also the chairperson of the Risk and Audit Committee at the Gauteng Department of Economic Development. We discuss Smart City initiatives at the City of Tshwane, e-Tshwane statistics, future plans for e-Tshwane, how the City of Tshwane has managed to do more than many other municipalities, and his vision of the city in 2040. Listen or View Podcast Un-Visioning the Future of Cities Dr. Geci Karuri-Sebina is a multi-disciplinary scholar-practitioner currently occupied in several capacities working at the intersection between people, place and technological change, focusing on the global south. We discuss her work, stakeholder collaboration, smart cities, inclusive cities, what she would change if she had a magic wand and her vision for cities in 2040. Welcome to Future Cities Africa Major drivers such as urbanisation, technology advancement, pandemics, digital transformation, climate change, inadequate infrastructure and more are creating an urgent need for African Cities to be sustainable, livable, workable and smart. Future Cities Africa is a neutral knowledge platform hosting 1 on 1 digital discussions that get into the minds of thought leaders and experts. We explore major trends, technologies, innovations, projects, challenges and opportunities impacting citizens, business and cities. We find insights into how we can ensure a bright future for Africa and her people. The success of Africa’s future workable, livable and sustainable cities depend of the clear vision and integration of elements across many topics and sectors like digital transformation; city planning; development and architecture; healthcare, enable policies; financial models and funding; mobility; citizen centric services; digital strategies; data management and integration; data centric approaches; infrastructure and utilities management, renewable energy, sustainability; climate change; inclusivity; equitable participation & shared benefit; growing the township economy; reducing poverty and unemployment; governance and ethics; broadband connectivity for all citizens; data privacy; cyber security; drone technology; Blockchain, Internet of Things, machine learning, artificial intelligence, 5G, managing ICT and many more. The future for African cities are not set in stone, however through collaboration and sharing of knowledge we can stay informed and build together on a prosperous and exciting future for ourselves and our children. Topics Covered by #FCA Human-made environments that provide the setting for human activity, ranging in scale from buildings to cities and beyond. Explore how we are using new, fast and frequently changing digital technology to solve problems. Reorganise new and existing transport methods to reduce fatalities, reduce congestion and pollution and improve the urban economy. Discover new technologies that are improving city service delivery and the quality of life of citizens. Innovative City Projects Learn from the latest city project case studies across Africa that is leading the way in innovation. Future cities will be smart, sustainable, livable and workable cities. Significant issues for policymakers in order to realise the full potential of an economy. How to shift to a low-emissions and eventually climate neutral society. Challenges & Opportunities Master the challenges and opportunities of rapid urbanisation and key drivers of city development in Africa	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3247
__label__cc	0.728749	0.271251	Call Us Today For A Hablas Español? Call Us Today For A FREE Consultation! Breast Implants & Augmentation Eyelid Lifts and Brow Lifts Nose Job / Rhinoplasty What You Need to Know About Gummy Bear Breast Implants The most recent advancement in breast augmentation is the use of “gummy bear implants” – a term that you might have heard floating around the media lately. The gummy bear implant is the fifth generation of silicone breast plants, and they are made out of a cohesive gel that is able to retain its shape. At our center, we now offer these breast implants to our patients. These new implants are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, just like the delicious treat gummy bears – but, the implants are a bit different than their candy-coined term. How did Gummy Bear Breast Implants get their Name? Unlike real gummy bears, the breast implants are not completely solid. They are made up of a semi-solid gel with an outer shell. But the reason they are referred to as gummy bear breast implants is because they keep their shape, much like the soft gummy bear candy can. The implants were dubbed as “the gummy bear” by a plastic surgeon in California, named Dr. Grant Stevens. Many women prefer this new type of implant because they make the breasts look and feel more natural compared to previous generation silicone implants. Thousands of women have already had gummy bear breast implants put in with no injuries or issues to report. Are Gummy Bear Implants Safe? The gummy bear breast implants are also said to have a low rupture rate, but it is important to keep in mind that all implants can possibly rupture. Even if an implant ruptures, it is not dangerous or life threatening. We perform a physical and history on all of our patients first to determine whether they’d be a good candidate for gummy bear breast implants. If you are interested in having gummy bear implants for breast augmentation, schedule an appointment with one of our talented plastic surgeons in Philadelphia for a consultation. What to Expect from Breast Augmentation Surgery Thinking about having breast augmentation done? Here’s what you can expect at our plastic surgery center in Philadelphia. Only one full work week will be missed after surgery The chest muscles can be exercised after just one month of surgery Pain within the first three days is controlled with a catheter and after that, the experience is mostly feelings of pressure After breast augmentation, women can still receive mammograms and breastfeed Incisions are made so that scarring has minimal visibility We have been performing state-of-the-art cosmetic surgery for over 20 years with the utmost quality. For more information about our gummy bear breast implant surgery, call our office today. We also offer rhinoplasty, permanent makeup, eyebrow lifts, breast reduction, liposuction and more. This entry was posted in breast implants on March 7, 2016 by gabay. What You Can Expect After Rhinoplasty What Are Stretch Marks and How Can I Get Rid of Them? 9 FAQs About Mommy Makeovers What to Avoid After Breast Augmentation Surgery How Should You Prepare Your Diet for Surgery? \| 9500 Roosevelt Boulevard Philadelphia, PA 19115-3926 \| 215-501-7565 © 2016 Gabay & Gottlieb, All Rights Reserved \| Sitemap	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3248
__label__wiki	0.634839	0.634839	Rice Not Bullets! GABRIELA NY Stands with the Indigenous Lumad and Farmers of Kidapawan! By GABRIELA New York, April 6, 2016 Tina Cocadiz, GABRIELA NY Vice Chairperson tcocadiz@gmail.com GABRIELA New York vehemently condemns the state terror inflicted on protesting farmers and indigenous Lumad in Kidapawan, North Cotabato, Mindanao on April 1, 2016. Having endured several months of drought as a result of El Niño, men, women and children peacefully demanded food and relief aid they were promised from the government but were met with bullets instead of rice. More than 6,000 starving farmers, their families, community members and leaders convened in North Cotabato on March 30th, 2016. Having suffered devastating losses to their livelihoods where they lost 75% to 100% of their crops, they gathered to call on the government to deliver the 15,000 bags of rice promised by the Philippine government. After a few days of peaceful protest, the Philippine National Police (PNP) and other enforcement forces escalated the situation and opened fire upon the unarmed protesters with high-powered rifles. In the aftermath, at least 5 people were killed (2 reportedly women), 116 were injured (18 critically wounded), 89 are currently reported missing (including women, elderly and 6 children), and 2 have been reported tortured (Ondo Paonel and his wife, Leonara Paonel both who are still missing). Currently the surviving protestors are being detained at Spottswood, United Methodist Church, Kidapawan City. The PNP have surrounded the remaining protesters and will not allow the wounded to be relocated to hospitals. Among those attacked on the frontlines of the violent dispersal was Bai Ali Indalya, GABRIELA Women’s Partylist 3rd Nominee and Secretary General of Suara Bangsamoro, who delivered the keynote address at the GABRIELA USA 3rd National Congress in San Francisco last month. Due to global climate change, El Niño has had devastating impacts in the Philippines and destroyed at least 27,500 hectares of crops in this province just last year. As of January 2016, the government has promised assistance to the suffering communities, but the farmers have yet to see a single grain of rice or relief. The Aquino administration continues to ignore and suppress the people’s demands for justice. The administration allows for the plundering of fertile land that are rich in natural resources only to appease foreign corporate interests. While corporate and politician pockets grow, peasant farmers and Lumad communities face rampant exploitation of their lands. The Kidapawan massacre is yet another act of terror under the Aquino regime, following the Lianga massacre of three Lumad community leaders in September 2015 and the Mamasapano massacre in January 2015. “We must ask ourselves why the PNP were carrying high-powered rifles to fire upon unarmed protestors. We must ask why among those killed, missing and tortured are women and children. This massacre exposes the state repression, fascism and violence that Filipinos face under US-backed President Aquino who is bent on profit over Filipino lives,” said Cole Carothers, Chairperson of GABRIELA NY who integrated in a Lumad community last summer. “And we must ask ourselves why the Philippines has the richest natural resources in the world, yet the people are some of the poorest. It is only through national industrialization and genuine agrarian reform that poverty and hunger will no longer be a crisis.” GABRIELA New York demands that President B.S. Aquino, Governor Lala Talino-Mendoza and the PNP be held accountable for these egregious acts of terror against the people and gross violations of human rights. We stand alongside the farmers, women, children, community members and activists that have faced state repression and militarization as they assert their rights to food, land and livelihood. Join the call for a Global Day of Action on the Kidapawan Massacre on April 8th and intensify the international call for justice and accountability for the victims of the Kidapawan massacre. Also join us for a human rights forum on May 21st in New York as part of Lakbay Lumad USA, a speaking tour with indigenous Lumad activists who are traveling throughout the United States to advocate against the ongoing militarization of Mindanao, and to educate on ways to get involved and contribute to their fight for genuine peace with justice. Justice for the North Cotabato farmers! Bigas hindi bala! Rice not bullets! Stop Lumad Killings! ‪#‎BigasHindiBala‬, ‪#‎RiceNotBullets‬ ‪#‎StopLumadKillings‬ Abante! GABRIELA USA 3rd National Congress March 19-20	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3249
__label__cc	0.71464	0.28536	November 2018: Reinventing the Needle October 30, 2018 Brad Beheler 0 Comments What do you say when it’s over? Don’t know if I should say anything at all. So goes the plaintive statement at the heart of Clint Black’s classic “Better Man”. And it kind of sums up the headspace I find myself in lately with this music scene. It’s not the first time either. Nothing has moved my needle in months. At least not within the confines of “the scene”. When a hardcore music fan can’t find much to get excited about, it’s time for some examination. And that examination has proven that there isn’t much happening. It’s like death by quicksand, being stuck on an escalator to nowhere. Everything changes, yet stays the same. The charge is being led by Koe, Parker and Read. A youth movement that is super cool, but comes off like a movie I’ve already seen. Turnpike is in the Enquirer. PG is selling art. Sure, the RRBs and WBs and JABs of the world plug along and are fantastic. But, what’s new? Not much. CoJo and Ward are making national waves by releasing music that has more in common with Tracy Lawrence and Tracy Byrd than Willie and Jerry Jeff. And, there’s nothing wrong with that. It just doesn’t move me anymore. I’m super proud and happy for those guys and everyone having success at the moment. All that well-deserved success aside, most things that are exciting at the moment are happening beyond our scene. Sturgill, Isbell, Tyler, Prine’s resurgence feel good and they’re a cousin to us…but they don’t live with us. As Lefsetz has pontificated about countless times, true innovation is happening in tech, not music. Music, in general, is rudderless and hasn’t seen innovation in 15 years or more. It’s not just a Texas Country/Red Dirt problem either. Every genre and every scene seems to be treading water waiting to find out what’s going to happen next. There’s comfort in the curves and when there’s so much money at stake, it’s hard to take chances. Even punk rock went corporate. Maroon 5 is playing the Super Bowl and the biggest rock star on the planet at the moment is a former folk singer from Grapevine turned hip hop maven that provides monster commercial hooks amid the slurring. Vanilla is the most popular ice cream flavor, but down in Texas we dig us some Blue Bell Rocky Road. When was the last time you heard something original? Something that made you say wow. Something that made you hit repeat. Rewind. Replay. The lead guitarist of a major alternative rock band one time told me, “There’s only so many notes, we’re all just reinventing the wheel.” However it is reinvention that we are all seeking the most. We look back to move ahead. The most buzzworthy band of the moment (for better or worse) is Greta Van Fleet. A Led Zeppelin ripoff that is finding success simply because the world is craving something fresh yet familiar. Willie begat Jerry Jeff begat REK begat PG begat RRB begat JAB begat the present. Someone, somewhere is creating that reinvention for our scene. They will arrive when the time is right, and I will be waiting alongside all of you to bask in it. Whether they sound like Jerry Jeff 4.0 or something different, we’re in desperate need. Artforms of all kinds suffer when stagnant. Phil Pritchett once sang of country music, “it’s gone the way of Big Band as far as I can tell.” If things don’t change course in the next few years, we’ll be saying the same thing about Texas Music as a whole. It will be a relic, a super niche. The splinters of it will live on forever. Americana, folk, singer-songwriters. Those things will never go away. The question is how fresh will they sound? And what will the audience look like? In 5 years? 10? 20? Time will tell and the needle awaits. MINOR CHORDS -I never want these columns to come off too ranty. I’m not upset, just trying to pontificate, motivate and ruminate. I don’t have any answers, but I have lots of questions. -We’re undergoing some housecleaning around the site and updating things. The Spambots invaded and we’re fighting them off. A simple redesign and some upgrades are coming your way soon. -I can’t remember a wetter fall. -I’m headed to Vegas and Key West in successive months. I was built to rage. -Jason Garrett will stay on as head coach until Jerry draft’s his grandson. I think it’s in the contract. -My candidate loves America, Jesus and bbq. Your candidate hates puppies, freedom and tacos. You can flip it for whichever side you’re on. Ready for the election to be over and the ads to be off my screens. Please vote. Please research it beyond the silly ads every candidate uses. -I’ve found that taking old school yellow cabs, while not as convenient, is cheaper and more fun than Uber. -This month’s recommended album: Adam Hood – Somewhere In Between. The Alabama troubadour has delivered another top to bottom banger. You want groove, he’s got it. You want soul, he’s got it. You want country, he’s got it. You want blues, he’s got it. Most importantly, you want real…he’s got it. -“Of all the things I’ve lost, I miss my mind the most.” – Mark Twain ← Will Time Erase Our Heroes? December 2018: Caretakers of the Bond → July 2014: Authentic Coats From the Cold July 8, 2014 July 8, 2014 Brad Beheler 9 March 2009: Marching to Greatness March 3, 2009 January 7, 2014 Brad Beheler 4 January 2017: Where Do We Take It From Here? January 5, 2017 January 5, 2017 Brad Beheler 20	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3250
__label__wiki	0.836054	0.836054	game-share-online Publisher - game-share-online PS5 DualSense controller teardown just revealed its killer feature By Game Share Online Last updated Dec 11, 2020 If you were lucky enough to get your hands on the new DualSense controller for the PS5, would you take it apart? Well that’s what Argentinian controller specialist Evzen Elite did. Taking to Instagram, the controller company posted a slew of images that showed a teardown of the DualSense controller. It’s difficult to get a lot of new insight into the DualSense controller from the teardown, but we do get a glimpse at the sophisticated trigger mechanism. Evzen Elite explained where once there was a relatively simplistic trigger mechanism for the outgoing DualShock 4 controller, the DualSense is a lot more advanced. That’s to be expected as Sony has been touting the DualSense as having more advanced haptics so gamers can, for example, feel the tension of an in-game drawn bowstring. “In this new version, the simple PS4 trigger has been replaced by an extremely fast system. Now, it [has] small actuators that make the click more complex, according to the moment [sic] of the game,” the Evzen Elite Instagram account explained. “The idea is to make the player have a complete sensory experience, following the wave [sic] of the games.” “In a game that has a newer weapon, the click is lighter. When the weapon is older, a sense of touch changes. The objective is to have a sensory experience of using ancient weaponry.” ADAPTIVE TRIGGERS + EVZEN EXTENSORS The Dualsense trigger promises many possibilities, and for sure it’s the part that generates more expect in the players. In this new version, the simple PS4 trigger has been replaced by an extremely fast system. Now, it won small actuators that make the click more complex, according to the moment of the game. The idea is to make the player have a complete sensory experience, following the wave of the games. Ex: In a game that has a newer weapon, the click is lighter. When the weapon is older, a sense of touch changes. The objective is to have a sensory experience of using ancient weaponry. Evzen works on upgrades for the world of shooting game, where every millisecond counts. In this way, we are developing an accessory for adjusting the triggers, which includes trigger stop system, sensitivity adjustment and extenders that provide more comfort – in addition to maintaining the anti-slip texture. To continue with the standard of durability, we keep all original parts from sony, adding only the higher quality upgrades. This is how the Pro Version was born. . . . #evzen #ps5 #playstation #gaming #gamer #controller Evzen Elite Tecnology A photo posted by @evzenelite on Oct 13, 2020 at 2:30pm PDT Going by this, we would expect such tactile features to work with games like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, the Demon’s Souls Remake, and other games with ancient weaponry. Though we also suspect the tech could work with other games, such as a Call of Duty title with tension on the DualSense triggers relating to in-game pressure on gun triggers. Regardless of whether the two-tone design of the DualSense controller appeals to you or makes you want to hurl it out of a window, much like the design of the PS5 itself, the tech in the controller is looking rather impressive. It certainly looks more advance from the Xbox Series X’s new Xbox Wireless Controller, which is a minor upgrade on the previous Xbox controller; that’s no bad thing as that controller is very good. PS5 pre-orders are now live and the PS5 is coming to the U.S. on November 12. So we’ve not got long to wait before we see how Sony’s new console measures up in real life. Get the best Sony PlayStation 5 deals before anyone else! We’ll send you pre-order details and the best Sony PlayStation 5 deals as soon as they’re available. Send me details about other relevant products from Toms Guide and other Future brands. Send me details about other relevant products from third parties. No spam, we promise. You can unsubscribe at any time and we’ll never share your details without your permission. Game Share Online 1037 posts 0 comments PS5 DualSense controller: Colors, features, price and everything we know Forget Xbox Series X — you can now play Xbox games on a fridge (seriously) Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Nintendo Switch remakes rumored 12 Star Wars games we want to see ROG Phone 4 leak teases a stunning new look for mobile… The Best Xbox One Games You’re Not… Top 22 best single-player PC games By… The 10 Best Multiplayer Games on PS4 Best gaming deals in May 2020 Get This 4-Game Xbox One S Bundle for… You Can Now Play Steam Games on Your TV… © 2021 - gameshareonline. All Rights Reserved.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3254
__label__wiki	0.691179	0.691179	Google ‘Lightsaber Escape’ game turns your smartphone into a light saber By Faheem Haydar Last updated Apr 24, 2020 Google has released a Star Wars game in its Chrome Web browser on the desktop computer where the player is invited to a smartphone that turns into light saber. In partnership with Disney, Lucas film and its special effects subsidiary Industrial Light & Magic, Google launches a new Chrome Experiment. It takes the form of a game in the Web browser inspired by Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Lightsaber Escape is played in the web browser on Windows-equipped computer or OS X. If the experiment is designed for Google Chrome, the latest versions of browsers from Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer and Edge (IE11) and Safari are compatible with this game. Players must first go to the site Lightsaber Escape (available in several languages) on their computer. A link available on mobile is given on the website. It will allow to calibrate the smartphone (not tablet) into a kind of lightsaber. All smartphones are compatible but that is for example the case for the Nexus, iPhone, Samsung Galaxy and Moto G2. The choice of browsers will be more limited on Android and iOS with Google Chrome and Safari. The computer becomes the playground and the smartphone turns into a lightsaber to achieve and escape from the clutches of the First Order. This intergalactic faction in the new Star Wars replaced the Empire Galactics but always with the Stormtroopers. To play, you should connect the two devices on the same Wi-Fi network. The web application takes advantage of technologies such as WebGL (for the Web 3D). WebRTC and WebSockets allow for real-time communication between the smartphone and the computer while reducing latency. Technical details of the creation of the lightsaber are given in a case study. READ Best Hentai Games To Play Chrome experiments aim to go far in using HTML5 and JavaScript to show what it can do, based on web technologies. It is also not the first time that a communication between the smartphone and the computer is used in a Chrome experiment. This was for example in the case for mini-soccer games in the last World Cup in Brazil. Also, watch the gameplay video below: desktop computergooglegoogle chromeLightsaber Escapepc gamevideo game Faheem Haydar5807 posts Faheem Haydar is the founder & lead editor for Game Transfers. Faheem Haydar is a serial entrepreneur, investor, author, and digital marketing expert. who has founded multiple successful businesses in the fields of digital marketing, software development, e-commerce, and more. He is the founder and CEO of dealzmag, a full-service digital media agency that partners with clients to boost their business outcomes. Fallout 4 fan builts an AT-AT from Star Wars in the wasteland Rainbow Six: Siege Update 1.1 download available now Sony Acquires Insomniac Games, Marvel’s Spider-Man Studio Nintendo’s Answer About Switch Joy-Con Drift Issues is Disappointing News, Nintendo Rumor: Beenox is working on Call of Duty: WWII for Nintendo Switch? Five Steps to Turn the FOMO into JOMO Video Games with the Most Iconic &… To mark the release of Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens in theaters, a fan of the Fallout 4 license...	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3255
__label__wiki	0.972783	0.972783	Hajj Death Toll Rises As Saudi Cleric Says Stampede Beyond Human Control Saudi Arabia -- Rescue workers carry the bodies of Muslim pilgrims after a stampede at Mina, outside the holy Muslim city of Mecca September 24, 2015. Saudi Arabia says 52 more people have been added to the official death toll from a stampede at the annual hajj two days ago, raising the total to 769 killed and 934 injured. The September 24 stampede that led to people being crushed and trampled to death was the worst loss of life at the hajj since 1990 when more than 1,400 people were killed in a similar incident. Earlier on September 26, Saudi Arabia’s top religious leader Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh said the tragic incident was beyond human control. "You are not responsible for what happened," Sheikh told Crown Prince and Interior Minister Muhammad bin Nayef bin Abdelaziz at a meeting in Mina, the city where the stampede occurred. “As for the things that humans cannot control, you are not blamed for them. Fate and destiny are inevitable," Sheikh told the prince. Saudi King Salman and Abdelaziz have ordered an investigation into the deadly incident. King Salman also said that he had ordered a review of the kingdom's plans for the annual hajj pilgrimage after the stampede. Meanwhile, Iranian President Hassan Rohani has demanded that an investigation be made into the deadly stampede. Rohani made his call in a September 26 speech at a UN summit on global development goals in New York. He said a probe was needed to find "the causes" of the tragedy. Tehran says 136 Iranians were killed and 102 injured in the stampede and it also urged Saudi Arabia to find 344 Iranians it says are still unaccounted for. Iranian state prosecutor Ebrahim Raisi said on state TV on September 26 that the Saudis "have to know that we will pursue the trial of [the royal family of] Al-Saud for the crime they have committed against the hajj pilgrims through international courts and organizations." Iranian Culture Minister Ali Janati will head a delegation to Mina to oversee the repatriation of those killed and follow up on the cases of those still missing and injured. Iranian leaders have been critical of Saudi officials and blamed their mismanagement of the massive crowds for the deaths. The religious pilgrimage entered its final day on September 26. Based on reporting by Reuters and AFP	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3256
__label__cc	0.593607	0.406393	Graham's Crackers To be or not to be… hopeful April 30, 2012 Graham Milne 3 Comments “If my critics saw me walking over the Thames they would say it was because I couldn’t swim.” – Margaret Thatcher (great line regardless of whether you supported her or not) We have a conscious choice to make when we start writing anything, whether to be positive or negative. Given the near infinite flexibility of words to create a specific tonality, even one phrase out of place, one ill-timed sarcastic barb, can radically alter the message we are trying to send. If one tends toward the cynical, toward an overwhelming frustration with the way of the world and humanity’s seeming unwillingness to get its collective act together, keeping an upbeat theme is that much harder. Throwing up one’s hands and then crapping phonetically over everything that rubs you the wrong way is the escape valve for the bitter, the apathetic and the cowardly. One can liken optimism somewhat to the idea of faith, in the steadfast committal to believe in something in spite of physical evidence to the contrary. Human beings are tremendously flawed creatures capable of doing terrible, unspeakable things to each other, but do I want to live my entire life resigned to accepting the limits of our collective potential being defined by the worst of us? Must we always be forced to play in the dirt by those who choose to wallow there? Criticism is a word with almost universally negative connotations, because in the age of the Internet, where “coolguy69” can dump polemics of visceral hatred (usually not phrased or even spelled as eloquently) on websites and message boards around the world and skulk back to his mother’s basement free of the responsibility of standing behind his words, we’ve forgotten that the point of criticism is, fundamentally, to offer suggestions for improvement. Snark gets noticed – when dealing with attention spans so overwhelmed by sheer volume of input they’ve been reduced to microseconds, the quick jab with the blade garners the headline and the retweet, instead of the drawn-out approach of reason and thoughtful consideration and counterpoint. We then pat ourselves on the back for what clever smartasses we are, forgetting in our momentary endorphin glow as the clicks and likes add up, that we are contributing nothing, advancing nothing, signifying nothing. It is as Shakespeare so cannily observed 400 years ago, a tale told by an idiot – and deserving of no further consideration. I don’t want to be that guy. I don’t want to be the hipster loudmouth at the party who sips his appletini while he pontificates upon the downfall of Western civilization, throwing in handy Cliffs Notes references to Albert Camus and the collected works of Francois Truffaut while he constructs a dizzying, grand unifying thesis of how the human obsession with reality television and Facebook is merely foreshadowing the zombie apocalypse. Instead, I want to be the optimist. And that’s easier than you might think, because the evidence is everywhere. For every Joseph Kony in the world there are a hundred million good, decent, honest people, working hard, raising families, treating friends, neighbors and strangers alike with the respect and tolerance we should all merit by the mere fact of our existence. Not easy to remember when the Konys suck up all the news coverage, which is why sniping at the big bad universe is always the quicker, more seductive path – the dark side of the op-ed. When discourse has become so polarized, left and right so implacably divorced and compromise an archaic concession of the ideologically weak, is it not morally better to try and calm the waters – to try and point towards better days ahead – instead of stirring them further? Sighing and sneering won’t get us to the future that I continue to hope for in moments when I behold the wonders of nature, the possibilities of human achievement, and the smile of a child. I don’t have a problem putting my name and photograph alongside my words, because I’m of the belief that if you wouldn’t carve it in concrete on your front porch, you shouldn’t publish it online. I can do that comfortably because I am proud that I have chosen, as the old song says, to accentuate the positive, and if I’m to be criticized for what I’ve written, I can take it, secure in the knowledge that I’ve given my best. It’s difficult at times; I get frustrated, even downright pissed off at a lot of what goes on out there, and many first drafts full of ugly vitriol have gone into the digital bin when I have stopped, taken a breath and asked myself what good it would do. That’s a question we should all be asking ourselves. Are we doing any good with our words? If not, then why are we bothering to write them? Albert CamusCliffs NotescreativitycriticismFacebookFrancois TruffauthopeJoseph KonyMargaret ThatcheroptimismpoliticssocietyWilliam Shakespearewritingzombie apocalypse Sorry, but blogging is actually pretty cool (and literary too) William Blake. There’s an old saying that the cream rises to the top, but so does the scum. (Just look at Congress.) The same applies to writing. For every successful masterpiece, there is an equally profitable pile of crap. I read with bemusement this screed from one of my fellow Huffington Post contributors this morning in which, with a nod to Sideshow Bob, he engages in the ironic device of blogging to decry blogs. Now, he is in high school and has a lot of living to do, so one can understand and forgive the sweeping judgement pronounced therein. I don’t know him at all; we ranks of HuffPosters are vast and we don’t regularly (or ever) get together to knock back single malts. He may be a rather smashing bloke in spite of the mildly condescending tone with which his post is composed. But I can’t agree with his thesis that “uncontrolled publishing,” i.e. blogging, is destroying literature. I’d say it’s forcing those of us who take writing seriously – which I’d suggest given my experience is a majority of bloggers, not the reverse – to up our game . If one hopes to be noticed amidst the cacophony of background noise and Bieber fandom, one must aspire to be magnificent. We might not achieve greatness every time, but the fact that we’re trying means something in itself. And the blog gives us that opportunity to try. My unmet cyber-colleague uses an allegory of William Blake physically carving poetry into the roof of a favourite drinking haunt to criticize the supposed ease with which words can be assembled and flung out into the world in the 21st Century; the argument being, seemingly, that without limitations to overcome with sheer force, writing can’t possibly be any good. Blake, he says, had to craft his verse methodically and with care, paying attention to the shape of each syllable, every minute detail of meter and imagery. I fail to understand how that level of dedication cannot still be achieved with the use of a keyboard instead of a chisel. If anything, I’d argue that the delete key and the ability to revise easily has lowered our collective tolerance for sloppy mistakes, for ill-advised turns of phrase and general unprofessionalism (leading to the birth of that most pesky of trolls, the Grammar Nazi.) If fixing a mistake is simple, then there’s less excuse for letting them slip through. And ultimately, the most wonderful aspect of Internet browsing is that beautiful little red X in the upper-right-hand corner of the screen. If you don’t like what you’re reading, close the window and move on to something else. Uncontrolled publishing may allow a flood of mediocre writing into the ether, but it has no effect on freedom of choice. To read, or not to read, remains our question. Publishing is now, if it has ever been the reverse, less about quality and more about what will sell. This is not a criticism; publishing is a business, staffed by people like you and I, working to feed their families. If a barely coherent rant about shopping and shoes by a D-list reality television star moves X number of copies more than a brilliantly crafted treatise on deconstructionism of modernist attitudes in 1920’s France by an unknown doctoral candidate, well, Snooki gets the rack space. It sucks, but forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown. That’s a problem originating with the audience, not the existence of blogs. Until the world at large turns away from its fascination with the banal, publishers are obliged, in order to keep their business going, to cater to demand. Basic economics unfortunately, and literature gets a solar plexus to the gut in the process. Where blogs can turn the tide, though, is in their openness and accessibility. You do not need to be famous or have an “in” with an agent or a major publishing house to invent a domain name and start writing and publishing. I am reminded so often of The King’s Speech and the fundamental reason why that movie struck such a chord with people – not because of the performances or the direction or any one particular element of its filmic construction, but because of its theme, the universal desire to have a voice. To be able to speak, even if no one, for the time being, is listening. There are over 150 million blogs in the world, covering probably far more than 150 million different subjects. Some are brilliant, and some are execrable wastes of time. But they all began for the same reason – because someone wanted to use their voice. If many of these voices produce sounds that are unpleasant to our ears, whether in what they are saying or how they are saying it, we have two choices: we can either call them on it, or we can tune them out. We don’t have to stew in our angst and complain that their mere existence is diminishing the written word. That Snooki is a (shudder) published author doesn’t depreciate Shakespeare or William Blake or even Aaron Sorkin for that matter. These and other Muses remain figures to whom we can look up, and whose quality we can aspire to achieve, even if we will usually fall short. Blogs give us the wonderful privilege of chance, instead of restricting even the opportunity to a select few. Many will just suck and most bloggers will toil forever in utter obscurity, but there will be the gems. You might come across someone’s memoir of a departed friend that moves you to tears in a way that Blake himself never has or never will. You might read a mommy blogger’s tale of her daughter’s adventures in daycare and unlock the secret of the world. The late Christopher Hitchens said famously, “Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that’s where it should stay.” Note he didn’t say “all cases.” Even for the notoriously prickly Hitchens, the possibility of greatness remained. Literature, or writing in general, must belong to the masses, for what is a masterpiece if it remains unread, or simply unwritten? I don’t know much about William Blake, but I have a feeling that if he were alive today, he’d be a blogger. I’m certainly proud to be one, and I’m not going to stop anytime soon. Aaron SorkinbloggingChristopher HitchensHuffington PostliteratureSideshow BobThe King's SpeechWilliam BlakeWilliam Shakespearewriting Media, Social and Not What’s the matter with Belarus? Greenland is still not that big. Like many of my fellow WordPressians, I find the country view statistics page fascinating. It’s a bit surreal to see how wide your “reach” truly is (and a good reminder to not put anything on the web that you wouldn’t be comfortable carving in cement on your front doorstep). Again, I’m not under any illusion that a lot of these hits are anything but accidental, as search engine terms meet in the conflux of wilderness that is the Internet. But like any good geek, I’m a completist, and there’s an indescribably giddy sensation that results whenever I check this map and see a new country colored in. The sad reality of the world, however, means that barring radical change, none of us will likely ever be able to complete the set. Glaring exceptions like the over 1 billion people locked behind the Great Firewall of China continue to stand out. North Korea, where despots would rather build useless rockets than let their people watch cats dance on YouTube. Closed internet systems like the ones operating in Cuba and Burma. Iran’s Supreme Council of Virtual Space (ironic given that there are, according to Wikipedia, over 700,000 Iranian blogs.) The big annoying exception there in Eastern Europe, Belarus, where no website is allowed in country unless it has registered with their Ministry of Information first (can’t believe I forgot to send the form in again!) Afghanistan, or huge portions of Africa that are too poor to feed themselves or too consumed by tribal hatred to live in peace, let alone gain anything as First World-privileged as regular web access, are a reminder that this freedom that I and millions like me have to share our words is so very precious, and so terrifyingly fleeting – we need to guard it with our lives and celebrate it at every opportunity. And not only that, we owe it to the rest of humanity that what we are sharing is something worthwhile – worth whatever amount of time we’ve so humbly asked for your attention. Squandering a post on a mindless, misspelled profanity-laced rant about some band you’ve never liked is not only a waste of your own intellect and time, but it’s a virtual slap in the face to millions of people who would love to be able to read what’s out there and can’t because of poverty, oppression or a hundred other reasons that would never even occur to us. We owe it to them to always try to raise our game, to elevate the conversation and push things forward. There is nothing as singularly powerful or resilient in the universe as an idea, and those ideas can spring from the humblest beginnings; an idle thought on a spring morning can one day come to change the world. On a blog, we don’t have to answer to an editor or fit a predetermined viewpoint based on an advertiser’s demands. We are ideas in their purest form, and participants in a grand tradition dating back to the first time one homo habilis showed another how to use a bone to smash open a piece of fruit (or, depending on your beliefs, to when Eve suggested to Adam that he take a bite of that fruit). So let’s make our ideas good ones. AfricaBelarusbloggingBurmaChinaCubaGreat Firewall of Chinahomo habilisinternetIranNorth Koreasocial mediaWikipediaWordPressworldwide Internet accessYouTube Hollywood and Vine Game of Thrones and the many faces of the goddess Carice van Houten as Melisandre, warning of darkness and horror and the return of the smoke monster from Lost. Maiden, mother, crone; child, witch, whore; the meek and the bold, the submissive and the dominant, the loving and the cruel. The infinite and mesmerizing complexity of the feminine was embodied by the incredible women of Game of Thrones in this week’s episode, “Garden of Bones.” While the show can come off as a man’s world in which kings, knights, lords, gentlemen and brutes alike vie for power, “Garden of Bones” reminded the audience that even as they strut in their armor and proclaim their mastery of all they survey, the men are but pieces in this grand game, and that the women are holding the board up – with a flick of their elegant wrists this precarious world will collapse. That they have not yet done so speaks to the quiet bemusement with which they allow the boys to go about their manly and yet hollow pursuits. That the men of Westeros are ultimately servants to the other half of the sky is evident in several scenes in the episode where men attempt to assert their dominance only to see their egos undercut by feminine power. The arrogant Littlefinger, his very moniker a comment on his masculine limitations, waltzes into Renly Baratheon’s camp, first confronting Margaery Tyrell about Renly’s love that dare not speak its name, then presenting his unrequited crush Catelyn with Ned’s remains and dangling a chance to reunite her with her captive daughters. In both instances the women will have none of it. Margaery knows well that her marriage is a sham designed to secure a political alliance and is content to act her role, and Catelyn is not so naïve that a shameless appeal to her maternal instincts will excuse Littlefinger’s betrayal of her late husband. Robb Stark is struck speechless by the simple healer Talisa when his proud military victory is utterly diminished by her simple comments to him in the battle’s aftermath, as she accuses him of massacring a bunch of innocents and having no greater plan for the future of the Seven Kingdoms. Where Littlefinger and Robb respond to their encounters with powerful women with silence, a more sinister path is taken by another profoundly insecure man attempting to assert his dominance over the female – in the skin-crawling scene where petulant King Joffrey commands one prostitute to beat another bloody. He cannot master them with his questionable masculinity, so he uses the coward’s fallback of fear and brutal violence instead. Joffrey’s understanding that he can never equal Robb Stark as a military commander, the more traditional masculine role, leads him to mistreat Sansa instead. Interestingly, while the delicate, virginal Sansa appears to be displaying battered woman syndrome in her continual proclamations of love for Joffrey despite his abuse, she is doing so not out of misplaced devotion but self-preservation – biding her time until she is freed of this monster. Her sister, Arya, utterly defeminised by circumstance (even commenting to Lord Tywin that being a boy made it easier) is likewise still a reserve of indomitable strength, going to sleep each night muttering, like a mantra, the name of each man she means to see dead. Indeed, the only male character who seems not intimidated by the power of women (at least in this episode) is the one whose masculinity has always been dismissed by his fellow men: Tyrion Lannister. In fact, it is his knowledge of his cousin’s weakness for Queen Cersei’s feminine wiles and his ability to manipulate that awareness that allows him to gain a spy against his scheming sister. The two sides of motherhood, giving nurturer and ferocious protector, are also on display with the “Mother of Dragons” Daenerys when she is petitioning for entrance to the desert city of Qarth, first pleading that a refusal to admit her people would condemn them to death, then threatening to use her dragons to burn the city to the ground when she is rebuffed. She is the mother of her clan of ragtag Dothraki as much as Catelyn finds herself mother and counselor not only to the Starks but to the men who would be King (treating the battling brothers Baratheon as if they were her own misbehaving children). Where her gilded sibling Viserys was an entitled prat cut from the same unearned royal cloth as Joffrey, Dany’s leadership qualities are being forged through fire. And speaking of fire, there is Melisandre, the enchantress, trying to tempt grizzled old Davos Seaworth with the secrets beneath her robe. When he finally beholds her stunning (and very pregnant) naked self, the Onion Knight comes face to face with a depiction of the primal fear of all men, what they cannot understand and have never been able to control since the Garden of Eden: the magical temple of life and sexuality that is the woman’s reproductive system, from which emerges in a Freudian ecstasy of smoke and shadow the darkness and horror that Melisandre had cautioned Renly about earlier. To see this sheer force step forth and take shape as the sorceress smiles, at once incomprehensible and weirdly compelling, is the final affirmation in an episode already packed with revelations that the women have written the rules of the Game of Thrones, and they are its referees. For all the talk of the old gods, even Melisandre’s repeated comments about the “Lord of Light,” it is the Goddess, in all her magnificence, elegance, vulnerability, bravery, mystery and cruelty, all her many forms, young and old, beautiful and ugly, wise and foolish, who is running the show. Catelyn StarkCersei LannisterDaenerys TargaryenDavos SeaworthfeminismGame of ThronesGarden of BonesgoddessHBOJoffreyLittlefingermagicMargaery TyrellMelisandreRenly BaratheonRobb StarkSeven KingdomstelevisionTyrion LannisterWesteroswomen Our (Ig)Noble Overlords Rob Ford and political chicken I’m no fan of Rob Ford. I find him to be a regressive, rude, bullying, half-witted right-wing douchebag I wouldn’t trust to have my back in a bar fight, let alone as the mayor of one of the most progressive cities in the world. Yet this uproar over his recent purchase of some fried chicken at a local KFC, dutifully recorded and uploaded to the Internet for the digital world’s derision, is a step too far. I recall a conversation with a guy I used to work with, when we were talking about Ford and I was relating my less than favourable opinion of him. This fellow said to me, “I appreciate that you don’t ever talk about his weight.” My response was, why should I? He could be a 98-pound beanpole and still advance policies that make my stomach turn. Ford’s physical condition has absolutely nothing to do with how he conducts himself or how he performs as a public official, which are the only things we should be judging him on. The counter-argument is that Ford made his weight an issue ripe for public scrutiny by politicizing his “Cut the Waist” challenge. Contrast this with the response to Vic Toews and his infamous “child pornographers” comment. There were two major initiatives on Twitter: the @vikileaks feed, which posted publicly available records of Toews’ divorce, and the spontaneous #TellVicEverything campaign, in which users overwhelmed Toews’ Twitter feed with the mundane details of their lives – what they ate for breakfast, what was playing on their iPod, how many pigeons there were in the park and so on. The former was disgraceful, because it made political hay of Toews’ family problems. The latter was hysterically funny, because it mocked Toews’ boneheaded political stance. It made the policy a laughingstock, without belittling the man’s private life. That’s what the other guys do. Imagine if Rob Ford were a liberal titan, boldly advancing green initiatives and progressive social policies and vowing to make Toronto car-free and overgrown with trees by 2020 – would we on the left side of the spectrum be so inclined to laugh about a lapse in his diet? Anyone who’s ever dieted knows how hard it is, how bad the cravings can get, even when you’re not under the 24-hour stress of leading a city of millions. We’ve all had our weak moments where we reach for the ice cream. That’s not a criticism of Rob Ford; if nothing else, it humanizes the guy a little, and reminds you that under all the bloviating and bluster there is in fact a very vulnerable soul. Which I would still never vote for. The past few elections in Canada, and the upcoming American presidential contest, have brought to the forefront of the public consciousness a hideous scorched earth form of political campaign where nothing is off limits. Effective government leadership demands that the best people step forward, and how will we encourage those folks to step out into the spotlight when the mere public rumination of a run for office can spark the filthiest invective from the opposition in response? The silent demographic who do not vote because they cannot abide the cynicism of politics are not silent without cause. They have been systematically alienated from a public debate that operates on the intellectual level of a high school cat fight. It’s all too tempting for liberals to want to get down into the mud and fight just as dirty as their conservative counterparts, but doing that only accomplishes two things – it accepts with resignation the premise that government and public service is the realm of savages, and often engenders sympathy for the opponent (and by accidental consequence, the opponent’s argument). It takes more courage to stand up to a bully with words instead of fists. But sometimes, a victory won with words – the right words – can be all the more decisive. Canadian and American progressives may dream of a day when right-wing parties are a nausea-inducing anathema to the voting public, but we won’t get there by calling Conservatives and Republicans fatty-Mcfat-fats. A comedian whose name I can’t recall once opined that it was stupid to be a racist, because if you got to know the person really well you could find a much better reason to hate their guts. Likewise, it’s ridiculous to go after Rob Ford because of his weight. He could be the most drool-worthy, sculpted embodiment of Adonis on the planet and still be a lousy mayor. Call him misguided, call his policies ludicrous, call his approach to governing positively inept, but if the guy wants a bucket of extra crispy chicken for dinner after a bad day, leave him the frack alone. canadaconservativescurrent-eventsCut the WaistgovernmentinternetKFCLiberalspoliticsprogressivesrepublicansRob FordRob Ford fried chickensocial mediaTellVicEverythingTorontoTwitterVic Toewsvikileaks Close encounters of the celebrity kind Sean Bean, 53 years old today. It’s Sean Bean’s birthday today – in my humble opinion, one of the coolest actors alive. For a couple of reasons: one, that he brings gravitas, dignity and believability to anything he’s in, regardless of the silliness of some of the lines he has to utter; two, that he is such a badass that he was once stabbed in a bar fight and instead of going for medical attention, went back in and ordered another drink; and three, that he happens to be a very nice and genuine person in the flesh. I met him briefly during the Toronto International Film Festival a few years ago, and even though I was some nobody interrupting him on the way back from his smoke break, he was warm, friendly and seemed interested in what I had to say (even if most of it was star-struck fanboy gushing). One thing you do notice when you do talk with him is how thick his natural Sheffield accent is, and how much he tempers it for his roles. I’m pretty good with deciphering British dialects and I was having a hard time catching everything when we were chatting. (Or, it could have just been the rather heavy cigarette breath.) I have always found the experience of meeting celebrities a bit weird. You have a kind of ersatz relationship with them going in, a sense of who they are based on the characters you’ve seen them play, or how they’ve been in interviews you’ve watched; you become acutely aware of their quirks and this creates a sort of false familiarity that part of you expects to be reciprocated, even though you know they have no idea who you are, nor should they for any reason. Call it a substantially less-psychotic version of stalker syndrome, I suppose. It can be tremendously disappointing if the celebrity happens to be in a bad mood that day, if they are sullen and withdrawn, in contrast to the larger-than-life wisecracking persona they display in their work. Christopher Guest, of Spinal Tap and Best in Show fame (or the Six-Fingered Man in The Princess Bride), says that people are often shocked when they meet him and find that he is a very serious, somewhat humorless man offstage. For Guest, being funny is his job, not his personality. That dichotomy between the public persona and the private life is hard to reconcile when you’re a fan. I suppose a way to articulate how it must feel for the celebrity is to imagine you’re out shopping at the mall and a random individual approaches you and starts gushing about how much they loved your last PowerPoint presentation and how your reports are worded and what it must be like to work with your immediate supervisor – who you think is an absolute douche. Now try feigning interest in that. Of the celebrities I’ve met, some have been terrific – Bean, Anthony Stewart Head (Giles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Uther on Merlin), Chase Masterson (Leeta on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine). Ray Park, who played Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace, was an incredibly nice bloke who seemed like he would have loved to have gone for a pint with us if there weren’t myriads more autographs to sign. I also have it on good authority that Hugh Jackman is a pretty amazing fellow. Others, for whatever reason – bad day, headache, any one of a thousand things that are none of our business – have been far less genial in my brief encounters with them: Terry Gilliam, William Shatner and most recently, Dean Stockwell. I met Mr. Stockwell this past weekend and immediately stuck my foot in my mouth when I asked him excitedly about Gentleman’s Agreement and what it was like to work with Gregory Peck (who played his father in the 1947 Best Picture winner). He became very quiet and muttered that Peck was cold, that he was one of those actors who did not enjoy working with children or animals. Stockwell then sort of looked away, conveying quite clearly that he was done with this conversation. I made my excuses and wandered off. I of course had no way of knowing that only a few days prior he had given this interview indicating how miserable an experience that movie and indeed much of his childhood was. Oops. Should have asked about Blue Velvet instead. Celebrity worship is one of the strangest behavioural phenomena, and one suspects it derives largely from a sense of inadequacy and lack of fulfillment that many of us carry. Some are disappointed in how (relatively) little their lives have amounted to, and look up with awe at those who have achieved what they perceive as greatness. Yet greatness and renown are not necessarily the same thing. More often than not these days it seems that celebrity is achieved for all the wrong reasons – from national or worldwide embarrassment, or for utterly hollow pursuits. One wonders why we cannot simply appreciate the work being done without raising the person behind it to godlike heights. I’ve enjoyed Sean Bean’s performances, it was nice to have the opportunity to thank him for them, and that’s more than enough. To treat any of these people with the reverence accorded to kings is diminishing our own sense of self – they are, after all, simply human beings, and neither of us is fundamentally any different from the other. Just different ships sailing down the long and often stormy river of life, all equally vulnerable to the rocks and shoals. Anthony Stewart HeadBuffy the Vampire SlayercelebritiesChase MastersonDean StockwellentertainmentGentleman's AgreementGregory PeckHugh JackmanRay ParkSean BeanStar Trek Deep Space NineTerry GilliamThe Phantom Menacetoronto international film festivalWilliam Shatner The questionable wisdom of electing potted plants Recently, a member of the Canadian House of Commons, John Williamson, invoked Martin Luther King Jr. to praise the abolishment of the long-gun registry. Not to be outclassed by his northern neighbor, an American Congressman, Allen West, opined that eighty members of the opposing party were Communists. The frequency of these lapses into idiocy by elected officials in their public statements is reaching critical mass, and so disheartening to the voters of our two respective countries that stupid statements, false equivalencies and comparisons to Hitler are becoming the new normal way of going about the people’s business. But you cannot blame a puppy for making a mess on the floor if he hasn’t been housebroken. The responsibility lies with the ones who put him there. Morons are running the show because we tossed them the job and sighed, “Have at it, oh insipid masses.” Democracy is the most precious form of government and the most capable of greatness when insightful, committed people are in charge; it is equally the most susceptible to abuse and neglect when the wrong sorts get their hands on the public purse. One of the problems with our democracy is that the mechanism by which one chooses one’s representatives – the election – has for a long time, philosophically, been not about establishing a vision and a set of tenets to guide a nation, but simply about delivering the other guy a resounding whuppin’. I’m not the first to come up with the analogy that we are treating our politicians like athletes and supporting the parties the way one would pledge undying allegiance to a particular sports franchise. Much as we expect nothing more from athletes in their post-game interviews other than “Yeah, well, we gave a hundred and ten percent out there,” it seems acceptable for politicians to spout inanities and continue winning. In Canada, the opposition bemoans how media revelations of mismanagement, ineptitude and suspected election fraud have done little to move the polling numbers of the sitting government. Yet the Toronto Maple Leafs haven’t won a Stanley Cup since 1967 and they still sell out their home games. When you abdicate the responsibility of informed citizenship and become merely a fan, of course you’re not going to care how badly your guys are doing – they’re your guys, thick and thin. The thing is, whether the Leafs win or lose a game has no bearing on your daily life. Who wins elections does. In a properly functioning democracy, the people deserve a true debate, where points of view are considered, argued vigorously, and evaluated on their merits. I have my ideological leanings, as we all do, but if it came to a choice between a reasoned and intelligent advocate of the other side versus one of my guys brainlessly reciting talking points and breaking Godwin’s Law, I’d choose the former. I want a functioning, curious and logical brain hard at work for my community, because they truly want to make it better and not because politics comes with a sweet pension. A person of true principle, not an empty suit who only understands every third word of the legislation we’re entrusting him to vote on; a seat-filler who last had an independent thought sometime in the summer of 1985. Every hockey coach knows that one strong forward won’t make up for a bunch of guys who can’t skate. In politics, even the best leaders need a strong bench. We need to stop filling out the ranks of our representatives with twits and thugs we wouldn’t trust to wash our cars just because we might like the guy at the head of the pack, or the team they happen to play for. We deserve better than that. Our democracy deserves better than that. Governing is not easy. It requires the best of the best. And yet, every political party in existence has its safe ridings or districts; areas where the loyalty to a team is so entrenched that little attention is ever paid to the caliber of the individual acting as the standard bearer, nor must much of a case be mounted to ensure that loyalty. It’s said of such races that the incumbent party could run a potted plant and still win. It should come as no surprise then when the winner shows in his or her representative career the kind of reasoned and nuanced approach to governing possessed by the average fern. (No offense to ferns.) Otherwise sane parents who would not for one moment tolerate their child throwing a tantrum and calling Uncle Frank a Nazi are only too eager to install like-minded infants into elected office because of party worship. And unless that stops, unless we choose the best of us and not the loudest, we’ll never get the government our democracy needs. We’ll only get Wrestlemania in suits and ties – and last time I checked, I’m not sure The Undertaker had much of a fiscal policy. Allen Westamerican congressmancanadacurrent-eventsdemocracyelectionsGodwin's Lawgovernmentgovernment accountabilityhockeyJohn Williamsonpolitical partiespoliticspotted plantsToronto Maple Leafs Grand Allusions or, Where Many Men Have Gone Before "I have been... and ever shall be... a metaphor." I watched Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan for probably the fiftieth time last Friday. The significance of experiencing a movie about sacrifice and the promise of hope and resurrection on Good Friday did not escape me, either. In a previous post I discussed the writing lessons learned from Gene Roddenberry, about the need for a story to always be about something; to that I’d add The Wrath of Khan as a further lesson, for not another science fiction film comes to mind with more of a pedigree so indebted to classical literature. Where Star Wars is the most famous embodiment of Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey, The Wrath of Khan is steeped like the finest blended tea in the traditions of Shakespearean drama, and its famous finale borrows greatly from the story of Jesus Christ. As writers we need to be aware of the traditions of storytelling, the recurrence of specific themes and motifs throughout history and the capacity of allusion to elicit powerful emotional reactions from our audience, for these notes will tend to seep into our own work whether we are conscious of it or not. It is interesting to observe, as we delve into the Christian parallels at work in this particular tale, that The Wrath of Khan in many ways represents the “New Testament” of Star Trek, as it was the first Trek to be produced without Gene Roddenberry as its guiding hand. He was removed from day-to-day supervision of the film by Paramount studio executives who blamed the massive cost overruns of Star Trek: The Motion Picture on Roddenberry’s working style. The Wrath of Khan was instead produced by Harve Bennett, who came out of the penny-pinching tradition of 70’s television, and written and directed by Nicholas Meyer, a beginning filmmaker whose biggest success to that point had been a series of Sherlock Holmes continuation novels. Meyer is a studied intellect with a well-stocked library, and he packed the screenplay with references to A Tale of Two Cities, Moby Dick, the Horatio Hornblower novels, King Lear and Paradise Lost, eschewing complicated special effects unavailable to this movie’s reduced budget in favour of character development and deep thematic exploration. As a result, even though the movie cost a third of what it took to mount the first one, it feels substantially more epic. Meyer dared to tackle what tends to be taboo among movie stars forever worried about their image – growing older. He elicited from the infamously hammy William Shatner tremendous depth, nuance and vulnerability, arguably the best performance Shatner has ever given. Actors love Shakespeare, and Meyer gave his cast the next best thing – a brilliant pastiche, set, despite its futuristic trappings, firmly in the Bard’s thematic wheelhouse. (On the DVD director’s commentary, Meyer relates how he tried to convince Ricardo Montalban that he would have been a magnificent Lear, and regrets that such a performance never came to be; I know I would have loved to see it.) Although they never worked well together (or by any reports even liked each other that much), Meyer knew the same basic truth as Roddenberry, and by extension Shakespeare – that the weirdest, strangest, most alien people can be relatable on the basis of their emotions. A laugh and a tear are literally universal. This is where the use of allegory comes so strongly into play. The best allegories operate invisibly. We don’t exactly know why something we are reading or watching is resonating with us so much, other than it seems to appeal to something deeper in the unconscious mind, or in the heart. The power of the story of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice for mankind’s sins and his eventual resurrection touches the instinctual fear of death held by all living things, and to the human need to find nobility and purpose in what can seem like the meaningless end of life. The three-act structure of drama parallels this instinct as well: in the first act, you introduce your character(s), in the second, you drag them down to the lowest possible point of total collapse, and in the third, you show their climb from that abyss and ultimate triumph. In this too we find the Greek concept of catharsis – the emotional release found in an audience’s experience of a character’s pain and suffering. Interestingly, in the original cut of The Wrath of Khan, there was no hint that Spock’s death might somehow be overcome. It was observed by the powers that be following an ambivalent test screening that the movie featured Good Friday, but not Easter morning. The end of the film was then reshot (against the wishes of Meyer, it should be noted) to provide more uplift and hope, including a concluding shot of Spock’s coffin at rest in a Garden of Eden-like setting on the Biblically named Genesis Planet. Whether or not one is Christian, the cycle of sacrifice and rebirth (whether that rebirth is literal, or metaphorical in terms of the reborn spirit of those left behind) has a primal appeal, and when one of the pieces is missing, as in Wrath of Khan’s original ending, things feel out of sorts – the emotional experience is incomplete. The issue I have struggled with in my own writing is when does allusion and allegory venture over the line into imitation and duplication? When so much of our creative world at present feels like karaoke, the value of true originality escalates into priceless. Yet audiences both literary and cinematic have this need for the reassurance of the familiar, the sense of being able to connect with the story on a visceral level, that commonality of hope and fear shared by all of humanity. Campbell observes that we have always been telling each other the same story over and over again; his titular hero of the thousand faces. Writers need to accept this basic truth or they will never even get started: they will be crippled, as South Park so wittily showed, with “Simpsons Already Did It” syndrome. And not just accept it, but come to embrace the idea that by infusing these ageless themes into their own work, they are taking part in a tradition that dates back to cave paintings and the fireside tale, and deepening the emotional experience of their story for the reader who will bring to it those same instinctive feelings about life and death. They will recognize the thread linking your words, their life, and the lives of all those who have come before and will come afterwards. And your work will truly live long and prosper. A Tale of Two CitiesdramaGene RoddenberryHarve BennettHoratio HornblowerKing LearliteratureMoby DickNicholas MeyerParadise LostRicardo MontalbanSouth ParkStar TrekStar Trek II: The Wrath of KhanWilliam ShakespeareWilliam Shatnerwrath of khanwriting The Little Voice Hail, ye olde Commodore Hello, old friend. Ready. That’s what my Commodore VIC-20 told me every time I flipped it on. No “Press Ctrl+Alt+Del” or any other series of commands to get things moving. Just Ready. Ready for what seemed like the limitless possibility of high-tech adventure waiting at the first keystroke. A basic calculator purchased at the Dollar Store today likely has more computing power than my old Vic, the chunky pillow-sized box you had to plug into your television. Commodore has faded from the scene, its late founder Jack Tramiel, who passed away Sunday at the age of 83, hardly a household name with the recognition factor of Jobs or Gates. But for many of us who have grown up never knowing a world without computers as a part of regular life, the Commodore line was our gleaming key to the front door, an inexpensive welcome into the virtual world of ones and zeroes that has come to redefine history. It was ready, and so were we. Pitched on television by none other than William Shatner, the VIC-20, introduced in 1980, was already obsolete when I unwrapped it one fateful Christmas morning three decades ago, but it cost half as much as its successor the 64. It came with a pair of game cartridges – a thinly disguised Pac-Man clone called “Cosmic Cruncher” and the frustrating “Jupiter Lander,” where the goal was to guide a collection of pixels roughly resembling the Apollo 11 lunar module across the uneven green blob of an alien world. I like many other youngsters of the era was more interested in the instruction booklet, because it included a tutorial on basic programming language, a rudimentary guide to getting your Vic to do anything. A handful of sample programs were included, my personal favourite being one that showed you how to animate a stick figure doing jumping jacks. 10 PRINT “\O/” was the first line and you can guess where it went from there. If you were really ambitious, you could get the jumping man to change colors too. The most complicated program in the guide created a menu from which you could select one of three different dishes, the recipes for each you had painstakingly typed into the Vic’s memory, and these were the days when you couldn’t save anything. Unless you had the add-on cassette drive, which used audio tapes you hadn’t already turned into bootleg recordings of Thriller to store dozens of primitive games and anything else you could dream up to impress your friends. Can’t-miss cartoons of the day were swiftly forgotten, replaced by hours inputting commands to make the Vic do anything from drawing a happy face to calculating baseball statistics to asking trivia questions. You didn’t need a degree in coding to get the Vic to perform for you; a quick study through the manual was enough to get you going. In many ways its simplicity helped demystify and deprogram – pardon the pun – the idea of the cold, impenetrable, malevolent silicon intelligence of HAL 9000 and his cinematic siblings from the public consciousness. Now, anyone could figure these things out and make them dance. It made us feel in charge of our machines again. Looking back the entire package was not much of a step up from punch cards and the telegraph, but that didn’t matter. What differentiated the Vic from its competitors was that with the Vic, you weren’t just playing in somebody else’s pre-designed sandbox, limited to discovering new ways to guide a frog across a highway or save a princess from an angry barrel-throwing monkey. The Vic was your sandbox – you were learning and creating. You were computing. You were laying the foundations of the next great evolution in human communication to come, even with the brown buttons and the beige box. The Vic, and its more successful cousin, the Commodore 64, gave you the ability to exercise the most important muscle of all – your imagination. All it asked was that you be ready, and at the appropriate time, type in RUN. CommodoreCommodore 64Commodore VIC 20computersCosmic CruncherHAL 9000Jack TramielJupiter LanderPac-ManWilliam Shatner Movies, Unbiased Opinions Walking after midnight Marion Cotillard and Owen Wilson in Midnight in Paris. Were the good old days really so wonderful? That’s the question at the heart of Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, his 2011 movie I was finally lucky enough to see this past weekend. After a somewhat overlong travelogue opening, a taut, beautifully shot 90 minutes tells the story of successful yet frustrated screenwriter Gil (Owen Wilson), trapped in a relationship with high-maintenance Inez (Rachel McAdams), her conservative parents and tiresomely elitist friends. Setting out drunkenly on his own one warm Parisian night, Gil is picked up by an old car precisely as the clock strikes twelve and finds himself in the Roaring Twenties alongside such luminaries as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, T.S. Eliot and Pablo Picasso. He has his debut novel critiqued by Gertrude Stein, suggests movie plots to Luis Bunuel, inspires Salvador Dali and ultimately falls in love with a beautiful French muse named Adriana (the always spectacularly alluring Marion Cotillard) who is herself pining for a more golden era – the 1890’s France of Toulouse-Lautrec and the Moulin Rouge. Woody Allen isn’t interested in the mechanics of the typical time travel plot – how Gil is able to journey to the 1920’s and back every night remains an enigma that even Gil isn’t that keen on solving. The magic just happens, and he rolls with it, soaking in the wonder of being surrounded by his heroes, people to whom he can relate with greater ease than anyone in the present day. It’s a dilemma to which I suspect many of us writers can relate, and indeed, the writers who make up the voting membership of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences were taken with the message enough to award it Best Original Screenplay despite Woody Allen’s persistence in ignoring all the Oscars he’s ever won. We are mired somewhat in our admiration for the traditions forged by those who have tread the path before, people like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Jack Kerouac to name but a very limited few. We eye with disdain the half-efforts by celebutantes, reality show castoffs and vampire devotees finding wide readership today and question how we can possibly be a product of the same era. We must belong to an earlier, more golden, more innocent time, where our deepest literary ponderings would find sympathetic ears at every turn. In the movie, Gil is taken aback when he and Adriana find themselves even further in the past, in the time where she wants most to be, and discover that the literati of that era are dismissive of their present and longing for the Renaissance. The conclusion eventually drawn by Gil is that the sense of nostalgia is a continuous thread winding its way through each subsequent generation, that it is not by any means unique to the children of today. Chances are great that if any of us was to experience the timeslip of Midnight in Paris and be transported to that bygone slice of history – to the Capraesque American heartland of the 1940’s, to pick but a single example – we too would not find our nostalgia sated for long; we would see the people around us saddened by harshness of their present and longing for the easier days gone by. The past is, ultimately, prologue. As hard as it is to imagine, the people of the 2050’s may look back on 2012 with fond memories, recalling wistfully when gasoline cost only as much as it does now, when we still had polar icecaps and polar bears for that matter, when the kids danced to Lady Gaga and Rihanna, the iPad was the hottest thing going, and the world held its breath waiting for the next Hunger Games movie. I have lived long enough to see one particular decade of which I have strong memories – the 1980’s – transform from what was normal to what is camp and kitsch; how long before the subtle shirts and ties I wear to work every day become the subject of mockery like leg warmers and acid wash jeans? The lesson I take from Midnight in Paris is that the past is a nice place to rhapsodize about, but you shouldn’t want to live there, because you likely wouldn’t like it as much as you think you will. Instead, the past should only help us make better choices going forward, as Gil realizes when Gertrude Stein’s critique of his novel prompts him to make a radical change in his present-day life – for what turns out to be the better. So as much as I might like to sit in the room while Jack Kerouac pounds out On the Road on his rolls of typewriter paper, share a fireside chat with FDR or float in the Eagle with Armstrong and Aldrin, I do their legacies and the world no favors by waiting around for it to actually happen. My task is to blend my romanticism of the olden days with the experiences of my own life into something worthy and lasting, both in how I live my life and what I put down in words. And perhaps, someday in the far future, someone yet to take their first breath on this wonderful earth will wonder about what it would have been like to spend an afternoon in my company. They may very well – for reasons passing our understanding at this point – see these days above all others as the golden age. Don’t we owe it to them to try and make this time worth getting nostalgic about? Ernest HemingwayF. Scott FitzgeraldFDRGertrude SteiniPadJack KerouacMarion CotillardMidnight in ParisMoviesnostalgiaOwen WilsonRachel McAdamsThe Hunger GamesWoody Allenwriting Your humble narrator Hello, good day, and welcome! I'm Graham, this is my site and herein you'll find a collection of thoughts about our wide world and the people in it. Feel free to browse around a bit, leave a comment and let me know what you're thinking. Scribo, ergo sum. Read Me on The Huffington Post! Click here to go to my HuffPost portfolio Read me on Wattpad! Click here to check out my long-form fiction on Wattpad Say Ello to me! 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Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts and Nigerian lottery winnings (just kidding) by email. Hook Me Up! Distinguished Guests Those Who Have Partaken 105,711 accidental perusals while looking for other things Albert R. Broccoli A to Z Blog Challenge James Bond reviews My Little Pony Friendship is Magic Nicholas Meyer Rob Ford Behind the Keyboard Bits and Bobs Dispatches from the Trenches Hollywood and Vine It's A Small World Life, The Universe and Everything Media, Social and Not Movies Music OK Blue Jays Our (Ig)Noble Overlords Stage Stuff Wot I Made Up The Final Frontier The Little Voice The Universe and Everything The West Wing Newsroom The Writing Life Unbiased Opinions I stand by what I write. All written content is mine and photographs that aren't are credited where I'm able to determine the source. If you're going to repost something you read here, I'd appreciate the credit. I'd happily do the same for you, because you're awesome. As for hyperlinks, they are there for your assistance and reference only and don't represent an endorsement of everything that has ever appeared on the linked site since the dawn of the electronic age. Just because I like or refer to somebody's particular post doesn't mean I support the other doofusy thing they wrote in a drunken stupor three years ago after being dumped by their high school crush. Come on, now, be reasonable here. About the Comments… I'm trusting your integrity enough that I don't moderate comments before they appear on the site. That said, this is my sandbox, so any misogyny, racism, homophobia, libelous accusations or bathroom stall-esque profanity will be deleted as soon as I see it. There is no reason why we can't have a vibrant discussion without calling each other names or descending to the level of typical Internet discourse. I also reserve the right to edit comments for spelling and clarity or to remove personal information for the sake of privacy. If you posted something by mistake, please let me know with a follow up comment and I'll happily delete both of them, because I'm nice that way. Allons-y then!	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3261
__label__cc	0.690306	0.309694	CV of the Chairman Contention Commission at the Ministry of Social Security and Labour (hereinafter – the Commission) is located in Gedimino str. 60, Vilnius, Lithuania. The Commission consists of seven members, one of whom is the Chairman of the Commission. The Commission is the pre-trial litigation authority that deals with disputes between individuals, pension or benefit paying institutions and the Disability and Working Capacity Assesment Office at the Ministry of Social Security and Labour of the Republic of Lithuania ( hereinafter – DWCAO). Main aims of the Contention Commission are: to participate in the implementation of social integration policies; to deal and determine disputes between individuals, pension or benefit paying institutions and DWCAO; to submit proposals to the Ministry of Social Security and Labour on disability and working capacity assessment level system development. Through its activities, the Commission is guided by the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania, the Republic of Lithuania Law on the Social Integration of Persons with Disabilities, as well as other laws, orders of Minister of Social Security and Labour and Minister of Health, regulations of the Contention Commission and other legislations Members of the Commission in dealing with complaints (applications), guided by respect for human rights, justice, fairness and reasonableness. The complaint on the decision of the DWCAO may be filed not later than 30 days after the written decision of the Office’s receipt. Decision of the Contention Commission’s may be appealed to the Vilnius Regional Administrative Court within 20 days of its receipt. Previous Previous post: Pagrindinis Next Next post: History This website uses cookies. If You agree with usage of cookies, please continue to use our website. More info about our cookies and how to delete them here: Cookies Policy Agree © Ginčų komisija prie Socialinės apsaugos ir darbo ministerijos. Interneto svetaines PuslapiaiVerslui.lt	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3269
__label__wiki	0.515982	0.515982	AVAILABLE NOW!!! Necessary Pursuit by Mari Carr and Lila DuBois! + Excerpt Posted on September 2, 2020 by Gin He’ll do anything to keep them safe. Necessary Pursuit, an all-new steamy and enthralling, arranged menage marriage romance from New York Times bestselling author Mari Carr and Lila Dubois is available now! Oscar has no desire to join one of the two secret societies issuing him invitations and he sure as hell isn’t interested in an arranged menage marriage. They say you can’t die of a broken heart, but he almost did. Deadly circumstances throw sexy physicist, Selene, and a dangerous man with a price on his head in his path. Now he’ll do anything to keep them safe. All they have to do is evade a serious threat from a religious cult, defuse a bomb, prevent a war between the Trinity Masters and the Masters’ Admiralty…oh…and stay alive. Amazon: https://amzn.to/2Dl48rz Apple Books: https://apple.co/3fdfXxg Amazon Worldwide: https://amzn.to/2Dl48rz Nook: https://bit.ly/3fg9ZM5 Kobo: https://bit.ly/2P4ARnX Add NECESSARY PURSUIT to Goodreads: https://bit.ly/2D3GKiL Oscar had found the pack of cards in the kitchen’s junk drawer, which, as anyone with any sense knew, was where a pack of cards should be. Luca had sheepishly admitted to playing poker on phone apps, but he had never played with other people. “Then you were playing the cards, not the table.” Oscar shuffled and set the deck on the table in front of Selene. She tapped it with two fingers and Oscar arched a brow. “I see you, Dr. Tanaka.” “I try to replicate the power of the sun for a living.” Selene adjusted her glasses in a sexy librarian way. “You think I’m scared of taking risks?” “It’s like watching sexy American TV,” Luca said, glancing back and forth between them. “You think we’re sexy?” Selene asked. “I mean, me too. Obviously Oscar is sexy.” Luca blushed. “Yes. I mean, you’re both… It’s…” He stared at the cards as Oscar dealt. “Remind me of the rules.” “Straight poker. Five-card stud. Nothing wild. Keeping it simple this first round. Selene, deal out the chips.” Selene gave them each ten sauce packets, also gathered from the junk drawer. They glanced at their cards, discarded, took more, and placed their bets. To his surprise, Luca raised, then raised again. “You must have a very good hand,” Selene said. Luca glanced at each of them. “I build and design bombs for a living. Maybe I am simply taking a risk.” Oscar whistled and slapped the table. “It’s going to be a game of who has the biggest nerd balls.” He pushed the rest of his hot sauce packets toward the center of the table. “Too bad for you two, that’s me.” “Call,” Selene snapped. Selene had a flush—all hearts. Appropriate. Luca had three of a kind. Oscar lay his cards out. “Full house, tens, and queens.” Selene drummed her fingers on the table, anxious for a rematch. It appeared his nuclear scientist was competitive. “Deal.” She won the next round, but he’d bet conservatively, losing only two hot sauce packets. On the third round, Oscar folded, losing only one in the process. By the fourth hand, he still had most of the packets in his bank and was humming “The Gambler.” “Deal,” Selene snapped. “Wait, I’ll deal. You’re cheating.” “Don’t get too worked up, Tanaka. It’s just poker. Now, if we were playing spades…” Every game of spades between him and his siblings had ended in violence. Every. Single. One. Always followed up by one of them yelling, “I will never play cards with you again!” Selene dealt, and Oscar’s smile had grown in time with his pile of hot sauce packets. He was waiting until Selene realized something she’d missed. “I raise…” Selene trailed off as she finally noticed she was out of “money.” “You have to fold?” Luca looked up from frowning at his cards. “Socks,” Selene said. “Strip poker.” Oscar sat up, staring across the table at her to try to read her mind. She glanced at Luca, then back to him, and shrugged slightly. “What is strip poker?” Luca asked. “You bet with your clothes. You lose and you have to take off something.” Luca cleared his throat and tugged at the front of his shirt. The bi guy who grew up in a nutso religious cult was probably wishing he was a thousand miles from here. “Let’s not.” Oscar picked up some sauce packets, prepared to pass them to Selene. “If she keeps losing…will she, will you, take off all your clothes?” Luca asked. “Those are the rules,” Oscar said, grinning when he realized Luca wasn’t as averse to the idea as he’d assumed. “But you’d have to take off clothes as well.” “If I lose.” “Oh, you’re going to lose.” Oscar let the hot sauce packets spill from his hand back onto his pile. “In or out, boys?” Selene asked. About Mari: Virginia native Mari Carr is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestseller of contemporary romance novels. With over one million copies of her books sold, Mari was the winner of the Romance Writers of America’s Passionate Plume award for her novella, Erotic Research. She has over a hundred published works, including her popular Wild Irish and Compass books, along with the Trinity Masters series she writes with Lila Dubois. Connect with Mari: Facebook: https://bit.ly/37bo2jC Amazon: https://amzn.to/33f2pwG Instagram: https://bit.ly/2A2XAgl BookBub: https://bit.ly/3h7lloa Goodreads: https://bit.ly/2MGhiRm Stay up-to-date with Mari, sign up for her newsletter: https://bit.ly/2Y7WMyI Website: https://maricarr.com/ Meet Lila Lila Dubois is a multi-published, bestselling author of erotic, paranormal and fantasy romance. Her books have been nominated for many awards including RT Book Reviews Erotic Novella for Undone Rebel and the Golden Flogger. Having spent extensive time in France, Egypt, Turkey, Ireland and England Lila speaks five languages, none of them (including English) fluently. Lila lives in California with her own Irish Farm Boy and loves receiving email from readers. Connect with Lila Facebook: https://bit.ly/2QvH39c Instagram: https://bit.ly/32BPhlO BookBub: https://bit.ly/3lpfMDH Website: https://www.liladubois.net/ Categories: Excerpts, Tours PreviousNEW RELEASE!!! A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire by Jennifer L. Armentrout! NextAVAILABLE NOW!!! Miss Apprehended by Amie Knight and Miranda Elaine! + EXCERPT	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3270
__label__wiki	0.634432	0.634432	WhatsApp plans to update its terms of service: what to expect By Mark Sofia Wyciślik-Wilson 03 December 2020 You'll have to agree to the new terms next year (Image credit: Shutterstock / Alex Ruhl) WhatsApp is introducing updated terms of service next year, and if you want to keep using the app you are going to have to agree to the changes. The changes relate to the way in which WhatsApp and Facebook (which owns the app) process user data. They are due to come into effect on February 8, 2021, but you will be given the chance to agree to the new policy before this date. News of the upcoming changes will be shared with users through WhatsApp's new announcement service. WhatsApp has great new options for customizing chats WhatsApp is introducing a new Read Later function WhatsApp's sticker picker is getting an important update that you'll love This newly enabled feature allows WhatsApp to send informative messages to users within the app, ensuring they are always kept up to date with news. As spotted by WABetaInfo, a banner-style popup will be used to advise users about WhatsApp's impending changes to its terms and privacy policy. Tapping the banner gives users the opportunity to review the changes and agree to them. While full details of the policy alterations are not yet known, screenshots of the announcement reveal two key changes. The change relate not only to WhatsApp's service and user data processing, but also how businesses are able to use Facebook-hosted services to store and manage their WhatsApp chats. Like it or lump it Users are encouraged to accept the changes by tapping a prominent Agree button, but WhatsApp has some advice for those who are unhappy with the updated terms. The company says: "By tapping Agree, you accept the new terms, which take effect on February 8, 2021. After this date, you'll need to accept the new terms to continue using WhatsApp or you can always delete your account". The announcement is due to start appearing to users in the coming weeks. Check out how to use WhatsApp dark mode Hybrid business/gaming laptops are the future – and I'm all for it Intel kills off speedy Optane SSDs – so if you want one, buy it quickly Home cinema systems could change the way we consume art – here’s why Man has two attempts left to unlock Bitcoin wallet worth $270 million	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3274
__label__cc	0.656114	0.343886	Smith, Robert (president) (x) World War II (x) Smith, G. Warren (president) (15) Aebersold, Robert (president) (14) campus protests, demonstrations, marches (5) September 11, 2001/World Trade Center attack (4) Weisenfluh, Dr. Norman (president) (4) football field, football stadium (4) transition from College to University (4) Academic Affairs (3) Presidents Award for Outstanding Service (3) Registrar, Office of the Registrar (3) integration, racial diversity (minorities on campus) (3) intramural sports (3) sabbatical (3) student teaching (3) Academic Forum (2) Academic Honors Convocation (2) Armstrong Cable (2) College / University Curriculum Committee (2) Department of Allied Health (2) Department of English (2) Department of Public Relations (2) Faculty Council (2) Gerontology program (2) Health and Physical Education Department (2) Slippery Rock University (13) Old Main (11) Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (PA Government) (7) North Hall (6) Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) (5) Union, University (5) Physical Therapy Building (4) Vincent Science Hall (4) Lowry House (3) Maltby Center (3) Syracuse University (3) West Hall (3) Computer Center (in Maltby) (2) Hotdog Shop (2) Hut, the (2) Kansas City, Kansas (2) Maltby Library (2) New Castle, Pennsylvania (2) Patterson Hall (dormitory) (2) Physical Plant (2) Search Results1 to 17 of 17 Black, Paul Interview Transcript Transcript of the interview of Paul Black conducted on 2008 July 29. Burkhart, Patrick Interview Transcript Transcript of the interview of Patrick Burkhart conducted on 2009 December 11. Cavill, Wilma Interview Transcript Transcript of the interview of Wilma Cavill conducted on November 11, 2008. Chase, Mark Interview Transcript Transcript of the interview of Mark Chase conducted on January 14, 2009. Dreyer, Diana Interview Transcript Transcript of the interview of Diana Dreyer conducted on September 22, 2008. Hicks, John Interview Transcript Transcript of the interview of John Hicks conducted on July 23, 2008. McGinnis, Barbara Interview Transcript Transcript of the interview of Barbara McGinnis conducted on June 6, 2008. Richardson, Jean Interview Transcript Transcript of the interview of Jean Richardson conducted on July 24, 2008. Rizza, Carolyn Interview Transcript Transcript of the interview of Carolyn Rizza conducted on September 23, 2008. Sack, Lucy Interview Transcript Transcript of the interview of Lucy Sack conducted on November 5, 2008. Schmieler, Claire Interview Transcript Transcript of the interview of Claire Schmieler conducted on July 14, 2008. Tomeo, Melba Interview Transcript Transcript of the interview of Melba Tomeo conducted on September 29, 2008. Walwik, Ted Interview Transcript Transcript of the interview of Ted Walwik conducted on October 16, 2008.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3285
__label__cc	0.695458	0.304542	Articulating Rapa Nui: Polynesian Cultural Politics in a Latin American Nation-State Riet Delsing This ethnography examines the colonization of the Pacific island of Rapa Nui/Easter Island by the Latin American country of Chile. It also discusses the Rapanui people’s growing emphasis on cultural difference. The first part, entitled “Challenging the nation-state”, gives an historical account of Chile’s political relationship with the island, from the moment of annexation in 1888 up to the present day. In the second part, “Polynesian cultural politics and global imaginaries”, I describe various contemporary forms of cultural politics. To express their difference, the Rapanui are increasingly ... More This ethnography examines the colonization of the Pacific island of Rapa Nui/Easter Island by the Latin American country of Chile. It also discusses the Rapanui people’s growing emphasis on cultural difference. The first part, entitled “Challenging the nation-state”, gives an historical account of Chile’s political relationship with the island, from the moment of annexation in 1888 up to the present day. In the second part, “Polynesian cultural politics and global imaginaries”, I describe various contemporary forms of cultural politics. To express their difference, the Rapanui are increasingly engaging in cultural performances such as sculpting, dancing, body painting and other cultural expressions, as well as a yearly festival. They are also revitalizing their Polynesian language and traditional concepts of land and territory, and strengthening contacts with other Polynesians and the international community. This emphasis on cultural politics creates tensions between the Rapanui--who increasingly claim their right to self-determination as a people--and the Chilean nation-state, which insists on its supposed rights to sovereignty over the island. Moreover, I discuss how the global fascination with Rapa Nui has resulted in a blooming tourist industry, which commodifies Rapanui difference and creates a possibility to loosen economic and, potentially, political ties with Chile. The realms of the cultural and the political have thus become entangled in subtle but important ways. Keywords: Colonization, Rapa Nui, Chile, nation-state, cultural politics, self-determination, sovereignty, Polynesia, performance, language, land and territory, tourism Print publication date: 2015 Print ISBN-13: 9780824851682 Published to Hawaii Scholarship Online: November 2016 DOI:10.21313/hawaii/9780824851682.001.0001 Affiliations are at time of print publication. Riet Delsing, author subscribe or login to access all content. Library Card # Part One Challenging the Nation-State Chapter 1 Chilean Colonization and Rapanui Resilience Chapter 2 Integration into the Nation-State and the Beginnings of a Rapanui Identity Discourse Chapter 3 The Road to Self-determination Part Two Polynesian Cultural Politics and Global Imaginaries Chapter 4 Rapanui Appropriations and Resistance Chapter 5 Performing Culture Chapter 6 Vanaŋa Rapanui Chapter 7 Kaiŋa Rapanui Chapter 8 The Polynesian Homeland Chapter 9 Rapa Nui as Fantasy and Commodity	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3288
__label__cc	0.540311	0.459689	The immune system is how the body protects itself from illness. It attacks the things that cause disease. Healthy habits can help support the immune system. Natural therapies have also been used to support or strengthen the immune system. Likely Effective Andrographis is a plant that can be taken as a supplement. It is likely to quicken recovery and improve symptoms of colds and throat/chest problems. ( Note : It should not be taken by people who have problems with their immune system.)A6, A14, A20 Echinacea is likely to reduce frequency and ease symptoms of some illnesses but is unlikely to reduce the frequency of common cold. ( Note : It should not be taken by people who have problems with their immune system, sleep, or anxiety.)A5, A8, A12, A15 Flavonoids are compounds in food and drinks like wine and tea. They are likely to lower the rate of upper respiratory tract infections.A29 L-arginine is an amino acid found in the body. It is likely to lower the rate of problems from infections.A32 Pelargonium sidoides (African geranium) is a plant that can be taken as a pill, extract, lozenge, or syrup. It is likely to ease symptoms of cough and may reduce cold-like symptoms.A7, A9, A11, A23 Traditional Chinese medicine is likely to have benefit in treating influenza.A30 Zinc is an essential nutrient that can be taken as a pill, liquid, syrup, or lozenge. It is likely to shorten the time of illness and improve the outcome of colds and pneumonia. ( Note : It may cause nausea when used as a lozenge.)A10, A18, A19, A35 May Be Effective Elderberry may help shorten the time of illness and ease cold-like symptoms.A16, A24 Maoto is a extract of four plants that was developed in ancient China. It may lower the duration of fever.A24 Panax ginseng is an herb that may improve the immune response.A38 May Not Be Effective These therapies may not have benefit in treating the common cold: Chinese proprietary herbal medicine A31 Vitamin C is found in citrus fruits, sweet peppers, and broccoli.A25-A27, A37 Unlikely to Be Effective Vitamin D is found in fish, milk, and sunlight. It is unlikely to have benefit.A28 Not Enough Data to Assess Traditional Chinese herbal medicineA36, A39 Chinese patent medicines A34 Essential oil monoterpenes A1-A3 GarlicA13 Honey A17, A22 Methionine A4 Moringa A21 Talk to your doctor about any supplements or therapy you would like to use. Some can interfere with treatment or make conditions worse, such as: Andrographis may make the immune system more active. Talk to your doctor before taking it if you have problems with your immune system. It may also not be safe to take with medication for sleep and anxiety. Echinacea should not be taken by people who have problems with their immune system, sleep, or anxiety. Zinc may cause nausea when used as a lozenge. A1. Federspil P, Wulkow R, et al. [Effects of standardized Myrtol in therapy of acute sinusitis—results of a double-blind, randomized, multicenter study compared with placebo]. Laryngorhinootologie. 1997;76(1):23-27. A2. Meister R, Wittig T, et al. Efficacy and tolerability of myrtol standardized in long-term treatment of chronic bronchitis. A double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Study Group Investigators. Arzneimittelforschung.1999;49(4):351-358. A3. Matthys H, de Mey C, et al. Efficacy and tolerability of myrtol standardized in acute bronchitis. A multi-centre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled parallel group trial vs. cefuroxime and ambroxol. Arzneimittelforschung. 2000;50(8):700-711. A4. Van Brummelen R, du Toit D. L-methionine as immune supportive supplement: a clinical evaluation. 2007;33(1):157-163. A5. Schapowal A, Berger D, et al. Echinacea/sage of chlorhexidine/lidocaine for treating acute sore throats: a randomized double-blind trial. Eur J Med Res. 2009;14(9):406-412. A6. Saxena RC, Singh R, et al. A randomized double blind placebo controlled clinical evaluation of extract of Andrographis paniculata (KalmCold) in patients with uncomplicated upper respiratory tract infection. Phytomedicine. 2010;17(3-4):178-185. A7. Kamin W, Maydannik VG, et al. Efficacy and tolerability of Eps 7630 in patients (aged 6-18 years old) with acute bronchitis. Acta Paediatr. 2010;99(4):537-543. A8. Nahas R, Balla A. Complementary and alternative medicine for prevention and treatment of the common cold. Can Fam Physician. 2011;57(1):31-36. A9. Ross SM. African geranium (Eps 7630), part I: a proprietary root extract of Pelargonium sidoides (Eps 7630) is found to be effective in resolving symptoms associated with the common cold in adults. Holist Nurs Pract. 2012;26(2):106-109. A10. Science M, Johnstone J, et al. Zinc for the treatment of the common cold: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. CMAJ. 2012;184(10):E551-561. A11. Matthys H, Pliskevich DA, et al. Randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of Eps 7630 in adults with COPD. Respir Med. 2013; 107(5): 691-701. A12. Karsch-Völk M, Barrett B, et al. Echinacea for preventing and treating the common cold. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2014;(2):CD000530. A13. Lissiman E, Bhasale AL, et al. Garlic for the common cold. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2014;(11):CD006206. A14. Wagner L, Cramer H, et al. Herbal Medicine for Cough: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Forsch Komplementmed. 2015;22(6):359-368. A15. Schapowal A, Klein P, et al. Echinacea reduces the risk of recurrent respiratory tract infections and complications: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Adv Ther. 2015;32(3):187-200. A16. Tiralongo E, Wee SS, et al. Elderberry Supplementation Reduces Cold Duration and Symptoms in Air-Travelers: A Randomized, Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial. Nutrients. 2016;8(4):182. A17. Nitsche MP, Carreño M. Is honey an effective treatment for acute cough in children? Medwave. 2016;16(2):e6454. A18. Singh M, Das RR. Zinc for the common cold. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2013 Jun 18;(6):CD001364. A19. Hemilä H, Petrus EJ, et al. Zinc acetate for treating the common cold: an individual patient data meta-analysis. Br J Clin Pharmacol. 2016;82(5):1393-1398. A20. Hu XY, Wu RH, et al. Andrographis paniculate (Chuān Xīn Lián) for symptomatic relief of acute respiratory infections in adults and children: A systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS One. 2017;12(8). A21. Tshingani K, Donnen P, et al. Impact of Moringa oleifera Iam. Leaf powder supplementation versus nutritional counseling on the body mass index and immune response of HIV patients on antiretroviral therapy: a single-blind randomized control trial. BMC Complement Altern Med. 2017;17(1):420. A22. Oduwole O, Udoh EE, et al. Honey for acute cough in children. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2018;4:CD007094. A23. Riley DS, Lizogub VG, et al. Efficacy and Tolerability of High-dose Pelargonium Extract in Patients With the Common Cold. Altern Ther Health Med. 2018;24(2):16-26. A24. Hawkins J, Baker C, et al. Black elderberry (Sambucus nigra) supplementation effectively treats upper respiratory symptoms: A meta-analysis of randomized, controlled clinical trials. Complement Ther Med. 2019;42:361-365. A24. Yoshino T, Arita R, et al. The use of maoto (Ma-Huang-Tang), a traditional Japanese Kampo medicine, to alleviate flu symptoms: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Complement Altern Med. 2019 Mar 18;19(1):68. A25. Quidel S, Gómez E, et al. What are the effects of vitamin C on the duration and severity of the common cold? Medwave. 2018 Oct 3;18(6):e7261. A26. Gómez E, Quidel S, et al. Does vitamin C prevent the common cold? Medwave. 2018 Aug 6;18(4):e7235. A27. Ran L, Zhao W, et al. Extra Dose of Vitamin C Based on a Daily Supplementation Shortens the Common Cold: A Meta-Analysis of 9 Randomized Controlled Trials. Biomed Res Int. 2018 Jul 5;2018:1837634. A28. Yakoob MY, Salam RA, et al. Vitamin D supplementation for preventing infections in children under five years of age. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2016 Nov 9;11:CD008824. A29. Somerville VS, Braakhuis AJ, et al. Effect of Flavonoids on Upper Respiratory Tract Infections and Immune Function: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Adv Nutr. 2016 May 16;7(3):488-497. A30. Wang C, Wang H, et al. Traditional Chinese medicine for the treatment of influenza: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. J Tradit Chin Med. 2014 Oct;34(5):527-531. A31. Chen W, Lewith G, et al. Chinese proprietary herbal medicine listed in 'China national essential drug list' for common cold: a systematic literature review. PLoS One. 2014 Oct 20;9(10):e110560. A32. Kang K, Shu XL, et al. Effect of L-arginine on immune function: a meta-analysis. Asia Pac J Clin Nutr. 2014;23(3):351-359. A34. Chen W, Liu B, et al. Chinese patent medicines for the treatment of the common cold: a systematic review of randomized clinical trials. BMC Complement Altern Med. 2014 Jul 30;14:273. A35. Singh M, Das RR. Zinc for the common cold. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2013 Jun 18;(6):CD001364. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD001364.pub4. Review. Update in: Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2015;(4):CD001364. A36. Jiang L, Deng L, et al. Chinese medicinal herbs for influenza. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2013 Mar 28;(3):CD004559. A37. Hemilä H, Chalker E. Vitamin C for preventing and treating the common cold. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2013 Jan 31;(1):CD000980. A38. Shergis JL, Zhang AL, et al. Panax ginseng in randomised controlled trials: a systematic review. Phytother Res. 2013 Jul;27(7):949-965. A39. Chen W, Lim CE, et al. Chinese herbal medicines for the treatment of type A H1N1 influenza: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials. PLoS One. 2011;6(12):e28093. Last reviewed October 2019 by EBSCO NAT Review Board Eric Hurwitz, DC	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3290
__label__wiki	0.775396	0.775396	Gorilla Highlands: Rwanda, Uganda & DR Congo Regional National Parks Nearby National Parks Tours, Treks & More Uganda, straddling the equator high on the central African plateau, has a fantastic climate due to its high altitude. It is a landlocked state, bordered by South Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and DR Congo. A quarter of the country is covered by fresh water; rainfall is adequate and water supplies are plentiful. The country provides one of the safest, most diverse and exciting travel experiences in Africa. Turbulent History The county’s cultural diversity reflects its rich and complex history. Before British colonial rulers imposed its modern name and borders, the area was a patchwork of ethnic groups and traditions, the strongest among them being the kingdom of Buganda. With very little European presence on the ground it was mostly Buganda that did the dirty work for the Empire. Ugandans came to admire and copy their colonial masters to almost embarassing levels. Western education and Christianity had a major role in that, convincing people that what was traditional or African was backward and possibly satanic. Independence in 1962 did not change much. Idi Amin was a British product and a welcome replacement for his Socialist predecessor Milton Obote. He would have ruled for much longer if it were not for Julius Nyerere, the legendary president of Tanzania, who decided to invade Uganda and unseat Amin. The invasion restablished Obote but his return did not last long. Yoweri Museveni began a guerilla campaign against him that ended in 1986. Museveni remains in power, promoting American Evangelism as a public moral compass. Museveni wants to make Uganda a middle-income country by 2040, supported by recently discovered oil. For the moment, Uganda remains largely rural; agriculture represents a big part of the country’s economic output, with coffee its biggest export. Many people live in what the Western world considers to be poverty, working long hours at subsistence wages. The families are large (7 children per woman) and the population young. Although access to healthcare remains partial, an undoubted success story is Uganda’s campaign against HIV/AIDS. Prevalence of the disease has fallen to 6.5% from a high of 30% thirty years ago—the drop is so dramatic that the authorities are concerned about Ugandans not taking the virus seriously anymore! The southwestern corner of the country, the region we call the Gorilla Highlands, is both one of the most rural and attractive parts of Uganda… Photo: Lily Whittaker This Travel Guide is based on the the Gorilla Highlands Interactive eBook, an award-winning labour of love that gives you a comprehensive insight into the cultures, languages, people and nature that make our area so special. By purchasing the ebook you will contribute to an ambitious initiative that aims to transform southwestern Uganda. Our Initiative GH Silverchef GH Pocket Guide GH Bootcamp Subscribe to GH News	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3294
__label__wiki	0.748228	0.748228	The Young And The Restless Spoilers: Phyllis Goes Back – Michelle Stafford Switch Approaching SpoilersThe Young and The Restless By Sean O'Brien On May 13, 2019 1.3KFacebook Phyllis Summers (Gina Tognoni) continues to alienate herself on The Young and the Restless. This pairs with the coming actor switch which will see Tognoni pass the soapy torch back to the lady she replaced in 2014, Michelle Stafford. More than 500 episodes after becoming the next Phyllis, the multiple Daytime Emmy Award-winning actor is completing her last scenes at Y&R. Tognoni has evidenced consistent gratitude to her colleagues and the fans since news first broke that a character revert would be happening. She performed exceedingly well and can leave with her head held high. Y&R Spoilers– Phyllis Switch Fast Approaching Y&R appears to be preparing for a summertime switch for Ms. Summers, who seemed to be prepping to become Mrs. ‘Philly’ Abbott (Jason Thompson) awhile ago. Of course, some would say that Phyllis once again created her own solitary life. Others would only tag her with half the blame. The Young And The Restless Poll: Is Adam Faking His Memory Loss? Vote Right Here! At least Billy Abbott (Jason Thompson) was willing to give Phyllis money to invest in her business when asked. She’s using that cash to forge an accessories company that she hoped would impress Jack Abbott (Peter Bergman), the one true love of her life (sorry Nick Newman, Joshua Morrow). Jack instantly rejected Phyllis’ pitch to partner with Jabot Cosmetics. Her reaction shot was the opposite of ‘Smilin’ Jack’s’. Following that scowl came a call to Ashley Abbott (Eileen Davidson). Uh oh’s were heard across soapland as that call to Paris, France happened. What jolted Phyllis to come back to us? Was she on Shick's wavelength? #YR pic.twitter.com/H9j0WwMGhB — Playing Dirty Costs! (@GenoaCityLuvYR) September 12, 2014 Young And Restless Spoilers– Michelle Stafford’s Phyllis Will Be Different Stafford’s write-out in 2013 took place via Phyllis’ fall down a staircase. At least that’s what was claimed at the time by the lady who witnessed the tumble before taking off. Sharon Newman’s (Sharon Case) first look at the original Phyllis will likely be played up, as these two ranks as the show’s all-time best enemies. The writing staff is already taking Phyllis back to her total agitator days by having her contact Ashley in order to stick it to Jack. After Stafford’s contract with ‘General Hospital’ is completed fans should expect the classic edition of Phyllis to renew her battle with Sharon again as well. Y&R’s character redux feels sure to be compelling. And as always, don’t forget to check back with Hollywood Hiccups for all the latest news, updates and spoilers on The Young and the Restless (Y&R)and all of your favorite daytime television shows right here! After earning a BA in Communications, Sean began his professional career in the Scranton-Wilkes/Barre Red Barons’ front office (the Philadelphia Phillies former Triple-A affiliate). He later worked as a print sports writer. During this millennium – Sean became a state licensed school teacher, the author of the children’s book Maddie: Teaching Tolerance with a Smile, and a credentialed sports columnist. He’s also been a longtime soap opera loyalist.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3298
__label__wiki	0.509464	0.509464	Days Of Our Lives Spoilers: Ciara’s Terrifying Predicament – Ben Rages At Eve – Hope & Rafe Kiss Days Of Our LivesSpoilers By hellodrdavis Last updated Aug 25, 2020 NBC Days Of Our Lives spoilers tease that viewers are in for a big week on the NBC soap. In fact, the new DOOL spoiler photos for the week of August 24 indicate that there’s a lot of action in store for the week, as well as some seriously dangerous situations for one Salem resident in particular. Let’s get right into it and unpack what we know about what’s going to go down this week! Days Of Our Lives Spoilers – Eve Donavan Has A Vision Of Her Daughter First off, it looks like Eve Donovan’s (Kassie DePaiva) time as a free woman will be coming to a close, but before she gets caught, Eve will have some big moments. She’ll visit her daughter Paige Larson’s (True O’Brien) gravesite at the cemetery, and while she’s sitting graveside, she’ll look up and Paige will be standing there! Eve will have a moment where she truly believes her daughter is alive, but it looks like this will simply turn out to be Eve’s hallucination. Days Of Our Lives Spoilers: Ben And Hope’s Chilling Realization, What Is Ciara’s Fate? Nevertheless, it looks like Eve will “talk” with Paige, but what Paige will say to Eve remains to be seen. Given that this will be a vision of Eve’s, Paige could end up egging Eve on in her quest to torment Ben Weston (Robert Scott Wilson). We’ll have to wait and see how this ghostly vision turns out! Ciara Brady Is Unnerved When Ben Weston Takes Her To A Creepy Location Well, it seems that while Eve is having her visit from Paige’s spirit, Ben will manage to get Ciara to go with him to a truly creepy place – the abandoned dorm room where he killed Paige six years ago. How Ben is going to get Ciara to accompany him to the scene of the crime remains to be seen, but it will surely be under false pretenses, as the most recent DOOL promo shows Ben telling Ciara that this is the place where he strangled Paige. Since Ben and Ciara are shown alone in the dorm room, with Ciara looking like she’s tied up and Ben standing near Ciara holding a necktie, that doesn’t bode well for what’s about to go down. However, DOOL spoilers indicate that Ciara will figure out in pretty short order that something is very wrong with Ben, and that Eve and Vincent (Michael Teh) must have done something to him to warrant this horrible turn of events. DOOL Spoilers – Ciara Brady Is Trapped In A Dangerous Situation Well, it looks like Ciara will get free from Ben…sort of. Ciara is shown looking as if she has managed to perhaps talk Ben down for a while and shut him out of the dorm bathroom with the door locked. But unfortunately, she’ll have nowhere to run as she’ll be stuck there with Ben on the other side of the door. Perhaps Ciara will try to talk with Ben through the door and convince him that this isn’t him – it’s Eve and Vincent’s brainwashing plan that is leading to his behavior. Ben Weston Has An Explosive Confrontation With Eve Donovan DOOL spoilers indicate that after everything is said and done, Ben will come out of his murderous trance with no memory of what happened. But Ciara will be gone, and Hope Brady (Kristian Alfonso) will quiz Ben about what’s happened. It shouldn’t take Hope and Ben long to realize what’s happened, and that Eve and Vincent brainwashed Ben into doing something truly horrific. It looks like Ben will be in agony and fearing the worst has happened and that he’s killed his true love. Well, later in the week, DOOL spoilers say that Ben will come face-to-face with Eve, and this will likely come as Eve has been taken into police custody. Ben will surely demand to know what Eve knows about what he was programmed to do and where Ciara might be. But we don’t expect that Eve will cough up any information – after all, she’ll want Ben to suffer to the maximum, so she might just lawyer up and refuse to talk about what she’s done. Days Of Our Lives Spoilers – Rafe Hernandez & Hope Brady Make An Important Decision Well, before everything with Ben and Ciara go down, Rafe Hernandez (Galen Gering) and Hope will rush over to the motel where Eve has been staying. Of course, Rafe and Hope will need to search the place, but as they do, some familiar sparks are going to fly. Rafe and Hope are shown together at the motel in their official capacity but getting ready to kiss, so it looks like they’ll finally be ready to admit that there’s something between them. As DOOL viewers know, Rafe and Hope have been tiptoeing around the fact that they’re one again attracted to each other for a while now, so this kiss will mark a big change. Will we see Hope and Rafe come together as a couple once again? Days Of Our Lives Spoilers: Sami Brady’s Sticking Around, EJ DiMera Follows Her To Salem?https://t.co/yaTshhCwDP — SOS/CTS/HH (@SoapOperaSpy) August 25, 2020 If so, it’s going to be pretty short-lived, since Rafe is about to head off canvas after his dad Eduardo Hernandez (A Martinez) returns and says that Rafe and his sister Gabi DiMera (Camila Banus) are in grave danger. That ends this bunch of spoiler photos! It’s going to be a great week on DOOL, and you won’t want to miss any of the action. Stick with CDL so you don’t miss any of the latest DOOL spoilers and news, and check out our daily episode recaps as well. hellodrdavis Suzanne L. Davis (aka “hellodrdavis”) is a psychologist, author, and blogger. She is a former psychology professor and litigation consultant who now writes full-time. She’s been an avid daytime soaps watcher for years. Days Of Our Lives Spoilers: Tripp Pushes Charlie To Make A Confession Days Of Our Lives Spoilers: Sarah Worries Over Philip’ Safety, Fears Xander Has… Days Of Our Lives Spoilers: DOOL Alum Kristian Alfonso In New Lifetime Project Days Of Our Lives Spoilers: Gwen Tells Abigail The Truth About Her Passionate Night…	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3299
__label__wiki	0.954219	0.954219	Serena Williams' best mum moments with daughter Olympia We can't get enough of Serena Williams with her daughter Olympia, but there's more to this incredible mother daughter duo than sweet Instagram shots. By Maddison Leach\|9:08pm Sep 25, 2020 1 of 15Attribution: Instagram Sharing the passion for sport It should come as no surprise that Serena Williams' daughter Alexis Olympia Ohanian is already a regular on the tennis court. Her mum is a history-making champion in the sport, and it seems little Olympia is already learning from her. But Williams isn't just teaching her daughter about tennis. Scroll through to see some of the duo's sweetest mother-daughter moments. Playing dress up with Olympia It's not all tennis training and sport deals in the Williams-Ohanian household. The elite athlete has even been known to dress up with her baby girl, donning matching princess outfits with Olympia during lockdown. "She's got my back already. And I'll always have hers," Williams captioned this sweet photo in August. The mother-daughter duo have been spotted dressed up in matching costumes several times on social media. In April Williams shared this sweet shot of herself and Olympia in outfits based on the character Anna in Frozen. Serena opens up about being a working mum Williams has gushed about the joys of motherhood since welcoming daughter Alexis Olympia Ohanian in 2017, but it's not easy balancing parenthood with a career in elite sport. The former world number one opened up about the exhaustion working mums face, writing on Instagram alongside this photo: "I am not sure who took this picture but working and being a mum is not easy. "I am often exhausted, stressed, and then I go play a professional tennis match. We keep going. "I am so proud and inspired by the women who do it day in and day out. I'm proud to be this baby's mama." Juggling motherhood and an elite career Williams has spoken several times about balancing being a mum with her career in professional tennis. She shared a glimpse into her own work/motherhood juggling act with this snap on Instagram. In it, Williams reads through paperwork while Olympia naps beside her. "Work, Olympia and my Moana blanket," the mum wrote. Serena celebrates her Time Magazine shoot In August of 2018, Serena graced the cover of Time Magazine, describing herself as imperfect but "perfectly Serena" in a beautiful interview about motherhood and her comeback. "I talk about the struggles all of us mums feel. It’s is so important to spread the knowledge," she wrote on Instagram alongside this adorable shot with little Olympia. She also gushed about how excited she was to wear her own incredible line of clothing, Serena, for the shoot. "Super excited to wear my new clothing collection @serena on the cover and inside spread of the mag," she said. Olympia helps out with mum's makeup Serena is known for looking flawless, whether she's on the tennis courts or gracing the cover of magazines like Allure. Her long-time makeup artist Natasha Gross has often favoured a more natural look for the tennis star, saying on her website, "I don't think a woman needs to have on a lot of makeup to look stunning." But in this sweet snap Serena shared to her Instagram, little Alexis Olympia looks to have taken over the makeup duties, helping mum out from Natasha's arms. Hopefully Natasha has already taught her the importance of blending! Serena feels incredibly attached to Olympia Complications during Olympia's birth saw Serena undergo multiple surgeries to save her life, and she admitted in her Time interview that she's insanely attached to the daughter she almost died to have. "I didn’t think I’d be this attached,” she said. “It’s difficult to leave her.” After the birth Serena was bedridden for weeks, something the world class athlete struggled to deal with. But she had a message for other mums who struggle after the birth of their own children; “Some days, I cry. I’m really sad. I’ve had meltdowns. It’s been a really tough 11 months. If I can do it, you guys can do it too.” Raising confident daughters runs in the family Being a tennis superstar was a little harder to navigate as an African-American woman, Serena confessed in an Allure interview, but she credits her own mother for building her incredible confidence. “I think my mum instilled in [Venus and I] to be confident women, to really believe in ourselves, be proud of our heritage, our hair, and our bodies. That was something that was really important for her to teach us,” she said. And those are all values she plans to pass on to Olympia as she grows, saying; “I’m definitely teaching it to my daughter.” Even in her Instagram photos Serena is always shown encouraging Olympia and letting her little girl shine. 10 of 15Attribution: Instagram Even world class athlete mums need to unwind "Just one of those mornings," Serena captioned this adorable photo showing her snuggled up on the couch with an inquisitive looking Olympia. Having spent most of her life as a champion athlete, Serena was used to living a life that revolved around tennis - training, competing, focusing on herself and her own abilities. But as a mum she admits she finds herself putting everything before herself. “I still have to learn a balance of being there for her, and being there for me. I’m working on it," she said in her Time interview, "I never understood women before, when they put themselves in second or third place. And it’s so easy to do. It’s so easy to do.” But from the looks of this picture Serena's finding some downtime in amongst the beautiful chaos of motherhood. Changing the game for the better Serena wasn't the first woman to return to tennis after having a child, but she was the first to really change the game because of it. “It would be nice to recognize that women shouldn’t be treated differently because they take time to bring life into this world," Serena told Time, speaking after the U.S. Open pledged to incorporate maternity decisions into its seeding process. Now she has husband Alexis Ohanian bring their gorgeous girl along to almost all of her matches, the little tot clapping and cheering from dad's lap as she watches mum play. In time Olympia herself may even take to the tennis court, but Serena says she'd never pressure her daughter to follow in her footsteps. Teaching Olympia beauty is more than physical Not only is she a world famous athlete, Williams also has a massive online following, posting this adorable picture with Olymipa and captioning it; "For my 10 million followers, thank you." But having so many eyes always on you leaves you open to unrealistic standards, especially when it comes to beauty -something Serena herself has struggled to deal with as a black athlete. "It puts a lot of pressure on women," she said. Now as a mother she wants to make sure Olympia grows up understanding beauty isn't measured in likes, fancy clothes or physical beauty. “When I tell her she’s beautiful, I want to teach her that she’s beautiful from the inside,” Serena explained to Allure. “Giving is beauty. Being kind and humble is the ultimate beauty.” Juggling tennis and motherhood is harder than it looks When Williams returned to tennis, things weren't as smooth sailing as cute snaps like this one of her and Olympia snuggled up for a movie would have you think. In fact, she struggled to juggle the demands of her training with her love of being a mum. One of the biggest points of contention between her and her trainer, Patrick Mouratoglou, was Serena's choice to breastfeed Olympia. As a mum she wanted to hold onto that beautiful connection with her bub, but as an athlete she understood why Mouratoglou insisted she stop to get her back on track in her training. She said in her Time interview that when she did decide to stop breastfeeding when Olympia was eight months old. “I looked at Olympia, and I was like, ‘Listen, Mummy needs to get her body back, so Mummy’s going to stop now.’ We had a really good conversation. We talked it out.” Serena shows off her dedication to her business This shot makes Williams look like just your average mum playing with her tot, but while she lay on the floor with Olympia she was planning huge things. Just days after posting the snap she was launching a pop-up store in New York City featuring her own clothing line, Serena. She's even wearing the exclusive NYC-themed shirt designed specifically for the launch. In the photo's caption she made sure to shout out Tictail, "a female run business like mine", showing her dedication to supporting other women's businesses. And it's something she wants to pass on to Olympia as she grows up, hoping that her daughter will end up just as business-savvy as her mum. Teaching Olympia to be strong In a touching photo of Olympia's first trip to the beach, Serena showed off the clear bond between her and her daughter. But Serena is thinking about more than just Olympia's first steps on the beach as she plans to help her daughter grown into a strong woman. “I want her to know that being strong is never easy. Not in this world we are living in.... Standing up for yourself is not going to be easy, but it’s always eventually respected,” Serena told Allure. “Those are the people who’ve made a difference in this world, people that stand up for what’s right." -- no more galleries --	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3302
__label__cc	0.701746	0.298254	Helping Hand Coalition Israeli Officials Greetings From Nof Ha-Galil Smiling In Spite of Hard Year Sweet Hanukkah for Survivors Celebrating True Light New Parliamentary Lobby in Knesset to help and support the underprivileged Новое парламентское лобби в Кнессете для помощи и поддержки малоимущих Hanukkah Mini-Miracle Grocery Card Distribution Helps Those in Distress Happy Birthday to WWII Survivor! Helping Hand Global Forum Caesarea Summit Wheelchair for Tamara Colorful Quilts Lift the Spirit Lev Celebrates 90! 10th International Crystal Music Festival 2019 By Inspire-Truth on 11/06/2019 • ( 1 Comment ) It was a night of all nights! The International Convention Center in Haifa was filled with more than 2,000 guests coming from all over the world, 1,000 Holocaust survivors and World War II veterans brought in busloads by Helping Hand Coalition, also broadcasting to 180 countries worldwide – reaching over 500 million viewers. Such event was organised by Crystal Forum Association and Helping Hand Global Forum, The feast of Shavuot (Pentecost) is a significant feast for both Christians and Jews. For the Jewish people, Shavuot is a feast commemorating the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai; and for the Christians, it’s the day the Spirit of God came and dwelt on earth, beginning in the Upper Room, in Jerusalem. To celebrate this important holiday, Crystal Forum Association and Helping Hand Coalitionjoined forces for the second year to create a night for all of both communities to come together and honor the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob! The Message: “Connecting Hands in Unity – We Change the Future.” The Goal: Bringing Christians and Jews together from around the world, to support the Land of Israel, and show the people that they are not alone. For ten years, Crystal Forum Association has been hosting the Crystal Music Festival, stirring up change by bringing two groups of people together for an evening of fellowship and music. In a world where the media is spreading lies about what is happening in the Land of Israel, it is essential when hosting events like this to be a beacon of light and show the world that Israel is standing firm and that the people are louder than ever. Welcoming the event the chairman of Crystal Forum Association, Daniel Matiash, along with the heads of Helping Hand Coalition, Andre & Bozena Gasiorowski, took to the stage to share a few words. Bozena spoke an enlightening speech about the power of art and music, how it brings people together in a way nothing else can. During Andre’s speech, he invited all of the people who were involved in World War II to stand up so the rest of the audience could acknowledge what they went through, and show them support and appreciation. Watching each survivor stand was an overwhelming moment. As the audience clapped and recognized those present, words cannot fathom the amount of honor and love that emanated around the room for people that have been through so much. Luke Gasiorowski – Executive Director of Helping Hand Coalition, and esteemed Israeli jewelry designer Nikita Ben Ami, presented the performers as they came onto the stage. Opening the concert as the first musical act was Joshua Aaron, a singer who came to Israel with his family almost ten years ago. Son of an Israeli, Joshua told us that he couldn’t pass up the chance to perform in the city where his mother grew up. His performance started the night on a high note, but with each performance, that high seemed to reach to the stars. Following Joshua’s performance was a Power Dancers team who came all the way from Seoul, South Korea! Their church, Church of All Nations, has been sponsoring the Crystal Music Festival from the very beginning. Providing their support and expressing their unconditional love for Israel and the Holocaust survivors, the Power Worship Team’s performance radiated the Spirit of God with each song and dance they performed. Wearing a rainbow of colorful costumes, the Korean dancers spread their warmth and energy throughout the auditorium. Their dances brought smiles to people’s faces, and their songs were like a kiss from Heaven. Other musical acts included: Shaul and Yulia Ben Har, Irina Abdulmalikova, Ruach HaChaim, Uri Goren, and Melech HaKavod. Pastor Oren Lev Arie, from Jerusalem, took a few minutes in-between acts to share a message that was on his heart. Speaking about Joseph and his technicolor coat, Pastor Oren explained how the coat is a lot like Israel, being that people from all over the world, from different cultures, come to dwell in the Land of Israel. He also went on to talk about how countries attempted to eliminate the Jewish people, and while they succeeded in killing more than six million, they ultimately failed in annihilating us all. Asking a question many people have, “Where was God during the Holocaust?” Pastor Oren’s explained, “God was with us, and He is still with us.” It’s taken many years, but more and more people are coming to understand Israel’s importance; from the acknowledgment of Jerusalem as the capital to countries from around the world aiding Israel in extinguishing the wildfires that have been sweeping through the country! The entire concert was lively, entertaining, and full of excitement. Being in the crowded auditorium, watching the performances, and talking with those present was the perfect way to celebrate the feast of Shavuot. It was also an honor to have the Holocaust survivors and war veterans join us in this celebration of life and unity. A few memorable moments include: Of course, Power Worship Team’s performance that shone as bright as the sun; the youth group from Nazareth Illit, Ruach HaChaim, with a musical act that got people on their feet dancing; and Shaul and Yulia Ben Har (Shamayim Ptuchim / Open Heavens), whose songs caused the crowd to clap and sing along. The Crystal Music Festival is a highlight of the year, and Helping Hand Coalition would like to thank all of those who were involved in making the night a success. To the Church of All Nations from South Korea who continue to bless Israel with their support and love. All the musical acts who were beyond talented, and the speakers who shared profound wisdom! Thank you, also, to the representative of the Vice Mayor of Haifa, the Consul of the Belarus Embassy in Israel, for your presence at this event and addressing audience. Each year, the performances are becoming more amazing, and the crowds are getting bigger! Don’t miss your chance to join in with next year’s festivities; our time together is a very special occasion. If you would like to get involved, you can donate, volunteer, or perform at the upcoming events. We love having new people come and bless the Holocaust survivors, those who are in need, and the people of Israel. go to => Photo Gallery Categories: Events, Global Forum Tagged as: Crystal Forum Association, Events, Global Forum Forever Young – June 10th Shalom House – Concert Family from Germany Meets Survivors from Pardes Hana Reblogged this on Andrzej Gasiorowski. Follow Helping Hand Coalition on WordPress.com Parliamentary Lobby Individuals in Need Bar Mitzva for Survivors of the Holocaust GAiN Sponsorship Program Grocery Cards HHC Caesarea Villa Lone Soldiers The Menorah Project American Friends of HHC Christen an der seite Israels (C4I) GAiN Germany GAiN USA Gleanings for the Hungry Helping Hand Coalition for Israel Holy Ground Explorations Israel Food Outreach Jewish Voice International Joseph Project March of Life March of Remembrance Raffles Air Return Ministries Canada Together Again (Znowu Razem) Partners in Israel Council of Russian speaking Compatriots Crystal Forum Association Hazit ha’Kavod Helping Hand Global Forum Israeli State officials Kotel Foundation Sheba Hospital Western Wall Heritage Foundation World Federation of Moroccan Jewry WWII Veterans Top categories: Projects	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3307
__label__cc	0.748651	0.251349	The Highlands Current (https://highlandscurrent.org/2016/10/26/free-sign-language-class-children/) Free Sign Language Class for Children By Staff \| October 26, 2016 First session set for Nov. 7 Students ages 9 to 14 can learn American Sign Language at free one-hour classes held at the Howland Public Library in Beacon that start Monday, Nov. 7, and continue weekly through the month. The classes includes signing, finger-spelling and songs. Register by calling 845-831-1134, ext. 103. News: Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Articles attributed to "staff" are written by the editor or a senior editor. This is typically because they are brief items based on a single source, such as a press release, or there are multiple contributors, such as a collection of photos. More by Staff	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3308
__label__wiki	0.569932	0.569932	Sabine McNeill on trial: Day 6 Sabine McNeill’s trial on 17 charges of violating a restraining order and four charges of stalking ground to a complete halt today, for reasons completely unconnected to her transportation to and from Bronzefield Prison. Rather, the problem today originated with a person who has until now had almost no connection to the Hampstead SRA hoax. Some readers might remember “Eddieisok”, the would-be Tommy Robinson supporter and YouTuber whose interview with Brian Harvey last summer consisted of him nodding and saying, “Go on…”. Well, it seems that he has taken it upon himself to “investigate” people accused of being connected to the alleged cult. Yesterday this took the form of Eddie standing just beyond the court precinct (at the foot of the stairs outside) filming people with his iPhone as they went into and out of the court. He claimed to be looking for “trolls” who he wanted identified and investigated, and chief among those he listed was EC, who he had divined (from being in the same room but not speaking to her) is “very full of herself”. Uh-huh. Anyway, back to the trial… A waiting game Outside Courtroom 11, supporters for both sides sat in the hallway…and sat…and sat…and sat. A sign on the courtroom door informed us that HHJ Sally Cahill QC was in chambers, and another hand-scrawled sign said, “Please do not come in”. Various officers of the court bustled in and out, with no sign of any change in the situation. We had no clue what was up, and there was much grumbling to be heard. The assembled groups included Belinda McKenzie; Mary Rooney; a woman we refer to affectionately as ‘Cardi Lady’ for her large and rather beautiful Kaffe Fassett cardigan; another lady named Margaret; Barbara Collier (formerly known as Babs, who has apparently decided that the gossip on the other side of the hoaxer fence is more rewarding…for now); various people unknown to us, and Eddieisok himself. On our relatively sparse side: a gentleman we’d never met; Postnein, and EC. A trip to the office At one point late in the morning, a court guard approached Eddie and asked him whether he had been taking photos in the court precinct. Eddie denied this, but when the guard asked EC and Postnein whether we knew anything about it, we described yesterday’s videos, as well as a third one which Eddie had made earlier this morning. At this point, the guard told us to come with him to an office on the first floor, and asked us to tell the nice lady at the counter what had happened. We did so, and the lady went off into an inner office for a bit. Eventually a court police officer came and told us that the police were already aware of Eddie’s escapades, that it was being handled, and we were free to go back upstairs. In the public gallery And then it was back to waiting. At one point Neelu Berry made an appearance with Edward W. Ellis in tow; and whither Neelu goes, Lee Cant cannot be far behind. In fact, Neelu was still lingering at the other end of the hallway when the court doors opened and we were told we could come inside. Neelu remained outside the court, but Lee Cant did come in, along with Eddie and the rest. The public gallery was nearly full for the first time since this trial began. At 2:50 p.m. (a new record for late starts!), the court usher called the dock officer to the court. The dock officer arrived with Sabine, but the usher indicated that Sabine was not wanted at present, so she was sent back to wait. The waiting game explained? The court clerk then indicated that the person they wished to deal with was Paul Rogers, aka Eddieisok. He was asked to step into the now-empty dock, which he did, seeming a bit confused. Judge Cahill informed him that on 15 December 2017, Judge Beddoes had made an order governing this case, that no people should be named whose identification could lead to the identification of any children who might be involved. We have referred to this reporting restriction on several occasions. The judge said she was aware that Rogers had uploaded clips to YouTube yesterday in which he had named a witness who testified last week. She asked him to read a document he had been given, which outlined the charges against him, and stated that he had the right to immediate legal advice if he wished. Rogers declined this offer, and started to explain: “I was outside the court, and I did a video. I just wanted to film people identified as trolls”. However, it appeared that the court was not interested in his filming, but in the actual content of one of his videos. Judge Cahill stated that while it would be premature to do anything today, she was satisfied of the need to protect the integrity of Sabine’s case. Therefore, she said, Rogers would be remanded in custody overnight. As he was led out of the dock to the cells, Rogers called over his shoulder, “Thank you, Karen Irving”. Apparently it had not yet sunk in that this arrest had nothing to do with his filming outside the court, and everything to do with contempt of court. Neelu’s lucky escape Once Rogers had been taken away, Miranda Moore QC told the judge that Neelu Berry had been spotted in the building. Indeed, she had started to come into the court with the rest of us, but had changed her mind and left. The judge rose whilst a search of the building was carried out, to no avail. At 3:35, Moore asked Judge Cahill to formally refer the matter to the court Attorney, which she did. The public gallery was once again cleared, as the court needed to determine whether members of the jury might have been compromised by Rogers’ filming outside the court. Court is set to resume at 10:30 tomorrow morning, at which point we hope to learn of the court’s decision. We have to say we are less than impressed with Eddieisok’s performance today, as his conspiranoid shenanigans managed to lose this trial a full day’s worth of testimony. Not only has he delayed matters at court, but if his goal is to assist Sabine (whom he rather comically persists in calling “Sabeel”), he has failed miserably. Instead, what he has done is drawn out an already long trial, and ensured that she will have to endure yet another round trip on the dreaded prison bus. Good going, mate. 27/11/2018 in Legal news. Tags: arrest, contempt of court, reporting restriction, restraining order, Sabine McNeill, trial The tragedy of being Sabine BREAKING: Sabine McNeill sentenced to 9 years ← Sabine McNeill on trial: Day 5 Sabine McNeill on trial: Day 7 → 116 thoughts on “Sabine McNeill on trial: Day 6” Owies, and they went looking for neelu too…. This is starting to look like the hoaxers are all being looked at- hard…. First apd’s video gets her noticed by the courts, then eddieisnotok… and neelu was being looked for…. I bet there are some worried people right now out there in hoaxerland… Wow! 😲 Thanks for this news, EC! ShevaBurtonRealFreshStart says: I thought when his later promised video didn’t appear, that he may have been banged up, I’m really glad he is being dealt with. But for everyone participating, what a frustrating pain. Not only has he delayed matters at court, but if his goal is to assist Sabine (whom he rather comically persists in calling “Sabeel”), he has failed miserably. Instead, what he has done is drawn out an already long trial And if the goal was to convince the jury that Sabine’s witch-smelling was perfectly harmless, and did not injure people, and did not incite borderline-personality eedjits to start their own witch-smelling careers, he is not doing it right. In other Southwark Crown Court news: David Noakes sent down for 15 months.. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/notorious-noakes-10m-guernsey-gcmaf-crook-imprisoned He was saying yesterday that the ‘trolls’ were rattled. Who’s rattled now? He said EC is ‘full of herself’. No mate. She’s SURE of herself which is altogether different. It’s old Eddy who is full of himself and he’s projecting….he does that a lot. Pallas Athena says: I can’t imagine how any supposed supporter or friend of Sabine can act this way. Whatever one thinks of the events which led up to this trial, she is entitled to a fair and professional hearing, which numpties like Paul Rogers seemed determined to f*k up. That said, many thanks for the very full and informative coverage EC. I suspected something as amiss when causelist.org wasn’t updating. it was always going to be this way. There are several sections of the law related to cases involving children but this case was very specific in the reporting restrictions being a Section 46 order, S46 is to prevent the identification of ADULTS involved in a youth case where this could result in the identification of a child. Now some of the witnesses will be professionals where it is legitimate to name them. However, a general filming of people going in an out of a court building in an attempt to identify “trolls” was always going to lead to at a minimum questioning and detention. Too many people living in lala land and thinks reality deoes not apply to them. Eddie probably thought he was doing a public service braving the ‘trolls’. He was warned yesterday about filming outside court but paid no heed. Did he really think he was doing something so important that the law would applaud him for it. Plank! rosywillow says: If Neelu is still of no fixed abode, the court seems like a sensible place to find her. Although wherever EWE and Lee Cant are, there will also be Neelu, and I suspect they have homes of sorts, I’m trying very hard to feel sorry for Eddyisok, but nope, I just can’t do it. I think it’s safe to say that the courts aren’t willing to tolerate any more nonsense about this case. Yes, it really was frustrating to have to waste a day on this. Yes, there was much commotion down the hall from us at one point. I have no idea where people draw these conclusions about me. 🙂 Thanks, PA. The odd thing about Rogers is that I am quite certain he’s never met Sabine, nor does he have any connection with the case. He seems to have been egged on by (surprise!) Angela, but other than that I can see very little reason for him to have been there. Yes, the Section 46 order is posted on the courtroom door (twice) and there are signs noting that there is a reporting restriction on the TV screens outside the courtroom and in the lobby of the building. It’s hard to miss. The funny thing is that I have never, to my knowledge, said anything about him on this blog or elsewhere. I vaguely knew who he was, but I’ve certainly never trolled him. So I wonder who could have given him the idea that he ought to come after me and claim I was a troll? coughAngelacough He does seem quite unaware that he is doing anything wrong. Paterson read out this entire post to Andy Devine and Angela on Devine’s livestream earlier. He praised you on your fine writing, EC. One of the sentences above is a lie. Can you guess which one? 😆 Another great write-up. Thank you, Karen Irving 😁 I think the court officials should look into how Eddieisok managed to report on tomorrow’s proceedings at 1pm today. Witchcraft? Time machine? Crystal ball…? Yes, I would tend to agree. Really she would need to calm down or she will blow a gasket. I can’t imagine what her BP is! Andy Devine’s latest video is very very disturbing & threatening towards you. There is also talk of going to court tomorrow with a knife. It’s a disgusting video! I would love to report it but it’s better left for the Police to see & listen to. By the way, I gather that for all his pre-match bluster, John Paterson bottled it and never showed up 😂 The Blunderful World of Disney says: That disgusting pig Angela has publicly named the children again 😡 Praterson also made death threats again, including one to the judge!!! That mad bint Heather Brown is threatening to turn up at court tomorrow with a group of Wiccan activists 🙄 Oh and she says she’s cast a cancer spell on Angela. Yeah, he was extremely threatening in that video. 😡😡😡😡😡 I’m only 24 minutes in so far and he’s already made three separate death threats to the judge (including one to have her put through a woodchipper by gangsters)! He needs to be reported and arrested asap. Wankerwatch says: Headless chickenry latest… And he’s threatening to have you and Steve followed home by gangsters tomorrow, EC. Probably all bluster but please be careful Oh and he’s just said his gangster mates know where you live and told you not to go home! Andy’s been egging him on with these threats too; and at one point when Praterson says we’re all going to be killed, he says, “The sooner the better.” Word is Jake Clarke’s gonna make an appearance too, lol. Oh Gawd, Angie makes an appearance too. Sigh GROBNOB the Troll says: Disturbing stuff. i’ll be interested to see where this behaviour leads the relevant parties. i’d certainly like to see inspector gobshite (Paterson) have his collar felt. they really don’t grasp what absolute idiots they’re being and where it leads. glad to see a judge finding out first hand exactly what an online gang of trolls masquerading as whistleblowing journalists are like, vile thugs and scumbags. i had sausages and mash with onion gravy, sprouts and carrots for my supper. burp. Mark Trellis says: Tick tock, Angie! You must be a met copper if you say ‘banged up’ Refreshing to hear, EC. A strict judge is needed. What surprises me is the sheer amount of time this stuff takes out of court time – when it is costs thousands per hour per hearing – for the tax payer. What also surprises me is that the judge did not require Eddieisok to immediately take down the offending material from youtube- it is still there. So grateful for your reporting and all the things that accompany that effort – the time, expense, the discomfort of the hard benches when waiting, and now the unpleasantness of being the centre of attention, vilified by the likes of Eddieisok. Eddieisok, when you read this, you come across as a stupid man, constantly referring to Finchley Rd which has nothing to do with the case at all. He’ll have it spelt out to him in no uncertain terms wednesday. fun and games will be over for the dunderheaded fake journalist with no concept of reporting regulations. the man’s a knobhead. Either that or he’s pregnant. It’s true what they say, then – no peas for the wicked. Ghost of Sam. says: I posted a comment under eddieisok’s video (sans my usual thigh-slapping humour) that he could be seen to be intimidating potential witnesses and that in his video he had named one victim which was a contempt. He removed the comment. I assume he regarded me as one of the “Hamstead trolls who are losing their minds and attacking him furiously”. Serves him right for not respecting the court process. Judges: what they have to put up with at times. I can now imagine the judge in this case will be the victim of vicious and nasty claims. Thank God they are generally not intimidated by social media. Dr Ghost of Sam (Oz) says: Poor Andy Devine and “Dr” Anthony G.Pike (UK)- don’t they know that “gender fluidity” is all the rage these days? https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6434819/Gender-fluid-model-Rain-Dove-maced-tracked-attacker-Instagram-abuse.html “Rose McGowan’s gender-fluid partner Rain Dove was MACED in a public bathroom” They didn’t “waive anonymity”. Their names were revealed illegally by..dozens of people. I don’t think this should be ignored. Making death threats to a judge or even implying it is a very serious matter. Look at the dreadful things that have happened recently- we have no idea which unhinged person may seize upon this and decide to act. It’s that flaming red hair. Or is it purple? . Can’t keep up. I don’t know the ins & outs of his case but I’m amused by Neelu’s claims that it’s “Big Pharma” trying to protect their profits as she ignores the fact Noakes had pocketed at least £5M from his dodgy therapy and has companies registered in tax havens. Has anyone done a study on why these people latch onto EVERY single conspiracy theory going from Flat Earth to Quack Cancer Cures, Fake Moon Landings and Satanic Baby Eating Cults in North London?. (JFK is in there somewhere as well). Sorry, what has Spiny Norman got to do with this? I can attest that Spiny does not have a criminal record (thats one of Angie’s evil lies) and i am pretty sure he wasn’t at the court. The amount of outright lies from these people is staggering, I cant keep up. Some studies linked here: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Crank_magnetism#How.3F I cannot conceive how that could happen. Don’t forget the car that runs on water, the abominable snowman and lord lucan being jack the ripper. I was using up the sprouts and carrots left over from sunday and didn’t want to open a tin of peas. Making death threats to a judge or even implying it is a very serious matter. Making death threats to anyone is a serious matter that invites a period of her majesty’s hospitality. It’s also terribly unprofessional. “Oh yes,” people think, “let’s warn the client, and give him / her a sporting chance.” But that just makes more work for everyone. I for one, welcome all of the self grave digging bullshit, threats and bile that is spewing out from all of the nutcases listed above. This case will in my opinion, prove to be the catalyst that brings about the demise of the whole lot of them. There will be many a knock on various doors and invitations to pop down the station for an interview before much longer. Evidence lockers will be bursting at the seams with laptops, tablets and mobile phones and hard drives!! APD probably has a bag packed and stashed near her door. Remember, even Spivey and La Verite ( in her former guise ) wouldn’t touch this subject with a bargepole and they are two of the biggest loonies on the planet. That must speak volumes about these other dickheads. Big thanks to EC for keeping us so well informed. We should all be very grateful. Actually Neelu referred to “Edward Ellis of no fixed abode” a few days ago. I love the defective. sorry detective skills of these morons “Ottawa not London with an E-Mail addressxxxxx@infolink.ca and is a former” etc etc etc My email address still shows .uk, yet last time I looked, I am halfway around the planet…. from andy (not at all) devine… And that clown Pike, he’s another one that needs a good looking at by the police… Paterson on the other hand, he just handed them his head on a platter, I hope someone has told the judge about his little tirade of threats…. And as MKD pointed out, children don’t have the right/power to waive their anonymity anyway. “Rise up,” she says…from the comfort of her Oldcastle kitchen 🙄 At least it’s not a French prison, which are the worst in the world (according to one of David Noakes’ anonymous sockpuppets) and no place for an elderly gentleman. Perhaps he will appeal the sentence, and create an opportunity for it to be reconsidered and extended. But it would be wrong to speculate. 16.15 to be precise… and again at 19.15… 23.40 woodchipper death threat… Cpt. Frank Furillo says: Anyone going today – be careful out there! That’s good Grobknob, you don’t want your peas touching your carrots after all… Ok, that made me do a very unladylike snort. They seem extremely confused. Yes, if he was unaware that naming a witness in this trial was a very poor idea, then it’s only because he didn’t bother to read the signage all over the place. This has nothing to do with him taking pictures; it’s to do with him naming a witness when he wasn’t supposed to. He and his dim-witted friends should give their heads a wobble. “Parents differently than most”…oh, is that what they call it now? I didn’t know there was a name for letting your boyfriend batter your children to force them to tell lies. Dear EC, many thanks for continuing to us all up to date. Your efforts are very much appreciated. He claims to have masses of Sarf London gangsters at his beck and call, but I think this is just his not-terribly-clever way of being able to claim later, “Oh, no, yer honour, I never said I would do that…but I can’t control these imaginary friends of mine, now can I?” LOL will do, Captain! 🙂 That sounds better if you imagine it in the voice of a Goon Show character. I wonder if they will speak out when they are older?. If they criticise these hoaxers and say what a nightmare it’s all been they’ll just be accused of joining the (imaginary) Cult and having been brainwashed. My guess is they will have to change their names and by the time they are 20 years old they would be unrecognizable as to who they were. Or they may well become warriors against the on-line false accusers. But it’s so unfair. Isn’t she the one who threatens to “chin” people?. Could be interesting. Ghost of Reggie Kray says: John Patterson of Finchey Road fame’s last foray into the Sarf London gangster scene was pretty much a failure. He didn’t realise that Arfur had, well moved on to greater pastures and Terry was pretty well beyond it. Mind you he did pick up some gorgeous frocks at a knock down price that had fallen off the back of a truck right in front of the lock up. I hope he realizes he’s skating on very thin ice. Let’s hope that Eddie’s crime will not take up the whole day, that Neelu does not play hide & seek in the courthouse again, that Praterson gets arrested for his violent threats & Sabine’s case can get on it’s way again. Potentially another man to add to the tally of those she has got arrested/imprisoned/sectioned. I have a mental picture of court officials with a large butterfly net chasing a giggling Neelu and Edward around the corridors of the court building. And I'll Remember says: Top notch reporting, El C! Thank you for keeping everyone up to date – the twists and turns of this whole tale would be impossible for a bestselling author of fiction to imagine! Thank you, and above all, please stay safe out there. Crotchety Auld Womandcfm , says: Grobnob, I’m not a journalist and never was, but I’m sure that I read (or heard) somewhere that bona fide journalists are advised to find 3 independent sources for a story before they “run” with it (of course in a proper newspaper an editor would hopefully weed out the more loony tunes stories). YouTubers are their own editors so that doesn’t happen unfortunately. I’m not even against the media being used (both printed and online media) in genuine cases – like “The Oldie” ran the story about the insalubrious aspects of Jimmy Savile’s shenanigans.** Though that wasn’t until after he was dead. * Well sometimes tabloids may have printed daft things. ** To be honest, I never realised how screwed up said gentleman was. I thought he was weird but then I thought well he raised money for good causes but I wasn’t astute enough to suspect there might be unsavoury aspects to his character. Pingback: On the Highly Sensitive Person \| satanicviews But you look very good for your age! First you are complimented on your writing skills and now we hear about your youthful looks. What’s the secret? I’m guessing hard work and Oil of Olay. I can tell by your avatars that Karnevilnine is actually a giant chaos sign and Ghost of Sam is a classic floating white sheet spectre. I have a diamond shaped head and a green complexion. Given how distinctive we all are it is amazing that we haven’t been tracked down yet. I think that we were both caught in the same loop of circular reasoning regarding Savile. I always thought he was creepy and strange – but he was allowed to work with children so you assume that meant he was alright really. Some people did know things and tried to expose him, including Anthony Burgess, but they probably didn’t have anything other than hearsay that would never be accepted in court. Savile was clever, good at ingratiating himself with the powerful and intimidating and isolating victims and witnesses. Looking at it in the clear light of day I don’t think he was guilty of many of the bizarre things claimed in the tabloids since his death, but he certainly seems to have been a prolific abuser of children and women who got away with it for a long time. I was going to say “was allowed to get away with it”, but that would suggest someone somewhere was capable of stopping him and actively chose not to. https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/11/study-it-only-takes-a-few-seconds-for-bots-to-spread-misinformation/?fbclid=IwAR0PMLP-fibNs5V8XThJjWDGzv0I7EQISSSRM-PbHJQ33Byix4X2eXd9kso I won’t post it here for obvious reasons but I see Angle has done yet another contemptuous, slanderous, self-incriminating interview, this time with creepy Thomas Dunn 🙄 She illegally names the protected witness numerous times, and launches a really vicious attack on him in the last 15 minutes. There are also calls from Dunny the Dunce for people to storm the court! He also lays into and names the witness. Thanks, Tinribs. Watching it now. Angela has been in total overdrive these past 2 weeks, she just can’t shut up. That creepy bloke in Kincorth has posted a death threat to EC too tonight. He can’t be arsed to attend court himself of course – or doesn’t have the bottle to – but has called for her to be killed from the comfort of his grubby little hovel. Never mind naming witnesses which may lead to the children bring identified, they are both quite happy to name the children too. They really do not give a flying fuck about these particular children, do they? These so called ‘campaigners’. They also twist everything including about why someone was charged with contempt of court. Anything to keep pushing the money spinning ‘the whole world is against us’ theme. Rebecca Shan is mouthing off a lot at MKD & others on Eddie’s vids. Allegedly she had quite a chequered past Sorry pressed send by mistake! Yeah Rebecca, stop with your wittering, allegedly there was a problem with counterfeit €50 notes at one stage……stop licking Angela’s derrière, she is dangerous to get mixed up with & you could end up in Carrick — ——- court or further afield where she could be heading. If you have previous, it won’t do you a lot of good either. Man attacked outside Southwark Crown Court claims attacker was agent of global 'Zionist conspiracy.' pic.twitter.com/LwjgVIkQ0O — CourtNewsUK (@CourtNewsUK) November 28, 2018 Haha. His big mouth gets him a beating again. Remind me never to threaten EC on video 🙂 Im joking! Devine was going on about Praterson being attacked, says Praterson is going to be on that Sean bloke’s show tonight. How on earth does he manage to get himself into these situations? I’m not excusing anyone lamping him, but what on Earth lead to him getting bloodied, again? When did this happen, lol? I dont know what happened but after the threats he made last night including against women its not surprising this happened. This means there was a court reporter at Southwark today too, I suppose. “Parent[ing] differently” is not generally an acceptable synonym for starving and abusing one’s children, nor for allowing a partner to abuse those children. Lie detector tests are unreliable and easy to fool. APD is so desperate to be relevant that she posts lies; c’est la vie. “Satanic Jimmy Saville Supporting Scum” We have no idea who else Mr Patterson insults and verbally abuses or defames quite apart from all the matters we are interested in. For all we know he says dreadful lies about his neighbours and so forth. I believe in the internet age there needs to be a new law of Criminal Libel (there is in one Australian state- South Australia and a few people have been jailed). While reluctant to have any new restrictive law defamation on the net is a quite vicious new way of permanently harming people ie: as in Hampstead, Sandy Hook parents and about 100,000 other examples. Libel actions really are for the rich but what about the average citizen?. They are denied justice because of the lack of funds and the notion of suing a “man/woman of straw” could be financially ruinous. 20 years ago a newspaper defamation was published and may have been forgotten a month later. Today we have dreadful lies repeated ad infinitum on the net echo chamber. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be the victim of campaign and even when folk like Cliff Richard are found innocent it doesn’t stop the trolls. Lord Leveson recommended a Libel Tribunal be set up for all citizens to access but that was ignored. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-46305141 Caddington Village News blogger sued for libel over fraud claims Pingback: Eddie Isok & friends indulge in witness intimidation \| HOAXTEAD RESEARCH Pingback: Some questions about Sabine’s trial \| HOAXTEAD RESEARCH Pingback: Edward Ellis: The final straw? \| HOAXTEAD RESEARCH	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3316
__label__wiki	0.974395	0.974395	Home Statistics Filmstars Pedro Alonso Height, Weight, Age, Body Statistics Pedro Alonso Height, Weight, Age, Body Statistics Pedro Alonso Quick Info Height 5 ft 11¼ in Date of Birth June 21, 1972 Pedro Alonso is a Spanish actor, theatre artist, and voiceover artist who is known for having been cast as Andrés de Fonollosa in the television heist crime drama thriller series, Money Heist (Spanish: La casa de papel), for which he also won Award of the Spanish Actors Union in the “Television: Supporting Performance, Male” category. He is also known for playing several roles in other shows like Roberto Fuentes in Traición, Villar in La embajada, Andrés Osorio in Hospital Real, Horacio Casares in Padre Casares, Roberto Vega in Bajo sospecha, Diego in Grand Hotel, Pedro Sotelo in Gondar, Carlos in Maridos e mulleres, Tomás in Código fuego, Alejo in A las once en casa, Raúl in Todos los hombres sois iguales, and Gallego in Diablo Guardián. Over the years, Pedro Alonso has also been cast in several movies like The Beach of the Drowned, Retribution, All About Happiness, The Apostle, Un día normal, Todo lo que tú quieras, El espejo, The Night of the Brother, El calentito, Clara’s Vacations, Insomnio, El pliegue del hipocampo, Tengo una casa, and Alma gitana. His acting skills have also won him several awards and nominations like Mestre Mateo Award and Fotogramas de Plata. Moreover, Pedro Alonso has also gained a huge fan base on social media with more than 5.5 million followers on Instagram. Pedro González Alonso Pedro Alonso as seen while taking a selfie in September 2018 (Pedro Alonso / Instagram) Vigo, Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain Pedro Alonso studied at the Royal School of Dramatic Arts and Teatro de la Danza (Theatre of Dance). Actor, Theatre Artist, Voiceover Artist Pedro Alonso is represented by Susana Cordoba, Talent Agent. 5 ft 11¼ in or 181 cm Pedro Alonso (Left) as seen while taking a selfie along with his ‘Money Heist’ co-star, Miguel Herrán, in April 2019 (Pedro Alonso / Instagram) Prominent Adam’s apple Deep-set eyes Pedro Alonso has either endorsed or promoted a couple of brands through social media which include the likes of Audi España, BOSS, and FLORENTINO. Pedro Alonso (Left) as seen while posing for the camera alongside Rodrigo de la Serna in July 2019 (Pedro Alonso / Instagram) Having been cast as one of the lead characters named Andrés de Fonollosa, a terminally ill jewel thief and the Professor’s second-in-command and brother, in the television heist crime drama thriller series, Money Heist (Spanish: La casa de papel), in which he starred alongside the likes of Úrsula Corberó, Itziar Ituño, Álvaro Morte, Paco Tous, Esther Acebo, Alba Flores, Miguel Herrán, Jaime Lorente, Enrique Arce, María Pedraza, Darko Peric, Kiti Mánver, Hovik Keuchkerian, Rodrigo de la Serna, and Najwa Nimri. For his role, he won the Award of the Spanish Actors Union in the “Television: Supporting Performance, Male” category in 2018 and was also nominated for Fotogramas de Plata in the “Best TV Actor” category the same year. Playing the role of Alejo in the comedy series, A las once en casa, in which his co-stars included Antonio Resines, Carmen Maura, Lidia San José, Javier Manrique, Ana Obregón, Mariola Fuentes, Beatriz Rico, Juan Díaz, Mary Carmen Ramírez, Alfonso Vallejo, Borja Elgea, and Javier de Quinto Appearing as Horacio Casares in the comedy series, Padre Casares, whose lead cast also consisted of actors Mercedes Castro, Tacho González, Fina Calleja, Antonio Durán ‘Morris’, Eva Fernández, Avelino González, Federico Pérez Rey, and Xavier Estévez. Pedro Alonso also won 2 Mestre Mateo Award nominations in the “Best Actor” category consecutively in 2009 and 2010. Portraying the character of Diego Murquía/Adrián Vera Celande in the historical drama television series, Gran Hotel (English: Grand Hotel), in which he was cast alongside Yon González, Amaia Salamanca, Adriana Ozores, Concha Velasco, Llorenç González, and Pep Antón Muñoz. In the year 2014, Pedro Alonso was also nominated for a Mestre Mateo Award in the “Best Supporting Actor” category for his role in the series. Having been cast in a variety of roles in several films such as Antonio in Alma gitana, Ferrari in Tengo una casa, Vladimir Torres in 18 Meals, Alex in Niño nadie, Xavi in El pliegue del hipocampo, Miguel in Insomnio, Alan in Clara’s Vacations, Guarda in November, Marcos in El calentito, Portero disco in The Night of the Brother, Boris in La Atlántida, Pedro in Todo lo que tú quieras, Chavalote in Paranoia dixital, Ramon in All About Happiness, Profesor in Un día normal, Marcos Valverde in The Beach of the Drowned, and several others Pedro Alonso made his first theatrical film appearance by playing the role of Antonio in the romantic drama film, Alma gitana, in 1996. The cast of the movie also included other actors such as Amara Carmona, Rafael Álvarez ‘El Brujo’, Loles León, Sandra Ballesteros, Saturnino García, Pepe Luis Carmona, Sara Fernández Ashton, Julieta Serrano, and Martxelo Rubio. As a voiceover artist, Pedro Alonso made his theatrical film debut by providing vocals to the character of Peregrino in the animated horror film, The Apostle, in 2012. The film was premiered at Málaga Film Festival on April 27, 2012, and also had voiceover roles by other actors such as Carlos Blanco, Xosé Manuel Olveira ‘Pico’, Paul Naschy, Jorge Sanz, Celso Bugallo, Geraldine Chaplin, Manuel Manquiña, and Isabel Blanco. Pedro Alonso made his first TV show appearance by playing the role of Raúl in an episode, titled Pero, ¿quién mató a Eduardo?, of the comedy series, Todos los hombres sois iguales, in March 1997. Pedro Alonso as seen in a picture taken during an event for the show ‘Hospital Real’ in April 2015 (Marcusfernandez / Wikimedia / CC BY-SA 4.0) Pedro Alonso Facts In 2002, he was cast in the play titled La prueba. Pedro Alonso was cast as Carlos in the TV comedy series, Maridos e mulleres, from 2006 to 2008. He played the role of Cerezo in a few episodes of the fantasy adventure comedy series, The Ministry of Time. Between 2017 and 2018, Pedro Alonso played the character of Roberto Fuentes in the drama series, Traición. He was elected as GQ Turkey‘s “International Star of the Year” in 2018. Follow Pedro Alonso on Instagram. Featured Image by Pedro Alonso / Instagram Theatre Artist Voiceover Artist Patrick Stewart Height, Weight, Age, Body Statistics Laura Michelle Prestin Diet Plan and Workout Routine	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3318
__label__cc	0.53526	0.46474	Canada's Heavy Construction News Site CDBI Construction Canada Highways Capital investment rises in Manitoba’s 2020 budget Posted on March 19, 2020 by News The provincial government is raising Highways Capital program to $362.5 million, making good on the first year of its election campaign promise to hike the program by an average $12.5 million annually. Further, the budget for Manitoba Infrastructure includes an additional $5.4 million “carry-over” funds for use this year. The carry-over is a new budget line this year; previous years unspent program funds were returned to general revenues. Budget 2020 was introduced to the legislative assembly today after more than a week’s delay due to Opposition filibustering. “We very much support and appreciate the dedication of unspent highways investment dollars to the next year’s program,” MHCA President Chris Lorenc said. Combined, the $17.9 million in additional dollars brings the Highways Capital program to $367.9 million. Water-control structures will see an investment of $30.9 million this year. “That is a substantial change for improving provincial highways and roads; it’s a good start,” Lorenc said. The Highways Capital budget has weathered significant cuts since 2016. The actual investment in Highways Capital in 2015-16 was $628 million. Other budget items of interest include the “remediation” of the Quarry Rehabilitation Fund. The budget indicates some $8 million sits in the separate account dedicated to the rehabilitation of spent pits and quarries. The budget has allocated $2.8 million from the account to Agriculture and Resource Development Department’s “regulatory services” program to be used this year. The remaining $5.339 million is reported under other appropriations for use this year, as well. The Pallister government has said all revenues collected from these fees will be used for the purpose set out, equal to the amount collected in the year. “This more transparent accounting gives the industry and its partners in municipalities and the provincial department new focus for discussion,” Lorenc noted. “We will seek further detail on how the government envisions the expenditures to roll out in any given year, for the best use of the account and to ensure the rehab program’s continued success.” Transfers to municipalities for roads and bridges remain static, as does the $15.8 million for the Water Services Board this year. Teeple Architects announces new leadership team Province will work with industry on construction heater regulation Carr back in cabinet, pressed to support trade infrastructure investment 2020 Robert Noble Awards Luncheon Gold Seal Success Story – Mike and Jason ©2021 Heavy Construction \| Design: Newspaperly WordPress Theme	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3320
__label__cc	0.583269	0.416731	Breakthrough Writer The purpose of a writing class is to develop a meaningful thesis, direct or implied, that will generate a compelling essay. Most importantly, a meaningful thesis will have a strong emotional connection between you and the material. In fact, if you don’t have a “fire in your belly” to write the paper, your essay will be nothing more than a limp document, a perfunctory exercise in futility. A successful thesis will also be intellectually challenging and afford a complexity worthy of college-level writing. Thirdly, the successful thesis will be demonstrable, which means it can be supported by examples and illustrations in a recognizable organizational design. Other Website: http://herculodge.typepad.com/ « 1A Agenda: 10-30-17: Should We Delete Our Twitter Accounts? Effective Paraphrasing \| Main \| 1A Agenda for 11-6-17: "Unspeakable Conversations" and Intro to Logical Fallacies » 1A Agenda 11-1-17: “The Faces in the Mirror” (31), “The Flip Side of Internet Fame” (90) Reading and Writing Schedule to Essay #4 November 1 “The Faces in the Mirror” (31), “The Flip Side of Internet Fame” (90) November 6 “Unspeakable Conversations” (96) November 8 Online essays about empathy and boycotting the NFL November 13 Online essays about reparations debate November 15 Online essays about mass incarceration and “The New Jim Crow,” including “The Caging of America” Essay #4 Options with 3 Sources for Works Cited Due 11-20 One. Support, defend, or complicate the assertion that the unstoppable presence of trolls on Twitter has made being on Twitter, for many, an exercise so embedded in futility that deleting one's Twitter account is probably the best option. Consult Lindy West's "I've Left Twitter," Joel Stein's "How Trolls Are Ruining the Internet," Kathy Sierra's "Why the Trolls Will Always Win," Andrew Marantz's and "The Shameful Trolling of Leslie Jones." You can also consult the online essay “The Unsafety Net.” Two. In the context of “The Flip Side of the Internet” and “The Evolution of Shaming,” develop a cause and effect thesis about the frenzy of shame that is evident in the age of social media. How do shame and fame feed each other is a sick symbiotic relationship? Consider envy, desperation for attention, loss of boundaries, and the need to push the envelope in order to "be heard." Three. Comparing “Faces in the Mirror” and “The Flip Side of the Internet,” develop a thesis that analyzes the confluence of narcissism and celebrity worship. If narcissism is the undeveloped, immature self, as Sherry Turkle suggests, then it makes sense that narcissistic souls hunger to be worshiped on the grand scale of the very celebrities they both adulate and despise out of envy. Four. In the context of “Unspeakable Conversations,” defend, refute, or complicate Peter Singer’s position that there are moral grounds for infanticide or “mercy killings.” Five. Develop a thesis that defends, refutes, or complicates Paul Bloom’s assertion that simple-minded notions of empathy are actually dangerous and diminish us as human beings. Here's the link: http://bostonreview.net/forum/paul-bloom-against-empathy Here's a rebuttal: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/10/empathy-probably-a-good-thing Six. Develop a thesis that defends, refutes, or complicates the argument that the NFL is a moral abomination that must be boycotted. Here's the link: Steve Almond's essay: https://www.salon.com/2015/03/23/the_nfl_is_morally_reprehensible_as_players_walk_away_from_brutality_fans_must_do_the_same/ Rebuttal Link: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-nfl-football-feminism-20141003-story.html Seven. Develop a thesis that defends, refutes, or complicates the argument that mass incarceration is “The New Jim Crow.” See Adam Gopnik's "The Caging of America." Eight. Develop a thesis that defends, refutes, or complicates the argument that the United States government is morally compelled to give some African-Americans reparations for the injustices of slavery. See Ta-Nehisi Coates' essay "The Case for Reparations." Find fragments and comma splices in the following: I’ve been teaching college composition and critical thinking for thirty years. If I had to pick a year that defined a radical change in my students. I’d have to point to 2012, that was the year things started to go downhill, it was the year when smartphone users in the United States topped 100 million. It was the year a growing number of Americans, and people worldwide, began to see the smartphone as a necessity. More important than having a toothbrush or wearing underwear. The smartphone became an external organ. A kidney with WiFi. More than a human appendage. The smartphone became an opium-drip machine that you carried around with you 24/7. You could enjoy validation and dopamine all day long. Until the mindless zombie state took over and depression set in. Until you were as numb as an icicle. Depression made people turn to their little opium gadgets with even greater intensity. As if the very source of their mental disease might save them and put them into states of euphoria the gadgets had once provided them. I talk about the smartphone-induced zombie state with my students all the time, I talk about how this zombie state will make them “bottom feeders” in the new economy. Their time and energy wasted on their opium machine will make them lose their competitive edge to those who have the strength of mind to keep their smartphones in their proper place. I tell my students that this zombie state was prophesied in the 1999 film The Matrix. In which we see we have a choice to take the red pill of knowledge or the blue pill of ignorance. Most people in the film’s future dystopia choose ignorance. The blue pill prophecy was fulfilled, I tell my students, in 2012 when everyone in the world believed, erroneously, they not only did they need a smartphone; they needed to constantly address the smartphone’s voracious appetites. All of my students have horror stories of friends and family members whose lives have been ruined by smartphone addiction. They’ve traded ambition and caring for being numbed and depressed by their little dopamine device. They talk of older brothers and sisters, unemployed college dropouts, who live in the dimly-lit basement where they can be seen hooked to their smartphone all day and night. My students speak of their own battles with social media-induced depression. Many of them have deleted their Facebook accounts, they all feel better for it. I’ve had students announce to the class that they deleted their Facebook account and it was followed by applause as if they were announcing their many days of sobriety at an A.A. meeting. I confess to my students that while I rarely use my five-year-old smartphone, a dinosaur by today’s standards, I have wasted much time relaxing in front of the Internet since the late 1990s when I was deluded, like millions of others, into believing surfing the Net gave me infinite possibilities and a giddy sense of omnipotence. But thousands of hours wasted on entertainment and consumer research was time I could have spent practicing writing and playing piano. Rather than honing those skills, I’ve remained a dilettante. I, too, am in need of an intervention. I confess to my students. I, too, am a casualty of the false Utopian promises of technology. Looking at twenty years and tens of thousands of hours wasted wallowing in the malaise of the Internet's languid seductions, I must now redeem myself. Before it's too late. Two. In the context of “The Flip Side of the Internet” and “The Evolution of Shaming,” develop a cause and effect thesis about the frenzy of shame that is evident in the age of social media. How do shame and fame feed each other is a sick symbiotic relationship? Three. Comparing “Faces in the Mirror” and “The Flip Side of the Internet,” develop a thesis that analyzes the confluence of narcissism and celebrity worship. Consider causes of mass shaming: tribalism, need to demonize the out-group or Repugnant Other, assert shared values, hunger for belonging, wish to be in the in-group. Consider causes of fame and shame: narcissism, attention addiction, envy Envy Vs. Jealousy Social Media Attention Is About Instant Gratification; It's Not About Thinking What Is Thinking? Alan Jacobs, author of How to Think, uses the example of someone who agonizes over what car to buy. After the purchase, the husband argues with the wife about his choice. She says he should have bought the one that first appealed to him. Thinking is “not the decision itself but what goes into the decision, the consideration, the assessment. It’s testing your own responses and weighing the available evidence.” Acting on impulse and instinct is not thinking. Buying a car because it appeals to your reptilian senses is not thinking. Therefore, the whole conversation about thinking is really a conversation about whether humans are slaves to impulse or masters of their own actions, agents of free will. A nihilistic and pessimistic worldview posits that we are helpless slaves to our appetites. A more optimistic worldview posits that we can cultivate reason, become self-possessed, and become agents of free will. Another Characteristic of Thinking—Checking Our Biases Jacobs cites Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, who addresses the central question about thinking: “What can be done about biases? How can we improve judgments and decisions, both our own and those of the institutions that we serve and that serve us?” Kahneman concludes after decades of research that quality thinking can be achieved but only with sustained great effort. I would make an analogy to dieting: You can lose weight and keep the pounds off but only by maintaining consistent diligence. Only a tiny percentage of people can do this. Most of us go off our diet. This is scary to contemplate. We’re talking about the human race, the majority of which is doomed to be slaves to impulse, instinct, and base appetites. Why take a critical thinking class except to take in this terrifying state of affairs? To underscore this point, we can look to another Kahneman quote: “a considerable part of our thinking apparatus, the part that generates our immediate intuitions, ‘is not readily educable. Except for some effects that I attribute mostly to age, my intuitive thinking is just as prone to overconfidence, extreme predictions, and the planning fallacy as it was before I made a study of these issues.’ This is not encouraging.” Three. How does Jacobs’ book on thinking differ from most others? Most books on thinking, Jacobs observes, focus on science, when it might be more helpful to look at thinking as an art. Jacobs writes: “There are certain humanistic traditions, some of them quite ancient, that can come to our aid when we’re trying to think about thinking, and to get better at it.” As an art form, thinking can be looked at as a rider, the thinker, riding an elephant, a metaphor for intuition. Jacobs wants to help the rider control the elephant even though the rider and the elephant, our logic and inner intuition and instinct, have minds of their own. My immediate reaction is that 1% of the population will be drawn to reading a book such as Jacobs’ and that that 1% is motivated to think better, but most people could care less. Four. What is Jacobs’ argument about thinking? He writes, “In particular I’m going to argue that we go astray when we think of our task primarily as ‘overcoming bias.’ For me, the fundamental problem we have may best be described as an orientation of the will: we suffer from a settled determination to avoid thinking. Relatively few people want to think. Thinking troubles us; thinking tires us. Thinking can force us out of the familiar, comforting habits; thinking can set us at odds, or at least complicate our relationships, with those we admire or love or follow. Who needs thinking?” Many might think, in my words: “This whole thinking thing is too hard, it’s too slow, and it’s too painful. The hell with thinking.” Our default setting is Refutation Mode: Thinking requires listening, which we all hate to do. We prefer Refutation Mode. We repel all outside ideas and stay in our bubble. You’ve done all the thinking you need to do. Just wallow in your non-thinking and “be right.” This willfulness, stubbornness, and bullheaded ignorance is for too many people the default setting of their mind. Five. What tribalistic instinct kills critical thinking? We want to be part of the ingroup so we demonize, unfairly, the ingroup’s hated outgroups without knowing specific details about those outgroups. Jacobs quotes Marilynne Robinson who writes that in the way we disdain Puritans “is a great example of our collective eagerness to disparage without knowledge or information about the thing disparaged, when the reward is the pleasure of sharing an attitude one knows is socially approved.” Our instinct is not to think clearly; our instinct is to have consensus, to show allegiance to a tribe. We can call this Groupthink. Groupthink is not thinking. It is the degradation of thinking. For example, I had a student from Los Angeles who told me she grew up during the O.J. Simpson Trial. She and her friends believed O.J. was guilty, but they never discussed it with their families or the larger community because the popular notion was that O.J. was innocent, not because he was necessarily innocent, per se, but because proclaiming his innocence was a way of getting revenge on the LAPD, which had abused her community for decades. "The Flip Side of the Internet Fame" The Stupid Factor We can attain short-lived "fame" for being so stupid we're funny on the Internet, and we get lots of attention. Unconsciously, at the very least, we may "act out" or act stupid because we desire attention and fame. Hungry for attention, we push the envelope, do more and more outrageous things, and as a result we violate boundaries of others and ourselves. When we push the boundaries, we may not be funny or famous, as we intended. Instead, we may just look stupid. We inevitably become fodder for the web community's salacious appetites. The social media community can gang up on us in a feeding frenzy. That's the downside. We lose our dignity. Fine Line Between Fame and Public Humiliation Sure, we can be "famous" and enjoy the dopamine rush and self-validation resulting from millions of hits and likes, but at what cost? If we lose our dignity in a maelstrom of public humiliation, is it worth it? It seems the line between fame and humiliation is getting finer and finer. Too many people don't know how to draw the line. Or they are so needy for attention they don't care. Some of us relish in others' neediness and others' urge to share their car crash existence on YouTube. We're spectators to an ongoing online car crash. In the above scenario, human dignity is lost on both the exhibitionists and the voyeurs. Meme Effect A girl didn't pick up dog poop from her dog. The video of her infraction went viral and became a world-wide meme. Now she is the equivalent of "Dog Poop Girl." Is that fair? She was harassed so badly she dropped out of college. This is her life now. "Thanks, viral videos." In 2010, a 2-year-old boy Ardi Rizal in Indonesia is seen smoking and this video defines him for life. Often a meme becomes a symbol of shame and moral failure. History of Public Shaming Civilizations have always had a penchant for public shaming as a way to affirm morality and social order. Societies wanted to set examples and offer cautionary tales to their citizens. Flogging is common. The scarlet letter was so common in puritan America it inspired a rather slow-paced novel. Shaming Presents New Problems in Age of Internet But while social stigma has its value, Internet shaming is completely out of proportion and is a form of overkill. Victims have little protection from the law. Part of the problem is we're in new territory without legal precedents. "A Terrible Shame" While many champion shaming like writer Jennifer Jacquet, author of Is Shame Necessary?, shame, according to Eric Posner, leads to chaos in the Internet Age as we read in his essay, "A Terrible Shame." "The Evolution of Shaming" by Ed Yong Third-Party Punishment Third-party punishment: When we punish or shame people whose bad behavior doesn't affect us directly. We punish or moralize to achieve certain benefits. The Moralizing Effect We moralize because it can be addictive. We moralize because it gives us a sense of belonging. We moralize because it cements our moral beliefs. We moralize because moralizing signals to others that we adhere to a moral code that makes us trustworthy. We moralize because moralizing gives us social capital, or so we believe. We moralize because it signals "cooperative intent" and thus makes our acceptance into the tribe more likely. We moralize because it's easy to sit in our robe eating a Hot Pocket while judging people on the Internet and feeling good about ourselves. How much time and energy does such an exercise require in order to feel like we're riding high? Some thoughts on the above essay prompt: Frankenstein was a monster who came to life and destroyed his maker. Likewise, we created social media and it will destroy us. We can analyze its foibles and pathologies, but at the end of the day its tentacles strangle us and kill us. The authors we've read on the subject are all smart and they all make good points, but there is no change in policy, law, or human behavior that will occur. I'm reminded of the Chinese words "Mei banfa," nothing can be done. As we read the authors' erudite insights into public shaming on the Internet, we are seeing that the trolls of the world win. Our higher angels don't flex their muscles as mightily as our lower trolls. The lowest common denominator triumphs in the age of social media. We see that even normal people, non-trolls, if you will, can succumb to odious behavior and become dumb, irrational versions of themselves. The cause and effect thesis should focus on the tragedy of how decent, smart people become irrational players in a social media environment. Sample Outline Paragraph 1: Summarize an essay we read, including Eric Posner's "A Terrible Shame," or the Jon Ronson video. 200 words. Paragraph 2: Summarize a case of someone being humiliated and the lasting effects of online shaming. You may know the person or you can write about someone in the news. 200 words. Paragraph 3. Analyze 5 causes of normal people being degraded by their need to shame relatively innocent victims. 150 words. Paragraphs 4-8: Your supporting paragraphs at 150 words each. 1,300 subtotal. Paragraph 9: Your conclusion, a restatement of your thesis: 100-200 words: 1,400-1,500 words total. “The Faces in the Mirror” One. Why do we want to hype the stars and make them gods who would defy the banal existence that might accurately define them? Time investment justification: We need to justify all the money and attention we spend on them so we don’t feel like idiots. We have to believe they’re special and exist on a higher plane than we do. We are not drawn to the people behind the stars. We are drawn, like drug addicts, to the Chanel No. 5 Moment that the stars represent. Of course, a Chanel No. 5 Moment is the apotheosis, the highest state, of fame, popularity, and attention. This apotheosis is a drug, a narcotic that makes the stars seem like gods. In America, we want to be like the gods, or we fear we will be nothing. We are an All or Nothing culture. Celebrities are like Greek gods who entertain us: We’re also bored and we assuage our boredom by believing in "the magic of celebrity" even though a deep part of us knows this magic is not true. Behind the celebrities' clown masks are aged faces wrinkled with emptiness and despair. Living vicariously through the drama of hyped-up personalities, we don't have to face the aching abyss that defines our wasted, empty existence. Emotional children crave celebrity hype: Perhaps this need to believe in magic is evidence that we’re still tiny children emotionally. We live vicariously through the stars. We have not achieved what psychologist Erich Fromm calls "individuation," independence from delusions, authority figures, and celebrities. Bored with our banal existence, we live vicariously through the stars. We wish our own lives were full of grand moments but in truth as The Wire's Lester Freamon tells his friend McNulty: "There are no grand moments. Life is the ____that happens to you while you wait for the [grand] moments that never come." Two. What is problematic about the “relationship between persona and person”? As we see in the Robin Williams example in which he knows someone sees the celebrity but not the real man, the persona always kills our connection to person. The persona is the fake tyrant that consumes us. The persona is the hype that dehumanizes us. The persona is the glitter that diminishes us. The persona is the fantasy that degrades us. Because celebrity, money, power, and beauty are all drugs: The fanboy (or fangirl) who gawks over celebrity, money, power, or beauty becomes drugged by this false god and the false god becomes drugged by being perceived as a false god. As a result, both parties go insane. I knew a guy who was so good looking, girls used to look at him and start crying. He moved to Tahiti where he became worshipped as a god complete with velvet paintings and statues in front of restaurants. This insanity is rendered in the 2014 film Birdman. Robin Williams is sick of being looked at as a false god. Having experienced the degradation many times, Robin Williams’ eyes went dead and he could not connect with the author Ty Burr. Another problem is our paradoxical relationship with the stars. On one hand, we worship them as gods; on the other, we resent them for “their presumption to set themselves up as gods when our egos told us we were the ones deserving of attention.” The dark side of worshipping false gods is that deep down we resent idols that loom over us as superior beings: Fanboys and fangirls hunger for tabloids and celebrity gossip to see their gods fall into drug rehab and scandal. Mobs tear their clothing “as if to simultaneously absorb and obliterate the object of affection.” Essay Topic for a Cause and Effect Analysis Thesis: Essay Topic Six. Comparing “Faces in the Mirror” and “Markets and Morals,” develop an argumentative or cause and effect thesis about how the relationship between the commodification of everything, including celebrity, results in dehumanization. "Why Do We Call Celebrities 'Stars'?" "The End of Celebrity?" Paraphrasing, Summarizing, and Quoting Why You Should Paraphrase More Than Quote From Purdue Owl: A paraphrase is... your own rendition of essential information and ideas expressed by someone else, presented in a new form. one legitimate way (when accompanied by accurate documentation) to borrow from a source. a more detailed restatement than a summary, which focuses concisely on a single main idea. Paraphrasing is a valuable skill because... it is better than quoting information from an undistinguished passage. it helps you control the temptation to quote too much. the mental process required for successful paraphrasing helps you to grasp the full meaning of the original. 6 Steps to Effective Paraphrasing Reread the original passage until you understand its full meaning. Set the original aside, and write your paraphrase on a note card. Jot down a few words below your paraphrase to remind you later how you envision using this material. At the top of the note card, write a key word or phrase to indicate the subject of your paraphrase. Check your rendition with the original to make sure that your version accurately expresses all the essential information in a new form. Use quotation marks to identify any unique term or phraseology you have borrowed exactly from the source. Record the source (including the page) on your note card so that you can credit it easily if you decide to incorporate the material into your paper. Some examples to compare The original passage: Students frequently overuse direct quotation in taking notes, and as a result they overuse quotations in the final [research] paper. Probably only about 10% of your final manuscript should appear as directly quoted matter. Therefore, you should strive to limit the amount of exact transcribing of source materials while taking notes. Lester, James D. Writing Research Papers. 2nd ed. (1976): 46-47. A legitimate paraphrase: In research papers students often quote excessively, failing to keep quoted material down to a desirable level. Since the problem usually originates during note taking, it is essential to minimize the material recorded verbatim (Lester 46-47). An acceptable summary: Students should take just a few notes in direct quotation from sources to help minimize the amount of quoted material in a research paper (Lester 46-47). A plagiarized version: Students often use too many direct quotations when they take notes, resulting in too many of them in the final research paper. In fact, probably only about 10% of the final copy should consist of directly quoted material. So it is important to limit the amount of source material copied while taking notes. Top Twenty Writing Errors According to Andrea A. Lunsford in The St. Martin’s Handbook, Eight Edition, there are 20 writing errors that merit “The Top 20.” One. Wrong word: Confusing one word for another. Here's a list of wrong word usage. A full-bodied red wine compliments the Pasta Pomodoro. Compliment is a to say something nice about someone. "You look nice in that pumpkin polo shirt. Very nice pumpkin accents." Complement is to complete or match well with something. "This full-bodied red wine complements the spaghetti." The BMW salesman excepted my counteroffer of 55K for the sports sedan. The word should be accepted. Kryptonite effects Superman in such a way that he loses his powers. Effect is a noun. Affect is a verb, so it should be the following: Kryptonite affects Superman in a such a way that he loses his powers. Confusing their and there There superpowers were compromised by the Gamma rays. We need to use the possessive plural pronoun their. Two. Missing comma after an introductory phrase or clause Terrified of slimy foods, Robert hid behind the restaurant’s dumpster. In spite of my aversion to rollercoasters, I attended the carnival with my family. Three. Incomplete documentation Noted dietician and nutritionist Mike Manderlin observes that, “Dieting is a mental illness.” It should read: Noted dietician and nutritionist Mike Manderlin observes that, “Dieting is a mental illness” (277). Four. Vague Pronoun Reference Focusing on the pecs during your Monday-Wednesday-Friday workouts is a way of giving you more time to work on your quads and glutes and specializing on the way they’re used in different exercises. Before Jennifer screamed at Brittany, she came to the conclusion that she was justified in stealing her boyfriend. Five. Spelling (including homonyms, words that have same spelling but different meanings) No one came forward to bare witness to the crime. No one came forward to bear witness to the crime. Every where we went, we saw fast food restaurants. Everywhere we went, we saw fast food restaurants. Love is a disease. It’s sickness derives from its power to intoxicate and create capricious, short-term infatuation. Its sickness derives from its power to intoxicate and create capricious, short-term infatuation. Six. Mechanical error with a quotation In his best-selling book Love Is a Virus from Outer Space, noted psychologist Michael M. Manderlin asserts that, “Falling in love is a form of madness for which there is no cure”. In his best selling book Love Is a Virus from Outer Space, noted psychologist Michael M. Manderlin asserts that, “Falling in love is a form of madness for which there is no cure.” In his best selling book Love Is a Virus from Outer Space, noted psychologist Michael M. Manderlin asserts that, “Falling in love is a form of madness for which there is no cure” (18). “It forever stuns me that people make life decisions based on something as fickle and capricious as love”, Michael Manderlin writes (22). Seven. Unnecessary comma I need to workout when at home, and while taking vacations. You do however use a comma if the comma is between two independent clauses: I need to workout at home, and when I go on vacations, I bring my yoga mat to hotels. I need to workout every day, because I’m addicted to the exercise-induced dopamine. You do however use a comma after a dependent clause beginning with because: Because I’m addicted to exercise-induced dopamine, I need to workout everyday. Peaches, that are green, taste hideous. The above is an example of an independent clause with a essential information or restrictive information. Not all peaches taste hideous, only green ones. The meaning of the entire sentence needs the dependent clause so there are no commas. However, if the clause is additional information, the clause is called nonessential or nonrestrictive, and we do use commas: Peaches, which are on sale at Whole Foods, are my favorite fruit. Eight. Unnecessary or missing capitalization Some Traditional Chinese Medicines containing Ephedraremain legal. We only use capital letters for proper nouns, proper adjectives, first words of sentences, important words in titles, along with certain words indicating directions and family relationships. Nine. Missing word The site foreman discriminated women and promoted men with less experience. The site foreman discriminated against women and promoted men with less experience. Chris’ behavior becomes bizarre that his family asks for help. Chris’ behavior becomes so bizarre that his family asks for help. Ten. Faulty sentence structure The information which high school athletes are presented with mainly includes information on what credits needed to graduate and thinking about the college which athletes are trying to play for, and apply. A sentence that starts out with one kind of structure and then changes to another kind can confuse readers. Make sure that each sentence contains a subject and a verb, that subjects and predicates make sense together, and that comparisons have clear meanings. When you join elements (such as subjects or verb phrases) with a coordinating conjunction, make sure that the elements have parallel structures. The reason I prefer yoga at home to the gym is because I prefer privacy. I prefer yoga at home to the gym because of privacy. 11. Missing Comma with a Nonrestrictive Element Marina who was the president of the club was the first to speak. The clause who was the president of the club does not affect the basic meaning of the sentence: Marina was the first to speak. A nonrestrictive element gives information not essential to the basic meaning of the sentence. Use commas to set off a nonrestrictive element. 12. Unnecessary Shift in Verb Tense Priya was watching the great blue heron. Then she slips and falls into the swamp. Verbs that shift from one tense to another with no clear reason can confuse readers. 13. Missing Comma in a Compound Sentence Meredith waited for Samir and her sister grew impatient. Without the comma, a reader may think at first that Meredith waited for both Samir and her sister. A compound sentence consists of two or more parts that could each stand alone as a sentence. When the parts are joined by a coordinating conjunction, use a comma before the conjunction to indicate a pause between the two thoughts. 14. Unnecessary or Missing Apostrophe (including its/it's) Overambitious parents can be very harmful to a childs well-being. The car is lying on it's side in the ditch. Its a white 2004 Passat. To make a noun possessive, add either an apostrophe and an s (Ed's book) or an apostrophe alone (the boys' gym). Do not use an apostrophe in the possessive pronouns ours, yours, and hers. Useits to mean belong to it; use it's only when you mean it is or it has. 15. Fused (run-on) sentence Klee's paintings seem simple, they are very sophisticated. She doubted the value of medication she decided to try it once. A fused sentence (also called a run-on) joins clauses that could each stand alone as a sentence with no punctuation or words to link them. Fused sentences must be either divided into separate sentences or joined by adding words or punctuation. 16. Comma Splice I was strongly attracted to her, she was beautiful and funny. We hated the meat loaf, the cafeteria served it every Friday. A comma splice occurs when only a comma separates clauses that could each stand alone as a sentence. To correct a comma splice, you can insert a semicolon or period, connect the clauses with a word such as and or because, or restructure the sentence. 17. Lack of pronoun/antecedent agreement Every student must provide their own uniform. Pronouns must agree with their antecedents in gender (male or female) and in number (singular or plural). Many indefinite pronouns, such as everyone and each, are always singular. When a singular antecedent can refer to a man or woman, either rewrite the sentence to make the antecedent plural or to eliminate the pronoun, or use his or her, he or she, and so on. When antecedents are joined by or or nor, the pronoun must agree with the closer antecedent. A collection noun such as team can be either singular or plural, depending on whether the members are seen as a group or individuals. 18. Poorly Integrated Quotation A 1970s study of what makes food appetizing "Once it became apparent that the steak was actually blue and the fries were green, some people became ill" (Schlosser 565). In a 1970s study about what makes food appetizing, we read, "Once it became apparent that the steak was actually blue and the fries were green, some people became ill" (Schlosser 565). "Dumpster diving has serious drawbacks as a way of life" (Eighner 383). Finding edible food is especially tricky. "Dumpster diving has serious drawbacks as a way of life," we read in Eighner's book (383). One of the drawbacks is that finding food can be especially difficult. Quotations should fit smoothly into the surrounding sentence structure. They should be linked clearly to the writing around them (usually with a signal phrase) rather than dropped abruptly into the writing. 19. Missing or Unnecessary Hyphen This paper looks at fictional and real life examples. A compound adjective modifying a noun that follows it requires a hyphen. The buyers want to fix-up the house and resell it. A two-word verb should not be hyphenated. A compound adjective that appears before a noun needs a hyphen. However, be careful not to hyphenate two-word verbs or word groups that serve as subject complements. 20. Sentence Fragment No subject Marie Antoinette spent huge sums of money on herself and her favorites. And helped to bring on the French Revolution. No complete verb The aluminum boat sitting on its trailer. Beginning with a subordinating word We returned to the drugstore. Where we waited for our buddies. A sentence fragment is part of a sentence that is written as if it were a complete sentence. Reading your draft out loud, backwards, sentence by sentence, will help you spot sentence fragments. 10 Arguments Delete Social Media 1A Inactive Archives 1A Quizzes 1A Syllabus Acting Out Culture I Acting Out Culture II Acting Out Culture III Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead Lessons Autobiography of Malcolm X Lessons Back in the World Lessons Cheever Lessons Chocolate War Lessons Class Anxiety Lessons Cooked Lessons Country of the Blind Lessons Critical Reading Skills Critical Thinker Death of Ivan Ilych Lessons Drinking Coffee Elsewhere Lessons Escape from Camp 14 Lessons Fast Food Nation Resources Fighting Plagiarism Geography of Bliss Lessons Good Fall Lessons Grading Rubric Grammar Exercises Healing of America Holes Lessons In Defense of Food Lessons In the Pond Lessons Introducing Your Essay Introduction to 1A Class It's Beginning to Hurt Man's Search for Meaning Guide Man's Search for Meaning Lessons MLA Formatting and Writing Guide MLA Research Paper Checklist Night in Question Lessons Night Lessons Our Story Begins Lessons Overcoat Lessons Paragraph Transitions Predictably Irrational Lessons Proofread Essay Contract Qualities of an A Paper Rules for Writers Online Signs of Life Lessons 1 So Good They Can't Ignore You Lessons Story and Its Writer Lessons US Government Pays for Your Med School Vegetarian Debate Lessons Where I'm Calling From Writing Effective Introductions Writing Your Personal Statement Tips Summative Assessment 3 (Essay worth 200 points): Jim Crow 1.0 and Jim Crow 2.0 Mastering the 6 Components of Signal Phrases Comma Rules Should College be Free & Should Parents Spy on Their Children's Computers? 1A Spring 2020 Week 11 Module Week 10 Lessons Spring 2020 1A Week 9 Spring 2020 Presentations: Bell Hooks & GoFundMe English 1A Essay 4 Options & Outlines for Spring 2020 More Essay Strategies for Deleting Social Media Accounts Essay #2 Due March 30, 2020 1A Agenda 3-18-20: 3 Thesis Statements for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3323
__label__wiki	0.701455	0.701455	Clue: The Big Bang Theory from USAopoly - YouTube The big bang theory game instructions 🍒 i-godless.ru Big Bang Theory Weeknights Sweepstakes The Big Bang Theory Party Game - The Basics. To start off, each player will draw up a hand of seven blue cards. These will all be things seen on the show or talked about by the characters. Anything from Sexy Nurse to Space Poop to Giant Rabbits to Superman. Each turn, one player will be the referee. ELIGIBILITY: The Big Bang Theory Trivia Sweepstakes instant win game (“Promotion”) is open to legal residents of the fifty (50) United States and District of Columbia who, at time of game play, are at least thirteen (13) years of age and who are TBS cable subscribers as of January 7, 2019. Officers, directors, and employees (and their immediate families [spouses and parents, in-laws, siblings and children and their respective spouses, regardless of where they reside] and members of the. Game description from the publisher: Someone has meddled with one of his sacred belongings and he isn't taking it lightly. He's sequestered 6 of his so-called "friends" and created a white board to analyze who did it, what heinous deed was done, and where the act of vengeance took place. The Big Bang Theory - Sheldon & Amy's Game Counter-Factuals Genius is relative in The Big Bang Theory Party Game, a new game that allows you and your friends to revisit moments from the smash hit TV series. Whether you've earned a Ph.D. in the science of "The Big Bang Theory" or are discovering the world of Leonard, Sheldon, Howard, Raj, and their neighbor Penny for the first time, you're guaranteed to be laughing and having fun. The Big Bang Theory Clothing & Merchandise (57,023 visits to this link) Shop for officially licensed The Big Bang Theory clothing and merchandise, including bobbleheads, t-shirts and DVDs. Find Bazinga and Soft Kitty t-shirts, character bobbleheads and Sheldon's Shirts. The Big Bang Theory is the leading explanation about how the universe began. At its simplest, it says the universe as we know it started with a small singularity, then inflated over the next 13.8. i-godless.ru Big Bang Theory Weeknights Sweepstakes The big bang theory game instructions This offset of Rock Paper Scissors became famous overnight from the TV show The Big Bang Theory. In 8th episode of the 2nd season of the wildly popular TV Show one of the main characters and probably the most entertaining character Sheldon introduced it to the world effortlessly to the game of Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock. Kongregate free online game The Big Bang Theory Game - This game has been created for an assignment at college. I've created this game as I really en.... Play The Big Bang Theory Game The Big Bang Theory The Party Game Board Game Review and Rules \| Geeky Hobbies The big bang theory game instructions The Big Bang Theory Party Game - The Basics \| Cryptozoic Entertainment The big bang theory game instructions The Big Bang Theory game includes trivia from the show episodes and the characters with over 400 questions. Collect a complete set of character cards to win the board game and play rounds of rock, paper, scissors, lizard and Spock. Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock (Extended Cut) ~ The Big Bang Theory ~ The big bang theory game instructions This month, Cryptozoic Entertainment released its new game based on the hit TV series The Big Bang Theory. The Big Bang Theory Party Game is very easy to learn and play, and is a social game at its heart. In other words, expect to be laughing and having fun with your friends while you explore the nerdy, pop-culture centric world of The Big Bang Theory, whether it's your first time experiencing the show or you're a lifelong die-hard fan! My name's Ben Stoll, and I'm the lead designer of The Big Bang Theory Party Game. I wanted to show you how easy the game is to pick up and play. Let's take a quick look at what this game holds in store for you. To start off, each the big bang theory game instructions will draw up a hand of seven blue cards. These will all be things seen on the show or talked about by the characters. Anything from Sexy Nurse to Space Poop to Giant Rabbits to Superman. Each turn, one player will be the referee. That player flips over the big bang theory game instructions red card and reads it out loud. Then, each other player will anonymously submit a blue card from his or hand the big bang theory game instructions they feel matches the criteria on the red card. He awards 3 points to Susan, 2 points to Sarah, and 1 point to John explaining that his decision making process had to do with the fact that "Fart Goblin"s terrify him and "Copious Amounts of Alcohol" can only be a good thing. Things really get fun and the big bang theory game instructions with the Experimental Formula cards: the exact same process except players submit two cards. You might think you've got your bases pretty well covered with a Monkey Butler and a Sexy Nurse…then again, maybe you would rather clone yourself a hundred of one of those things? Or maybe Farting Giant Rabbits is what you need to have around while you wile away the days… Remember, though! You're playing to the referee, the person who will be grading your submission. So you want to figure out what they like. Of course, if you feel like you don't have the best cards for the job and you're lucky enough to have a BAZINGA! The rules insert mentions a couple of fun variations on play, including a version where everyone picks their favorite character from the show and evaluates submissions from what they imagine that character's perspective would be. So while a Trophy Husband might get Penny all Hot and Bothered, Sheldon might prefer, say, a Personal Robot. The game plays in about 30 minutes, and the suggested age is 15+ not for complexity, online ship 3d cruise games big for some of the PG-13 elements of the show. Anybody can learn how to play in just a few minutes, and the virtually unlimited combination of cards will have you laughing with your friends and pairing cards together in hilarious and clever the big bang theory game instructions for a long time to come. I hope this helps you understand how to play, and we hope you try out our game by picking one up at a hobby store near you! Ben Stoll is an avid gamer who has been designing games professionally since 2009. He is currently the lead designer on HEX: Shards of Fate, Cryptozoic's upcoming Massively Multiplayer Online Trading Card Game. His latest board game designs include The Big Bang Theory Party Game and Word Whimsy. WHAT UP MOON PIE? The Big Bang Theory Party Game \| Cryptozoic Entertainment The big bang theory game instructions S1 \| E4 The Big Bang Theory 20 min • Expires June 23 Sheldon's getting fired forces him to explore what life has to offer outside physics, leaving Leonard to take drastic action to snap his friend out of his funk. .. Genius is relative in The Big Bang Theory Party Game, an addictive new game that allows you and your friends to revisit unforgettable moments from the smash hit TV series. Whether you’ve earned a Ph.D. in the science of “The Big Bang Theory” or are discovering the world of Leonard, Sheldon, Howard, Raj, and their neighbor Penny for the first time, you’re guaranteed to be laughing and having fun. 06.02.2019 in 13:26 Virn: 05.02.2019 in 19:13 Votaxe: You are mistaken. Write to me in PM, we will communicate. 31.01.2019 in 22:08 Mazur: Between us speaking, you did not try to look in google.com? 08.02.2019 in 05:19 Mesar: It was registered at a forum to tell to you thanks for the help in this question, can, I too can help you something? 01.02.2019 in 03:41 Fenrikus: Bravo, your phrase is useful 01.02.2019 in 04:44 Kigashura: Absolutely with you it agree. In it something is also thought excellent. 30.01.2019 in 14:05 Malakasa: Very well. 30.01.2019 in 20:44 Vudogul: What necessary words... super, an excellent idea 05.02.2019 in 12:32 Shakashura: I consider, that you are mistaken. 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That's why, over the years Raj, Howard, Leonard, and, of course, Sheldon have stepped up to create a unique archive of activities that test their own knowledge and provide endless hours of fun. Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock - Featured in these episodes: Season 2, Episode 8 - The Lizard-Spock Expansion. When Sheldon and Raj can't agree about what to watch on TV, with Sheldon favoring Saturn 3 and Raj wanting to watch Deep Space Nine, Raj suggests they settle it with a game of Rock Paper Scissors. The Big Bang Theory Set type Normal Theme group Miscellaneous Theme Ideas Subtheme Licensed Year released 2015 Tags Amy Farrah Fowler Bernadette Rostenkowski Howard Wolowitz Leonard Hofstadter Penny Raj Koothrappali Sheldon Cooper Apartment Dog Furniture Math Rocket Science Tv Pieces 484 Minifigs 7 RRP £49.99 / $59.99 / 59.99€ Current value. This page was last edited on 6 July 2013, at 23:13. 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__label__cc	0.633925	0.366075	Home Columns Those who undermine Guyana’s democracy will be held accountable – US Photo : US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo …says Guyana’s elections declaration long past due US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has announced that he instructed the Department of State to “ensure that those who undermine Guyana’s democracy are held accountable”. Pompeo was at the time commenting on the situations in Venezuela, Suriname and Guyana. In congratulating Suriname on its electoral process, Pompeo noted that “in contrast, it has now been four months since Guyana’s elections, long past due for a peaceful transition of power.” He pointed out that CARICOM and the OAS have certified the recount results, and asserted that Guyana “should get on with it”. In March, Pompeo had warned of “serious consequences” for persons who seek to benefit from electoral fraud. Guyanese went to the polls on March 2 to elect a government of their choice, however, results are yet to be declared. Following attempts to derail the tabulation process, a national recount was conducted which has proven that the Peoples Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) won the elections by over 15,000 votes. The incumbent APNU/AFC Coalition is refusing to accept defeat. Instead, it is supporting fraudulent figures submitted by the Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield. Lowenfield’s figures have been widely rejected by local and international stakeholders who have been calling for the recount results, as certified by GECOM and CARICOM, to be used as the basis of the declaration of the elections. Tags: CaricomGuyanaGuyana DemocracyGuyana Election 2020Guyana Election ResultsMike Pompeo Addressing Objections to a Federalised Guyana Granger’s vision for Guyana Tracing Roots in India Indo Caribbean Diaspora news Our True Heroes January 18, 2021 New Publication tells of Islamic Persecution in India January 17, 2021 Doon Pandit-The First Hindu Worker January 17, 2021 © 2020 Indo-Caribbean Diaspora News. All rights Reserved © 2020 icdn.today - Indo-Caribbean Diaspora News icdn.today.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3327
__label__wiki	0.631213	0.631213	Places to go / Alps - Mont Blanc / The art of après-ski in the French Alps By The editor , Published: 7 March 2019, 17:52 © Pinkanova for France.fr / DR — Clubbing at the top of the slopes at La Folie Douce in Megève, facing one of the most beautiful Alpine panoramas - db.videoAccessibility In Megève and Saint-Gervais, we know how to enjoy the benefits of nature after skiing. Romain, DJ at La Folie Douce; Pauline, manager of the Les Fermes de Marie spa; and Thomas, expert cheesemaker at restaurant Le M, show their passion for well-being, gastronomy and festivities in enchanting mountain surroundings. Between massages, fondues and dancefloors, there’s no competition – we’re taking all three! After a good day’s skiing in the French Alps, there’s no shortage of opportunities to have fun. To find out more, we followed three locals whose job it is to make visitors’ daily life even more memorable, between the resorts of Megève and Saint-Gervais at the foot of Mont Blanc. © Pinkanova for France.fr / DR — Romain, DJ at La Folie Douce in Megève, sets the dancefloor on fire According to Romain Clarks, resident DJ at La Folie Douce at the top of Saint-Gervais ski slopes, “you have to come here to ski because it’s Mont Blanc, the roof of Europe. There’s cross-country skiing of course, and snowshoeing, skiing, snowboarding and numerous amazing walks”. Whether you come to party at La Folie Douce on skis or snowshoes, once you’re there the reward is incredible. In front of an incredible panorama, Romain and other invited guests get clubbers going at the heart of the mountains. Les Fermes de Marie: a spa to rejuvenate On the well-being side, Pauline Tual, head of the Les Fermes de Marie spa, says: “What I like about Megève is that we’re always focused on nature, as we use mountain plants. We really like this feeling of warmth after a day’s skiing. When choosing a career in well-being, your job is to give pleasure and warm people’s hearts.” Chic and cozy: 9 new cocoons at the heart of the Alps © Pinkanova for France.fr / DR — In the Alps, spas rely on products and techniques inspired by the surrounding nature, as at the Fermes de Marie in Megève In the French Alps, no après-ski is complete without edible pleasures. Thomas Lecomte, cheese expert at the ‘M’ restaurant in Megève, is passionate about exceptional mountain specialities. Here, tartiflettes and fondues made with the best cheeses are chosen and tasted like great wines. “We value the savoir-faire and the peasant farmland. Several stages of ripening are involved for each cheese. Guests eating here get so much enjoyment, just as they would with tasting fine wines. It’s an emotional, multi-sensory experience.” Spas, saunas, fondue and raclette, lounges and fireplaces In the French Alps, between Megève and Saint-Gervais, the three locals offer both warm and cold rejuvenation. “To be able to come back tired in the evening and arrive at the spa for a sauna session or massage, and then settle down by the fire in a cosy lounge with furs and tuck into a fondue or raclette… it’s a sure reason why people come to Megève”, describes Thomas. Fine food, well-being and a party spirit – this holy trilogy perfectly complements the breathtaking panoramas of the French Alps. Avoriaz: 3 new places that’ll raise your temperature this winter Prepare your stay in Megève (External link) Prepare your stay in Saint-Gervais (External link) La Folie Douce in Megève (External link) Pure Altitude Spa at Les Fermes de Marie in Megève (External link) Restaurants in Hôtel Le M, Megève (External link) Prepare your stay in the Alps with Savoie Mont Blanc (External link) Prepare your stay in the Alps with France Montagnes (External link) The editorial staff of France.fr follow the trends and news of destinations to bring you stories from France that reveal its innovations and traditions revisited and make you long to (re) discover its territories. Megève International Jazz Festival Until April 4 Discover the Alps Megeve in the French Alps Ski from dawn until dusk A snapshot of skiing at Val d'Isère in the Alps Preview of the Season A taste of winter in the French Alps The magic of the first seasonal snowfall transforms the Alps Unlimited Festival: Mont-Blanc, electronic music and spring skiing...	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3332
__label__cc	0.539506	0.460494	SA legal industry welcomes return of QC title The state’s legal industry has welcomed legislation which passed State Parliament last week to enable anyone who has been, or will be, appointed a Senior Counsel by the Supreme Court to use the alternative title of Queen’s Counsel. Jemma Chapman Monday, September 28 'We cannot be co-opted': Judges savage Bar's push for return of the QC EXCLUSIVE \| The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has warned that re-establishing the title of “QC” would undermine the court’s independence and that judges would refuse to be part of it, in an excoriating letter to Vickie Chapman obtained by InDaily. Bension Siebert Thursday, January 17 34	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3335
__label__cc	0.60056	0.39944	Home Clinical Trials and Studies NaviFUS Launches Neuronavigation-guided Clinical Trial to Open the Blood-Brain-Barrier for Combination FUS-Bevacizumab Therapy in rGBM Patients NaviFUS Corporation, a subsidiary of Taiwan-based focused ultrasound (FUS) manufacturer Genovate Biotech has announced the start of its clinical trial (NCT04446416) for the combination of FUS plus bevacizumab therapy. NaviFUS Corporation notes researchers at Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital are investigating the use of Neuronavigation-guided FUS to repeatedly and temporarily open the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and enhance bevacizumab’s efficacy in patients with recurrent glioblastoma (rGBM). To date, the first patient has been enrolled and is undergoing treatment. Led by neurosurgeon Dr. Kuo-Chen Wei at Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, the clinical trial will evaluate the safety and preliminary efficacy of repeated FUS-induced BBB opening with bevacizumab using the company’s NaviFUS System. NaviFUS System utilizes neuronavigation and prior patient CT/MR images to guide the FUS energy. Additionally, the system includes a real-time acoustic emissions monitoring function that can personalize a safe and optimal level of FUS energy treatment for each patient. The study plans to enroll six rGBM patients who will undergo biweekly bevacizumab treatment. Per the clinical trial protocol, patients will receive FUS treatment with every bevacizumab dose up to the 34th week or until further disease progression. The first patient enrolled in August, and preliminary monitoring from the initial bevacizumab with FUS treatments have shown the patient’s condition is stable with no adverse events. “The goal of the study is to investigate the possibility of delivering a large molecular weight drug to the brain in higher concentrations using FUS technology,” said NaviFUS Chief Executive Officer Arthur Lung, Ph.D. “To our knowledge, this is the first time large molecular bevacizumab delivered into the brain in significant quantities. Should we observe positive results from the study, we expect it will be a good model for further extension to other biologicals, antibodies, antibody-drug conjugates, and cell therapies. This trial is an important step in meeting the goal of our company, which uses an innovative and safe way to help treat the central nervous system (CNS) diseases in the future.” This clinical trial is also funded in part by the Focused Ultrasound Foundation. “This trial uses an innovative device to open the blood-brain barrier repetitively,” says Foundation Chairman Neal F. Kassell, MD. “It is an important step in the path to developing novel approaches for delivering a variety of therapeutic agents to the brain. This trial can facilitate the treatment of primary and metastatic brain tumors as well as neurodegenerative diseases for which there are few other treatments, including Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and ALS.” Single Use Barriers: Study Finds Clinically Superior to Disposable Stethoscopes "This important study establishes the clinical and economic advantages that our DiskCover System delivers over the use of disposable stethoscopes," said Scott Mader, CEO and co-founder of AseptiScope. Neuros Medical Announces Key Milestones in the QUEST Pivotal Clinical Study for Chronic Post-Amputation Pain QUEST is a 180-subject, randomized, double blinded, active sham controlled clinical trial that is being conducted under an Investigational Device Exemption ViviGen Cellular Bone Matrix Outperforms MSC-based Allografts and is Equivalent to Gold Standard Autograft According to Recent Peer-Reviewed Publications "These studies are an exciting advancement of our knowledge of ViviGen," said Mark Moore, PhD, Chief Scientific Affairs Officer at LifeNet Health. "We developed ViviGen based on pre-clinical research that showed a cellular graft focused on viable, lineage-committed bone cells could result in a safe, clinically effective bone void filler. Sharp Fluidics Clinical Study, Efficacy of a Novel Intraoperative Engineered Sharps Injury Prevention Device: Pilot Usability and Efficacy Trial, Published in JMIR Perioperative Medicine This study, "Efficacy of a Novel Intraoperative Engineered Sharps Injury Prevention Device: Pilot Usability and Efficacy Trial," Jenny Hillary, M.D., et al. conducted at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, was published in JMIR Perioperative Medicine.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3337
__label__wiki	0.547846	0.547846	'Legally Blonde the Musical' / Published March 24, 2016 We're getting back in the game, back on the case! So try to keep up the pace! Cause we've got a star, our brand new muse, who's got the best freaking shoes! Yeah she lit a fuse, so come see who's LEGALLY BLONDE! Directed and choreographed by Quae Simpson Musical direction by Ben Shaver Produced by Raidizon Mercedes At Swirnow Theater April 1 at 8 p.m. April 2 at 8 p.m. April 3 at 3 p.m. April 8 at 8 p.m. April 9 at 8 p.m. April 10 at 3 p.m. Hopkins ID $5 Reserve tickets online. Check us out on Facebook. Hope to see you all there!	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3344
__label__wiki	0.811025	0.811025	RNSS/SBAS Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design Ingo Baumann Dee Ann Divis Peter Gutierrez Dr. Gunter Hein Mark Petovello GNSS News Industry View GNSS Timeline Columns & Editorials Breaking Tech Webinar Recap All Features > Joint Navigation Conference (JNC) 2021 Date Change: August 2021 NavtechGPS Spring 2021 GNSS Courses Announced MyGalileoDrone Contest Open For Submissions integration/integrated system Towards Navigation Safety for Autonomous Cars... Answering the Call for a GNSS Back-up... Ligado Test Results Roll In Figures and Charts The GPS community and Virginia-based Ligado are weighing new and upcoming test results as the standoff over interference with satellite navigation services enters its seventh year. The dispute centers on the company’s now modified proposal to build a terrestrial wireless network supported by frequencies originally allocated for satellites. Though there had been a move some years earlier to augment the satellite services with ground stations the company’s first plan envisioned some 30,000 high-powered ground terminals. By Dee Ann Divis GNSS for ERTMS Train Localization Demo Test in Italy on Cagliari – Decimomannu line – February 24, 2017. From left: Josef Doppelbauer (Executive director of ERA – European Union Agency for Rail), Maurizio Gentile (Chief Executive Officer of RFI – Rete Ferroviaria Italiana), Jean-Pierre Loubinoux (Director General of UIC – the worldwide professional association representing the railway sector and promoting rail transport), Carlo des Dorides (Executive director of GSA). By Inside GNSS New Report Says Broadcom and Qualcomm Top GNSS IC Vendors GNSS IC Vendor Competitive Assessment Vendor Matrix. Image Source: ABI Research. A new reports says that the GNSS market landscape is growing because of rapid growth of satellite technology-enabled wearables, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), new innovation opportunities, and low-cost precision receivers. ABI Research’s new GNSS integrated circuit (IC) vendor competitive analysis says that Broadcom and Qualcomm remain the two top companies for the fourth straight year. It’s Time for 3D Mapping–Aided GNSS Figures 1-6 Real-time position accuracy, achievable in dense urban areas using low-cost equipment, is currently limited to tens of meters. If this could be improved to five meters or better, a host of potential applications would benefit. These include situation awareness of emergency, security and military personnel and vehicles; emergency caller location, mobile mapping, tracking vulnerable people and valuable assets, intelligent mobility, location-based services and charging, augmented reality; and enforcement of curfews, restraining orders and other court orders. Trimble Dimensions 2016 The 2016 Trimble Dimensions user conference and exhibition will take place at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas on November 7, 8 and 9. The annual event gathers users of Trimble’s products including positioning technology for unmanned systems as well as mapping, GIS, surveying, photgrammetry and remote sensing and other technologies of interest to readers of Inside GNSS. Four hundred and fifty technical sessions and networking events give attendees an opportunity to network widely within and among industry groups. DGON Inertial Sensors and Systems 2016 At the 2015 symposium The German Institute of Navigation’s (DGON) 2016 symposium on inertial sensors and systems, ISS, and gyro technology will take place in Tulla Hall at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) on September 20 and 21. As modern systems for navigation, localization and guidance are increasingly making use of supporting data from non-inertial sensors, the conference particularly appreciates papers on hybrid systems, those that fuse inertial with GNSS, visual, infrared, radar or other sensors. Let Us Now Praise When China joined the GNSS club in 2007, it turned a satnav triumvirate into a quartet. But some of the limelight needs to fall a little further from center stage — out there where the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) and Japan’s Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS) are not waiting idly in the wings. Still Not a Thing, Part 2 One of the first feature articles I wrote as a newly minted GNSS magazine editor 26 years ago was about an advanced rail traffic management system based on GPS that Burlington Northern, with the help of Rockwell Collins, had designed and implemented. NavtechGPS Seminar (NEW): Inertial Systems, Kalman Filtering and GPS / INS Integration (Course 546) This new four-day course will take place at the Bay Club Hotel and Marina in San Diego, California, December 8-11, 2014. It will be taught by Dr. Alan Pue, Johns Hopkins University, APL and Mr. Michael Vaujin, Aerospace Consultant. This course is for GPS/GNSS professionals who are engineers, scientists, systems analysts, program specialists and others concerned with the integration of inertial sensors and systems, those needing a working knowledge of Kalman filtering, or those who work in the fields of either navigation or target tracking. Proposal for U.S. eLoran Service Gains Ground Trying to revive a years-dead federal program is usually the kind of hopeless task that even Sisyphus wouldn’t touch. But determined supporters of eLoran are gaining ground in their effort to resurrect the cancelled radio-navigation network and, propelled by new worries over GPS jamming, they appear poised push the issue through. IGS-MGEX Commonly employed antennas (top) and receivers (bottom) within the MGEX network GPS/BeiDou/MEMS configuration and GPS/MEMS configuration (left and right, respectively, top photo), Front view (center photo) and back view (lower photo) of nAX5.2 Due to the huge success of GPS in both military and civil applications, several other GNSSs have been developed, built, and operated in the last few decades. GNSS, regional, and augmentation systems are comprise a growing family that also includes GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou, and Japan’s Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS). New members, such as the Global Indian Navigation System (GINS), are preparing to join in next decade. Defense Department CIO Teresa Takai Gets Positioning, Navigation and Timing Brief DoD CIO Teresa Takai. DoD photo A Department of Defense Directive (DoDD 5144.02) issued April 22 clarifies the positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) responsibilities for Teresa Takai, the assistant secretary of defense for networks and information integration (NII) and the DoD’s chief information officer (CIO). Current Magazine Articles NovAtel’s Annual Journal of GNSS Technology Solutions and Innovation INSIDE GNSS MAGAZINE Current Issue Online Copyright © Inside GNSS Media & Research LLC. All rights reserved. \| Privacy Policy 157 Broad Street, Suite 307 \| Red Bank, New Jersey USA 07701, Telephone (732) 741-1964 Website by: BCS	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3348
__label__wiki	0.59879	0.59879	Home » DMS Insights: Digital Advertising News » 17 Awesome Education-Related Advertising & Marketing Campaigns from 2017 17 Awesome Education-Related Advertising & Marketing Campaigns from 2017 May 24, 2018 Cliff Libby As the experts in education marketing, we’re bringing you the best higher education marketing campaigns from 2017, evaluated based on their creativity and innovation. Our 2017 Year-End Higher Education Inquiry Generation Review, reported increased inquiry volume and conversion rates in 2017. As a whole, the higher education industry has upped their game. Here are 17 examples of higher education institutions who got it right with their marketing last year. (See the best campaigns from 2018 here, the best from 2015 here and the best from 2012 here.) 17. Langston University On brand with their motto, Langston University released a print ad that encourages prospective students to be brave and “find the lion in you.” Through the ad copy, Langston U inspires prospects to work beyond expectations and excel: “You can be more. Deep down you know it.” With this campaign, Langston empowers students to defy the odds. 16. Seton Hall University Last year, Seton Hall University released a campus tour video for prospective students. Ranked number one in the nation for their business leadership program, Seton Hall also has a strong reputation for their community and inclusive culture. The video addresses opportunities the university provides to its students, like study abroad programs, internships and strong professor-student relationship due to their open door policy. 15. University of Michigan The University of Michigan (UM) Pinterest page highlights the programs, organizations and more that make up their community. From graduation to athletics to the science and engineering school, UM’s Pinterest page generates interest through bold, high-resolution photos. Their ongoing social media strategy has been a success, seeing 687,000 monthly viewers, including prospective students. Visitors can learn everything they need to know about Michigan lifestyle through photos of the gym, social events and even the campus squirrels. 14. University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada crafted the BEYOND Campaign to prove that the college and its students go beyond what’s expected. U of Waterloo tells their stories through print media, video and social media to portray the challenges and growth individuals experience while studying at the university. From geographic information systems to the power of language to world sustainability, University of Waterloo empowers its students to find the answers and solutions. 13. London Metropolitan University London Metropolitan University promotes its central-city location and diversity with their “Do Something You Love” campaign. London Metropolitan University is “dedicated to employability,” and their faculty takes pride in empowering students to be passionate about their industries. Knowing their audience was broad, their campaign chronicled student journeys to show varying demographics while connecting through emotions. 12. University of Wisconsin Milwaukee From Miley Cyrus to Whitney Houston to Journey, students belt out their favorite lyrics with their chancellor in the 2017 marketing video from University of Wisconsin Milwaukee (UWM). Starring recent graduates and the school’s panther mascot, the video features Chancellor Mark Mone transporting students, dressed in cap and gown and performing karaoke, to their commencement ceremony. This fun and light-hearted video promotes the school’s atmosphere while proving UWM students have a faculty that cares for them. 11. University of Alabama The University of Alabama launched their “Where Legends Are Made” campaign in 2016 to gain exposure for their excelling students, alumni, donors and faculty. With print ads, social media to videos, Alabama’s campaign continued throughout 2017. From football to academics, and everything in between, Alabama has built a legacy with their commitment to greatness at the forefront. As explained in one of their print ads, “passion is found in the most extraordinary places.” Through the past, present and future, the Alabama community prevails and prospers. 10. Northern Oklahoma College Inspired by the “Humans of New York” project, Northern Oklahoma College (NOC) created their own version titled, “Humans of NOC,” which highlights students, alumni and faculty. Presenting a positive and productive community, #HumansofNOC shows how individuals of all ages, genders and backgrounds mature and prosper at their college. From Senegal to Kosovo, students of NOC are made to feel at home in an environment that encourages learning and personal growth. Alumni attribute their success to the school, with Jeremy Fisher citing, “All of my accomplishments wouldn’t have been possible without the education I received at Northern Oklahoma College.” 9. Hartwick College Located in Oneonta, NY, Hartwick College promotes its gorgeous location, with immense greenery and rolling hills, in their latest marketing video. In “This Place,” one component of their three-part campaign, students discuss what their college means to them. From clubs and organizations to courses and majors, the experiences and relationships built at Hartwick are unmatched. As one student says, “These people, you know, pushed me to be the best me.” Hartwick concludes the video with the quote, “Not just any college. This college. Hartwick college,” to promote the passion for their campus and stay on brand for their marketing campaign. 8. Stanford University In Stanford University’s 30-second video, students work tirelessly to crack the code on the next innovation. Part of the original #NextGreatDiscovery campaign that launched in 2015, this 2017 video incorporates an empowering beat and dedicated voiceover. With echoes of perseverance and the mentorships of faculty and professors, Stanford knows their students will reach breakthroughs to better the greater good. The #NextGreatDiscovery campaign shows the Stanford community’s need for continual innovation and their belief that education is the tool to power student discoveries. 7. Loughborough University Loughborough University (LBoro) in the U.K. used Snapchat geofilters to promote #LBoroOpenDay, their open house day. Available within physical range of the higher education institution, the LBoro filters were branded with college fonts and colors and were intended to generate excitement about academic programs, clubs, organizations and the college’s general lifestyle. As the filter was used, the university expanded its reach across Snapchat users. 6. University of Tennessee, Knoxville Last year, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UT Knoxville) published an article in their Torchbearer magazine summarizing a course that approached Appalachian history through the eyes of Dolly Parton. When UT Knoxville publicized the article on Twitter, Parton, an eastern Tennessee native, proudly retweeted the promotion to her 4.8 million followers. 5. University of Georgia The University of Georgia (UGA) released an inspirational marketing video titled “Commit to Georgia” that features an uplifting poem paired with shots of the campus. With a commitment to making a difference, UGA’s video portrays their students’ hard work, motivation and humility. An ad in the corner of the video links directly to the UGA charitable giving page so viewers can give to the institution or learn more about their programs. 4. University of California, Los Angeles University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) pushes students to achieve their greatest potential. Their 2017 video “Optimists on Optimism” explains how UCLA believes “everyone has a role” in society, and their students will be the individuals to make a difference. At the forefront of innovation, UCLA provides the resources and power. It’s up to the students to decide how to lead the revolution. 3. Yale University In the video “Why I Love Yale?” the class of 2021 is asked one simple question: Why do you love Yale? Filmed in multiple Yale University locations and throughout the seasons, the video highlights the diversity that creates a community welcoming of different perspectives. During an interview, one student remarks, “The friendships you make here are one of a kind, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.” 2. Oregon State University Oregon State University (OSU) highlighted their state’s incredible landscapes (similarly to how Oregon tourism did earlier this year) with an artistic marketing video. With a Morgan Freeman-esque voiceover, the film’s uplifting script and cinematic background music make for an inspirational project that highlights the college’s new logo. The launch of the new logo “tells the story of the university’s legacy,” with a beaver representing the state animal and school mascot, and the tree and book representing knowledge. The three stars in the top right-hand corner portray the school’s three campuses and its recognition as the 33rd state in the union. From scientific innovations to business meetings, OSU prepares their students for everything their industries may throw at them. 1. Columbia University Set in the middle of New York City, Columbia University manages to give its students a campus and community feel. The university released a 10-minute marketing video titled, “Into the Columbia Blue.” Aside from their world-renowned professors and incredible location, Columbia offers students a learning environment that encourages growth in all aspects whether it be academic, philosophical or another. The prestige of this university is palpable through this admissions video as students rave about the school. “You’re part of a university that has had so many incredible people come before you,” explains one student, “and all of a sudden, you’re part of that as well.” Reimagining your higher ed marketing? DMS Education can help you maximize your media investments and get you on next year’s list of the top education-related campaigns. Contact DMS today to get started. For more of the best higher education marketing campaigns see 2012 here, 2015 here and 2018 here. Cliff Libby is the Executive Vice President and General Manager of Education at Digital Media Solutions (DMS), the fastest-growing independent digital performance marketing company. DMS helps its clients accelerate growth by deploying diversified and data-driven customer acquisition solutions that deliver scalable, sustainable and measurable marketing results. DMS performance marketing solutions connect the right consumers with the right offers at the right time to achieve the marketing objectives of our clients. DMS is continually innovating to provide new and emerging media and technology solutions that minimize waste and maximize results across the most competitive industries. Since its inception, DMS has demonstrated incredible year-over-year growth which has earned recognition on the Inc. 5000 list in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. An accomplished leader in higher education marketing, Libby comes to DMS with incredible experience in entrepreneurial and high-growth environments. Prior to joining DMS, Libby held management roles at CourseAdvisor – which was later rebranded to Avenue 100 Media – during its pivotal time as a Washington Post subsidiary. Libby started his career in admissions at Wheaton College Massachusetts and has since held executive leadership roles in a variety of software and technology service companies focused exclusively in higher education. Cliff graduated with a BA in American Studies from Wheaton College Massachusetts, and earned his MBA from Boston University Questrom School of Business. He resides in the Boston, MA area with his wife and children. More Content by Cliff Libby Lead Scoring: What Is It & How Does It Work? Lead scoring, combined with marketing automation software like Sparkroom, allows you to develop efficiency-... In-App Shopping on Instagram: What It Means for Marketers Instagram is testing in-app shopping with stored payment. This is what you need to know. How Gift Basket Brands Are Advertising This Valentine’s Day Digital innovation, including website optimization, multichannel marketing and customization, is helping ecommerce gift basket brands increase conversions and drive sales this Valentine’s Day. DTC Vitamins Surge In Popularity After Deploying Digital Advertising Health and wellness continues to be a priority for consumers, and DTC vitamin brands are using digital advertising strategies to meet their needs. Advertisers Are Prioritizing First-Party Data And Diversity In 2021, advertisers are looking ahead to a future where first-party data is king, and simultaneously focusing their attention on connected TV and diversified media buys. 5 Advertising Strategies To Help Personal Loan Brands Reach High-Intent Consumers During Peak Resolution Season Consumer demand for personal loans is expected to hit its peak in early Q1. Here are five recommendations for personal loan brands to consider when launching advertising strategies. Major Brands Are Showing Year-Round LGBTQ Support Abercrombie & Fitch and Doritos are proving the importance of supporting inclusivity and the LGBTQ community year round through their latest purpose-driven advertising efforts. What Is Struum? A new streaming service, Struum promises to bundle on the streaming services consumers aren’t yet watching. From Thongs To Pajamas: Consumers Head Online For Lingerie & Loungewear In 2021 As Valentine’s Day approaches, lingerie and loungewear brands, like Adore Me, Pajamagram and ThirdLove, have an opportunity to connect and engage with audiences seeking sexy, cozy and comforting gifts Google Question Hub: Just The Facts Through Google Question Hub, publishers can identify unanswered questions from searches and create relevant content based on the gaps in Google Search. What Is Amazon Marketing Cloud? Amazon Marketing Cloud, now in beta, allows advertisers to gain a better understanding of campaign performance. How Flower Delivery Services Are Growing Their Consumer Bases In 2021 Valentine’s Day ad campaigns in recent years, show how flower delivery services use humor, targeted ads and differentiation to capture new customers and increase ecommerce revenue. Advertisers Reveal Plans For 55th Annual Super Bowl Super Bowl LV, set to air February 7, is already lining up major advertisers from Turbo Tax to Toyota. Nike Plans Steady Digital Push In 2021 As Direct-To-Consumer Sales Grow Although Nike has been increasingly innovating their digital offerings in recent years, the pandemic quickly accelerated the brand’s ecommerce initiatives and sales. Jewelry Advertising Should Engage Consumers Early & Often Ahead Of Valentine’s Day By launching strategic digital advertising initiatives ahead of Valentine’s Day, jewelry brands are tapping into a reliable audience looking to make meaningful purchases. What Is The Clubhouse Audio-Only Social Media Platform? Clubhouse is a recently launched audio-only social media platform that is popular with celebrities and growing around the world. People With Disabilities Have Money To Spend But Are Often Overlooked Advertisers that are authentic and inclusive can capture the attention of people with disabilities, a group long overlooked in advertising strategies. Funny Tax Preparation Advertising Campaigns Highlight Ease Of Tax Preparation Tax preparation brands that offer seamless services and create funny, relatable advertising are likely to appeal to taxpayers this year. Social Media Strategies For 2021 As consumer behaviors continue to reflect increased reliance on online usage, social media platforms prove invaluable for advertisers. After Adaptation And Innovation In 2020, What’s Next For QSRs? Last year, QSRs adapted to consumer needs with new digital strategies and innovations, which are likely to stick around in 2021. Lead Generation Predictions For 2021 Where lead generation and customer acquisition is headed in 2021 has a lot to do with the way 2020 shaped consumer intent and behaviors.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3349
__label__cc	0.694205	0.305795	KPMG Institutes › Healthcare and Life Sciences Institute › 2021 Healthcare and Life Sciences Investment Outlook Kristin C. Pothier Global and National Healthcare and Life Sciences Strategy Leader, and Global Deal Advisory Leader, Healthcare and Life Science, KPMG US Brett Glover Partner, Financial Due Diligence, KPMG US On January 25th, KPMG will release its 2021 Healthcare and Life Sciences Investment Outlook, informed by a fifth annual market survey of hundreds of healthcare and life sciences executives. The Outlook provides insights on how ten subsectors have fared during the past unprecedented year of the global pandemic, and what we might expect for deal activity in these subsectors in 2021 and beyond. It also explores how the 2020 presidential and congressional elections will impact policy priorities and the regulatory agenda in the year ahead. From a healthcare perspective, merger and acquisition activity slowed in the second quarter of the year before beginning to rebound in the second half of the year. Although total deal activity in healthcare slowed relative to 2019, private equity and corporate investors remained interested in identifying new opportunities for growth and partnerships. We also saw strong activity in Healthcare IT, accelerated by the pandemic with telehealth and the move to alternative care settings. We expect continued deal activity in healthcare IT and in risk-based physician practices as the industry continues reacting to changes in care delivery brought about as a result of the pandemic. In Life Sciences, we saw the organizations in 2020 that pivoted to COVID-19-related products and services bounce back rapidly, and are now attracting more investment interest. Given the need for diagnostics, vaccines, and treatments for COVID-19 and a continuing focus on breakthrough innovations, the biopharma subsector, in particular, had a strong year financially, which is expected to carry over into 2021. KPMG 2021 HCLS Investment Outlook Video Larry Kocot: Hi… I am Larry Kocot, a Principal at KPMG and National Leader of the Center for Healthcare Regulatory Insight at KPMG. I am very pleased to be joined by Brett Glover and Kristin Pothier, to share a brief preview of our annual Healthcare and Life Sciences Investment Outlook for 2021, which we’re going to be releasing in the coming days. Despite the economic and social disruption caused by the global pandemic, along with the very difficult election season that we went through in 2020, deal volume in 2020 far outpaced that of 2019, particularly in Life Sciences and Pharmaceuticals, Healthcare IT, and Medical Devices and Supplies. With a new President and new Congress, our national focus will undoubtedly remain on the pandemic and economic recovery, but what other policy changes might impact investment decisions in the coming year? What sectors will attract the most investor interest; and will the pace of deals continue into this new year? Our 2021 Investment Outlook will bring insight to these and other important investment questions based upon a comprehensive survey of hundreds of senior industry executive respondents who provide key insights on what we might expect for investment in the coming year. In addition to understanding where and how investors are prioritizing their investment focus, our Investment Outlook contextualizes the investment landscape through the lens of key policy and regulatory trends and insights, which are so important to the investment calculus in the heavily regulated heath care and life science industries. This is the fifth year that we’ve done the Investment Outlook survey and we look forward to sharing our insights for what promises to be a very interesting year as we look forward to getting beyond COVID-19 and onward to economic recovery. I’ll now turn it over to my colleagues Brett and Kristin, to share perspectives on trends in the deals environment over the past year and what we might expect to see in the year ahead. Brett Glover: Larry, needless to say 2020 was definitely an unusual year. When we think of M&A, it was basically a tale of two halves. The year started active, but took a hard pause, as the world adjusted to COVID We saw what felt like pent up demand or the paused deals working back through the system during the summer and then in September the market roared back. We saw signals that the market would be active post summer, but I don’t think any of us expected the volume of transactions BUYERS: As we think about the type of buyers, we basically saw both corporate and PE being very active. We also saw SPACs take an active role in the market. While SPACs are not necessarily new entrants, the volume of SPACs and competition for appropriate assets is definitely. Let's talk about the types of deals we saw for a second On the Healthcare side, we have to segment the market. As expected, the deal flow heavily follows businesses with minimal impact by COVID While most providers had volume interruptions due to COVID, the market was much more active with sectors could show either a clear path to recovery or volumes had recovered. For top tier assets, price and competition for these assets was as high as it has ever been. But the next tier down, "nice assets or models with a nuance"....the market was much more particular. On the other end of the provider spectrum, lower acuity or more retail healthcare assets, generally were more challenged to prove the compelling "recovery" and were not absent from the market, but the volume was substantially down. Our Health System and NFP clients were also a little less active in the second half of the year. While that is a very broad market, they generally are very methodical and can often collectively take a more wait and see approach than other M&A participants. Additionally, their businesses were much more impacted. As we approached the end of the year, we did see signs of activity that bode well for 2021. As we toggle over to other areas of Healthcare, risk bearing assets and HCIT assets were extremely active. In general, these assets had less of a negative impacted by COVID and depending on the business model often saw tailwinds. One of the more interesting trends, was the risk bearing provider businesses, which are heavily PCP’s taking risk. The market has been very interested with these business models, but the volume of deals in the second half involving both public and private equity makes it more unusual than past years. And finally, HCIT. the telehealth sector broke investment records in 2020 with $6.5 billion in funding. 55 U.S.-based telehealth companies received funding and over 10 telehealth acquisitions occurred On the Life Sciences side, we saw generally a similar story on deals involving winners. But I will turn it over to Kristin to provide more color. Kristin Pothier: The LS side was equally special in 2020 on both a global and a national scale. As the world locked down in March, deals dried up. For a few months, companies refocused on finishing deals that were in process, executing integration or separation of completed deals, and refreshing pipelines as we all weathered the pandemic. Able to keep each point on the screen as they roll in Biopharma: Overall higher deal volume Biopharma services: Innovation in virtual Diagnostics: Finally having its day in the sun However, global LS is at the heart of COVID-19, and companies able to combat the pandemic with new products and services bounced back. With exception of very specific subsectors, life sciences companies have now rebounded and deal-making resumed with transactions focusing on cell and gene therapies, biopharma and lab services, and precision medicine-based therapeutics and diagnostics. Dx company acquisition volume actually increased in 2020. We saw new acquisitions all based on the innovation in the space around novel testing and supporting targeted therapeutics, which is expected to continue. Although some diagnostics labs lost 75% of their volume, those that were able to shift volume or build out capacity to for COVID-19 testing had sizeable revenues. Overall reference lab-related deal volume remained steady in 2020, with an increase in interest in labs by new types of investors. So, what will be the pattern of M&A in 2021? Healthcare: A new normal Biopharma and Diagnostics: Focus on Innovation Medical Device: Return to Patient Care Our healthcare subsectors have been significantly strained by COVID-19, but this also has resulted in innovative shifts in care delivery, especially in telehealth, alternative care sites, and home-based care, and we expect continued interest in partnerships and deals in those forward. Cell and gene therapy, biopharma and lab services, and companies that contribute to the pace at which COVID vaccines and therapeutics need to be developed and/or manufactured will be special focuses. We expect to see more deals in molecular diagnostics. These targets are attractive because they offer platforms to drive growth. Other opportunities exist in moving drug discovery to clinical and less-invasive sampling (such as point of care and liquid biopsy). Medical device, most negatively affected by COVID-19, is still acquiring core and divesting non-core, signaling a renewed discipline and plans for a full rebound Finally, as we look into 2021, partnerships are just as interesting as deals. We participated in first-hand with our work with Bioreference and the NBA keep players playing, but also working with our medical institutions, states, labs, and other large employers. Partnerships have given investors more confidence to get creative in their approaches and view the resiliency of some companies to thrive during this pandemic. 2020 will be a year that in any language is unprecedented for what COVID-19 has done to our health systems, our economy, and our deals worldwide, and our learnings will carry us into the next decade. KPMG has developed a series of events to kick off 2021 and continue to release our insights on the market. KPMG Healthcare and Life Sciences Events Jan 14: Leavitt Linkedin Live Series Jan 25: 2021 KPMG Healthcare and Life Sciences Investment Outlook report release Jan 27: Goodwin and KPMG JPM Symposium Feb 2: 2021 KPMG Healthcare and Life Sciences Investment Outlook Virtual Event We look forward to your feedback and participation. Until then, from all of us in deal advisory, stay safe, stay well, and get ready for a monumental transaction year in 2021.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3350
__label__cc	0.654002	0.345998	How Global Elites Can Address Misinformation Gleb Tsipursky - December 8, 2019 (Dis)Trust in Science: What Can We Do About the Scourge of Misinformation? When Truth Isn’t Truth Fighting the Normalization of Post-Truth Politics Donald Trump’s rally speech in Phoenix on August 22 was full of falsehoods. The lack of outrage over his deceptive statements points to the... Trump’s Transgender Gaslighting Intentional - September 7, 2017 President Donald Trump signed a directive on Friday August 25 following up on his earlier tweets that he “will not accept or allow transgender... The One Thing Trump Got Right On Charlottesville Intentional - August 24, 2017 Both Democratic and Republican leaders roundly denounced President Donald Trump’s statement putting “blame on both sides” about the violence at the “Unite the Right”... Political Pre-Commitment Without Evidence: How Worldview Undermines Reason Intentional - July 25, 2017 By Joel Lehman _____________________ “And so castles made of sand, fall in the sea, eventually.” -Jimi Hendrix Can you recall a romantic relationship gone wrong, and notice in... Being A Weird American on Independence Day Gleb Tsipursky - July 7, 2017 In celebration of Independence Day, I want to share why I think of myself as a weird American. I’m very proud to be a citizen... A Behavioral Science Solution to Lies in Politics Intentional - July 7, 2017 Deception proved a very successful strategy for political causes and individual candidates in the UK and US elections in 2016, leading Oxford Dictionary to... Why Mainstream Media Need to Be Careful About Criticizing Conservatives Gleb Tsipursky - June 5, 2017 Many mainstream media outlets criticized conservatives with a broad brush over the Montana Congressional special election winner Republican Greg Gianforte assaulting a reporter, Ben... How Can Facts Trump Ideology? Gleb Tsipursky - May 29, 2017 Extensive evidence emerged in recent days that Donald Trump pressured and then fired FBI Director James Comey to block the FBI’s investigation of Trump’s... How Can We Tell Whether Comey’s Firing Was Justified? We all want our top investigative bodies to be headed by competent officials. We also all want to ensure that these officials can freely... What’s So Funny About Armageddon? Gleb Tsipursky - May 8, 2017 How Humor Can Save Us From Ourselves Written by Charles Cassidy MPhys, Director of Evidence-based Wisdom “This isn’t funny. America has just entered the darkest of...	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3352
__label__wiki	0.843502	0.843502	10 Things Kvothe Absolutely Needs to Do in Day 3 of Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicles Books Rob Bricken If you're a fan of Patrick Rothfuss' wonderful The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear, the first two books of The Kingkiller Chronicles, you know two things: 1) it's a wonderfully grounded tale set in an elaborate world of high fantasy, and 2) it seems like it's going to be completely impossible for Rothfuss to finish Kvothe's story in just one more book. Kvothe is a young magician and troubadour who's already a legend in his world, but has since mysteriously retired to become a humble innkeeper with the name of Kote. He is reluctantly telling his life history to a Chronicler over the course of three days (one day per book), but at the end of The Wise Man's Fear, Kvothe seems to have barely begun his story. But unlike other authors (coughGRRMcough) Rothfuss is sticking firm to his three-book structure — meaning Kvothe has so much he needs to do in the eventual final volume The Doors of Stone, a.k.a. "day 3." Here are the 10 things we hope Kvothe crosses off his "To Do" list whenever The Kingkiller Chronicles finally concludes. Spoilers ahead... 1) He's got to kill a king. The books are called The Kingkiller Chronicles after all, and now that Kvothe has told two-thirds of this story — although he's only up to his late teens — he hasn't met a single king yet, let alone killed one. The popular rumor on the internet is that Kvothe's archnemesis at the University, the noble brat Ambrose, will end up being king, although as it stands Ambrose is so far the way down the line of succession Kvothe can fight him pretty significantly and not get himself beheaded (not that Ambrose wouldn't like to). 2) He has to figure out the mystery of the Amyr and the Chandrian. In a story about a story about stories, there are tons of tales that remain half-told, but the one that has to reach some sort of conclusion is what is going on with the Chandrian, the mysterious, seemingly cursed, possibly immortal group of seven who serve as the Chronicles' main antagonists — as well as the Amyr, the order of church knights that had fought them until they also seem to have inexplicably disappeared. While most people regard the Chandrian as legends, Kvothe has first-hand knowledge of them — so it stands to reason the Amyr exist, too. But what happened, and where did they go? 3) He has to confront Cinder. Kvothe's search for the truth behind the Chandrian isn't just out of curiosity. He and his parents were Edema Ruh, a gypsy-esque, wandering people who often travel from town to town as wandering minstrels and entertainers. Kvothe's father began composing a song about the fall of the ancient hero Lanre, who lost his love, went mad and became the first of the seven Chandrian. But since the Chandrian are determined to erase (violently, if need be) almost all mention of themselves, Kvothe's entire troupe was murdered by them, and his parents killed specifically by than Chandrian named Cinder. Kvothe has been hunting him down ever since - only to randomly defeat a group of bandits who he later learned was led by Cinder. But for what possible purpose? 4) He has to talk to Gods (probably). In Kvothe's famous quote to the Chronicler at the beginning of his story, he says: "I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs to make the minstrels weep. You may have heard of me." So far he's burned down the town of Trebon (more or less; he actually stuffed a dragon full of heroin accidentally, and the dragon burned down the town), he's been expelled from the University (the bastion of education and magic on Kvothe's world, although the expulsion was almost instantly repealed) and slept with the faerie queen Felurian (not a metaphor, he went to the Faerie realm and did a lot of sex). But talking to Gods? We're not sure that's happened yet. Unless Kvothe is referring to the time he talked to Ctaegh, the hateful faerie tree that destroys the lives of everyone it speaks to (you really need to read these books). 5) He has to confront Denna's patron. The beautiful Denna isn't quite the love of Kvothe's life — they haven't slept together or anything, but they're entwined in pretty much every other way. Denna seems to have some connection to the Chandrian through her mysterious patron she refers to as "Master Ash," who Kvothe has sworn not to track down, even though the Ctaegh cruelly told him that Ash beats Denna. More confusingly, Master Ash had Denna compose a song about the fall of Lanre — again, the first Chandrian, who also destroyed seven entire cities — where Lanre is solely portrayed as a hero. What gives? (Note: If you've realized the possible connection between the Chandrian named Cinder and "Master Ash," go ahead and clap yourself on the back, but I promise there's no way Rothfuss is being that on-the-nose). 6) He has to figure out what the deal with the Doors are. Kvothe has encountered some very mysterious doors in his journey — the door covered with four plates of copper in the University library, the "lockless" door at the Lackless estate, the doors of stone that the man who stole the moon was put behind (thus tearing the normal and Faerie worlds apart — seriously, read these books) and more. We have no idea what their deal is. However, since the third book in The Kingkiller Chronicles is titled The Doors of Stone, I think it's safe to assume we'll be getting some sort of answer. 7) He has to steal a princess from a "sleeping barrow-king." If there's one part of Kvothe's quote that we can be sure he hasn't done, it's "steal a princess from a sleeping barrow-king." We have met no kings, no princesses, and even less barrows. Now, there is a girl named Auri - seemingly a former University student who got in a magical accident, went a bit mad, who now lives on the roofs of the University buildings and in the labyrinths below — but whether she'll be the princess in question is anybody's guess. 8) He has to transform into a humble, hidden Innkeeper. When the Chronicler first comes to the Waystone Inn, he meets Kvothe is in disguise as Kote, an exceedingly average innkeeper. Given the importance of words in this series, the change is more than in just his name — Kote seems to have lost his ability to do magic, fight, and a great deal more from his younger days.as Kvothe. There's a lot of things that need to happen to get from Kvothe at the end of The Wise Man's Fear to the subdued Kote of the present, almost all of it bad — with the possible exception of Bast, Kvothe's student and apprentice. But Bast is also a Faerie, and how he came to meet Kvothe is unknown... as are his current intentions, as he clearly has his own agenda in getting Kvothe to tell his tale and remember who he is. 9) He has to screw up the entire world. The world of The Kingkiller Chronicles is in bad shape when The Name of the Wind begins- - there are wars, conscripts, not enough food, general hardship, and, oh, giant, razor-sharp spider-monsters wandering towards civilization from the Stormwal mountains. As Kvothe/Kote flatly states in NotW, "All of this is my fault. The scrael, the war. All my fault." What the hell did Kvothe do? 10) He has to try to fix the present. It wouldn't be much of a tale if The Doors of Stone ended with Kvothe finishing his story then going back to work behind the bar of the inn while war and giant razor spiders tear the country apart. Chances are he's at least going to try to put things right, although whether perhaps Kvothe's future adventures might be better suited to another book set in the same world (just not part of The Kingkiller Chrionicles). Which would be fine, because these 10 things aren't even close to settling all the questions and mysteries presented in Rothfuss' fantastic series. I doubt we'll ever get all the answers, but it would be a shame for Kvothe's story to truly stop at The Doors of Stone. [Top art by Kim Kincaid] Fall Hammer ok Mr. Bricken you just moved up 4 points in my "Cool-O-Meter" for liking these books. You now have become an official Io9'er in my eyes (I am sure you have been waiting with bated breath for my approval)	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3355
__label__cc	0.591897	0.408103	Laule’a Laule'a quantity Category: CDs 1. Pohakuloa 2. M?lama Ka Punahou 3. Waihine ‘Ilikea 4. Ulupalakua 5. The Moon Represents My Heart 6. He Aloha No O Honolulu 7. Waik? 8. Ahe Lau Makani 9. Ka Punahou 10. Honolulu City Lights 11. Ka Nohona Pili Kai 12. Kamehameha Waltz 13. Ke Alaula 14. Ka Uluwehi O Ke Kai 15. I’ll Remember You In their third collaboration together, Lea Almanza and Jeff Peterson perform many of their favorite Hawaiian mele and introduce two new pieces to the Hawaiian repertoire. Lea sang Hawaiian songs for many years at Punahou school before embarking on a wonderful musical journey as a Soprano, singing opera in Italy, New York City, Singapore, China and beyond, before returning home to her beloved Hawai‘i. She is now a regular performer at Diamond Head Theatre and a sought after vocal teacher. Jeff was born and raised on Maui and was introduced to Hawaiian music at an early age by his father who was a Paniolo or Hawaiian Cowboy at the Haleakala Ranch. Music filled the air for much of Jeff’s childhood and got him interested in the Hawaiian style of open-tuned guitar playing called slack key. He went on to study classical and jazz guitar at the University of Southern California before returning home to teach and perform in Hawai‘i. He was featured on the first recording to win a Grammy Award for Hawaiian music, has two Grammy nominations, and has five N? H?k? Hanohano awards. He has toured extensively around the world across the US, Brazil, Venezuela, Australia, Japan, China, Africa, India, and around Hawai‘i as a solo artist and in collaboration with a variety of artists form Hawai‘i and abroad. The music of this recording reflects both Lea and Jeff’s love for their island home as well as their deep appreciation for the music of Hawai‘i. Produced and arranged by Jeff Peterson Recorded and mixed by Jeff Peterson and Darin Leong Background vocals by John Friedman Bass by Nathan Aweau Graphic Design by Shayna Kusumoto Photography by David and Shayna Kusumoto Hawaiian Language Coaches: Vicky Hollinger, Emma McGuire, Kawika McGuire, and Kanani Taliaferro Kelekolio Liner Notes by Jeff Peterson and Lea Woods Almanza Mamo Featuring Nathan Aweau and Jeff Peterson Slack Key Guitar – The Artistry of Jeff Peterson	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3361
__label__wiki	0.887226	0.887226	Ministers’ Wives: Rich or Corrupt? Thanks to various readers/netizens for contributing to this post. Links for verification and additional info below. 1. MINISTER’S WIVES in GIRL GUIDES ASSOCIATION a) Teo Chee Hean’s wife is Chew Poh Yim (“Mrs. Teo Poh Yim”). Chew Poh Yim was the 10th President of Girl Guides in Singapore. Girl Guides newsletter (2007). Source: GirlGuides.org.sg b) Joy Balakrishnan, wife of Vivian Balakrishnan, is the 11th President of Singapore Girl Guides Association. She is a teacher turned housewife. In 2015, Vivian Balakrishnan made the following comment (paraphrased): “Only Rich or Corrupt people work for free.” c) Mrs. Christine Dhanabalan, wife of former cabinet minister S. Dhanabalan, received an Honorary Membership to Girl Guides Association from Mrs. Joy Balakrishnan. 11th Girl Guides Singapore (GGS) president Joy Balakrishnan (in sleeveless white top), at the World Thinking Day 2015 event held at Methodist Girls’ School. Source: AsiaOne d) According to AsiaOne and GirlGuides.org.sg, Ms Chang Hwee Nee took over from 11th President, Mrs. Joy Balakrishnan, whose term of office ended on 30 May 2015. Chang Hwee Nee is the wife of Education Minister Heng Swee Keat. e) The patron of Girl Guides (in Singapore) has always been the First Lady (wife of the President). A CAS UK PDF document defines a patron’s role as follows: “Patrons” generally refers to well known or illustrious individuals who lend their name and support to an organisation. Mrs S R Nathan, former Patron of Girl Guides Singapore (GGS). 2011 GGS President, Mrs Joy Balakrishnan, presenting Mrs Nathan with the Long Service Award. 2011. On 12 November 2011, Mrs S R Nathan, former Patron of Girl Guides Singapore (GGS), received the Asia Pacific Region (APR) Appreciation Award. Mrs Nathan was also presented with the Long Service Award for her 12 years of dedication and invaluable support to the Girl Guiding movement. Girl Guides Singapore is registered as a Charity with the National Council of Social Services (NCSS). Girlguiding is a charitable organisation and adult leaders are not paid for their time. 2. MINISTER’S WIVES in BREADLINE GROUP Breadline Patrons (Executive Committee Report: 2014/2015). a) Breadline is run by Richard Lim, with the minimum of overheads – eg no office. Richard dedicates many hours to his work on a voluntary basis. From the organisation’s website: The Breadline Group is a community service comprising of volunteers. It was formed because we share a concern for the welfare of the old and needy in Singapore, and want to channel our efforts towards helping them. b) Patrons are mentioned as Mrs. Jek Yuen Thong, Mrs. S. Dhanabalan, Dr. Sheryn Mah Bow Tan, and Dr. Seetha Shanmugam. c) Jek Yuen Thong was the former Minister for Labour and Minister for Culture. He was part of the People’s Action Party’s Old Guard of politicians. Christine Tan and S. Dhanabalan. Source: YTL Corporation (Photo: MFA) Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Law K Shanmugam, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, Mrs Sare Davutoğlu and Dr Seetha Shanmugam having a taste of durians, 3 July 2013 d) Christine Tan Khoon Hiap is the wife of former cabinet minister S. Dhanabalan. e) Dr. Seetha Shanmugam, a Berkeley-educated, Chicago-trained clinical psychologist (not a foreign talent), is the wife of Law and Foreign Minister K. Shanmugam. Minister K. Shanmugam was previously married to Jothie Rajah, the daughter of K. S. Rajah, former Judicial Commissioner of the Supreme Court of Singapore. Jothie Rajah, ex-wife of K. Shanmugam. Image from American Bar Foundation Jothie Rajah’s critical book on SG legal system, published in 2012. Shanmugam’s marriage to Dr Jothie Rajah failed and they divorced after 15 years, due to “mutual incompatibility.” In 2012, Dr Jothie Rajah wrote Authoritarian Rule Of Law, a critical text which alleges that the rule of law is a subjugating rather than liberalising force in Singapore. Shanmugam said he had not read the book. In 2012, Shanmugam sent a lawyer’s letter to blogger Alex Au to remove “defamotary comments” with regard to an alleged affair with MP Foo Mee Har. As yet, no lawyer’s letter has been sent to U.S.-based lawyer Gopalan Nair, whose blog post contains a detailed comment on Shanmugam’s “affair with a Chinese colleague” while working in Allen and Gledhill law firm (where Shanmugam was formerly a senior partner). In 2015, Shanmugam wanted to make a police report over an “inaccurate and seditious” Facebook post. Sheryn Mah profile on SG Tatler. Mrs S R Nathan, wife of the President, with Dr Sheryn Mah, wife of Minister for National Development Mah Bow Tan, at the reception during official opening of new premises of St Andrew’s Autism Centre at No. 1 Elliot Road, 2011. Source: NAS Mah Bow Tan, Sheryn Mah and Adrian Mah. Source: Prestige Events / VIP f) Sheryn Mah, wife of Mah Bow Tan, sits on the board of directors of Compassion Fund and is the president of Mainly I Love Kids (MILK), a non-profit charity organisation providing aid to disadvantaged children. 3. MINISTERS’ WIVES re: NATIONAL KIDNEY FOUNDATION (NKF) In 2005, Tan Choo Leng (Mrs. Goh Chok Tong) stepped down as the patron of NKF after the T T Durai corruption scandal. She is remembered for describing a S$600,000 annual salary as “peanuts.” The organisation’s signboard in front of NKFS headquarter in Kim Keat Road was vandalised after the scandal broke out. Image from Wikipedia. Tan Choo Leng and T T Durai. Ho Ching, wife of PM Lee Hsien Loong. Mrs. Goh Chok Tong had previously supported Durai. Ms. Ho Ching, the CEO of Temasek Holdings, asked for continued support for the NKF after the scandal broke. On the issue of the CEO’s pay, she said: “I would not begrudge Mr Durai a proper and well-earned compensation and bonus.” Singapore Politics September 2, 2015 June 25, 2019 PAP Relatives: Former and Current MPs 3 thoughts on “Ministers’ Wives: Rich or Corrupt?” CRIMOND G says: The comment about a CEO’s $600,000 being peanuts says Everything that one needs to know about the character of the person who made it. Need more be said ? Martin Loh says: The fornicatory relations of the ruling class, both in bed and out of bed, have imparted a stench to Singapore which has proved to be more lingering that the most serious Indonesian haze that blew into this land of ours. Deepika Dheer says: Only rich or corrupt work for free ?? Then what about VOLUNTEERS and humble people all over over the world who did genuine services for people in need. Why can’t a NORMAL man provide services in free to the people in need ??	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3364
__label__wiki	0.924134	0.924134	Andy Stanton, the author has been a cartoonist and film script reader. He studied English at Oxford but they kicked him out. His favourite expressions are ‘Good evening’ and ‘The truth is a lemon meringue!’ and his favourite word is ‘captain’. Mr Gum An angry bathtub fairy, a stinky old man, chocolates made by dolphins and lemon meringue pie! All in this zany, off-the-wall new series from comic genius/ beardy turnip-head Andy Stanton. Andy Stanton’s You’re a Bad Man, Mr Gum is the first in a series of fantastic nonsensical books which evoke memories of Roald Dahl and Edward Lear. His characters are whimsical, hideous, beastly, ridiculous but outrageously funny. In Mr Gum and the Biscuit Billionaire, Mr Gum...	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3366
__label__cc	0.720974	0.279026	Savings to be made through energy planning Paul Osborne The growth in renewable power generation has pushed down power bills, but a new report warns of higher prices if the coal plant switch-off is not properly managed. The Energy Security Board on Tuesday released a major report into the health of the national electricity market. It said without a smooth transition from Australia’s reliance on coal-fired power to renewables, power prices could be pushed higher. “Properly considered investments in generation and networks should improve overall affordability, but inappropriate investment will not,” the report said. The shift to wind and solar also needs careful management to ensure the electricity system can consistently meet required settings in terms of frequency and voltage. Wind and solar are non-synchronous and do not have the same technical characteristics as thermal and hydro power generation. As well, Australia needed to consider how to balance cutting emissions and ensuring reliable electricity. By the end of 2020, emissions in the national electricity market will be 25 per cent below 2005 levels and by 2030 this reduction is expected to be well over 50 per cent, the report said. There have been concerns about the closure of NSW’s Liddell plant in 2023-24 putting reliability at risk, but the report notes the upgrade to the Queensland-NSW transmission interconnector is progressing well and local new renewable generation of around 900MW is under way. Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor said the post-2025 work was important in keeping the lights on and costs down. “The national electricity market is at a turning point, with expanding choices, new technologies and large-scale replacement of thermal generation needed as older power stations leave the market,” Mr Taylor said. “Taking action now is critical and will minimise disruptions, and avoid unintended consequences.” ESB chair Dr Kerry Schott said there were repercussions from rapid changes in the electricity system, such as the massive popularity of rooftop solar. “We’re moving in the right direction, but major changes are needed to unlock value to customers and ensure capital investments are made in an efficient and timely manner to deliver the affordable, reliable and secure electricity consumers need,” she said. Categories: Environment, Ethical Investing Retailers enjoyed pre-Christmas spend-up Treasurer cool on JobKeeper extension call Retail sales rose 7.1 per cent in November Paying the bills so you can focus on getting better	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3368
__label__cc	0.719604	0.280396	Tag Archives: editing October 20, 2016 joanbarbarasimon Leave a comment Daughter: Mum, your website’s crap. Me: Really? Daughter: Like, seriously. Way too much text. Me: But I’m a writer… Daughter: So what? People don’t want to read all of that. Don’t want to scroll all day long. Just get to the point. My daughter’s been telling me this for ages. I won’t say how long because I feel embarrassed to admit how resistant I was to her critique. I thought every word on my website had its justification and I thought my website was better than many I had browsed. But she insisted: it was crap. She hated the colour of the background. ‘Keep it simple, mum!’ She found the texts too high-brow and long-winded. She hated my book covers. Somewhere in me a voice was saying, what do you care, she’s not your target audience anyway. Somewhere else another voice was saying: she may have a point. Step one, treat yourself to a professional cover designer. Step two, it’s a website, not a novel. To cut a long story short, my daughter won. And do you know what? I’m glad she did. conversationeditingwebsitewriting style Letters & Interviews, Writer's Kitchen FarmLife, October 31, 2015 Today I return to the farm. The last time I was there I almost broke my back picking apples from trees that fringe the high grass for minutes and minutes beyond the view of the main house and stables. I had spent the whole day making compote yet there were tons of apples left and another tree still laden, the fruit now falling to the ground with a sigh, with a muffled tut. Today I’ll almost break my back again bumping that wheelbarrow (how many times this time?) back to the house. Then the kitchen will be warm, sweet-smelling and sticky. I imagine that I am two generations older and that grandchildren will soon come charging in to lick out the pots. They’ll get their knuckles rapped! It tastes so much nicer when it’s hot, they’ll say. Later, I will fall into bed, into the arms of a man who too wants his share of sweet stickiness. What else to do but laugh and I give in, the both of us happy for the night; for its rewards for a hard day’s work. This piece started its life as an email to a friend, but then it wouldn’t let me go so I elaborated it, my mind already linking it to a new novel high on my To Do list. The farm, a place I like to retreat to, where physical work offers a welcomed change. Soothing. The bath at the end of the day all the more delicious. Notes about life there could well become a regular feature on my blog. Let’s see applescountry lifeeditingfarmharvestProsework-in-progress March 15, 2015 joanbarbarasimon Leave a comment Dirty little angel. That sums me up 🙂 I’ve collected some wonderful visual data these last few days. Excellent propositions for my (long due) business card, but if I share these on FAKEBOOK before the cards are even printed, who do the images belong to? THEM, no doubt. Daughter’s on the cross-trainer in our fitness room, heart-&-soul with Lady Gaga’s Born This Way. Could be my anthem too. Next track: Work, Bitch (Britney Spears). Yes, that dirt is real (not placed there for deliberate effect). No, we’re not at my place!! Not dusting the angel. Not dusting my angel either. My thesis is getting a good spring clean, though. Reading my notes 2011-2014. (Too?) Much has lost its relevance. Let’s call this process: honing. Now the real work starts: the writing of a novel (Verses Nature) for the creative component of the thesis. And for the theoretical part: my understanding of William Faulkner’s take on authoritarian texts and how this relates to heterodoxy of voice and style (hence language and genre). If this were a song, the main background singers would be the Russian scholar Bakhtin (read in translation) and the French philosopher Jacques Derrida (sexy. dead. pity. read in original and in translation. texts often abstruse. pity). Two years of discipline ahead. Stick to my cue cards! Will I be able to complete the first draft of the novel and the first theoretical chapter by the end of the year? Should be able to manage the abstracts for three chapters (and one publishable paper?) by the summer. Glad to have my blog(s) to bring variety – and fun! – to the task. authoritarian textsBakhtinDerridaeditinggenreheterodoxylanguagelogbookstylethesisVerses NaturevoiceWilliam Faulkner Verses Nature, Writer's Kitchen Dancing with our Devils: Dialogism within & across Writing/Reading Processes February 26, 2015 joanbarbarasimon Leave a comment I’ve mentioned my PhD in Creative Writing on more than one occasion. Here’s the proposal accepted by Bangor University (Wales, UK) back in 2010: My aim is to produce a novel and critical analysis in which I extend my exploration of the Self, a central theme in my professional life as in the fiction I have published so far. I sense deeply that the borders of my own self have never been satisfactorily defined. I prioritise Woman where many only see Black. I am trilingual (English, French, German). My passport states I am British, but I have lived abroad for twenty years and feel at home in France, where the immediate reaction of most is to allocate me to some African country I have never been to. Germans assume I am American. When I say I am British, or worse, English, they respond with an amused, confused, smile. The result of such persistent unclarity is a sense of being in limbo; a fear of disappearing down the cracks in the middle of multiple, at times antagonistic states of being. It also entails dialogic and dialectic stances respectively; a moving in and out of various zones of experiences within and beyond the Self. In truth, however, there is no Self, only a nation of Selves, every experience feeding the incessant quest for definition and sense as we progress, regress and pivot through time. In this thesis, I wish to take this notion further than I have done so far. My aim is to combine exploration of Self with the erosion of generic literary boundaries; to cast aside the final safety net to see what happens when all is set in motion. I seek to test a new border; our tolerance of no/fewer borders, no/fewer clear-cuts, only the ‘game’ of the open, the permeable, the game of ‘possibles’ as I dismantle the novel as we cherish it. In The Red Room (2006), in which I first express my need to question the ‘givens’, the no doubt well-intended yet market-oriented advice not to mix styles made me sensitive to the extent to which we are, indeed, inclined to resist novelty, even in a branch which, as I understand it, should in fact promote novelty. The ‘novel’, it seems, should be in the message but not in the form. With Long Time Walk on Water (2007), I subvert the conventional novel by blending generic forms (fairytale, novel, nursery rhymes, poetry, letters), linguistic styles (cockney, standard English, Jamaican creole) and by smudging the boundaries of time and character, the latter changing names like garments, the former shifting like the plates of the earth. In Mut@tus (2009), fragmentation is explored online as I sound out the boundaries between the real and the virtual, using language to go beyond language as I ‘voice’ my frustration at the interpretive liberties granted to the visual arts yet denied writers. Writing, for me, is as much alchemy as it is an act of resistance. I have always been impressed by such writers as dare to question the givens, who manage to liberate, if not emancipate us: Jean Rhys, Carson McCullers, Virginia Woolf, Gayle Jones. A thesis in creative writing would allow me to enhance the act of writing by exposing the critical reflections which accompany, or feed, the creative and interpretive processes for both the writer and the reader. My initial research question is: How many devils may we dance with in modern fiction? How may dialogism redefine literary genres and reading-writing processes? Synopsis of Verses Nature Mazelle is a Black British journalist and Francophile. Jean-Joseph, her counterpart, stinks of Male Pig. All the same, he will pay her well to write his life story, and journalism does not provide Mazelle with the professional or intellectual satisfaction she had wished for. As far as he is concerned, Jean-Joseph, a self-made man in his late fifties, a fascist and self-proclaimed connoisseur of the opposite sex, he was sure he could summon up the generosity to ignore the fact that she was a black feminist as long as she did what he was paying her to do; to be his Nègre (French word for ghost-writer). The ensuing intellectual battle is reflected in the heterogeneous synoptic and linguistic structure of the novel as it mutates between poetry, prose, journal, transcript, stream of consciousness, confession, liturgy and therapy, addressing, as it does so, themes such as art, philosophy, politics, gender, sexuality and spirituality. Mazelle is both a journalist and a novelist. Correlations between novelists and journalists in their capacity to bring people the ‘news’ is extended to religious/fascist texts in that the missionary/political motives of the latter two, their communal ‘poetics’, essentially erode the dialogically reflexive Self, promoting instead a consensual, ‘circumcised’ I. Aye. The biblical and journalistic dovetail once again in their depiction of womanhood, sexuality and in their instrumentalization of fear. As Mazelle is very much woman, and Jean-Joseph very much man, at some point which defies naming, sexual attraction inevitably emerges. The battle becomes an intellectual, erotic Kampf; one in which not only the boundaries of Self, but also the boundaries between Mazelle and Jean-Joseph, between pleasure and pain, are called into question. The novel will be entitled Verses Nature as I would like to solicit us to relinquish the old ‘givens’ in exchange for a new harmony (nature); a new order (verses) based on the inherent conflicts (versus) of Being. News is not a ‘given’, however much we should – or want – to believe it is so. News is creative; in a sense, it is a story, an art form (surrealist at times…) and as in Long Time Walk on Water, where I dissolve the membrane between fact and fiction, here, the larger, or higher question is an epistemological-philosophical one: What is real? Do I need to know? What can I bear to know? I do not know how the novel will end. Once I abandon myself to writing, I am more victim than perpetrator. I only know that I want to keep pushing and questioning boundaries, and to thereby explore not only the Self but equally the limits of my own literary tolerance with regard to character and style as I dare to produce something new. Commentary/critical analysis There is nothing at all that I formerly believed to be true of which it is impossible to doubt. (Descartes,1596-1650) Peut-on parler de la langue dans une (seule) langue? (can one speak of language in a single language ?) (Derrida, 1996.) The above citations underscore my critical approach to the art, the craft and science of writing, which I will explore in this section in relation to my proposed thesis and its main question: How many devils may we dance with in modern fiction? How may dialogism redefine literary genres and reading-writing processes? The Cartesian systematisation of doubt heralds a passage to modernity; the realisation of the idea of the autonomy of man. Applied to literature, it invites us to regard doubt as catalyst for reflection and call into question generic conservatism, which I shall term ‘phenotypical monogamy/purism’ (phenotype being a word I borrow from cultural psychology). Derrida’s notion of deconstruction, of plurality, folds into the Bakhtinian concept of dialogism, itself relating to the currently popular idea of ecology within the human sciences, in particular with regard to language, and thus, also literature and reading/interpretation. We may no longer argue that we speak, or ‘receive’ in a monolithic way – references should be liminal, tenuous; abstract. Impressionistic? Taken together, the above quotes solicit us, readers, and more importantly here, the writer, to pull away from and challenge the ‘givens’, in favour of entertaining new possibilities; possibilities to replace, re-place, displace, deconstruct and, ultimately, ‘democratise’ what Wertsch calls our ‘narrative templates’ (Wertsch, 2002); our genres, and the boundaries we draw between them. Boundaries harbour an imperative to make a decision, to position oneself, to act. As I state in Mut@tus: ‘there will always be a line, as there will always be a beyond the line. Question is: where do you stand in relation to the line?’ I want to straddle the lines, I advocate phenotypical promiscuity, an opening up and dishevelling of borders In relation to the novel as a genre or phenotype, my aim is twofold. I want not only to make the creative process transparent, hybrid and, at times, surrealist, but also, and somehow, my aim is to redefine the relationship between reader and writer, making the novel phenomenological not simply at the level of plot, but of design; the reader should feel (s)he is orchestrating the novel with me. The intention is concrete although the strategy has yet to emerge. With regard to form, I cannot but resist slotting my project into one of the neat little boxes on offer: post-modern, realist, etc, since the whole point is not to attribute it to a particular genre, but to free fall through the prism of possibilities. In so doing, I will draw from the world of music and art: impressionism (e.g. Monet), cubism (e.g. Klee), surrealism (e.g. Dali), but also literature (e.g. Rhys, Woolf, Prévert, Böll), psychology and philosophy. I want to move beyond the triumvirate of drama, poetry and prose advocated by Aristotle as I straddle the science and art of fiction. Here, it is less a matter of Word and more a question of (the multiplicity of) Form. It is, if you like, the word in relation to semiotic or synoptic contiguity. The triumvirate will need to welcome new playmates. I envisage a synergy between narrating, reporting, and dream, using transcripts and scholia, borrowing them from scientific writing, and adding to their number the synoptic layout of columns, as in the more popular genre of journalism, but also familiar to us from religious texts. I intend to play with these elements as Wittgenstein propounds; make of them a ‘game’. News will become as creative as poetry. Language will step beyond the limits of linguistics and recruit the semiotic prerogative previously reserved for the visual arts. I do not, however, wish to divorce structural phenotpyes entirely from their original contexts, which will co-reside in the reader’s mind in my n o v e l novel (extra spacing in the adjective n o v e l intended). Writing the critical analysis, in particular from the vantage of literary theory, will be the most difficult part of the overall thesis for me. I am the painter who can neither name the form nor the colour; the musician who has yet to learn to read a score. The thesis will demand that the artist becomes a scientist, able to reflect critically, appraise and operationalise creative-interpretive processes. I will have to discover the science of fiction, at the same time as I write and contribute to the field myself. I will need to familiarise myself with the field’s terminologies and theories, which I am unable to refer to with a satisfying degree of certainty here, although my indicative bibliography points to where I will begin to look in order to set my work and my understanding within solid theoretical parameters. Such methodology, naturally, evolves in tandem with writing the novel itself. As such, it cannot be prescribed. This is where I gulp and go slightly weak at the knees. Boundaries do offer comfort, after all, and I have willingly thrown myself into an arena where there are none, for not only do I renounce those which have structured the art of writing fiction, but I have yet to find, or appropriate, those which frame the science of writing/interpreting fiction. I risk drowning in my own bile – I will not call it hubris – but that is precisely what I want to find out. As a peer reviewer of articles on cognition and education, I have grown suspicious of the ‘fact’ that research never seems to go wrong, but invariably yields a neat, polished ‘product’ that confirms any original hypothesis. Pseudo-empiricism? The artist, at least, may openly advocate the creative element in his or her depiction of ‘facts’. We know things go wrong. I want to write something novel, spreading the colours on my palette (i.e. the themes addressed: zoniferousness, voice, self as project and projection, violence, fascism, misogyny, religion, etc) with selected brushes (i.e. phenotypes: transcript, scholia, poetry, prose, journalism, stream of consciousness, diary) to create an impression, though not to dupe. To balance the ‘science’ of fiction with the ‘art’ of fiction will be an extremely delicate act. Having matured as a writer during the last decade, I now feel ready for the challenge afforded by this thesis, which I intend to complete on a part-time basis (max 15h/wk), and which, I am convinced, will provide the ideal parameters for my personal and professional growth as I dance, as I dialogue with epistemological devils in an interdisciplinary manner in the true spirit of dialogism. (Attached was also a detailed bibliography, I’ll spare you that. As you can imagine, a lot has happened since submitting the proposal. I’ll be sharing some of that. Struggling with my female characters; none of them have a voice as strong as Tatar’s. The more theoretical aspects of my thesis along with sample fieldnotes will appear in my Writer’s Kitchen. Literary excerpts will appear in the rubric Verses Nature. Do me a favour; tell me what you think. I’d love to publish some of your reflections in the appendix to the novel (a novel with an appendix? why not?). Hard work ahead. Fun and despair on the programme too. This is a safe space, right? Then you won’t mind if I not only whoop but occasionally cry.) AnalysisBakhtincommentaryDerridadevilsdialogismeditingfictionFieldnotesgenreheterodoxyheteroglossiaPhDprocessesreadingsynopsistheorythesisvoicewritingzones guest blogger, Words Worth MY VIEW – A Women’s Issues Feature November 15, 2014 joanbarbarasimon Leave a comment editingvoicewomen	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3369
__label__wiki	0.558664	0.558664	Avril Lavigne Links mostra i link di avril lavigne (421-430 of 707) Lindsay Lohan gets into a fight with Avril Lavigne Appartently people are saying Lindsay got into a fight with Avril Lavigne at the chateau Marmont hotel last week inviato da Laguna più di un anno fa Avril Lavigne moves on from marriage diviso, spalato as she lunches with new boyfriend Brody Jenner inviato da princess829 più di un anno fa Info & immagini of Avril's mansion <3 It's old info but It's interesting. Also has pics of rooms in her house which match up to the room she is in for Deryck's Party. proof that it is her house. 2180 Stratford Circle, Los Angeles :) inviato da emmett più di un anno fa Avril tenth most popolare celebrity inviato da viju più di un anno fa Avril on #10 on most popolare women! Avril and Brandon Davis?? Brody & Avril at Race to Erase MS event Avril and Brody got ANOTHER matching tattoo. 'Think About It' Avril's new song official lyrics! Avril Official New Twitter! Avril just got a twitter! Follow the link to follow her there and get the inside scoop on Avril's life <3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 Avril Lavigne Related Sites Avril Lavigne Club Associati The Best Damn Thing Black stella, star Avril & Deryck Anichu90 Forbidden Rose	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3375
__label__wiki	0.579924	0.579924	santa cruz weather september 93 F El Trompillo Airport Station \| Report. September, the first month of the autumn, in Santa Cruz, is still a warm month, with average temperature varying between 74.5°F (23.6°C) and 52.5°F (11.4°C). The climate in Santa Cruz during September can be summarized as mild and dry. Africa; North America; South America; Asia The September weather guide for Santa Cruz, California shows long term weather averages processed from data supplied by CRU (University of East Anglia), the Met Office & the Netherlands Meteorological Institute. Jul Temperature 25 °C 77 °F; High Temperature 28 °C 82 °F; Low Temperature 22 °C 72 °F; Sunshine Hours 7 hours; Rainfall 10 mm; Rainfall Days 3 days; Sea Temperature 24 °C 75 °F Weather in Santa Cruz de Tenerife in September: air temperature, number of sunny days, precipitation, air pressure and humidity. climate-data.org. Temperature 25 °C 77 °F; High Temperature 28 °C 82 °F; Low Temperature 22 °C 72 °F; Sunshine Hours 9 hrs; Rainfall 10 mm; Rainfall days 3 days; Sea Temperature 23 °C 73 °F The first month of the autumn, September, is also a moderately hot month in Santa Cruz de la Palma, Spain, with temperature in the range of an average low of 21.3°C (70.3°F) and an average high of 26.6°C (79.9°F). Report Station. You You can hope to have about 13 days with … Daytime temperatures usually reach 24°C in Santa Cruz in September, falling to 10°C at night. Record low & record high temperatures The highest temperature ever recorded in Tenerife in September (at Tenerife South Airport station) was of 41.8°C and the lowest was of 16.5°C. The climate nice here the month of september. Temperatures in September in Tenerife are still around 30°C during the daytime and the nights continue to be pleasant with temperatures in the low 20s°C. May In Santa Cruz, the average percentage of the sky covered by clouds experiences significant seasonal variation over the course of the year.. The weather in september in Santa Cruz Island is dry ; it never rains. Sep Santa Cruz de Tenerife Weather September Averages, Canary Islands. September weather forecast for Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain. Temperature The warmest months are August and September, with an average high-temperature of 25°C (77°F). Low 43F. Get your weekly fix of holiday inspiration from some of the world's best travel writers plus save on your next trip with the latest exclusive offers. Temperature With an average high-temperature of 26.6°C (79.9°F) and an average low-temperature of 21.3°C (70.3°F), September is the warmest month. There are normally 9 hours of bright sunshine each day in Santa Cruz in September - that's 75% of daylight hours. September is in the fall / autumn in Santa Cruz and is typically the 2nd warmest month of the year. Average temperatures register between 21°C at night and 27°C at the hottest point of the day. September falls in the rainy season with an average precipitation of 168mm (6.6in). Jan The average minimum temperature (usually the minimum temperature is noted during the night) in Santa Cruz in September is 24.7°C (76.46°F). climate-data.org. Daytime temperatures usually reach 25°C in Santa Cruz in September with no heat and humidity, falling to 19°C at night. As summer winds to an end, it’s prime time to head outdoors to soak up those last days of sunshine. Select a destination to see more weather parameters. There are usually 2 days with some rain in Santa Cruz in September and the average monthly rainfall is 10mm. The average sea temperature around Santa Cruz in September is 14°C. Map showing location of Santa Cruz (36.97412, -122.0308). Continents Select a continent. For Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the month of September marks the end of the dry season with around two days of rain during the month and as little as 10mm of rainfall. Winds NNE at 5 to 10 mph. There are normally 9 hours of bright sunshine each day in Santa Cruz in September - that's 75% of daylight hours. The first month of the autumn, September, is still a warm month, with average temperature varying between 28.1°C (82.6°F) and … Daytime maximum temperatures average around 24Â°C (76Â°F), whilst at night 11Â°C (51Â°F) is normal. Annual Weather Averages in Santa Cruz Based on weather reports collected during 1985–2015. The seasonal minimum is 70°F. These temperatures are far removed from those records observed in Santa Cruz in september with a maximum record of 95°F in 2014 and a minimum record of 32°F in 2019. Hi/Low, RealFeel®, precip, radar, & everything you need to be ready for the day, commute, and weekend! Information about regional climates. Consider visiting Santa Cruz in the months of June, July, August, September, for the best beach weather.Also consider one of our other suggestions for September. The minimum is 76°F. This rainfall is typically spread over 2 days, although this may vary considerably. Daytime maximum temperatures average around 24°C (76°F), whilst at night 11°C (51°F) is normal. The thermometer averaged maximum of 77°F. Below are average maximum temperatures at popular destinations in California in September. The data used in these monthly averages covers a period of over 100 years right up until last year. Select a month to view Santa Cruz sunrise & sunset times for the next twelve months. Apr precipitation 0.2" (avg.) Thank you for reporting this station. Weather Underground provides local & long-range weather forecasts, weatherreports, maps & tropical weather conditions for the Santa Cruz area. Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, Bolivia Weather Calendar star_ratehome. Montly weather forecast in Santa Cruz de Tenerife on Yandex.Weather. On the flip side this corresponds to an average of 10.1 hours of sunshine per day. Brittany Ferries Cruise Nation DFDS English Heritage Enterprise Explore! The weather remains relatively temperate throughout both seasons and so it’s always a good time to visit the Galapagos Islands. September is in the fall / autumn in Santa Cruz and is typically the 3rd warmest month of the year. Nov ☂ Online precipitation map and other weather maps. How warm is the sea around Santa Cruz in September? Aug San Francisco International Airport and downtown Oakland hit 102, respectively surpassing former highs of 94 in 2004 and 95 in 1979, while Richmond and Salinas hit 103 and Santa Cruz … Browse the sunrise & sunset times for Santa Cruz in September 2021. The climate quite enjoyable in this city september. Thus, the mean temperature average on this month of september in Santa Cruz Island is 74°F. Dec. September 2020 Long Range Weather Forecast for Pacific Southwest; Dates Weather Conditions; Sep 1-3: Showers, cool: Sep 4-8: Sunny inland; am sprinkles, pm sun coast; cool: Sep 9-15: Sunny; hot inland, cool coast: Sep 16-18: Sunny, hot: Sep 19-27: Sunny, warm: Sep 28-30: Showers, cool: September: temperature 71° (1° above avg.) September is in the fall / autumn in Santa Cruz and is typically the 2nd warmest month of the year. On average September is the 4th driest month of the year in Santa Cruz with around 10mm 0.4 inches of rain making it a dry time to visit. September is a hot time for sunbathing in Santa Cruz.September is a good month for swimming in Santa Cruz with warm sea temperatures. Showing: All Year January February March April May June July August September October November December We will review the data in question. Weather in Santa Cruz in September: air temperature, number of sunny days, precipitation, air pressure and humidity. Rainfall In Santa Cruz, PortugalPortugal NNE 6 mph Clear early then increasing cloudiness after midnight. However, those who enjoy seeing the sights with less crowds may opt for the winter months regardless of weather. On average September is the 4th driest month of the year in Santa Cruz with around 0.4 inches of rain making it a dry time to visit. Find out more about our data sources. Average winter temperatures are a bit too cool to enjoy many of Santa Cruz's charms, and the chance of rain and humidity is a bit higher during those months as well. Average Weather during September in Santa Cruz, Jamaica. Get the forecast for today, tonight & tomorrow's weather for Santa Cruz, CA. Montly weather forecast in Santa Cruz on Yandex.Weather. September, the first month of the autumn, in Santa Cruz, is also a moderately hot month, with temperature in the range of an average high of 25°C (77°F) and an average low of 19°C (66.2°F). Daytime temperatures usually reach 24°C in Santa Cruz in September, falling to 10°C at night. First Choice FloridaTix Hoseasons James Villas Jet2.com Jet2holidays Love Holidays On the Beach Rail Europe - formerly Loco2 RHS Saga Holidays TUI Virgin Atlantic VRBO (formerly HomeAway) More... We help you find the best travel deals for your holiday in the sun by sharing tips on when and where to go, before providing you with top discounts. Get the monthly weather forecast for Santa Cruz, CA, including daily high/low, historical averages, to help you plan ahead. Get your weekly fix of holiday inspiration from leading travel writers. *affiliate links: find out how we are funded and why this helps us remain free to use. November 28, 2020 Calendar of free events, paid events, and things to do in Santa Cruz, CA Feb Where to relive the Summer of Love, San Francisco, New airline routes & holiday destinations for 2021/2022, Top 10 summer sun holiday destinations in September, Love Holidays sale: up to 40% on holidays, Black Friday sale: best deals & discount codes, Virgin Atlantic Black Friday sale: up to 25% off flights, lastminute.com sale: 50% off gift vouchers, VRBO: Holiday rentals with free cancellation, Where to go in 2021: 11 destinations to rediscover travel, Where to book family holidays with free child places, Where to go on holiday in January for the best weather, Where to go on holiday in December for the best weather, Quarantine-free holidays & Covid Cover with TUI, coronavirus (COVID-19) updates for the USA, Flightright: Claim flight delay compensation, Browse the best deals on hotel stays & compare prices, Check lowest rates by month & also by day of the week, Search by date or browse hotels by destination & map, Claim for delayed & cancelled flights + missed connections, Enter flight number or from/to airports + date. If you’re looking for events and activities in Santa Cruz in September, our favorites below will be sure to heat up your social calendar. Average Weather in September in Santa Cruz California, United States. Temperature September is the warmest month, with an average high-temperature of 74.5°F (23.6°C) and an average low-temperature of 52.5°F (11.4°C). As such they are a valid prediction of what to expect for the weather in Santa Cruz in September 2020. Thus, the mean temperature average in september in Santa Cruz is 81°F. Information about regional climates. Jun The climate in Santa Cruz during September can be summarized as very hot, humid and very wet. There are normally 7 hours of bright sunshine each day in Santa Cruz in September - that's 54% of daylight hours . How sunny is it in Santa Cruz in September? Weather ☀ ⛅ Santa Cruz de Tenerife ☀ ⛅ September ☀ ⛅ Information on temperature, sunshine hours, water temperature & rainfall in September for Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Weather forecast in mobile app. Get the latest coronavirus (COVID-19) updates for the USA with current travel advice, statistics and online resources. Metric (°C / mm) \| Imperial (°F / inches). How sunny is it in Santa Cruz in September? Temperatures are up to 88°F. Santa Cruz Weather Forecasts. Mar ☂ Online precipitation map and other weather maps. Santa Cruz Weather September Averages, Canary Islands. Among the innumerable things to do in Santa Cruz in September are dozens of cultural, food and nature festivals, plays and concerts. Oct Weather forecast in … Coastal Flood Advisory in effect until Monday, 2:00 PM PST. The average maximum temperature lies around 31.0°C (87.8°F). GALÁPAGOS WEATHER - WHEN TO GOAlthough the Galápagos has a plethora of wildlife, it only has two seasons: the cool and dry season that lasts from July through December and the hot and rainy season that goes from January through June. Daytime maximum temperatures average around a steamy 32°C (90°F), whilst at … Nit Calicut Placements, How To Pronounce Excruciating, Subaru Impreza 2021, Best Class Thorium, Burts Bees Rosewater Toner Reddit, Nj Deer Zone Map, How To Make Your Mic Louder On Xbox One 's, Sawfish Vs Shark, Apple Pie Filling Yellow Cake Mix Bundt, santa cruz weather september 2020	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3378
__label__cc	0.612945	0.387055	Kdrama Kisses Everyone remembers the first time they were kissed by a kdrama! Kdrama Resources ← “Terius Behind Me” Pulls Into the Lead in Korean Drama Ratings Brief Look at Moon Chae Won in First Trailer for Korean Drama “Mama Fairy and the Woodcutter” → Thirty But Seventeen Korean Drama Review Posted on October 8, 2018 by Kay Thirty But Seventeen (or 30 But 17) tells the story of a 17 year old girl (Shin Hye Sun) who gets in an accident, falls into a coma, and wakes up when she is 30 years old. While trying to rebuild her life, she meets a reclusive man (Yang Se Jong) with a traumatic past, and the two find healing together. Thirty But Seventeen turned out to be such a funny, endearing, and heartwarming drama! This is the definition of a feel good drama. It’s fairly simple, but it’s a story of healing that delivers so much emotion and heart in the best kind of way. Shin Hye Sun plays Woo Seo Ri. Waking up from a coma after 13 years completely turns her life upside down. She still feels like a teenager and is unable to locate her family. Though she is dealing with a lot of difficult things, she has a bright and cheerful personality. As she tries to find answers, she begins living in her old house with the current occupants which includes Woo Jin. Yang Se Jong is Gong Woo Jin. He had a crush on Seo Ri as a teenager, and a series of circumstances lead him to believe he is responsible for her accident. Devastated, he begins living a life of seclusion not wanting to get involved in other people’s lives with the fear that he could cause them harm. He comes off as closed off to most people, but he is a very kind man who is just suffering a lot of guilt and hurt. Ahn Hyo Seop is Woo Jin’s nephew Yoo Chan. Chan is on the high school rowing team, and he is very outgoing and funny. He and Seo Ri connect right away, and they have a very comfortable and fun relationship. That means we get to witness this sweet boy fall for her and pine away! Thirty But Seventeen is the kind of drama that pulls you in right from the start. It’s easy to connect with the teenage versions of the characters. The back story is very solid and sets up everything to come quite nicely. Now this is the kind of drama where the main story is primarily the character journeys. It’s people dealing with the aftermath of a terrible accident and trying to move on with their lives. There is a little mystery concerning Seo Ri’s family, but that mostly just connects to her journey. For me to really love a drama like this, they really have to perfectly execute the characters and their stories to get me fully invested in them. And this drama did just that! Early on, the drama clearly depicts Seo Ri’s pain. What a shock to age up so fast and miss a huge chunk of your life. Her pain was so difficult. But she makes the best of things and tries to move forward. The drama nicely shows the different issues she faces from coping with suddenly losing that much time, to having to go through physical therapy, to feeling alone and abandoned as the world had moved on without her, and realizing her dreams may no longer be possible. And then she has to find her own way and try to make something of her life. She faces her new reality head on, and it’s an inspiring journey to see. Then Woo Jin suffers trauma from the accident he witnessed and feels he was to blame for Seo Ri being there. In an interesting turn of events, when Woo Jin meets Seo Ri again, he is unaware of who she really is since he got her name wrong back then and believed she died. But seeing her in the present reminds him of that awful past, and his traumatic memories and feelings begin to resurface. And I definitely have a soft spot for stories where the guy has a traumatic past and is in need of healing. Especially when the guy is as nice as Woo Jin. My heart broke watching him suffer through guilt and then experience terrible PTSD symptoms when he recalled the memories. His fear of getting involved with others because of what happened was very understandable. And that’s what makes it so nice as we get to watch him slowly begin to open up, smile, and experience joy again. I love how the drama grew his character from being unconcerned and closed off to being very warm and happy. The progression felt very natural, and it made me happy to see him heal. Yang Se Jong and Shin Hye Sun are a very sweet couple. They take a little bit of warming up though. Woo Jin is such a closed off character and just doesn’t let Seo Ri in easily. But the more he’s around her, the more he can’t help but love what he sees. And seeing him start to open to her about his past hurts as well as letting his guard down and interacting with her and others was moving to see. They care for each other very deeply and there is an innocence to their love since the feelings are genuinely new to both of them. Their relationship is supportive, sweet, and so endearing. Of course, there’s that “secret” between them of not knowing who each other is. It takes a good while for that to come out, and I must say the pay off episode where everything is revealed is one of the best I have seen. SPOILERS NEXT 3 PARAGRAPHS Episode 14 (or short eps 27 & 28) is the one I am talking about. We start off with Seo Ri finding out her friend died and then Woo Jin realizing that Seo Ri is the girl he liked and that she didn’t die. At first, relief sweeps over him, and he is so grateful. But then he realizes that he is still responsible for “ruining” her life. All of his progress is thrown out the window as the guilt overcomes him again. And that means he’s going back into hiding. And let me tell you, that note Woo Jin left Seo Ri absolutely turned me into a puddle of mush! He was crying, she was crying, I was crying. It was a lot to take in. That letter just summed up everything so well, and my heart was just aching for them because of it. And then Woo Jin’s return and confession to Seo Ri was something. He was desperate for her because of his love and that was enough to make him stay and face the truth. Then we get the reveal that it wasn’t his fault followed by lots of relief and a passionate kiss. Whew, my heart! The feels were through the roof, and I was left completely happy with how that all played out. END OF SPOILERS I should briefly highlight some of the other characters. You might experience a little second lead syndrome just because Ahn Hyo Seop as Chan is about as adorable as can be! He’s a ball of sunshine who cares for Seo Ri in such an innocent and passionate way. The way his face lights up when he sees her just brought a smile to my face. He’s such a sweetie, and I really enjoyed their playful relationship with each other. Chan and Woo Jin also have a really interesting relationship. As uncle and nephew, the two were very close when they were young, but after the accident, Woo Jin closed himself off. That left a big impact on Chan who witnessed his once happy uncle change into a much sadder version of himself. The two care for each other immensely, and I really liked seeing them interact and deal with some of the issues that affected their relationship. This is also one of those dramas with such a fun supporting cast. All of the characters are likable with their own quirky charms. From the mysterious housekeeper Jennifer (Ye Ji Won) to Chan’s rowing buddies, it’s a great set up to just leave you smiling and feeling good in most of the scenes. And I think most people will be able to relate to the characters. Almost everyone has experienced the regret of their dreams not working out or bad things happening in life that result in that feeling of “what if?”. It helps to connect us with the characters and empathize with what they are going through. There is sorrow in that, but we can also easily root for them and share in their successes as they work to overcome these issues. In conclusion, Thirty But Seventeen is a wonderful mixture of good story, humor, and heartfelt moments. It’s pretty much what I want from a romantic comedy. My heart was warmed, lots of smiles graced my lips, and I was given an inspiring story of people dealing with life after tragedy and overcoming it in such beautiful ways. What a fantastic and beautiful drama! My Rating: 9/10 Read more Kdrama Reviews. Copyright © 2015-2018 by Kdrama Kisses. About Kay Greetings! I’m Kay, creator and author of Kdrama Kisses. Kdrama Kisses is dedicated to bringing you the latest in kdrama casting news, drama trailers, reviews, and more. Happy drama watching to everyone! View all posts by Kay → This entry was posted in Reviews and tagged Ahn Hyo Seop, kdrama, Korean Drama, Shin Hye Sun, Thirty But Seventeen, Yang Se Jong. Bookmark the permalink. 32 Responses to Thirty But Seventeen Korean Drama Review As always fantastic review. I also gave it a 9. Episode 14 was my favourite episode of the whole series. It was done extremely well. 🙂 Thanks so much 🙂 Episode 14 was also my favorite episode of the show. Seriously one of the best payoff episodes I have seen. I went through so many emotions right along with the characters, lol. Truly a fantastic drama! 🙂 Whoa: 9 out of 10 huh? That is a really high score indeed. And you are so right there have been numerous times in my life where I have thought: What if? I love feel good movies/tv shows, so as usual this has become an instant must watch for me 😊😊 As always this was a wonderful review that I highly enjoyed reading 😊 Yes, a 9/10! Always wonderful to fall in love with a drama 🙂 I really did love the issues explored in this show. They were simple, but very relatable. A little heads up if you’re thinking about watching it though, it is definitely a romantic comedy in every sense. So maybe not what you would usually go for. But it is extremely feel good with some amazing character journeys to explore. You’ll probably want to be in the right mood for something like it though. And thank you for the kind words! 🙂 Well, I am one of those people that always likes to try out things…even things that are not my usual cup of tea, and I have a soft spot for feel good dramas, so I might definitely give this one a go 😊 The themes sound very relatable to me, so that is another big reason to check it out as well 😊😊 And that’s one of the things I like about you! And yes, it is so feel good and has themes that are so relatable. It really is a perfect drama when you need a break from all of the serious and heavy stuff 🙂 I loved this series as well! Engaging from start to finish, so well done on all fronts. It was adorable watching the disparate characters become a family. I especially loved the backstory of the seemingly emotionless housekeeper Jennifer who turned out to have such a tragic connection to Seo Ri and to see her “wake up” by the end as well. A well deserved 9/10 🙂 I’m glad you loved it too! It was such a beautiful series, and I agree, completely well done in every way 🙂 And I loved Jennifer’s story too. I didn’t talk about it in my review since it was already getting pretty lengthy, but her story was also wonderful, touching, and tied in well. There were so many other things I could have talked about since the show had so much to love! 🙂 MyKDramaticLife says: So I was only waiting for your review on this one for me to start watching this drama. I already had copies on the eleven episodes. So in no time I’ll start watching this wonderful 30 But Seventeen. Thank you for that incredible review! But may I ask? What happened to your watching on Life on Mars? I believe I’ve seen it on your currently watching dramas. Yeah, I just moved it off the list on the site a couple days ago. I am still watching it, but I’m going so slow with it that I thought I should go ahead and remove it or else it will be sitting there for a couple more months taking up space. I’m not really feeling it so I’m only watching an episode every couple weeks. So it will probably take a while for me to finish it 😛 Thank you 🙂 That’s great! I’m glad you already have some of the episodes ready to go so you can dive in. I really hope you enjoy it! 🙂 Welcome! 🙂 I’m currently watching: Misty (9/10), Return (8/10), Ghost Detective (9.5/10), Fox Bride Star, and Beauty Inside. So many good dramas, very very less time. Just wished I have at least 30 hours a day in my life. XD I could really use 30 hours in a day myself! If only we could make that happen, hehe. You’ve got a good list of dramas going there. And you’re watching Return! That’s one of my favorite dramas this year. Just how I like my crime thrillers 🙂 Hi! So I am done with 30 But Seventeen (10/10). I really love it. I like Mr. Gong and Woo Seo Ri’s love story so much. It’s a well-written and well-acted drama with lots of things to really enjoy. 🙂 It’s one of the best dramas this 2018. And Ye Ji Won, gosh! She’s always incredible. Loved her also in Another Oh Hae Young (10+/10). 🙂 Yang Se Jong. ❤ Hahaha. It took me 6-7 episodes to finally like him. 🙂 Yay! You loved it too 🙂 It really was such a beautiful drama! Such a nice love story that was written perfectly with such wonderful characters. Haha, Yang Se Jong was an interesting one in this. I liked him a lot from his other drama Duel, so I went in and liked him quickly in this. This was such a feel good drama, and I agree, definitely one of the best of 2018! 🙂 Trusting your 9 was the best decision I made. I did not really expect much from this drama. I simply ran out of options and watched your latest review since it was a 9 romcom. But, wow! It turns out to be a drama you don’t really expect much from but then end up being a diamond in the rough. Everything was so basic. The setting, cinematography, ost, and even the actors. Nothing special at the onset. The cast were all relatively unknown. In fact, I have only seen Shin Hye Sun in three other dramas I all dropped LOL. For some reason, I did not like all the dramas she was in. And in those three dramas, she was either the one you were supposed to hate or she was irrelevant to the story. So it took me a few episodes to get used to her being the lead. But when I did get used to her, I found her to be lovely. I felt like this drama was so undervalued, underrated, and under-appreciated at the onset. It felt like they (including the creators) did not really expect much from this. Maybe they expected this to just be another “filler” drama and focused more on obvious hits like Mr. Sunshine and Lawless Lawyer. That’s how I felt. Like I said, everything was so basic. It could have been a solid 10. But maybe my observation is wrong. Maybe it being “basic” was what made it so special. I never got bored. In fact, I finished around 75% of the drama in two days. I only got a bit frustrated at around episode 12 since I kept waiting and waiting for the ‘BIG REVEAL’ which was supposed to happen earlier, per my expectations HAHA. But I understood why they delayed it for the latter part. The BIG REVEAL was executed perfectly at the right time! When all the puzzle pieces were shown, WOW it was so wonderful to watch. I can’t even put to words how I felt. Happiness. Fulfillment. Just pure joy. I agree with your 9. This is just my type of drama. It ranks high in my favorites. It beat a number of dramas I consider perfect 10s. Weird. It is now my 5th favorite after Gumiho, Kill Me Heal Me, Fated To Love You, and Moon Lovers. I also realized that in order for a drama to be a favorite of mine, it needs to have a female lead with the kindest heart. There’s Miho (Gumiho), Mi Young (FTLY), Ha-jin (Moon Lovers), and Woo Seo Ri. Kill Me, Heal Me seems to be the exception. The female lead was a funny character. I still have a lot on my mind but I will stop here. My comment is getting too long. I loved this drama, Kaye. The next time I see a 9 romcom in your reviews, I’ll definitely watch it. HAHA. Woohoo! I’m so thrilled you fell in love with this drama too! It really was surprising just how much I loved it. I don’t hand out a lot of 9’s, so it has to really move me to get one. I had only seen Shin Hye Sun in a couple minor roles prior to this and hadn’t really thought much of her. But she was wonderful in this drama. Now I had only seen Yang Se Jong in the drama Duel, but he thoroughly impressed me in that drama like no other new actor has before. He was just brilliant. So I was excited to see him in a rom-com, and he just cemented my love for him as an actor 🙂 I know what you mean about the drama seeming very basic. But I personally agree more with your maybe statement in that its simplicity is what makes it so special. Everything around the characters was kept simple and then they were highlighted perfectly to give us all of the emotions, feels, and completely root for them. They stand out and make it special even though everything really is very basic. Which is quite beautiful. But they may not have expected it to be such a hit. This drama did very well in Korea and consistently won its time slot with really good ratings. That’s pretty unusual for a rom-com to do in this day and age 🙂 Sounds like you did really plow through this drama! And yes, that big reveal! It’s seriously one of the best I have seen in a drama. It was just magic and full of feels. I’m glad you ranked it so high on your favorites list because it really deserves so much love. It’s got some good company there with many of my all time favorite dramas 🙂 We definitely got lucky with this beautiful drama! It’s good to know that it did well on Korean ratings. 🙂 I usually read your posts about how well certain dramas are doing. But not this drama! I expected this to be cliche and capable of boring me to death. Luckily, I run out of options. HAHA. I was really glad it did so well too! And yes, how amazing is it when you’re desperate for a good drama and a drama like this pops up when you’re in need 🙂 Yes! We agreed on this one. But why haven’t you talk about the character of Kim Hyung Tae? Hahaha, was I the only one who liked him in here? I am having a slight third-male lead syndrome. 😀 And it broke my heart a little because of his character. 😦 It really is true that love is all about timing. Hope to see him more, as major roles next time. Oh, poor Kim Hyung Tae! He broke by heart too. I felt so bad for him and that his timing was just so off 😦 I should have talked about him and more about Jennifer, but the review was getting pretty long so I ended up leaving him out and only briefly mentioning her. There was so much more I could have wrote about with this one though. It was just amazing! I stumbled onto your blog just recently and I really like your approach to dramas most especially when it comes to reviews. In my opinion this has to be one of the best dramas of the year. I just randomly watched this because I didn’t have anything decent to watch and then bam… totally got me hooked. The story was quite simple which I loved, nothing too melodramatic. It was light and such a feel good drama to come home to after a long tiring day. This drama too led me to become one of yang se jong’s fans. You should watch duel. He was amazing there 😊 Aww, thank you! I’m glad you stumbled your way here 🙂 I know what you mean about this drama, I think it hooked us all! For being such a simple story, it sure packed an emotional punch plus it was such a feel good show! And I have seen Duel. It was my first Yang Se Yong drama, and it made me an instant fan because he was absolutely phenomenal in that drama. I heaped all kinds of praise on him in my review for Duel. So talented! 🙂 Ohhh I think I have to scroll down further to see your review for duel. He’s such a versatile actor, it was so amazing that he portrayed two- wait three different characters at once. I’m gonna check that blog out. I just finished return yesterday. I actually read your review as well and it was spot on. I actually agree with you. Park Jin Hee was better at portraying the broken hearted mother seeking out for revenge. The ending was sad but yeah I guess she was happy in her own way. Yes, I would love for you to check it out 🙂 He really is so versatile. He blew me away in Duel because of how amazing he was at playing multiple characters. He’s so convincing as each. It’s one of my favorite performances from an actor it was so good! Oh I loved Return! Such a twisty and thrilling drama! Yeah, I thought both actresses were fine, but I just really thought Park Jin Hee did it better, especially with the direction they went with her character in the second half. And yes, it was a very bittersweet type ending where she was happy in her way, but it was still sad. Such an great drama though! I just checked it out 😊 I really like the way you dissect dramas. It’s like watching it all over again from a different perspective? Or maybe it’s just me gushing about a really good drama with someone who enjoyed it as well. Thank you for checking out the review and for saying that 🙂 I put a lot into the reviews both trying to capture what the drama was like as well as help others decide if they want to watch it. But when it comes down to it, nothing beats gushing over a drama with another fan 🙂 I will also give it a 9. I’m not an expert reviewer like you but this drama is warm and engaging. It’s a simple story yet complicated. haha! Shin Hye Sun is very convincing to be a 17-year old girl. It’s been a while since I started a kdrama that makes me want to finish all episodes in a day ( I did it in 2 days though♥). Let’s look forward to more 9s and 10s. Thank you for your detailed review as always. My guiding star in choosing which ones to watch (first). Yay! You gave it a 9 too 🙂 It really is amazing how simple yet complex it is. The story was fairly simple and straight forward, but the character journeys were complicated. And they were told so beautifully. I completely agree about Shin Hye Sun. She was so convincing as a teenager and so charming. Wow! You finished in 2 days! That’s when you know you loved it 🙂 I’m hoping for some more 9s and 10s soon too. We need those amazing dramas. And thank you so much for the kind words. I’m so happy you find the reviews useful, and I really appreciate you reading them 🙂 Pingback: Korean Drama Update for October 2018 \| Kdrama Kisses Pingback: Kdrama Kisses 2018 Korean Drama Awards \| Kdrama Kisses Follow Kdrama Kisses on WordPress.com Sign up to receive updates of kdrama reviews, trailers, casting news, and more! 10 Korean Dramas You Need to Be Watching in January 2021 Great Seducer (Tempted) Korean Drama Review 10 Korean Dramas You Need to Be Watching in December 2020 Drama Guides (72) Kisses (15) The School Nurse Files Korean Drama Review “Hello? It’s Me!” Releases Quirky Trailer Tense Moments Between Shin Ha Kyun and Yeo Jin Goo in First Trailer for “Beyond Evil” One Girl. One Choice. The fate of a kingdom will be decided. 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__label__wiki	0.698423	0.698423	Where Does Avengers: Endgame Fall on the ‘Marvelous’ List? —by Nathan on May 4, 2019— SPOILERS for “Avengers-Endgame”—Nuff Said 11 years ago, I leaned over in my movie theater chair and whispered three words to my then-ten-year-old sister Anna: “That’s Tony Stark.” We had just seen Robert Downey Jr.’s genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist waltz into a seedy bar and give a talking-to to General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross. This conversation included some immortal words—“We’re putting together a team”—that garnered a massive reaction from attendees. I’d missed the post-credits scene in “Iron Man” a few months before (along with, I’m assuming, several other fans not yet conditioned to the long-running tradition of Marvel’s mini epilogue teases), having left the theater with my dad midway through the credits. It was a mistake we wouldn’t make again. Therefore, it was Stark’s words, not Nick Fury’s, which bequeathed a promise to us at the end of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s second movie, “The Incredible Hulk.” The Avengers were coming. Since that moment over a decade ago, time has wrested control of life for both myself and the fictional heroes and villains of the MCU and brought us along a rather fabulous journey. My dad tends to use sports games to remember certain dates or eras. I use superhero films. The week before I graduated high school, Ben Kingsley turned out not to be the long-awaited Mandarin. After trying to catch up on some sleep following a long church lock-in, I was watching Star Lord and Co. go up against Ronan and his cronies. And I got permission to leave work early so I could drive out to a theater, enjoying some Wendys before gaping in astonishment as Thanos decimated half the universe. It’s been a crazy, eventful eleven years. I visited Disney World, went through both high school and college, got my first job, lost all four of my grandparents, welcomed several new family members, self-published three novels, and attended three different service trips with church and college. These have been my years of adolescence, change, growth, and maturity (eh, in some cases), and the MCU was right there, growing alongside me. The comics of my childhood became the stories of my young adult years, and while the comics will continue to hold a special place for me no matter how old I get, the pivotal years and moments I’ve gone through in the past decade are better seen through the lens of this superhuman film universe. Yes, the Avengers came. And then they united again and expanded. And then they fell before Thanos. Eleven years of moviemaking leading up to the MCU’s second movie release of 2019 and their 22nd film overall. So where does “Avengers: Endgame” stack up against the rest of the films? I’ll spoil it right now. I’m pretty sure it nabs the number two spot. The Endgame is Afoot Right now, on my “Marvelous” list, “Captain America: Civil War” holds second place, beating out the original “Iron Man” but not quite becoming as endearing as the first “Avengers.” Solid as all three movies are, the first “Avengers” movie just captures the spirit of the comics so beautifully, creating a host of characters you care about even if you’ve only seen them once or twice previously. “Endgame” comes incredibly, incredibly close to nabbing that coveted spot, no joke. However, I’ve seen “Avengers” maybe over half a dozen times over the course of seven years. A lot of love has been built up. Nevertheless, I was entranced by “Endgame” the first time I saw it and enjoyed it just as much the second time the very next day. So why does it work so well for me? I can sum it up in just one word: Refreshing. The movie is delightfully different from anything’s that come before it. Common complaints of Marvel movies (particularly several Phase 1 and 2 films) include weak villains, formulaic plots, lack of stakes, sluggish action set pieces, and far too much humor. Eventually, the MCU crafted several movies that effectively combated these complaints—Thanos, Killmonger, and the Vulture are the best villains since Loki, “Thor: Ragnarok” concluded with the destruction of Asgard, “Infinity War” ended with the status quo effectively dusted—but I feel like “Endgame” solidly tackles several of these issues as it runs its narrative course. Philosophical Foes First, the villain problem. Much of the film’s three-hour runtime really has no villain, per se. That’s primarily because (a. the Avengers tackle Thanos and chop his head off pretty early in the film and (b. most of the plot centers around undoing what the villain’s already done, not stopping a plan he intends to put into motion. Killing Thanos off took me by complete surprise, as I expected the story to be more about the purple dude’s attempts to stop the Avengers from resurrecting the half of the universe he decimated. But while a younger Thanos makes sporadic appearances throughout the film’s second act and arrives in the present with a massive army at the movie’s end, his threat does not loom over the film, unlike his “Infinity War” predecessor/chronological successor. Instead, our heroes—Stark, Cap, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye, Black Widow, War Machine, Nebula, and Ant Man—really go face-to-face with some more esoteric enemies. The team as a whole is really fighting what 2014 Thanos terms as “the inevitable.” He’s speaking of himself, of course, but our heroes show that, no, inevitability comes from elsewhere. It’s in the dread of not knowing what to do; it’s in Tony’s fear that he may lose his family if he undergoes this time travel mission; it’s in Hawkeye and Black Widow’s self-sacrificial attitudes on Vormir (as opposed to Thanos’ purely selfish motivations in “Infinity War” with Gamora) against death; it’s in the knowledge that they, only they, the Avengers, can bring back the fifty percent of life gone. These are incorporeal, emotional enemies, and they are everywhere. See, Thanos isn’t inevitable. But Hawkeye or Black Widow knowing one of them must throw themselves off a cliff because they need the Soul Stone and there’s no other way to get it? That’s an inevitable decision. Tony Stark knowing he has the key to time travel and has to put the existence of who he is and what he has (Pepper and Morgan) in jeopardy to rescue what is gone if he uses said key? That’s an inevitable decision. Heck, even Stark’s understanding that him wresting the Stones from Thanos and snapping his fingers fits within Dr. Strange’s single vision of victory is inevitable. There’s an outer war waged, it’s true, but that final, absolutely climactic showdown is borne from the inner struggle. Captain America doesn’t stand one last time if he doesn’t overcome the fear washing over him. Each Avenger doesn’t contribute to the Hot Potato game with the Infinity Gauntlet if they succumb to despair. The fear, doubt, panic, uncertainty all vie for our heroes’ minds, hearts, and souls. And the Avengers stand anyway. Tales of Timelines Past Which brings us to this story’s plot. Critics, as I mentioned, tend to complain that MCU plotlines are straightforward, with minor variations. Take the origin stories: hero starts off less-than-heroic (an arrogant businessman, a scrawny soldier, a thief with a record) and undergoes a wild experience which gives them abilities or weapons (a dose of gamma radiation, lessons from an ancient wizard in Tibet, an exploding experimental jet engine) and sends them on the path to fight some villain who more-or-less copies the hero (guy in a suit of armor, guy with shrinking tech, guy in a panther costume). Various films have toyed with this notion of repetitiveness (neither “Black Panther” nor “Spider-Man: Homecoming” were origin stories), and a film like “Captain Marvel” even purposefully told certain events non-sequentially. But the paint-by-numbers complaints tend to hover over the franchise. And this is where “Endgame” nicely diverges. It fails to follow the “heroes battle villain for fate of the universe” storyline for the most part, because again, most of the film is about undoing Thanos’ past actions. There’s more discussion here than anything, multiple character-driven moments that blend together beautifully once present day Thanos is dead. Tony meeting his father Howard in the past is a culmination of their relationship, as is Thor encountering his mother Frigga. Utilizing time travel to revisit moments in the franchise’s past (and also setting up rules which seem surprisingly accurate to current scientific concepts of time), the movie really is less about universe building (introducing new characters, concepts, plotlines, locations, etc.) than it is an exploration of its past history, its wonderful interconnectedness, and bringing the stories of several of our favorite characters to a close. While the end scene does play into the “heroes versus the villain and his army of henchmen” plotline, this FEELS deserved. Other movies—like, say “Age of Ultron”—merely offered us an antagonist and his robot army because, darn it, this is an Avengers movie! But the culminating battle in “Endgame” isn’t just another excuse for crazy CGI fisticuffs. It’s the ultimate fan service moment, bringing in the characters we’ve grown to love over the last decade and using them to beat the tar out of the guy we hate for wiping out half the known universe (or, at least, the past version of that guy). If Thanos’ sharp comeuppance in the film’s beginning wasn’t enough, well then, here’s a whole whopping whomping. For a comic book fan, and for someone who has followed these films for eleven years, this is what I wanted out of a comic book movie…and the MCU delivered spectacularly. Heroes and Hazards In terms of stakes, then, one might argue that this film’s main narrative thoroughfare leads us to a dead-end road. We’ve been here before. The day gets saved, right? Everyone who died comes back again, yeah? And isn’t this what most of us knew would happen after the dust settled, very literally, in “Infinity War”? While this is certainly true, and while I feel positive in saying most audience members knew this would happen even prior to seeing the film, “Endgame” manages to craft several tinier elements of danger or intrigue around its heroes as they strive to bring their friends back to life. By pairing down the number of Avengers, the film gives ample time to focus on a core group of characters each undergoing some kind of transformation. Stark enters the fray combating the knowledge he could very well be sacrificing his comfortable family life in the process (a friend of mine and I actually considered the possibility that altering the timeline would erase Morgan Stark’s existence, though the alternative consequence of Stark’s involvement was much more satisfying); Cap utilizes his inability to “move on,” seen as a crutch by other characters, as his Northern Star when confronting Thanos, culminating in a showdown where he handles Mjolnir deftly and stands momentarily alone against the villain’s hordes; Thor gets back on the wagon after falling off for five years, proving that not only is he still worthy of his hammer and title, but he is able to overcome the fears and doubts plaguing him since Thanos obliterated half his people; Hulk, with Banner’s mind and the Green Goliath’s strength, turns into someone more than a monster, his more pacifist and analytic nature making him, as he puts it, “the best of both words” (debatable, per my father); and Hawkeye and Black Widow tussle over their self-sacrificial actions, with Clint putting a reunion with his family on the line and Natasha ultimately sacrificing her chance at continuing with the family she’s found. Yes, all these characters could die, and some of them do, but as I mentioned earlier, it’s these “inner stakes” which give these characters so much personality. This isn’t just a bunch of costumed people thwarting yet another alien invasion. These are individuals, each with their own fears and hopes, striving against those same fears to keep hope alive. Even Ant Man blatantly snaps in Stark’s face, asking him how he could be so unwilling to save what was lost. Even this tiny dude, played by a largely comedic actor in a largely comedic role, knows he needs to get serious when he has to. Nebula, too, undergoes a change, finding a place within the Avengers and learning to become more than a robotic assassin with a hatred towards her father. The Battle to End all Battles All this change and growth brings to the final action piece: the climactic battle against Thanos. Every MCU film has this. Whether the Avengers are saving New York from Loki or stopping Ultron from dropping Sokovia, or whether Spidey is keeping the Vulture from robbing a Quinjet or the Guardians are keeping Ego the Living Planet from conquering the universe, each movie is constructed in such a way that fans have come to expect these showdowns. Lots of CGI, lots of powers flying, lots of copy-and-paste armies for our heroes to smack around. Thus, some fans get bored. Yet, “Endgame” does this a bit differently, because the movie holds back most of the action until this final scene. The film’s beginning does see our angry heroes kill Thanos, but that’s hardly a fight. And a bit of action does occur between this moment and the final battle—the Ancient One smashes some aliens, Nebula and Gamora battle some different aliens, etc. But the filmmakers have really attempted to make a different movie. Several times, these superhero films follow the general pacing of the comic books from which they’re inspired: hero fights villain, usually loses to villain or fails to defeat villain, then battles villain again and wins. In “The First Avenger,” Cap runs into the Red Skull part way through the film and fails to capture him before their climactic battle aboard the Skull’s plane. In “Homecoming,” Spidey interrupts a weapons deal brokered by the Vulture before later stopping his devious plan of pulling a midair heist. “Endgame” doesn’t do this, substituting plot development, time travel, and small character moments in place of the action. In this way, the film becomes more of a drama than a superhero film. But that final battle against Thanos makes the lack of action completely worth it. Moment after moment could make you stand up in your seat and cheer. Cap proves his worthiness by wielding Mjolnir; Dr. Strange bring backs so many characters—magicians, Guardians, Wakandans, even Howard the Duck—in the film’s most fantastic moment, giving hope to both the audience and the original Avengers that help has arrived. The “tag-team” with the Gauntlet gives Spidey, Black Panther, and Captain Marvel time to shine. Heroes take on the Mad Titan, letting Captain Marvel, Scarlet Witch, and the triumvirate of Cap, Iron Man, and Thor get in several blows. And Tony’s ultimate sacrifice, giving Thanos a taste of his own medicine with the snap of his fingers, serves as the perfect ending for Iron Man. All the personal stakes collide—Cap stands defiantly, Thor battles valiantly, Tony’s loss is the universe’s win. It’s a mesmerizing whirlwind of action and fan-pleasing moments. The Heart in the Hilarity The humor in this film is top-notch as well. Marvel films tends to be humorous, which some critics decry as being a layer of frosting over a thin slice of story and emotion. Helps the shallow treat go down, in other words. But the humor in “Endgame” is delightfully well-done, mashing some highly original lines (“I thought you were a Build-a-Bear” is a hilarious Tony-Stark-just-being-Tony-Stark moment and “I love you 3000” is exactly the kind of inane thing a child would say) with several, several references to previous movies. “I can do this all day,” “This is a long way from Budapest,” and “On your left” are wonderful repeats of lines from other entries. Thor’s assertion he’s the “strongest Avenger,” Spidey activating and using his instant-kill mode, Hulk eating the Hulk-a-Hulk-of-Burning-Fudge flavor of ice cream, Cap getting into the elevator with the Hydra goons…this film is jam-packed with hilarious nods and winks. And none of it hampers the flow. One of the biggest problems I have with the original “Ant Man” is the humor. It seems out of place at moments, hokey, a little forced. It tried to be too funny, ramming in as many quips as it could without letting the funny moments flow naturally. “Endgame” doesn’t really do this, partially because it balances those moments with genuine emotion. Sure, Scott Lang is funny, but when the movie allows him a few brief moments with his daughter following his escape from the Quantum Realm, or he snaps at Stark for not properly acknowledging the weight of what they’re facing, he becomes more than a comic relief character. He becomes rounded (just, uh, just like Thor). “Endgame” is definitely an amusing movie, but several of its humorous moments are visual (like the elevator scene) and don’t detract from what’s happening in the story. Not So Marvelous (at Times)? Of course, all the references lead to one other complaint/question: is “Endgame” too focused on pleasing fans that audiences unfamiliar with the past 21 movies (or even a working knowledge of the source material) are going to have a difficult time following the goings-on of the film itself? While I think the answer is “yes,” I’d also assert that, well, that’s the point, right? This is the final chapter of a larger story crafted over a decade of chapters. It’s a serialized tale of epic proportions delivered over the span of eleven years. For fans such as myself who have enjoyed watching these films repeatedly in that timeframe, “Endgame” is the satisfying conclusion we’ve been hoping for. Not only does it tie many threads together, but it does so while throwing in elements that fans of the franchise or the comics—Ant Man’s helmet! Cap wielding Mjolinir! Hulk holding up the compound like the mountain in “Secret Wars”! “I am Iron Man”!—will immediately recognize and appreciate. But I will admit the film is not without its flaws, but even that boils down to a matter of personal opinion. I would have absolutely loved to have seen a more warrior-esque Thor take on Thanos; “fat Thor” was an amusing joke in the film’s beginning and an interesting progression of the Thunder God’s guilt-ridden story arc, but having him that way the whole time? A bit disappointing. And no Hulk/Thanos rematch? No chance for the big guy to get in a few licks following the pummeling he received in “Infinity War”? That’s a scene I would have loved to have seen. If anything, my complaints have to do with some of the character choices; in a movie that has so many wonderful character moments, you can only weave in so much, so there are naturally going to be complaints about moments that didn’t make it. Nevertheless, those are fairly minor when considering the entirety of the movie. I will, however, assert that two things do not bother me: first, the time travel rules. Since time travel is a conceptual notion itself, instead of complaining about some potential bumps in the road, I would rather applaud the filmmakers for gravitating towards a different approach, rather than the stock “changing the past alters the future” concept. It’s not like they’re breaking set, scientific laws in order for the story to work. Maybe the time travel stuff doesn’t work exactly, but does it have to? I don’t want to get hung up on questions like, “Wait, how can Old Cap be sitting on that bench in 2023 if going back in time creates a diverging timeline that is separate from the current timeline everyone else is in?” Beats me, but I’ll take the good character moment over the (seeming) illogic of that scene. Second, I’ll reaffirm what I said before: the fact that this isn’t a standalone film does not bug me. It wasn’t intended to be. Asking someone to watch only this movie and understand the full scope of the MCU is like asking someone to read the last chapter of the “Deathly Hallows” and understand the entirely of the Harry Potter series. It just can’t be done. So while part of me understands some critics may have enjoyed a more straightforward story in a film that could stand on its own easier, and while I acknowledge the complaint that others see the entire MCU rather unwieldy because of its interconnectedness, I also argue that seeing the films through their individual lenses isn’t the point of the MCU experiment. If you’re a diehard fan who’s willing to invest the time in understand the whole universe, that’s great. If you’re a more casual fan who likes certain movies and only needs to understand how those work, sure. But I don’t feel certain in saying that anyone unwilling to understand the scope of the project can rightfully complain about the MCU being too big or incomprehensible. Could “Endgame” have been more accessible? Yeah, I suppose it could have…but if the film traded in its character-driven moments for exposition to get casual fans caught up, the story would have lagged. “Endgame” is, foremost, a conclusion to Marvel’s “Infinity Saga.” As I said, it’s the final chapter. For anyone who has yet to see the entirety of the MCU, I suggest you watch the other 21 films before seeing it. I’ll admit, it’s a lot of work, and there are plenty of better ways to use your time. But if you’ve got the extra availability to delve into a hobby and learn about this sprawling universe, there are certainly worse ways to spend your days. And if you don’t have that time? Maybe Scott Lang with help you travel through the Quantum Realm to days of yore to see the rest of the “Saga” in theaters with the diehards and the casuals. —Tags: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Movies, Comics	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3380
__label__wiki	0.838004	0.838004	Govt extends ban on deforestation as police boss involved in illegal trade Keriako Tobiko has extended logging ban by The Sparrow in News, Exposé Keriako Tobiko, CS Environment Ministry of Environment has said that the moratorium on logging in public and community forests which was imposed in 2018 shall continue. Environment CS Kerioako Tobiko said in a statement on Monday the decision was reached after considering recommendations of both the Board of Management of the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) and the Multi-Agency Team on Mapping. However, the CS said that the moratorium shall be modified to allow for harvesting and disposal by KFS of mature and over-mature forest plantations for an area not exceeding 500 hectares. Tobiko said that harvesting and disposal of the forest plantation material shall be overseen by a multi-agency team and done in a manner that is transparent and ensures value for money. The CS added that the details of particulars of the forest areas to be harvested and the terms and conditions applicable shall be published in due course. In June 2020, Chief Conservator of Forests Julius Kamau had asked heads of conservancies and ecosystem conservators to release foresters to train in Londiani. The foresters, the letter said, were to be trained on independent mapping, verification, and valuation of mature forest plantations in the country by a multi-agency team. Deputy Inspector General in charge of Kenya Police Mr. Edward Njoroge Mbugua Deputy Inspector General Edward Njoroge Mbugua The Deputy Inspector General in charge of Kenya Police Mr. Edward Njoroge Mbugua has been exposed as a conman. The police chief has been linked to the cartel that continue to engage in deforestation. This is happening even as the government, NGOs, and other stakeholders call for stricter measures to curb environmental degradation. A ban on logging and timber harvesting was effected in February, 2018 for 90 days. The Deputy President William Ruto, had directed the Ministry of Environment and all relevant agencies to ensure the ban was effected. In November 2018, Keriako Tobiko, the environment CS extended the ban on logging for a year. However, in a move seen as insincere by the public, the corrupt UhuRuto appointed an equally corrupt motherfucker by the name of Jaswant Rai, to the board of the Kenya Forest Service. Jaswant chairs the Rai Group, a company that deals mostly in timber products. Below is the anonymous alert sent to a local blog” Hi editor, I’d like you to expose the deputy inspector general Mr. Mbugua. Githeri media is busy covering up his abuse of office and corrupt dealings in Eastleigh. A lorry ferrying timber from Mau forest was intercepted in Eastleigh on 2/2/2019 but he ordered police officers to release it but I took photos of the falsified documents and now he is transferring Shauri Moyo officers who he feels might expose him. Those are the documents used. If you check clearly you will see the two certificates are dated 2015 and 2018 different places of origin and different persons. The permit was issued to one Zakayo of transafric timber in Nakuru. This should be exposed, he has been doing many corrupt activities, no wonder tutaendelea kugongwa from Somalia Tags: EnvironmentKeriako Tobiko Tangatanga reading mischief in reopening of PEV cases	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3382
__label__wiki	0.897463	0.897463	Koichi Takada Architects - Sydney KOICHI TAKADA Koichi Takada Architects Imagine the Dream Home of Europe’s Green Future by Laura Millan Lombraña Spectacular technology breakthroughs, multiple trillions of euros in investment, and an economic overhaul won’t be enough to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050—it also will need a new look. Bloomberg Green invited De Smedt, Casper Mork-Ulnes, and Koichi Takada, all architects are known for their focus on sustainability to perform an exercise of the imagination. The rules were simple: Pick a place in Europe, design a single-family home to suit that climate, and make it produce more energy than it uses. —With James Tarmy Sunflower House, by Koichi Takada… Read more Koichi Takada Architects’ building Infinity in Sydney ‘Climatises’ architecture Stir World Koichi Takada Architects recently completed a mixed-use residential building in Sydney, Australia, with a design that lets the structure breathe due to its unique architectural loop feature, along with a void in its sun-facing façade. Commenting on the design of the building that’s named Infinity, the firm’s principal architect Koichi Takada says, “Infinity has a hole to cool down the building. Infinity’s inception was started with the idea of creating a significant opening in the building structure to draw in wind, to achieve a natural cooling effect of the internal spaces through pressure differentials”.… Read more Koichi Takada Architects Completes Iceberg Inspired Mixed-use Building in Sydney Koichi Takada Architects have shared an exclusive first look at the firm’s most recently completed project in Sydney, Australia. ‘infinity’ is a mixed-use residential building that’s articulated by a huge, hollowed-out corner. Designed not only for aesthetic appeal, this carved opening in the middle of the structure creates a natural cooling effect, therefore reducing energy consumption. Koichi Takada says, ‘infinity has a hole to cool down the building. Infinity’s inception was started with the idea of creating a significant opening in the building structure to draw in wind, to achieve a natural cooling effect of… Read more Global spotlight shines on Australia’s greenest building Editor Dan Wilkie One of Australia’s most ambitious green buildings has gained the endorsement of one of the world’s biggest environmentalists, with Sir David Attenborough giving his nod of approval to the Koichi Takada-designed Urban Forest project in Brisbane. Sir David shared an architect’s rendering of the project on his Facebook page this week, shining light on Koichi Takada Architects’ and developer Aria Property Group’s ambitions of creating what they say will be the world’s most environmentally-friendly building. The 30-level apartment tower, which has been proposed to be built on Merivale Street in South Brisbane, will feature… Read more Museum Shop in Qatar mensch + architektur issue 103/104 Inspired by the so-called »sand rose«, a natural bizarre crystal structure made of sand and plaster, which is created in hot deserts by the evaporation of water, the French architect Jean Nouvel designed the National Museum in Doha / Qatar. The Japanese-Australian architect Koichi Takada, who designed the museum shop in the National Museum, was inspired by the underground sanctuary in Qatar, Dahl Al Misﬁr, which is a 100-meter-deep cave made of sand and plaster, also called the »cave of light«, due to the ﬂuorescent surface made by plaster crystals. He wanted to set… Read more Koichi Takada turns brick arches into work of art by Stephen Crafti There could only be one name given to the Arc, given the number of brick arches and the 300,000 bricks that went into making it. A key building in Sydney’s CBD, it was designed by Koichi Takada Architects and clearly references the brick arches in a neighboring building dating from the early 20th century. The architects’ clients, Crown Group, wanted a mixed-use residential/hotel/serviced apartments and retail, but one that also connected Clarence Street on one side and Kent Street on the other. “We were conscious of working in a heritage… Read more Koichi Takada on the race to redesign the CBD Australian Design Review Architect Koichi Takada uses his Urban Forest residential development to imagine the tranquility and restorative powers of a rural retreat within a bustling cityscape. “It is possible to design buildings that reconnect people with nature even in densely populated, inner-city locations,” says Takada. The founder and principal of Sydney-based Koichi Takada Architects takes his cues from nature, harnessing light, solar and wind energy in ways that enable his designs to echo nature rather than constrain it. His ambition is to uncover ways to swap out “dead materials” like concrete, steel and glass for… Read more Brisbane’s proposed ‘Urban Forest’ looks like a Green Paradise Brad Nash A high-rise tower playing host to over 20,000 plants. Ironically enough at a time when many cities are trying their best to cram as many people into a confined space as possible, other companies are busy at work trying to figure out a way of making Australia’s urban sprawl a naturaistic paradise once again. Most major architectural projects unveiled these days have some kind of green element to them, from the plants you see growing out of Sydney’s Central Park, to the timber-clad Atlassian HQ. But a new design for a building proposed… Read more Koichi Takada unveils plant-covered Urban Forest housing high rise for Brisbane India Block Urban Forest is a 30-storey apartment building covered in thousand trees and plants that Koichi Takada Architects has designed for Brisbane, Australia. The mixed-use high rise building owned by developers Aria Property Group will include 392 homes, a two-level rooftop garden and a public park at ground level. Urban Forest will be covered in 1,000 trees Australian studio Koichi Takada Architects plans to cover the stepped facade with 1,000 trees and 20,000 plants, in a combination of over 250 species native to Queensland. The architecture studio and developers are attempting to make Urban Forest the “world’s greenest… Read more Koichi Takada Unveils World’s Most Dense Vertical Gardens September 9th 2020 by Christele Harrouk Urban Forest, a 30-story mixed-use residential high-rise is the latest development designed by Koichi Takada Architects. Located in South Brisbane, Australia, the building features one of the world’s most densely-forested vertical gardens, going beyond regular green buildings norms and achieving “300% site cover with living greenery, featuring 1000 plus trees and more than 20,000 plants selected from 259 native species”. Increasing biodiversity and reducing the ecological footprint, the structure highlights another stage in the evolution of the architectural vertical garden. Submitted for planning approval, the Urban Forest project is part of a new global movement of Vertical planting… Read more Koichi Takada Architects Suite 41 & 42, Level 4 61 Marlborough Street E info@koichitakada.com W koichitakada.com Copyright 2021 Koichi Takada Architects - Sydney	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3383
__label__cc	0.742372	0.257628	Brain Training games (7) Professional courses (12) Work Legal advice (14) Apprenticeships (10) Interview tips (57) Executive careers (46) CV writing advice (35) About: Engineering (41) Career guidance (135) About: IT/Computing (8) About: Oil and Gas (8) Redundancy (4) Top 10 tips (35) Postgraduate Study (11) CV Valuation (2) Career Planning (38) Job Descriptions (28) Operations Manager Salary The job of an operations manager is to design, implement and oversee the production process for a company that sells either goods or services and their goal is to maximise output while minimising the necessary investments of time, money and labour. So, this job is all about efficiency. Operations managers analyse every component of the business operations they are tasked with, from technology to workflow to individual employees, to identify areas for potential improvement. Once those opportunities have been determined, an operations manager will then lead the project of implementing new, efficiency-enhancing strategies and processes. Because the work spans such a broad scope, it demands a person with a unique skill set. Operations managers must be expert problem solvers and logical thinkers, but they must also be creative in finding solutions to complex challenges. It’s a job that requires strong social skills and a deep understanding of psychology because employee morale and motivation are two of the biggest factors that contribute to efficiency in the workplace. So operations managers certainly have their work cut out for them. But, as with most positions that require considerable talent, there are many benefits to being an operations manager. Benefits of Being an Operations Manager Job Satisfaction: Operations managers report a high level of job satisfaction. Their work produces tangible results that propel the company forward and lead to measurable profit increases. Personal Development: Because this job requires such broad knowledge, and because technology and the marketplace are evolving so quickly these days, operations managers must always be learning and improving themselves. Challenge: True challenges give us a reason to get out of bed in the morning, looking forward to another day of growth. Overcoming these daily challenges is incredibly rewarding. Salary: Operations managers earn in the highest tiers of the workforce, with salaries steadily climbing based upon performance and experience. Salary Expectations - Median Salary for an Operations Manager The median salary for an operations manager in the UK is currently about £34,000 annually, which translates to roughly £2,800 each month. The overall salary range is quite broad, though, and spans from £22,000 to as much as £53,000. So those in the upper ranks of the profession earn more than double what their counterparts in the lowest rungs of the business make. Additionally, some operations managers are paid several thousand pounds annually in commission and profit sharing dividends. But salaries and benefits vary widely based upon the industry and firm wherein the manager is employed. Meanwhile, the national average salary for UK operations managers is close to the median, coming in at £35,000. But, mid-career managers typically earn about 8% above that average, while late career professionals earn 23% above the national average. So experience in this role translates into direct pay increases at a rapid rate. Best Places in the UK To Be An Operations Manager As one might expect, salaries are highest for operations managers working in the UK’s major economic hubs. Those working in London measure in at the highest paid, earning 12% above the national average, as do those in Leicester. In Birmingham, operations managers earn a solid 8% above average, while those in Manchester make 6% more than average and workers in Edinburgh make just 3% above average. In contrast, those in Bristol and Glasgow earn a few percentage points below the average. Four Skills to Advance Your Career Of course, salaries are usually tied to skills, and those with the most sought-after talents are the highest earners. So, which skills are the most valuable regarding income and promotion? Project Management: Those with accredited certifications and industry experience in project management earn 7% above the average, making this the most valuable skills for OMs. Process Improvement: Boosting salaries 6% above the average, process improvement qualifications are highly coveted by recruiters and big corporations. Budget Management: Correlating to a 4% rise in income, budget management is an essential skillset for operations managers. Leadership: Proven leadership skills boost salaries by at least 3% here in the UK, and those who can demonstrate strong leadership abilities are amongst the quickest to be promoted to higher positions. What's Next for an Operations Manager? For those looking to rise above the level of operations manager and join the ranks of the executive level, there are several career options to aim for. The two most common are to work in general management jobs or become an Operations Director (median salary: £59,000). Some, however, go on to become Business Development Managers or Business Managers. From there, the next levels are Managing Director of Sales and Marketing or Chief Operating Officer, where salaries rise into the six figures for CEO jobs. So, whether you are on the path to launching a career in operations management or are already entrenched in the job and looking to become the industry’s next CEO, be sure to network diligently and keep learning the most valuable skills you can. If you dedicate yourself to the task, your career is sure to flourish. Here at Telegraph Jobs, we have a range of Telegraph Operations Manager jobs available, take your next step today. Operations Manager Job Description This will open in a new window	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3384
__label__cc	0.515129	0.484871	You say you want a (three-point) revolution Mark Jackson, three-point forefather. Yes, Mark Jackson. (Photo: Ray Chavez) Today at ESPN.com, you’ll find a good many words in two pieces on the three-point shot written by Myron Medcalf and yours truly, respectively. It’s a good topic upon which to lavish a good many words. You can make a case that the rapid increase in three-point attempts is the central performance story in the sport of college basketball over the last five years. Here, in thumbnail form, is one possible version of how that story’s played out thus far, and what may lay ahead. Consider what follows as a conjectural narration of the three-point revolution’s origins, spread, and limits, delivered in handy pocket size. Somewhere in the front offices of the late-1960s-era American Basketball Association (ABA), there resided a pioneering thinker who had the idea of resurrecting a novelty dating from (we think) the early-1960s-era American Basketball League. It seems unlikely in retrospect that said thinker could have had any idea of exactly what it was being unleashed. In fact, to flesh out a point made in passing in the above-linked piece, this whole multi-decade three-point sea change can surely be chalked up to an accident of math. The three-point revolution has lately marched under the banner of “three’s more than two,” which is both incontrovertibly correct and woefully inadequate as an explanation. It is also correct that nine’s more than eight, but, if we’d inherited a game where shots from the field had been worth, say, eight points for decades, there’s no way we’d be seeing a nine-point revolution right now. Or, at least, there’s no way we’d see it with a 10-foot rim, a ball 29.5 inches in circumference inflated to about eight pounds per square inch, and a nine-point line somewhere between 20 and 24 feet out from the basket. We know from decades of hard-won experience that, at those physical specs, players, en masse, will make 30-something percent of their shots behind the line, and something in the upper 40s verging on 50 percent of their tries inside it. The kick supplied by the three, then, is only partly a function of “more than.” Mostly, it’s happenstance, the result of a ratio that values 35 percent shooting beyond the line over and above a 49 or 50 percent conversion rate inside it. Two and three are the lowest consecutive integers where that math still works. Meaning, yes, Antoine Walker was a genius. Steph Curry started making threes, so then every young basketball player worldwide wanted to make threes, right? Well, sort of. Curry poured catalytic and ultimately flashover levels of fuel on the fire, sure, but the spark clearly was going to happen when it happened, Curry or no Curry. There was no stopping it, and Curry was perfectly positioned to reap the whirlwind. Consider the NBA three-point leaders for 2011-12: 1. Ryan Anderson 166 2. Jason Terry 138 3. Kevin Durant 133 3. Steve Novak 133 5. Brandon Jennings 129 5. Wesley Matthews 129 Just one short year later, in 2012-13, the same list looked like this: 1. Steph Curry 272 3. Klay Thompson 211 4. Kyle Korver 189 5. Damian Lillard 185 Every significant shift in shot selection requires a coach giving a green light, and the coach on the sidelines at Golden State in 2012-13 was Mark Jackson. We know now, of course, that he was then but a few hundred days from being sacked and ultimately replaced by a rather celebrated successor. Be that as it may, Jackson was there at the turning point. This new birth of three-point freedom, incidentally, is an admittedly crude but still handy yardstick with which to measure the spread of something else entirely, namely, the dispersion of analytic habits in basketball. Daryl Morey has remarked that the 2012 NBA draft was the first one where he felt that a critical mass of other teams was using the same criteria to evaluate prospects that he was using. The following season, three-point attempt rates increased significantly in the NBA. That same kind of increase was recorded in major-conference college basketball in 2012-13, and, finally, in college basketball as a whole in 2013-14. Indeed, by the spring of 2013, talk of revolution was already in the air within college hoops specifically. (Well, “revolutioniz[ing],” anyway.) In retrospect, it was a crucial stretch of months. Because we oh-so-up-to-speed 2018 types know the power of the three-to-two ratio, we like to pester, cajole, and implore teams to shoot more threes. To justify our pro bono advice, we often cite what might be termed the Parable of the 100 Shots. Making 35 percent or so of your threes over that many shots will yield about 105 points, while hitting half or a little less than that of your twos will give you just 98 or 100 points or thereabouts. This is the seed bed of the revolution, and, most of the time, it makes perfect sense. Nevertheless, it’s also the case that a solid 20 percent of major-conference programs, at least for the purposes of this past season, should have sat this revolution out. When you’re much, much better at twos than threes, you should, in theory, shoot more twos. What revolution? More points with 100 twos than 100 threes Major-conference games only, 2018 Two-point Mississippi State 18.0 Alabama 14.6 Cal 11.7 Texas A&M 11.5 Villanova 10.7 (hey, now) Florida State 7.2 Illinois 6.1 DePaul 5.7 Creighton 5.2 Ole Miss 5.0 LSU 4.9 Oregon 4.8 Ohio State 4.1 Washington 2.5 Xavier 1.8 What an odd collection of scoring haves (mostly from the Big East) and have-nots (mostly from the SEC). It might be more helpful to render these same teams and their wildly varying success rates spatially…. Ah, there we go. Now we can see that Villanova choosing between twos and threes is a matter of mere stylistic preference in the lap of scoring luxury. That’s hardly the case with SEC teams that can’t make threes, much less the historically aberrant Cal offense of 2018. Teams like Villanova and Creighton shoot an excellent percentage on twos, in part, by attempting a lot of threes. (Repeat, in part. Shot selection within the arc is of course the largest single driver of this number.) Ever since Beilein- and Pittsnogle-era West Virginia, it’s been clear that shooting a ton of threes can, on occasion, coincide with an outstanding two-point success rate. Jay Wright is mining that vein for all the points it’s worth. Conversely, Creighton has rather curiously chosen to mine it in terms of shooting accuracy alone. The Bluejays can and will reap the scoring benefits as well when they accept mere normalcy in terms of offensive rebounding and realize the concomitant shot-volume increase (again, a la Beilein). In any event, this Big East “way” illustrates the three-pointer’s paradoxical and, likely, enduring lure. The way to make 100 twos more productive than a like number of threes can be, on occasion, to shoot more threes than just about any other team. That proposition’s likely to be tested in the near future. The 2018 NIT is being played with a three-point line that’s been pushed out to the FIBA/WNBA distance, and the percentages that have resulted aren’t so very different from what we see in “normal” college basketball. Three games to go, but, what the heck: I declare the NIT experiment with FIBA 3-point line a success. Many teams freaked in ugly 1st round, but accuracy now clocking in at respectable 34.3%. Frequency pretty normal too (35.7% of attempts). Move it there in 2019-20. — John Gasaway (@JohnGasaway) March 23, 2018 If this line is adopted by the NCAA after next season, the growth in three-point attempts will likely slow as teams pause and consider this strange new distance. Slow, but not cease. The experience of the line relocation that took place in 2008-09 suggests that this three-point train cannot easily be stopped. The ratio is and will continue to be so very enticing. This entry was posted in coachbait!, counting things, florid historical references, hoops, with apologies to stephen hawking on March 28, 2018 by johngasaway. ← Pace, favorites, and tournaments Loyola says a lot about selection, but its run says zero →	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3387
__label__wiki	0.872847	0.872847	« Typing With A Straight Face \| Main \| Judge Walton Rules On Motions To Compel » Zaladonis Ex Machina Are Michal Kranish, Boston Globe reporter and Douglas Brinkley, historian and Kerry hagiographer, capable of eliciting relevant information during an interview? If so, their own interview notes might shed some light on a Swift Boat mystery the NY Times chose to resurrect last Saturday. The puzzle - how can four men fit in a three man boat? Answer - they can't, so who is lying, or misremembering, when they say they were? "Bill Schachte was not on that skimmer," Mr. Kerry says firmly. "He was not on that skimmer. It is a lie to suggest that he was out there on that skimmer." He shows a photograph of the skimmer being towed behind his Swift boat, insisting that it could barely fit three people, himself and two others. "The three guys who in fact were in the boat all say he wasn't there and will tell you he wasn't there. We know he wasn't there, and we have all kinds of ways of proving it." What, the casual reader may have wondered, was Kerry going on about? Kerry won his first Purple Heart for a brief encounter with the Viet Cong on Dec 2, 1968. Kerry and two other men were in a "skimmer", a Boston Whaler whose mission was surveillance and interdiction of Viet Cong along the coast and upriver; they were supported by a Swift Boat commanded by Michael Voss. Kerry and the others saw suspicious movement and fired their weapons at men on the coast who ran off; it is not clear from the witnesses whether there was return fire, but Kerry did endure a minor shrapnel wound (perhaps accidentally self-inflicted), thus qualifying for a Purple Heart. His critics have alleged that the wound was minor and not incurred while engaging the enemy, and hence did not qualify for a medal. I disagree, but think that the critics are looking in the wrong direction. During the summer of 2004, Admiral Schachte (ret.) came forward with a bit of a bombshell, claiming that he had been in command of the three man mission with Kerry and one enlisted man in the boat (Bob Novak, Lisa Myers). This flatly contradicted Kerry's claims that he had led two enlisted men in the skimmer; it also contradicted sailors Zaladonis and Runyon, who had come forward in early 2004 (Feb 20, 2004, Cox News Service) and identified themselves as the two men in the skimmer with Kerry. And where are we now? Basically, where we were in the summer of 2004 - the debate moved on, Kerry lost the election, no one cares, and yet now the Times is front-paging the news that Kerry intends to revisit these points and vindicate himself. I think we can rely on the Times to provide zero follow-up, so let me ask again some questions that occurred to me way back when - just why do we believe Zaladonis and/or Runyon were on that skimmer, and can anyone explain an odd lapse in interview technique by both Brinkley and Kranish? The oddity is this - based on my (possibly flawed) effort with Lexis and Google, the earliest mention I can find of Runyon and Zaladonis serving with Kerry on this mission is a Feb 20, 2004 Cox News Service story describing Runyon's re-appearance in Kerry's life after all these years. However - both Brinkley and Kranish interviewed Zaladonis in 2003, Brinkley for "Tour of Duty " and Kranish for a Boston Globe series, "John Kerry: Candidate in the Making". Why did they interview him? Because he served under Kerry on PCF-44 from Dec 6 to late January. Yet somehow, neither he nor Kerry happened to mention the exciting circumstances under which they first met a few days earlier on Dec 2. Or, if Zaladonis did mention it, neither Brinkley nor Kranish noted that they had an eye-witness to Kerry's first medal. That is some fine interview technique! So - did either of these worthies sit down with Zaladonis and ask anything like, "How did you first meet Kerry?"; "Do you remember any specific events with Kerry?"; or "Do you ever talk about John Kerry stories with your friends?" They all seem like reasonable questions for a profile on John Kerry, yes? And if we believe Zaladonis, there can't be any question but that he considered the skimmer op to be quite memorable - here is part of what he said to Lisa Myers of NBC News on Aug 27, 2004: Myers: It was 35 years ago; how certain are you that Bill Schachte was not there that night? Zaladonis: I'm absolutely positive. Absolutely positive. I don't remember every incident or everything that happened that night. But I do remember who was on the boat and remember it very plainly. Very plainly… Like I said, it was one of the scariest nights I've had in my life. And Pat and I have shared this story a few times since we've been out of the Navy. We've been very good friends ever since we've been—when we were in the Navy and out – and this is something that we talked about every now and then. So it was one of his scariest nights in Vietnam, he discussed it from time to time with Pat Runyon, but he never mentioned it when Brinkley and Kranish asked him for any good Kerry stories? Or did they just not ask? (I see in his "Interviews" section that Brinkley had "multiple" interviews with the evidently laconic Mr. Zaladonis, and none with Pat Runyon). Well, Brinkley is not going to respond to this, unless it is to ratify Kerry's position. I suspect it will be left to future historians to judge his record on his coverage of Kerry, since the truth will out, eventually. Kranish is a different story, however - he did go back and check his interview notes with Schachte (who is also quoted in the Globe 2003 piece) and concluded that Schachte's original interview had skipped past the key plot points. However, there is no indication that Mr. Kranish undertook a similar exercise for Zaladonis, who was identified in April 2004 by the Globe as having been on the skimmer: Kerry's crew spotted some people running from a sampan, a flat-bottomed boat, to a nearby shoreline, according to two men serving alongside Kerry that night, William Zaladonis and Patrick Runyon. No explanation is offered as to why these two are known to be on the crew, although the point did not become controversial until August. From the Globe, we see that "Michael Kranish can be reached at kranish@globe.com". Since the Times has re-surfaced this, and since Kerry seems to be intent on re-fighting it, I am going to exhort Mr. Kranish to take another stab at this, with an emphasis on just what he and Mr. Zaladonis discussed in 2003. My hope is that there is a plausible reason that Zaladonis was not tabbed as being on the skimmer with Kerry back then. Some day we still hope to see Kerry's War Notes, and maybe even the application and witness statement supporting his first Purple Heart currently in the Naval Archives. Douglas Brinkley is an historian, but I think it may take other historians to address this. And are there other places to look for clues? Well, the unit records for then-Lt. Schachte's group should have some accounts of the other skimmer ops ostensibly led by Schachte, who told Lisa Myers and Bob Novak that, as the originator of the idea, he went on each mission. Can records confirm or disprove that? My impression is that some folks out there are deeply conversant with the Naval Archives, so any assistance would be appreciated. And a long-shot would be to check histories of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War - Zaladonis said he did not join, so disproving that would fracture his credibility. I have early "Zaladonis" citations below - Lexis has been inexplicably balky for me, but this seems to be every reference relevant to "Zaladonis" linked with Kerry from Jan 1990 to April 1, 2004. I still need to check alternate spellings - the Wash Times used "Zaldonis" in one story. ERRATA: For reasons I can't explain, Brinkley thanks Zaladonis, among others, for his contribution to the chapter titled "The Medals". However, that chapter covers the action on PCF-94, where Kerry won his second and third Purple Hearts and his Silver and Bronze Stars; since he was on PCF-44 with Kerry, one wonders why Zaladonis is here. Maybe it is a subconscious cry for help from Brinkley, who knew Zaladonis witnessed a medal but couldn't put his finger on which one. Or maybe Zaladonis was on another boat involved with one of Kerry's medals. Also puzzling - on p. 160, Brinkley tells us that, of all his PCF-44 crew, Zaladonis was the hardest for Kerry to get to know. This, despite the bonding rite of passage a few days before they sailed? Brinkley then records Kerry reminiscing about Zaladonis without mentioning their heroic night together. Weird. Useful Citations: Zaladonis - mentioned as having served with Dan Droz in this Oct 10, 2002 story: A daughter awakens a tale of honor and of a spirit ravaged by war Zaladonis, Feb 15 2004; Kerry as war protestor; Free Republic partial. Zaladonis, Feb 20, 2004 - A Wash Times article about Kerry as war protestor: John Forbes Kerry, who has voiced his presidential aspirations since high school, criticized America's "intervention" in Vietnam before going to the war, confirmed his beliefs during five months of duty there and returned to build a career in politics based on his opposition to it. ...Bill Zaladonis, an engineman on Mr. Kerry's boat, remembers that the future senator fought bravely and honorably. But, he said, some veterans simply will never forget what Mr. Kerry did after the war. "It doesn't matter what he does, they'll never forgive him," Mr. Zaladonis said from his home in Florida. "One of my best friends says he'll never vote for John Kerry — not even for dog catcher." ..."I really lost it when they started talking about those atrocities," said Mr. Zaladonis. "That was more than a lot of us could take." Still, he said, it was courageous of Mr. Kerry to stand up and speak out, even if he didn't agree with him. March 4, 2004: Zaladonis non-commital on support for Kerry Kerry Goes On Offensive In Florida Tampa Tribune (florida), NATION/WORLD, Pg. 1 WILLIAM MARCH ORLANDO - John Kerry launched his general election campaign with a "town hall meeting on America's security" Wednesday, signaling he will challenge President Bush in Florida and take the offensive on national defense issues. Surrounded by members of firefighter and law enforcement unions in Orlando, the Democrat charged that the Republican president hasn't lived up to pledges made after the Sept. 11 attacks to bolster border security, police and fire protection. ...He didn't receive a ready endorsement from Bill Zaladonis, an engine man on Kerry's gunboat during the Vietnam War. Kerry praised Zaladonis, now retired in Sanford, saying the crew relied on his work in tight spots. Zaladonis wouldn't commit publicly to Kerry, saying he did not go along with Kerry in joining Vietnam Veterans Against the War after serving overseas. "That's a private matter," Zaladonis told reporters when asked how he would vote in November. Later, when pressed, he said he "probably" would back Kerry, noting: "I'm no great fan of George Bush." Feb 20, 2004 Cox News service story - Runyon and Zaladonis are together (at last!). I have a fair-use excerpt here, and will pull this out: Byline: James Kuhnhenn Feb. 20--DAYTON, Ohio -- It happened again. John Kerry reunited this week with another former seaman with whom he shared a harrowing night 35 years ago in a dark finger of water in Vietnam. Patrick Runyon, a 58-year-old shipping clerk from Eaton, Ohio, showed up at a local union headquarters where Kerry was to speak and reintroduced himself to the Massachusetts senator. Runyon wanted to find out whether Kerry recalled their single nighttime mission as well as he did. "He remembered quite a bit of it," Runyon said in an interview about his private meeting with Kerry. The skirmish involving Runyon occurred one night in early 1969. Kerry, Runyon and Bill Zaldonis, who was Kerry's Swift boat engine man, were assigned to a small Boston Whaler to patrol a peninsula north of Cam Ranh in search of Viet Cong in South Vietnam's "no man zone." "It was very dark, really," Runyon said. "Then we seen some cross the water. A silhouette. Mr. Kerry saw them with starlight scope. He said, 'I'm gonna pop a flare.' When he popped the flare I started the engine. We got going." Kerry recalls the episode in "Tour of Duty," historian Doug Brinkley's book about the senator's service in the war and his ensuing antiwar stance. "The light from the flares started to fade, the air was full of explosions. My M-16 jammed, and as I bent down in the boat to grab another gun, a stinging piece of heat socked into my arm and just seemed to burn like hell," Kerry says in the book. It was Kerry's first real action, and it earned him his first of three Purple Hearts. Neither Kerry nor Runyon has any idea whether they wounded or killed the enemy. In the book, Kerry says he and his crew strafed the beach, then destroyed the sampan the Vietnamese had beached. "It was just a scary moment in our lives," Runyon said. He'd never seen Kerry again. Until this week. When Kerry landed in Dayton on Wednesday he was alerted to Runyon by an article in that day's Dayton Daily News. Kerry wasn't sure he remembered Runyon and asked to meet Runyon and his wife, Anne, privately, out of sight of journalists. "I wanted to see if he remembered the incident," Runyon said. "I knew he wouldn't remember me." Runyon said he followed Kerry's career from the moment Kerry became an antiwar activist as a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. "The man had done his duty," Runyon said. "Then he came back and protested. That's the right way to do it, instead of running off or hiding away in college." Runyon has been disaffected with politics since Vietnam. "I lost interest after that," he said. But now, he's willing to reconsider. "If it does help, I'm definitely going to register and vote for him," Runyon said. Posted by Tom Maguire on June 02, 2006 \| Permalink "readingforfun, I've never corresponded or spoken with Tom Maguire. If you genuinely suppose that I am his alter ego, email me so we can arrange a time to talk. Provided you're willing to post a civil retraction of the charge afterwards. " Making false accusations on this site seems to be business-as-usual, and no one ever offers a retraction, civil or otherwise, when called on them. Doug Reese Posted by: Doug Reese \| June 07, 2006 at 11:50 PM Ah, another installment in the "smear 'em all" approach. I see why you're a Kerry supporter. What's less obvious is why you continue to whine about it here. You have been irrevocably outed as one of those sleazoid blogmeisters . . . The dishonesty of self-supporting sock puppetry shilling is apparently beyond some folks. Blaming others for catching them at it is beyond hilarious. (And the complaint to Six Apart was priceless.) Posted by: Cecil Turner \| June 08, 2006 at 11:19 AM	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3395
__label__wiki	0.501163	0.501163	Dogs Left Behind on Boat as Family Fled Hurricane Harvey Have Been Rescued Posted: Aug 29, 2017 / 10:25 AM PDT / Updated: Aug 29, 2017 / 10:25 AM PDT Credit: CNN reporter Ed Lavandera / @agband93bcobrooks (Instagram) Two dogs that were left on a boat in Houston after their family was forced to evacuate during Hurricane Harvey have been rescued. The dogs were apparently left behind when their owners had to evacuate due to flooding caused by heavy rains from the storm. CNN reporter Ed Lavandera shared the original photo on Monday with this caption: “Two dogs left behind in a boat. Sadly a family had to evacuate their flooded neighborhood in Dickinson, Texas without their dogs. Hope they’re ok. I should add, I think the people have every intention of coming back to get the dogs. Food was left behind and I suspect it had to be a tough choice and that they will come back for them as soon as they can.” On Tuesday, Lavandera posted a photo of Frankie and Bear getting rescued with an update: “UPDATE: Frankie & Bear are safe. The two dogs we saw sitting in a boat in a flooded neighborhood have been rescued! They’re being cared for and the owners will reconnect them at some point. Photo courtesy @agband93bcobrooks.” Two dogs left behind in a boat. Sadly a family had to evacuate their flooded neighborhood in Dickinson, #Texas without their dogs. Hope they're ok. #houston A post shared by Ed Lavandera (@edlavacnn) on Aug 27, 2017 at 9:34pm PDT UPDATE: Frankie & Bear are safe. The two dogs we saw sitting in a boat in a flooded neighborhood have been rescued! A combination of volunteer rescuers and friends pitched in to save the day. In the chaotic evacuation, the family was not allowed to bring the dogs in the rescue boat so they thought putting them in the boat temporarily, until someone could reach them, was the safest decision. They're being cared for and the owners will reconnect them at some point. Photo courtesy @agband93bcobrooks A post shared by Ed Lavandera (@edlavacnn) on Aug 29, 2017 at 9:48am PDT Here’s how you can help: Rescuers continue to pull people from rising floodwaters. The traumatized and weary evacuees often have nothing but the soaked clothes on their backs. Aid groups are scrambling to provide shelter, emergency services and hope. There are several ways you can help. Donate money: By clicking on the button below, you can donate to charities vetted by CNN’s Impact Your World. These organizations are helping in Harvey’s immediate aftermath, and they will continue working through the long term. If you are in Texas, there are additional ways you can contribute: Donate blood: The South Texas Blood & Tissue Center desperately needs more than 2,000 units of blood. The biggest need is for O positive and O negative. A list of locations to donate blood can be found here. Donate food and clothing: Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner is asking people to donate clothing, medical supplies, baby items, and food to nearby shelters. Feeding Texas is coordinating with local food banks to distribute food and cleaning supplies. The organization is asking people to drop off non-perishable food, bleach, and paper towels. The Texas Diaper Bank is seeking diaper donations. You can mail them to 5415 Bandera Road, Suite 504, San Antonio, Texas 78238 or drop them off at the same address. Help with clean up: Austin Disaster Relief Network is asking for toiletries, inflatable mattresses, undergarments, and cleaning tools. They can be dropped off at the Hope Family Thrift Store in Austin. Volunteers can also sign up for cleaning efforts there. The Coastal Bend Disaster Recovery Group needs construction cleanup supplies — debris containers, truck cranes, forklifts, ladders, and nail guns. Donate toys and supplies: Mayor Turner said many children inside the shelters need “things to do” and is asking people to donate coloring books, puzzles, and other toys to the shelters. More Nation/world Stories Guatemalan police, military use tear gas to disperse hundreds of migrants at roadblock Guatemalan police and soldiers on Monday broke up a group of hundreds of migrants who had spent two nights stuck at a roadblock on a rural highway. Some migrants threw rocks while authorities launched tear gas and pushed the migrants with their riot shields back down the highway. Migrants with children were more gently prodded back the way they had come. Nation/world / 15 seconds ago California / 12 mins ago	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3400
__label__wiki	0.821767	0.821767	Written by... Jack Hum, G5UM "REPEATER EXPERIMENT LICENCE UNDER CONTROLLED CONDITIONS" said the man from the Ministry. How long have you held your transmitting licence? Two years, three years, five years? Then the amateur radio repeater service will be a normal part of life to you: it will seem to have been there all the time. You cannot visualize the 2m and 70cm bands without it. In fact, repeaters in the UK are not yet a decade old-- a thought worth bearing in mind as we move into the penultimate decade of the twentieth century (Another thought: a decade is along time to the young, but to the elderly it is but a moment gone). It was as recently as 1972 that the first British (and very experimental) repeater was commissioned. Before this significant event occurred a great deal of groundwork had been done by the national society. At the RSGB Council meeting in October of 1971 Geoff Stone, G3FZL, the then chairman of the VHF Committee, reported that the Pye Telecommunications Amateur Radio Group had produced proposals for setting up a repeater station. He and G2B? were deputed to examine these proposals and to report back to the Council. By the time of the January 1972 meeting of the Council it had been agreed to ask the MPT licensing authority to permit these proposals to be translated into fact by authorizing a six-month repeater experiment in the 2m band. Events moved swiftly and it was not long before the green light was given for the experiment to begin. This green light was flashed by none other than Mr D.E.Baptiste during the course of a speech he made at the Eighteenth Annual VHF/UHF Convention held down on Thames-side at Twickenham Mr Baptiste, head of the MPT's Radio Regulatory Division, was reported in the 'Four Metres and Down': feature in RADCOM (then written by someone living not a hundred miles from Leicester) as saying that "The RSGB request for a repeater experiment to be conducted has won us over, and a licence will shortly be issued for this to be performed under controlled conditions". No wonder the 220 people at the Convention dinner that night could not forebear to cheer. But there was something else which made them do so: it was their feeling that the Man from the Ministry in giving assent to the amateur movement's request to "have ago" with this new device, a 2m repeater, was quite confident that they would do the job responsibly and well. And so, in practice, it turned out to be. By the November,1972, issue of RADCOM the vhf columnist was waxing enthusiastic about a demonstration he had been given of GB3PI in action (then operating from a yard behind the Pye works at Cambridge, 145.150 in and 145.750 out). He reported that while he was driven around the district by G3USB, one of the team responsible for engineering this first repeater a pile-up developed of two-meteorites anxious to talk through it. That was the start of it all in the UK. Its continuance may be seen in the list of repeaters printed in RADCOM for February 1979, over a hundred of them. What of the history in between? More of that later. AUTHOR'S NOTE.-- Originally contributed to the GB3DY Newsletter, this article may be reproduced in any other repeater group publication if desired. -- JH.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3404
__label__cc	0.694309	0.305691	Severity of COVID-19 correlates with the ratio of antibodies concentrating on essential viral protein COVID-19 antibodies preferentially goal a special a part of the virus in gentle circumstances of COVID-19 than they do in extreme circumstances, and wane considerably inside a number of months of an infection, in keeping with a brand new research by researchers at Stanford Drugs. The findings determine new hyperlinks between the course of the illness and a affected person’s immune response. In addition they elevate issues about whether or not individuals might be re-infected, whether or not antibody checks to detect prior an infection might underestimate the breadth of the pandemic and whether or not vaccinations might must be repeated at common intervals to keep up a protecting immune response. This is likely one of the most complete research up to now of the antibody immune response to SARS-CoV-2 in individuals throughout the complete spectrum of illness severity, from asymptomatic to deadly. We assessed a number of time factors and pattern varieties, and in addition analyzed ranges of viral RNA in affected person nasopharyngeal swabs and blood samples. It is one of many first big-picture appears at this sickness.” Scott Boyd, MD, Ph.D., Affiliate Professor of Pathology The research discovered that individuals with extreme COVID-19 have low proportions of antibodies concentrating on the spike protein utilized by the virus to enter human cells in contrast with the variety of antibodies concentrating on proteins of the virus’s internal shell. Boyd is a senior creator of the research, which was revealed Dec. 7 in Science Immunology. Different senior authors are Benjamin Pinsky, MD, PhD, affiliate professor of pathology, and Peter Kim, PhD, the Virginia and D. Ok. Ludwig Professor of Biochemistry. The lead authors are analysis scientist Katharina Röltgen, PhD; postdoctoral students Abigail Powell, PhD, and Oliver Wirz, PhD; and scientific teacher Bryan Stevens, MD. Virus binds to ACE2 receptor The researchers studied 254 individuals with asymptomatic, gentle or extreme COVID-19 who had been recognized both by way of routine testing or occupational well being screening at Stanford Well being Care or who got here to a Stanford Well being Care clinic with signs of COVID-19. Of the individuals with signs, 25 had been handled as outpatients, 42 had been hospitalized exterior the intensive care unit and 37 had been handled within the intensive care unit. Twenty-five individuals within the research died of the illness. SARS-CoV-2 binds to human cells by way of a construction on its floor referred to as the spike protein. This protein binds to a receptor on human cells referred to as ACE2. The binding permits the virus to enter and infect the cell. As soon as inside, the virus sheds its outer coat to disclose an internal shell encasing its genetic materials. Quickly, the virus co-opts the cell’s protein-making equipment to churn out extra viral particles, that are then launched to contaminate different cells. Antibodies that acknowledge and bind to the spike protein block its skill to bind to ACE2, stopping the virus from infecting the cells, whereas antibodies that acknowledge different viral parts are unlikely to forestall viral unfold. Present vaccine candidates use parts of the spike protein to stimulate an immune response. Boyd and his colleagues analyzed the degrees of three varieties of antibodies — IgG, IgM and IgA — and the proportions that focused the viral spike protein or the virus’s internal shell because the illness progressed and sufferers both recovered or grew sicker. In addition they measured the degrees of viral genetic materials in nasopharyngeal samples and blood from the sufferers. Lastly, they assessed the effectiveness of the antibodies in stopping the spike protein from binding to ACE2 in a laboratory dish. “Though earlier research have assessed the general antibody response to an infection, we in contrast the viral proteins focused by these antibodies,” Boyd mentioned. “We discovered that the severity of the sickness correlates with the ratio of antibodies recognizing domains of the spike protein in contrast with different nonprotective viral targets. These individuals with gentle sickness tended to have a better proportion of anti-spike antibodies, and people who died from their illness had extra antibodies that acknowledged different components of the virus.” Substantial variability in immune response The researchers warning, nonetheless, that though the research recognized tendencies amongst a gaggle of sufferers, there’s nonetheless substantial variability within the immune response mounted by particular person sufferers, notably these with extreme illness. “Antibody responses should not more likely to be the only real determinant of somebody’s end result,” Boyd mentioned. “Amongst individuals with extreme illness, some die and a few get well. A few of these sufferers mount a vigorous immune response, and others have a extra average response. So, there are numerous different issues happening. There are additionally different branches of the immune system concerned. It is necessary to notice that our outcomes determine correlations however do not show causation.” As in different research, the researchers discovered that individuals with asymptomatic and gentle sickness had decrease ranges of antibodies general than did these with extreme illness. After restoration, the degrees of IgM and IgA decreased steadily to low or undetectable ranges in most sufferers over a interval of about one to 4 months after symptom onset or estimated an infection date, and IgG ranges dropped considerably. “That is fairly per what has been seen with different coronaviruses that recurrently flow into in our communities to trigger the frequent chilly,” Boyd mentioned. “It is not unusual for somebody to get re-infected inside a 12 months or typically sooner. It stays to be seen whether or not the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 vaccination is stronger, or persists longer, than that attributable to pure an infection. It is fairly potential it could possibly be higher. However there are numerous questions that also must be answered.” Boyd is a co-chair of the Nationwide Most cancers Institute’s SeroNet Serological Sciences Community, one of many nation’s largest coordinated analysis efforts to review the immune response to COVID-19. He’s the principal investigator of Heart of Excellence in SeroNet at Stanford, which is tackling crucial questions in regards to the mechanisms and length of immunity to SARS-CoV-2. “For instance, if somebody has already been contaminated, ought to they get the vaccine? If that’s the case, how ought to they be prioritized?” Boyd mentioned. “How can we adapt seroprevalence research in vaccinated populations? How will immunity from vaccination differ from that attributable to pure an infection? And the way lengthy would possibly a vaccine be protecting? These are all very fascinating, necessary questions.” Ultra-Early Tranexamic Acid of No Benefit for Subarachnoid Hemorrhage Comfortable Wax Now Out there – Misplaced Artwork Press New system for investigating intrinsic extracellular pH dynamics within the mind Phil Spector: Listening to 15 Songs From a Violent Legacy Arsenal vs Newcastle result: Premier League final score, goals and report Mint Swim x Pacsun Collection by Fashion Designer Draya Michele!1966 Magazine How to Start a Fitness Routine and Stick with It Colorado redistricting reform relies on fair-minded unaffiliated members Cuomo calls on Pfizer to deal COVID doses directly to N.Y.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3407
__label__wiki	0.71477	0.71477	Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp gives worrying Thiago injury update Posted By: Charles Adam Taylor November 24, 2020 Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has given an update on Thiago’s injury and admits he doesn’t know when he’ll return to training. The Spaniard hasn’t played since being injured by Everton’s Richarlison during the Merseyside Derby on October 17. It’s thought he would be ready to return quickly after being pictured at the club’s training ground – but he is yet to take part in first-team training. When asked about Thiago, Klopp said per The Mirror: “When will he be in team training? I don’t know. We will see. “I’m as surprised as the public. In the morning I come in, we have a medical meeting and they tell me ‘yes he is in, he is not’. “I know it’s not too far any more [for Thiago], but I have no idea.” Klopp watched his side defeat Leicester City 3-0 on Sunday evening, but Naby Keita went off with a suspected hamstring issue to join a host of names on the treatment table. The Reds face Atalanta in the Champions League on Wednesday night and Klopp continued: “It would be great if he [Thiago] could [play], but then he would have three days training and then play a Champions League game. “It’s not the ideal situation. We have to see how we do it. “I have in the moment no idea how we do it, but I can sleep at least three times and then we will see.” Klopp unleashed a huge rant on Premier League broadcasters following the game against Leicester, slamming this season’s fixture congestion. “It was never about us when I spoke about it,” the German told Geoff Shreeves. “It’s about all the players, England players, players who play next summer in the European Championships. “Sky and BT have to talk because if we keep playing Wednesday and Saturday at 12:30, I’m not sure if we will finish the season with 11 players. All the top six or seven. But I know you don’t care. “It’s really difficult for the players, that’s what is difficult. The rest is just a decision on a desk in an office. That sounds not difficult for me. “People tell us to rotate – who? We have offensive players to rotate, yes, the rest are kids. Stop talking and start making decisions. “If somebody tells me again about contracts I’ll go really nuts. Contracts are not made for a Covid season. We all have to adapt. You adapt, we adapt, you’re standing here with a facemask – we adapt to the situation. So everything changed. “But the contract with the broadcasters is: ‘No, we said we have this, so we keep this.’ Everything changed, the whole world changed.” Trent comp shows full-back is steadily recovering his form (VIDEO) Clattenburg says ref was wrong to blow half-time whistle early on Liverpool Nemanja Vidic didn’t mention Fernando Torres when naming his four toughest opponents Jurgen Klopp took shots at Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s tactics after Liverpool 0-0 Man United Thiago leaves Bruno Fernandes for dead with lovely move (VIDEO) Alisson produces two brilliant saves as Liverpool and Man United draw 0-0 Ref blow for half time 5 seconds early as Mane is through on goal (VIDEO)	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3411
__label__wiki	0.750028	0.750028	5th July 2017 Issue no. 369 BEST Access Solutions introduces Keystone Web, the latest digital key management program BEST Access Solutions, part of the dormakaba Group portfolio of mechanical and electronic access control solutions, has released Keystone Web, the company's latest key management program. Aurora unveils long range facial recognition sensor Pioneering facial recognition specialist Aurora unveiled its latest next-generation technology development: FaceSentinel LR, a long range sensor that extends Aurora's industry-leading near infrared capabilities to a wider range of distances, making it suitable for applications such as queue management, surveillance, and VIP identification. The specialist biometric imaging and illumination technology is designed to work with the latest versions of Aurora's Deep Learning-based Facial Recognition engines. This amazing 17th Century lock has a few clever mechanical tricks ... it even counts how many times it has been opened! In the 17th century, security was often a matter of mechanical ingenuity rather than the kinds of technology we rely on today such as cameras and alarm systems. If you wanted to keep someone out, you had to physically bar them, or devise a mechanism that would-be intruders couldn't solve. Security Union: European Commission welcomes the Council's commitment to improve information exchange and border management Following the adoption by the Justice and Home Affairs Council of the conclusions on information systems and interoperability and the general approach on the Commission's proposal for a European Travel and Information Authorisation System (ETIAS), Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos and Commissioner for the Security Union Julian King made the following joint statement: Bored and distracted employees biggest potential security risk Employees who become distracted at work are more likely to be the cause of human error and a potential security risk, according to a snapshot poll* conducted by Centrify, the leader in securing hybrid enterprises through the power of identity services, at Europe's leading infosecurity event, Infosec Europe in London this week. While more than a third (35 per cent) of survey respondents cite distraction and boredom as the main cause of human error, other causes include heavy workloads (19 per cent), excessive policies and compliance regulations (5 per cent), social media (5 per cent) and password sharing (4 per cent). VR pioneer founds border security start-up Virtual reality pioneer Palmer Luckey has founded a start-up concentrating on technology to police borders and large events, reports the New York Times. You can comment on any item in Locks and Security News on our FaceBook page. You can find us at: If you enjoy reading Locks and Security News so do others! If you have company news, stock clearances, distributor or product information tell us about just email news Last chance to book for industry's premier awards ceremony With limited places available, the British Security Industry Association (BSIA) is advising people to avoid disappointment and book their places now for their upcoming Annual Lunch. This year's event boasts a brand new, glamorous venue, taking place at the Grand Connaught Rooms near Covent Garden on Wednesday 12th July 2017 also marks the Association's 50th anniversary, with the lunch promising to be an exciting celebration of the achievements of the industry's leading trade Association over the past five decades. Codelocks continues its wave of innovation with two new affordable mechanical locks Leading lock manufacturer Codelocks has introduced two new additions to its range of easy-to-install locks, with the announcement of the CL50 and the CL160. The new locks follow a raft of product releases, as Codelocks continues to invest heavily in research and development. The CL50 and the CL160 are affordable mechanical push button locks that provide a comprehensive range of functions for light duty entry control. Skills for Security one of the first to offer the new Fire, Emergency and Security Systems Apprenticeship Standard Skills for Security is proud to be among the first of the training providers to offer the brand new Fire, Emergency and Security Systems apprenticeship standard. The new apprenticeship focuses on employer designed standards to ensure that the training and assessment apprentices receive meets precise industry standards. It is at Level 3 and mapped out as a three year programme, replacing the previous Security Systems frameworks, which were offered at both Levels 2 and 3. dormakaba launches Quantum Pixel, the 'next generation' of quantum locks Quantum Pixel collects a wealth of lock activity information to support productivity analytics. "Our newest addition to the Quantum series portfolio, the Quantum Pixel, provides a minimalistic appearance while providing all hardware features and technology today's global hospitality market, designers and architects are seeking," says Mike Lopes, dormakaba senior product manager, Lodging Systems. SSAIB audits first company to latest ISO 9001 standard SSAIB, the UK and Ireland's leading security, fire and telecare certification body, has certificated its registered firm, MRP Alarms, to the latest ISO 9001 quality management systems standard. Importantly, while Harrogate-based MRP Alarms was already audited to the previous (2008) version of ISO 9001 for the installation of wired and wireless intruder alarm systems, it sought benchmark certification to this updated ISO 9001: 2015 standard as part of the company's commitment to the highest level of quality assurance for its residential and commercial customers. Twin Cities locksmith charged with assault... again A Twin Cities locksmith featured by KARE 11 Investigates last month faces new charges, and now a warrant is out for his arrest. Todd Shiber, the owner of Metro Lockout, is charged in Ramsey County with two counts of fifth-degree assault, disorderly conduct, and destruction of property from an incident that happened December 10th. Research reveals millions are at serious risk of hacking and don't know it Millions are at serious risk of hacking and don't know it - with fitness trackers, smart TVs and even children's toys among the most vulnerable items, according to new research from consumer security specialist, BullGuard. Excluding smartphones, tablets and PCs, the average UK adult owns three internet-connected devices, including locks, pet trackers and web cams. Thomas Lausten new CEO of MOBOTIX AG Thomas Lausten assumes responsibility as the new CEO of MOBOTIX. On March 27, 2017, the supervisory board has appointed Thomas Lausten as new Chief Executive Officer. Worthing locksmith who 'loved helping others' will be remembered An entrepreneurial grandfather, who ran a thriving Worthing locksmith business for around 44 years, has died at the age of 69. Family man Colin Attle, of Roedean Road, who 'loved helping others', died after enduring a short illness 'with extreme bravery and fortitude' on Friday, June 16. Police apologise to innocent locksmith wrongly named as one of Hull's most wanted Humberside Police have apologised to an innocent locksmith who secured a burglary scene after they named him as one of Hull's most wanted criminals. The force circulated a media appeal with details of eight suspects they wanted the public to help them catch. Included was the name, photograph and address of Christopher Phelan who detectives said was wanted for burglary. However, Mr Phelan was not involved in the burglary. He had attended the crime scene in his capacity as a locksmith to secure the building, working alongside the police! Surge in electro-mechanical hardware makes ongoing FM training more important than ever Allegion UK Commercial Leader Pete Hancox suggests that facilities management training needs to keep pace with rapidly developing building technologies for building and occupant wellbeing. ICO launches revamped data protection self-assessment toolkit ahead of GDPR The ICO revamped the data protection self-assessment toolkit for SMEs, which includes: a checklist to help businesses and organisations get ready for the GDPR, and the ability to compare what you are currently doing around data protection to what you should be doing under the GDPR. www.ico.org.uk Mitie launch City Class service Mitie's security management business has announced the launch of its City Class service to customers, industry thought leaders and influencers, at its quarterly thought leadership event, The Kurtzman Club. Dakota Hotels selects MOBOTIX for intelligent yet discreet video surveillance MOBOTIX AG, a leading manufacturer of digital high-resolution, network-based video security systems has released details of major installation for Dakota Hotels that is helping to provide a secure environment for guests and staff while remaining discreet and unobtrusive. Dakota Hotels is a lifestyle hotel brand providing hospitality and restaurant services in boutique hotels based in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Veracity showcases end-to-end Command & Control solution at IFSEC Veracity, a leading provider of innovative and intelligent solutions that solve real-world challenges in IP video systems, is showcasing a new suite of products at IFSEC 2017 which neatly brings together the three cornerstones of its successful business: IP transmission, storage and display. Modern vehicles vulnerable to tech-savvy thieves The Metropolitan police warn that an increasing number of vehicles are being stolen by criminals exploiting electronic controls. Once inside the vehicle, the thieves plug a device into the on-board diagnostic port (OBD), which allows them to download the vehicle's electronic information on to a blank key. Allegion appoints John Hiscock to lead UK's South West business team Allegion UK - part of Allegion plc, a leading global security products and solutions provider - has named John Hiscock as business development manager of its business development team in the South West.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3413
__label__wiki	0.614522	0.614522	6th June 2018 Issue no. 413 Risk Warden streamlines the risk assessment and management process Risk Warden launches unique cloud-based platform that simplifies the assessment, management and ownership of risk, helping organisations to achieve compliant, risk managed environments. Risk Warden, a pioneering internet-based fire risk assessment and management tool, is now available to help assessors and building managers improve levels of safety. PACOM 8003 hybrid control panel targets false alarms PACOM Systems, part of STANLEY Product & Technology, a leading provider of security and access control solutions, is helping users reduce false alarms with the PACOM 8003 intelligent security control panel. A true hybrid panel, the PACOM 8003 is capable of delivering both advanced access control and robust, EN Grade 3 intrusion detection across applications of all sizes; from simple two-door installations to campuses and multi-site estates. Manything announces simple recurring revenue platform and new white label app Manything, the British video monitoring software company with more than 850,000 registered global users, is set to enrich its six years of cloud expertise by unveiling white label software and a new billing system to the professional security industry at IFSEC International in London next month. Manything originally launched as an app allowing users to turn retired smartphones and tablets into home security cameras, with over 25 years of video monitored every day. Yale makes the Smart Door Lock even smarter with launch of its SR-Hub and Module 2 Yale is opening the door to new possibilities with the launch of its brand-new SR-Hub and Module 2 kit, offering enhanced control and monitoring features to customers when using the Yale Home app. Suitable for use with the Conexis L1 and Keyless Connected, the SR-Hub and Yale Module 2 allows users to open their door remotely from anywhere in the world using the app - perfect for letting in early house guests! Lock Lock is showcased on Red Dot 21 The pioneering Lock Lock door security handle from Brisant Secure has recently been featured on the globally renowned Red Dot 21 World of Design website, alongside other global brands associated with outstanding product design Hanwha Techwin launch space saving compact H.265 Wisenet dome cameras The five new dome cameras, which have been added to the award winning Wisenet X camera series, are designed for environments where there may be limited space, such as in lifts, entrance lobbies, stair wells and small shops, whilst three of the new models are built to withstand vibrations which may occur in transport environments. Oncam Appoints Simon Reed to Vice President of Sales for EMEA and Asia Oncam, a leading provider of 360-degree video capture and business intelligence technology, announced today the promotion of Simon Reed to Vice President of Sales, EMEA and Asia. In these dynamic regions, Reed will lead the implementation of the company's strategic vision to expand market share, propel new deployments of the company's award-winning technology, and boost strategic alliances. Hanwha Techwin launches Wisenet Group ANPR cameras for small site management Hanwha Techwin has strengthened its range of Intelligent Traffic Management solutions with the introduction of Wisenet Group ANPR cameras. Taking advantage of a powerful chipset, Wisenet Group ANPR cameras are an ideal edge-based solution for small sites with multiple entrances/exits or roadways. Jacksons Fencing specified for £17m shopping centre project UK perimeter solutions manufacturer, Jacksons Fencing, has recently completed a project at Portsmouth Retail Park, the latest addition to Portsmouth City Council's investment portfolio. The £17m development aims to generate up to £1m a year for local services, create jobs and contribute to the city's revitalisation. Welcome to your industry news weekly. You can comment on any item in Locks and Security News on our FaceBook page. You can find us at: If you enjoy reading Locks and Security News so do others! If you have company news, stock clearances, distributor or product information, or even a job to offer to tell us about just email news Ocucon welcomes Brand L. Elverston to its team The world's first Video Surveillance as a Service (VSaaS) system - Ocucon - has strengthened its senior team with the appointment of Brand L. Elverston, former Director of Asset Protection Strategic Initiatives at Walmart, as a consultant to the business. Breaking new ground in surveillance technology, Ocucon delivers a powerful, cloud-based storage and retrieval platform, combining intelligent data analytics with the facility to store, analyse and retrieve unlimited amounts of HD video surveillance footage from within the Ocucon portal. It is the first technology of its kind to offer unlimited cloud-based storage as a service. Burg-Wächter was one to watch at Lockex 2018 Security specialists Burg-Wächter showcased a number of security solutions and range enhancements that are worth keeping an eye on. Newly launching into the UK market, Burg-Wächter's extensive range of remote access video surveillance solutions includes BurgCam Wi-Fi, which can run as either a standalone or modular system. The BurgCam analogue range updates existing coaxial systems, whilst the BurgCam IP range represents the very latest in video surveillance technology. New Vanderbilt SPC wireless devices aimed at installer convenience Vanderbilt, a global leader providing state-of-the-art security systems, announced today the release of a new range of SPC Wireless devices. The range of devices include detectors, panic buttons, fobs, and a transceiver. The devices are discreet and tasteful in design with sleek and modern lines to complement the interior styles of many environments, such as retail stores and apartment buildings. New MOBOTIX Mx6 camera line with integrated MxBus functionality From mid-June 2018 MOBOTIX will offer its second generation Mx6 camera line with integrated MxBus functionality (camera types x16B/x26B). The MxBus technology is based on an extended camera board. This two-wire cable system developed by MOBOTIX is encrypted against cyberattacks and expands camera functions by including practical additional MOBOTIX modules such as the MX-GPS-Box, a reliable time server for a complete video system. Ethernet beyond 100m - the products and solutions you need to make your IT network installations simpler and more cost-effective Veracity brings a team of experts to the Synaxon Conference to show why their IP transmission products are the simple solution for IT network projects Veracity, a leading designer and manufacturer of innovative IP transmission products, long-term surveillance storage and an advanced, modular integration platform for Command and Control Centres, arrives in Telford for the annual Synaxon National Conference between the 7-8 June. New business development manager for the Midlands appointed at HOPPE (UK) HOPPE (UK) has appointed Rob Thomas as business development manager for the Midlands. With over 30 years in the door and architectural ironmongery industry, Rob has extensive experience in dealing with steel, timber and aluminium door sets. Starting in 1988 with architectural ironmongers Parker, Winder and Achurch, Rob has gone on to work for a wide range of door manufacturers and door hardware suppliers. Send For Help recognised as one of Britain's 'most inspirational' companies Send For Help has been listed in the London Stock Exchange Group's "1000 Companies to Inspire Britain" report, which showcases the country's most dynamic and inspiring businesses. In its fifth year, the report which is supported by Theresa May is a celebration of some of the fastest growing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK. SSAIB announce first parking enforcement firm to achieve surveillance camera certification SSAIB announce that Defence Systems Ltd have become the first parking enforcement firm in the UK to achieve certification against the Surveillance Camera Code of Practice, in respect of their use of CCTV Enforcement Cameras, Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) and Body Worn Video. Jacksons Fencing seamlessly transitions to ISO 9001:2015 UK security fencing manufacturer Jacksons Fencing has recently completed its transition to the most up-to-date version of the international quality management standard ISO 9001:2015 with certified accreditation from BRE Global, a UKAS accredited certification body. Utilise tools and training to enhance your business, says SGS at this year's Infosecurity Europe SGS United Kingdom Ltd (SGS), one of the world's leading inspection, verification, testing and certification companies, will attend this year's Infosecurity Europe event from 5-7 June to engage with visitors about business improvement tools, consultancy services and workshops designed to identify and enhance individual areas of business operations. Wonder Women: Female hardware experts lead the way at this year's Institute Awards For the first time in the Institute of Architectural Ironmongers' (IAI) history, all of the winners at the IAI Awards are female architectural ironmongers. Finding the Key to Efficiency in Healthcare The physical environment of a healthcare facility is the foundation of all that occurs in it. Implementing effective safety and security solutions creates an environment that enhances the building for those working and staying in such facilities.TRIMTO] All in one place: visitor facilities at ALEX 2018 As you know, we're returning to the Nottingham Belfry for the 5th year running. Why do we keep going back? Well, the facilities are fantastic and that lets us bring you an all-around better show. Yale sponsors Smart Home Week initiative Yale, along with a host of other technology giants, is sponsoring Smart Home Week 2018 - an initiative to showcase the very best in smart, connected and integrated home technology. TC Security Services awarded 100% Achilles Audit Following a rigorous 2-day assessment, TC Facilities Management (TCFM) has successfully completed their "Achilles" annual audit for the third consecutive year. The audit saw a score of 100% being awarded in all four key areas that the audit measures: Corporate Social Responsibility, health and safety, environment, and quality. Codelocks business development manager announced as new chair for Institute of Architectural Ironmongers Jo Milne-Rowe, business development manager for Codelocks, has been announced as the new national chair for the Institute of Architectural Ironmongers (IAI). The appointment was confirmed at the IAI's annual general meeting held at the Copthorne Hotel, Dudley, on 28th April.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3414
__label__wiki	0.933259	0.933259	SAVE 10% WHEN YOU ENTER PROMO CODE: HOLIDAYPROMO2020 AT CHECK OUT PAGE. Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood brings you closer than ever to the legendary entertainment you know and love. Explore the real sets and soundstages where the greatest names in entertainment made history. From THE BIG BANG THEORY to BATMAN, Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood takes you behind-the-camera for a revealing look at your favorite TV shows and movies. For the grand finale of your Studio Tour experience, you’ll visit Stage 48: Script to Screen. From screenwriting, to audio mixing and the glory of awards season, guests will enjoy a truly immersive look at how the magic of Hollywood is made. Children 8 years and older are welcome! You must bring valid ID. Tour hours do not include hotel pick-up and drop off time. Open daily except Sunday. 9:15am departure (year-round). A-5-B Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood and Hollywood Celebrity & Star Homes Tour Adult: $148 \| Child: $135 Convenient Free Pick-up for REGISTERED HOTEL GUESTS at your hotel in Hollywood, West Hollywood, North Hollywood (Universal City). Click here to see which city your hotel is located in Hotel Pickup Locations and Times – 9:15am Departure (Year-round) Pick-up Area Hollywood 8:30am-9:00am 3:30pm (Add 1 hour for Hollywood hotel drop off) West Hollywood 8:45am 3:30pm North Hollywood 8:30am 4:30pm A-5-B-1 Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood and Hollywood Celebrity & Star Homes Tour Adult: $154 \| Child (8 years and older): $141 Convenient Pick-up for REGISTERED HOTEL GUESTS at your hotel in Beverly Hills, Downtown Los Angeles, and Mid-Wilshire with a small fee of $6 per person – see more of Hollywood with our Hotel Pick-up option. Enjoy an extra stop at the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Beverly Hills 8:30am 3:45pm Mid-Wilshire 8:15am 5:00pm Downtown LA 8:30am 5:00pm Full day (includes admission and transfer). Meet at the pick-up point Meet at our Hollywood office. Located at 6806 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood, CA 90028. Pick up from Hotels located in Hollywood, Downtown, Beverly Hills. Warner Brothers Studio (includes admission and transfer). World Famous Hollywood Sign via Mulholland Drive Hollywood Sign – The Hollywood Sign is a landmark and American cultural icon. 90 years of glamorous history!Mulholland Drive – Best views and scenic road in Los Angeles! See Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive, Bel–Air, Sunset Strip, Beverly Hills Sign, celebrity homes and more. Visit where the movie stars live, shop, and party! See beautiful mansions, celebrity homes and nightclubs of the Sunset Strip. Find fun places you can return to, and night-time hot-spots where you may even see a celebrity later that night! Beverly Hills Sign – The name itself conjures wealth, opulence, and celebrity lifestyle. Fine dining, luxury automobiles, and world famous top end shopping. Rodeo Drive – Often described as the intersection of luxury, fashion and entertainment. Bel Air – Mansion after mansion. One of the wealthiest and most exclusive residential neighborhoods in either Los Angeles or the world.	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3421
__label__wiki	0.916452	0.916452	Kobe Bryant ‘Always Felt’ Luke Walton’s True Calling Was Coaching Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports Kobe Bryant Says Russell Westbrook Reminds Him Most Of Himself Ryan Ward The Los Angeles Lakers are starting fresh with a new head coach. Luke Walton had been their target all along after parting ways with Byron Scott, and the interest was mutual making for an easy pitch to the former player. As the Lakers brass transitions into a new era without Kobe Bryant, Walton will try to lead a group of young players as the rebuilding process continues in Los Angeles. Bryant, who was recently honored by the city of Los Angeles with “Kobe Bryant Day,” was recently interviewed by Jim Rome of CBS Sports and talked a bit about his former teammate. Kobe believes Walton’s true calling was to become a coach in the NBA: “He has a great demeanor. He’s always been poised, always even-keeled, and he communicated very clearly,” Bryant said. “I could speak strategically to Luke about the game, and he could see things and sequences of options versus one or two actions. He could see the grand scheme of the game, and so all those things kind of led me to be believe he’d be a great coach, always felt that was really his true calling when it came to the game.” After leading the Golden State Warriors to a 39-4 start to the 2015-16 NBA season, Walton became an intriguing candidate for coaching vacancies around the league. Steve Kerr was rehabbing from back surgery, and Walton inherited an incredibly talented team. The Warriors assistant coach was able to manage egos as well as keep the squad on the track while making history with the best start to a season the league has ever seen. Obviously, Walton’s task ahead with the Lakers is a daunting one and the polar opposite of the championship-caliber team he just came from in Oakland. The first-time head coach will now inherit a team filled with unproven players and a lot of uncertainty moving forward without Bryant to lean on. The Lakers brass appears very confident in Luke Walton’s ability to help right the ship in Los Angeles, but there’s an uphill battle ahead with this team expected to continue struggling as D’Angelo Russell and company learn how to put it together on the basketball floor. Clippers Head Coach Doc Rivers ‘Blown Away’ Lance Stephenson Wasn’t Called For Flagrant Foul After Inadvertently Elbowing Boban Marjanovic Lance Stephenson played a key role in the Los Angeles Lakers extending their lead to 14 points in the third quarter on Thursday night, but it was a driving layup… Matthew Moreno NBA DFS: James Harden, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Brook Lopez Among Top Picks On DraftKings Among the top DraftKings daily fantasy picks for Wednesday are James Harden and Los Angeles Lakers players Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Brook Lopez… Brent Heiden Lakers News: The 10 Most Disliked Athletes In America Features Two Lakers “The 10 Most Disliked Athletes in America” list came out recently and… Elizabeth Benson Picture Contest: Lakers Nation Nike 3 on 3 Tournament Team Giveaway Many Los Angeles residents have grown accustomed to the Nike 3 on… Daniel Buerge	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3425
__label__cc	0.687271	0.312729	Listeners Now: 23 Since April 17, 2002: Listeners Served: 23,626,403 Sermon Downloads: 25,179,679 Monday January 18, 2021 5:32:35 pm CST (GMT -6) Living Word Broadcast - KJV Bible CONTAINING THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS TRANSLATED OUT OF THE ORIGINAL TONGUES AND WITH THE FORMER TRANSLATIONS DILIGENTLY COMPARED AND REVISED BY HIS MAJESTY'S SPECIAL COMMAND APPOINTED TO BE READ IN CHURCHES THE TEXT CONFORMABLE TO THAT OF THE EDITION OF 1611 COMMONLY KNOWN AS THE AUTHORIZED OR KING JAMES VERSION THE TRANSLATORS TO THE READER The best things have been calumniated Zeal to promote the common good, whether it be by devising anything ourselves, or revising that which hath been laboured by others, deserveth certainly much respect and esteem, but yet findeth but cold entertainment in the world. It is welcomed with suspicion instead of love, and with emulation instead of thanks: and if there be any hole left for cavil to enter (and cavil, if it do not find a hole, will make one), it is sure to be misconstrued, and in danger to be condemned. This will easily be granted by as many as know story, or have any experience. For, was there ever anything projected, that savoured any way of newness or renewing, but the same endured many a storm of gainsaying, or opposition? A man would think that civility, wholesome laws, learning and eloquence, synods, and church maintenance (that we speak of no more things of this kind) should be as safe as a sanctuary, and out of shot, as they say, that no man would lift up the heel; no, nor dog move his tongue against the motioners of them. For by the first, we are distinguished from brute beasts led with sensuality; by the second, we are bridled and restrained from outrageous behaviour, and from doing of injuries, whether by fraud or by violence; by the third, we are enabled to inform and reform others, by the light and feeling that we have attained unto ourselves; briefly, by the fourth being brought together to a parle face to face, we sooner compose our differences than by writings, which are endless; and lastly, that the church be sufficiently provided for, is so agreeable to good reason and conscience, that those mothers are holden to be less cruel, that kill their children as soon as they are born, than those nursing fathers and mothers (wheresoever they be) that withdraw from them who hang upon their breasts (and upon whose breasts again themselves do hang to receive the spiritual and sincere milk of the word) livelihood and support fit for their estates. Thus it is apparent, that these things which we speak of, are of most necessary use, and therefore, that none, either without absurdity can speak against them, or without note of wickedness can spurn against them. Yet for all that, the learned know that certain worthy men have been brought to untimely death for none other fault, but for seeking to reduce their countrymen to good order and discipline; and that in some commonweals it was made a capital crime, once to motion the making of a new law for the abrogating of an old, though the same were most pernicious; and that certain, which would be counted pillars of the state, and patterns of virtue and prudence, could not be brought for a long time to give way to good letters and refined speech, but bare themselves as averse from them, as from rocks or boxes of poison; and fourthly, that he was no babe, but a great clerk, that gave forth (and in writing to remain to posterity) in passion peradventure, but yet he gave forth, that he had not seen any profit to come by any synod, or meeting of the clergy, but rather the contrary; and lastly, against church maintenance and allowance, in such sort, as the ambassadors and messengers of the great King of Kings should be furnished, it is not unknown what a fiction or fable (so it is esteemed, and for no better by the reporter himself, though superstitious) was devised--namely, that at such a time as the professors and teachers of Christianity in the Church of Rome, then a true church, were liberally endowed, a voice forsooth was heard from heaven, saying, "Now is poison poured down into the church," etc.. Thus not only as oft as we speak, as one saith, but also as oft as we do anything of note or consequence, we subject ourselves to everyone's censure, and happy is he that is least tossed upon tongues; for utterly to escape the snatch of them it is impossible. If any man conceit, that this is the lot and portion of the meaner sort only, and that princes are privileged by their high estate, he is deceived. "As the sword devoureth as well one as the other," as it is in Samuel ; nay, as the great commander charged his soldiers in a certain battle, to strike at no part of the enemy, but at the face; and as the king of Syria commanded his chief captains to "fight neither with small nor great, save only against the king of Israel" ; so it is too true, that Envy striketh most spitefully at the fairest, and at the chiefest. David was a worthy prince, and no man to be compared to him for his first deeds, and yet for as worthy as act as ever he did (even for bringing back the Ark of God in solemnity), he was scorned and scoffed at by his own wife. Solomon was greater than David--though not in virtue, yet in power--and by his power and wisdom he built a temple to the LORD, such a one as was the glory of the land of Israel, and the wonder of the whole world. But was that his magnificence liked of by all? We doubt of it. Otherwise, why do they lay it in his son's dish, and call unto him for easing of the burden : "Make," say they, "the grievous servitude of thy father, and his sore yoke, lighter"? Belike he had charged them with some levies, and troubled them with some carriages. Hereupon they raise up a tragedy, and wish in their heart the temple had never been built. So hard a thing it is to please all, even when we please God best, and do seek to approve ourselves to every one's conscience. The highest personages have been calumniated If we will descend to later times, we shall find many the like examples of such kind, or rather unkind, acceptance. The first Roman emperor did never do a more pleasing deed to the learned, nor more profitable to posterity, for conserving the record of times in true supputation, than when he corrected the calendar, and ordered the year according to the course of the sun; and yet this was imputed to him for novelty, and arrogancy, and procured to him great obloquy. So the first christened emperor (at the leastwise, that openly professed the faith himself, and allowed others to do the like), for strengthening the empire at his great charges, and providing for the church as he did, got for his labour the name "Pupillus," as who would say, a wasteful prince, that had need of a guardian or overseer. So the best christened emperor, for the love that he bare unto peace, thereby to enrich both himself and his subjects, and because he did not see war but find it, was judged to be no man at arms (though indeed he excelled in feats of chivalry, and showed so much when he was provoked), and condemned for giving himself to his ease, and to his pleasure. To be short, the most learned emperor of former times (at the least, the greatest politician), what thanks had he for cutting off the superfluities of the laws, and digesting them into some order and method? This, that he hath been blotted by some to be an epitomist--that is, one that extinguished worthy whole volumes, to bring his abridgments into request. This is the measure that hath been rendered to excellent princes in former times, even, Cum bene facerent, male audire--"for their good deeds to be evil spoken of." Neither is there any likelihood that envy and malignity died and were buried with the ancient. No, no, the reproof of Moses taketh hold of most ages: "You are risen up in your fathers' stead, an increase of sinful men". "What is that that hath been done? that which shall be done, and there is no new thing under the sun," saith the wise man ; and St. Stephen, "As your fathers did, so do you". His Majesty's constancy, notwithstanding calumniation, for the survey of the English translations This, and more to this purpose, His Majesty that now reigneth (and long, and long may he reign, and his offspring forever, "Himself and children, and children's children always") knew full well, according to the singular wisdom given unto him by God, and the rare learning and experience that he hath attained unto; namely that whosoever attempteth anything for the public (especially if it pertain to religion, and to the opening and clearing of the word of God), the same setteth himself upon a stage to be glouted upon by every evil eye; yea, he casteth himself headlong upon pikes, to be gored by every sharp tongue. For he that meddleth with men's religion in any part, meddleth with their custom, nay, with their freehold; and though they find no content in that which they have, yet they cannot abide to hear of altering. Notwithstanding, his royal heart was not daunted or discouraged for this that colour, but stood resolute, "as a statue immovable, and an anvil not easy to be beaten into plates", as one saith; he knew who had chosen him to be a soldier, or rather a captain, and being assured that the course which he intended made much for the glory of God, and the building up of his church, he would not suffer it to be broken off for whatsoever speeches or practices. It doth certainly belong unto kings, yea, it doth specially belong unto them, to have care of religion; yea, to know it aright; yea, to profess it zealously; yea, to promote it to the uttermost of their power. This is their glory before all nations which mean well, and this will bring unto them a far most excellent weight of glory in the day of the Lord Jesus. For the Scripture saith not in vain, "Them that honor me, I will honor" ; neither was it a vain word that Eusebius delivered long ago, that piety towards God was the weapon, and the only weapon, that both preserved Constantine's person, and avenged him of his enemies. The praise of the Holy Scriptures But now what piety without truth? what truth (what saving truth) without the word of God? What word of God (whereof we may be sure) without the Scripture? The Scriptures we are commanded to search, John 5:39, Isa. 8:20. They are commended that searched and studied them, Acts 17:11 and 8:28-29. They are reproved that were unskillful in them, or slow to believe them, Matt. 22:29, Luke 24:25. They can make us wise unto salvation, 2 Tim. 3:15. If we be ignorant, they will instruct us; if out of the way, they will bring us home; if out of order, they will reform us; if in heaviness, comfort us; if dull, quicken us; if cold, inflame us. Tolle, lege; tolle, lege, "take up and read, take up and read" the Scriptures (for unto them was the direction), it was said unto St. Augustine by a supernatural voice. "Whatsoever is in the Scriptures, believe me," saith the same St. Augustine, "is high and divine; there is verily truth, and a doctrine most fit for the refreshing of men's minds, and truly so tempered, that everyone may draw from thence that which is sufficient for him, if he come to draw with a devout and pious mind, as true religion requireth". Thus St. Augustine. And St. Jerome: Ama scripturas, et amabit te sapientia, etc., "Love the Scriptures, and wisdom will love thee." And St. Cyril against Julian: "Even boys that are bred up in the Scriptures, become most religious, etc.". But what mention we three or four uses of the Scripture, whereas whatsoever is to be believed or practiced, or hoped for, is contained in them? or three or four sentences of the Fathers, since whosoever is worthy the name of a Father, from Christ's time downward, hath likewise written not only of the riches, but also of the perfection of the Scripture? "I adore the fulness of the Scripture," saith Tertullian against Hermogenes. And again, to Apelles, an heretic of the like stamp, he saith, "I do not admit that which thou bringest in (or concludest) of thine own (head or store, de tuo) without scripture." So St. Justin Martyr before him: "We must know by all means," saith he, "that it is not lawful (or possible) to learn (anything) of God or of right piety, save only out of the prophets, who teach us by divine inspiration". So Saint Basil after Tertullian, "It is a manifest falling way from the faith, and a fault of presumption, either to reject any of those things that are written, or to bring in (upon the head of them, epeisagein) any of those things that are not written". We omit to cite to the same effect, St. Cyril, b<ishop> of Jerusalem, in his Fourth Cataches, St. Jerome against Helvidius, St. Augustine in his third book against the letters of Petilian, and in very many other places of his works. Also we forebear to descend to later Fathers, because we will not weary the reader. The Scriptures then being acknowledged to be so full and so perfect, how can we excuse ourselves of negligence, if we do not study them? of curiosity, if we be not content with them? Men talk much of eiresiwnh, how many sweet and goodly things it had hanging on it; of the Philosopher's Stone, that it turneth copper into gold; of cornucopia, that it had all things necessary for food in it; of Panaces the herb, that it was good for diseases; of Catholicon the drug, that it is in stead of all purges; of Vulcan's armor, that it was an armor of proof against all thrusts and all blows, etc.. Well, that which they falsely or vainly attributed to these things for bodily good, we may justly and with full measure ascribe unto the Scripture, for spiritual. It is not only an armor, but also a whole armory of weapons, both offensive and defensive, whereby we may save ourselves and put the enemy to flight. It is not an herb, but a tree, or rather a whole paradise of trees of life, which bring forth fruit every month, and the fruit thereof is for meat, and the leaves for medicine. It is not a pot of manna, or a cruse of oil, which were for memory only, or for a meal's meat or two, but as it were a shower of heavenly bread sufficient for a whole host, be it never so great; and as it were a whole cellar full of oil vessels; whereby all our necessities may be provided for, and our debts discharged. In a word, it is a panary of wholesome food against finewed traditions; a physician's shop (St. Basil calleth it) of preservatives against poisoned heresies; a pandect of profitable laws against rebellious spirits; a treasury of most costly jewels against beggarly rudiments; finally, a fountain of most pure water springing up unto everlasting life. And what marvel? The original thereof being from heaven, not from earth; the Author being God, not man; the Inditer, the Holy Spirit, not the wit of the apostles or prophets; the penmen such as were sanctified from the womb, and endued with a principal portion of God's spirit; the matter, verity, piety, purity, uprightness; the form, God's word, God's testimony, God's oracles, the word of truth, the word of salvation, etc.; the effects, light of understanding, stableness of persuasion, repentance from dead works, newness of life, holiness, peace, joy in the Holy Ghost; lastly, the end and reward of the study thereof, fellowship with the saints, participation of the heavenly nature, fruition of an inheritance immortal, undefiled, and that never shall fade away. Happy is the man that delighteth in the Scripture, and thrice happy that meditateth in it day and night. Translation necessary But how shall men meditate in that which they cannot understand? How shall they understand that which is kept close in an unknown tongue? As it is written, "Except I know the power of the voice, I shall be to him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian to me". The apostle excepteth no tongue; not Hebrew the ancientest, not Greek the most copious, not Latin the finest. Nature taught a natural man to confess that all of us in those tongues which we do not understand are plainly deaf; we may turn the deaf ear unto them. The Scythian counted the Athenian, whom he did not understand, barbarous ; so the Roman did the Syrian and the Jew (even St. Jerome himself called the Hebrew tongue barbarous, belike because it was strange to so many) ; so the Emperor of Constantinople calleth the Latin tongue barbarous, though Pope Nicolas do storm at it: ; so the Jews long before Christ called all other nations Lognazim, which is little better than barbarous. Therefore as one complaineth, that always in the senate of Rome, there was one or other that called for an interpreter, so, lest the church be driven to the like exigent, it is necessary to have translations in a readiness. Translation it is that openeth the window, to let in the light; that breaketh the shell, that we may eat the kernel; that putteth aside the curtain, that we may look into the most holy place; that removeth the cover of the well, that we may come by the water, even as Jacob rolled away the stone from the mouth of the well, by which means the flocks of Laban were watered. Indeed, without translation into the vulgar tongue, the unlearned are but like children at Jacob's well (which was deep) without a bucket or something to draw with; or as that person mentioned by Isaiah, to whom when a sealed book was delivered, with this motion, "Read this, I pray thee," he was fain to make this answer: "I cannot, for it is sealed". The translation of the Old Testament out of the Hebrew into Greek While God would be known only in Jacob, and have his name great in Israel, and in none other place; while the dew lay on Gideon's fleece only, and all the earth besides was dry; then for one and the same people, which spake all of them the language of Canaan--that is, Hebrew--, one and the same original in Hebrew was sufficient. But when the fulness of time drew near that the Sun of righteousness, the Son of God, should come into the world, whom God ordained to be a reconciliation through faith in His blood, not of the Jew only, but also of the Greek, yea, of all them that were scattered abroad; then lo, it pleased the Lord to stir up the spirit of a Greek prince (Greek for descent and language), even of Ptolemy Philadelph, king of Egypt, to procure the translating of the book of God out of Hebrew into Greek. This is the translation of the Seventy Interpreters, commonly so called, which prepared the way for our Saviour among the Gentiles by written preaching, as St. John Baptist did among the Jews by vocal. For the Grecians, being desirous of learning, were not wont to suffer books of worth to lie moulding in kings' libraries, but had many of their servants, ready scribes, to copy them out, and so they were dispersed and made common. Again, the Greek tongue was well known and made familiar to most inhabitants in Asia, by reason of the conquest that there the Grecians had made, as also by the Colonies, which thither they had sent. For the same causes also it was well understood in many places of Europe, yea, and of Africa too. Therefore the word of God, being set forth in Greek, becometh hereby like a candle set upon a candlestick, which giveth light to all that are in the house; or like a proclamation sounded forth in the market place, which most men presently take knowledge of; and therefore that language was fittest to contain the Scriptures, both for the first preachers of the gospel to appeal unto for witness, and for the learners also of those times to make search and trial by. It is certain, that that translation was not so sound and so perfect, but it needed in many places correction; and who had been so sufficient for this work as the apostles or apostolic men? Yet it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to them, to take that which they found (the same being for the greatest part true and sufficient), rather than making a new, in that new world and green age of the church--to expose themselves to many exceptions and cavillations, as though they made a translation to serve their own turn, and therefore bearing a witness to themselves, their witness not to be regarded. This may be supposed to be some cause why the translation of the Seventy was allowed to pass for current. Notwithstanding, though it was commended generally, yet it did not fully content the learned--no, not of the Jews. For not long after Christ, Aquila fell in hand with a new translation, and after him Theodotion, and after him Symmachus; yea, there was a fifth and a sixth edition, the authors whereof were not known. These with the Seventy made up the Hexapla, and were worthily and to great purpose compiled together by Origen. Howbeit the edition of the Seventy went away with the credit, and therefore not only was placed in the midst by Origen (for the worth and excellency thereof above the rest, as Epiphanius gathereth), but also was used by the Greek Fathers for the ground and foundation of their commentaries. Yea, Epiphanius above named doth attribute so much unto it, that he holdeth the authors thereof not only for interpreters, but also for prophets in some respect; and Justinian the Emperor, enjoining the Jews his subjects to use specially the translation of the Seventy, rendereth this reason thereof: because they were as it were enlightened with prophetical grace. Yet for all that, as the Egyptians are said of the prophet to be men and not God, and their horses flesh and not spirit ; so it is evident (and St. Jerome affirmeth as much) that the Seventy were interpreters; they were not prophets. They did many things well, as learned men; but yet as men they stumbled and fell, one while through oversight, another while through ignorance; yea, sometimes they may be noted to add to the original, and sometimes to take from it, which made the apostles to leave them many times, when they left the Hebrew, and to deliver the sense thereof according to the truth of the word, as the Spirit gave them utterance. This may suffice touching the Greek translations of the Old Testament. Translation out of Hebrew and Greek into Latin There were also, within a few hundred years after Christ, translations many into the Latin tongue; for this tongue also was very fit to convey the law and the gospel by, because in those times very many countries of the West, yea of the South, East and North, spake or understood Latin, being made provinces to the Romans. But now the Latin translations were too many to be all good, for they were infinite (Latini interpretes nullo modo numerari possunt, saith St. Augustine). Again they were not out of the Hebrew fountain (we speak of the Latin translations of the Old Testament) but out of the Greek stream; therefore, the Greek being not altogether clear, the Latin derived from it must needs be muddy. This moved St. Jerome--a most learned father, and the best linguist without controversy of his age or of any that went before him--to undertake the translating of the Old Testament, out of the very fountains themselves; which he performed with that evidence of great learning, judgment, industry, and faithfulness, that he hath forever bound the church unto him in a debt of special remembrance and thankfulness. The translating of the Scripture into the vulgar tongues Now though the Church were thus furnished with Greek and Latin translations, even before the faith of Christ was generally embraced in the empire (for the learned know that even in St. Jerome's time, the consul of Rome and his wife were both Ethnics, and about the same time the greatest part of the senate also) ; yet for all that the godly-learned were not content to have the Scriptures in the language which they themselves understood, Greek and Latin (as the good lepers were not content to fare well themselves, but acquainted their neighbors with the store that God had sent, that they also might provide for themselves) ; but also for the behoof and edifying of the unlearned which hungered and thirsted after righteousness, and had souls to be saved as well as they, they provided translations into the vulgar for their countrymen, insomuch that most nations under heaven did shortly after their conversion, hear Christ speaking unto them in their mother tongue, not by the voice of their minister only, but also by the written word translated. If any doubt hereof, he may be satisfied by examples enough, if enough will serve the turn. First, St. Jerome saith, Multarum gentium linguis Scriptura ante translata, docet falsa esse quae addita sunt, etc.; i.e., "The Scripture being translated before in the languages of many nations, doth show that those things that were added (by Lucian and Hesychius) are false". So St. Jerome in that place. The same Jerome elsewhere affirmeth that he, the time was, had set forth the translation of the Seventy suae linguae hominibus, i.e., for his countrymen of Dalmatia Which words not only Erasmus doth understand to purport, that St. Jerome translated the Scripture into the Dalmatian tongue, but also Sixtus Senensis, and Alphonsus a' Castro (that we speak of no more), men not to be excepted against by them of Rome, do ingenuously confess as much. So St. Chrysostom, that lived in St. Jerome's time, giveth evidence with him: "The doctrine of St. John," saith he, "did not in such sort"--as the philosophers' did--"vanish away; but the Syrians, Egyptians, Indians, Persians, Ethiopians, and infinite other nations, being barbarous people, translated it into their (mother) tongue, and have learned to be (true) philosophers"--he meaneth "Christians". To this may be added Theodoret, as next unto him, both for antiquity and for learning. His words be these: "Every country that is under the sun, is full of these words (of the apostles and prophets) and the Hebrew tongue (he meaneth the Scriptures in the Hebrew tongue) is turned not only into the language of the Grecians, but also of the Romans, and Egyptians, and Persians, and Indians, and Armenians, and Scythians, and Sauromatians, and briefly into all the languages that any nation useth". So he. In like manner, Ulpilas is reported by Paulus Diaconus and Isidor (and before them by Sozomen) to have translated the Scriptures into the Gothic tongue, John, bishop of Sevil, by Vasseus to have turned them into Arabic, about the year of our Lord 717 ; Beda by Cistertiensis, to have turned a great part of them into Saxon; Efnard by Trithemius, to have abridged the French psalter, as Beda had done the Hebrew, about the year 800; King Alfred by the said Cistertiensis, to have turned the psalter into Saxon ; Methodius by Aventinus (printed at Ingolstadt) to have turned the Scriptures into Slavonian ; Valdo, bishop of Frising, by Beatus Rhenanus to have caused about that time the gospels to be translated into Dutch rhythm, yet extant in the Library of Corbinian ; Valdus, by divers to have turned them himself or to have gotten them turned into French, about the year 1160; Charles the Fifth of that name, surnamed the Wise, to have caused them to be turned into French, about 200 years after Valdus his time, of which translation there be many copies yet extant, as witnesseth Beroaldus. Much about that time, even in our King Richard the Second's days, John Trevisa translated them into English, and many English Bibles in written hand are yet to be seen with divers, translated, as it is very probable, in that age. So the Syrian translation of the New Testament is in most learned men's libraries of Widminstadius his setting forth, and the psalter in Arabic is with many of Augustinus Nebiensis' setting forth. So Postel affirmeth, that in his travel he saw the gospels in the Ethiopian tongue; and Ambrose Thesius allegeth the psalter of the Indians, which he testifieth to have been set forth by Potken in Syrian characters. So that to have the Scriptures in the mother tongue is not a quaint conceit lately taken up, either by the Lord Cromwell in England, or by the Lord Radevile in Polony, or by the Lord Ungnadius in the emperor's dominion, but hath been thought upon and put in practice of old, even from the first times of the conversion of any nation; no doubt because it was esteemed most profitable, to cause faith to grow in men's hearts the sooner, and to make them to be able to say with the words of the Psalms, "As we have heard, so we have seen". The unwillingness of our chief adversaries that the Scriptures should be divulged in the mother tongue, etc. Now the church of Rome would seem at the length to bear a motherly affection towards her children, and to allow them the Scriptures in their mother tongue. But indeed it is a gift, not deserving to be called a gift--an unprofitable gift ; they must first get a license in writing before they may use them, and to get that, they must approve themselves to their confessor--that is, to be such as are, if not frozen in the dregs, yet soured with the leaven of their superstition. Howbeit, it seemed too much to Clement the Eighth that there should be any license granted to have them in the vulgar tongue, and therefore he overruleth and frustrateth the grant of Pius the Fourth. So much are they afraid of the light of the Scripture (Lucifugae Scripturarum, as Tertullian speaketh) that they will not trust the people with it--no, not as it is set forth by their own sworn men; no, not with the license of their own bishops and inquisitors. Yea, so unwilling they are to communicate the Scriptures to the people's understanding in any sort, that they are not ashamed to confess that we forced them to translate it into English against their wills. This seemeth to argue a bad cause, or a bad conscience, or both. Sure we are, that it is not he that hath good gold, that is afraid to bring it to the touchstone, but he that hath the counterfeit; neither is it the true man that shunneth the light, but the malefactor, lest his deeds should be reproved ; neither is it the plain-dealing merchant that is unwilling to have the weights, or the meteyard brought in place, but he that useth deceit. But we will let them alone for this fault, and return to translation. The speeches and reasons, both of our brethren and of our adversaries, against this work Many men's mouths have been open a good while (and yet are not stopped) with speeches about the translation so long in hand, or rather perusals of translations made before, and ask what may be the reason, what the necessity of the employment. Hath the church been deceived, say they, all this while? Hath her sweet bread been mingled with leaven, here silver with dross, her wine with water, her milk with lime? (Lacte gypsum male miscetur, saith St. Ireney.) We hoped that we had been in the right way, that we had had the oracles of God delivered unto us, and that though all the world had cause to be offended and to complain, yet that we had none. Hath the nurse holden out the breast, and nothing but wind in it? Hath the bread been delivered by the Fathers of the Church, and the same proved to be lapidosus, as Seneca speaketh? What is it to handle the word of God deceitfully, if this be not? Thus certain brethren. Also the adversaries of Judah and Jerusalem, like Sanballat in Nehemiah, mock, as we hear, both the work and the workmen, saying, "What do these weak Jews, etc.? Will they make the stones whole again out of the heaps of dust which are burnt? Although they build, yet if a fox go up, he shall even break down their stony wall". "Was their translation good before? Why do they now mend it? Was it not good? Why then was it obtruded to the people? Yea, why did the Catholics (meaning popish Romanists) always go in jeopardy, for refusing to go to hear it? Nay, if it must be translated into English, Catholics are fittest to do it. They have learning, and they know when a thing is well; they can manum de tabula." We will answer them both briefly; and the former, being brethren, thus, with St. Jerome, Damnamus veteres? Minime, sed post priorum studia in domo Domini quod possums laboramus. That is, "Do we condemn the ancient? In no case, but after the endeavors of them that were before us, we take the best pains we can in the house of God." As if he said, "Being provoked by the example of the learned men that lived before my time, I have thought it my duty, to assay whether my talent in the knowledge of the tongues may be profitable in any measure to God's church, lest I should seem to laboured in them in vain, and lest I should be thought to glory in men (although ancient) above that which was in them." Thus St. Jerome may be thought to speak. A satisfaction to our brethren And to the same effect say we, that we are so far off from condemning any of their labors that travailed before us in this kind, either in this land or beyond sea, either in King Henry's time or King Edward's (if there were any translation or correction of a translation in his time), or Queen Elizabeth's of ever renowned memory, that we acknowledge them to have been raised up of God, for the building and furnishing of his church, and that they deserve to be had of us and of posterity in everlasting remembrance. The judgment of Aristotle is worthy and well known: "If Timotheus had not been, we had not had much sweet music; but if Phrynis (Timotheus his master) had not been, we had not had Timotheus". Therefore blessed be they, and most honoured be their name, that break the ice, and give the onset upon that which helpeth forward to the saving of souls. Now what can be more available thereto, than to deliver God's book unto God's people in a tongue which they understand? Since of a hidden treasure and of a fountain that is sealed there is no profit, as Ptolemy Philadelph wrote to the rabbins or masters of the Jews, as witnesseth Epiphanius ; and as St. Augustine saith, "A man had rather be with his dog than with a stranger (whose tongue is strange unto him)" ; yet for all that, as nothing is begun and perfected at the same time, and the later thoughts are thought to be the wiser; so, if we building upon their foundation that went before us, and being holpen by their labours, do endeavor to make that better which they left so good, no man, we are sure, hath cause to mislike us; they, we persuade ourselves, if they were alive, would thank us. The vintage of Abiezer, that strake the stroke, yet the gleaning of grapes of Ephraim was not to be despised (see Judges 8:2). Joash the king of Israel did not satisfy himself till he had smitten the ground three times; and yet he offended the prophet, for giving over then. Aquila, of whom we spake before, translated the Bible as carefully and as skillfully as he could; and yet he thought good to go over it again, and then it got the credit with the Jews, to be called kata akribeian, that is, "accurately done," as St. Jerome witnesseth. How many books of profane learning have been gone over again and again by the same translators? by others? Of one and the same book of Aristotle's Ethics, there are extant not so few as six or seven several translations. Now if this cost may be bestowed upon the gourd, which affordeth us a little shade, and which today flourisheth, but tomorrow is cut down; what may we bestow--nay, what ought we not to bestow--upon the vine, the fruit whereof maketh glad the conscience of man, and the stem whereof abideth forever? And this is the word of God, which we translate. "What is the chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord?" Tanti vitreum, quanti verum margaritum, saith Tertullian --"if a toy of glass be of that reckoning with us, how ought we to value the true pearl?" Therefore let no man's eye be evil, because His Majesty's is good; neither let any be grieved, that we have a prince that seeketh the increase of the spiritual wealth of Israel. (Let Sanballats and Tobiahs do so, which therefore do bear their just reproof.) But let us rather bless God from the ground of our heart, for working this religious care in him, to have the translations of the Bible maturely considered of and examined. For by this means it cometh to pass, that whatsoever is sound already (and all is sound for substance, in one or other of our editions, and the worst of ours far better than their authentic vulgar), the same will shine as gold more brightly, being rubbed and polished; also, if anything be halting, or superfluous, or not so agreeable to the original, the same may be corrected, and the truth set in place. And what can the king command to be done, that will bring him more true honour than this? and wherein could they that have been set a work, approve their duty to the king,--yea their obedience to God, and love to his saints--more, than by yielding their service, and all that is within them, for the furnishing of the work? But besides all this, they were the principal motives of it, and therefore ought least to quarrel it; for the very historical truth is, that upon the importunate petitions of the Puritans, at His Majesty's coming to this crown, the conference at Hampton Court having been appointed for hearing their complaints, when by force of reason they were put from all other grounds, they had recourse at the last, to this shift, that they could not with good conscience subscribe to the communion book, since it maintained the Bible as it was there translated, which was (as they said) a most corrupted translation. And although this was judged to be but a very poor and empty shift, yet even hereupon did His Majesty begin to bethink himself of the good that might ensue by a new translation, and presently after gave order for this translation which is now presented unto thee. Thus much to satisfy our scrupulous brethren. An answer to the imputations of our adversaries Now to the latter we answer that we do not deny--nay, we affirm and avow--that the very meanest translation of the Bible in English, set forth by men of our profession, (for we have seen none of theirs of the whole Bible as yet) containeth the word of God, nay, is the word of God. As the king's speech, which he uttered in Parliament, being translated into French, Dutch, Italian, and Latin, is still the king's speech, though it be not interpreted by every translator with the like grace, nor peradventure so fitly for phrase, nor so expressly for sense, everywhere. For it is confessed that things are to take their denomination of the greater part; and a natural man could say, Verum ubi multa nitent in carmine, non ego paucis offendor maculis, etc. --"a man may be counted a virtuous man, though he have made many slips in his life" (else there were none virtuous, for in many things we offend all) ; also a comely man and lovely, though he have some warts upon his hand--yea, not only freckles upon his face, but also scars. No cause therefore why the word translated should be denied to be the word, or forbidden to be current, notwithstanding that some imperfections and blemishes may be noted in the setting forth of it. For whatever was perfect under the sun, where apostles or apostolic men--that is, men endued with an extraordinary measure of God's spirit, and privileged with the privilege of infallibility--had not their hand? The Romanists therefore, in refusing to hear, and daring to burn the word translated, did no less than despite the Spirit of grace, from whom originally it proceeded, and whose sense and meaning, as well as man's weakness would enable, it did express. Judge by an example or two. Plutarch writeth, that after that Rome had been burnt by the Gauls, they fell soon to build it again; but doing it in haste, they did not cast the streets, nor proportion the houses in such comely fashion, as had been most sightly and convenient. Was Catiline therefore an honest man, or a good patriot, that sought to bring it to a combustion? or Nero a good prince, that did indeed set it on fire? So by the story of Ezra and the prophecy of Haggai it may be gathered, that the temple built by Zerubbabel after the return from Babylon, was by no means to be compared to the former built by Solomon (for they that remembered the former wept when they considered the latter) ; notwithstanding, might this latter either have been abhorred and forsaken by the Jews, or profaned by the Greeks? The like we are to think of translations. The translation of the Seventy dissenteth from the original in many places; neither doth it come near it, for perspicuity, gravity, majesty; yet which of the apostles did condemn it? Condemn it? Nay, they used it (as it is apparent, and as St. Jerome and most learned men do confess), which they would not have done, nor by their example of using it so grace and commend it to the church, if it had been unworthy the appellation and name of the word of God. And whereas they urge for their second defence of their vilifying and abusing of the English Bibles, or some pieces thereof which they meet with, for that "heretics," forsooth, were the authors of the translations ("heretics" they call us by the same right that they call themselves "Catholics," both being wrong), we marvel what divinity taught them so. We are sure Tertullian was of another mind: Ex personis probamus fidem, an ex fide personas? --"Do we try men's faith by their persons? We should try their persons by their faith." Also St. Augustine was of another mind, for he lighting upon certain rules made by Tychonius, a Donatist, for the better understanding of the word, was not ashamed to make use of them--yea, to insert them into his own book, with giving commendation to them so far forth as they were worthy to be commended, as is to be seen in St. Augustine's third book <of> De doctrina Christiana. To be short, Origen, and the whole church of God for certain hundred years, were of another mind, for they were so far from treading under foot (much more from burning) the translation of Aquila, a proselyte (that is, one that had turned Jew)--of Symmachus, and Theodotion, both Ebionites (that is, most vile heretics)--that they joined them together with the Hebrew original, and the translation of the Seventy (as hath been before signified out of Epiphanius) and set them forth openly to be considered of and perused by all. But we weary the unlearned, who need not know so much, and trouble the learned, who know it already. Yet before we end, we must answer a third cavil and objection of theirs against us, for altering and amending our translations so oft; wherein truly they deal hardly and strangely with us. For to whomever was it imputed for a fault (by such as were wise) to go over that which he had done, and to amend it where he saw cause? St. Augustine was not afraid to exhort St. Jerome to a palinodia or recantation, and doth even glory that he seeth his infirmities. If we be sons of the truth, we must consider what it speaketh, and trample upon our own credit, yea, and upon other men's too, if either be any way an hindrance to it. This to the cause. Then to the persons we say, that of all men they ought to be most silent in this case. For what varieties have they, and what alterations have they made, not only of their service books, portasses, and breviaries, but also of their Latin translation? The service book supposed to be made by St. Ambrose (Officium Ambrosianum) was a great while in special use and request, but Pope Hadrian calling a council with the aid of Charles the emperor, abolished it--yea, burned it--and commanded the service book of St. Gregory universally to be used. Well, Officium Gregorianum gets by this means to be in credit, but doth it continue without change or altering? No, the very Roman service was of two fashions, the "new" fashion, and the "old"--the one used in one church, the other in another--, as is to be seen in Pamelius, a Romanist, his preface before Micrologus. The same Pamelius reporteth out Radulphus de Rivo, that about the year of our Lord 1277, Pope Nicolas the Third removed out of the churches of Rome the more ancient books (of service), and brought into use the missals of the Friars Minorites, and commanded them to be observed there; insomuch that about an hundred years after, when the above-named Radulphus happened to be at Rome, he found all the books to be new (of the new stamp). Neither were there this chopping and changing in the more ancient times only, but also of late: Pius Quintus himself confesseth, that every bishopric almost had a peculiar kind of service, most unlike to that which others had; which moved him to abolish all other breviaries, though never so ancient, and privileged and published by bishops in their dioceses, and to establish and ratify that only which was of his own setting forth, in the year 1568. Now when the father of their church, who gladly would heal the sore of the daughter of his people softly and slightly and make the best of it, findeth so great fault with them for their odds and jarring, we hope the children have no great cause to vaunt of their uniformity. But the difference that appeareth between our translations, and our often correcting of them, is the thing that we are specially charged with; let us see therefore whether they themselves be without fault this way (if it be to be counted a fault, to correct), and whether they be fit men to throw stones at us. O tandem major parcas insane minori--"they that are less sound themselves, ought not to object infirmities to others". If we should tell them that Valla, Stapulensis, Erasmus, and Vives found fault with their vulgar translation, and consequently wished the same to be mended, or a new one to be made, they would answer peradventure, that we produced their enemies for witnesses against them; albeit, they were in no other sort enemies than as St. Paul was to the Galatians, for telling them the truth, and it were to be wished that they had dared to tell it them plainlier and oftener. But what will they say to this, that Pope Leo the Tenth allowed Erasmus' translation of the New Testament, so much different from the vulgar, by his apostolic letter and bull; that the same Leo exhorted Pagnin to translate the whole Bible, and bare whatsoever charges was necessary for the work? Surely, as the apostle reasoneth to the Hebrews, that "if the former law and testament had been sufficient, there had been no need of the latter", so we may say, that if the old vulgar had been at all points allowable, to small purpose had labour and charges been undergone, about framing of a new. If they say, it was one pope's private opinion, and that he consulted only himself, then we are able to go further with them, and to aver that more of their chief men of all sorts, even their own Trent champions Paiva and Vega, and their own inquisitors, Hieronymus ab Oleastro, and their own Bishop Isidorus Clarius, and their own Cardinal Thomas a Vio Caietan, do either make new translations themselves, or follow new ones of other men's making, or note the vulgar interpreter for halting; none of them fear to dissent from him, nor yet to except against him. And call they this an uniform tenor of text and judgment about the text, so many of their worthies disclaiming the now received conceit? Nay, we will yet come nearer the quick: doth not their Paris edition differ from the Lovaine, and Hentenius his from them both, and yet all of them allowed by authority? Nay, doth not Sixtus Quintus confess, that certain Catholics (he meaneth certain of his own side) were in such an humor of translating the Scriptures into Latin, that Satan taking occasion by them, though they thought of no such matter, did strive what he could, out of so uncertain and manifold a variety of translations, so to mingle all things that nothing might seem to be left certain and firm in them, etc.? Nay, further, did not the same Sixtus ordain by an inviolable decree, and that with the counsel and consent of his cardinals, that the Latin edition of the Old and New Testament, which the Council of Trent would have to be authentic, is the same without controversy which he then set forth, being diligently corrected and printed in the printing house of Vatican? Thus Sixtus in his preface before his Bible. And yet Clement the Eighth, his immediate successor, published another edition of the Bible, containing in it infinite differences from that of Sixtus (and many of them weighty and material), and yet this must be authentic by all means. What is to have the faith of our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with "yea and nay," if this be not? Again, what is sweet harmony and consent, if this be? Therefore, as Demaratus of Corinth advised a great king, before he talked of the dissensions among the Grecians, to compose his domestic broils (for at that time his queen and his son and heir were at deadly feud with him), so all the while that our adversaries do make so many and so various editions themselves, and do jar so much about the worth and authority of them, they can with no show of equity challenge us for changing and correcting. The purpose of the translators with their number, furniture, care, etc. But it is high time to leave them, and to show in brief what we proposed to ourselves, and what course we held in this our perusal and survey of the Bible. Truly, good Christian reader, we never thought from the beginning, that we should need to make a new translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one (for then the imputation of Sixtus had been true in some sort, that our people had been fed with gall of dragons instead of wine, with whey instead of milk); but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones, one principal good one, not justly to be excepted against. That hath been our endeavor, that our mark. To that purpose, there were many chosen that were greater in other men's eyes than in their own, and that sought the truth rather than their own praise. Again, they came or were thought to come to the work, not exercendi causa (as one saith) but exercitati, that is, "learned, not to learn." For the chief overseer and ergodiwkthV under his Majesty, to whom not only we, but also our whole church was much bound, knew by his wisdom, which thing also Nazianzen taught so long ago, that it is a preposterous order to teach first and to learn after, yea that to en piqw keramian manqanein, "to learn and practice together," is neither commendable for the workman, nor safe for the work. Therefore such were thought upon as could say modestly with St. Jerome, Et Hebreaeum sermonem ex parte didicimus, et in Latino pene ab ipsis incunabulis, etc., detriti sumus.--"Both we have learned the Hebrew tongue in part, and in the Latin we have been exercised almost from our very cradle." (St. Jerome maketh no mention of the Greek tongue, wherein yet he did excel, because he translated not the Old Testament out of Greek, but out of Hebrew.) And in what sort did these assemble? In the trust of their own knowledge, or of their sharpness of wit, or deepness of judgment, as it were in an arm of flesh? At no hand. They trusted in him that hath the key of David, opening and no man shutting; they prayed to the Lord, the Father of our Lord, to the effect that St. Augustine did: "O let thy Scriptures be my pure Scriptures be my pure delight; let me not be deceived in them, neither let me deceive by them". In this confidence and with this devotion did they assemble together; not too many, lest one should trouble another, and yet many, lest many things haply might escape them. If you ask what they had before them, truly it was the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, the Greek of the New. These are the two golden pipes, or rather conduits, wherethrough the olive branches empty themselves into the gold. St. Augustine calleth them precedent, or original tongues ; St. Jerome, fountains. The same St. Jerome affirmeth, and Gratian hath not spared to put it into his decree, that "as the credit of the old books (he meaneth of the Old Testament) is to be tried by the Hebrew volumes, so of the New by the Greek tongue (he meaneth by the original Greek). If truth be tried by these tongues, then whence should a translation be made, but out of them? These tongues therefore--the Scriptures, we say, in those tongues--we set before us to translate, being the tongues wherein God was pleased to speak to His church by His prophets and apostles. Neither did we run over the work with that posting haste that the Septuagint did, if that be true which is reported of them, that they finished it in seventy-two days ; neither were we barred or hindered from going over it again, having once done it, like St. Jerome--if that be true which himself reporteth, that he could no sooner write anything but presently it was caught from him and published, and he could not have leave to mend it --; neither, to be short, were we the first that fell in hand with translating the Scripture into English, and consequently destitute of former helps, as it is written of Origen, that he was the first in a manner that put his hand to write commentaries upon the Scriptures, and therefore no marvel, if he overshot himself many times. None of these things; the work hath not been huddled up in seventy-two days, but hath cost the workmen, as light as it seemeth, the pains of twice seven times seventy-two days and more. Matters of such weight and consequence are to be speeded with maturity, for in a business of moment a man feareth not the blame of convenient slackness. Neither did we think much to consult the translators or commentators, Chaldee, Hebrew, Syrian, Greek or Latin--no, nor the Spanish, French, Italian, or Dutch. Neither did we disdain to revise that which we had done, and to bring back to the anvil that which we had hammered: but having and using as great helps as were needful, and fearing no reproach for slowness, nor coveting praise for expedition, we have at length, through the good hand of the Lord upon us, brought the work to that pass that you see. Reasons moving us to set diversity of senses in the margin, where there is great probability for each Some peradventure would have no variety of senses to be set in the margin, lest the authority of the Scriptures for deciding of controversies by that show of uncertainty should somewhat be shaken. But we hold their judgment not to be so sound in this point. For though "whatsoever things are necessary are manifest," as St. Chrysostom saith, and as St. Augustine, "In those things that are plainly set down in the Scriptures, all such matters are found that concern faith, hope, and charity" ; yet for all that it cannot be dissembled, that partly to exercise and whet our wits, partly to wean the curious from the loathing of them for their everywhere plainness, partly also to stir up our devotion to crave the assistance of God's Spirit by prayer, and lastly, that we might be forward to seek aid of our brethren by conference, and never scorn those that be not in all respects so complete as they should be, being to seek in many things ourselves, it hath pleased God in His divine providence, here and there to scatter words and sentences of that difficulty and doubtfulness, not in doctrinal points that concern salvation (for in such it hath been vouched that the Scriptures are plain), but in matters of less moment, that fearfulness would better beseem us than confidence, and if we will resolve upon modesty with St. Augustine (though not in this same case altogether, yet upon the same ground), Melius est dubitare de occultis, quam litigare de incertis, --"it is better to make doubt of those things which are secret, than to strive about those things that are uncertain." There be many words in the Scriptures which be never found there but once (having neither brother nor neighbor, as the Hebrews speak), so that we cannot be holpen by conference of places. Again, there be many rare names of certain birds, beasts and precious stones, etc., concerning which the Hebrews themselves are so divided among themselves for judgment, that they may seem to have defined this or that rather because they would say something than because they were sure of that which they said, as St. Jerome somewhere saith of the Septuagint. Now in such a case, doth not a margin do well to admonish the reader to seek further, and not to conclude or dogmatize upon this or that peremptorily? For as it is a fault of incredulity, to doubt of those things that are evident, so to determine of such things as the Spirit of God hath left (even in the judgment of the judicious) questionable, can be no less than presumption. Therefore as St. Augustine saith, that variety of translations is profitable for the finding out of the sense of the Scriptures ; so diversity of signification and sense in the margin, where the text is not so clear, must needs do good--yea, is necessary, as we are persuaded. We know that Sixtus Quintus expressly forbiddeth that any variety of readings of their vulgar edition should be put in the margin --which though it be not altogether the same thing to that we have in hand, yet it looketh that way--, but we think he hath not all of his own side his favorers for this conceit. They that are wise had rather have their judgments at liberty in differences of readings, than to be captivated to one, when it may be the other. If they were sure that their high priest had all laws shut up in his breast, as Paul the Second bragged, and that he were as free from error by special privilege as the dictators of Rome were made by law inviolable, it were another matter; then his word were an oracle, his opinion a decision. But the eyes of the world are now open, God be thanked, and have been a great while. They find that he is subject to the same affections and infirmities that others be, that his skin is penetrable; and therefore so much as he proveth, not as much as he claimeth, they grant and embrace. Reasons inducing us not to stand curiously upon an identity of phrasing Another thing we think good to admonish thee of, gentle reader: that we have not tied ourselves to an uniformity of phrasing, or to an identity of words, as some peradventure would wish that we had done, because they observe that some learned men somewhere have been as exact as they could that way. Truly, that we might not vary from the sense of that which we had translated before, if the word signified the same thing in both places (for there be some words that be not of the same sense everywhere), we were especially careful, and made a conscience according to our duty. But that we should express the same notion in the same particular word, as for example, if we translate the Hebrew or Greek word once by purpose, never to call it intent; if one where journeying, never travelling; if one where think, never suppose; if one where pain, never ache; if one where joy, never gladness, etc--thus, to mince the matter, we thought to savor more of curiosity than wisdom, and that rather it would breed scorn in the atheist than bring profit to the godly reader. For is the kingdom of God become words or syllables? Why should we be in bondage to them if we may be free, use one precisely when we may use another no less fit, as commodiously? A godly Father in the Primitive time showed himself greatly moved, that one of newfangleness called krabbaton, "skimpouV", though the difference be little or none; and another reporteth that he was much abused for turning "cucurbita" (to which reading the people had been used) into "hedera". Now if this happen in better times, and upon so small occasions, we might justly fear hard censure, if generally we should make verbal and unnecessary changings. We might also be charged (by scoffers) with some unequal dealing towards a great number of good English words. For as it is written of a certain great philosopher, that he should say, that those logs were happy that were made images to be worshipped, for their fellows, as good as they, lay for blocks behind the fire; so if we should say, as it were, unto certain words, "Stand up higher; have a place in the Bible always," and to others of like quality, "Get ye hence; be banished forever," we might be taxed peradventure with St. James his words, namely, "To be partial in ourselves, and judges of evil thoughts." Add hereunto, that niceness in words was always counted the next step to trifling, and so was to be curious about names, too; also, that we cannot follow a better pattern for elocution than God Himself; therefore, He using divers words, in His holy writ, and indifferently for one thing in nature, we, if we will not be superstitious, may use the same liberty in our English versions out of Hebrew and Greek, for that copy or store that He hath given us. Lastly, we have on the one side avoided the scrupulosity of the Puritans, who leave the old ecclesiastical words and betake them to other, as when they put washing for baptism, and congregation instead of church; as also on the other side we have shunned the obscurity of the Papists, in their azimes, tunic, rational, holocausts, praepuce, pasche, and a number of such like, whereof their late translation is full--and that of purpose to darken the sense, that since they must needs translate the Bible, yet by the language thereof, it may be kept from being understood. But we desire that the Scripture may speak like itself, as in the language of Canaan, that it may be understood even of the very vulgar. Many other things we might give thee warning of, gentle reader, if we had not exceeded the measure of a preface already. It remaineth that we commend thee to God, and to the Spirit of His grace, which is able to build further than we can ask or think. He removeth the scales from our eyes, the veil from our hearts, opening our wits that we may understand His word, enlarging our hearts; yea, correcting our affections, that we may love it to the end. Ye are brought unto fountains of living water which ye digged not; do not cast earth into them with the Philistines, neither prefer broken pits before them with the wicked Jews. Others have laboured, and you may enter into their labours. O receive not so great things in vain, O despise not so great salvation! Be not like swine to tread under foot so precious things, neither yet like dogs to tear and abuse holy things. Say not to our Saviour with the Gergesites, "Depart out of our coasts" ; neither yet with Esau sell your birthright for a mess of pottage. If light be come into the world, love not darkness more than light; if food, if clothing be offered, go not naked, starve not yourselves. Remember the advice of Nazianzene, "It is a grievous thing (or dangerous) to neglect a great fair, and to seek to make markets afterwards" ; also the encouragement of St. Chrysostom, "It is altogether impossible, that he that is sober (and watchful) should at any time be neglected" ; lastly, the admonition and menacing of St. Augustine, "They that despise God's will inviting them, shall feel God's will taking vengeance of them". It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God ; but a blessed thing it is, and will bring us to everlasting blessedness in the end, when God speaketh unto us, to hearken; when He setteth His word before us, to read it; when He stretcheth out His hand and calleth, to answer, "Here am I! here we are to do thy will, O God." The Lord work a care and conscience in us to know Him and serve Him, that we may be acknowledged of Him at the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom, with the Holy Ghost, be all praise and thanksgiving. Amen. TO THE MOST HIGH AND MIGHTY PRINCE JAMES KING OF GREAT BRITAIN, FRANCE, AND IRELAND, DEFENDER OF THE FAITH, ETC. The Translators of the Bible wish Grace, Mercy, and Peace through JESUS CHRIST our Lord. Great and manifold were the blessings, most dread Sovereign, which Almighty God, the Father of all mercies, bestowed upon us the people of England, when first he sent Your Majesty's Royal Person to rule and reign over us. For whereas it was the expectation of many who wished not well unto our Sion, that, upon the setting of that bright Occidental Star, Queen Elizabeth, of most happy memory, some thick and palpable clouds of darkness would so have overshadowed this land, that men should have been in doubt which way they were to walk, and that it should hardly be known who was to direct the unsettled State; the appearance of Your Majesty, as of the Sun in his strength, instantly dispelled those supposed and surmised mists, and gave unto all that were well affected exceeding cause of comfort; especially when we beheld the Government established in Your Highness and Your hopeful Seed, by an undoubted Title; and this also accompanied with peace and tranquility at home and abroad. But among all our joys, there was no one that more filled our hearts than the blessed continuance of the preaching of God's sacred Word among us, which is that inestimable treasure which excelleth all the riches of earth; because the fruit thereof extendeth itself, not only to the time spent in this transitory world, but directeth and disposeth men unto that eternal happiness which is above in heaven. Then not to suffer this to fall to the ground, but rather to take it up, and to continue it in that state wherein the famous Predecessor of Your Highness did leave it; nay, to go forward with the confidence and resolution of a man, in maintaining the truth of Christ, and propagating it far and near, is that which hath so bound and firmly knit the hearts of all Your Majesty's loyal and religious people unto You, that Your very name is precious among them: their eye doth behold You with comfort, and they bless You in their hearts, as that sanctified Person, who, under God, is the immediate author of their true happiness. And this their contentment doth not diminish or decay, but every day increaseth and taketh strength, when they observe that the zeal of Your Majesty toward the house of God doth not slack or go backward, but is more and more kindled, manifesting itself abroad in the farthest parts of Christendom, by writing in defence of the truth, (which hath given such a blow unto that Man of Sin as will not be healed,) and every day at home, by religious and learned discourse, by frequenting the house of God, by hearing the Word preached, by cherishing the teachers thereof, by caring for the Church, as a most tender and loving nursing father. There are infinite arguments of this right Christian and religious affection in Your Majesty; but none is more forcible to declare it to others than the vehement and perpetuated desire of accomplishing and publishing of this work, which now, with all humility, we present unto Your Majesty. For when Your Highness had once out of deep judgment apprehended how convenient it was, that, out of the Original Sacred Tongues, together with comparing of the labours, both in our own and other foreign languages, of many worthy men who went before us, there should be one more exact translation of the Holy Scriptures into the English Tongue; Your Majesty did never desist to urge and to excite those to whom it was commended, that the Work might be hastened, and that the business might be expedited in so decent a manner, as a matter of such importance might justly require. And now at last, by the mercy of God, and the continuance of our labours, it being brought unto such a conclusion, as that we have great hopes that the Church of England shall reap good fruit thereby, we hold it our duty to offer it to Your Majesty, not only as to our King and Sovereign, but as to the principal mover and author of the Work; humbly craving of your most Sacred Majesty, that, since things of this quality have ever been subject to the censures of ill-meaning and discontented persons, it may receive approbation and patronage from so learned and judicious a Prince as Your Highness is; whose allowance and acceptance of our labours shall more honour and encourage us than all the calumniations and hard interpretations of other men shall dismay us. So that if, on the one side, we shall be traduced by Popish persons at home or abroad, who therefore will malign us, because we are poor instruments to make God's holy truth to be yet more and more known unto the people, whom they desire still to keep in ignorance and darkness; or if, on the other side, we shall be maligned by self-conceited Brethren, who run their own ways, and give liking unto nothing but what is framed by themselves, and hammered on their anvil; we may rest secure, supported within by the truth and innocency of a good conscience, having walked the ways of simplicity and integrity as before the Lord, and sustained without by the powerful protection of Your Majesty's grace and favour, which will ever give countenance to honest and Christian endeavors against bitter censures and uncharitable imputations. The Lord of heaven and earth bless Your Majesty with many and happy days; that, as his heavenly hand hath enriched Your Highness with many singular and extraordinary graces, so You may be the wonder of the world in this latter age for happiness and true felicity, to the honour of that great GOD, and the good of his Church, through Jesus Christ our Lord and only Saviour. Home Prev Next Tunein FAQ Broadcast Schedule Sermon Transcripts Free Wm Branham Biography Bk Healing Newsletter Get Involved Special Thanks Contact Us Church Services Church Directory Last Book and Chapter HOME , Introduction Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, I Samuel, II Samuel, I Kings, II Kings, I Chronicles, II Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, I Corinthians, II Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, I Thessalonians, II Thessalonians, I Timothy, II Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, I Peter, II Peter, I John, II John, III John, Jude, Revelation	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3429
__label__wiki	0.984733	0.984733	Election 2020 U.S. Politics Bernie Sanders Endorses David Zuckerman for Governor by Paul Heintz Courtesy: David Zuckerman Undated photo of Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. David Zuckerman from a previous campaign Updated at 4:46 p.m. Vermont's most influential politician has thrown his weight behind Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman's gubernatorial campaign. In a written statement Monday morning, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) encouraged Vermonters to vote for Zuckerman in the August 11 Democratic primary. "I am proud to endorse David and know he will continue to ensure Vermonters have an economy that works for all of us, by growing good paying Vermont jobs, fighting climate change and leading a progressive recovery out of this pandemic," Sanders said in the statement, highlighting Zuckerman's support for a higher minimum wage and marriage equality. "I hope you will join me in supporting David to be our next Governor." The two progressive pols have been allies for decades. Zuckerman credits Sanders with inspiring him to become involved in politics in 1992 when the former was a student at the University of Vermont and the latter was a member of the U.S. House. That fall, according to Zuckerman, he volunteered on Sanders' reelection campaign and helped to register fellow UVM students to vote. Zuckerman stumped for Sanders during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, spent time with him the night of the New Hampshire primary and spoke at his Super Tuesday rally in Essex Junction. Sanders has endorsed many of Zuckerman's previous runs for office but held off this year until two weeks before the election. As of Monday, according to the Secretary of State's Office, 132,093 Vermonters had already requested absentee ballots and 39,726 had returned them to town clerks. Sanders’ endorsement could provide a significant influx of cash to Zuckerman’s campaign — just days before the final fundraising reporting deadline of the primary election. By Monday afternoon, Sanders had already emailed his extensive list of supporters to ask for a $6 donation to split between five men running for office this year: Zuckerman, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and New Hampshire gubernatorial candidate Andru Volinsky. In his own written statement, Zuckerman said he was honored by Sanders' endorsement. "As Governor, I look forward to working with him, other elected leaders and activists from across Vermont to create programs and policies that support struggling Vermonters and build a clean, green economy out of this pandemic," he said. Zuckerman faces former education secretary Rebecca Holcombe, Bennington attorney Pat Winburn and Wallingford activist Ralph Corbo in the Democratic primary. They each seek to challenge incumbent Republican Gov. Phil Scott in the general election. Zuckerman to Face Scott in Governor's Race, Gray Upsets Ashe for LG by Paul Heintz August 11, 2020 Vermont Officials Say They Can't Force D.C. Bus Passengers to Quarantine If Sanders Joined Biden's Cabinet, Who Would Succeed Him in the Senate? Protesters Around Vermont Demand Officials 'Count Every Vote' Scott's Victory Lap: Gov Wins Third Term, Gray Elected LG, Speaker Johnson Falls Short Election 2020 U.S. Politics Bernie Sanders David Zuckerman Election 2020 Governor's Race Senator Web Only	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3432
__label__wiki	0.668525	0.668525	A love story between Giacomo Puccini and the Versilia \| Visit Tuscany A love story between Giacomo Puccini and the Versilia Discovering Torre del Lago and the great Italian composer Giacomo Puccini was born in Lucca, but he never really liked city life. And so, in 1891, he moved to the Versilia, choosing Torre di Lago as his buen ritiro, a village that would eventually adopt the composer’s name in his honour. Located on the shores of Lake Massciuccoli, the town was perfect for Puccini, who loved hunting in the swamp, admiring the picturesque sunsets and gazing at the Apuan Alps reflected in the lake’s waters. The “Maestro” would remain on the lake for the rest of his life. An open-air theatre was built on the shore (suitably named the Gran Teatro Puccini), and every summer his pieces are performed here during the Puccini Festival. Lake Massciuccoli- Credit: ArC@dina For his home on the lake, Puccini moved into the tower that gives the village its name, renovating it into a Liberty-style villa. Today, you can explore the home, part of the Puccini House & Museum, where the composer worked and entertained his friends. You can admire his piano and the many photographs and letters on display, sent to Puccini by major figures like Toscanini, Caruso and even Edison, all great admirers of the Lucca-born Maestro. Villa Puccini- Credit: Carmen Giannattasio When visiting Torre del Lago, it’s easy to imagine Puccini walking through the lake-side park and the splendid Villa Orlandi, the home of a close friend. We can see him dreaming of his heroines, creating the characters that we’ve come to love, from Tosca to Madame Butterfly, all right here, where he breathed in the peace and beauty of his timeless surroundings. An itinerary of Lucca’s nineteenth and twentieth century poets and musicians Follow in Puccini’s footsteps by bicycle and explore undiscovered Versilia Northern slopes of Monte Altissimo Travel the Tuscan coast by motorcycle Summer in the Versilia Viareggio: a seaside city that boasts art and delicious food Versilia in the footsteps of the Medici	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3433
__label__cc	0.587858	0.412142	poll battles: journalist contenders ‘Being Among The People, The Experience Was Priceless’ The Pioneer BJP Hooghly; Lost By Chandan Mitra Chandan Mitra June 09, 2014 00:00 IST ‘Being Among The People, The Experience Was Priceless’ I became an accidental candidate in the 16th Lok Sabha elections from my party. The BJP’s central election committee was meeting regularly in the first week of March to finalise names for the forthcoming polls. On March 5, I was required to attend a meeting as central observer for Orissa. Invited leaders from West Bengal and Orissa were sitting in an ante-room close to the main meeting hall. Out of curiosity, I inquired about the names from West Bengal. At this point, several of those seated in the room vociferously suggested I too should enter the fray. The most compelling argument given was that I would be at “minimum risk”. As I am a sitting Rajya Sabha member with more than two years left for my second term to expire, and given the rising NaMo wave, this was the best time to try one’s luck. My name was formally announced on March 7. Before that, I asked Arun Jaitley, a friend from our Delhi University days, if I should really take the plunge. (He hadn’t decided about contesting from Amritsar yet). “If you think you can get... Chandan Mitra National Opinion More from Chandan Mitra Why I Love To Hate Outlook Dasvidaniya... Phew! 3 Tbsp Mustard, Pride To Taste	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3437
__label__wiki	0.865859	0.865859	US Preventive Services Task Force to recommend lowering CRC screening age to 45 Eric Oliver - Tuesday, October 27th, 2020 Print \| Email After much debate, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force will issue guidance to lower the colorectal cancer screening age to 45 in response to growing early-onset CRC rates, NBC News reports. The task force issued draft guidelines Oct. 27. The guidelines are the latest in a growing number to recommend lowering the age. The American Cancer Society was the first to recommend lowering the age in May 2018. It's likely the task force's guidance will convince CMS and private payers to cover screening colonoscopies for the 45-49-year-old age range, experts told NBC. Early-onset CRC is an alarming trend that has confounded researchers. John Wong, MD, chief scientific officer at Boston-based Tufts Medical Center, said that 10.3 percent of new CRC cases have occurred in people under the age of 50. New data also suggests that 45-year-old people face the same risk of developing CRC that 50-year-old people do. Otis Brawley, MD, a professor of oncology at Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, said to NBC that the change is a breakthrough. "The USPSTF tends to be the most conservative and orthodox group in their interpretation of the scientific literature, and they rarely make a big change like this," he said to NBC. "They are seeing the same thing the American Cancer Society sees." Want to share what the decision will mean to your practice? Email eoliver@beckershealthcare.com. 5 employees of U of New Mexico outpatient surgery center test positive for COVID-19 ASC leaders on top priorities during COVID-19 pandemic ASCs projected to take 68% of orthopedic surgeries by mid-decade — 5 insights	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3438
__label__cc	0.631371	0.368629	Posted on November 28, 2015 November 28, 2015 by J Entertainment, Link-Off Entertainment Link-Off: The Awakening It’s Saturday night and if you got nothing better to do (like me), then just read along for this week’s fix of the Entertainment Link-Off. Actually on second thought, I’ll just head out to see Creed this weekend. Reviews are flowing in and they’re looking very good. Not too sure who to start the ELO with this week but then I came across Maite Perroni’s latest photoshoot that was Star Wars themed. I still remember the good ol’ days when she was with the pop band RBD. After the jump, watch out for Friday Night Lights the musical, Neil Blomkamp’s Alien sequel could have been awesome, Ridley Scott just wants to pump out more Prometheus films, a possible undead character from Game of Thrones, a few new trailers to check out including Captain America: Civil War and listen to Pentatonix channel their inner Star Wars. For those holding out for a feature film continuation of the Friday Night Lights series might have to wait a bit longer (if not forever). In the meantime, perhaps you can indulge in the unauthorized musical of the TV series? Oh by the way, take note of who will be playing Coach Taylor! (Slashfilm) In a recent interview Michael Biehn revealed that Neil Blomkamp’s Alien sequel would have wiped out Alien 3 and 4. Also it would focus on a grown up Newt as the main protagonist! (Icons of Fright) Looks like Neil’s plans might be delayed further because Ridley Scott isn’t planning on making Prometheus a trilogy, it’s a quadrilogy! That’s right. He’s planning on making 2 more follow up films after Alien: Covenant. (THR) Tremors is looking to make a comeback. With Kevin Bacon on board, perhaps this will turn out to be better than those direct to video sequels and that other TV reboot attempt on the defunct Sci-Fi network. (Entertainment Weekly) Looks like Star Wars: The Force Awakens is tracking to have a very big opening weekend! That being said, Disney is trying to downplay it a little bit. (Deadline) The movie looks terrible already but now the director and the studio are taking the first step to apologize for having a whitewashed cast! Looks like Gods of Egypt will be a big bust at the box office. (Forbes) The poster for Game of Thrones season 6 teases the possible return of a ‘dead’ character. (TV.com) Comparing the Jessica Jones TV show to the comics. (Slashfilm) The CW is making bold move to shift The Vampire Diaries and The Originals to the Friday night ‘death slot’ in order to launch Legends of Tomorrow and season 3 of The 100 on Thursdays. Are Friday nights still considered to be TV’s purgatory? (The TV Addict) Taking a look back at Jimmy Kimmel’s awesome Star Wars special from Monday night. (The Daily Dot) It was inevitable but FOX has finally done it. The studio has pulled Fantastic Four sequel off the release plans for 2017. (Cinema Blend) A look at what turned The Martian into a hit movie and potential awards season contender. (Collider) Latest TV spot for Star Wars: The Force Awakens focuses on the dark side. (TV Guide) No need to wait for Star Wars: The Force Awakens to catch the trailer for Captain America: Civil War. It has appeared online this week already! Now that you’ve watched it, there might be some details you may have missed. Allow the directors Joe and Anthony Russo reveal the hidden details in the above clip. (Collider) Here’s a better look at DC’s Legend of Tomorrow! The show will start airing on The CW on January 21st! The countdown begins! Yes it just might be more interesting to watch a ‘making-of’ feature rather than the Fantastic Four reboot. Adele + Jimmy Fallon + The Roots + classroom instruments = magic! Pentatonix did a pretty nifty tribute to Star Wars at the AMA’s last week. Too bad they were sorta drowned out by the orchestra towards the end. ← Doctor Who: Face the Raven Review Sunday Link-Off: The Stories They Don’t Want You to Know →	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3443
__label__cc	0.683496	0.316504	filter work by: +All +Data Science +Design +Sound +Photo MATTHEW BEJTLICH Matthew (b. 1991) is a data scientist, information designer, electrical engineer, photographer, and musician who is interested in building communities that are more inclusive, circular, just, and resilient. He makes abstract, beat-driven electronic music as part of the audio-visual duo Dayspired and is a current partner at Rhythm Section International (London, UK), where he is being mentored by record label founder Bradley Zero (DJ at BBC Radio 1, NTS Radio, Boiler Room). Most recently, Matthew has pursued his MFA in Graphic Design at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) after receiving his MS in Data Science from Brown University. He is a graduate researcher at Brown’s Human-Computer Interaction Lab, and the head teaching assistant for the class “Machine Learning and Design.” He is currently looking for engaging and rigorous full time data science, design, and systems engineering work (either remote or in-person) dealing with high-impact social or environmental problems. Email, Resume, Music, Instagram, LinkedIn, GitHub He has worked or collaborated with Google, Holition, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, British Fashion Council, Brown University HCI Lab, and the Naval Undersea Warfare Center. MFA Graphic Design, 2021 MS Data Science, 2018 BS Electrical Engineering, 2015 Matthew (b. 1991) is a data scientist, designer, electrical engineer, photographer, and musician who is interested in building communities that are more inclusive, just, and resilient. Who am I? As part of my Graduate Studio I class at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), each student was asked to contributed a 16-page signature in response to this question, which began with a series of tasks as a way to set off the path of exploring, responding, and collecting in and around Providence, RI. The spreads shown to the right depict my personal kinesthetic and psychological experiences as I explore the space around Providence and carry out ritualistic daily athletic movements—biking, ping pong, tennis, and soccer. The photography arrangement is inspired by that of a musical passage or score, the score of my kinesthetic seasons. Client: Self Class: Graduate Studio I (RISD) Instructor: Paul Soulellis Editorial design, Photography, Print LISSITZKY POSTER Arranged and printed on a large sail-like canvas, this poster features a collection of notable works from the annual Kieler Woche sailing event held in Kiel, Germany. The selected artists pay homage to El Lissitzky’s distinct constructivist approach with the use of simple geometric shapes, and angular, asymmetric compositions. The angle of the left side of the poster identifies the work of Kieler Woche designers and the angle of the right side refers to Lissitzky’s images. Class: Graduate Typography III (RISD) Instructor: Doug Scott, MFA Poster, print Sketchy is a web-based drawing application that allows users to sketch in virtual rooms and get ideas from viewing their peer’s sketches in real-time. In my contribution as a graduate research for the Brown University HCI Group, I conceptualized and constructed novel artistic features from 2D stroke data to help in building a personalized recommendation model in support of designers in their creative process. This is an on-going project. Reviewed paper for CHI 2020 conference. Client: Brown University HCI Lab Advisor: Jeff Huang, PhD & Shawn Wallace, MS Data science, Human Computer Interaction (︎︎︎Feature analysis) (︎︎︎Summary) FORCE AND POSITION MIDI CONTROLLER For my senior capstone project in electrical engineering, I led a team of five other engineering students to design a highly customizable position and force sensing MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) controller prototype for a small synth repair company based in Southern Maine called New England Analog. MIDI is a technical standard for digitally representing and transmitting sounds — it is used as a touch surface to allow the user to control a wide range of sound parameters (e.g velocity, pitch, and panning) base upon the force of the applied touch. Over the course of the year, my team developed and produced a working prototype satisfying the major requirement and needs of the customer. We presented the result in front of a panel of judges and industry leaders. Client: New England Analog Class: Electrical Enginnering Senior Capstone Collaborators: Cameron Connor, Jean Pierre, Aaron DaPonte, Greg Ladd, Devin Honeycutt Advisors: David Rancour, PhD and Howard Michel, PhD Data science, data visualization (︎︎︎Process documentation) SEEDLINKED: DATA-DRIVEN SEED SHARING How do we unflatten, juxtapose, and reveal the multiple stakeholder perspectives in the agri-food supply chain to offer a more authentic experience? How can personal stories be used to connect people in the supply chain? Through shared data-driven insight, the SeedLinked platform aims to bring connectivity to plant breeders, seed companies, farmers, gardeners, chefs, universities, and other testing organization in order to support the growth of local organic farming. In this essay, I examine and discuss SeedLinked (as a networked system) in relation to class readings, academic literature, and current entrepreneurial initiatives in the food industry. A secondary goal is to propose clear recommendations to help improve the interface design and the way that the data is shared across multiple users. Client: SeedLinked Class: Foodways & Sustainable Food Systems, RISD Instructor: Jonathan Highfield, PhD Data Science, Food (︎︎︎Read report) Matthew Bejtlich © 2020	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3455
__label__cc	0.715146	0.284854	Emergency Medicine FAQ Clinical Ultrasound Out-of-Hospital Care (EMS) Clinical Informatics Fellowship Clinical Informatics is the study of information technology and how it can be applied to the health care field. It includes the study and practice of an information-based approach to health care delivery in which data must be structured in a certain way to be effectively retrieved and used in a report or evaluation. The clinical informatics fellowship at IU School of Medicine applies technologic tools to health care. This ACGME-accredited fellowship is for physicians who wish to improve and study the impact of technology upon health care. These training programs provide a unique skill set that allow physicians to implement system-wide changes to impact the care of all patients. This fellowship is housed within the Regenstrief Institute Center for Biomedical Informatics, an internationally recognized leader in biomedical informatics. Leadership and faculty for this fellowship program are shared between IU School of Medicine and the Regenstrief Institute. Interested applicants may contact the fellowship director for information. Candidates interested in applying for the CBMI Clinical Informatics Fellowship should complete the application. Rotations in this fellowship are based at both IU Health facilities and Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Hospital. Fellows are based out of the Regenstrief Institute. Graduates of this program are eligible to sit for the Clinical Informatics Subspecialty Board Exam. Jason T. Schaffer, MD Associate Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine John T. Finnell, MD Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine Emily C. Webber, MD Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics Peter J. Embi, MD Associate Dean for Informatics and Health Services Research Shaun J. Grannis, MD Regenstrief Professor of Medical Informatics Emergency Ultrasound Motorsports Medicine Pediatric Emergency Ultrasound Medical Simulation IU School of Medicine Department of Emergency Medicine 720 Eskenazi Ave Fifth Third Bank Building 3rd Fl Indianapolis, IN 46202 317-880-3900 \| iusmem@iu.edu	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3457
__label__wiki	0.503289	0.503289	mensfitnessandlifestyle.com Quick Answer: What Is Common Equity On Balance Sheet? Where is preferred equity on the balance sheet? What are the two types of equity found on the balance sheet? How is equity calculated? What are the two components of equity? What is the difference between preferred equity and common equity? What is equity on balance sheet? What is an example of an equity? What increases owners equity? What is the difference between equity and equality? Is preferred equity a liability? Is equity a debit or credit? What exactly is equity? Is preferred stock equity? Is common equity an asset? Is capital the same as equity? What are the three major types of equity accounts? What are examples of equity accounts? Is cash a equity? Preferred Stock and the Balance Sheet All preferred stock is reported on the balance sheet in the stockholders’ equity section and it appears first before any other stock. The par value, authorized shares, issued shares, and outstanding shares is disclosed for each type of stock.. A balance sheet provides a snapshot of a company’s assets, liabilities, and shareholders’ equity at the end of a firm’s financial reporting period. Stockholders’ equity increases when a firm generates or retains earnings, which helps a company balance debt and absorb surprise losses. Equity is the portion of your property’s value that you own outright. … Equity is the portion of a property’s value that an individual owns outright. It is calculated by measuring the difference between the outstanding balance of a home loan and the property’s current market value. Stockholders’ equity is the difference between the reported amounts of a corporation’s assets and liabilities. Stockholders’ equity is subdivided into components: (1) paid-in capital or contributed capital, (2) retained earnings, and (3) treasury stock, if any. The main difference between preferred and common stock is that preferred stock gives no voting rights to shareholders while common stock does. … Common stockholders are last in line when it comes to company assets, which means they will be paid out after creditors, bondholders, and preferred shareholders. Equity represents the shareholders’ stake in the company, identified on a company’s balance sheet. The calculation of equity is a company’s total assets minus its total liabilities, and is used in several key financial ratios such as ROE. Equity is the ownership of any asset after any liabilities associated with the asset are cleared. For example, if you own a car worth $25,000, but you owe $10,000 on that vehicle, the car represents $15,000 equity. Revenues and gains cause owner’s equity to increase. Expenses and losses cause owner’s equity to decrease. If a company performs a service and increases its assets, owner’s equity will increase when the Service Revenues account is closed to owner’s equity at the end of the accounting year. By definition, equality means “the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, and opportunities.” Equity means “justice according to natural law or right” or “the quality of being fair and impartial.” So what does this mean in the workplace? Yet preferred stock is listed on the balance sheet as equity rather than a liability. … The debt is listed in the liability section of the balance sheet as long term debt. When the company receives the cash from the customer, two accounts again change on the company side, the cash account is debited (increased) and the Accounts Receivable account is now decreased (credited)….Aspects of transactions.Kind of accountDebitCreditEquity/CapitalDecreaseIncrease4 more rows In finance, equity is ownership of assets that may have debts or other liabilities attached to them. Equity is measured for accounting purposes by subtracting liabilities from the value of an asset. Preferred stock is equity. Just like common stock, its shares represent an ownership stake in a company. However, preferred stock normally has a fixed dividend payout as well. … Preferred shares are issued with a set dividend that must be paid before the company’s board considers any dividend for common shareholders. Assets – Liabilities + Shareholder Equity Based on the equation, the common stock, being shareholder equity, is neither an asset nor a debt. However, being on the opposite side of the asset equation, it is treated much more like a liability than an asset. The reason is that a shareholder can request to cash out. Capital is the owner’s investment of assets into a business. Capital is a subcategory of owner’s equity. But it’s not the only subcategory. The owner can also make profits from a business that he/she runs. Equity accounts include common stock, paid-in capital, and retained earnings. The type and captions used for equity accounts are dependent on the type of entity. The 7 main equity accounts are:#1 Common Stock. Common stock. … #2 Preferred Stock. Preferred stock. … #3 Contributed Surplus. Contributed Surplus. … #4 Additional Paid-In Capital. … #5 Retained Earnings. … #7 Treasury Stock (contra-equity account) What Is Cash Equity? … Cash equity is also a real estate term that refers to the amount of home value greater than the mortgage balance. It is the cash portion of the equity balance. A large down payment, for example, may create cash equity. What Symbolizes Christmas Day? Is the Christmas tree a religious symbol? Quick Answer: Is .NET Dead 2019? Is .NET good for Career? Dot Net has a high growth Question: Do Black Clothes Make You Hotter? Why is the color black hotter than white? Quick Answer: How Long Does Viral Diarrhea Last? How long should you wait to see a doctor for diarrhea? Question: Can A Merchant Navy Officer Take His Wife On Ship? Is family allowed in merchant navy? Family onboard Quick Answer: Can Amazon Close Your Account For Too Many Returns? Is there a return limit on Amazon? In its return policy Quick Answer: What Disqualifies The CIA? Can you tell your family you work for the CIA? ‘ What Is The Best Time Of Day To Go To The Louvre? What time does the Louvre avoid lines? Wait Until After Lunch. Question: What Causes Bra Back Fat? Can you get rid of back fat rolls? There is no way Quick Answer: What Tree Is That Book? How tall does a kumquat tree get? 8 to 15 feetKumquat Question: What Doctor Specializes In Facial Hair? Is there a pill to stop facial hair growth? Question: How Can We Protect Coastlines From Erosion? What are the advantages and disadvantages of managed retreat? Question: What Is The Fastest Way To Cool Down Hot Chocolate? Is it good to drink something hot when it’ © 2021 mensfitnessandlifestyle.com	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3464
__label__wiki	0.536027	0.536027	Home / Science & Technology / Dinosaurs / Dinosaur Sculpting Dinosaur Sculpting A Complete Guide, 2d ed. Dinosaur Sculpting quantity SKU: 9780786472055 Categories: Art & Architecture, Dinosaurs, Interdisciplinary Studies This new book, greatly expanded from the 1995 first edition, describes detailed, step-by-step procedures for sculpting, molding and painting original prehistoric animals. It emphasizes the use of relatively inexpensive materials including oven-hardening polymer clay and wire. Additional tips are offered on how to build distinctive dino-dioramas and scenes involving one’s own original sculptures that you will learn how to conceive and build. This book will appeal to a new generation who would like to break into the industry of paleosculpture. Techniques range from “basic” to “advanced.” The authors also discuss what it means to be a “paleoartist.” Allen A. Debus is a dinosaur sculptor and author of multiple books. He writes regularly for Prehistoric Times, G-Fan, Mad Scientist and Scary Monsters, and was a contributing editor of Fossil News: Journal of Avocational Paleontology. He lives in Hanover Park, Illinois. The exceptionally talented artist Bob Morales has sculpted numerous prehistoric animals including those reproduced as resin kits for Lunar Models and commissioned for Saurian Studios, as well as for other clients. He interviewed noted paleoartist Gregory S. Paul for Prehistoric Times, and has managed a successful studio, Dragon Attack!, in Colton, California. Writer Diane E. Debus coauthors articles with her husband Allen A. Debus. She lives in Hanover Park, Illinois. Allen A. Debus, Bob Morales and Diane E. Debus Bibliographic Info: 205 photos, glossary, notes, bibliography, index Foreword by Mike Fredericks 1 Introduction: The Circle of Life 3 1. Recipe for a Dinosaur 13 2. An Overview of Paleoimagery 24 3. Why Do It? Brainstorming Ideas and Exploring Themes in Paleosculpture 53 4. Constructing Trustworthy Armatures 58 5. Pre-baked Parts 64 6. Sculpting Bloodthirsty Theropods 69 7. Sculpting Super Sauropods 91 8. “Can-Do” Stegosaurs! 102 9. Sculpting “Sharp-Looking” Horned Dinosaurs 116 10. Sculpting Iguanodontian and Duckbill Dinosaurs 127 11. Sculpting Miscellaneous Mesozoic Creatures 137 12. Sailing On to Distinctive Projects: Finbacks and Winged Reptiles 155 13. Sculpting Prehistoric Birds and Feathered Dinosaurs “On the Fly” 172 14. Sculpting Prehistoric Mammals—“Just Do It!” 189 15. Putting It All Together, A to Z: Sculpting Liopleurodon 204 16. A Word on the World of Dino-Diorama Building (Model Bases and Painting) 220 17. Molding Prehistoric Animal Sculptures 238 18. A Painting Primer 249 19. What to Do If Your Model Cracks and Other Eventful Matters 255 Glossary 261 “if you are interested in the history of dinosaurs in popular culture, Debus is an author you simply cannot ignore…Debus does a huge service to those who work in the history of science”—H-Net Reviews. You're viewing: Dinosaur Sculpting $49.95	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3467
__label__cc	0.718871	0.281129	Home / Literature / Classics / The Heroic Ideal View cart “The Heroic Ideal” has been added to your cart. The Heroic Ideal Western Archetypes from the Greeks to the Present The Heroic Ideal quantity SKU: 9780786437863 Categories: Popular Culture & Performing Arts, Literature, Mythology & Folklore, Classics, History, Ancient, Social Sciences, Sociology & Anthropology, Interdisciplinary Studies, Medieval Studies Tags: antiheroes, heroes, textbook The word “hero” seems in its present usage, an all-purpose moniker applied to everyone from Medal of Honor recipients to celebrities to comic book characters. This book explores the Western idea of the hero, from its initial use in ancient Greece, where it identified demigods or aristocratic, mortal warriors, through today. Sections examine the concept of the hero as presented in the ancient, medieval, and modern worlds. Special attention is paid to particular heroic types, such as warriors, martyrs, athletes, knights, saints, scientists, rebels, secret servicemen, and even anti-heroes. This book also reconstructs how definitions of heroism have been inextricably linked to shifts in Western thinking about religion, social relations, political authority, and ethical conduct. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here. M. Gregory Kendrick is a professor of modern European history and director of the UCLA Freshman Cluster Program at the University of California in Los Angeles. M. Gregory Kendrick Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliography, index Acknowledgments vi PART ONE. MYRMIDONS, MARTYRS, AND MUSCLE MEN: HEROISM IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 5 1. Neither Human nor Divine: The Hemitheoi and Their Cults 9 2. “Of arms and the man I sing”: The Hero as Myrmidon 13 3. “Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise”: The Hero as Martyr 24 4. “Creatures of a Day”: The Hero as Athlete 50 PART TWO. SOLDIERS AND SERVANTS OF CHRIST: HEROISM IN THE MIDDLE AGES 65 5. Miles Christi: The Hero as Warrior of Christ 69 6. Imitatio Christi: The Hero as Saint 88 PART THREE. REBELS, ROGUES, AND REPROBATES: HEROISM IN THE MODERN WORLD 105 7. “To boldly go where no one has gone before”: The Hero as Explorer 107 8. “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom”: The Hero as Romantic Rebel 130 9. Black Angels and New Men: Heroism in a Totalitarian Context 146 10. Rogues, Reprobates, Outcasts, and Oddballs: The Anti-Hero 184 Chapter Notes 205 “Fascinating…highly recommended”—Choice YA & Children's You're viewing: The Heroic Ideal $29.95	cc/2021-04/en_middle_0027.json.gz/line3468

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