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Earls Court: council rejects mooted new Capco masterplan and restates call for ‘return’ of housing estates
20th January 2018 10th September 2018
A lot has happened since July 2013 when the then Mayor Boris Johnson praised proposals for redeveloping a big chunk of Earls Court as a “landmark project”, but most of has happened wasn’t planned.
By now, a whole new neighbourhood should have been taking vigorous shape – a comprehensive “re-imagining” of Earls Court, as its champions have put it in the past. Instead, two of the three main sections of the site are utterly unchanged while the third has been denuded of the Earls Court exhibition centre – which really was a London landmark – leaving a large empty space. Just south of Lillie Road, the expensive dwellings of a separate section of the scheme have been selling far more slowly than envisaged and, nearby, a row of shops bought up by the site’s developer Capital and Counties (Capco) with a view to demolition are to be put in limbo as “meanwhile” space.
The bulk of the project looks becalmed. What now? The question isn’t new and I am not alone in asking it. For months, there has been talk in London property circles that Capco, with which a then Conservative-run Hammersmith and Fulham Council partnered to deliver the scheme, is trying to offload it, having been hit by a dip in “prime” property prices.
The lack of progress is doing nothing for the finances of Transport for London, which formed a joint venture company with Capco to redevelop the exhibition centre land – which it owns the freehold of – in the expectation that this would generate a new revenue stream. There’s not much sign of that tap being turned on. Not much sign either that the other piece of the land jigsaw owned by TfL, the Lillie Bridge London Underground depot, will be transformed into a handsome new residential neighbourhood either, as envisaged in the Farrells masterplan.
There is, though, one piece of the patchwork where spirits have been lifted by recent non-events. Campaigners against the demolition of the adjoining West Kensington and Gibbs Green housing estates are hoping the collapse of the Earls Court project is nigh and with it and end to the prospect of the estates’ demolition, as originally envisaged.
They’ve been encouraged in this view by a letter to the two estates’ roughly 2,000 residents from the council’s current, Labour, leader Stephen Cowan, sent out in November. It said that he and colleagues had been negotiating with Capco to either “get the estates back” or to improve the rehousing and compensation deal struck with the previous administration. This was in line with a manifesto promise made for the 2014 borough elections. Cowan’s letter also confirmed that Capco had been working on “a new masterplan for the Earls Court scheme” and that if the council gave permission for this “we would see the two estates return to council control”.
It wasn’t clear exactly what “control” might mean against the backdrop of a legal agreement – a conditional land sale agreement (CLSA) – reached between Capco and the Tories for the bit-by-bit transfer of ownership of the estates from council to developer as and when promised replacement homes for residents were complete. Cowan sent out a further letter to residents just before New Year, again referring to discussions with Capco about a possible “return to council control” of the estates and affirming that the council believes “the CLSA scheme, as it stands, is unviable”, because the overall value of the scheme has fallen; in other words, that there wouldn’t be enough profit produced by the sale of expensive market-priced homes on the site to meet the cost of replacement homes for estate residents.
Then, on Thursday, the council issued a statement. This said it has “given further consideration” to what it calls Capco’s “request” for a new masterplan but “does not believe that the proposed level of density and affordable housing could be supported or delivered”.
This is significant. A new masterplan has been mooted for some time, with Capco’s planning consultants DP9 making a submission to Sadiq Khan for substantially increasing the density of the scheme, suggesting raising the total number of new dwellings proposed from around 7,500 to 10,000. Cowan was for some time receptive to that general principle: an admirer of New York City, he has no fundamental objection to high rise buildings, and larger numbers of market-priced homes in the scheme might have generated the extra cash required to get a better deal for the residents of West Kensington and Gibbs Green if demolition went ahead.
But the council’s statement rules out that possibility. It says that it has taken into account concerns raised last October by neighbouring Kensington and Chelsea, whose councillors, Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat alike, declared their opposition to the Earls Court project becoming bigger still. Kensington and Chelsea has always had a significant role in all this – although Hammersmith and Fulham took the lead in working up the project, part of its development site lies in the borough next door and has required planning permissions from it accordingly.
The Hammersmith and Fulham statement also says it has noted “the recent position of the Greater London Authority on regeneration schemes”, which might to be a reference to Khan’s emerging policies on the handling of proposed estate demolitions and his “threshold” approach to the amount of affordable homes in housing schemes.
A new masterplan for something as enormous as the Earls Court project would require Khan’s approval, just as the original one required Johnson’s. Cowan’s administration has come to the view that, given the changing policy context, the stance of Kensington and Chelsea and the current condition of the London housing market, a new, bigger and taller masterplan, building in a better financial deal for estate residents, does not stack up as it might have done two or three years ago.
The statement ends by saying it views that the current agreed scheme as “undeliverable” and that it has call on Capco to “return” the estates to the council “as this is the only viable way forward”. The argument seems to be that only by taking out of the equation the cost of knocking down the estates and of building replacements might be new and financially practical arrangements to be made regarding remaining parts of project site.
That is explicitly the view of the campaign against the demolition of West Kensington and Gibbs Green, which for a long time has not seen eye-to-eye with the Labour administration on other matters. It contends that its activities have added to the project’s problems. Their community organiser Jonathan Rosenberg says he is certain that Capco wants to “exit” and asserts that “there’s no way anyone will buy it so long as our estates and our deeply entrenched campaign are part of the package. The best way for them to de-risk the redevelopment is to hand back the estates to the council”.
How likely it is that the CLSA will be torn up and the future of the estates placed entirely back in the council’s hands is hard to know – both of Cowan’s letters have been candid in saying that many more steps need to be taken before that could occur. But if it does, the anti-demolition campaign will not consider its work complete.
From its very beginnings in advance of the 2010 general election the anti-demolition campaign has argued that ownership of the estates should be transferred from the council to a community-centred housing association along the lines of Walterton and Elgin Community Homes in Westminster, which Rosenberg played a central role in setting up. An application to the government to secure that result was made when the Conservatives ran Hammersmith and Fulham, but the sensational change of political leadership four years ago has not altered their position.
The transfer request is still under consideration. The council is still opposed to it. Interestingly, its case included an argument that a transfer would lessen the potential for the wider area being regenerated. It seems to the campaigners that the council is now saying that regeneration of the Earls Court area cannot become viable unless the estates are taken out of any new planning proposals. We can safely assume that this point will be made to the secretary of state in due course.
What a long and sorry saga the Earls Court project has become. It is nine years since it came into the public eye. How many more will pass before it even begins to serve some definition of the public interest?
Categories: Analysis
Tags: affordable housing, Boris Johnson, Capco, council housing, Earl's Court, Gibbs Green, Hammersmith, housing, Jonathan Rosenberg, Kensington & Chelsea, regeneration, Sadiq Khan, Stephen Cowan, Walterton & Elgin Community Homes, West Kensington
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The Cult of Violence Always Kills the Left
By Chris Hedges (Page 1 of 2 pages) (# of views) 20 comments
(452 fans)
From Truthdig
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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- The Weather Underground, a clandestine revolutionary organization that advocated violence, was seen by my father and other clergy members who were involved in Vietnam anti-war protests as one of the most self-destructive forces on the left. These members of the clergy, many of whom, including my father, were World War II veterans, had often became ministers because of their experiences in the war. They understood the poison of violence. One of the most prominent leaders of Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam (CALCAV), to which my father belonged, was the Catholic priest Philip Berrigan, who as an Army second lieutenant fought in the Battle of the Bulge.
The young radicals of the Vietnam era, including Mark Rudd -- who in 1968 as a leader of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) led the occupation of five buildings at Columbia University and later helped form the Weather Underground -- did not turn to those on the religious left whose personal experiences with violence might have saved SDS, the Weather Underground and the student anti-war movement from self-immolation. Blinded by hubris and infected with moral purity, the members of the Weather Underground saw themselves as the only real revolutionaries. And they embarked, as have those in today's black bloc and antifa, on a campaign that was counterproductive to the social justice goals they said they advocated.
Rudd, 50 years later, plays the role once played by the priests Phil and Daniel Berrigan and Rabbi Abraham Heschel. His book "Underground: My Life With SDS and the Weathermen" is a brutally honest deconstruction of the dangerous myths that captivated him as a young man. I suspect that many of those in the black bloc and antifa will no more listen to his wisdom than did the young radicals five decades ago who dismissed the warnings from those on the religious left for whom violence was not an abstraction. Rudd sees his old self in the masked faces of the black bloc and antifa, groups that advocate violence and property destruction in the name of anti-fascism. These faces, he said, ignite his deep embers of "shame and guilt."
"It's word for word the same thing," Rudd said of antifa and the black bloc when we spoke for several hours recently in Albuquerque. "You look on a YouTube channel like Acting Out. It's identical. How can we as white people stand by while the nonwhite people of the world are suffering under imperialism? I think the shame of being white in this society is so great [that] people want to show that they're aware of how terrible the disparities are, and how privilege and oppression distort everything. The urge to talk about violence and commit violence in response is a way of cleansing yourself of that privilege, of the guilt of privilege. It taps into this strain that I've identified as self-expression rather than strategy. That, to me, is the biggest problem."
"The anarchist Andy Cornell makes a distinction between activism and organizing," he said. "Activism is about self-expression. It often is a substitute for strategy. Strategic organizing is about results. These acts of self-expression, which is what antifa does and what we did in the Weather Underground, are exactly what the cops want."
"The slogan 'diversity of tactics' used by the black bloc and antifa is ridiculous," he said. "Even the term 'tactic' is ridiculous. What we need is a strategy. And let's be clear, even when you adopt a nonviolent strategy it will be portrayed by the state as violent. This is what the Israelis are doing at the Gaza fence. I often tell the antifa kids here -- there are about four antifa kids in Albuquerque and they hate my guts -- this story. There was a spontaneous anti-war demonstration in 2003 by a thousand people in Albuquerque the night the [Iraq] war began. The cops, who support the military, were angry. They attacked the crowd with tear gas and clubs. There were a lot of arrests. The victims brought a civil suit against the police. It did not come to trial until 2011. The police and the city of Albuquerque were the defendants. They were charged with violating the rights of the protesters. It was a jury trial. The jury found for the cops. Why? It turned out the police attorneys brought in a photograph. There were about 200 or 300 people in the photograph. In the front were two people wearing bandannas [as masks]. Just wearing bandannas. They zoomed in on the people wearing the bandannas. They told the jury, 'See these people wearing these bandannas? They're wearing bandannas because they're terrorists. And we knew they were about to attack us. So, we had to attack them.' The jury went for it. We had not yet convinced our fellow citizens of the value of the right to protest. My conclusion: Don't wear bandannas! Every time I see a kid wearing a bandanna, I say, 'You're so beautiful, why cover your face?' They say, 'Well, I have to, I'm a Zapatista.' I say that's nice but this is what happened in 2003 and 2011. It would probably be better for you to not wear the bandanna so they won't think we're violent. And they say, 'You're a stupid piece of sh*t' or they walk away."
Rudd said that the occupation of Columbia University in April 1968, an occupation that caused him to be expelled from the university, was an example of the kind of strategy that the left has to adopt. This strategy had its roots in the organizing techniques of the labor and civil rights movement.
"The means of transmission were red diaper babies," he said, referring to the sons and daughters of members of the United States Communist Party. "The red diaper babies at Columbia SDS kept saying, 'Build the base. Build the base. Build the base.' It became a mantra for years. It was all we could think about. This meant education, confrontation and talking, talking, talking. It meant building relationships and alliances. It meant don't get too far out in front. In the spring of 1968 it all came to a head. It was the perfect storm. A few of us knew, now is the time to strike."
"Columbia was a success," he said. "The deed attracted attention. And because of the alliance with the black students, which has never gotten enough media attention in the story of Columbia, we closed down the university. We accomplished our strategic aim, which was to politicize more people and to build the movement. Our goal was not to end the university's involvement with military research. That was a symbolic goal. The real goal was to build the movement. I got into a lot of trouble for saying the issue is not the issue."
But Rudd and other radicals in the SDS soon became, he said, "enamored with the propaganda of the deed." Self-expression replaced strategy. The organizing, which had made the occupation of the university successful, was replaced by revolutionary posturing. The radicals believed that more radical tactics, including violence, would accelerate political and social change. It did the opposite.
"After Columbia, it was failure after failure after failure in SDS for the next year and a half," he said. "Then we doubled down on the failures."
The SDS radicals came under the spell of revolutionary theories propagated by those supporting armed liberation movements in the developing world. They wanted to transplant Frantz Fanon's call for revolutionary violence, Lin Biao's idea of "people's war" and Ernesto "Che" Guevara foco, or insurrectionary center, to the struggle in the United States. The radicals would go underground and carry out acts of violence that would ignite a national war of liberation. This call to arms was seductive and exhilarating, but it was based on a distorted and highly selective account of revolutionary struggle, especially in Cuba.
"Che put forward a phony analysis of how the Cuban revolution was won," Rudd said. "According to him it was won solely by Fidel and Che going into the Sierra Maestra [mountain range]. Armed struggle was the only thing that was important to the Cuban revolution. All other aspects of the revolution, including 20,000 people who were murdered by [dictator Fulgencio] Batista in the cities, the national strikes by the unions, the street protests by women, university students and the Cuban Communist Party were wiped out of history. There was only one thing to do, pick up the gun."
The cult of the gun was disastrous. It distorted reality. It elevated violence as the only real tool for revolution. Vijay Prashad in his book, "The Darker Nations" spells out the incalculable damage caused by this cult, including the doomed attempt in 1967 by Che Guevara to form a foco in Bolivia, an effort that would cost him his life. The cult of the gun saw most third-world liberation movements, such as the National Liberation Front (FLN) in Algeria, devolve into squalid military dictatorships when they took power.
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Chris Hedges spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years.
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Africa's rural electrification programme in danger of losing funding - OrientEnergyReview
Africa’s rural electrification programme in danger of losing funding
By OrientEnergyReview Last updated Dec 24, 2018
For nearly two decades, the United States has strongly pushed for the electrification of rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa to raise the standard of living. It has carried out these goals via the USAID’s Power Africa and the World Bank, and under the UN Sustainable Development Goal on Energy (SDG7).
And yet, it remains unclear whether electrification can actually improve living standards in rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa. As researchers, we have previously documented the positive effects of electrification schemes. Still, we think that money earmarked for rural electrification in sub-Saharan Africa might be better spent elsewhere.
Providing people with clean drinking water and sanitation infrastructure may do more to improve living standards than providing them with electricity. In addition, water and sanitation provisions are generally less expensive than rural electrification. They could improve many more lives at the same cost.
The electrification of low-density rural areas in Nicaragua, Guatemala and KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa has increased the number of working women. Rural electrification substantially increased household living standards in India.
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However, South Asian rural electrification schemes often did not reach the poor. Similarly, in Ghana and Rwanda, economic opportunities were not obviously increased. In Ghana, electricity remains prohibitively expensive for newly connected rural households. In Rwanda, grid electrification did not result in significant new income generation in rural areas.
While there is some potential for off-grid solar energy to improve agricultural productivity in Africa, very small-scale solar provisions are unlikely to do so.
Solar provisions may be commercially viable, but they are not necessarily the most cost-effective source of clean energy. A home installation in sub-Saharan Africa may cost $500-$1,000, far above what most rural households can pay.
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PA Bar Association Honors Arthur Read with Inaugural Civil and Equal Rights Champion Award
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Link: https://www.pabar.org
The Pennsylvania Bar Association (PBA) Civil and Equal Rights Committee presented its inaugural Civil and Equal Rights Champion Award to Philadelphia lawyer Arthur N. Read, general counsel for Justice at Work, a legal services organization representing low-wage workers in immigrant communities in Pennsylvania, during a May 16 joint reception of the PBA Civil and Equal Rights Committee, GLBT Rights Committee, Minority Bar Committee, Senior Lawyers Committee, Solo and Small Firm Practice Section and the Pennsylvania Bar Foundation, at the association’s Annual Meeting in Lancaster.
The PBA Civil and Equal Rights Committee established this award to annually honor an individual who champions for civil rights for all Pennsylvanians through constitutional advocacy, legislative acts or advocacy, or individual representation and development of case law that promote and advance civil rights, civil liberties, human rights and equality at work.
Read was recognized for his lifetime devotion to advocating for workers’ rights, changing the world for farmworkers, limited English speakers and the poor. Read has been an attorney for more than 42 years.
After working at a labor and civil rights law firm in New York City, he joined the Farmworkers Division of Camden Regional Legal Services in New Jersey in 1979. In 1981, Read began working for that program’s Pennsylvania Farmworker Project. In 1982, Read assumed the position of general counsel of what was then called Friends of Farmworkers, later to become Justice at Work.
With nearly 37 years at Justice at Work, Read focuses on representing migrant and immigrant low-wage workers in employment, labor, housing and consumer law matters. In recent years the organization’s work has expanded from representation of farmworkers to representation of low-wage immigrant workers and advocacy on behalf of limited English proficient populations.
Some key highlights of Read’s many accomplishments include:
Advocating for the implementation of federal protections for immigrant and migrant workers in agricultural industries in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey under the federal Farm Labor Contractor Registration Act and its successor, the 1983 Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act. In Pennsylvania, this advocacy has had significant impact on the mushroom, tree fruit and tomato industries, as well as on thousands of seasonal “day-haul” workers in the Philadelphia area.
Undertaking successful class action litigation in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania to force implementation of the 1978 Pennsylvania Seasonal Farm Labor Act in the mushroom industry and to require inspection and permitting of housing offered by employers and labor contractors in that industry.
Establishing protected rights to self-organization and bargaining at work for farmworkers in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania who are denied protections under the National Labor Relations Act. In Pennsylvania, these rights were established under the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Act for workers in Pennsylvania’s mushroom industry.
Fighting discrimination against Latino workers in housing in southern Chester County, including complaints through the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Working for implementation by the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry of effective job training services on behalf of laid off Spanish-speaking mushroom workers in Berks County after winning federal Job Training and Readjustment Benefits for those workers following the closing of a major mushroom operation in that area.
For the past 20 years, Read has undertaken litigation and advocacy at both a local and national level in relationship to industries utilizing temporary foreign worker programs. This has included litigation against the U.S. Department of Labor under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) to force implementation of procedures to protect workers’ rights under the H-2B temporary non-agricultural worker program.
In 2000, Read joined the Litigants with Limited English Proficiency Workgroup of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Committee on Racial and Gender Bias where he helped draft the committee’s recommendations on Litigants with Limited English Proficiency. Read led efforts within the PBA and Philadelphia Bar Association for implementation of those recommendations.
In May 2004, Read testified before the Judiciary Committee of the Pennsylvania Senate on behalf of the Campaign for Litigants’ Equal Participation in support of an Interpreter Certification Law for judicial and administrative proceedings. With support from both the PBA and Philadelphia Bar Association, the Pennsylvania Interpreter Certification Law was adopted as Act No. 172 of 2006.
Read has continued to advocate with the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts and state administrative agencies for effective procedures for limited English proficient litigants. Read worked with delegates to the American Bar Association (ABA) to support adoption of the ABA Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants (SCLAID) “ABA Standards for Language Access in Courts” in February 2012.
A frequent author and lecturer, Read has written and presented on such topics as worker protections in immigration reform, foreign temporary worker programs and their impact on the U.S. workforce and immigration policy, and representing litigants with limited English proficiency. He has regularly presented at biannual conferences for advocates for migrant and seasonal farmworkers sponsored by the National Legal Aid and Defender Association.
In 2008, Read’s work was recognized with a PBA President’s Award. Read also received a Special Achievement Award in 2007 for development of a PBA Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee formal opinion about non-lawyers who engage in the unauthorized practice of immigration law. In addition, Read received the Morris Dees Justice Award presented by the University of Alabama and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP in 2007 and the Pennsylvania Legal Services Striving Toward Excellence Award in 1993.
Read has been a member of the PBA House of Delegates since 2006 and active in the PBA Civil and Equal Rights Committee since 2003, including serving as a co-chair of the committee. Since 2004, Read has presented or supported more than 20 resolutions from the Civil and Equal Rights Committee to the PBA House of Delegates. In 2008, Read was asked to co-chair a PBA Education Funding Ad Hoc Committee that successfully won approval as a PBA resolution. Read also belongs to the Philadelphia Bar Association and the National Lawyers Guild, where he has served on its Labor and Employment Committee for more 40 years.
Read received a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1972 and a J.D. from New York University School of Law in 1976.
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By Mike Johnson
“Some people look for a beautiful place. Others make a place beautiful.”
-- Hazrat Inayat Khan, spiritualist
First, there was a vast forest punctuated with wetlands, streams, small openings, and maybe an isolated patch of prairie. The only features that would have broken the mosaic of trees were the Cuyahoga and the Little Cuyahoga Rivers near Akron, Ohio. Located at the confluence of these two waterways, Valley View would have sported a rare opening in the tree canopy. The area has lived many lives over the past two hundred years. In fact, archaeologists and historians at Summit Metro Parks are presently investigating a small neighborhood that once existed in the northern section of the property and a possible boatyard that might have constructed ships for Commodore Perry in the War of 1812. The area was once a dairy farm and for the last 40 years has been a golf course. Each of these incarnations is a story of its own, but I would like to share what I’ve learned so far during the ecological restoration of this landscape.
Step 1: Plan for land.
In 1925, the park district hired the internationally famous Olmsted Brothers to develop the first master plan, and this comprehensive land-acquisition strategy has driven Summit Metro Parks for nearly 100 years. The Olmsted Brothers saw the value of the land, and the park district has been buying land around this area for decades. The acquisition of Valley View Golf Course was the crowning jewel in a contiguous line of natural areas along the Cuyahoga River. Gorge Metro Park, Cascade Valley Metro Park, and Sand Run Metro Park are now joined through Valley View to create a nearly 2,000-acre natural area.
Step 2: Let your mission guide you.
Summit Metro Parks is a district with a strong focus on nature, wildlife, and the environment. Of course, there is always room for recreation, and anyone who has ever worked in parks knows there can sometimes be friction between the competing goals of recreation and conservation.
Step 3: Talk to your friends.
Golf courses throughout the United States are closing right and left. Summit Metro is not the first park district to restore an area like this. The district contacted agencies at Cleveland Metroparks and Geauga Park District to learn from their experiences. One of the best things about the parks in Ohio is that there is a network of collaborators, and I am always impressed how well we play together. These relationships saved us time and set us on the right track.
Step 4: Do your homework.
The concept plan was based on in-depth studies of the landscape, historical records, soil data, topography, adjacent similar habitats, and reference reaches. The district would be working with streams and wetlands, so we utilized methods of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to conduct jurisdictional wetlands delineations and quality assessments. Using the language and tools of these regulatory agencies helped move this project through the permitting process.
Step 5: Shop it around.
Once a concept plan is complete, it is time to start selling it to partnering agencies and possible funders. We were fortunate to work with the Cuyahoga River Area of Concern (AOC), which evaluated the restoration project and recommended it as a priority for the eventual restoration of the Cuyahoga River. Being recognized by the AOC (and others) helped with the eventual funding of this project, resulting in restoration of over 3,000 linear feet of headwater stream, 30 acres of wetlands, and more than 100 acres of forest.
Step 6: Pick your battles.
As ecologists working on the restoration of this area, we found ourselves in an ironic position: we wanted to cut down hundreds of magnificent trees while the rest of the park staff wanted to save them. As is often the case with golf courses, Valley View was planted with over 400 magnificent, 100-feet-tall Norway spruce trees to define the fairways. While these trees are truly beautiful, they are not native and have become invasive. Our mission as a conservation organization directed us to remove them in preparation for the restoration of a natural area, which was not an easy sell.
Step 7: Build consensus.
When it came to the removal of the Norway spruce, many legitimate voices within the park district raised concerns and lobbied to preserve the trees for their beauty and for the public’s enjoyment. Because we felt this was an important part of the restoration work, we were willing to compromise. The former golf course owners also planted a good number of Colorado spruce, and while not native to Ohio, they are at least native to North America, so we allowed them to remain. We also mapped out all the native trees that would remain, including hundreds of oaks, white pines, hemlocks, and sycamores.
Step 8: Let the team work.
The conservation department defined what ecosystems would be most appropriate, specified what seed would be planted, identified the general locations for restored streams and wetlands, and spent almost two years managing invasive species, removing turf grass, and preparing the site for restoration. The department wrote management plans and helped with grant applications and permits. But when it came to construction and integrating recreational amenities, we took a supporting role and followed the lead of our counterparts in the planning, community engagement, and operations departments. While there is a tremendous amount of funding available for ecological restoration, these funds are complicated to obtain and even more complex to manage. Summit Metro Parks is fortunate to have on staff skilled grant writers and a finance department that has never lost a nickel.
Step 9: Adapt to the circumstances.
No matter how much money is available, it will not be enough to do everything needed or desired. So, we divided the project into phases! Phase 1 of the restoration was funded with over $1 million from Clean Ohio Conservation Fund. Although this was a generous sum, it was about $2 million short of what we really needed. Summit Metro Parks overcame this financial shortfall by getting creative. We divided every aspect of the project into many smaller units and utilized in-house talent as much as possible. Part of the original plan called for the planting of $900,000 of potted trees. Instead, the park district hosted a citizen nut planting. Over the course of two days, 600 volunteers planted more than 120,000 native nuts and seeds. The germination rate the following spring was estimated at about 50 percent. Not only did this adaptive approach save a great deal of money, but it was more successful than a conventional tree planting would have been.
Step 10: Celebrate success!
Print, television, every type of social media, and carnival barking has been utilized to share the success of this project, with more to come. The Summit Metro Parks Foundation and Friends of Summit Metro Parks have hosted behind-the-scenes tours that have helped build enthusiasm for future development of the site. When complete, the area will support wildlife where golf course greens once dominated. Streams, long buried in culvert pipes, have been exhumed and flow free again over the landscape. It will eventually support an event center, a shelter, a boathouse, and access to the Cuyahoga River. There will be pedestrian trails and a trailhead on the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail. We can’t wait to see these plans through to fruition.
Mike Johnson is the chief of conservation for Summit Metro Parks in Ohio. Reach him at (330) 867-5511.
Parks, Most PopularChristine Schaffran March 7, 2019 Mike Johnson, Current Issue, March 2019, Wildlife Restoration, Restoration, Golf CourseComment
Out Of Commission
Rec Facilities, Most PopularChristine Schaffran March 7, 2019 Current Issue, Lisa Kruse, Tim Heyl, March 2019, Recreation Centers
ColumnsBryan Buchko March 6, 2019 Athletic Field Maintenance, Issues, January 2013, Randy Gaddo, Parks and Rec Business, LBWA
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Justin Timberlake, Robin Thicke have…
Things to doMusic + Concerts
Justin Timberlake, Robin Thicke have top-selling album, song
In this Friday, Dec. 6, 2013 photo, Robin Thicke performs during the KIIS-FM Jingle Ball concert at Staples Center in Los Angeles. Thicke has been making impressive music for more than a decade, but itís nice to see him achieve his pop success with ìBlurred Lines.î (Chris Pizzello, Invision/AP, File)
PUBLISHED: January 8, 2014 at 4:33 pm | UPDATED: August 29, 2017 at 9:30 am
Justin Timberlake and Robin Thicke owned 2013 in music.
Nielsen Entertainment announced late Tuesday that Timberlake’s “The 20/20 Experience” was the top-selling album with 2.4 million units sold. Thicke’s ubiquitous “Blurred Lines” was the best-selling song with 6.4 million tracks sold.
Albums sales were down. Only 289.4 million albums were sold in 2013, compared with 316 million a year before. Single tracks also saw a decrease, by 6 percent. Streaming, however, was up 32 percent with 118.1 million streams. The sales figures include data from YouTube, Spotify and other digital outlets. Baauer’s “Harlem Shake” topped the year with 489,674,000 streams.
New releases from Eminem and Luke Bryan rounded out the top three albums. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ “Thrift Shop” and Imagine Dragons’ “Radioactive” placed second and third on the singles list.
Eric Swalwell drops out: Political Cartoons
Cal State LA is trying to use a bioscience hub to bring new jobs, opportunity to struggling region
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5 ways to improve the garden this week, July 20-26
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The Taco Bell pop-up hotel in Palm Springs will serve avocado toast, because of course it will
SDCC 2019: ‘Dragon Ball Z’ fans break Guinness world record with massive Kamehameha attack
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Lotus Swarm at Peak Rail
On June 23rd 2019, Peak Rail played host to hundreds of Lotus cars at the Northwood showground at Rowsley South and what a marvellous spectacle it turned out to be.
On show were Lotus cars from all eras of it’s production and one was reminded of the famous use of a Lotus 7 in the 1960s TV series, The Prisoner and driven by Patrick McGoohan (Google it!).
The weather was kind for the rally, allowing for the owners lucky enough to have an open top, to open them wide whilst on their rally through the Derbyshire Dales.
After a breakfast at Hassop Station, the procession of over 100 cars eventually arrived up at Peak Rail’s Rowsley South station at around 11:15am, where the cars lined up in their rows, allowing for owners to discuss the latest modifications and for visitors to wander round and take in the plethora of shapes and colours of this iconic motor vehicle.
We look forward to seeing the return of the cars next year, but until then we have another car rally coming up in the shape of the Mazda MX5 owners club rally on the 21st July, and on August 10th and 11th we have our first Steam and Diesel gala.
PRA Buxton Branch News
Brilliant Beer and Bus Weekend
No. 72 to Star in Channel 5 Documentary
Party Play Bus to visit Peak Rail
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Photo Enforced & Traffic Cameras Map (Red Light, Speed, Traffic, Stop Sign, School, LPR Cameras) Mobile Web App
Maps of Red Light Camera Locations In U.S. Cities
Disqus Questions & Twitter Chatter
Photo enforcement laws vary significantly from state to state; some authorize enforcement statewide, whereas others permit it only in specified communities. Most of the photo enforced intersections chosen by cities haven proven to be dangerous in the past with accidents. It is our mission to track these dangerous driving locations and monitor photo enforcement laws and fines. We currently track red light cameras, speed cameras, toll cameras, speed cameras & license plate reader cameras. It is our goal to get mapping and car navigation companies like to publish camera locations and make drivers more aware of these potentially hazardous intersections while driving. See regional maps and discussion of issues around around the U.S. For legal questions please contact a Red Light Camera Ticket Lawyer.
United States, Australia, Europe, Alabama, Albuquerque, Albany, Arkansas, Arizona, Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Calgary, California, Canada, Cedar Rapids, Chicago, Cleveland, Colorado, Dallas, Delaware, Denver, Des Moines, Edmonton, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Houston, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Jacksonville, Kansas, Kentucky, Lakeland, Las Vegas, Long Island, Los Angeles, Louisiana, Maryland, Memphis, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Montreal, Nashville, Nevada, New Orleans, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oakland, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Orange County, Orlando, Palm Beach, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Rochester, Rhode Island, Riverside, Sacramento, San Antonio, San Diego, Sarasota, San Francisco, Seattle, Singapore, South Dakota, St. Louis, Tacoma, Tampa, Tennessee, Texas, Toronto, United Kingdom, Vancouver, Virginia, Washington, Winnipeg, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Washington DC
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Liberals say they are looking at ways to provide minimum income to all Canadians
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says it’s one of the tools the government is looking at to help Canadians
Dec. 19, 2018 11:10 a.m.
The Trudeau Liberals haven’t shut the door on a guaranteed-income program in their search for ways to help workers adapt to an unsteady and shifting labour market.
In separate interviews, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Social Development Minister Jean-Yves Duclos appear warmer to the idea than they have before, when they argued the Canada Child Benefit, among other measures, amounts to a guaranteed minimum income.
A guaranteed minimum income at its core is a no-strings-attached payment governments provide instead of an assortment of targeted benefits.
READ MORE: B.C. labour market outlook forecasts one million job openings by 2022
WATCH: Canada ranks 16th on annual gender gap list
Trudeau says it’s one of the tools the government is looking at to help Canadians who are struggling.
Duclos says the current suite of federal programs could one day be enhanced to provide a minimum income of sorts to all Canadians, particularly those without children who aren’t eligible for federal family or seniors benefits.
However, both are clear that the federal government won’t step in to revive a minimum-income pilot project Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government cancelled shortly after coming to office.
County road ban system discussed Nov. 13
Pro-pipeline protest in Nisku having effects on traffic
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Napoleon's Shield and Guardian (Hardback)
The Unconquerable General Daumesnil
Napoleonic Military Biographies Frontline Books Frontline: Napoleonic Era Frontline: Napoleonic Library
By Edward Ryan
Published: 11th November 2015
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This outstanding biography is the story of courage. It charts the career of a superbly brave cavalryman against the rise and fall of his imperial master. Pierre Daumesnil was a loyal follower of Napoleon during his rise and his fall. Enlisting as a private soldier in 1793, he was caught up in the tumult of the Napoleonic Wars, surviving campaign after campaign and emerging as a much-decorated general and Baron of the Empire. It was a meteoric rise but one earned through hard fighting, bravery and indefatigable courage. Daumesnil accompanied Napoleon as an officer of his chasseurs and his service record reflects his years of experience on the field of battle. Daumesnil joined the French Army as a private in 1793 and was serving in Napoleon's Guides in 1797. He served in Egypt in 1798, charged at Marengo in 1800, fought at Austerlitz and Eylau, campaigned in Spain and saw action in Wagram. Terribly wounded at that battle, losing a leg, Daumesnil became governor of the fortress of Vincennes. It was here that he played his most celebrated role in the wars of Napoleon by refusing to surrender the fortress to the Allies in 1814 and again in 1815. Daumesnil's life was an adventure and one which typifies the dash, colour and verve of this astonishing period. This biography, by a leading author, will appeal to Napoleonic enthusiasts and those interested in the life and times of Napoleon's elite cavalrymen. • Covers the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars • Life as an officer in Napoleon's Imperial Guard Edward Ryan served in the US Navy in World War II and is a life-long student of the campaigns of Napoleon. A specialist on the Imperial Guard, he is the author of Napoleon's Elite Cavalry.
Only a handful of biographies of the "lesser" generals of Napoleon's army are available in English, making this study a welcomed addition to any Napoleonic library. Edward Ryan, whose previous Napoleon book was Napoleon's Elite Cavalry (Greenhill, 1999), was a former naval officer. Ryan has used a wide array of contemporary memoirs, the French archives, public and private, as well as the assistance of Daumesnil's own family, primarily in the person of Henri de Clairval (author of an earlier biography of Daumesnil in French) to tell is tale.
The Napoleon Series
General Daumesnil was a loyal and courageous follower of Napoleon who enlisted as a private soldier and rose to become a much decorated Baron of the Empire. First published in 2003 and now again in 2015, this book tells the story of Daumesnil’s repeated displays of courage and inspired leadership at Marengo, Austerlitz and Eylau, all of which brought him increasing honours and awards from Napoleon. His twentieth wound, the loss of a leg at Wagram, seemed to be destined to bring his career to an end. Instead it led to even greater distinction when – as governor of the fortress of Vincennes – he refused to surrender to the Allies in both 1814 and 1815.
This biography of an amazing officer will surely appeal to those interested in Napoleon’s elite cavalry and the Napoleonic wars generally. Included are eight colour plates, plus16 in monochrome, five annexes, a bibliography and an index of persons.
Stuart Asquith, Author
As mentioned, despite its title and despite Daumesnil’s devotion to Napoleon, the best reason to buy this book is for the many interesting details in the passages which take place when the two men aren’t in close proximity to each other. The author is to be commended for avoiding the temptation to simply rehash previously available material under a different viewpoint, instead providing the reader with fresh or at least less well known information on the period and some of the people that helped to shape it.
1/72 Scale Plastic Napoleonic
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The mission of the Peoria County Sheriff's Office is to work in partnership with the community, to improve the quality of life by reducing the fear and incidence of crime, to recognize and resolve problems, and to fulfill the law enforcement needs of the citizens of Peoria County, Illinois.
The Peoria County Sheriff's Office serves a population of approximately 183,433 people that live in a 629 square mile area located in the middle of Central Illinois along the banks of the Illinois River. Our County has four cities and eleven villages located within its boundaries, with 315 miles of County roads, 674 miles of Township roads, and 266 miles of State and Federal roads connecting them. The County elected its first Sheriff in 1825.
Our first Jail was built in 1834; the second in 1849; and the third in 1869; the fourth in 1913; and our present facility opened in 1985. An addition was added in August of 1999 that included 144 more beds, a new sallyport and crime lab.
FY 2017 Operating Budget
Full Time: 165
Part-time: 24
Information may be obtained in person, or by mail, find contact information for the Sheriff's Office. Freedom of Information request forms are available at the Sheriff's Office.
Freedom of Information Officers
Captain Tyler McCoy
Records Supervisor Rebecca Boland
FOIA Fees
First 50 pages: free; after 50 pages: $0.15 per page
CD of photos: free
Traffic Accidents Reports: $5
Traffic Accident Reconstruction Reports: $20
Accidents Reports
Accidents reports may also be obtained online.
Documents Under Sheriff Control (PDF)
FOIA Requests (PDF)
Sheriff Organization Chart (PDF)
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Uber gets $1B investment boost for autonomous vehicle unit
Proof here that seeking investment in a business never stops, despite being on the eve of going on the public financial markets: Uber has raised another $1 billion.
The investment is specifically going to Uber's autonomous vehicle division, known as Advanced Technologies Group, with the goal of solving one of the biggest challenges in the fledgling sector of implementing hardware and software cheaply and at scale.
Three organizations are behind the move, including car manufacturing giant Toyota.
Also backing the division are SoftBank Vision Fund and the Denso Corporation, an autonomous vehicle technology supplier. Toyota and Denso are fronting two-thirds of the investment and SoftBank will inject $333 million.
Uber claims the investment will value its ATG division in the region of $7.25 billion. The entire company is expected to be worth around $120 billion when its IPO comes to fruition shortly.
It's not the first time that Toyota has backed Uber. The Japanese company invested $500 million in the summer of 2018, as part of a plan to roll out the manufacturer's Sienna model-led ride-sharing vehicles across the Uber network in 2021.
Uber says the new round of investment is "deepening the companies’ collaboration in designing and developing next-generation autonomous vehicle hardware."
Toyota has pledged a further $300 million over the course of the next three years to support "mass production and commercialization of automated ride-sharing vehicles and services".
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi says the new investment illustrates an "exciting future ahead for this important project."
"The development of automated driving technology will transform transportation as we know it, making our streets safer and our cities more livable. Today’s announcement, along with our ongoing OEM and supplier relationships, will help maintain Uber’s position at the forefront of that transformation."
Toyota says the collaboration will help create cheaper services in the autonomous vehicle sector.
Shigeki Tomoyama, Toyota's executive vice president and also president of the brand's in-house Connected Company unit, says: "We believe that the combined work of Toyota, Denso and Uber ATG on developing next-generation autonomous vehicle hardware will accelerate the timeline for and early success of automated ride-sharing services."
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Art & Fashion, Events
THE FOOD FILM FESTIVAL, LEAVING YOUR BELLY FULL
Photo Credit, Meital Jacubovich
The idea of mixing food and film is not a new one. Many restaurants have attached themselves to movie theaters and some have even gone so far as to offer a full menu during the movie, but nothing like this. The Food Film Festival, created by Travel Channel’s George Motz, is a truly unique experience that will excite all of your senses. By serving the food that you are watching on screen to the audience while they are watching it brings the term audience participation to a whole new level.
Saturday night’s event included five independent features each of which revolved around a different genre of food. Varying in length from just over a minute to a full hour the films showcased just how much there is to do in the world of food cinema. The short Vegetables: Friend or Foe? was by far the most inventive movie of the night, creating a very 1950s PSA about tomatoes and mushrooms. The writing was fantastic and by the end of the film the entire audience wanted a taste of the two dishes shown in the movie. Each of the dishes that went with the shorts, although only samples, were enough to excite your taste buds. The bacon wrapped fillet could have easily been served at a five star restaurant and was the highlight of the night.
The main event and the longest feature, Whisky: The Islay Edition, was devoted to eight tiny distilleries off the coast of Scotland that each make their own unique version of the alcohol. The documentary gets to the heart of what it means to make whisky while walking the viewer through the finer elements of a tasting. While each distillery was highlighted the audience was treated to a healthy taste of all eight whiskys. It helped to have the film guide the audience through the process noting the aroma and texture in ways few of those attending the show could. It should be noted that even though the shots were small many of them had a kick and by the end of the eighth shot most of the audience was ready to party.
The festival came prepared. Greeting the audience was a foodie paradise after-party that really let each of the dishes shine. Jarlsberg cheese was there to debut its new line of smoked cheeses, which were heavy and rich, but amazing to the last bite. Chef Art Jackson of the Pleasant House Bakery brought out mouthwatering dishes that managed to both innovate and pay homage to the Scottish theme of the night. The lamb mutton stew had many layers of flavor and was well worth getting a second and third helping. Jarlsberg also served its new candied wild hibiscus flowers that tasted like amped up maraschino cherries; they quickly disappeared.
If you consider yourself a foodie or a film fanatic the Food Film Festival, held annually in both New York and Chicago is the event for you. Motz has managed to successfully marry two very unique subcultures into an event that brings out the die-hards in both industries.
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Historic Homes on Castle Point
Interested in an exclusive Castle Point home? See our listing here: 923 Castle Point Terrace
Castle Point Terrace: History Shines Through On The Yellow Brick Road
By Chris Fry – April 13, 2017
From the historic brownstones that line many residential blocks to the adaptive reuse of older industrial buildings, Hoboken has worked hard to preserve a lot of its character over the years. But perhaps the most unique street and ornate homes can be found on Castle Point Terrace, and they were designed to be just that around the turn of the 20th Century.
The road, which sounds like it belongs on the English countryside rather than in urban New Jersey, abuts the campus of Stevens Institute of Technology and features major elevation by Hoboken standards. It slopes downward and features yellow cobblestone throughout, and almost all of the detached homes that line the street have roots that can be traced back over 100 years.
Castle Point Terrace, like much of Hoboken, was originally owned by Col. John Stevens. He had initially built a resort on the land in the early 1800s and constructed the original Castle Point, which was his summer estate on the hill overlooking New York Harbor. Col. Stevens was a pioneer in the development of the steamboat and designed the first American-built steam locomotive.
But after he died in 1838, his heirs organized the Hoboken Land & Improvement Company and sold off all of their property in the city except for thirty acres on Castle Point that they reserved for themselves. Edwin Augustus Stevens, one of Col. Stevens’ sons, replaced his father’s Castle Point with a 40-room Victorian mansion in 1853 that became known as Stevens Castle.
Image via Hoboken Historical Museum.
Then in 1903, the family officially opened Castle Point Terrace to the public and began gradually selling off vacant parcels to buyers. As part of the sales, deed restrictions were imposed to ensure the maintenance of the neighborhood’s high standards and as a result, the homes that were built created the city’s most prestigious neighborhood.
Stevens Castle. Image via Hoboken Historical Museum.
On a sad historical note, Stevens Castle itself was actually demolished in 1959 to make way for the current Howe Center on the Institute’s campus. But Castle Point Terrace and the surrounding area was found eligible for the National Register of Historic Places in 1991, which led to the city creating the Stevens Historic District. It includes the entire Stevens Institute of Technology campus, as well as Castle Point Terrace and the east side of Hudson Street between Eighth and Tenth Streets.
The legacy of wealth the street had around the turn of the century still shines through to this day, as the homes along the stretch are pretty sought-after. A renovated property at 907 Castle Point Terrace sold last September for just over $4 million and the historical designation of the street has left many earlier details of the homes intact.
The road is also home to some of the most attractive fraternity houses you will ever see and a few historic buildings still used by the Institute, a legacy Col. Stevens and his family can be proud of.
Originally published on JerseyDigs. See full article link below
https://jerseydigs.com/hoboken-history-castle-point-terrace-yellow-brick-road/
Written by Todd Maloof on April 14, 2017 . Posted in Hoboken
Tags: Castle Point Terrace, Hoboken, Jersey Digs
Top 5 Things The Most Successful Entrepreneurs Do Before Breakfast
Part 6: What’s My Real Estate Investment Worth – 2018 Year End Review
PART 5: What’s My Real Estate Investment Worth? Landlords are beginning to sell
PART 4: What’s My Real Estate Investment Worth? : When to Sell your Investment Property
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Hamid R. Moghadam
Hamid R. Moghadam Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer
Hamid Moghadam is Chairman and CEO of Prologis. In 1983, Mr. Moghadam co-founded the company's predecessor, AMB Property Corporation, and led it through its initial public offering in 1997, as well as its merger with ProLogis in 2011. He has been a board member since the company’s inception and serves on the board’s executive committee.
Mr. Moghadam has served as a trustee of Stanford University. He remains active with Stanford, currently serving on the board of the Stanford Management Company, where he was formerly chair. He also serves on Stanford’s FSI Council (Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies) and the Stanford Graduate School of Business’ Advisory Council. Previously, he served as a trustee and as a member on the board’s executive committee for the Urban Land Institute, chairman of NAREIT and REITPAC, and as a member of several other philanthropic, community, and corporate boards.
Mr. Moghadam received the 2013 Ernst & Young National Entrepreneur of the Year Overall Award and is a recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor. He has been named CEO of the Year and received multiple lifetime achievement awards from leading publications and industry organizations.
Mr. Moghadam received an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor and Master of Science in engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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Bill would require R.I. public high schools to provide personal-finance instruction
Linda Borg Journal Staff Writer @lborgprojocom
PROVIDENCE — A new bill sponsored by General Treasurer Seth Magaziner and two legislators would make personal finance instruction a high school graduation requirement in three years.
Magaziner, before a Thursday afternoon press conference at the State House, explained why teaching students about credit-card debt, interest rates, and balancing a checkbook is so important. The measure is co-sponsored by Sen. Sandra Cano, D-Pawtucket, and Rep. Joseph McNamara, D-Warwick.
In a study released late last month, Magaziner said Rhode Island's college students have the second-highest student debt burden in the nation. The state's rate of seriously delinquent mortgage loans is ninth-highest, the report found, and Rhode Island lags the country and the region in average retirement savings.
"There's a lot of research that shows how personal finance is linked to better financial outcomes as students enter adulthood," Magaziner said. "Despite that, Rhode Island does not have a personal finance requirement in its state curriculum."
But state Education Commissioner Ken Wagner disagrees:
"We are supportive of further integrating financial literacy into our schools, and there are communities doing some really excellent work in this space. But we do not believe that opening up the secondary regulations again for [Council on Elementary and Secondary Education] review — which would be required in order to change graduation requirements — is necessary at this time, particularly without additional funding for schools."
Wagner said, "There are other ways to build [district] capacity and increase personal finance offerings, including through ongoing professional learning for educators, which is prioritized in our updated teacher certification regulations."
Although most Rhode Island high schools offer classes that include personal finance, typically as an elective, Magaziner said Rhode Island is one of only 14 states that doesn't require it to be part of the curriculum.
Asked whether this would become another unfunded mandate, Magaziner said the cost of implementation would be low because there are numerous free, high-quality resources available to teachers. The Rhode Island Department of Education in 2014 established standards for personal finance instruction.
"There is so much out there, teachers have a hard time figuring out what they should use," he said. "We ask that RIDE maintain a list of resources on their site" that represent high-quality curriculum. He said most high schools have at least one teacher who knows how to teach this subject.
Teachers will have flexibility over how the requirement is implemented. It could be a standalone program, a full semester or a shorter course. And students will be able to demonstrate proficiency in more than one way — completing a class, taking a test or completing a project.
"We're also giving districts plenty of time to figure this out," Magaziner said. The high school requirement wouldn't take effect until the class of 2022.
Asked whether this requirement would prevent someone from graduating, he said, "This isn't the NECAP [New England Common Assessment Program]. It's a much more targeted base of knowledge that we are aiming for."
In 2014, the NECAP was a hotly contested graduation requirement that divided teachers, parents and students, and ultimately led to both the legislature and then-education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist pushing the requirement down the road. When Wagner became commissioner, he decided against using a single test as a graduation requirement, a move that calmed parents and educators who worried about relying on a single assessment to decide who gets a diploma.
Magaziner said it's vital to give students the skills they need to become successful adults.
"Otherwise" he said, "there are real pitfalls that young people can fall into early in life that can trap them in a cycle of debt."
— lborg@providencejournal.com
On Twitter: @lborgprojocom
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Commander, Naval Air Forces
USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72)
CVN72History
Commander, Naval Air Forces > USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) > CVN72History
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History of USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72)
USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) is America’s fifth Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. The ship was named in honor of our nation’s 16th president and is the second ship in the U.S. Navy to bear his name.
Abraham Lincoln’s keel was laid Nov. 3, 1984 at Newport News, Va. The ship was christened less than four years later and commissioned Nov. 11, 1989 in Norfolk, Va. After shakedown and acceptance trials, the ship departed Norfolk in September 1990 and transited around South America before arriving in Alameda, Calif.
Lincoln’s May 1991 deployment was in response to Iraq’s annexation of Kuwait, but Abe was diverted instead to support evacuation operations following the eruption of Mount Pinatubo on Luzon Island, Republic of the Philippines. Operation Fiery Vigil became the largest recorded peacetime evacuation of active duty military personnel and family members. Lincoln led a 23-ship armada that moved nearly 45,000 people from Subic Bay Naval Station to the Visayas Province port of Cebu. The ship eventually arrived in the Arabian Gulf where Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 11, the embarked air wing, provided combat air patrol, reconnaissance and support for air operations over Kuwait and Iraq in Operation Desert Storm for three months.
In June 1993, Lincoln deployed to the Arabian Gulf in support of Operation Southern Watch, the U.N.-sanctioned enforcement of a “no fly zone” over Southern Iraq. In October 1993, Lincoln was ordered to the coast of Somalia to assist U.N. humanitarian operations. The air wing spent a month flying patrols over the city of Mogadishu in support of Operation Restore Hope.
In April 1995, Lincoln deployed again to the Arabian Gulf to support Operation Southern Watch and Vigilant Sentinel. Upon its return, Abe left Alameda, Calif., for Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Wash., where the ship underwent a one-year comprehensive overhaul. The ship then returned to Everett, Wash., Jan. 8, 1997, where it was homeported until shifting to Norfolk, VA in 2012.
In June 1998, Lincoln began its fourth deployment in support of Operation Southern Watch. Port visits included Perth and Hobart in Australia. After a short break, the ship participated in Fleet Week ’99 in San Francisco, visited Santa Barbara, Calif., and Victoria, British Columbia, before participating in Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise 2000, a multinational exercise conducted off the Hawaiian Islands.
In August 2000, the ship departed with Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 14 on its fifth deployment to the Arabian Gulf. Lincoln spent more than 100 days on station in support of Operation Southern Watch and maritime interdiction operations. For its performance the battle group earned the Navy Meritorious Unit Commendation.
In July 2002, Lincoln deployed to familiar waters albeit an unfamiliar world after the events of Sept. 11, 2001. Abe assumed duties in the Arabian Gulf in support of Operations Enduring Freedom and Southern Watch. The ship’s deployment was then extended to further support Operation Southern Watch and Iraqi Freedom as U.S. forces occupied Iraq. The marathon deployment ended May 2003 with a historic visit by President George W. Bush, congratulating the ship for its mission accomplishment.
Following renovations and repairs in Bremerton, Wash., Lincoln visited Victoria, British Columbia during an abbreviated inter-deployment workup cycle. Abe then became the first U.S. aircraft carrier to “surge” in recent memory, leaving with Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 2 October 2004 for a seventh deployment, eight months ahead of schedule. When a devastating tsunami struck Southeast Asia in December, the ship was diverted to Operation Unified Assistance, delivering much-needed supplies and aid and saving potentially thousands of lives. Lincoln remained in the Western Pacific Ocean, visiting Hong Kong and Singapore before returning home March 2005.
Lincoln deployed February 2006 with CVW-2 to the Western Pacific to conduct training and exercises, including RIMPAC 2006, which demonstrated joint operability with allied and partner navies and ensured freedom of navigation in the area. Lincoln also participated in a Passing Exercise (PASSEX) with the Japanese navy and Exercise Foal Eagle with the Republic of Korea navy, and was one of three U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups to participate in Exercise Valiant Shield.
Lincoln’s crew enjoyed liberty in the ports of Hong Kong, China; Singapore, and Sasebo, Japan. Abe was the first U.S. aircraft carrier to moor pier side in Laemb Chabang, Thailand. After two visits to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Lincoln delivered the majority of CVW-2’s squadrons to San Diego Aug. 4, and the ship returned to Everett, Wash., Aug. 8, 2006. The ship then entered Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Wash., for rehabilitation in the dry dock.
The nine-month shipyard period included several alterations, upgrades and installments throughout the ship. Upon completion, the Lincoln headed back to sea to begin certification and training for its next deployment, which began late 2007.
The Lincoln spent the next seven months supporting Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, as well as maritime security and coalition operations in the U.S. 5th Fleet Area of Responsibility (AOR).
CVW-2 was once again embarked on board the Lincoln and was essential to mission success. The air wing flew more than 7,000 sorties – including 2,307 combat sorties – and dropped in excess of 255,000 pounds of ordnance.
Upon successfully completing its mission of supporting troops on the ground, the Lincoln sailed to the U.S. 7th Fleet AOR and participated in 16 community relations projects, contributing more than 2,000 volunteer-hours to communities in Singapore and Thailand. The Lincoln and its crew returned home to Everett, Wash., October 2008.
After conducting multiple sustainment exercises, the Lincoln once again returned to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard to begin a nine-month Planned Incremental Availability (PIA). Items completed during this shipyard period included a complete modification of hangar bay one, replacement of all four of the ship’s propellers, a modernization of the flight deck and a comprehensive upgrade to the ship’s computer systems.
The hard work of the Lincoln crew resulted in an early completion of PIA in January 2010, after which the ship returned to Everett. Shortly after returning home Lincoln Sailors and CVW-2 once again began the process of training and certification in order to prepare for a 2010 deployment in support of the nation’s maritime strategy.
In December 2011, Lincoln departed Naval Station Everett, Wash., her home since January 1997, for a scheduled change-of-homeport deployment to Virginia for a 42.5-month Refueling and Complex Overhaul (RCOH) in Newport News, Va.
Lincoln and her embarked Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 2 arrived at Naval Station Norfolk, Aug. 7, 2012 concluding an eight-month deployment to the U.S. Navy's 5th, 6th and 7th Fleet areas of responsibility. While deployed, aircraft assigned to CVW-2 flew more than 11,000 sorties totaling in excess of 32,000 flight hours, including more than 2,400 combat sorties and more than 14,000 hours flown in support of U.S. and coalition ground forces supporting Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). Since leaving in December 2011, the ship sailed more than 72,000 miles during its 245 days deployed, including 105 days in the Arabian Sea supporting OEF.
Lincoln underwent her RCOH at Newport News Shipbuilding from March 28, 2013 to August 15, 2017 and is currently operating from Norfolk, VA."
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http://www.railstotrails.org/trailblog/2015/march/16/pennsylvanias-montour-trail/?tag=Trail+of+the+Month&page=4
Pennsylvania's Montour Trail
Posted 03/16/15 by Laura Stark in America's Trails, Building Trails, Success Stories
Midway across the span of the Chartiers Creek Bridge | Photo courtesy Kordite | CC by 2.0
“The Montour Trail has a huge volunteer base that does everything from A to Z ... They do incredible work and take everything to the next level.”
In terms of rail-trail mileage, Pennsylvania dominates, but in a crowded field, the Montour Trail—which forms a 55-mile arc around western Pittsburgh—is a standout with plenty of “wow” moments. Covering such a vast distance, the crushed-limestone path is expectedly diverse winding through both rural Washington County and the more lively Allegheny County (which is second only to Philadelphia County in terms of population). Whatever you’re looking for in a trail, it’s here: dozens of picturesque bridges (though the nearly 1,000-foot-long McDonald Viaduct steals the show), three railroad tunnels that beckon cool and inviting in the summer, remote woodlands and rolling farmlands, welcoming small towns and big-city connections.
Montour Trail Volunteers pose for a photo after completing decking installation on a bridge in South Park | Photo by David Oyler
Perhaps what sets it apart most, though, is what you don’t see. The rail-trail was created and continues to grow and thrive through the stalwart efforts of a nonprofit called the Montour Trail Council (MTC). It’s estimated that their volunteers donate more than 15,000 hours annually to build and maintain the trail.
“The Montour Trail has a huge volunteer base that does everything from A to Z,” says Tom Sexton, northeast regional director for Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (RTC). “I think it’s the best all-volunteer-managed trail in the United States. They do incredible work and take everything to the next level.”
The organization started with two friends, Stan Sattinger and Dino Angelici—one an engineer and the other a dentist—two ordinary men with extraordinary vision. In 1989, they gathered a core group of 15 people to discuss plans for the recently abandoned Montour Railroad, which dated back to 1877 and was originally used to haul coal. They raised public and private money to acquire the right-of-way, obtained the support of Allegheny County and other government entities, and brought awareness of the project to the community through public meetings and a bimonthly newsletter.
It's common to see deer on the Montour Trail especially near dusk. | Photo by Deb Thompson
Their first success was the completion of a 4.5-mile segment in Cecil Township, which opened in 1992. Fueled by a passion for trails and pizza—Burg’s Pizza and Wings Restaurant, located just down the street from MTC headquarters, has been a longtime supporter—more segments followed.
During one of those early meetings, a new volunteer, Frank Ludwin, said he saw an old dump truck for sale that he, a welder and heavy equipment operator, could fix up for use on the trail. It was the first piece of trail-building equipment the group bought. Under his leadership, a grader, a roller, trackers and backhoes followed, enabling the group to physically build the trail themselves, except for more complicated structures, such as bridges, for which professional hired help was needed. Frank loved the trail and labored on it up until the week he passed away last December at the age of 81.
This can-do attitude of its volunteers, coupled with an open door for anyone that wants to help, is what makes MTC so special. “Even if you don’t have specific skills, there are things you can do, like handing out water at a running event for fundraising,” says Paul McKeown, secretary of MTC’s engineering and construction committee. “We have all kinds of people doing all kinds of things.”
Volunteers installing a crushed limestone surface on the Montour Trail in South Park Township. | Photo courtesy Montour Trail Council
Although the group met some initial resistance to the project, a smart construction strategy nipped negativity in the bud. “We started in areas where we had lots of support and built the trail there,” says McKeown. “We went for the low-hanging fruit, and then those opposed would say, ‘Wow, that looks good. When are you coming to our neighborhood?’”
With a shoestring budget, the effort started out with “little pieces, and then we got to bigger and bigger pieces,” says McKeown. First built in one-to-five-mile sections, the project has now grown to include such “bigger pieces” as the $2.2 million renovation of the Library Viaduct, which spans 500 feet across a stream and light rail tracks, and the construction of a $1.3 million bridge over Valley Brook Road. The group plans to utilize Transportation Enhancement funds for the projects, and both are anticipated to be completed this year (the former in April and the latter by fall).
“We’re spending more money on our current projects than at any time in our history,” adds McKeown. “To have two projects like that going on at one time is pretty big. It shows just how far we’ve matured as an organization.”
Greer Tunnel | Photo by David Poe, courtesy The Tandem Connection
The impact of the improvements in these areas, which are currently on-road connections, will be huge. “Coming up to the Library Viaduct is where you’ll meet all of your challenges as a cyclist because you’re coming onto on-road riding,” says McKeown. “For the Library Viaduct in particular, the road—State Route 88—was busy and has a narrow shoulder. A lot of people would get to that point and just go back. It requires a confident cyclist to do it.”
David Poe, co-owner of The Tandem Connection, knows firsthand just how important those connections are. With his wife and another couple, he opened the bicycle rental and repair shop near mile marker 27 on the Montour Trail in 2013. The shop, housed in a century-old building (once a mining company store), had been unsuccessfully occupied by similar businesses before.
“No one could use the building because it was built on an island. The connections just weren’t there yet; you had to cross busy roads,” says Poe of the former gaps in the trail on either side of the building. “My wife and I are big runners. When we’d run to this spot, we’d go the other direction, too. It was not really viable for anything.”
The Tandem Connection is just off the Montour Trail | Photo by David Poe, courtesy The Tandem Connection
All that changed a few years ago, when a pair of trail bridges were constructed that created a continuous off-road trail in that area. For Poe, an entrepreneur, “a light bulb went off.” By any measure, The Tandem Connection has been a success and, just steps from the pathway, a friendly and welcome stop for trail users. The establishment includes a barbeque café (its pulled pork sandwiches have a rabid following), ice cream parlor, coffee bar and small gift shop. In the winter, the shop is cozy with two fireplaces ablaze and fat tire bikes and cross-country skis available to tackle the snow.
Centrally located on the trail, it’s also a prime spot for the more adventurous to begin their journeys. Head west from there, and the Montour Trail meets the Panhandle Trail, another beautiful trek, especially with springtime wildflowers, which stretches 29 miles and extends into West Virginia. Riders going east from the shop can connect to the famed Great Allegheny Passage (GAP), spanning 150 miles from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Cumberland, Maryland.
The trail's stunning McDonald Bridge | Photo by Laura Libert
With this abundant connectivity, the Montour Trail was a natural fit for RTC’s Pennsylvania Rail-Trail Sojourn. Those wanting to take a guided group tour of both the Montour Trail and the GAP can register online for the trip, which will take place this June 21-26.
Going strong for 25 years, the Montour Trail has proved its merits from its littlest rider on a set of training wheels to top government officials. “There’s a lot of political support for the trail, and [the support] is bipartisan,” says Dave Wright, an engineer and project manager for Allegheny County. “They may argue about a lot of stuff, but the trail is something everyone can agree on.”
Local Organizing Maintenance and Volunteers Pennsylvania Trail Destinations Trail of the Month
Florida’s Palatka-to-Lake Butler State Trail
Montour Trail Council
Name: Montour Trail
Used railroad corridor: Montour Railroad
Trail website: Montour Trail Council
Counties: Allegheny, Washington
Start point/end point: Coraopolis Road/State Route 51 (Coraopolis) to N. State Street/State Route 837 (Clairton)
Surface type: The trail is primarily crushed limestone. There’s a four-mile paved section through Peters Township and a two-mile paved section in Clairton.
Uses: Walking, biking, horseback riding and fishing; wheelchair accessible. In winter, the trail is not plowed or groomed, but can still be used by cross-country skiers and fat tire bikers; you can rent both skis and fat tire bikes at The Tandem Connection (see rental information below).
Getting there: It’s possible to bike from Pittsburgh International Airport (1000 Airport Blvd., Pittsburgh) to the Montour Trail via the 6.5-mile Airport Connector.
Access and parking: Trailhead parking is available at either end of the trail (along Montour Coketown at the northern end of the trail and off N. State Street at the trail's southern end), as well as many points in-between. The Montour Trail Council provides detailed directions and information for each trailhead on their website.
Rentals: The Tandem Connection (5 Georgetown Road in Canonsburg; 724.745.2453) has an ideal location just steps from the trail in a century-old building about halfway along the trail’s route, near mile-marker 27. The business offers a wide range of rentals, including comfort cruisers, mountain bikes, hybrids, youth bikes, tag-alongs and, of course, tandems. In winter, you can also pick up cross-country skies or a fat tire bike for riding in the snow. Inside, travelers will also find a café (including coffee and ice cream!), bicycle storage, repair/tune-up service and a gift shop (proceeds from Montour Trail merchandise benefit the trail).
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>Middle-Aged Americans Reporting More Mobility-Related Disabilities
Middle-Aged Americans Reporting More Mobility-Related Disabilities
For Release
The proportion of older middle-aged Americans who report disabilities related to mobility increased significantly from 1997 to 2007, in contrast to the disability decline that has been found among Americans ages 65 and over, according to a new study by the RAND Corporation and the University of Michigan.
Researchers found a rise in the proportion of Americans aged 50 to 64 who reported mobility-related difficulties or the need for help in daily personal care activities such as getting out of bed, according to findings published in the April edition of the journal Health Affairs.
The reason for the increase is not clear, although many of those reporting disabilities say they are due to health problems that began in their 30s and 40s.
"Although the overall rate of needing help with personal care among this group remains very low—less than 2 percent—this rise in disability is reason for concern," said Linda Martin, the study's lead author and a senior fellow at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "It does not bode well for future trends for the 65 and older population, plus there are substantial personal and societal costs of caring for people of any age who need help."
Researchers examined disability trends among people aged 50 to 64 by analyzing information from the 1997 to 2007 National Health Interview Survey, a nationally representative effort that asks thousands of community-dwelling Americans each year about a broad range of issues regarding their health status.
More than 40 percent of people aged 50 to 64 reported that because of a health problem they had difficulty with at least one of nine physical functions and many reported problems with more than one. Over the study period, researchers noted a significant increase in the number of people reporting that a health problem made it difficult for them to stoop, stand for two hours, walk a quarter mile or climb 10 steps without resting.
There also was a significant increase in the proportion of people who reported needing help with personal care activities of daily living such as getting in or out of bed or getting around inside their homes.
"This a disappointing trend with potentially far-reaching and long-term negative consequences," said Richard Suzman, director of the Division of Behavioral and Social Research at the National Institute on Aging, which funded the study. "If people have such difficulties in middle age, how can we expect that this age group—today's baby boomers—will be able to take care of itself with advancing age? If it continues, this trend could have a significant effect on the need for long-term care in the future."
From 1997 to 2007, increasing proportions of people aged 50 to 64 attributed their need for help to back or neck problems, diabetes, and depression, anxiety or emotional problems. By 2005-07, the most common causes for needing help were these ailments plus arthritis or rheumatism. People who reported these conditions as causes were most likely to report that the ailments started at ages 30 to 49 years.
The reported increases in conditions causing disability may reflect real deterioration of health or improved awareness of conditions as a result of diagnosis and treatment. It also could be that improved medical care has extended the lives of people whose disabilities began early in life and who might have not survived to age 50 in earlier decades.
Despite continuing concerns about obesity in the United States, those needing help did not cite obesity as an important cause of their limitations.
"We have this uptick of people in their 50s and early 60s who say they need help with their daily activities of living and we're not sure why," said study co-author Vicki A. Freedman, a research professor at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. "But the patterns suggest the need for prevention and early intervention before the age of Medicare eligibility."
Other authors of the study are Robert F. Schoeni and Patricia M. Andreski of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.
RAND Health, a division of the RAND Corporation, is the nation's largest independent health policy research program, with a broad research portfolio that focuses on quality, costs and health services delivery, among other topics.
The University of Michigan Institute for Social Research is the world's largest academic social science survey and research organization, and a world leader in developing and applying social science methodology, and in educating researchers and students from around the world.
About the RAND Corporation
The RAND Corporation is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous.
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Trends in Disability and Related Chronic Conditions Among People Ages Fifty to Sixty-Four
Linda G. Martin, Vicki A. Freedman, et al.
Previous News ReleaseSmall Taxes on Soft Drinks Insufficient to Substantially Curb Soda Consumption Among ChildrenNext News ReleaseMore Americans Will Delay Retirement; Trend Will Help Bolster Social Security and Medicare
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Training Model Needs Fleshing Out, Say Surgeons
« View all Press Releases
Britain’s oldest Royal College and the only in the UK to have a Faculty of Surgical Trainers, the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (www.rcsed.ac.uk); dedicated to promoting the highest standards in surgical education, training and clinical practice; today showed broad support for the Shape of Medical Training report, but expressed disappointment in the lack of detail needed for implementation.
Published by the Independent Review and sponsored by bodies such as the General Medical Council (GMC), the four-nation review considers what changes are needed to postgraduate medical training considering the needs of patients and health services in the future. Yet the RCSEd; which has just announced the opening of its first-ever base outside Edinburgh, in Birmingham, to cater to the educational needs of the 80% of its UK membership who live and work in England and Wales; feels the report led by Professor David Greenaway lacks detail and pays only ‘lip service’ to patient safety. Moreover, the RCSEd’s own Trainees’ Committee – the only of its kind in the UK and which enjoys representation on the College’s Council – feels those most affected by the issues are dangerously underrepresented in the debate at national level.
According to Ian Ritchie, President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh;
"The recommendations highlighted in Professor Greenaway’s Review into medical training are long-ranging yet disappointingly light on detail. Despite a thirst for sorely needed change in the culture of training – which we welcome and mirror – more detail on practicalities for implementation is required. The importance of competency and outcome measures across all disciplines cannot be understated, which is why at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh we’re pleased to have been the first to launch a Faculty of Surgical Trainers, open to the whole surgical workforce regardless of College affiliation. We applaud the support the Report gives to re-establishing an element of apprenticeship to training. We are also proud to give a voice to those who are most affected by these issues, which is why we’re the only College to include an elected trainee member on our Council.”
According to Craig McIlhenny, Surgical Director of the Faculty of Surgical Trainers;
"The report shows a disappointing lack of explicit emphasis on measurable training competencies. Decreasing preventable problems is an imminent challenge facing surgeons today, and they need to be provided with the appropriate tools to tackle this. As a Faculty we support a move towards an objective, competency-based system as well as non-technical skills education that are the cornerstones of patient safety. We feel these specific aspects should have been stressed in a more detailed fashion within a document looking at the overall shape of training.”
It was the RCSEd which helped develop one of the internationally-adopted system for evaluating non-technical skills for surgeons (‘NOTSS’), an assessment tool for abilities such as teamwork and communication which are essential for patient safety. NOTSS is officially used in Australia, Japan, around Europe and this month was introduced at Washington D.C. to American surgical residency programmes.
Mr. McIlhenny, who is a consultant urological surgeon, adds;
"The recommendations also seem contradictory, stating ‘we agree that training must continue to be bound by time’, but then suggesting trainees should progress through training at their own rate. The Faculty will continue to stress the importance of robust education delivered by surgeons who have been specifically ‘trained to train’, rather than expecting trainees to simply absorb knowledge just by being apprenticed. Not all doctors should be trainers – only those who can, and are formally assessed, should teach!”
Richard McGregor is the elected Trainee representative on the College’s Council and Chair of the Trainees’ Committee, established in August 2012 to inform the College’s Council of the challenges and issues faced by those undergoing surgical training themselves. He says;
"Earlier this year, Sir Bruce Keogh cited common themes or “barriers” to delivering high quality of care, one of which was the ‘lack of value and support being given to frontline clinicians, particularly junior nurses and doctors’. It is therefore crucial that way training is developed and delivered ensures that future professionals gain not just knowledge, but objectively-measured competencies and can work together effectively at every stage of a patient’s care as well as throughout their careers. This report touches on these areas but leaves many questions unanswered.”
Richard McGregor, who is an Honorary Specialty Registrar in General Surgery, continues;
"All too frequently, those who are actually going through the process, the trainees, do not have a voice at a national level and are not included in discussions which relate directly to them. Unlike other Royal Colleges, the RCSEd has an elected surgeon-in-training on Council, advising them of the challenges and issues facing our group. Together with the Trainees’ Committee this allows a range of crucial issues to be raised and debated at the highest level on a frequent basis. My concern is that if we, as frontline staff, have no representation at a UK Government level, future surgeons of the NHS will feel disillusioned and disenfranchised. It is therefore essential that as this, and other debates around the issues which affect trainees most, continue the trainee voice is included and respected.”
Mr. Ritchie, a consultant trauma and orthopaedic surgeon, concludes;
“If the Report ultimately addresses the tensions that exist between service delivery and the provision of high quality training, then it will be seen as a major contribution to healthcare and rejuvenation of the NHS.. We know that one in seven junior doctors regularly feel forced to cope with clinical problems beyond their scope of experience but the continued focus on Working Time Directives is, in our opinion, a red herring – it is not the number of hours but the quality of training that can be undertaken during those (usually unsociable) working hours, that is of importance. Overall, this report generates more questions than answers and we would like to see a greater emphasis on patient safety.”
[ENDS]
RCSEd was first incorporated as the Barber Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1505, and is the oldest surgical corporation in the world with memberships approaching 25,000 professionals in over 100 countries worldwide. The College promotes the highest standards of surgical and dental practice through its interest in education, training and examinations, its liaison with external medical bodies and representation of the modern surgical and dental workforce. It is also home to the UK’s only Faculty of Surgical Trainers, open to all those with an interest in surgical training regardless of College affiliation. Find RCSEd on Twitter www.twitter.com/RCSEd and on Facebook www.facebook.com/rcsed
The College is based at Nicolson Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9DW and can be reached on (0)131 527 1600 or mail@rcsed.ac.uk. In March 2014, a new base opened in Birmingham, catering to the 80% of the College’s UK membership who are based in England and Wales.
For all media enquiries please contact the Communications Team on +447467 485145 or email comms@rcsed.ac.uk
Select a year and month from the headings below to view Press Releases from that month.
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Bernie Sanders on Socialism: People Would Be "Delighted" To Pay More In Taxes
On Date June 12, 2019
Bernie Sanders said people would be "delighted" to pay more in taxes if it meant health care, education, and retirement security in an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper following a speech he delivered defining democratic socialism.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: In most countries around the world the level of income and wealth inequality which in the United States today is worse than in any time since the 1920s with three families owning more wealth than the bottom half of America. That level of income and wealth inequality is much less severe than it is right here in the United States.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: But as you know, the taxes in many of those countries are much higher than they are in individual and personal tax are much higher than they are in the United States.
SANDERS: Yeah, but I suspect that a lot of people in the country would be delighted to pay more in taxes if they had comprehensive health care as a human right. I live 50 miles away from the Canadian border. You go to the doctor any time you want. You don't take ought your wallet. You have heart surgery, you have a heart transplant and you come out of the hospital and it costs you nothing. Your kids in many countries around the world can go to the public colleges and universities tuition-free, wages in many cases are higher. So there is a tradeoff, but at the end of the day, I think, that most people will believe they will be better off when their kids have educational opportunities without out-of-pocket expenses and when they have healthcare as a human right and they have affordable housing, when they have decent retirement security, I think most Americans will understand that is a good deal.
Bernie Sanders Defines Democratic Socialism, Says When The 99% Stand Up Against the 1% We Can Transform Society
Sen. Bernie Sanders is scheduled to deliver a major address Wednesday afternoon at George Washington University putting his democratic socialist policies in historical context as the "unfinished business of the New Deal." He is expected to speak around 2:00 pm. "While President Trump and his...
Bernie Sanders: Democrats Can't Beat Trump With A "Timid And Middle Of The Road" Candidate
Sen. Bernie Sanders told CNN Friday morning why he believes he is the strongest candidate to beat Trump in 2020: CNN HOST: Let me ask you about Nancy Pelosi and what she's said in the last 24 hours. You have stated very clearly your support for launching impeachment proceedings into President...
Rep. Meadows: "Indictments Are On Their Way"; Whistleblowers Are Coming Forward
House Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) said whistleblowers in the DOJ are coming forward because they see that Attorney General Bill Barr is serious about investigating the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation. Meadows said that people need to go to jail and warned:...
Sen. Kamala Harris: DOJ "Would Have No Choice" But To Prosecute Trump After Presidency
NPR POLITICS PODCAST: California Sen. Kamala Harris says that if she's elected president, her administration's Department of Justice would likely pursue criminal obstruction of justice charges against a former President Donald Trump. "I believe that they would have no choice and that they...
Dem Rep. Steve Cohen: Trump Thinks He Is Always Right, "I Don't How Melania Stands It, Poor Barron"
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) said President Trump's comments about taking information from a foreign entity is basically an admission that he took information from Russia and knew it in the 2016 presidential election. In an interview with CNN's Don Lemon, Cohen expressed sorrow for First Lady Melania...
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4 Ways Plants Use Water – REGENERATIVE.com
Open Permaculture Magazine
» 4 Ways Plants Use Water
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Learn fifty easy ways to make your home and garden healthier, more beautiful and more sustainable today with this free checklist:
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Can’t remember the first by the time I got to the end for the test.
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if possible kindly send the books or booklets with these crucial information for free, some of us really don’t have the cash to pay for those books.
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I just love these free info you send 🙂
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Great information and a wide spread of information
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Obtaining ongoing information about various aspects of sustainable living.
4 Ways Plants Use Water
Like all life on earth, plants need water to survive and grow. Indeed, like humans, water is the primary element that makes up the structure of plants. Human bodies are comprised of around 70 percent water, but in plants this proportion can be as much as 95 percent. Water is also essential to the way a plant receives nutrients and provides energy for itself. Thus, water is arguably the most essential substance required by plants. That is why many elements of permaculture design – from using swales and contouring to slow runoff from the land and allowing it to sink into the soil to mulching to prevent evaporation of moisture from the soil surface – emphasis the preservation of water so that it can be provided to plants.
There are four primary ways in which plants use water to survive and grow.
Unlike animals, plants do not have and internal or external skeleton to give them strength of structure. While vertebrates have an internal jointed skeleton, which gives the framework to protect the internal organs and to provide structure for limbs and corporeal elements, and invertebrates have an external skeleton, or carapace, to protect their internal physiology, plants do not have an overarching structure like this. But they do need to have some form of structure to enable them to grow and maintain rigidity. Some trees and woody shrubs get this rigidity from the presence of lignin – a polymer that binds fibrous material together, but the majority of plants get it solely from the pressure of the water in their cells.
Within each cell are a number of elements, such as mitochondria that converts sugars into energy the plant can use, and chloroplasts that contain the chlorophyll the plant uses in photosynthesis. But by far the largest portion of each cell is the vacuole, a space filled with water that ensures the cell maintains its shape. If the plant receives enough water, each vacuole in each cell keeps the cell walls at the right tension, and in combination all the cells give the plant its strength. This water pressure within the cells is called ‘turgor’ and because the strength is derived from a liquid source, the strength retains a flexibility that animal skeletons lack. This allows the plants to adapt to surroundings, bend in the wind and move towards the sun as it traverses the sky during the day to get the most energy for photosynthesis.
Photosynthesis is the process by which plants produce the energy they need to survive and grow. And water is central to the process. Photosynthesis uses the energy from the sun to create energy in the form of sugars. For the molecules of sugar to form they need carbon dioxide (which they absorb from the air) and hydrogen, which is sourced from the water in the plant, which comes up through the plant from the roots to the leaves. While plants release oxygen as a by-product of the photosynthesis process, they also need a small amount of it in solution to help facilitate the function; water provides this as well.
The movement of water through the parts of a plant is called translocation. It is via translocation that nutrients are moved around the plants to where they are needed. A plant absorbs nutrients in solution; so having sufficient water in the soil is essential for good plant growth (which is why a lot of permaculture practices emphasize the preservation of water in the ground, via mulching, ground cover, and other methods). Soil nutrients are taken up by the roots in a water solution and moved via a process called capillary action that uses the tension of the water itself to maneuver it around. This allows the plant to get nutrients to the leaves where it is required for photosynthesis.
Translocation not only allows the plant to shift nutrient-rich water from the roots to the leaves, it also allows the sugars that result from photosynthesis in the leaves to be transported back down to the roots and out to blossoms and crops to enable them grow.
During photosynthesis, water evaporates from the surface of the leaves in a process called transpiration. This occurs when stomata, a kind of pore, open on the leaf to allow for the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide with the atmosphere during photosynthesis. Indeed, some of the oxygen that the plant releases is contained in the water vapor that is transpired. Not only does the transpiration effectively provide the space into which the essential carbon dioxide can flow, it also prompts the plant to take up more water from the soil (bringing with it nutrients), so helping to keeping the internal system of the plant in balance. It also keeps the plant cool – think of transpiration as being a bit like sweating in humans!
Besides the individual rates that different species have, rates of transpiration will vary depending on a number of factors. These include temperature (warmer temperatures causes more transpiration), light (plants transpire less in the dark) and humidity (it is easier for a plant to release moisture into drier rather than saturated air. Wind will also cause more transpiration to occur, partly as still air tends to become more humid, and the wind moves this air away from the leaves. And transpiration, like photosynthesis and translocation, is affected by the amount of moisture in the soil that is available for uptake by the plant. If there is insufficient water in the soil, transpiration slows, as do the other process, and the plant will begin to exhibit signs of distress, such as curling and browning of leaves.
All four of these processes that plants use water for are interlinked. They may occur at different rates in different species, but essentially all plants perform them. And as long as they have sufficient water in the soil, they will do them naturally, without interference, helping grow strong specimens with good crops. Get the water right and your plants will reward you.
Johannes Mashangu
Can anyone help us to get enough water for our school permaculture food garden
Website Comment
Tom Anderton
This was so enlightening. God left his finger prints all over permaculture. A plant can’t survive without any these 4 processes existing from the very beginning, so it was necessary for each process to be in the plant the moment it showed up. A perfect example in intelligent design. Pure Genius is what I see in creation. The further science goes in its unbiased pursuit the more we see creation pointing to its Creator.
See Romans 1:20.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+1:20&version=NIV
Calvin Finnegan Chester
Try hugelkultur and swales. Rain barrels also work well for retaining water on site for hand watering.
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Three Norns Norse Mythology
admin May 20, 2019 May 20, 2019 Comments Off on Three Norns Norse Mythology
Skuld is one of the three Norns or Fates of Norse mythology, Who sit beneath the great ash-tree Yggdrasil and spin the thread of destiny. Yggdrasil is the World-tree of Norse mythos, representing the Axis Mundi (axis of the world) or divine center, and the Tree stretches from the underworlds to the heavens, connecting all the Nine Worlds.
The Myth of Odin and the Runes. The runes had the ability to spread intentions across the cosmos through their meanings. Only the Norns, the three maidens of fate, who lived within the Well of Urd at the bottom of the Norse world tree, understood the runes. The Norns were the controllers of destiny.
The Norns are female deities in Norse mythology who govern fate. Their names are Urd (what has been), Verdandi (what is) and Skuld (what is to come). Skuld is also the name of a Valkyrie. The Norns are at the base of the ash tree Yggdrasil (or, according to some versions, above the Bifröst bridge). They spin threads and weave the tapestry of fates.
The Monstrous Child is based on Norse mythology: the central character Hel is one of three offspring of the union of god Loki with the giantess Angrboda: her brothers are a snake and a wolf, while she.
I was the singular kid in my first grade class who chose to study Norse mythology for a semester-long mythology project. What’s something half-ass fuel efficient so I don’t blow my entire.
Norse Mythology: The Gods; Death of Balder; The Ash Tree in Indo-European Culture The ash tree recurs in Norse mythology. Out of an ash springs the first human and from the protection of an ash emerge the survivors after Ragnarok.
THE WORLD The Norse believed that there were nine worlds supported by the World Tree, Yggdrasil One world was ASGARD, Home of the Gods Another was JOTUNHEIM, the Land of the Giants
Sep 20, 2012 · Can you name the ABCs of Norse mythology and legends (minus Q, X & Z)?
The gods, goddesses, giants, dwarves and monsters of the mythology of northern Europe and Scandianavia.
. know about Norse Mythology’s trickster god, but he actually plays a large role in the Norse Pantheon. Loki, the son of giantess Laufey (Faye), is a pivotal player in the grand scheme of Norse.
Explore the everchanging halls of the Neverinth and uncover the history of the Valkyrie. Do glorious battle against the beasts and monsters of Norse legend and uncover the hidden pasts of each heroic.
Dec 09, 2016 · The Norns are the goddesses of fate in Norse mythology. But more often than not they appear in the human world. Myth, saga, folktale and archaeological evidence gives us a clear idea who these women really were.
Inspirational Poems For Young Adults Inspiration for kids: Inspirational videos, quotes, stories, role models and activities to motivate and activate children to be their best and change the world That it has done so for
Illustrations of Norse Mythology: Featuring paintings and pictures of Teutonic and Scandinavian Sagas and the Siegfried and Kalevala Legends.(Ancient Nordic Myths and Legends of the Vikings, Germany, and Scandinavia.) An educational multi-media gallery of realistic Illustrations of Norse Mythology and word paintings by Contemporary American Illustrator Howard David Johnson,
One of the topics that Barlog touched on is the mythology that God of War is based on. Barlog revealed that the developers in fact considered three different mythologies before deciding on creating a.
Norse mythology Norns Norns are "the three old women who sit round a giant tree (see Yggdrasil) spinning men’s fates, Urd (fate), Skuld (necessity) and Verdandi (being)." Also the name of a language which descended from old Norse, which was spoken in the Shetland and Orkney islands.
In 1930 Tolkien hired an Icelandic nanny for his children, and she taught him the Norse mythology and Icelandic folk stories that would influence all of his writing, and, in turn, a lot of future.
Aug 12, 2017 · Eisa was the daughter of Loki, who was well known as the trickster god similar to Puck in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 13. This was the name of one of the three Norns. In Norse mythology, she was the goddess of destiny.
The three more rare types of the Nytte are Shipwrights. a delightful combination of breakneck frontier adventure with a bracing hit of Norse mythology and Viking bloodlust.
Norse mythology is having a moment and so is OC author Alane Adams. In September, young adult author Alane Adams released “The Raven God,” the final book in her three-part fantasy series Legend of.
“Named after the tale of an endless battle from [the] Norse mythology, the second out of three DLC releases focuses on the survival aspects of the game and offers the ultimate challenge: first players.
These three Norns are named Urd (Old Norse “Urðr”), Verdandi (Old Norse “Verðandi”), and Skuld (Old Norse ”Skulð”). But there are many other occurrences of the number three, the world tree Yggdrasil has three roots, the first root is in Asgard , which the Norns pour water on every day from the well Urd, to keep the tree green and healthy.
Interestingly, Atreus and Freya’s confrontation after the death of Baldr also draws attention to an important part of Norse mythology. One day, a wanderer visits Asgard and offers to build a wall in.
Nov 30, 2018 · The Goddesses of fate in Norse Mythology What are the Norns? How many Norns are there? The Norns are in Nordic mythology and the neo-pagan religion Ásatrú goddesses who regulate the destiny of all the inhabitants of the nine worlds of the Nordic cosmogony.Although the Nornes are quite numerous, but 3 of them stand out from the group.
whereby the land suffers three full seasons of ice and snow. There are giants and, of course, conflict, and the whole legend is incredibly bawdy and exciting, in the way that Norse mythology can be.
Looking at comparable authors Neil Gaiman and Joanne Harris, who had both written new works of fantasy – Gaiman’s Norse Mythology and Harris’s A Pocket. while her The Summer of Impossible Things.
Pender Island Resort Poets Cove Registration is open for our 2018 Ranger Tugs & Cutwater Boats Factory Rendezvous! It’s the largest rendezvous in the world and it’s held at the best place in the world,
Norse mythology had two of their earliest cross-dressers — Thor and Loki. Shakespeare’s plays like, The Merchant Of Venice, As You Like It, The Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Merry Wives of Windsor,
The Poet Sandal Maker Los Angeles Book Club Phoebe Snow Poetry Man Album “Poetry Man,” a lilting guitar-based original song from her 1974 debut album, “Phoebe Snow,” catapulted Snow to fame. The song, with
The Fates were three female deities who shaped people’s lives. In particular, they determined how long a man or woman would live. Although a number of cultures held the notion of three goddesses who influenced human destiny, the Fates were most closely identified with Greek mythology. The Greek image of the Fates developed over time.
The Norns (Old Norse: norn, plural: nornir) in Norse mythology are female beings who rule the destiny of gods and men, a kind of dísir comparable to the Fates in Greek mythology. The 3 most important Norns, Urðr (Wyrd), Verðandi and Skuld come out from a hall standing at the Well of Urðr (well of fate) and draw water from the well.
Aston Martin has published the first teaser image of its upcoming 003 hypercar, affectionately known as ‘Son of Valkyrie.’ The all-new vehicle will slot below the Valkyrie in Aston Martin’s range but.
Rumors had given it the code name of Ragnarök, a word from Norse mythology denoting future events of destruction. (Italy’s premier automaker has announced that over the next three years it will.
In Norse Mythology, One idea of the Norns has not been mentioned much when the issue of one/three Norns was discussed (because it isn’t as reliably sourced.) Some myths tell of Norns Urd, Belldandy and Skuld as the divine, powerful Norns, but not the only ones.
Topic Page: Norns (Norse mythology) In Norse mythology, any of three goddesses of fate: Urd, goddess of the past; Verdandi, goddess of the present; and Skuld, goddess of the future. They fixed the destiny of every child at birth. The Nords dwelt at Urd’s Well, the Fountain of.
And for nearly three months, it didn’t stop. The short answer is that Ullr is the Norse god of winter. The longer answer is that according to Norse mythology, Ullr was a skilled archer and skier.
Norns. Origin: Norse. The Norns are the Norse goddesses of fate and guardians of the World Tree. According to Norse mythology, they are the most powerful of all beings. The Norns determine the fate and destiny of all living beings. Ygdrassil, the World Tree, is fed by the Well of Urd.
To evoke such austere beauty, Neil Gaiman’s “Norse Mythology” employs a style that can be. We learn the origin of those three great enemies of the gods, the Midgard serpent, Hel, the grotesque.
Poems For Moms In Spanish Bible said she had practiced the poem with her mother several times, and she felt confident when. also received a gold medal, for a Spanish poem he recited. “I’ve been
And now a startup is building a Norse mythology virtual and augmented reality theme park. “Over the next two to three years we see a paradigm shift with VR technology where it will reach the.
The Norns, also called the Three Wyrd Sisters, are three Goddesses in Norse mythology. They are the Goddesses of Fate. They live at the roots of the World tree Yggdrasil where they guard the Well of Fate while they spin the threads of life.
Does He Love Me Poem He recited poetry. matter to speak about. For me, it is the most powerful weapon we have, and the mental aspect of sport is something that interests me a lot.
Rumours had given it the code name of Ragnarök, a word from Norse mythology denoting future events of destruction. McLaren’s $2 million Speedtail, for example, sold out all 106 examples of its.
Speech On Importance Of Reading Books Read More: Is Trump Afraid or Excited. or “fighting” 25 times in her announcement speech and employed it three times in. A general State education is a mere contrivance for
After boiling in a pot of salted water for an hour, the steaming sheep’s head is plated up for the evening’s Thorrablot buffet, an Icelandic winter festival rooted in Norse mythology. a 47-year-old.
Dead Poets Society Desk Set
Sex Poems For Her Short
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MOVIE REVIEW: Get Him To The Greek
A funny "spin-off" from Forgetting Sarah Marshall
By Josh Board • Fri, Jun 4th, 2010
Get Him To The Greek: Rates a B.
One critic started their review of Get Him To The Greek by calling it a “sorta-kinda-not-really sequel.”
Well, nobody involved with this movie claimed it was a sequel or trying to be one. The word this critic was looking for is “spin-off.”
Spin-offs were popular in '70s TV. The Jeffersons was a spin-off from All in the Family.
A show like Happy Days had a few spin-offs: Laverne & Shirley, as well as Mork and Mindy.
A sequel would mean they are continuing with the same story. Aldous Snow, the British rock star played by Russell Brand, is a character from Forgetting Sarah Marshall. That’s the only thing it has to do with that movie. Although, Jonah Hill is playing an employee of a record label, and his character in Forgetting Sarah Marshall was completely different, so…that’s odd.
It’s also odd that Judd Apatow (who produced the film), keeps using the same actors. It’s so incestuous at this point. I’m starting to wonder if there’s an Apatow movie Seth Rogan or Jonah Hill haven’t done (and I saw a preview before this, showing an upcoming film with Paul Rudd and Steve Carrell, two more that have appeared together before in Apatow films).
In this movie, Hill is bullied by boss Sean Combs (better known as Puff Daddy, P-Diddy, etc.). His job is to get Snow to the Greek Theatre for a 10-year anniversary concert.
A similar story line was done in the 1983 movie Get Crazy with Daniel Stern and Malcolm McDowell. They want to have an anniversary concert for a Fillmore style venue that might close, and Lou Reed plays a wacky rock star that hasn’t left the hotel room in years. Near the end of the movie, he’s written a new song and is eager to perform it. He’s hit and killed by a car while crossing the street.
Another movie around that time was My Favorite Year with Peter O’Toole, who acted like a womanizing tool, while being chaperoned around town.
Greek has similar scenes (trying to get someone to a show, multiple women slept with, and someone being hit by a car).
It also reminds me at times of Almost Famous, a movie which is better in a few ways (it’s more realistic), but not in others (not as funny).
Jonah Hill reminds me a lot of John Candy. It’s strange, because Jack Black reminds me of John Belushi. Both of those guys are hysterically funny, but did a lot of bad movies. Both Hill and Candy aren’t as funny as those two, but both are in better movies. And this is yet another example of that.
Hill and Candy could both be funny (not just relying on their weight for laughs), and can play serious, and sad, quite convincingly.
Russell Brand (a former heroin addict in real life) had been making the news lately for getting engaged to singer Katy Perry after a brief courtship. It’s almost like something out of this movie, especially since Snow’s character in the film has a relationship with a high profile pop singer who like Perry, had a hit with very saucy lyrics.
There are a lot of scenes in this movie you can see coming, but they’re very cleverly written. It was a pleasant surprise that many of the scenes the TV commercials show, aren’t in the movie (don’t you hate those giving away all the good stuff?)
I’ve seen a lot of movies lately with great cameos. The tradition continues nicely here, with Ricky Schroder and Metallica’s Lars Ulrich.
When Hill first experiences the bar and club scene with Brand, he plays it awkward and as an employee trying to do his job. When he lets loose a little, he’s still visibly uncomfortable, and it hits comedic gold.
Hill shows that he can do physical comedy quite well in this film. One scene involves him sneezing that’s hysterical (I can’t explain more without giving things away).
There’s a scene where he has a big fight and “sort of” breaks up with his girlfriend, which makes it easier for the audience to forgive him in all these indulgences.
One scene involves a groupie in a bathroom. It might be the funniest groupie scene you’ll ever see. What happens on the toilet will make you forget how hard you laughed at Jeff Daniels sitting on the pot in Dumb and Dumber.
P. Diddy does what he usually does in movies – plays a slightly different version of himself. I have to admit, his scenes are all very funny. One involves him lecturing his staff on how successful he is (and how many chicken restaurant chains he owns); another involves him lecturing Hill on the proper times to answer his cell phone, and one with him enjoying some family time (watching The Biggest Loser).
The movie has a lot of great one-liners, and I feel comedies are funnier that have better scenes and are more realistic than just one-liners constantly thrown out at you. If you’re going to go down the path of a crazy comedy with a million jokes, I want the movie to be as funny as Airplane. This film obviously isn’t, but I doubt you’ll be disappointed; many scenes work.
One hilarious scene involves Hill being informed by his med-school girlfriend, that they’ll be moving to Seattle. He asks what he’d do in Seattle (since his job is in L.A.). She uses logic I’ve seen in a few females over the years. She replied, “There’s music in Seattle. They have a big music scene. Nirvana is from Seattle.”
And just when you think it can’t get any funnier, Hill angrily says, “I’m being told by you today that I should just drop everything and move to Seattle. That’s unfair. Okay, wait…I have an idea. I want you to move to Africa.”
I remember Brand hosted the MTV video awards years ago, and nobody knew who he was. I thought he was funny, and he always cracked me up on the late night talk shows. I know a few people that don’t care for him, and I’m guessing those people won’t like this movie. And, it’s also going to be a bit raunchy and crazy for some tastes.
The movie is a bit uneven and frantically paced at times. And the sentimental moments don’t work (are we really supposed to have sympathy for a rich, famous, druggie just because he claims to be “lonely?”); but I think it’s funny enough that most people will enjoy it.
It gets a B.
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MOVIE REVIEW: Howl
Bio-pic about Allen Ginsberg doesn't disappoint
By Josh Board • Fri, Oct 29th, 2010
Howl: Rates a B-.
Don’t go to this thinking you’re going to see a scary movie for Halloween. Well, unless you think censorship is scary.
This is a picture, no – a love letter – to a very brave and influential poet.
I’ve never been much of a fan of the beat poets/writers. Allen Ginsberg, in my book, would rank #4 (behind Burroughs, Kerouac, and Michael McClure).
Howl, the poem/book by Ginsberg, was certainly one of the most important pieces of literature in the 20th century. It was not only a powerful piece in the 1950s, it also caused a big obscenity trial.
It’s one of those pieces you know, even if you think you don’t.
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked – dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix.
That’s some powerful stuff.
And this is a powerful movie about that poem, with enough facts and scenes of Ginsberg to just qualify as a bio-pic (must be nice to not have to remember most of your lines, since you’re reading from typed pages).
I was excited to see the cast assembled for this movie – Treat Williams, Jeff Daniels, Jon Hamm, Mary-Louise Parker, character actor Bob Balaban and David Strathairn (one of my favorite actors).
When most of them just popped up to testify in various scenes of the court case, I was less impressed. To me, that takes away from the picture. You sit there thinking – oh, there’s Jeff Daniels talking about Walt Whitman.
I didn’t think James Franco would be a good choice for Ginsberg, but the guy continues to show he can pull off any role thrown his way.
It’s weird how you can hear Val Kilmer is playing Jim Morrison, Jim Carey playing Andy Kaufman, Gretchen Mol as Bettie Page, and Franco in this. You immediately think – these actors look nothing like the people they’re playing; then they totally become the person and you can’t imagine anyone else having pulled it off so well.
A lot of people were probably turned off by the animation, but I thought it was ambitious and added a neat element to this piece of art. I’m guessing Ginsberg would’ve loved this film.
I liked the fact that the court scenes weren’t over the top. It wasn’t like Strathairn’s character was some religious nutjob quoting the bible and screaming like a madman. I did a little research though, and found out the court scenes were taken from the exact transcripts of the trial. That explains that.
I don’t necessarily think that has to be done when doing a movie about a real character, but there’s nothing more frustrating than watching a good movie like Frost/Nixon and then reading that entire scenes were fictional (like a drunk Nixon calling Frost on the phone to discuss their childhoods). Enough of that crap, Ron Howard!
I liked that they didn’t try to show a lot of things from the time period – signs saying “no blacks allowed,” or a movie marquee with Rebel Without a Cause. We understand what was going on during that time.
I found it odd that in a faux interview, Ginsberg was explaining what so many lines in the poem meant. Yet, another scene in the movie talks about how poetry can be interpreted different ways and you shouldn’t try to pin down an exact meaning. Some can argue the animation does that same thing, but I thought it created a nice visual.
I remember visiting a friend in Fort Collins, Colorado. She took me to this '50s diner called Taxi that she thought I’d love. I found it cheesy.
When we went to Boulder the next day…that was a town I fell in love with. It was beautiful. And I got to hit the Beat Book Shop, which is a place Ginsberg was often at (and it’s the town he started a school).
Not as a cool a story as one of Ginsberg’s (he was Jack Kerouac’s friend and is the one that got On the Road published).
I’m giving this movie a B-, but am guessing it will only appeal to a small percentage of people.
It’s a must for any writer.
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New Study Reveals Complex, Widespread Sex-Trafficking Occurring Throughout San Diego County
Tuesday, October 27, 2015TOPICS: Politics and Law, Faculty and Staff, Academics, Community Engagement
The surprising findings of a three-year study on gang-involved sex trafficking, funded by the Department of Justice, were released Monday, October 26 at a press conference at the University of San Diego in the Institute for Peace and Justice Theatre.
The groundbreaking study, “Measuring the Nature and Extent of Gang Involvement in Sex Trafficking in San Diego,” led by University of San Diego Kroc School of Peace Studies Professor Ami C. Carpenter, PhD, in collaboration with Point Loma Nazarene University Professor Jamie Gates, PhD, gathered and analyzed data from hundreds of current and former gang members, schools, law enforcement agencies, and victim service providers.
Sheriff Bill Gore, County Supervisor Dianne Jacob, Generate Hope Founder Susan Munsey, and District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, and Superintendent Cindy Marten also participated in the press conference.
“This study is the first long-term, comprehensive collection of data on the Commercially Sexually Exploited People (CSEP) industry ever conducted in San Diego County,” said Carpenter. “Our research combines the intelligence we gathered through hundreds of interviews with gang members, law enforcement representatives, school administrators and other community members with critical information we collected by reviewing incident, arrest and contact data provided by law enforcement agencies. The result is a report that accurately measures the various facets of San Diego’s growing human trafficking problem.”
Dr. Carpenter and Dr. Gates designed the study in collaboration with survivor service providers, law enforcement, prosecutors, County schools, and other researchers.
“The inter-agency collaborative nature of Dr. Carpenter and Dr. Gates’ work will be invaluable to San Diego’s law enforcement community,” said San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore.
According to the study, in San Diego County, the underground sex economy represents an estimated $810 million in annual revenue and involves more than 100 area gangs. The study estimates the minimum number of CSEP at 1,766 per year with an average age of entry between 14 to 15 years old.
Other key findings include:
• Number of “prostitution” arrests which are actually cases of sex-trafficking;
• Proportion of CSEP victims who are U.S. citizens versus those trafficked from other countries;
• Cities and neighborhoods most at risk for commercial sexual exploitation
• The number of gangs in San Diego involved in sex-trafficking, and their characteristics;
• Demographics of traffickers and trafficked individuals (age, ethnicity, etc.);
• Key “hotspots” where sex-trafficking occurs;
• Recruitment tactics; and
• Recruitment activity within local public schools.
Looking forward, the study highlights future trends, which include the need for cross-sector approaches to community problems and sustainable capital for nonprofits. In addition, the study provides victim service providers with the data needed to justify substantial improvements in the size and scope of support services. This project was supported by Award No. 2012-R2-CX-0028, awarded by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this study are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Justice. In addition, members of the San Diego County Human Trafficking and Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children Advisory Council supported the study.
Learn more about Children of the Immaculate Heart, a San Diego-based apostolate which offers survivors of human trafficking a personal, holistic path to healing and freedom.
Visit http://childrenoftheimmaculateheart.org.
Pamela Gray Payton
pgray@sandiego.edu
Torero Tidbits: Spaghetti Bridge Building; STEMWoW; Summer Symposium; Students Pass Test; Fall Sports in August
Wednesday, July 17, 2019post has videoTOPICS: Sustainability, Admissions, Alumni, Athletics, Catholic Social Thought, Conferences and Workshops, Faculty and Staff, Academics, Community Engagement, Research
More than 500 students in 15 U.S. locations — including one at USD’s Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering — will compete in the annua…
SOLES presents EDInnovateLive 2019!
Tuesday, July 16, 2019TOPICS: Alumni, Catholic Social Thought, Changemaker, Conferences and Workshops, Faculty and Staff, Academics, Community Engagement
Join us for the first annual conference of EDInnovateLive 2019! Get inspired by engaging keynote speakers representing leading changemakers, researche…
Alumni Owners of La Finquita Winery & Vineyard Work Hard to Taste Success
Thursday, July 11, 2019post has photosTOPICS: Alumni, Changemaker, Community Engagement
Twelve years later, Jess Koehler, co-owner of Ramona’s La Finquita Winery and Vineyard, can laugh about it. Her reaction to the first sip of win…
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Back to Building ongoing partnerships
Building ongoing partnerships
Over 55s Connect Facebook
Over 55s Connect Facebook page is a project of the Macedon Ranges Shire Council to engage and connect with older residents via social media.
Over 55s Connect Facebook page provides a forum for community groups to promote their activities, and reach an audience who might not otherwise find out about them.
The project aimed to improve the way older people in the Macedon Ranges Shire access information about services, support, programs, activities and events.
It also sought to create a sense of community for and among older people in the region.
Project model
Lack of knowledge of what is available was identified as a barrier to older residents participating in activities.
Community consultation findings identified the need for an online centralised information system for community members to access to find out about services, support, programs, activities and events for older people locally to be developed.
A project implementation and evaluation plan was developed.
An executive briefing was delivered to ensure the Over 55s Connect Facebook page was endorsed by the council, and so that a part-time staff member could be employed for 12 months.
A communications plan for the Facebook page launch was developed.
The Over 55s Connect Project Officer position was advertised, and the new appointee commenced in June 2017.
A business case was developed for the executive, demonstrating the need for the Facebook page project.
A content plan for the first four months of the Facebook page was developed to support the business case and has been used as a tool to plan content for the page.
Guidelines were developed for the Facebook page to ensure awareness of page rules, monitoring and responses.
Three staff members participated in communications training on how to manage and administer a council-coordinated Facebook page, ensuring the team were skilled and able to develop content and post on the page.
The Facebook page launched on Friday 4 August 2017.
The page is administered by the Healthy Ageing Engagement Team at Macedon Ranges Shire Council.
Total project cost: $20,000.
Getting the project started took longer than anticipated, and local government organisations need to factor in the time it takes to plan and adhere to organisational processes and procedures when it comes to social media.
A social media presence requires a lot of time and resources, including the development of community guidelines and ongoing moderation and publishing of content for the Facebook page.
The Over 55s Connect Facebook page was established. The page is administered by the Healthy Ageing Engagement Team at Macedon Ranges Shire Council.
The page has seen strong levels of engagement from the target audience.
The Facebook page acts as a centralised information system for community members to access to find out about services, support, programs, activities and events for older people locally.
The page allows for online live chats with experts to start conversations about support, services and health information or topics of interest to older people. For example, users can chat with a local fitness instructor, nurse or assessment officer to offer advice, information and direction on where to go for further support.
The page also allows for event coordination and promotion.
The Facebook page was supported by information and training sessions that were delivered throughout the shire to support older people to access social media.
Project sustainability
The council’s Healthy Ageing Engagement team (HAET) will continue to manage the page, with input from age-friendly ambassadors who continue as part of the ongoing volunteer program
Downloadable project resources
Over 55s Connect Facebook project description (pdf, 166 KB)
Page last reviewed: 14 Mar 2019
https://www.seniorsonline.vic.gov.au:443/get-involved/for-organisations/online-toolbox/ongoing-partnerships/over-55s
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Google’s ‘minor glitch’ sent the currency of Ghana into freefall
Image: © Piotr Pawinski/Stock.adobe.com
Google has apologised after a so-called ‘minor glitch’ in its search engine incorrectly showed Ghana’s currency to have collapsed.
In days gone by, a country’s currency could be seriously impacted by the stroke of a pen from a greater superpower; now, the same result can come from an unintentional glitch in Google’s code.
It has come to light that Ghana’s currency, the cedi, was thrown into chaos on 15 March after Google’s currency conversion rates in its search engine showed the currency to be trading at 22.72 to one US dollar. This alarmed many Ghanaians given that this would have marked an increase of 300pc on the previous day, indicating some enormous financial crash had occurred.
However, the reality of the situation was that a bug within the search engine had set off the chain reaction that made it appear as if the currency was in freefall.
In a letter to the Ghanaian government – published by the country’s ministry of finance – Google said that it was aware of the issue and that it was “caused by a minor glitch that was quickly fixed”.
However, the government said that the damage had already been done by this point, as its incorrect currency price was spread quickly across social media as Ghanaians sought to see whether the “ludicrous rates” were true.
“We always aim to provide people with the most relevant, useful information to help them to make the right decisions. But sometimes there are temporary issues that can cause people to have undesired experiences, like the one this past Friday. This was regrettable,” Google said.
The tone of the government’s release was quite critical of Google, with it saying it “stopped short of apologising for the glitch”.
This isn’t the first time that a west African nation has been harmed by glitches in Google’s search results, with Nigeria affected in February – for the second time – when its naira currency was shown to be trading at twice its normal value for a period of time.
The timing of this glitch couldn’t have been worse for Ghana, as Bloomberg reported in February that the cedi had fallen to a record low against the dollar, having weakened by 8.6pc in 2019.
Related: bugs, West Africa, finance, Google
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Faithful Witness in Forgotten Communities
No one should live and die without hearing the good news of Jesus Christ. Yet, that is still a reality for many people today.
Less than five per cent of missionaries and mission funding go to places where people have never heard the gospel. The traditional approach to missionary mobilisation, support raising, and placement depends on the presence of other mission workers in locations, so cannot address this imbalance. SIM’s Faithful Witness in Forgotten Communities initiative is designed to send gospel workers where none exist.
What is the vision?
SIM has a history of more than 125 years of gospel work, first in Africa and now in more than 70 countries around the world. We know it is difficult to start work in areas where there are no missionaries. This initiative will support new ministry efforts in those areas, allowing SIM to launch and establish healthy, multicultural teams of faithful witnesses. They will demonstrate the goodness of Jesus Christ in communities where people currently live and die without ever having one Christian friend. Over the next two years, we will launch and support six teams of 12 to 15 faithful witnesses in new communities. We need three critical areas of support: prayer, finance, and people.
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Edited by Dr. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine
(Part of Folger Shakespeare Library)
In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare creates a violent world, in which two young people fall in love. It is not simply that their families disapprove; the Montagues and the Capulets are engaged in a blood feud.
In this death-filled setting, the movement from love at first sight to the lovers’ final union in death seems almost inevitable. And yet, this play set in an extraordinary world has become the quintessential story of young love. In part because of its exquisite language, it is easy to respond as if it were about all young lovers.
The authoritative edition of Romeo and Juliet from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers, includes:
-Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play
-Newly revised explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play
-Scene-by-scene plot summaries
-A key to the play’s famous lines and phrases
-An introduction to reading Shakespeare’s language
-An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play
-Fresh images from the Folger Shakespeare Library’s vast holdings of rare books
-An up-to-date annotated guide to further reading
Essay by Gail Kern Paster
The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world’s largest collection of Shakespeare’s printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit Folger.edu.
William Shakespeare was born in April 1564 in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon, on England’s Avon River. When he was eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway. The couple had three children—an older daughter Susanna and twins, Judith and Hamnet. Hamnet, Shakespeare’s only son, died in childhood. The bulk of Shakespeare’s working life was spent in the theater world of London, where he established himself professionally by the early 1590s. He enjoyed success not only as a playwright and poet, but also as an actor and shareholder in an acting company. Although some think that sometime between 1610 and 1613 Shakespeare retired from the theater and returned home to Stratford, where he died in 1616, others believe that he may have continued to work in London until close to his death.
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (January 2004)
Drama > General
Drama > Shakespeare
Drama > English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh
7 Literary Characters Who Made Better Decisions Than Archie Andrews
- Get Literary
Classroom Activities for SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS (pdf)
Book Cover Image (jpg): Romeo and Juliet
Mass Market Paperback 9780743477116
More books from this author: William Shakespeare
See more by William Shakespeare
More books in this series: Folger Shakespeare Library
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Jazz broadcaster Leo Chears dies
By Tim O'Neil
Jazz broadcaster Leo Chears, known as "The Man in the Red Vest" and for his love of classic jazz, died Monday (Jan. 2, 2006) in Barnes-Jewish Hospital of congestive heart failure after a lengthy illness. He was 72 and had lived in East St. Louis.
Mr. Chears broadcast for the past 16 years from WSIE-FM, the station of Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. He broke into broadcasting in 1960 at old WAMV-AM in East St. Louis.
Always, his fare was jazz.
"He always considered it the music for the people," said Bob Bennett, music director at WSIE. "He knew his audience, and he brought them what they wanted to hear."
Bennett frequently worked with Mr. Chears on broadcasts. Mr. Chears' last show was on Dec. 18, and he was taken to Barnes-Jewish on Christmas Eve.
Until arthritis effectively kept him homebound two years ago, Mr. Chears broadcast WSIE's midnight show, playing Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderly, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong until 5 a.m. Illness forced him to reduce his work to one nighttime show a week, which he produced from his home.
For almost 40 years, he also wrote a regular weekly column on jazz for the East St. Louis Monitor.
He got his nickname in the early 1970s, when he worked for KSD radio in St. Louis and was negotiating a sponsorship with Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. In 1998, Mr. Chears told an interviewer that he had worn a red vest to a meeting with brewery representatives. He suggested the name, "and they've bought me a ton of red vests over the years," he said in 1998.
Once the name hit the airwaves, "he never went anywhere around town without wearing one," said his son, Kelvin Chears of Florissant.
Kelvin Chears said that among the jazz greats his father interviewed were Armstrong, Davis, Ray Charles and Duke Ellington. He said his father accumulated almost 30,000 albums through his career.
"Jazz was his whole life," he said.
Mr. Chears was born in Lamar, Miss., and moved with his family to Brooklyn, Ill., in 1940, when he was 8 years old. His family moved two years later to East St. Louis, and he graduated from the old Lincoln High School.
He served in the Army from 1955 to 1957 and worked in a lab at Barnes Hospital before becoming a DJ. Other stations he has worked for include WRTH and WMRY.
In 1955, he married the former Betty Stewart of East St. Louis.
In addition to his wife and son, he is survived by two daughters, Florence Chears-Lawrence and Terri Long, both of Belleville; four sisters, Margaret White of Chicago, Juanita Chears of East St. Louis, and Iris Hampton and Annie Mitchell, both of Florissant; two brothers, Bernard Chears and Eddie Chears, both of Chicago; and five grandchildren.
Visitation will be from 4 to 8 p.m. Saturday at Nash Funeral Home, 144 North 16th Street in East St. Louis. The funeral service will be at 7 p.m. Sunday at Rising Star Missionary Baptist Church, 3424 LaSalle Street in St. Louis. Burial will be in Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery.
Reprinted with permission from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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Latest News, Louisiana, Medical Marijuana
Louisiana Medical Marijuana Bill Approved by House, Returns to Senate for Concurrence
via Sensible Marijuana Policy for Louisiana
BATON ROUGE, La. — The Louisiana House of Representatives approved a bill on Wednesday (62-31) that would make the state the 25th in the nation — and the first in the South — to adopt a workable medical marijuana law. The measure has already been approved by the Senate, but will return for a concurrence vote before being sent to Gov. John Bel Edwards, who has indicated he would sign it.
“We commend House members for approving this sensible and compassionate legislation,” said David Brown, president of Sensible Marijuana Policy for Louisiana. “We hope the Senate will quickly concur. Many patients have been waiting a long time for this, and some can’t wait much longer.”
SB 271 — coupled with SB 180 — would establish a viable medical marijuana program in Louisiana by amending an unworkable medical marijuana law that is already on the books. Specifically, it would replace language in the current law that allows doctors to “prescribe” medical marijuana, which is illegal under federal law, with language that allows them to “recommend” it. SB 180 — which already passed the Senate — would provide legal protections for patients whose doctors recommend medical cannabis.
SB 271 would also remove glaucoma from the existing list of qualifying medical conditions, which also includes spastic quadriplegia and symptoms from chemotherapy, and add cachexia (or wasting syndrome), Crohn’s disease, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, seizure disorders, severe spasms, and spasticity. Under SB 271, medical marijuana would be produced by a single cultivator and distributed to qualifying patients by up to 10 pharmacies.
“Legal access to medical marijuana could dramatically improve my son’s life and the lives of countless other Louisiana patients,” said Katie Corkern of Amite. She and her son, Connor, who suffers from a seizure disorder, are featured on billboards that were launched Tuesday in Baton Rouge and Shreveport that read, “Medical marijuana would help my child. Will our legislators?”
“Our family should not have to relocate to another state in order to access this potentially life-saving medical treatment,” Corkern said. “We are praying that the Senate will concur with the House bill so Gov. Edwards can sign it into law as soon as possible.”
Last month, Pennsylvania became the 24th state in the nation to adopt an effective medical marijuana law (in addition to the District of Columbia). More than half of the U.S. population resides in states that allow patients to access medical marijuana if their doctors recommend it.
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Big Solar Storm Packs Small Punch, But Not Over Yet
By Denise Chow 2012-03-08T21:30:31Z Science & Astronomy
NASA's SDO spacecraft caught this image of another X-class solar flare on March 7, 2012. SDO researchers reported on their website: "At 00:28 UTC this morning we saw another X-class flare from active region 11429." This picture shows the two ribbons of this X5.4 flare in 1700 angstrom light (ultraviolet).
(Image: © NASA/SDO)
A powerful solar storm that slammed into Earth today (March 8) triggered weaker-than-expected disruptions, but may still have a few more tricks up its sleeve, scientists say.
"We're probably not going to see much more from this storm, but I don't know if we can say it's quite over yet," said C. Alex Young, a solar physicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "It might pick up a little bit, but we're not completely certain yet. We still have a bit of time to see if anything else is going to happen."
Two huge X-class solar flares (the most powerful type of sun storm) erupted from the sun late Tuesday (March 6), hurling a wave of plasma and energetic particles toward Earth. This blast, called a coronal mass ejection, reached Earth at around 5:45 a.m. EST (1045 GMT) this morning, according to officials at the Space Weather Prediction Center, which is jointly managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Weather Service.
Early forecasts showed that the oncoming CME could boost solar radiation in space and trigger geomagnetic storms on Earth, potentially disrupting satellites, power grids and other electronic infrastructure.
But so far, the effects of the solar tempest have been milder than scientists originally predicted, mostly due to the orientation of the CME and Earth's magnetic fields, Young told SPACE.com.
"The orientation of the magnetic field in the CME is a big determining factor for how strong or weak the event is going to be," Young said. "If it's oriented more southward, which is opposite to Earth, then we expect a stronger storm, but it appears that this one was very much north oriented." [Photos: Huge Solar Flare Eruptions of 2012]
Currently, only moderate effects have been felt, but the magnetic field of the CME is dynamic and has the potential to change.
"The coronal mass ejection has a cloud of particles, but also embedded in that is a magnetic field structure," said Rodney Viereck, director of NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Test. "As the CME passes over Earth, the magnetic field strength and direction in interplanetary space will change direction and change strength. If that magnetic field direction goes southward, there's good connectivity, and energy in the CME gets translated very efficiently through the magnetosphere to Earth and we get a big storm."
Right now, there are some signs that show the southward part of the magnetic field may be approaching, but it's still too soon to tell, Viereck added.
So far today, no major disturbances have been reported, but several space probes likely experienced high doses of radiation from the onslaught of charged particles. A European spacecraft in orbit around Venus, for example, was temporarily blinded by high radiation, officials at the European Space Agency confirmed today.
Official reports also showed that several commercial airlines, including Delta Air Lines, took caution by re-routing flights that would normally have taken aircraft near or over Earth's polar caps, Viereck said.
"Commercial airlines have diverted some flights away from the poles," he said. "For instance, New York to Beijing — those flights do get diverted because the communication to talk from the cockpit down to the ground can get disrupted by these sorts of events. So, in order to remain in good communication on the ground, they have to skirt around the high latitudes." [Anatomy of Sun Storms & Solar Flares]
X5.4 Solar Flare of March 7, 2012
(Image credit: NASA)
These delays are expected to last as long as the level of energetic protons remains high, which could be for another 24 to 48 hours, Viereck said. But, other than flight delays, no other major impacts were recorded, he said.
The energetic particles from the CME are also expected to create amped up displays of auroras (also known as the northern and southern lights) for lucky skywatchers at high latitudes. The light shows, however, will have to compete with tonight's full moon.
"We actually had a geomagnetic storm yesterday from a CME a few days before," Young said. "We saw auroras last night, and yesterday they were as far down as Michigan. Since this geomagnetic storm is not as strong, maybe we'll see something in the northern U.S., but probably not much farther south. We'll certainly see auroras though, and at high latitudes, I'm sure it'll still be pretty spectacular."
And while it hasn't packed much of a punch so far, this ongoing solar storm is the largest one scientists have seen in more than five years.
"The solar storm currently underway is the largest so far during this solar cycle that began about two years ago and is expected to peak 12-15 months from now,"W. Jeffrey Hughes, director of the Center for Integrated Space Weather Modeling at Boston University, said in a statement. "While this is not a major storm, we haven't experienced one this large since the storm that occurred in December 2006 at the tail end of the last cycle."
This image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the sun as it unleashed an X5.4-class solar flare at 7:04 p.m. EST on March 6, 2012 (0002 March 7 GMT). The flare appears as the bright spot in the upper left.
(Image credit: NASA/SDO)
Space weather experts will continue to monitor the situation, as the effects of the CME are expected to last into tomorrow morning, and the situation could still escalate later today.
Furthermore, the sunspot region that spewed the troublesome flares remains potent, and solar physicists warn that this active region could have more in store.
"It still have a very high potential for producing an X-size flare, so at the moment, there's still a good chance that we're going to see more significant activity from it," Young said.
Editor's note: If you snap an amazing photo of the northern lights sparked by these sun storms and would like to share it for a possible story or image gallery, please contact SPACE.com managing editor Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com.
Note: An earlier version of this story suggested that the solar storm caused NASA's twin Grail spacecraft, which are currently in orbit around the moon, to go into safe mode. This is not the case, and the story was corrected at 7:00 p.m. EST to reflect this fact.
You can follow SPACE.com staff writer Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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The Black Crowes / Album
The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion
Other albums by The Black Crowes
Amorica
Three Snakes and One Charm
Amorica [Bonus Tracks]
The Black Crowes 8/28/2006
The addition of the more technically gifted guitarist Marc Ford and a full-time organist gives the Black Crowes room to stretch out on The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, perhaps the band's finest moment. Using Rich Robinson's descending chord progressions as a base, the band grooves its way through a remarkably fresh-sounding collection of Faces-like rockers and ballads, tearing into the material with flair and confidence and really coming into its own as a top-notch rock & roll outfit. But while the focus is undeniably on the band's musical chemistry, Southern Harmony also boasts a strong collection of songs, striking a perfect balance between the concise Shake Your Money Maker and their later, more jam-oriented records. While there aren't as many obvious singles as on their debut album, The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion is the best expression of the Crowes' ability to take a classic, tried-and-true sound and make it their own. ~ Steve Huey
1 Sting Me The Black Crowes 4:40
2 Remedy The Black Crowes 5:23
3 Thorn In My Pride The Black Crowes 6:4
4 Bad Luck Blue Eyes Goodbye The Black Crowes 6:28
5 Sometimes Salvation The Black Crowes 4:44
6 Hotel Illness The Black Crowes 4:0
7 Black Moon Creeping The Black Crowes 4:55
8 No Speak No Slave The Black Crowes 4:2
9 My Morning Song The Black Crowes 6:16
10 Time Will Tell The Black Crowes 4:6
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COT's top four commercial issues - June 2018
With the World Cup in full swing, this month's edition includes football themed cases, an update on net neutrality and a new law to tighten the use of drones in the UK.
Sign on the dotted line
As promised, we'll start this month's edition with a recent case involving the Manchester United player Marouane Fellaini and a contract that was never signed (Rosalina Investments Ltd and another v New Balance Athletic Shoes (UK) Ltd [2018] EWHC 1014 (QB)).
This case turned on whether negotiations for a potential extension of an endorsement agreement had resulted in a binding contract. The two claimant companies, Rosalina Investments Limited and Rosalina Investments UK Limited, held the rights to exploit the promotional and commercial activities of Fellaini. The defendant, New Balance Athletic Shoes (UK) Limited, was a group company of Warrior Sports UK Limited (Warrior). Warrior had been granted certain exclusive image rights in relation to Fellaini under an agreement signed in 2013, in return for Fellaini's promotional and commercial services, such as wearing football boots and clothing produced by the defendant. This agreement was novated to the defendant company from February 2015 and it expired on 31 July 2016.
The parties entered into discussions about the possibility of an extension or renewal of the expired agreement, corresponding about this from July 2016 to January 2017. During this period, Fellaini continued to wear and promote boots and clothing provided by the defendant. However, the defendant then wrote to the claimants in January 2017 to confirm that it had decided not to extend the agreement, and proposed to pay an amount to recognise the services provided during the six months for which extension discussions had been ongoing.
The claimants responded to state that a valid agreement had in fact been in place since September 2016, which had been agreed by exchange of emails and was effective from 1 August 2016. They therefore issued proceedings to claim over £2 million in damages. They argued that, in September 2016, when a version of the agreement had been circulated and the parties had discussed arrangements for its execution, the relevant email exchanges showed the parties to be in agreement about the terms, with only the formality of signature remaining. Copies of the agreement signed by the claimants had been distributed and the terms were said to have been agreed, with the parties also conducting themselves as though a contract were in place (Fellaini continued to wear New Balance boots and the defendant prepared a catalogue featuring him).
The claimants argued that New Balance had either breached the renewed contract they said was in place by breaking off negotiations, or alternatively that New Balance breached an obligation that arose from the expired contract to negotiate in good faith. They also submitted that the court should consider communications between the parties only up to 16 September 2016, when they said that the contract was concluded. In response, the defendant said that communications showed that a contract had not been concluded – the draft that was said to have been agreed had later been amended, and discussions had continued, with both parties emphasising the importance of signature.
As the facts were not in dispute, the case was dealt with by way of summary determination. May J held that the parties' intention was that any agreement would be concluded only upon signature by all of them. In particular, the court applied the rule in Global Asset Capital Inc. v Aabar Block SARL [2017] 4 WLR 163 that the court could look at the whole course of negotiations, not just those up to a certain date. It therefore made an objective assessment of the parties' intentions by looking at all correspondence between August 2016 and January 2017, and not just up to 16 September 2016. On this evidence, it was clear that the parties intended to be bound only when all parties had signed. The court also held that there was no obligation on New Balance to negotiate in good faith and that, even if there were such an obligation, New Balance had not breached it. May J therefore concluded that the claimants’ claims were bound to fail, and that as such they should be struck out.
The case is a reminder of the importance of clarity as to whether and how your contract is being concluded. It also illustrates another instance of courts being reluctant to imply a duty to negotiate in good faith.
Misrepresentation excluded by an entire agreement clause
The second football-themed case relates to a share sale where the buyer (NF Football Investments Limited) claimed the seller (NFFC Group Holdings Limited) misrepresented the target company's (Nottingham Forest Football Club Limited) liabilities.
The question before the court was whether the entire agreement clause was intended by the parties to preclude a parallel claim in statutory misrepresentation. The courts have previously held that entire agreement clauses, which seek to exclude claims for misrepresentation, require clear words to exclude or limit such liability. However, in this instance, the High Court found the entire agreement clause (which included language which extinguished all previous representations) excluded liability for statutory misrepresentation. In arriving at this judgment, the court made particular reference to the considerable steps taken by the parties to provide a contractual structure within the share purchase agreement to resolve claims likely to arise under the agreement. This, the court found, showed the parties intended to be precluded from making any claims other than via the contractual structure created in the share purchase agreement.
Despite the finding of the court in this case, suppliers (or sellers) would still be well advised to expressly exclude liability for misrepresentation in the entire agreement clause if and to the extent that it is seeking to do so. This will ensure clarity between the parties by making clear their intentions.
US repeal net neutrality rules
The United States' Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") voted 3-2 in favour of repealing net neutrality regulations in December 2017, and the vote took effect earlier this month. Although the principle of net neutrality remains enshrined in European law, internet users worldwide are likely to be affected by the US decision.
Net neutrality is the concept that all internet traffic should be treated equally; in other words, internet service providers ("ISPs") like BT and Comcast should not have the power to influence what users see or the speed at which users can access content.
The effects of having a "Wild West" without net neutrality were evidenced in 2014, when US users of ISP Comcast complained that Netflix was streaming at VHS quality levels. The issue was resolved when Netflix agreed to pay Comcast an additional access fee to prioritise their traffic.
Net neutrality rules put an end to such fee for favouritism arrangements and also sought to prevent ISPs from blocking internet traffic, censoring online content and throttling services. However, those who voted in favour of the repeal argued that net neutrality was restraining ISPs from investing in new technology.
Despite the public outcry after the vote in December, the FCC reverted to their pre-2015 regulations; "Restoring Internet Freedom Order", with additional safeguards in place requiring ISPs to be more transparent on their policies, in an attempt to help regulators target problematic and anti-competitive conduct. This move has done little to quell suspicions that repealing net neutrality will result in a less competitive marketplace, with the FCC commissioner also voicing her fear that the move hands too much power to ISPs. Arguably, the roll back affects the ability of next-generation digital disruptors (i.e. Netflix or Facebook challengers) to enter into a bidding war against their larger competitors.
New UK drone laws introduce flight restrictions and safety tests
New laws coming into effect on 30 July 2018 will restrict all drones from flying above 400 feet and within 1 kilometre of airport boundaries. It is expected that these measures will reduce the possibility of damage to windows and engines of planes and helicopters following the number drone incidents with aircraft reaching 93 in 2017.
Additionally, from 30 November 2019, the same new laws will also require owners of drones weighing 250 grams or more to register with the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and for drone pilots to take an online safety test to ensure the UK’s skies are safe from irresponsible flyers. While there are drones on the lower end of the market which weigh less than 250g, most, including most with built-in cameras - weigh more.
The new laws are being made via an amendment to the Air Navigation Order 2016.
Drone users who flout the new height and airport boundary restrictions could be charged with recklessly or negligently acting in a manner likely to endanger an aircraft or any person in an aircraft. This could result in an unlimited fine, up to five years in prison, or both.
Users who fail to register or sit the competency tests could face fines of up to £1,000.
Dan Holland
T: +44 20 7809 2108 M: +44 7841 923 656 Email Dan | Vcard Office: London
Naomi Leach
T: +44 20 7809 2960 M: +44 7769 143 367 Email Naomi | Vcard Office: London
Anita Basi
T: +44 20 7809 2193 M: +44 77 3647 3578 Email Anita | Vcard Office: London
David Berry
T: +44 20 7809 2269 M: Email David | Vcard Office: London
Michelle Gomes
T: +44 20 7809 2370 M: +44 7872 106 630 Email Michelle | Vcard Office: London
Katie Hewson
T: +44 20 7809 2374 M: Email Katie | Vcard Office: London
Alison Llewellyn
T: +44 20 7809 2278 M: Email Alison | Vcard Office: London
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GIF a Little Love
This piece was written by Yvie McCormick, who is currently carrying out work experience at sobananapenguin.
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Everyone knows that with a new year comes new fads, and 2016 is no different. We're only halfway through and there are many new social media trends taking the world by storm.
One of the biggest has to be live broadcasting, especially on Facebook. More and more people are starting to share their lives whilst in their homes, at work, at college, and out and about with friends, as well as showcasing talents like singing and dancing. It is most commonly used by Viners, bloggers and mischief-makers, such as Lance Steward who is well known for pranking his grandma, usually with an air horn. Online celebs also use live streaming to run Q&As with their fans and interact with them more closely.
Next, what I believe will never stop trending: emojis and GIFs. This year has brought with it emojis that display almost every possible emotion there is, many of them now available in gold. There are pages and pages of emojis waiting to be used, and on iPhones the categories include Smileys & People, Animals & Nature, Food & Drink and many more. You can now have any conversation using just icons, with the extent to which they can be used made clear in the TV show Pretty Little Liars, with the "Amoji" named after the sinister character known simply as A. Meanwhile, in the real world, the prospect of getting Kim Kardashian emojis has got fans really hyped.
As for GIFs, they've been around for a while, yet never have they been used to the extent they are today. GIFs are moving pictures that repeat after a few seconds, often taken from films but also from everyday situations. They are used in many ways, such as to add at the end of a message, to have a joke with someone, and even as memes that take the online world by storm.
The main purpose of emojis and GIFs is to make social media and communication a bit more fun. And as you’d expect, being endorsed by celebrities makes them even more popular.
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French priest's 150-year-old heart being venerated in NYC
By Verena DobnickAssociated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — The 150-year-old heart of a French priest is on a U.S. tour — a Roman Catholic relic with New York City as its latest stop.
It was on display Saturday at St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, where both the faithful and the curious lined up to see the human organ behind glass. The Knights of Columbus fraternity is sponsoring the pilgrimage of this heart, which has been to 28 states so far, with more coming up.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, is to lead a Sunday procession venerating the heart of Saint John Vianney, who was a priest in the southern French town of Ars, outside Lyon. He lived during the French Revolution, helping to hide priests on the run.
The tradition of preserving the body parts of saintly Catholics goes back to the Middle Ages in Italy. When St. Catherine of Siena died in Rome, her hometown of Siena wanted her remains. But they didn't want to get caught making off with the whole body, and decided to take just her head.
Vianney is considered the patron saint of parish priests, famed for hearing confessions for endless hours with an ear so understanding that he drew Catholics from all around Europe.
"He would also recount to them the sins they left out, because he instinctively felt who they are," says Joseph Cullen, a member of the Knights of Columbus. "But he had a heart of gold."
In the next week, Vianney's heart will be displayed in schools and churches in other parts of New York City — Staten Island, Queens and Brooklyn — and Long Island, as well as other venues on the East Coast. The relic is to return to its permanent home at a French shrine in Ars in early June. The U.S. tour began in November.
"Vianney was recognized by the church as a saint and since then, priests especially have honored him and looked to him as a good model for the way they're supposed to be living their lives," said Monsignor Robert Ritchie, who has worked as a pastor at parishes in the Bronx and Harlem. "It's a perfect time especially for priests in the middle of the scandals and all of the stories that are going around; we need an example of somebody good, holy and pure."
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Gun Control: Ownership and Homicide
The topic of gun control is a tricky one because of the strong, strong emotions involved and because, yes, guns can kill people. Well, as they say, PEOPLE can kill people, and they can use guns if they're available.
But most of the arguments I see fail to take into account the big picture, and while I won't pretend to be bringing up every issue possible, let me share a few thoughts that I believe should be part of the discussion:
1) The U.S. is ranked #1 in the number of people owning guns. But it is NOT ranked #1 in the number of homicides or gun homicides. Many countries with fewer guns per person have FAR higher homicide and gun homicide rates.
2) France is ranked #12 in the rate of gun ownership and Germany is ranked #15, while the UK is ranked #88. Yet the number of homicides by any method is LOWER in France and Germany than in the UK. So the number of guns is not dictating the homicide rate. The U.S. total homicide rate is about 5.1 per 100,000 people; the UK is 1.15; Germany is 0.8; and France is 0.7.
So SOMETHING else is going on in the U.S. to drive murderous violence.
3) The number of gun homicides in these countries per 100,000 is:
U.S. -- 3.6, or 71% of our total homicides.
U.K. -- .06, or 5% of their total homicides.
France -- .22, or 31% of their total homicides.
Germany -- .2, or 25% of their total homicides.
As expected, gun ownership in these countries DOES increase the use of guns in homicides, because it's a pretty reliable way to do the job. But again, the presence of guns doesn't seem to dictate how many people are dying; just HOW they are dying.
In fact, despite our #1 rate for gun ownership, the U.S. isn't even in the top 100 countries for homicide rates. So you really can't correlate the two. So the next question comes up: is it poverty?
I don't know what level poverty plays, because while I imagine it plays a role, I don't think it's the full story. Germany, the UK, and the US all have similar poverty rates (around 15%) while France is listed at around 6% (just reporting the stats). So this wouldn't explain why the US has 4-5 times the homicide rate.
However, I always remember the theories that Daniel Quinn shares in books like The Story of B and Ishmael. He talked about how increased population in a given area leads to crime, and if you look at the poorest large cities in America, 5 of them (as of this writing) are in the top 10 murder cities in the U.S. So ... population density and poverty coming together. (And Detroit, which tops the poverty rate of large cities in the U.S., is the king of overall violent crime.)
So does that hold up to countries with the highest murder rates? Honduras has the highest (91.6 per 100,000) and has a 65% poverty level, but they're 127 on the population density list.
El Salvador has the next highest number of murders (69.2). They have a 36.5% poverty level. (Detroit's was 44% in 2009.) They are #46 on the density list.
The Ivory Coast is next in the murder line at 56.9. They have a 42% poverty level but are just #133 on the density list.
Meanwhile, Haiti, which has an 80% national poverty level and is #32 on the density list, has a murder rate only slightly above the U.S. at 6.9. So while I believe poverty and population must play some role, is it possible ... just possible ... that there are cultural differences related to violence, and that you can't simply blame the presence of guns?
Europe and Asia, for instance, have apparently developed cultures with low levels of murder (3.5 and 3.1 per 100,000 respectively), while most of Africa, South America, and Central America have extremely high murder rates. If America is a melting pot of all these cultures, how can you compare the murder rates with gun ownership when that statistical linkage fails within Europe's own borders???
If we took the murder rates of Central America (28.5) and South America (20.0) and Africa (17.0) and Europe (3.5) and Asia (3.1) and added these all up adjusted for the population of each culture in the United States (and assuming no adjustment for America's own culture), you would actually EXPECT a U.S. murder rate of perhaps 8.8 per 100,000.
(Based on: 63.4% "white / non-Hispanic"; 16.7% Hispanic; 13.1% African-American; and 5% Asian.)
Instead, we have a murder rate of 5.1.
Maybe this lower rate is BECAUSE we have a lot of guns. Maybe it's because we have a lot of space. (We're one of the least densely populated countries even though we have densely populated cities.) Maybe it's because of our wealth. (We are NOT the wealthiest per GDP, but we're in the top 20.) Maybe it's because we make great movies or because we have great music. Maybe it's because of our tax system or because of our legal system or in spite of our legal system. In short ... maybe it's because AMERICA AND ITS CULTURE ARE UNIQUE. And as a result, you can't just say, "Get rid of the guns and your problems will be solved."
Of course there are all sorts of "murder," and some of them are financial or freedom-oriented. You'll find different types of murder occurring in different places or cultures. For instance, a 2009 Global Economic Crime Survey showed Russia with the highest percentage of people reporting fraud in their organizations (71%). Canada was not far behind (56%, position #4). The UK, despite their low murder rate, was #7 at 43%. So ... different cultures, different crimes.
And let's not even get started on other forms of corporate destruction in the world -- NOT by all corporations, but certainly by some.
An interesting aside to all of this: at least looking at the 4 countries above, death by drug use (and perhaps, by association, drug use in general) correlates much better with gun homicide rates than gun ownership does. Two sources here and here show the U.S. and U.K. with much higher "death by drug use" rates than Germany and France. And the first is a surprisingly close correlation to gun homicide rates. Maybe rather than blaming gun ownership, we need to look at why we're using so many drugs and who's bringing them into the country. Oh, and let's be clear that I'm not referring to just illicit drugs here. More than half of drug deaths each year come from pain killers.
4) Finally, let's remember the Constitution. A damn inconvenience for those who want to get rid of guns in the U.S., mainly because it says that our right to keep and bear arms "shall not be infringed." Infringe = "encroach, limit, or undermine." Therefore, in my opinion, ANY law that limits guns in ANY way is unconstitutional by definition and should not be upheld.
This doesn't mean that we can't amend the Constitution to allow for these laws, but as it stands today, the Constitution very clearly bars these laws. "But the Founding Fathers didn't know what kind of guns would be developed." That's ok -- that's why they allowed us to amend the Constitution should the need arise. As long as enough people agreed.
But if you can simply make laws to bypass the Constitution "on this one" because it's emotionally charged, then you're on the proverbial slippery slope of losing all your rights. I would much rather people consciously choose, as a nation, that they want to amend their founding document to allow or disallow something. This is the national contract on which we're all supposed to be able to plan our lives. And like any contract, if it's broken without repercussion, then we are in no place to plan our lives. We're at the mercy of those who decide things on their own whim. And for myself, it's not how I prefer to live.
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Livingston Taylor, Tom Chapin, and EVA
Friday, October 9th at 7:00 PM
Join us for an evening of incredible music with three amazing artists. Livingston Taylor, Tom Chapin, and EVA will appear together in a very special concert featuring some of the very best in folk music.
Livingston Taylor has had a 40-year career spanning performance, songwriting, and teaching. Born in Boston and raised in North Carolina, Livingston is the fourth child in a very musical family that includes Alex, James, Kate, and Hugh. From his first record at the age of 18, he has continued to create well-crafted, introspective, and original songs, earning him listeners worldwide. Livingston is also a full professor at Berklee College of Music, where he has taught since 1989. Livingston’s latest album, Blue Sky, was released in the spring of 2014.
In a career that spans five decades, 23 albums and three GRAMMY awards, multi-talented singer/songwriter/guitarist Tom Chapin has covered an incredible amount of creative ground. In addition to his work as a recording artist and concert performer, Chapin has acted on Broadway, as well as working extensively in films, television and radio. As a music-maker, Chapin has maintained two long and productive parallel careers, both as a highly respected contemporary folk artist and as a pioneer in the field of children’s music. He began performing professionally as a teenager in the early 1960s, playing in Greenwich Village folk clubs alongside his siblings Harry and Steve as The Chapin Brothers.
EVA is Liz Simmons, Nicole Zuraitis (USA), Kath Buckell (AUS), with Hadar Noiberg (ISR) and Craig Akin (USA). EVA blends stunning renditions of traditional and contemporary original folk music and elements of improvisation from each of their cultures. Through stunning three part harmonies built on the lush melodic combination of flute and double bass, EVA draw the audience into an experience that transcends three continents’ histories and geographical separation.
Adults $25, Seniors $20, Students $15
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Bouche on Bridge
Nov 18, 2016 | 0 comments
Yesterday, I was lucky enough to be invited to lunch at Bouche on Bridge. I’m not sure what to rave about first, the food or the service, as both were outstanding. Amazingly, the restaurant opened just 8 weeks ago, but I couldn’t tell as it runs so...
The Dining Room at Park Hyatt Sydney
Jun 2, 2016 | 0 comments
When a friend from Melbourne is in town for work during Vivid, there is really only one choice for dinner; The Dining Room at Park Hyatt Sydney. As you can see from the photo, the view from this restaurant are magnificent. Unlike a lot of Sydney restaurants with a...
O Bar & Dining
Mar 14, 2016 | 0 comments
When my cousin said she was coming up to Sydney, from Melbourne, for the weekend, I racked my brains on where we should dine last Friday night. I wanted somewhere with a view, but also great food and service. As I have mentioned before, a lot of restaurants with a...
Kensington Street Social
Jan 14, 2016 | 1 comment
On Tuesday night, Sydney Concierge was lucky enough to be invited to the launch party of Kensington Street Social! Kensington Street Social opened to the public last night and is run by Jason Atherton, a Michelin-starred British chef with 13 other restaurants under...
A few weeks ago, I booked a table at Automata at The Old Clare Hotel, for myself, my partner and 2 good friends who were on holidays here from the UK. The head chef at Automata is Clayton Wells, who was sous chef at Momofuku Seiobo until August 2014, so we knew we...
Intercontinental Sydney Supperclub
Once upon a time you had to go to Melbourne if you wanted a decent rooftop bar. Not anymore. And I can safely say there is not a rooftop bar in Melbourne with views like this. Or anywhere in the world for that matter. Until about a year ago, if you wanted to visit...
The Palisades Hotel: Henry Deane Rooftop Bar
It’s all about the views here. The roof terrace at The Palisades Hotel is great, but I think they rest on their laurels a bit, thanks to the stunning 270-degree views of the Harbour Bridge, city and Barangaroo. I have been twice since it opened a few weeks ago,...
Double Bay Intercontinental High Martini (and the Rooftop Pool Bar)
Last Saturday, I was lucky enough to be treated to a belated birthday High Martini at the Double Bay Intercontinental Hotel in The Stillery. In case you are wondering, High Martini is like High Tea, but with 3 matched martinis instead. As you can see from the photo...
Bennelong Restaurant: Cured & Cultured
A week last Sunday, a good friend from Melbourne told me that she would be in Sydney for a couple of days and was I free for dinner on Tuesday night. That gave me just 48 hours to find somewhere fabulous. I like to take overseas and interstate guests somewhere with a...
Matilda the Musical and dinner at The Star
Last night, I finally saw Matilda the Musical at The Star. I have been wanting to watch it since I read the reviews of it on London’s West End! To be honest, I could hardly remember the story beforehand…I had read Roald Dahl’s book as a child, but...
The Theatre Bar at the End of The Wharf
Last Tuesday, I went to see the hilarious Wharf Revue at Sydney Theatre Company. We ummed and aaahed about where to go for dinner beforehand. We thought about the revamped Pallisades Hotel, the newly named View by Sydney (was Dedes on the Wharf) and old faithful Cafe...
Lûmé
Oct 21, 2015 | 0 comments
Last weekend, I went to Melbourne for my birthday. I initially chose to go to Melbourne as I had missed out on a Fat Duck table and wanted to dine at Dinner by Heston. Having been to Dinner by Heston in London, I knew it would be a great experience. Sadly, it was not...
We dined at The Deck last night, to enjoy the start of Vivid Sydney. It is the perfect bar/restaurant, from which to enjoy The Harbour Bridge changing colour over the next two weeks (from 6pm-midnight). As well as stunning views, the food and service was also...
Fish & Co
In so many restaurants these days, we order fish and have no idea where it comes from. Fish & Co in Annandale, on the other hand, is a sustainable seafood restaurant in Sydney’s Inner West. In fact, it was the first seafood restaurant to be certified by the...
There seems to be a new, hot, trendy restaurant opening in Sydney every week these days (which is great), but sometimes the classics are the best. Cafe Sydney is one of those classics, having stood the test of time for the last 16 years. I was lucky enough to dine...
The Dining Room at The Park Hyatt
The hotel itself was listed on the Condé Nast Traveler 2013 Hot List after a $70m refurbishment in 2012. The restaurant was also updated to emphasise its premier position, which is obvious from the floor to ceiling windows which show off the stunning Opera House and...
Intercontinental Melbourne: High Coffee
I can’t believe this concept hasn’t taken off all over Australia, or at least in Melbourne – the city of coffee. But as far as I know, the Market Lane Bar in The Intercontinental is the only place in Melbourne that offers offer High Coffee as well as the usual High...
Eau de Vie in Sydney – there is also one in Melbourne now, but Sydney was first of course ? – has won so many awards from Sydney Time Out, Australian Gourmet Traveller etc over the years that I am unsure where to start. It even won Best New Cocktail Bar in the World...
The Island Bar
Could there be a better spot for a bar in Sydney, nay the World? The Island Bar on Cockatoo Island was made for a Sydney Summer’s Day. I have been here many times, including for the 2013 and 2014 Time Out Bar Awards. If you are planning to go here, make sure you check...
The Winery is a great spot in Surry Hills for a pre-dinner drink (there are so many great restaurants nearby, such as Zushi next door), but they also do great food themselves. In fact, it is the kind of place where you might pop in for one or two with plans to get...
The Potting Shed is The Grounds of Alexandria (read our review) for adults. Not only is it next door to The Grounds, but it is owned by the same people. These guys are definitely on to a winning formula! They do not sell coffee at The Potting Shed, but you can queue...
Deli Wine Bar
I was lucky enough to be invited to the Opening Night of this new bar by Darrell Felstead. His new restaurant, Foveaux St Dining, also opened at the same time, but I have not had chance to check it out yet. Both Deli Wine Bar, and the restaurant reportedly, are a lot...
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Címlap | Irodalom
Oscar Wilde:
The Selfish Giant
From The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888)
Every afternoon, as they were coming from school, the children used to go and play in the Giant's garden.
It was a large lovely garden, with soft green grass. Here and there over the grass stood beautiful flowers like stars, and there were twelve peach-trees that in the spring-time broke out into delicate blossoms of pink and pearl, and in the autumn bore rich fruit. The birds sat on the trees and sang so sweetly that the children used to stop their games in order to listen to them. “How happy we are here!” they cried to each other.
One day the Giant came back. He had been to visit his friend the Cornish ogre, and had stayed with him for seven years. After the seven years were over he had said all that he had to say, for his conversation was limited, and he determined to return to his own castle. When he arrived he saw the children playing in the garden.
“What are you doing here?” he cried in a very gruff voice, and the children ran away.
“My own garden is my own garden,” said the Giant; “any one can understand that, and I will allow nobody to play in it but myself.” So he built a high wall all round it, and put up a notice-board.
WILL BE
PROSECUTED
He was a very selfish Giant.
The poor children had now nowhere to play. They tried to play on the road, but the road was very dusty and full of hard stones, and they did not like it. They used to wander round the high wall when their lessons were over, and talk about the beautiful garden inside. “How happy we were there,” they said to each other.
Then the Spring came, and all over the country there were little blossoms and little birds. Only in the garden of the Selfish Giant it was still winter. The birds did not care to sing in it as there were no children, and the trees forgot to blossom. Once a beautiful flower put its head out from the grass, but when it saw the notice-board it was so sorry for the children that it slipped back into the ground again, and went off to sleep. The only people who were pleased were the Snow and the Frost. “Spring has forgotten this garden,” they cried, “so we will live here all the year round.” The Snow covered up the grass with her great white cloak, and the Frost painted all the trees silver. Then they invited the North Wind to stay with them, and he came. He was wrapped in furs, and he roared all day about the garden, and blew the chimney-pots down. “This is a delightful spot,” he said, “we must ask the Hail on a visit.” So the Hail came. Every day for three hours he rattled on the roof of the castle till he broke most of the slates, and then he ran round and round the garden as fast as he could go. He was dressed in grey, and his breath was like ice.
“I cannot understand why the Spring is so late in coming,” said the Selfish Giant, as he sat at the window and looked out at his cold white garden; “I hope there will be a change in the weather.”
But the Spring never came, nor the Summer. The Autumn gave golden fruit to every garden, but to the Giant's garden she gave none. “He is too selfish,” she said. So it was always Winter there, and the North Wind, and the Hail, and the Frost, and the Snow danced about through the trees.
One morning the Giant was lying awake in bed when he heard some lovely music. It sounded so sweet to his ears that he thought it must be the King's musicians passing by. It was really only a little linnet singing outside his window, but it was so long since he had heard a bird sing in his garden that it seemed to him to be the most beautiful music in the world. Then the Hail stopped dancing over his head, and the North Wind ceased roaring, and a delicious perfume came to him through the open casement. “I believe the Spring has come at last,” said the Giant; and he jumped out of bed and looked out.
What did he see?
He saw a most wonderful sight. Through a little hole in the wall the children had crept in, and they were sitting in the branches of the trees. In every tree that he could see there was a little child. And the trees were so glad to have the children back again that they had covered themselves with blossoms, and were waving their arms gently above the children's heads. The birds were flying about and twittering with delight, and the flowers were looking up through the green grass and laughing. It was a lovely scene, only in one corner it was still winter. It was the farthest corner of the garden, and in it was standing a little boy. He was so small that he could not reach up to the branches of the tree, and he was wandering all round it, crying bitterly. The poor tree was still quite covered with frost and snow, and the North Wind was blowing and roaring above it. “Climb up! little boy,” said the Tree, and it bent its branches down as low as it could; but the boy was too tiny.
And the Giant's heart melted as he looked out. “How selfish I have been!” he said; “now I know why the Spring would not come here. I will put that poor little boy on the top of the tree, and then I will knock down the wall, and my garden shall be the children's playground for ever and ever.” He was really very sorry for what he had done.
So he crept downstairs and opened the front door quite softly, and went out into the garden. But when the children saw him they were so frightened that they all ran away, and the garden became winter again. Only the little boy did not run, for his eyes were so full of tears that he did not see the Giant coming. And the Giant stole up behind him and took him gently in his hand, and put him up into the tree. And the tree broke at once into blossom, and the birds came and sang on it, and the little boy stretched out his two arms and flung them round the Giant's neck, and kissed him. And the other children, when they saw that the Giant was not wicked any longer, came running back, and with them came the Spring. “It is your garden now, little children,” said the Giant, and he took a great axe and knocked down the wall. And when the people were going to market at twelve o'clock they found the Giant playing with the children in the most beautiful garden they had ever seen.
All day long they played, and in the evening they came to the Giant to bid him good-bye.
“But where is your little companion?” he said: “the boy I put into the tree.” The Giant loved him the best because he had kissed him.
“We don't know,” answered the children; “he has gone away.”
“You must tell him to be sure and come here to-morrow,” said the Giant. But the children said that they did not know where he lived, and had never seen him before; and the Giant felt very sad.
Every afternoon, when school was over, the children came and played with the Giant. But the little boy whom the Giant loved was never seen again. The Giant was very kind to all the children, yet he longed for his first little friend, and often spoke of him. “How I would like to see him!” he used to say.
Years went over, and the Giant grew very old and feeble. He could not play about any more, so he sat in a huge armchair, and watched the children at their games, and admired his garden. “I have many beautiful flowers,” he said; “but the children are the most beautiful flowers of all.”
One winter morning he looked out of his window as he was dressing. He did not hate the Winter now, for he knew that it was merely the Spring asleep, and that the flowers were resting.
Suddenly he rubbed his eyes in wonder, and looked and looked. It certainly was a marvellous sight. In the farthest corner of the garden was a tree quite covered with lovely white blossoms. Its branches were all golden, and silver fruit hung down from them, and underneath it stood the little boy he had loved.
Downstairs ran the Giant in great joy, and out into the garden. He hastened across the grass, and came near to the child. And when he came quite close his face grew red with anger, and he said, “Who hath dared to wound thee?” For on the palms of the child's hands were the prints of two nails, and the prints of two nails were on the little feet.
“Who hath dared to wound thee?” cried the Giant; “tell me, that I may take my big sword and slay him.”
“Nay!” answered the child; “but these are the wounds of Love.”
“Who art thou?” said the Giant, and a strange awe fell on him, and he knelt before the little child.
And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, “You let me play once in your garden, to-day you shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise.”
And when the children ran in that afternoon, they found the Giant lying dead under the tree, all covered with white blossoms.
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News & Information homepage
Air Force veteran Andy Flanagan has a new mission: helping fellow student vets get the resources they need.
The small things are a big deal to Andy Flanagan. The UW Tacoma senior spent six years working aircraft maintenance in the United States Air Force. The experience taught him the importance of being thorough. “Missing a loose screw on the tail of the airplane could be disastrous,” said Flanagan.
Attention to detail is one of the strengths Flanagan brings to his new role as Veteran Navigator. The position is supported by a partnership between UW Tacoma and the Department of Veterans Affairs. “I’m here to point people in the right direction,” said Flanagan. “If someone comes to me and they have a problem then I try to connect them with resources both on campus and off.”
Flanagan takes over as navigator in a time of transition. The Office of Veteran and Military Services is launching a new program this fall. Peer Advisors for Veteran Education [PAVE] matches incoming student veterans with student veterans already on campus. “We’re going to try and connect students by major so there will always be someone who has experience in that education plan and can provide guidance,” said Flanagan.
PAVE recently expanded its presence from twelve schools to forty-two – including UW Tacoma. Another one hundred schools are on a waiting list. The program comes as Veteran and Military Services prepares to move to a new home inside the Tioga Library Building. “I think it’s important to create a good space, a place where veterans can come and have lunch or hang out instead of just going to class and going home,” said Flanagan.
A native of Lacey, Flanagan graduated from River Ridge High School in 2006. He started at South Puget Sound Community College [SPSCC] but left after two quarters. Flanagan worked full-time to pay for tuition which he says made it difficult to concentrate on school.
Flanagan joined the Air Force and was stationed at Fairchild Air Force Base near Spokane. His service included four deployments to Kyrgyzstan where he flew aboard a Boeing KC-135 during refueling missions. “Every time the aircraft flew it had to have maintenance guys on it,” said Flanagan. “Whenever we landed that’s when we went to work.”
Before joining the military, Flanagan’s longest trip was to Nevada. His time in the Air Force allowed him to see large parts of the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. “I gained a lot of really crucial skills and being able to travel allowed me to have more of an international perspective,” he said.
Flanagan left the Air Force in 2014 and re-enrolled at SPSCC. Now married, he credits his wife for motivating him to go back to school. “She was getting her master’s degree when we were dating and that really inspired me to try again,” said Flanagan.
The second time around proved successful for Flanagan. He graduated from SPSCC and transferred to UW Tacoma in the fall of 2015. He’s working on a degree in law and policy. As for life after graduation he’s considering something in the field of sports management or possibly going to law school.
Those goals are in the future. Flanagan’s immediate concern is making sure student veterans get the help and services they need. He’s helping get PAVE started on campus and needs volunteers to serve as peers. This last detail is crucial to the success of the program, a point not lost on Flanagan.
“The military was big on community, on the idea of looking after your wingman or your battle buddy,” he said. “The same idea is true for education. It’s important to know you have someone who’s looking out for you.”
Eric Wilson-Edge / August 23, 2016
John Burkhardt, UW Tacoma Communications, 253-692-4536 or johnbjr@uw.edu
Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, News, Students, Veteran and Military Services
military, veterans, student success
UW Tacoma Facts
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On a fresh Michigan afternoon in October, more than two thousand Scientologists and guests gather at the cornerstone of downtown Detroit to commemorate the grand opening of Motor City’s majestic Church of Scientology.
The audience rises to their feet welcoming Mr. David Miscavige, Chairman of the Board Religious Technology Center, at the dedication ceremony of the city’s new Church of Scientology.
Mr. Miscavige addresses the multitude in the heart of downtown Detroit on Sunday, October 14.
Flanked by those parishioners who helped make their new home an eight-story reality, Mr. Miscavige officially dedicates Motown’s magnificent Scientology Church.
The cheers ring out as the glorious new 55,000-square-foot Church of Scientology is unveiled before Detroit, Michigan.
With turbo-powered energy in the air, attendees behold the grandest of openings, worthy of the city once nicknamed “Hitsville USA.”
As the grand opening pulses into life, the audience moves to a medley of Motown megahits that has them “Dancing in the Street.”
Mr. David Miscavige, the ecclesiastical leader of the Scientology religion, leads the dedication ceremony to officially open her doors. In his opening address, Mr. Miscavige spoke to the magnitude of the moment and exactly what this new Church of Scientology symbolizes. Namely, “not a revolt, not a wish to change any Man’s religion, but the hope that Man can find his own feet in this highly confused and mechanistic world. And if he can do so, then perhaps he can also recover the happiness, sincerity, love and kindness with which he was created.”
“Our relationship began 15 years ago when we formed the Washtenaw County interfaith forum. And ever since, you’ve been a gem. Because you came with humility and an inspiring conviction to hear what the community has to say. You’ve done it across inner cities of America, and now it’s time for downtown Detroit. So yes, you are already inspiring hope right here at this cornerstone of the city.” — Steven Spreitzer, President of the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion
“I started lecturing in schools and at transition houses to men returning home from prison. It was after I met one of you, I started in with the Truth About Drugs. Now when these young minds see real-life stories of other people, well that’s the combination code to unlock their insecurities. They become more comfortable and they start thinking: ‘I can identify, and I am struggling with drugs.’ You see the click in their minds and they let you in…. Yes, we are emboldening, we are engaging and we are emancipating the youth of Detroit.” — Hubert Roberts, Mentor Director, InvolvedDad youth empowerment project
“I like to think of CCHR as a rescue mission operation. I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it, it’s CCHR to the rescue. They are the watchdog of the psychiatric industry, and that’s not my opinion, that’s gospel truth. They have the facts to counter the lies, and they’ve armed us with those facts. Since the beginning, CCHR has said ‘We’ve got your back.’ And through every case I’ve fought to release a child from psychiatric incarceration, we have won their freedom.” — Allison Folmar, Civil Rights Attorney
“Every citizen in this country should have a copy of The Way to Happiness. I’m telling you, it is just that good. It is a guiding light to live by. Yes, Mr. Hubbard has shared his wisdom with us. And this magnificent Church of Scientology now stands as a sanctuary to share that wisdom again and again. So, as we all come together at this grandest of openings today, we celebrate a bright new resurgence for Detroit—the Miracle City!” — Ms. Artina Hardman, Michigan State Representative of District 3 (ret.)
Mr. David Miscavige with (left to right): Allison Folmar, Civil Rights Attorney; Hubert Roberts, Mentor Director of the youth empowerment project InvolvedDad; Artina Hardman, Michigan State Representative of District 3 (ret.); and Steven Spreitzer, the President of the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion.
Attendees tour the elegant eight-story building that is now home to the Church of Scientology.
A sight to behold—parishioners enjoy the beautifully appointed and newly restored city landmark in downtown Detroit.
The eight-story Church of Scientology stands just east of the 150 West Jefferson skyscraper and directly across from Detroit’s Hart Plaza. The location is a true cornerstone—site of the first building in Fort Pontchartrain—which would later become the city of Detroit. Today, the magnificent 55,000-square-foot Church of Scientology stands poised to continue the religion’s history of service to America’s capital of courage and character.
RECEPTIONOpen seven days a week, morning to night, the Church of Scientology Detroit Reception welcomes anyone wishing to obtain an introduction to Dianetics and Scientology.
SCIENTOLOGY PUBLIC INFORMATION CENTERThe Public Information Center offers over 500 films, providing a complete introduction to every aspect of Dianetics and Scientology. It includes the beliefs and practices of the religion, a biographical presentation on the life and legacy of Founder L. Ron Hubbard as well as the many humanitarian initiatives and community outreach programs the Church supports.
INTRODUCTORY SERVICESThe Church of Scientology Detroit provides for the delivery of all Introductory Services. These include an entire array of Scientology Life Improvement Courses designed to help improve any aspect of one’s life.
DIANETICS & SCIENTOLOGY BOOKSTORE The Church of Scientology Detroit Bookstore makes available L. Ron Hubbard’s works on Dianetics and Scientology. In all, Mr. Hubbard’s legacy comprises tens of millions of published words in dozens of books and thousands of recorded lectures. A Materials Guide Chart provides an informational overview of every book and lecture series and the subjects contained within each. Materials are available in 50 languages.
THE PURIFICATION CENTERScientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard developed the Purification Program to free individuals from the mental and spiritual damage caused by drugs and toxins, through a regimen of exercise, sauna and nutrition—all of which are present in the Purification Program. The mural showcases the great sweep of Detroit’s influence—from a Cadillac’s tail fin representing the auto industry to the recording stars who put Motown front and center on the world’s stage.
HUBBARD GUIDANCE CENTERThe Hubbard Guidance Center is where Scientologists receive one-on-one spiritual counseling, known as auditing. Just beyond the waiting room are dozens of auditing rooms.
Each one of the auditing rooms is ideally appointed to provide the calm, distraction-free setting requisite to achieving spiritual enlightenment.
THE ACADEMYThe Academy is where Scientologists train to become auditors (spiritual counselors), capable of applying the technology of auditing to help others attain spiritual freedom. The Detroit Academy comprises multiple course rooms, each devoted to a different aspect of training.
THE 313 CAFÉThe Café welcomes visitors touring the Church and provides a gathering place for those attending the many scheduled events. It further provides for parishioners during breaks in their Scientology services.
THE CHAPELThe Chapel, lined with the Codes and Creed of the Church of Scientology, provides for all congregational ceremonies and services—including Sunday Services, Weddings and Naming Ceremonies. The Chapel also serves as an ideal venue for workshops, banquets and events, in the name of community collaboration for the betterment of Detroit.
THE OFFICE OF L. RON HUBBARD As is tradition in all Churches of Scientology, the Office of L. Ron Hubbard stands in honor of the religion’s Founder and symbolizes that this Church is true to his writings and ideals.
After acquiring One Griswold Way, the Church set about bringing new life to this downtown landmark, restoring many historical and architecturally significant features including the ornate metal grillwork above the front entrance. Designer and sculptor Corrado Parducci, who created much of downtown Detroit’s iconic façades, is responsible for the striking piece, not to mention exquisite details throughout the grand lobby.
The extensive restoration work of the Church included fabled figures such as this griffon—a mythical animal tasked with guarding treasure—and the corner clock that has been a familiar face to residents for over 50 years.
Among the vintage motifs and accents fully restored are the hand-painted ceramic tiles adorning the grand lobby’s two-story high ceiling and this meticulously detailed stained glass window, an homage to the site’s legacy as the birthplace of Detroit.
MADE IN DETROIT: NEW CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY NOW STANDS AT THE CORNERSTONE OF MOTOR CITY, USA
Recovering from tough times, the Midwest metropolis is on its way back, and now proudly welcomes spiritual technology in a new Church at the downtown core.
Detroit—America’s love of cars was born here; Motown, the sound of her music was formed here; and World Boxing Champion Joe Louis, one of her first African-American sports heroes, was from here.
Once the nation’s fourth most populous city, home of the most successful industry in the country and site of some of the largest peaceful civil rights demonstrations in the nation’s history, led by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Detroit has also seen troubled times.
But just like native son and heavyweight champ Louis, Detroit was down, but not out. Now, it is “America’s Comeback City,” as scores of locals and believers from all over are showing faith in the Motor City, determined to put the mojo back into Motown.
Today the drive to “take back Detroit” is fueled by a fiercely contagious pride, and the Church of Scientology is a vibrant part of the engine powering that effort. A presence in the city since 1963, it was on a bright fall Sunday in mid-October that a crowd of more than 2,000 gathered at Jefferson Avenue and Griswold Street downtown to celebrate a glorious new Church come to life.
Mr. David Miscavige, the ecclesiastical leader of the Scientology religion, led the dedication ceremony to officially open her doors. In his opening address, Mr. Miscavige spoke to the magnitude of the moment and exactly what this new Church of Scientology symbolized. Namely, “not a revolt, not a wish to change any Man’s religion, but the hope that Man can find his own feet in this highly confused and mechanistic world. And if he can do so, then perhaps he can also recover the happiness, sincerity, love and kindness with which he was created.”
“You Can’t Hurry Love” as the song goes, but for all those in attendance there was “Dancing in the Streets.” The grand opening pulsed into motion with the iconic sounds of Motown and quickly segued into a variety of community and civic leaders extending congratulations.
The backdrop of the grand celebration was the eight-story Church of Scientology just east of the 150 West Jefferson skyscraper and directly across from Detroit’s Hart Plaza. The location is a true cornerstone—site of the first building in Fort Pontchartrain—which would later become the city of Detroit. While, to add further meaning to the story, that inaugural building was also the city’s first church, constructed in 1701.
Today, the magnificent 55,000-square-foot landmark that occupies No.1 Griswold Boulevard dates from 1927. Working with local artisans, the Church meticulously restored the landmark’s intricate details—from her ceiling murals and brass details adorning her neoclassical interiors, to the exterior limestone and ironwork designed by Corrado Parducci—a man who has practically defined the face of downtown Detroit—not to mention the building’s corner clock that has been a familiar face to residents for over 50 years. As the Church of Scientology Detroit, the facility now stands poised to continue the religion’s history of service to America’s capital of courage and character.
Indeed, the work of the Church and Church-sponsored organizations has long been established here, from the distribution of thousands of The Truth About Drugs booklets, to a Way to Happiness movement blanketing city streets with thousands of copies of L. Ron Hubbard’s common sense guide to better living, in addition to Scientologists partnering with local legislators supporting freedom of religion.
Among area leaders on Sunday who welcomed the Church to its new facility were Steven Spreitzer, the President of the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion; Hubert Roberts, Mentor Director of the youth empowerment project InvolvedDad; Civil Rights Attorney Allison Folmar; and Artina Hardman, Michigan State Representative of District 3 (ret.) and current Executive Director of city resource center Mack Alive. All spoke of their enduring experiences working with members of the Church of Scientology.
Mr. Spreitzer, President of the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion, spoke to the momentum the newly dedicated facility adds to the city’s rejuvenation: “Our relationship began 15 years ago when we formed the Washtenaw County interfaith forum. And ever since, you’ve been a gem. Because you came with humility and an inspiring conviction to hear what the community has to say. You’ve done it across inner cities of America, and now it’s time for downtown Detroit… So yes, you are already inspiring hope right here at this cornerstone of the city.”
Mr. Roberts, Mentor Director of the youth empowerment project InvolvedDad, reflected on how the Drug-Free World program has impacted his work with local youth: “I started lecturing in schools and at transition houses to men returning home from prison. It was after I met one of you, I started in with the Truth About Drugs. Now when these young minds see real-life stories of other people, well that’s the combination code to unlock their insecurities. They become more comfortable and they start thinking: ‘I can identify, and I am struggling with drugs.’ You see the click in their minds and they let you in.… Yes, we are emboldening, we are engaging and we are emancipating the youth of Detroit.”
Ms. Allison Folmar, a Civil Rights Attorney active in protecting parental rights, spoke to the impact that CCHR is having on curbing psychiatric abuse across her city and state: “I like to think of CCHR as a rescue mission operation. I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it, it’s CCHR to the rescue. They are the watchdog of the psychiatric industry, and that’s not my opinion, that’s gospel truth. They have the facts to counter the lies, and they’ve armed us with those facts. Since the beginning, CCHR has said ‘We’ve got your back.’ And through every case I’ve fought to release a child from psychiatric incarceration, we have won their freedom.”
And finally, speaking to the power of The Way to Happiness combined with the spirit of Detroit, Ms. Artina Hardman, Michigan State Representative of District 3 (ret.) said: “Every citizen in this country should have a copy of The Way to Happiness. I’m telling you, it is just that good. It is a guiding light to live by. Yes, Mr. Hubbard has shared his wisdom with us. And this magnificent Church of Scientology now stands as a sanctuary to share that wisdom again and again. So, as we all come together at this grandest of openings today, we celebrate a bright new resurgence for Detroit—the Miracle City!”
Upon entering the new Church of Scientology Detroit, visitors are welcomed by a Public Information Center presenting an introduction to Dianetics and Scientology. Its displays, containing more than 500 films in 17 languages, share the beliefs and practices of the Scientology religion and the life and legacy of Founder L. Ron Hubbard.
The Information Center also presents the many humanitarian initiatives that Scientology supports, including their worldwide human rights education campaign; far-reaching drug education, prevention and rehabilitation program; global network of literacy and learning centers; and the Scientology Volunteer Minister corps, which has become one of the world’s largest independent relief forces.
Detroit’s Chapel provides for Scientology congregational gatherings that include Sunday Services, Weddings and Naming Ceremonies, as well as a host of community-wide events such as banquets, seminars and workshops, open to members of all denominations.
The Café offers a place to mingle for those attending events, as well as for parishioners during breaks in their Scientology services.
Also featured are well over a dozen specially appointed rooms providing the ideal setting for Scientology auditing (spiritual counseling). Multiple course rooms are also dedicated to training auditors (spiritual counselors) and for Scientologists studying the technology of auditing; and all to help others attain spiritual freedom. The new facility welcomes both Scientologists and those interested in learning more about the Church of Scientology.
This opening of the new Detroit Church of Scientology powers forward a period of expansion for the religion, with nearly 70 new churches of Scientology in global cities—from Los Angeles to London, Bogotá to Berlin and Tel Aviv to Tokyo.
In just the past year, new Churches of Scientology have opened in Dublin, Ireland; Birmingham, England; Amsterdam, Netherlands; Johannesburg North, South Africa; Salt Lake City, Utah; Silicon Valley, California; Perth, Australia; Orlando, Florida; and Stuttgart, Germany.
More Church openings are planned in the coming months for cities in Europe, North America, Latin America and Africa.
CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY DETROIT
Church of Scientology Detroit David Miscavige Detroit, Michigan Detroit Ideal Church Opening Michigan United States
California Dreaming Becomes Reality as San Diego Opens New Church of Scientology
In the Spirit of its Historic Pioneers, City of Salt Lake Welcomes Utah’s First Ideal Church of Scientology
Atlanta’s Spirit of Freedom Shines Bright as Georgia’s First Ideal Scientology Church Opens
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DAVID MISCAVIGE USHERS IN NEW RELIGIOUS BROADCAST ERA WITH SCIENTOLOGY NETWORK LAUNCH
Ecclesiastical leader reveals new channel will show Church of Scientology to the world and answer questions for the curious.
At 8 p.m. EST on March 12, 2018, the Scientology Network went live with the flip of a switch, making it instantly accessible to tens of millions of households across the United States and hundreds of millions more worldwide over the internet. From the three-story atrium of the Church’s landmark Flag Building at its spiritual home in Clearwater, Florida, Mr. David Miscavige, ecclesiastical leader of the Scientology religion, welcomed the world to the network to explain its mission.
“You’ve probably heard of Scientology,” Mr. Miscavige stated. “In fact, every six seconds someone searches the question, ‘What is Scientology?’ There’s a lot of talk about us, and we get it. People are curious. Well, we want to answer your questions, because, frankly, whatever you have heard, if you haven’t heard it from us, I can assure you, we are not what you expect.”
Mr. Miscavige described to the audience watching on TV screens, computers and mobile devices worldwide the purpose of the new Scientology Network: let viewers see and experience the religion for themselves—who Scientologists are, what Scientology is and what Scientology can do—as told by Scientologists, themselves, around the world. “Scientology is a dynamic and expanding religion, and we’re going to be showing you all of it.”
Mr. Miscavige continued: “Let’s be clear, we’re not here to preach to you, to convince you or to convert you. No, we simply want to show you. Because, after all, the first principle of Scientology is that ‘It’s only true if it is true for you.’”
Airing 24/7 on all platforms, the Scientology Network represents a new genre of religious broadcasting that includes original programs that take viewers into the everyday lives of Scientologists, the Church as an institution and its humanitarian and social betterment organizations. These programs show Scientology in action, providing not just insights into the only major religion to emerge in the last century, but also offering a fresh take on compelling television entertainment demanded by today’s digital world.
The Scientology Network is immediately available anywhere, anytime. It’s on satellite TV in the United States, as well as live streaming everywhere at Scientology.tv. It’s also available on such streaming services as Apple TV, Fire TV, Roku and mobile apps that can be downloaded for smartphones and tablets. And it will continue to expand through additional platforms in the future.
NETWORK LAUNCHES WITH SIX ORIGINAL SERIES
The Scientology Network debuts with six original series:
Inside Scientology—takes viewers behind the scenes of the religion—its international spiritual headquarters and cutting-edge publishing houses, what happens on a typical day at a Church of Scientology and the meticulous, painstaking efforts to preserve 75 million words of Founder L. Ron Hubbard’s religious writings and recordings for future generations.
Meet a Scientologist—an in-depth look into the lives of individual Scientologists from the frontiers of modern art, science, sports, entertainment and more.
I am a Scientologist—features dozens of Scientologists from every corner of the world and every imaginable occupation, giving personal accounts of how their lives have been enriched.
Voices for Humanity—short documentaries introducing change-makers from all faiths, cultures and nations as they extend help to their communities through Scientology-sponsored humanitarian programs.
Destination: Scientology—each episode brings the viewer inside a new Church of Scientology, showcasing the diversity of our Churches and the cooperation that weaves every Church of Scientology into the local community fabric.
L. Ron Hubbard: in His Own Voice—presents the religion’s Founder to the world. Scientology remains the only major religion with the voice of its Founder intact, recorded in public lectures delivered over the course of a quarter-century. This series chronicles the life of L. Ron Hubbard through autobiographical vignettes in his own words and in his own voice.
In addition, the Scientology Network will also present films on the beliefs and practices of the religion, airing the content to answer questions about faith, philosophy and technology. They include content ranging from the basic tenets of Scientology and how to apply Scientology to the workaday world to the practical tools for life that the religion provides.
Works from Founder L. Ron Hubbard’s groundbreaking writings will also be featured, illuminating his philosophy, the history of the religion and his landmark moral code and common-sense guide, The Way to Happiness, that can be universally applied to anyone regardless of religion or cultural background. The Church’s humanitarian movement will also take center stage on the Scientology Network, underscoring the Church’s global success in drug education through The Truth About Drugs, its worldwide human rights campaigns and successes in exposing mental health abuses through the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a global advocacy group that seeks justice for victims of psychiatric wrongdoing.
New offerings will also include entertainment and talk shows, as well as an investigative series, Freedom TV. The Scientology Network will further provide a platform for broadcasting documentaries by independent filmmakers advocating social betterment and human rights to give them a voice where they might not otherwise have one across the airwaves.
SCIENTOLOGY MEDIA PRODUCTIONS: A 21ST-CENTURY, FULLY INTEGRATED STUDIO IN THE HEART OF HOLLYWOOD
The Scientology Network produces all its television content in house. Original programs air with no paid advertising. From scripting to shooting, editing, scoring and mixing, these original shows are created by Church staff and parishioners at the Church’s multimedia digital production complex at Scientology Media Productions. Additionally, Scientology Media Productions is provided and broadcasts all long-form, full-length films produced at the Church’s Golden Era Productions, which has been producing Scientology films for 40 years. In all, the network is fed up-to-the-minute content, 24/7, from six continents through 20 roving correspondent teams based across the United Kingdom, Europe, Africa, Latin America, Australia, Russia, Asia as well as the United States and Canada.
Housed on a five-acre complex on LA’s iconic Sunset Boulevard, Scientology Media Productions dates to 1912, making it the longest continuously running studio in Hollywood. Purchased from public television station KCET in 2011, the studio lot had its origins making silent movies before evolving into film and television production. It also was the site where, prior to the advent of Dianetics and Scientology, Mr. Hubbard once had an office where he wrote Hollywood scripts.
The studio houses multiple production crews working three sound stages, 136,000 square feet of studio production space,16 high-definition broadcast cameras with three production control rooms, 20 editing suites, six voice recording studios, four music scoring rooms, two live music recording studios, seven mixing rooms with 5.1 surround sound capabilities, all wired through 27 miles of fiber optic cable.
With the establishment of Scientology Media Productions, the Church has entered a new era of multimedia production by giving birth to a new television network that fulfills the dream of its founder to make the religion fully available across the planet.
David Miscavige Scientology Scientology TV Scientology Network Scientology Media Productions
Thousands Converge to Mark Scientology Founder’s Birthday and a “Flip of the Switch” for Unrelenting Dissemination
A Birthday Celebration for the Ages: Scientologists from 70 Nations Gather to Honor Founder L. Ron Hubbard
A Magical Birthday Gala Illuminates the Legacy of Founder L. Ron Hubbard
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Women of the Movement
Councillor Claire Miller - #ScotWomenStand Role Model & Supporter
Claire Miller is the Green councillor for Edinburgh City Centre and is the spokesperson for economic development within the Edinburgh Green group of councillors. She was elected in 2017 after a career in business, including financial services.
Cllr Miller’s political interests are local action to prevent climate breakdown, equalities and in particular women’s rights and eradicating poverty. Claire has been involved in getting women into politics via the Parliament Project and within the Scottish Greens through the Women’s Network. You can follow Cllr Miller, and all of her professional announcements, over on Twitter @CllrCMiller
In the form of a video blog, Cllr Miller has shared her responses to questions posed for Step 2 of the ScotWomenStand Campaign, “Understanding Politics & Democracy”. Her answers provide a fantastic insight into life as an opposition Councillor, including how to forge a path into the role, and the many ways it opens up opportunities to contribute to and support our local communities.
[Full Transcript below video]
“I really want councils across Scotland to reflect the people they represent - which means getting more women elected. In this video I talk about some of the reasons why I stood for election, some of the barriers, and what to do if you're thinking about getting into politics.” - Cllr Claire Miller
Hi, My name is Claire Miller - I’m the Green Councillor for the Edinburgh City Centre ward, and I’m making this video for the ScotWomenStand’s theme this month, of “Understanding Politics & Democracy”.
They’ve sent me a few prompt questions, so I’m just going to talk off the top of my head, on some of the questions that are on this prompt.
The first thing they’ve suggested is talking about what issues are important to me, and why:
So, I got into politics because I felt it was important that more women got involved - to campaign, and make change at a local level.
I work at Edinburgh City Council, and I thought that there were issues that could be solved at council level, that were important for us in terms of Green Party politics. Things like tackling climate change, [which] involves making local changes - like transport, energy efficiency of buildings, and so on. And so, there’s lots of local stuff that can be done, that has an impact at a global level. That’s what motivated me to get involved in politics, at a local level, in the first place.
One of the other questions that they’ve asked us to cover when we make these videos and blogs is about role models:
Actually, for me, I never intended to run to be elected. I thought I would join the Green Party because I would maybe support others, from behind the scenes. I’m usually somebody who is more comfortable and confident sitting at a desk, and doing research and supporting others. But, I became encouraged to stand for office because I came in and shadowed the Green Councillors; and I followed my now colleague, Mel Main, who represents the Morningside ward.
I went through some of the work that [Cllr Melanie Main] was doing, and discovered that it was definitely something that I thought I could do. I could bring a lot of my skills to bear.
I thinks it’s worth considering whether, you know - well, you may have already thought about being in political office. My image of it before was that it would be quite scary, there would be a lot of public speaking required, and you would be a target for people’s vitriol. And, to some extent, that is true; but it’s not as prevalent as I thought it would be. I think you can manage the way in which you do your political job, so that it suits you, and it suits our character.
So, while there are some elements of public speaking, actually - at council meetings - I don’t find it too difficult anymore. I think the first year I found it quite stressful until I got used to it. But, actually, it’s really quite doable for people like me who are not too confident at doing that sort of thing.
Having a bit of resilience is important but, actually, more important is building your rules around how you’re going to engage with people. If you open yourself up to that social media free-for-all, then you’ll probably get attacked. But, you can manage your social media presence in such a way that it’s meaningful and helpful to your residents - but, you don’t get involved in flame-wars, and people trolling you. I have only received a few properly negative messages, and certainly nothing scary; and, I think that down to the fact that I use my social media to communicate with people, but I don’t really use it to get into debates about my politics. I don’t necessarily think that that wins people over. So, I just don’t do that.
So, I was inspired by [Cllr Melanie Main], and the ways that she was making a difference in the council, and the fact that it was something I could see myself doing. Because, actually, it’s good to have an inquiring mind, to ask questions; to have the ability to go talk to people, find out how to make changes that will start to take you towards your goals, and work incrementally on things.
That’s the sort of stuff I was already quite good at in business - I came from a business background. So, I’ve been able to apply those skills here, in my work as a Councillor, successfully.
[ScotWomenStand] have also asked what further systems, support, and platforms would I like to see:
I think that’s a really important question, because for women standing for elected office, there are so many barriers in the way of standing. I think there’s got to be a lot of change made in the way that council works before it’s a really accessible place for women to think that it’s a really good place to work, and that it’s an easy place to work once you get elected and find yourself here.
Here I am in my office. As you can see, it’s not very tidy - but, this is where I do most of my work and, unfortunately, some of the technology that I’ve got available to me can be a bit flaky. At that means then that, although I would like to work from home quite often, I find myself here. Even if I could really be doing things from home, it’s sometimes easier to just come in.
We do have the flexibility in that we can set our own timetables. We can decide where we’re going to work, and what time we’re going to work. Which is really helpful, and you can fit it around other responsibilities, and - although I don’t have childcare commitments - I can see that that’s something that is possible to do.
But, we do have problems. There is quite a lot of open-ended, in terms of time, commitments. Committee meetings; so, a committee meeting will have an agenda, and it will have a definite start time, but it doesn’t have a definite end time. So, you don’t know what time you’re going to be finished at a committee meeting. Experience can show you might estimate it to take, but you don’t actually know what time you’re going to get out of there. And, that can be quite difficult.
I think there is a range of issues. It’s just not a very forgiving environment. I suppose, as well - I think if you’re happy with the cut and thrust of the debating with people, then it’s ok. But, it can be quite challenging to fight for what you want, and stand up for the things that you’re looking for. But then, that can be quite rewarding as well. I find it quite rewarding when I manage to achieve something. I feel really that it’s more of an achievement than if I hadn’t had to battle for such a thing. So it’s good from that point of view. But, there are so many things that we need to change.
So, one of the positive steps that I’ve been making is that I’ve joined a working group in CoSLA - CoSLA is the organisation of all of the local authorities in Scotland - and we had a conference last year, with women of all of the local authorities, to look at how we can take down all of the barriers to women standing for elected office. Because I see a lot of women - certainly a lot on that day - who were elected in 2017, the same as me, who are now thinking that they might not stand for election again. And, I know that some of my friends in this council are considering the same. They are thinking about standing down. It is a shame, as it takes a little while to get into the job, to get your network of contacts in the council, and to get your feet under the desk and start to make a difference with the work that you’re doing. So, we need to make it easier and quicker to do that, or we need to make more attractive for women to stand for more than one term of office.
But, I would like to make it easier to get started, because then people would be more likely to take four or five years - a sort of sabbatical, I guess - leave from their work, or work part-time, to come and do an elected role like this, and then go back to their professional role again. Whereas, I think the fact that it’s quite time consuming to get started means that women are either put off from doing it, or you end up with career politicians that stay for a very long time and, perhaps, that’s not the best model. I think it might be better to have women coming in from professions, spending 4-5 years depending on the electoral term, doing the job, and then moving on. Back to their role as a professional, or as a parent or carer - whatever their role that they’re moving on to. That would be my preference.
The other barrier, when you think about that, is that getting elected is very digital. You’re either elected, or you’re not. And you spend a lot of time campaigning for an election, in the run up to it. So, if you’re elected then “hurrah!”, you’re in office. But, if you’re not elected and you haven’t lined up work, or if you’re not sure what direction you’re going to take when you’ve been elected and you’re looking to be re-elected and then you’re unsuccessful, that can be quite difficult to deal with work-wise.
We should talk about the fact that, financially, it’s - again - very digital; you’re either elected or you’re not. If you’re not in administration, you’re not well paid. So, as an opposition Councillor, I’m paid less than £17,000, and that’s because the role is salaried to be a pro-rata part-time role. And, actually, realistically, if I was to do all of my committee work, and all of my case work, and all of my party work - and everything that I do in this role, and add it up, it would definitely not come to part-time hours. So, the pay is really unrealistic for what we do. But, if you’re in administration, if you’re in the ruling party, there are senior Councillor allowances and those are divided up between the different Conveners, and people who have got different roles, such as the Lord Provost. Those roles are reasonably well paid, and on a par with a professional role. So, it can be perfectly well paid, or it can be really, really badly paid. There’s a big disparity, too.
As an opposition Councillor, I do an awful lot of work for a very small amount of money. We don’t have a lot of expenses either, so it’s not as if I’m claiming any additional money at all - I’m not. My one claim is for a bus pass, so I can go around to the different meetings in the ward.
So, yeah, there are a lot of barriers. I’m not going to mince words. But we are working on them, through that CoSLA working group. It’s about all barriers to all groups who have got protected characteristics. So, it’s not just access for women, it’s also for people with different disabilities, or differently abled people; different genders and sexualities, etc. It’s intersectional, and it’s looking at other issues, not just ‘Women’s issues’. Which is really important.
One of the things that I’m quite disappointed in, in the council that I’m in, is that we’re not gender-balanced. Some of the political groups are. We’re lucky in the Greens that we managed, through our gender balancing mechanisms, to get a 50:50 balanced group elected. But, even if you stand 50:50 in your candidates, you might not manage to elect a 50:50 group. So, we’re fortunate, and I’m aware of that. That wasn’t necessarily going to be the outcome under every circumstance. But it would be lovely, in the future, to see a council that did genuinely reflect society. We’re very poor at doing that in Scotland; in our Parliament and our Councils aren’t gender-balanced. Nor do they reflect all of the other different characteristics, ethnicity and so on. They are poorly reflected.
So, yeah, let’s end on a positive! [ScotWomenStand] asks what words of support and guidance do I have for fellow women of Scotland:
I would say, jump in! Genuinely. Contact a Councillor who you admire, or contact an MSP who you admire and think highly of. If you’ve seen them speaking, or you’ve seen an article in the press where you think they presented a point of view that resonated with you, get in touch with them and ask if they’ve got any opportunities to come in and shadow them. Or, to volunteer, to help with any of their work, because that’s the best way to get started. I found that to be really helpful. You find out exactly what the job is like. I would recommend it even if you decide then not to stand as a politician, because it’s just a really interesting experience, and you get to understand what it is that we do!
My work is incredibly varied. Last week we had a meeting of full council, and I made several contributions to different debates. Some of which I won, some of which I did not win. So, it can be quite dramatic at council; and sometimes you can come away from it feeling good, and sometimes not so good, like last week. But, some of the other things I was doing in the last couple of weeks included meeting the director of the National Galleries to talk about some of their strategic plans. I went on a visit to Edinburgh College, because I’m working on a project called Granton Waterfront, where there’s a big development site and they are currently in the middle of that location, so they’re going to be an important partner there. I went on a walkabout with some of the residents in an area in the city centre where they’re having some trouble with cars parking on the pavement. I had a surgery meeting in the evening, and I had a residents’ association meeting.
So, I did lots of varied work, and I think you only get a sense of the kind of variety, and the interesting stuff that we do, if you just spend some time with a Councillor or an MSP to find out what we do. And, there’s lots of support roles, as well. If you look at it all and think “ach no, that’s not for me” there’s lots of jobs that sit either with the parties - so they will advertise for lots of different roles - or there’s jobs working with the Parliament or Council, where you’re supporting the politicians to do their jobs. And, we could not do our roles without those people there. They are really valuable to us, and they provide us with really important support. And, again, it’s a really great way to do something that supports the community.
So, I hope that was interesting! A little bit of a ramble, unprepared - but, probably a little bit more genuine for that. I hope you enjoyed it!
Tagged: Scottish Greens, Green Party, Edinburgh Greens, Edinburgh, Local Council, Politics, UK Politics, ScotWomenStand, Scotland, Scottish Politics, Women's Rights, Votes for Women, Gender Equality, Representation, Feminism, The Parliament Project, Role Models, Intersectional Feminism, YWCA Scotland
Lee Chalmers: Introducing the #ScotWomenStand Campaign
A welcome introduction to the #ScotWomenStand campaign, from Lee Chalmers - Founder and Director of The Parliament Project.
Tagged: Gender Equality, Politics, Scotland, Edinburgh, UK Politics, Scottish Politics
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Lil Big man
Sean Piccoli POP MUSIC WRITERSouth Florida Sun-Sentinel
He is, if you ask him, the "best rapper alive," and right now, if you ask anybody, the biggest.
Lil Wayne, a New Orleans oddball with a tattered cartoon voice and rhymes by the bunch, comes into tonight's Grammy Awards with eight nominations - more than anybody in any genre - and 2008's best-selling CD, Tha Carter III.
He will surely pick up extra "bests" during the live telecast in Los Angeles: best rap album and best rap solo performance, the latter for the track A Milli. In two categories he is competing against himself, with strong double entries for the writers' award best rap song (Lollipop, Swagga Like Us) and for best rap performance by a duo or group with vocals (Mr. Carter, Swagga Like Us). So even if he loses, he'll win.
Indeed, the 51st annual Grammys are shaping up as a Lil Wayne kind of night. He's also scheduled to perform - on his own, and with three other rappers in a production-number version of Swagga. And while he can't have the entire 3 1/2-hour show to himself, the question of the night still pertains to him: Will this drawling street poet, born Dwayne Carter, nab the biggest "best" of all, album of the year?
In short: Yes. Tha Carter III sold almost 3 million copies and was a critical favorite for its mad, addictive charm. The top album trophy is Wayne's to lose.
His competition is 2008's second-most-purchased CD, Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends, by polite rockers Coldplay; the country-rock collaboration Raising Sand, by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss; Year of the Gentleman, by suave r&b; guy Ne-Yo; and, of special note, In Rainbows, by out-there rock band Radiohead.
The nomination of In Rainbows is a Grammy rarity, possibly a first: The album was initially released online, with no music-industry backing. (Imagine the Oscars saluting a homemade DVD.) Radiohead's reputation for brilliance, In Rainbows' standing as a work of sonic art, the band's move away from traditional industry backing - these factors could tempt Grammy voters to prove their high-mindedness and pick it for top album.
Then again, the voting bloc is industry people - musicians, executives, managers, producers. Most depend on the old-media channels that Radiohead is trying to skirt, if not outright demolish by example. To crown In Rainbows would be to stare into the abyss. So, no. But yes to best alternative music album.
Ne-Yo's Gentleman doesn't have enough buzz about it, although it will win best contemporary r&b; album, and his single Miss Independent will collect best r&b; song.
The Plant-Krauss project, produced by T Bone Burnett, won't get album of the year, partly because Burnett already won the same category in 2002 for his production of the O Brothe r, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. But Raising Sand is a lock for best contemporary folk/Americana album.
This novel duo of classic-rock warhorse and bluegrass belle has five nominations and is performing tonight. Pick Plant and Krauss to win record of the year for the Sand track Please Read the Letter over a field including M.I.A.'s radical-chic Paper Planes and Coldplay's Viva La Vida, which got dunned by music hawks for sounding too much like a Joe Satriani song.
The Coldplay CD isn't strong enough, track for track, to win album of the year. Best rock album honors will have to suffice. Coldplay's seven nominations (three in the big cats of album, record and song of the year) feel paper-thin. In the end, it's Lil Wayne who satisfies Grammy voters' commercial, aesthetic and existential needs - especially one year after they gave the big prize to a highbrow Herbie Hancock jazz CD honoring Joni Mitchell.
Lil Wayne will surrender best rap/sung collaboration to American Boy, by Estelle and Kanye West, who are also performing tonight. That still leaves him with seven of eight - close to the one-night record of eight shared by Michael Jackson in 1984 and Carlos Santana in 2000.
That means this should be rap's best showing at the Grammys since 1999, when Lauryn Hill won five, including album of the year.
Sean Piccoli can be reached at spiccoli@SunSentinel.com or 954-356-4832.
INFORMATIONAL BOX:
Program: 51st Annual Grammy Awards
Airs: 8 tonight on WFOR-Ch. 4, WPEC-Ch. 12
Read the live reaction to the show from Sean Piccoli and Phoebe Flowers, and join in the discussion yourself. SunSentinel.com
See the full list of nominees at SunSentinel.com/grammys
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Wake-up call for BJP before 2019
Pankaj Vohra
December 23, 2017,
The acquittal by a special Delhi court of all the accused in the notorious 2G scam that eroded the credibility of the UPA government in 2011, leading to its fall three years later, has raised questions which could prove extremely embarrassing for the present dispensation. The exoneration evidently was necessitated by poor investigation conducted by the Central Bureau of Investigation and the equally appalling presentation of evidences by the prosecution, reflective of the overall gross incompetence of those in power.
The discharge also raises serious questions regarding the ability and professional conduct of Vinod Rai, the then Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), who came out with the sensational disclosure which put the presumptive loss borne by the exchequer to a colossal Rs 1.76 lakh crore. The entire allegations and the deficit projected by Rai could not stand the test of law and the special court had no hesitation in throwing out the charges against politicians, corporate houses, industrialists and bureaucrats, all of whom bore the extensive brunt due to the stigma of being accused of wrong-doing in the mother of all scams.
It is obvious that the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate, which both have ended up with egg on their faces, would go all out and appeal against the detailed 1,500 pages-plus order of O.P. Saini as the two organisations find their reputations absolutely undermined by the judgement. Legal luminaries have been quick to point out that the suffering of the accused persons including former Union Minister A. Raja and DMK MP Kanimozhi, who served time in jail can in no manner be compensated. Similarly, the setback received to the telecom industry by the scam is virtually irreparable.
The Congress and its UPA allies, too, were viewed as totally tainted in the light of Rai’s notings and after the Apex Court ordered the cancellation of licences, the writing was on the wall that the grand old party’s fate in the 2014 elections was sealed beyond any doubt. The defensive Congress, with lame duck excuses, put forth by its attorneys and leaders, was unable to counter the serious allegations made by Gandhian Anna Hazare’s well-conceived crusade against corruption; and could not handle the combative campaign unleashed by politically savvy Narendra Modi, who succeeded in inflicting on the party its worst ever defeat in history.
Curiously, the Anna movement fizzled out, though its off-shoot, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), rose from its ashes to challenge the Congress and BJP in Delhi to begin with and subsequently in Punjab and other places. In fact, the perceived corruption by the Congress had singularly demolished the party in the eyes of the people and anchors eager to conduct a trial on TV stations pronounced its leaders guilty even before any court of law came to any finding. A commencement of a dangerous trend that continues on some channels where disregard for both propriety and legal values has come to stay at the cost of rule of law.
It is not for the first time that TV has attempted to sway and influence public discourse. It has been regularly doing so for many years, regardless of what the truth of the matter was, by merely spinning out half-baked facts which bear no resemblance to the entirety of the situation. It is semi-acceptable, so far as entertainment goes, but once it transgresses the boundaries of legality and ethics, it is an extremely alarming occurrence.
Fortunately, the judgement was delivered post the polling in Gujarat. Otherwise it certainly would have impacted the elections as well as the BJP’s prospects. The entire narrative of one party being thoroughly corrupt and the other being squeaky clean has fallen on its face. The BJP and the NDA have been in power for more than three and half years and they cannot defend the failure of their agencies. Its ministers and functionaries were expected to monitor the investigations to thereby ensure that admissible evidences were furnished in the court to build an air-tight case.
Firebrand BJP leader Subramanian Swamy has questioned the legal team of the government and has accused former Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi of connivance and complicity in hushing up the matter, while maintaining that the 2G accused would not be allowed to go scot free when the issue comes up before a higher court. On his part, Rohatgi has described Swamy as an obsessive, litigious person who has the propensity of maligning people by making baseless and malicious contentions. In other words, an internal war has broken out in the BJP camp following the startling acquittal.
The BJP, which has been on the front foot, has suddenly gone on the defensive and is unable to plausibly provide an acceptable explanation of how all this has come to happen. WhatsApp jokes, alluding to the saffron brigade’s claims and assurances, are doing the rounds which state that “No black money has been unearthed, No 2G scam happened, Ganga still unclean, Vadra still free and it appears that we voted only to get our Aadhaar Card linked to our mobiles.” This is an issue, which the party’s leadership in the near future will have to address.
The BJP has been bruised in the recent Assembly polls. It was unable to reach a three-figure mark in Gujarat, its strongest state, and in the Himachal elections, its CM face Prem Kumar Dhumal was vanquished. Needless to say, it is time for introspection. Between us.
Replies to “Wake-up call for BJP before 2019”
ken lora says:
Great Dr William
Suzy Parker says:
how i got back my husband who left me over 3 months
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Billie Holiday Biography, Life, Interesting Facts
Jazz, Pop
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America
Billie Holiday was an American Jazz musician as well as a singer cum songwriter. She adopted her Billie Holiday, a pseudonym from Billie Dove whom she admired so much. Her groundbreaking melody and capability of creating music from everything and anything made her famous in her Jazz business. She was one of the Jazz Musician and even nicknamed Lady Day. She became a sensation in the Jazz music around the 1950s. She was so much remarkable for her vocal and highly creative brilliance in her music business. Her masterpiece is very popular among Jazz lovers of the day as well as her time. She had a flourishing career despite the fact that she gave her battle against drug addiction. Billie Holiday was inspired so much by Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith and even considered one of the most peerless voices in Jazz Music up to date.
Billie Holiday was born to Sarah Julie and Clarance Holiday who were neither married nor living together. She was born on April 7, 1915, in Philadelphia. She faced a lot of challenges as a child. His father was a jazz guitarist who left her mother to pursue his career in music. She had to stay with her mother’s half-sister, Eva and have to spend her first ten years in her Eva’s mother-in-law’s house. She got sent to a Catholic reform school due to her truancy in school in 1925. Later on, in 1926, she had an encounter with a neighbor who almost raped her.
Billie Holiday was then sent to the protective custody of the school. Her mother, however, left her with the mother in law in 1928 while she joined her mother in 1929. By that time, her mother had become a prostitute; she had no choice but to join even before she clocked 14. They were both arrested in the same year when the brothel was raided. Her mother was however released by July while she was released by October.
Billie Holiday started her music career in 1929 having being released with a neighbor Kenneth Hollan. They performed in various clubs, and she got inducted into a club at West 132ndStreet. She replaced singer Monette Moore after the producer heard her. She got herself recorded for the first time. Upon the release of one of the two songs she recorded on November 11, it sold whopping sale of 5000 copies. She also played a part in a short musical Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life in 1935. Later, she signed a contract with Brunswick Records and collaborated with Teddy Wilson to record pop music. Her first record with Teddy was a breakthrough as it gave her recognition as an artist.
Between 1936 and 1938, Billie Holiday alongside Teddy Wilson featured in a series of performances which are co-produced by John Hammond and Bernie Hanighen. She also had a brief encounter with Count Basie as a Vocalist. They performed in different nightclubs. Billie Holiday also became the first black woman to team up with a white orchestra in 1938 when she was hired. She had her song broadcasted on various radio stations including the WABC (now WCBS). She starred in a movie, New Orleans and tracked; The Blues Are she recorded Brewin. She had numerous music releases between 1949 and 1959. She also recorded Crazy He Calls Me, and this was her most successful rendition. She published her autobiography Lady Sang The Blues in 1956. Her final album Billie Holiday was released in 1958 by MGM.
Her first main work was with Teddy Wilson, What a Litte Moonlight Can Do was taken as the trendsetter in Jazz music.
In 1941, Billie Holiday recorded her song God Bless the Child, and this became a major hit and had millions of sale. It ranked 25th on the charts and was the third position as the song of the year in Billboard.
PERSONAL LIFE & LEGACY
Billie Holiday married Jimmy Monroe on the 25th day of August 1941, but in 1947, they divorced each other. She later remarried Louis McKay on the 28th of March 1959. She had no children, but Bevan Dufty and Billie Lorraine were her two godchildren. She later died in New York on 17 July 1959 after cirrhosis of the liver. She was buried in Bronx County, New York. It should also be noted that she was arrested around 1947 and sentenced to a Federal Prison Camp after being found in possession of Narcotics.
April 7 Horoscope
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Exam success for David Owen staff
By Ben Carey on 6 March, 2019
David Owen Chartered Accountants has announced recent exam successes for some of its employees. The company, which has offices in Devizes and...
Partner retires after 40 years at David Owen
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A long-standing Partner at David Owen Chartered Accountants in Wiltshire has retired after an impressive 40-year career in the industry. David...
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St. John’s school will be hosting a Careers Fair on Tuesday 10 November. It will be open to all students although Year 9, 10, 11 and sixth form...
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Wiltshire-based cyber security company and 2018 Techies award winner Foregenix has expanded its Threat Intelligence Group (TIG) in the Asia-Pacific...
Wiltshire company one of the best to work for in the region
A UK top 100 law firm with offices in Swindon and Marlborough has been named as one of the best companies to work for in the South West. Royds Withy...
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Awakening the Force in my son was easier with the Harmy Despecialized Editions
By Nick Broughall 2015-12-18T06:30:00.351Z World of tech
Saved by the Despecialized Editions
The Internet is full of thinkpieces about how to watch Star Wars. Some fans will passionately tell you to watch them in the order they were made, while others will say to hit them chronologically.
Then there's the Machete order, which places episodes two and three between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, skipping The Phantom Menace completely.
But somehow, the decision on viewing order is made infinitely more difficult when it's not just about the order you watch films, and more about how you introduce your son to the franchise that defined science fiction for 30 years.
This has been my dilemma. For more than six years I've internally debated the details of how I would introduce my son to the films I watched so much as a kid the VHS tape of Return of the Jedi actually snapped in the machine.
And with The Force Awakens arriving at cinemas around the world this week, the time seemed perfect to give him the intergalactic education he so desperately needed.
Fear leads to anger
A large part of the indecision over viewing order stems from not just my extreme disappointment in the prequel trilogy, but also the fact that the Blu-ray versions of the original trilogy got a digital "upgrade" from George Lucas.
Unnecessary CGI characters, ridiculous audio additions, Greedo shooting first, Hayden Christensen – the list of Lucas additions is long and complex, and every change takes away from the beauty that was the original films.
I wanted to ensure my son experienced the same sense of wonder, of magic that I did when I first watched the movie 30 years ago. So it was as if all my Star Wars Christmas Special dreams had come true at once when, days before we sat down to marathon the original trilogy, I managed to get my hands on the Despecialized Editions of the original trilogy.
For those unfamiliar with the Harmy Despecialized Editions, the general gist is that a group of people have been painstakingly recreating the theatrical release of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi in high definition. Working through each and every frame, they have been attempting to remove the annoying digital additions of the Blu-ray release, restoring the film to the way it was when it blew audiences away 30-plus years ago.
It's not just the ridiculous inclusion of Gungans at the end of Return of the Jedi or shaving Darth Vader's eyebrows either – the Despecialized release fixes the weird colour hue of the Blu-ray release, leaving a much more natural film.
It's worth mentioning the murky legal ground around fan edits of movies, however. Fan edits tread a thin line between copyright infringement and 'fair use' policies and Lucasfilm itself has moved against a few sites and editors.
On its site the Harmy Despecialized Editions crew attempt to make it clear they do not condone piracy and that its edited versions are not to be bought or sold. They also state its edits should only be shared between owners of legitimate and officially released versions of the films.
Anger leads to hate
It boggles the mind that fans have to take it upon themselves to recreate the film they fell in love with in today's era of special editions and director's cuts. Many fans (myself included) loudly hoped that Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm would finally see the theatrical release of Star Wars make its way to Blu-ray, although that has yet to materialise.
When films like Blade Runner can somehow include five different versions of the film in a Blu-ray release, there's no reason that Star Wars fans shouldn't be able to enjoy the same experience.
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The Real Casino Royale: gangsters in a class of their own
Forty years ago, social climber John Aspinall and a gangland boss came up with an ingenious scam – now revealed in a documentary.
John Burke and John Aspinall in 1958
By John Hiscock
'It was like robbing Fort Knox and the Bank of England at the same time – just a lot easier," says Bobby McKew, a former gangster who was involved with one of the most outrageous scams ever perpetrated on London's high society. Over the course of two years in the Sixties, in an elegant Mayfair private members' club, some of the wealthiest people in Britain were swindled out of millions of pounds, thanks to a gambling con known as "the Big Edge". Presiding over this audacious scheme was the club's owner, John Aspinall, a social climber and charismatic man about town.
For more than four decades, the story of the Big Edge has remained a secret. With the most dangerous players long dead, however, details of the scam have recently emerged, and a Channel 4 documentary about it, The Real Casino Royale, will be broadcast next week.
"It was sweet," says McKew, who was involved with the scheme, which arose out of an unlikely partnership between Aspinall and McKew's gangland boss, Billy Hill. "Some people profited, while others were ruined. Not one of the victims ever knew what was going on."
"John Aspinall was the great rogue of upper-class London society," says Douglas Thompson, who wrote The Hustlers, the book on which the documentary is based. "He was totally ruthless and wanted money, because he saw money as the way to advance himself socially."
As well as Thompson, The Real Casino Royale features interviews with McKew, once known as the "Chelsea Scallywag", and his long?time friend and fellow Irishman John Burke, who, as financial director of Aspinall's Clermont Club, was in on the scheme. Over lunch recently, McKew and Burke were both adamant that they wanted the story of the Big Edge told before they died, because they are the only surviving witnesses. "It was psychologically and mathematically brilliant," says Burke. "Einstein would have been proud of it."
During the late Fifties and Sixties, Aspinall's gaming tables hosted society figures on the Belgravia and Mayfair circuit, including everyone from Ian Fleming and Lucian Freud to Lords "Lucky" Lucan, Derby, Boothby and the Duke of Devonshire. "England was coming out of its post-war gloom and London was fast becoming the most exciting and glamorous city in the world," says Thompson, whose book is also being turned into a feature film by Martha Fiennes. "The upper classes had unlimited amounts of money to squander and there were opportunities for chancers at every level."
There to take advantage of it all was John Aspinall. Born in India into a middle-class colonial family, Aspinall always aspired to greater things. He may well have inherited that trait from his mother, who ditched Aspinall's doctor father for a baronet and returned to England as Lady Osborne. "John Aspinall was a social climber and a born gambler," says Andrew Abbott, who directed The Real Casino Royale. "He was a self-styled buccaneer who wanted to join this gilded upper class. I was interested in how a young man could achieve this in those days, given the intense class divide that existed. The answer was by tapping into one of the aristos' weaknesses – gambling – and exploiting it."
During the Fifties, when casinos and betting shops were illegal, Aspinall and Burke organised baccarat house parties in London, taking a cut of the winnings. Only those with plenty of money were invited. To receive an embossed invitation to one of Aspinall's games was an honour: among the gamblers was the Queen's friend, racehorse trainer Bernard van Cutsem, who brought with him a host of wealthy chums, including the Earl of Derby and the Duke of Devonshire.
"The whole atmosphere was luxury and amusement," recalls Burke. "There was laughter, joking, drinking. At the same time it was big money. We had games where the standard bet was £1,000, which would be £25,000 today. Every 30 seconds, 50 grand changed hands." During the course of one evening, Lord Derby, who owned vast tracts of land in Lancashire, lost £300,000 – the equivalent of nearly £7 million today.
When gambling finally became legal in the early Sixties, Aspinall opened the Clermont Club at 44 Berkeley Square in Mayfair. "The Clermont was a casino but it felt more like a very grand London private house," recalls David Wynne-Morgan, who attended some of Aspinall's parties. "He did it with style, he had wonderful taste. There was an infectious magnetism about the man that was really quite remarkable."
The list of the club's original members reads like a Who's Who of the British aristocracy: there were five dukes, five marquesses, nearly 20 earls and two cabinet ministers. The upper crust clamoured for membership and Aspinall was happy to oblige them. But the overheads were far more than they had been at the private games because, under new laws, Aspinall had to pay tax and could only make a "table charge", which produced much smaller revenue for the house.
Aspinall was soon running into financial trouble and word reached Billy Hill that he was desperate for money. Hill had committed his first stabbing when he was 14 and since then had battered and bullied his way to the top of London's gangland, often using a razor to slash a V on the faces of his victims. At 53, he was still financing robberies and was looking to infiltrate Britain's growing casino culture. He outlined his proposal for the Big Edge to Aspinall, who "grabbed at it with both hands", according to McKew.
Marked cards would have been too easy to spot, so a mangle-like machine was constructed that would bend the Clermont's cards a fraction, one way or the other, to denote their value. The cards would be put back into their cellophane wrappers, sealed as new and delivered to the club for the night's gaming. A trained "reader" would then sit in at the game for the house. Since he alone could distinguish the approximate value of other players' cards, he could deduce which hand was more likely to win and make his bets accordingly.
"These readers practised for hours and hours with the cards coming out of the shoe," says Burke. "They couldn't read the exact card but they knew if it was a high card, low card or a zero card [king, queen, jack and 10]. That was enough to tip the odds."
Because the bends were so tiny, the scam wasn't foolproof, but it gave the house a 60-40 per cent edge. As the months went by, that turned into millions of pounds that was divided between Aspinall and Hill.
Burke, whose conscience was pricking him, left the Clermont a year after the Big Edge started, and Aspinall used his departure to cut his links with Hill, telling him that he believed it was becoming too difficult to continue the scam. According to Thompson, Aspinall then launched another casino scam, employing a crooked croupier to keep the odds in his favour.
Hill died of natural causes in his flat in London on New Year's Eve 1983. Aspinall, who sold the Clermont Club in 1972, died of cancer in June 2000. Aspinall's family and friends firmly deny all the allegations. "Anybody who knew John and was involved with the scene knows that this is absolute rubbish," says Anthony Little, who is married to Aspinall's half-sister Jenny.
McKew recalls one of his last meetings with Aspinall. "I was at a party and he came up to me and said, 'Are you still a crook?' and I said, 'Yes, I suppose I am, but never as big as you, John, when you did all the cards in the Clermont.' And he shut up because he'd forgotten I knew.
"I'm old enough now to be able to talk about it and name names, although, not that many years ago, my life wouldn't have been worth anything if I did. But it would be a shame if the story of one of the greatest cons wasn't told."
'The Real Casino Royale' will be shown on Channel 4 on Monday at 9pm
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Rupert Graves: 'If I need cash I'll do anything, I don't really care'
The twinkly-eyed actor talks to Benji Wilson about his new role in hit drama Last Tango in Halifax, as well as his previous career as a circus clown
Rupert Graves Photo: Geoff Pugh
By Benji Wilson
7:00AM GMT 29 Dec 2014
It was Peter O’Toole who once suggested that we “should pity the pretty”. The actor perhaps felt that his looks had hindered his career. Rupert Graves, however, disagrees. “I think that’s nonsense. I think if you’re good-looking you get more advantages.”
It’s not said with any self-regard – Graves has none. Luckily for him at 51 he is still pretty, as countless fan sites attest. When I meet him his hair has been dyed black from its usual grey. He assures me it’s for a role and that he will be “undying” it the minute that role is finished. He is not bothered about ageing.
“I’m just reaching middle age. I’m getting older - that’s what happens. I’m actually quite pragmatic about it.”
The grey stays too for his new role in Last Tango in Halifax, playing a date for Nicola Walker’s Gillian called Gary, who in an early reveal turns out to be Derek Jacobi’s unknown son. Graves is plainly delighted to be joining not only an established hit but one written by Happy Valley’s Sally Wainwright, whom he calls “our greatest television writer”.
“She’s a proper bona fide genius. She is theatrical and absolutely human and true and has a very strong individual voice. It’s her warmth I like really – the latitude she gives to human error. All the characters are beautifully flawed, but also she’s properly funny.”
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With his deep dark eyes and winning grin Graves is recognisably the same boy who caught the world’s eye in Merchant Ivory’s 1985 A Room with a View – including the famous scene in which he and Simon Callow dispensed with their clothes and cavorted naked in a pool.
“I remember I had to come in and say, ‘Anybody want to bathe?’ and I thought, ‘Oh no, that sounds so poncey and stupid. If you see the scene again I’m actually blushing but that’s not acting: that’s because I was frightened.”
Because he shot to very early fame in two Merchant Ivory films, A Room with a View and Maurice, it is tempting to assume that he must be posh totty. That he must have gone to Eton and Oxbridge, then Rada with perhaps a stint at the RSC before Merchant Ivory gave him his break.
But Graves is nothing like that and he never has been.
“Do you know Weston Super Mare?” he asks me. “It’s a s***hole. Bill Bryson said it was the worst place he’d ever been.” Rupert Graves grew up in Weston Super Mare.
“I like it because it’s such a s***hole. I like the West Country humour and slyness. I went to a shocking school. I didn’t have any kind of career path – I wasn’t going to be a professional. There was no chance of me getting into university or anything, my childhood wasn’t like that.”
It was an upbringing that gave him what he calls a certain recklessness. At 16 he left school to join the circus. It sounds like something from a penny romance but Graves really was a performing clown.
“It seemed like something I wanted to do so I did it. The circus was run by a Mr Thompson whose first name I never found out. They lost Rudy the Clown and Mr Thompson thought, ‘I don’t have to pay, I can do it through the YTS,’ so he got the government to sponsor a trainee clown which was me. I wanted to be an actor by then anyway. I kind of thought it might be a good thing.”
Thinking something might be a good thing and therefore doing it is an anti-method that has seen him through an entire career. He was a punk at 14 (“I had ripped jeans and a shirt with probably a bit of writing on it and choppy hair and a little bit of pink in there somewhere.”) He worked at Butlins, got an agent from the back of The Stage, was cast in Dennis Potter’s Sufficient Carbohydrate at Hampstead, that went to the West End from where he was spotted and cast in A Room with a View, aged 21. All of a sudden the punkish clown from Weston Super Mare was a star.
“Obviously the good part was that it gave me a profile. But I certainly didn’t take advantage of that profile - I was slightly embarrassed, probably, about the attention. And I felt I hadn’t earned it, I hadn’t earned the acting jobs, I hadn’t trained and I felt very insecure about all that.”
Rupert Graves starred alongside Helena Bonham-Carter in A Room with a View in 1985 (PHOTO: Alamy)
Graves retreated to the theatre to learn his craft, and when he came back to the screen it was TV and indie movies rather than big-budget feature films that became his natural berth. Gradually, via The Forsyte Saga, Scott & Bailey, The White Queen and Sherlock (he plays DI Lestrade) he has worked his way to something of a mid-career renaissance.
Not that he would even recognise the notion of a career trajectory.
“If I need cash I’ll do anything, I don’t really care. That’s how I earn money and I have my family [five children between the ages of four and 11] and I don’t have anything else.”
Of all the many, many jobs he takes to earn that money (on top of Last Tango he is filming three small films and an American TV mini-series, all for release in 2015) – it is Sherlock that has become the most high profile.
What’s struck him most about playing Lestrade in Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’s hit reworking is that it brings with it a new type of recognition.
“Sherlock is the first thing I’ve been in where its fandom is fuelled by Twitter and social media. That has made a huge difference – people can talk to actors and each other directly, they can whip themselves into an absolute fury. It’s bizarre. The strength of it has surprised me.”
He has even found himself exposed to a particularly modern malaise.
“I’ve got somebody who is pretending to be me on Twitter, talking to friends of mine and insulting them – and then showing pictures of children’s legs saying, ‘this is my child sleeping.’ So I went on Twitter and said that’s not me. I did that for a couple of weeks but then it struck me that it’s such a narcissistic thing for an actor to do. I’m not that sort of person.”
That is not very nice. On the other hand, the kind of exposure that Sherlock and now Last Tango will bring – both shows have a large American following - has set Graves up for castings in the US, that place where under-valued British actors go to pay off over-sized British mortgages. He is ambivalent at the prospect at best.
“I tell you what, I really don’t like LA. Every time we do LA I’ve felt depressed. For someone who’s not a very strategic person it’s an extremely strategic industry town. But I have to do it and I’m tempted to go over next year just for a month, have a little sniff and see if I can get something.”
You could easily see Graves doing a Hugh Laurie or a Damian Lewis, turning up as a grizzled American cop or doc and suddenly becoming the global star he was all set to be when he was 21. Equally, you could envisage him continuing to pop up in all manner of British productions, turning in quietly engaging performances and then moving on, twinkly-eyed, to the next one. Either would be worth watching.
Last Tango in Halifax continues on Sundays on BBC One at 9pm
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Galileo satellite device 'over budget, running later and unprofitable'
Europe's Galileo satellite navigation system, meant to rival the US-built Global Positioning System (GPS), is over budget, running late and will be unprofitable for years, according to reports.
Galileo is intended to offer a superior accuracy of one metre (yard), compared to up to 10 metres for GPS Photo: AFP
Extra costs of up to 1.7 billion euros (£1.5 million) are expected and the project will not be ready for at least another seven years, according to a European Commission report cited by the Financial Times Deutschland.
Last year, the European Court of Auditors criticised the project as ill-prepared and badly managed, and in January the Commission said it would be in operation in 2014.
The FTD also cited the report as saying the project will be unprofitable "over the long term", running at an annual loss of 750 million euros (£660 million).
The project will cost taxpayers about 20 billion euros (£17.5 billion) over the next 20 years in development, construction and operating costs, the paper said.
The EU has struggled to secure financing for the project, originally put at 3.4 billion euros, and has had to tap unused funds from the bloc's massive agricultural budget.
Galileo is intended to offer a superior accuracy of one metre (yard), compared to up to 10 metres for GPS. The European version would have global coverage and an encrypted, pay service for commercial clients, with extra information such as weather detail.
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Irvine's stalker son ordered to pay £770,000
By Hugh Davies in Los Angeles and John Crowley
12:01AM BST 18 Jul 2003
The son of Derry Irvine, the former Lord Chancellor, has been ordered to pay £774,000 to settle a civil lawsuit brought by a 19-year-old he pursued with a gun.
The damages were awarded by a judge in Santa Ana, California for "negligent infliction of emotional distress" carried out by Alastair Irvine on Karel Eric Taska, a 6ft 5in, 15-stone American football player and bodybuilder.
Irvine, 26, who is back in Britain, served six months of a 16-month sentence for stalking and threatening Taska.
Taska was the boyfriend of Nicole Healy, a 19-year-old student at Orange County University, California. Irvine became obsessed with Healy, trying to woo her with flowers and a Rolex watch.
When she spurned him, Taska, who had warned him to stop harassing her, found his pick-up truck damaged in an acid attack. Then Irvine, also a keen bodybuilder, turned up at a tanning centre in Newport Beach, where Taska worked, with a pistol strapped to his waist.
Irvine son on gun charge
At his trial last August, Irvine, in a plea agreement reached with prosecutors, confessed to stalking, burglary, vandalism, criminal threats and possessing a concealed gun.
The former public schoolboy, who had been sent to America by his parents for treatment for crack cocaine addiction, was imprisoned in a high security unit at Pleasant Valley State Prison, near San Francisco. He was released early for good behaviour.
Taska sued him with the backing of his parents. His lawyer, Daryl Dworakowski, said they were pleased with the judgment. However, he added that he was unsure if the award could be enforced against a British citizen if he remains outside the United States.
The former public schoolboy has been attempting to find work and rebuild his life in Bath. His new home in the city is far less salubrious than the residences his father owns in London and Scotland.
But the first floor flat that Irvine has been his home since returning to Britain in April would normally be out of the reach of a person currently out of work.
The five-storey Georgian property is spartan on the inside - but it stands in Lansdown, one of Bath's more upmarket districts.
Irvine has made an attempt to get his life back on track, despite the constant attention of the tabloid press. One tabloid journalist who has been following him since his return to the UK, said: "He is very house proud. I have seen him through his window hoovering, ironing and washing.
"He goes out most days looking for work though he has not gone out of his way to be polite when we have spoken to him. He refused to reveal if he was on state benefits or whether his father was paying for the flat."
Finding a job has been less than fruitful, although he has found ways to amuse himself. The 26-year-old is a regular at the bar in George's Hotel in the town, which is located opposite a police station.
Irvine has not been short of company and is regularly seen socialising with a wide circle. He has also been seen walking with a variety of female companions.
Irvine's descent into drugs began when he started using cannabis as a pupil at the fee-paying City of London School, although staff insist it could not have happened during school hours or on school premises.
After a respectable performance in his GCSE exams he opted to switch from the all-male school to Camden School for Girls' mixed sixth form for his A-level studies.
However, his grades were so poor he had to attend a crammer course at Mander Portman Woodward, South Kensington, in an attempt to improve them. By the time he was 20 he had begun using cocaine along with cannabis.
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TagNobelPeacePrize
Vinton G. Cerf at Norway’s IT Award Ceremony
Habits, History
How would you like the chance to go through Internet history and even meet one of it’s inventors, and have a nice chat with him – all in one day? Well last night I did, and since my blog is about my daily life, mostly in Norway, I’ll gladly share this exciting moment with you:
Yesterday it was The Norwegian Computer Society‘s big event: ROSING, The IT Award Ceremony 2007 in Oslo. You can read all about last years event where I met the co-founder of Skype, Morten Lund in my ‘IT’s all about luck‘ post. As I said then: Awards are given out in categories like “IT Security”, “Usability”, “Competence”, “Creativity”, “Best Net Service” e.g. to software companies, consultants, organization or others that have provided some special and good solutions within IT and the Internet. This years key note speaker was no less that the father of the Internet himself; Vinton G. Cerf:
In his speech: ‘The Internet – Past, Present and Future’, Mr. Cerf took us through the history and development of the Internet from how it started in the beginning of the 60s with DARPA to ARPANET in the 70s where the Internet matured as a result of the TCP/IP architecture first proposed by Robert E. Kahn at BBN and further developed by Kahn and Cerf at Stanford and others throughout the 70’s. He also gave some facts and figures about the spreading and growth of the net and how he became VP and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google. I would like to stress on one crucial point though: Beside the protocol in itself, one of the most import factors for how the Internet has been created, is the design goals for this interconnection of networks:
• Any network should be able to connect to any other network via a gateway
• There should be no central network administration or control
• Lost packets should be retransmitted
• No internal changes in the networks should be needed in order to enable their interconnection.
So here we are, in a free network, where everyone can participate and share applications, informations and knowledge like in this wonderful world of Blogshpere where it really shows that it empowering people.
Before Vint’s speech, I was lucky to have a nice chat with him. He knew a lot of people important for the development of the net, including Norwegians like Paal Spilling, professor at the Department of informatics, Univ. of Oslo and University Graduate Center at Kjeller. I said I thought Spilling was the first one who connected to ARPANET outside of US, but Vint meant it was Professor Peter Kirstein of University College London (UCL). I promised i would try to find out more information about it and get back to him.
I also told Mr. Cerf that I would like to see him nominated for 2008 Nobel Peace Price like I announced in my post in October. He was flattered of course and said if so, Mr. Robert Kahn should be included too. I also like the idea of adding Tim Berners-Lee who wrote the protocol for information distribution known as WWW. Those three have provided some really important tools for free information availably which breaks down religious, cultural and social barriers in the world. I still am working on that and take it you support me :-)
Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore or Vint Cerf?
You might rise your eyebrows because of this caption, but let me explain, step by step and start with todays announcement from The Norwegian Nobel Committee:
The Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 is to be shared, in two equal parts, between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr. for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.
First of all this is a great victory for the importance of science combined with the need of a communicator to open people and nations eyes for the course. I do hope this leads to that US now will sign the Kyoto Protocol and also recognize UN as the ultimate tool for peace.
The Norwegian Committee’s last years price was given to Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank. You can read about when i met him holding his speech by clicking here. These are examples of the variety and windiness of the price and how the committee try to address different aspects of peace achievement. That brings me to today’s subject:
RennyBA’s Nomination for 2008 Peace Price:
As my regular readers know, my motto is: “Make Blogs not War” and of course there was no blogging without the Internet. So whats more natrual than awarding the father of the net: Vinton G. Cerf:
Cerf is now vice president and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google. He is widely known as a “Father of the Internet,” as he is the co-designer with Robert Kahn of TCP/IP protocols and basic architecture of the Internet. In 1997, President Clinton recognized their work with the U.S. National Medal of Technology. In 2005, Vint and Bob received the highest civilian honor bestowed in the U.S., the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It recognizes the fact that their work on the software code used to transmit data across the Internet has put them “at the forefront of a digital revolution that has transformed global commerce, communication, and entertainment”.
The grounds for my nomination: The Internet has promoted peace in every corner of the world by bringing people of different nations closer together. It has made it easier for small nations to do business with larger nations and build capital and contacts. It has spread information in and out of countries which have traditionally had closed borders, and in that way it contributes to the break down of cultural and religious barriers. The globalization process brings nations and people closer together, and as this blog is an example people from different continents and countries can exchange ideas in a free and open forum.
I will meet Vint at The Norwegian Society’s yearly IT Award Ceremony and I take it he will be thrilled by the idea :-) We have also arranged a meeting for him with The Norwegian Ministry of Government Administration and Reform, to sort out the lack of good maps and pictures from Norway at Google Earth.
You see every parliamentarian around the world can nominate for The Peace Price. So why don’t you talk to the one you know, so that we can see Mr. Cerf getting the award he deserve next year. I can assure you, I’ll do the same! Are you with me?
Muhammad Yunus awarded The Nobel Peace Prize
History, Tradition
This evening I had the great privilege of being invited to an event celebrating the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank, which immediately preceded the Nobel Peace Prize Concert. It was a great thrill to hear his speech on how Micro-credit has proved to be an important liberating force in societies where women in particular have to struggle against repressive social and economic conditions. Economic growth and political democracy can not achieve their full potential unless the female half of humanity participates on an equal footing with the male.
All pics taken with my Nokia mobile phone – please click to enlarge!
Following the winners speech, we heard a presentation from some of the clients of Grameen Bank who told their personal and moving stories of how small loan to by e.g. sawing machine, material, or even a cow, enable them to start small businesses which eventually allowed them to work their way out of extreme poverty and even employ others within their villages. My wife remarked that this must be true feminism. I do agree as it is a big difference between women fighting for their place in management and woman who are fighting for their family and villages survival. It really shows that little people with a good idea can achieve great things.
At the end of the event, we heard music from the African drum player George Kitogo Sferunjogi from Uganda. He uses the earnings from his performances to give Micro-credits to the people of his homeland.
Of course Norwegians are proud to have the honour of presenting The Nobel Peace prize every year. Due to this we’ve had winners visiting Oslo like Mother Theresa (India), Lech Wałęsa (Poland), Elie Wiesel (USA), Dalai Lama (Tibet), Wangari Maathai (Kenya) among others.
Referral links:
The Nobel Peace Prize, Grameen Foundation, The Norwegian Nobel Institute and Nobel Peace centre in Oslo.
PS: For my regular readers: I will serve you Rakfisk tomorrow:-)
The Nobel Peace Prize Recidence
On my way from the buss to work this morning, I passed the Grand Hotel at Oslo’s main street, Karl Johan. It’s close to the parliament, the old university and the Kings Castle, so it gives you a majestic atmosphere. At this hotel, the Nobel Peace Price winner of the year take residence in the beginning of December every year to receive the award and give his speech in Oslo City Hall the 10th every December.
The Grand Hotel first opened its doors in 1874. The Louis XVI revival style building, with its hint of Nordic art nouveau and characteristic clock tower from 1913, is right on Karl Johans gate, Oslo’s main street, and stands as a symbol of a first-class hotel with tradition, atmosphere and style.
The Nobel Peace Prize for 2005 was to be shared, in two equal parts, between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its Director General, Mohamed ElBaradei. Any suggestions for candidates in 2006?
If you like to read more about The Nobel Peace Prize, click here!
If you like to visit The Grand Hotel, click her!
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Star Woes
https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/star-woes/
From the January 1999 Issue Subscribe
CHRIS ROBERTS, the head of Austin-based Digital Anvil, is now shooting for a new set of stars. The thirty-year-old computer-game designer has finished directing his first film, Wing Commander, which is based on Roberts’ wildly popular CD-ROM games of the same name. The $27 million movie is scheduled for release in February or March, but some familiar faces from the game won’t make it to the big screen. For one, Malcolm McDowell’s character, Admiral Tolwyn, will be played by veteran actor David Warner. The real shock, though, is that Mark Hamill will not reprise his role as the dashing, world-weary Commander Blair. The movie, Roberts explains, reaches back to the first Wing Commander, when Blair is fresh out of the academy. “I love Mark, but it was going to be difficult to make him look twenty-one or twenty-two” says the director. Instead, young actor Freddie Prinze, Jr. (I Know What You Did Last Summer), will play Blair. Roberts does offer a nugget of hope to Hamill fans. Asked if the star would make a cameo appearance, he replies: “Well, he’s not on the screen, and I won’t say anything else.” Then, with a sly giggle, he adds, “But you never know.”
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Home Listen Contact Us About Shop Our Fans Victim Resources
HomeListenContact UsAboutShopOur FansVictim Resources
This Is Murder
This Is Murder takes people down a new path, to the story within the story of any given murder. This podcast focuses largely on the victims, but approaches their pain with a cathartic, dark sense of humor. Listeners can expect to hear all the nitty gritty. They’ll be challenged to think about the untold ripple effect that every murder leaves behind. Listener discretion advised.
Jones & Buttafuoco who, combined, have 50 years of dealing with murder, approach each murder case with a no-holds-barred attitude. The verdict is: they let it all hang out.
Aphrodite Jones
Aphrodite Jones knows the crime world first hand. She’s a TV persona who doesn’t sugar-coat important issues for viewers and is a best-selling true crime author who uses her reporter’s hunch to investigate and write about murder. Through her eyes, Jones brings her audience inside a murder case to reveal the dark motives behind each tragedy. Over the past two decades, Jones has written a string of best-selling true crime books which have inspired true-crime movies. She has also provided expert TV commentary for every major cable and TV network, detailing the complex connections between psycho-killers and their unsuspecting victims.
When Jones wrote her first book, The FBI Killer, it was quickly turned into an ABC movie-of-the-week, Betrayed by Love, starring Patricia Arquette. Not long after, Jones landed the exclusive rights to a teen crime drama that she chronicled in Cruel Sacrifice, a book which hit the top of The New York Times best seller list and has become somewhat of a cult classic. Her third book, All He Wanted, was one of the first true crime accounts of a transgender murder in America. All He Wanted was later transformed into the film Boys Don't Cry, which put Hilary Swank on the map. Jones’ seventh book, A Perfect Husband, will be re-released in May 2019. In it, Jones tells the real story behind convicted killer Michael Peterson, the star and main subject of the riveting docu-series, The Staircase, currently streaming on Netflix.
Jones has a penchant for “telling it like it is” and in her 25 years of crime reporting, she has been asked to investigate and comment on everything from the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks to the trial of drug kingpin El Chapo Guzman. Jones has personally covered the trials of Michael Jackson, Casey Anthony, Robert Blake, Phil Spector, George Zimmerman, Scott Peterson, Drew Peterson, Jerry Sandusky, Bill Cosby, the BTK, O.J. Simpson, and “El Chapo” Guzman. She has appeared as a crime expert on CNN, HLN, MSNBC, CNBC, FOX News, NBC, CBS, Court TV, ID, MTV, REELZ, TLC, E! News, OXYGYN, Entertainment Tonight, Inside Edition, Extra!, Anderson Cooper Live, Nancy Grace, Montel Williams, Maury Povitch, Sally Jesse Raphael, Geraldo, Forensic Files, Celebrity Justice, The New Detectives, Medical Detectives, American Justice, Deadline Crime, The Jury Speaks, The Deadliest Decade, CBS This Morning, The Today Show, Dateline NBC, and Dr. OZ. In recent years, the author created a hit reality true crime series, True Crime with Aphrodite Jones, which aired on Investigation Discovery for six seasons.
http://www.aphroditejones.com/
Jessie Buttafuoco
Jessie Buttafuoco brought humor and sass to the airwaves as Co-Host of the ‘Shane and Friends’ Podcast with popular YouTuber, Shane Dawson. Her wit and lack of filter lead to hilarity each week while interviewing celebrity guests and social media stars.
Jessie credits her humor to a tumultuous childhood, like so many of us have had. Coming from a pair of infamous parents, Jessie has had her fair share of unique experiences (to say the least). She’s appeared on a variety of talk shows including (but not limited to) Oprah Winfrey, Ricki Lake, Howard Stern, and most recently, Dr. Oz.
Growing up, Jessie found that participating in Arts programs helped her cope with the craziness that was her life. Because of this, she now owns and operates Encore Arts Center, a children’s theatre production company in Los Angeles California where she directs and choreographs musicals for children of all ages and abilities. She is passionate about providing children with a safe and creative space to grow as performers and overall human beings.
After her appearance on the Dr. Oz Show with Aphrodite Jones, Jessie was inspired to get back into the podcasting game, this time, on a more serious level: True Crime. Because she grew up around crime and experienced its’ ripple effect first-hand, Jessie has a unique and powerful perspective that many people can relate to and benefit from on “This is Murder.”
http://www.jessiebuttafuoco.com/
About Details 1
© 2019 This is Murder. All Rights Reserved. Website designed by Digital Sypher.
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Town backs CCTV call after crime wave at park
Witney supports petition for CCTV in The Leys
By James Roberts Reporter
Jack's injuries after he was attacked in Witney last month. Background - The Leys park (Google Maps)
THE mother of a boy who was brutally attacked at a Witney Park claims CCTV in the troubled park is long overdue.
Kim Clout’s petition calling for cameras in The Leys has received more than 1,100 signatures since being set up after her son, Jack, was assaulted there.
The beating is one of many worrying recent incidents at the park and came two hours before a man was hospitalised by a gang of ‘up to eight’ people nearby.
Read also: Man brutally beaten by 'group of eight' near The Leys
Witney MP Robert Courts is backing the petition and called for the town to ‘get a grip’ on anti-social behaviour, while Witney Town Council says CCTV in The Leys has been a ‘long term aspiration’.
Ms Clout works at a nearby assisted living facility and says the latest attacks are part of a growing problem.
She said: “My friends and family have been saying it’s needed for a while. The incident with Jack isn’t isolated.
“My nan broke down when she saw Jack’s face. Her and my auntie don’t want to walk through the Leys, even during the daytime.
She’s lived here all her life and it shouldn’t be like that.”
Thugs knocked Jack unconscious and stamped on his head in the seemingly unprovoked assault near the skate park on Saturday, June 29.
Read also: Teenager knocked out in shocking attack at park
Police are investigating the attack, which happened between 10pm and 10.30pm, but have so far not reported any arrests.
Ms Clout, 36, said: “Jack couldn’t give a clear witness statement as he was knocked out.
“CCTV would have showed it or it might even never have happened.
“The council should ask the people of Witney what they want, because I don’t know one person that wouldn’t go for it.”
Police do not believe the attack on Jack, 17, is linked to the second incident that night, which saw a 28-year-old man set upon by a gang between midnight and 12.30am on Sunday, June 30 between The Leys and St Mary's Court. He sustained a fractured eye socket and shoulder and back injuries in the attack.
Much-loved Witney cafe The Coffee Shed, located in The Leys, has also repeatedly been targeted and was burgled in the early hours of April 18.
Read also: Spate of anti-social behaviour in Witney
The business was unavailable for comment amid rumours of more anti-social behaviour last week.
Witney MP Mr Courts responded to the latest attack by throwing his 'full weight' behind the petition.
He said: “There is a growing problem of anti-social behaviour at the park, with the regular sight of under-age drinking and vandalism making residents feel unsafe.
“Recent cases of violence – including the two dreadful incidents on the night of LibFest – show the need to get a grip on this issue."
The park's three-year Public Space Protection Order (PSPO), which bans certain activities, has now expired, but meetings are set to take place with a view to it being renewed.
Read also: Police urge Leys vandals not to be a 'stereotype'
The town council contributes £10,000 per year to Witney's CCTV scheme, which is run by Thames Valley Police and West Oxfordshire District Council and is currently under review.
A mobile camera was placed in The Leys 15 years ago but was never replaced, but the town council hoped to have CCTV installed in the park when the play area and paddling pool were upgraded in 2015.
A spokesperson said the match funding originally promised 'was not forthcoming', adding that the council's capital budget in 2018 included £10,000 for CCTV in The Leys, Burwell Recreation Ground and Burwell Hall.
The spokesperson added: "It has been a long term aspiration to have CCTV on the Leys, however the town council has to ensure that it would be effective and resourced effectively – the only solution to ensure it is monitored appropriately would be to have it linked to the Town CCTV Scheme."
Read also: Teenager attacked by up to 12 people at skate park
She added: "Given the wide expanse of the Leys Recreation Ground the location of the camera would need to be carefully considered to ensure the optimum coverage of the area – particularly given the amount of trees in the vicinity."
Last month, the town council approved a range of measures aimed at returning sustainable youth services to Witney, to help counter the changing landscape of youth work in Witney and a spate of antisocial behaviour.
Steve Good, the district council's cabinet member for communities and housing, said: “I continue to work closely with the police to consider the best way to safeguard our communities in Witney and I’m confident that by taking a partnership approach, we will identify ways to deter such behaviour and to encourage people to enjoy all the town has to offer in ways that don’t cause alarm and distress to others.”
A Thames Valley Police spokesperson added: "We are working with our partners to review the crime prevention measures that are currently in place.
"Installing CCTV on The Leys is one of the options that is under discussion with WTC and WODC. All incidents reported to the police are taken seriously."
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Pan-European project maps the Internet of the future
Brussels, 02 Dec 2004
The Internet will be a very different creature in 2025. For a start, it will have grown. Between 2000 and 2004, Internet usage grew by 124 per cent in Europe alone, and 125.2 per cent worldwide. As it develops, the Internet must also automate processes that are currently performed manually.
With Internet growth and activities increasing daily, there will come a time when problems arise unless this increasing complexity is planned for. This is the premise for the EVERGROW project, funded under the information society technologies (IST) section of the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6).
The Integrated Project, which involves 28 partners, aims to further understanding of the problems and processes that are expected to accompany the growth of the Internet so that they can be managed according to scientific principles. 'We want to devise and plan a better service,' according to project coordinator Professor Scott Kirkpatrick from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The project is divided into five sub-projects: on measurement and modelling; virtual network observatory; self-healing systems; message passing; and market mechanisms. It is from the project carrying out measurement work that the first results are expected. 'If you want to extrapolate the Internet, you first have to measure it,' explained Professor Kirkpatrick.
There have been previous attempts to measure and map the Internet, but this is the most systematic and ambitious effort so far, according to Professor Kirkpatrick. Most Internet maps resemble a tree, he explained, whereas the EVERGROW project is measuring from leaf to leaf within that tree in order to provide information on topology and traffic patterns at a previously unobtainable resolution in terms of time and space. Much previous work on Internet topology has relied on a few static snapshots, which are both out of date and US-centric, according to the project team. The consortium is already spotting connections that were unknown before. 'We are well beyond the point of seeing a tree,' Professor Kirkpatrick told CORDIS News.
Researchers involved in the sub-project DIMES are inviting Internet users everywhere to assist in the mapping of the Internet by downloading software (reference below) that will measure network patterns and send the corresponding data back to the consortium. The results of this work could lead to the provision of real time information, for example, on which countries are particularly difficult to contact at a certain moment. 'To do this, we need to put measurers everywhere,' said Professor Kirkpatrick, emphasising the need for Europe's Internet users to get involved. Joining DIMES is simple - the Windows client can be downloaded from http:///www.netdimes.org.
The consortium will first investigate how the tens of thousands of Autonomous Systems (typically, a single administrative domain) work. 'We want to learn more about what's inside them. Once we can characterise what we see, we can measure how things are growing,' said Professor Kirkpatrick.
One area of high growth is downloading music. One of the project's objectives is to devise a plan for a better service for sharing files or using chat rooms. EVERGROW is not confined to these parameters, however. 'The future is not just music, it's video streaming and being able to work continuously with others in an 'always on' fashion. We are also moving towards studying mobile computing as well,' explained Professor Kirkpatrick.
The outcomes of the project will be both inventions and knowledge, which together can be used to build a model of the future Internet. 'We may start a company or two, but that's not our aim or how we want to be judged,' said Professor Kirkpatrick. The results will be accessible to everyone through a virtual observatory.
For further information on EVERGROW, please visit:
http:///www.evergrow.org
For further information on DIMES, please visit:
http:///www.netdimes.org
CORDIS RTD-NEWS / © European Communities
Item source: http:///dbs.cordis.lu/cgi-bin/srchidadb?C ALLER=NHP_EN_NEWS&ACTION=D&SESSION=&RCN= EN_RCN_ID:23012
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Massive fire engulfs beloved Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris
By Lori Hinnant and Samuel Petrequin / The Associated Press
PARIS — A massive fire engulfed the upper reaches of Paris' soaring Notre Dame Cathedral as it was undergoing renovations Monday, threatening one of the greatest architectural treasures of the Western world as tourists and Parisians looked on aghast from the streets below.
The blaze collapsed the cathedral's spire and spread to one of its landmark rectangular towers, but Paris fire chief Jean-Claude Gallet said the church's structure had been saved after firefighters managed to stop the fire spreading to the northern belfry.
The 12th-century cathedral is home to incalculable works of art and is one of the world's most famous tourist attractions, immortalized by Victor Hugo's 1831 novel "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."
The exact cause of the blaze was not known, but French media quoted the Paris fire brigade as saying the fire is "potentially linked" to a $6.8 million renovation project on the church's spire and its 250 tons of lead. The Paris prosecutors' office ruled out arson and possible terror-related motives, and said it was treating it as an accident.
As the spire fell, the sky lit up orange and flames shot out of the roof behind the nave of the cathedral, among the most visited landmarks in the world. Hundreds of people lined up bridges around the island that houses the church, watching in shock as acrid smoke rose in plumes. Speaking alongside junior Interior minister Laurent Nunez late Monday, police chief Jean-Claude Gallet said "two thirds of the roofing has been ravaged." Gallet said firefighters would keep working overnight to cool down the building.
Late Monday, signs pointed to the fire nearing an end as lights could be seen through the windows moving around the front of the cathedral, apparently investigators inspecting the scene. Remarkably, only one of the about 400 firefighters who battled the blaze was injured, officials said.
The fire came less than a week before Easter amid Holy Week commemorations. As the cathedral burned, Parisians gathered to pray and sing hymns outside the church of Saint Julien Les Pauvres across the river from Notre Dame while the flames lit the sky behind them. Paris Archbishop Michel Aupetit invited priests across France to ring church bells in a call for prayers.
French President Emmanuel Macron was treating the fire as a national emergency, rushing to the scene and straight into meetings at the Paris police headquarters nearby. He pledged to rebuild the church and said would seek international help to do so.
"The worse has been avoided although the battle is not yet totally won," the president said, adding that he would launch a national funding campaign on Tuesday and call on the world's "greatest talents" to help rebuild the monument.
Built in the 12th and 13th centuries, Notre Dame is the most famous of the Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages as well as one of the most beloved structures in the world. Situated on the Ile de la Cite, an island in the Seine river, its architecture is famous for, among other things, its many gargoyles and its iconic flying buttresses.
Among the most celebrated artworks inside are its three stained-glass rose windows, placed high up on the west, north and south faces of the cathedral. Its priceless treasures also include a Catholic relic, the crown of thorns, which is only occasionally displayed, including on Fridays during Lent.
French historian Camille Pascal told BFM broadcast channel the blaze marked "the destruction of invaluable heritage."
"It's been 800 years that the Cathedral watches over Paris", Pascal said. "Happy and unfortunate events for centuries have been marked by the bells of Notre Dame."
He added: "We can be only horrified by what we see."
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said in a Twitter message that Paris firefighters were still trying to limit the fire and urged Paris citizens to respect the security perimeter that has been set around the cathedral.
Hidalgo said Paris authorities are in touch with the Paris diocese.
Reactions from around the world came swiftly including from the Vatican, which released a statement expressing shock and sadness for the "terrible fire that has devastated the Cathedral of Notre Dame, symbol of Christianity in France and in the world."
In Washington, Trump tweeted: "So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris" and suggested first responders use "flying water tankers" to put it out.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, said he was praying "to ask the intercession of Notre Dame, our Lady, for the Cathedral at the heart of Paris, and of civilization, now in flames! God preserve this splendid house of prayer, and protect those battling the blaze."
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Oregon’s Most Profitable Hospital Has No Charity Care, Favors Private Insurers
McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center in Springfield is embroiled in a nurse staffing dispute, with critics claiming it makes profits through understaffing.
McKenzie Willamette Medical Center by Christian Wihtol.jpg
McKenzie-Williamette Medical Center/Christian Wihtol/The Lund Report
Oregon’s most profitable hospital, McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center, sits in an unlikely spot in the center of blue-collar Springfield, hemmed in by old strip malls and modest residential neighborhoods.
Don’t let the unassuming locale fool you: Last year, the hospital, owned by Tennessee-based Quorum Health Corp., posted a profit of just over $50 million, giving it a 25 percent profit margin, according to Oregon Health Authority data. The average profit margin at other Oregon hospitals didn’t even reach 7 percent that year.
McKenzie-Willamette, with 113 beds, also had the top hospital profit margin in 2016. Over the past five years, it enjoyed an average yearly profit of nearly $45 million while many other Oregon hospitals have struggled to post even a small profit.
But critics say McKenzie-Willamette is making money off the backs of patients by hiring too few nurses. It may even be breaking the state’s nurse staffing laws, prompting an investigation by the Oregon Health Authority.
The Oregon Nurses Association, which represents nurses statewide, says McKenzie-Willamette’s high profits are due in part to the hospital failing to provide legally required levels of staffing.
In February, the state filed a 49-page complaint against the hospital, saying that between 2016 and early 2018 the hospital violated 20 state nurse staffing rules, many of them multiple times. The hospital failed to develop and implement proper nurse staffing plans in the women’s health unit, cardiovascular intensive care unit, emergency department, short-stay unit, endoscopy unit and pre-anesthesia testing unit, the report says.
The state interviewed nurses, managers and executives. Nurses said that to save money the hospital has cut certified nursing assistants and pushed more work on to nurses, prompting nurses often to work through their required breaks in order to get their jobs done.
McKenzie-Willamette is “trying to squeeze every dollar they can in profits,” said Gary Aguiar, a labor relations representative for the union.
“Caregiver fatigue is a safety issue for nurses and patients alike” at the hospital, the union added in a statement.
McKenzie-Willamette declined to respond to The Lund Report’s questions about its staffing levels and the state report. Instead, it issued a statement: “McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center continues to build on the care we provide to Lane County and the surrounding community. We continually seek and attain national quality and safety accreditations. While striving for these accreditations, (the hospital) has increased efficiencies, maximized resources and maintained our commitment to provide high-quality care.”
The hospital responded to the state’s complaint with a corrective plan that’s under review. No details will be released until the plan is approved, said health authority spokesman Jonathan Modie. He isn’t sure when that will be.
State complaints to hospitals about their nurse staffing are not unusual. So far this year, the state has filed complaints against a dozen other hospitals about nurse staffing. The state is working with each hospital on a compliance plan.
The state’s staffing rules require hospitals to have nurse staffing committees that develop staffing plans based on hospital patient volumes and other data. The rules require hospitals to implement the staffing plans, ensuring safe staff-patient ratios.
Stressing their commitment to the Springfield community, McKenzie-Willamette officials point to their ongoing $105 million expansion and remodel of the facility, to be completed next year.
(See By The Numbers for details of McKenzie-Willamette's growth since 2012.)
From Near Bankruptcy To Profit
McKenzie-Willamette has not always been profitable. It opened in 1955 as a nonprofit. In the early 2000s, with dwindling financial reserves and an aging facility, it verged on bankruptcy, unable to compete with its much larger metro-area rival, PeaceHealth Sacred Heart, a nonprofit.
McKenzie-Willamette’s leaders, eager to preserve a hospital to serve the Springfield community, sold the facility to a for-profit hospital chain in 2003. The hospital passed through a series of for-profit ownerships, ending up with publicly traded Quorum in 2016.
Quorum bought McKenzie-Willamette in a package deal with several dozen other mid-market and rural hospitals across the country. The inclusion of McKenzie-Willamette turned out to be a boon for Quorum. The one-time financial dud has become a star in Quorum’s portfolio. According to Quorum’s filings with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, McKenzie-Willamette’s revenues have been crucial to help Quorum meet debt payments on the $1.2 billion high-interest loan it used to buy the collection of hospitals, a number of them weak financial performers.
It’s unclear how McKenzie-Willamette is making so much money: It won’t divulge details about its finances or talk in detail about its strategy.
Public data suggest that McKenzie-Willamette’s tactics – aside from allegedly skimping on staffing - include cutting charity care to zero, limiting bad debt, focusing on patients with commercial insurance and charging higher than average prices for some procedures.
The Oregon Health Authority gathers plenty of data about hospital revenues and costs, but it doesn’t analyze hospital profitability. McKenzie-Willamette is one of only two for-profit hospitals in the state. The other is Willamette Valley Medical Center in McMinnville, also highly profitable, and a regular contender for the state’s top profitability spot. All the state’s other hospitals operate as nonprofits.
"(The Oregon Health Authority) cannot provide specific details why McKenzie-Willamette maintains high operating (profit) margins, but a for-profit hospital may make different business decisions than other non-profit peer hospitals,” said the authority’s lead spokesman, Robb Cowie.
Union representative Aguiar said there is a “chasmic difference” between the profits at McKenzie-Willamette and at Oregon’s nonprofit hospitals. “Clearly they have a different model,” he said.
All hospitals, whether for-profit or nonprofit, strive for an annual profit. The difference is that nonprofits don’t worry about their stock price or have to make payouts to shareholders. Instead, they use profits from one entity to subsidize other health-care operations that may be losing money. Or they squirrel profits away for later use on capital projects, operating costs or other expenses.
Nonprofit PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend, the Eugene-Springfield area’s biggest hospital, reported $77 million in net profit on revenues of $666 million in its 2017 fiscal year, a profit margin of 11 percent, according to health authority data.
Hospital Focuses On Profit Areas
Under Quorum, McKenzie-Willamette pared charity care down to zero in both 2016 and 2017. State law does not require for-profit hospitals to provide charity care, the health authority said. The state requires non-profit hospitals to provide charity care but doesn’t specify an amount, Cowie said.
As recently as 2012, McKenzie-Willamette, under its previous for-profit owner, reported spending $2.6 million on charity care.
The reduction in charity care may be due in part to the expansion of the Oregon Health Plan, Oregon’s version of Medicaid, under the Affordable Care Act. Now one-quarter of Oregonians are covered by taxpayer-funded Medicaid insurance, reducing the need for hospitals to provide free charity care. RiverBend provided $44 million in charity care in 2012. By 2017, the hospital had cut that to $12 million.
McKenzie-Willamette has also pruned its bad debt, the bills owed by patients who are unable to pay, because they lack money or insurance. In 2017, the hospital reported $5.5 million in bad debt. That’s down from $12 million in 2012.
Overall, Oregon hospitals’ bad debt, like charity care, has dropped due to the Affordable Care Act’s expansion. RiverBend had just over $25 million in bad debt in 2012. By 2017, that plunged to more than $10 million.
Aguiar said the Medicaid expansion has boosted hospital profits nationwide, at least in the short term.
McKenzie-Willamette also appears to focus heavily on patients with commercial insurance, which experts say pays more than Medicaid or Medicare.
State data for 2017 indicate that more than 50 percent of McKenzie-Willamette patient revenues came from commercial insurance, compared with a statewide average of about 30 percent. State data also show that McKenzie earned nearly 25 percent of its revenue from Medicare patients -- compared with nearly 45 percent on average in the state.
McKenzie-Willamette charges relatively high rates for a number of procedures. New data on pricing compiled by the state show that McKenzie-Willamette charges some of the highest rates in the state for gallbladder surgery, heart catheterization, hernia repair, hysterectomies, abdominal drainage, and nasal endoscopies, to name a few. It’s unclear how important these procedures are for McKenzie-Willamette revenues.
The data also show the hospital charges average or below-average rates for other procedures.
The overall care at McKenzie-Willamette earns three stars out of a maximum of five from Medicare. That’s the most common overall rating nationwide, according to Medicare. RiverBend and PeaceHealth’s University District Medical Center in Eugene each rate two stars. PeaceHealth’s hospitals in Florence and Cottage Grove each rate four stars.
More Growth Ahead
The $105 million facility revamp is greatly enlarging McKenzie-Willamette, remodeling 56,000 square feet of the existing 200,000-square-foot-facility and adding 153,000 square feet.
A main focus of the expansion has been to create private rooms for most patients, a dramatic shift from the hospital’s long-time standard of shared rooms. The new format has 98 patient rooms, some of which can hold two patients.
Parts of the expansion were completed in 2017, and the final work is due to be finished next year.
The expansion includes adding 15 private patient exam rooms to the emergency department, bringing the total of 38. The hospital also will add a second cardiac catheterization lab, where devices that keep the heart pumping are implanted through minimally invasive procedures.
The project has created a new entrance to the hospital and a large lobby for non-emergency patients.
The hospital’s staff stands at more than 900 full and part-time workers, including 354 registered nurses.
Reach Christian Wihtol at [email protected].
for-profit hospital, mckenzie-willamette
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Resurrecting the Sin: Catching up with WHUT? Written by: Matt Drummond
17 July 2018 Editor Affiliates 0
Whut? : "Still Laughing" July 2018
Whut? : “Still Laughing” July 2018
Resurrecting the Sin: Catching up with WHUT?
Written by: Matt Drummond
Back in 2007, a band calling themselves WHUT? expelled their inaugural EP, ‘Through it All, We Stand Tall’. The bands thrashing entrance was followed by a deep rooted, DIY onslaught of stage performances. Throughout the multitude of shows, WHUT? linked up with SBE Records to record their first full length album, ‘Laughing with the Sinners’, which emerged in August, 2010.
After a handful of lineup changes, this Chicago punk/thrash/hardcore hybrid has cemented a powerful lineup, and done an about face. Philly D (drums), Jeremy Keen (vocals), Jerome Marshall (guitar), Gregory Charles (guitar), and Bob Mullaney (bass), are primed, and ready to show fans the demon they’ve become.
“I definitely decided to join when Greg asked me. I was trying to change my style, and play more hardcore influenced riffs, because that shit is fun. I’m from the school of technical, and melodic metal. I just threw the idea of jamming together his way, and he was like ‘fuck it, I’ve wanted a second guitarist in the band forever, especially one that hits the grooves, and gets it.’ The rest is history.”
–Jerome Marshall
August 10th, 2018, will be the chaperone for the new offering from these guys. Having heard it, I can tell you with the utmost confidence, that the new EP, ‘Still Laughing’, is a downpour of aggression. As I got more acclimated with the bands sound, I was curious what the vision for the band was at the beginning, and now.
“We definitely wanted to write tunes influenced by the hardcore bands we listened to, but we didn’t really have a formula that we felt we had to stick to. We were a bunch of hardcore kids, metalheads, punk rockers, that also listened to hip hop. There hasn’t ever been any rules in place, for how we write a song. As time has gone by, and the number of songs that we’ve written has risen, I do think our sound has changed a bit. A band always has to evolve in a sense, but the way we write the songs remains the same. So I guess my original vision of the band is a bit different than what it is currently, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all.”
–Philly D
As I got into the new EP, I could hear exactly what Philly was talking about. The diversity of sound on this album is crazy. From melodic riffs, to blazing thrash, WHUT? shifts their sound to perfection. The EP screams open with, ‘Goddamn Waste’. The vast talent in this band, is immediately noticed. With each change in tempo, comes another influence, and its pretty remarkable. WHUT? even decided to pay respects to the Cro-Mags, on ‘Still Laughing’, with their own rendition of the song, ‘We Gotta Know’. Curious where all these influences came from? Gregory Charles gave me some insight, as to where it began for him.
“The intro to Megadeth’s album, ‘So Far, So Good, So What’ really got me early on. I had to be 5 years old, at my cousins house, when I first heard it. After that, he showed me stuff like Slayer, Metallica, Maiden, etc, and it just kind of spun out from there. The first actual song that got me, was Ozzy, and Randy Rhoads, ‘Crazy Train’. It didn’t stop there though. I remember when I was a kid, at Catholic school. I was showing people a Guns ‘N Roses booklet, and wound up getting suspended from school!”
Hey, thanks Catholic school. Due to your narrow mind, Gregory got extra time to study these bands that had such an influential impact on him. Your suspensions created a rock star, so for that, I thank you.
On August 1st, WHUT? will take their demon head out on the road, for a quick 6 show tour. Indiana will be the first pit stop for the boys, with Chicago being the last, and record release show. The record release will take place at The Cobra Lounge, on August 10th. After the culmination of the bands mini tour, do not expect them to take any breaks whatsoever.
“I’m hoping to do some more touring after that. We’ve been in talks with some west coast promoters about doing a run out there, and hopefully get over to Europe as well. We also have a bunch of other demo songs written, and recorded, from our last studio session that we need to go back through and finalize. Hopefully, we can write some other new stuff as well.”
Talking with the band, and listening to the track ‘Punk is Dead’, made me think of something. When WHUT? rolls into town, it’s not punk that’s dead. It’s the mainstream, corporate bullshit that’s dead. I’ll let Gregory fill you in about what being a metalhead is all about.
“Being a metal fan, is about drawing a line in the sand, and picking which side you stand on. It’s a raw, brute energy, that has a deep connection to the soul that not everyone gets.”
If you live in, or near Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Illinois, I suggest you make it out to see this band. The line in the sand has been drawn, which side will you end up on?
Live interview
Matt Drummond
WHUT?
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The Nuba: prisoners of geography
Forgotten Conflicts - South Kordofan
Nuba reports
Note de l'auteur
With additional reporting by Rachel Harvey and Andrew Gully
Women and children have learned to recognise the distinctive sound of the Sudanese Air Force’s Ukrainian-made Antonov bombers long before they see them. Their lives depend on it. They look fearfully to the sky, run to their foxholes and hunker down.
The relentless bombing is accompanied by a scorched earth campaign on the ground designed to destroy crops, disintegrate communities, and starve the rebel forces into submission. Thousands of civilians have taken to living in caves: the only refuge from the bombs and the indiscriminate violence.
Small Arms Survey; cartography by MAPgrafix
Welcome to the Nuba Mountains region of Sudan’s South Kordofan state, where a long-oppressed and largely forgotten minority is refusing to be driven away.
President Omar al-Bashir and his Khartoum-based regime say they are fighting a rebellion in South Kordofan driven by vested interests and Western plotters that want to overthrow his government. The Nuba say they are fighting for their own survival.
Children hide in a cave to escape aerial bombardment by the Sudanese government forces in South Kordofan, Sudan, April 24, 2012
“All of our cattle, our clothes, our food, our beds, and even the houses we sleep in – there is nothing left. Everything was burned,” a displaced Nuba villager, who preferred to remain anonymous, told IRIN. “We came barefoot. We didn’t have anything. Only these caves that we swept and are now living in.”
Nagwa Konda, director of the Nuba Relief, Rehabilitation and Development Organisation (NRRDO) – a local NGO that struggles to cater for the desperate needs of the Nuba – said hope in her region was fading.
“There is a catastrophic humanitarian situation going on right now in the Nuba Mountains,” Konda told IRIN.
“Children in the Nuba Mountains are suffering from daily aerial bombardment, from hunger, dying from preventable diseases,” she said. “It is the responsibility of the international community to intervene and protect these children."
Giovanni Diffidenti
Students look up concerned that an Antonov airplane is flying over. Their original school in Tangal Village was bombed 3 years ago. Since then, they have moved twice.
“Women are suffering too. They walk for an hour or two to fetch five gallons of water only to find a bomb has either killed their child or burnt down their whole house when they return.”
Tales of war from places like Syria and Iraq are never far from the headlines, but the appalling – and worsening – situation in South Kordofan, cut off from humanitarian aid and with only one functioning hospital, rarely gets mentioned. When Sudan makes the news, it is usually only because of the civil war in neighbouring South Sudan, where between 50,000 and 100,000 people have died in 18 months of conflict.
By comparison, South Kordofan’s death toll of 4,500 over four years seems insignificant. But for the people of the Nuba Mountains, the conflict is seen an existential threat. They believe the same man tried to drive them out before.
“So many agreements have been signed and I can tell you with confidence that none have been adhered to. It’s been four years since the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel was set up and they haven’t moved an inch forward. People are dying every day.” - Nagwa Konda
FROM OPPRESSION TO ERADICATION
The Nuba, numbering between one and two million, are a collection of distinct peoples of black African origin who speak an array of different languages. Many are now Muslim, but there are Christian and animist Nuba too.
Along with a few Arab pastoralist tribes, they have the geographical misfortune of living on the fault line between Sudan’s largely Arab and Islamic north and its predominantly Christian, animist and black African south.
The origins of their oppression date back to the colonial era when the British segregated them, declaring the Nuba Mountains region a special “Closed District.” The Nuba were not allowed to stray northwards without a special permit and schooling was left up to missionaries.
When Sudan emerged from British rule in 1956, the Nuba were already politically, economically and socially marginalised and lacked any educational system. The next 30 years, much of it taken up by the First Sudanese Civil War, saw the gulf widen as successive regimes in Khartoum pursued policies of racial discrimination against the Nuba and other black northerners.
When the Second Sudanese Civil War erupted in 1983, the alternative message of equality and inclusion of the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and its charismatic commander-in-chief John Garang resonated with Nuba leaders. By 1987, an alliance had formed. Garang took the fight north through the central state of South Kordofan. The Nuba Mountains became a key rebel stronghold.
After seizing power as a brigadier in a military coup in June 1989, Bashir began presiding over an increasingly hardline Islamist state. The Nuba were made to pay an extraordinarily high price for their resistance.
Arab militias and paramilitaries, already long used to waging Khartoum’s Islamification campaigns, were formally incorporated into the Sudanese military as the Popular Defense Forces. A jihad was declared in South Kordofan. A fatwa made it clear that Nuba Muslims were not to be spared either.
Christian and animist Nuba were forced into so-called “peace camps,” along with any Muslim SPLA sympathisers. Women and girls became “temporary wives” for pro-Bashir fighters. Rape was encouraged and routine. Children and young men were abducted and sold into slavery.
Ultimately, tens of thousands were killed and hundreds of thousands forced from their homes in what human rights groups and many observers believe was an attempt to “ethnically cleanse” South Kordofan of the Nuba people through a systematic campaign of murder, rape and resettlement.
Soldiers from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army – North (SPLA-N), climb through the mountains of South Kordofan, Sudan, April 25, 2012.
FROM CIVIL WAR TO MORE WAR
After the loss of up to two million lives across Sudan, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) finally brought an end to Sudan’s 22-year civil war in January 2005.
As a fragile peace took shape between the north and the south, a separate conflict in the western Darfur region was springing from the same roots of failed federalism and neglect of the peripheries.
Under the terms of the CPA, an overwhelming January 2011 referendum ushered in South Sudan’s independence, but the contested areas of Blue Nile and South Kordofan were left under Khartoum’s control, pending further “consultations.”
Garang’s death in a helicopter crash in July 2005, less than seven months after signing the CPA, was a blow for South Kordofan as the former rebel leader, then the national vice president, had been expected to push Khartoum hard to follow through on its promises of greater autonomy.
On 9 July 2011, South Sudan became the world’s youngest nation. From afar, there was a sense of optimism and some jubilation, hope certainly that the history of war might be replaced by a brighter narrative. But even as the world applauded, bombs were once againfalling on the people of the Nuba Mountains and the conflict that still grips South Kordofan today was well under way.
South Kordofan had been under the governorship since 2009 of Bashir’s trusted lieutenant Ahmed Haroun – like him indicted by the International Criminal Court for allegedly orchestrating atrocities in Darfur. As promised consultations on greater autonomy failed to materialise, so discontentment grew. When the delayed gubernatorial election was eventually held in May 2011 and Haroun beat ex-SPLA commander Abdulaziz al-Hilu by just 6,000 votes, the former rebels cried foul.
The touch paper was lit when the 20,000 SPLA fighters remaining in the north were asked to disarm in advance of South Sudan’s independence. They refused.
On 5 June 2011, South Kordofan was at war once again.
Soldiers from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army – North (SPLA-N), point at Sudanese government forces from the top of a mountain in South Kordofan (April 25, 2012)
The rebels, now the SPLA-North, largely drawn from northern remnants of the group that had won South Sudan’s independence, made quick gains.
Within months, the Bashir regime’s superior air power had stemmed the tide. Sudanese armed forces and Janjaweed militia from Darfur, rebranded as “Rapid Support Forces,” used light trucks with mounted machine-guns to conduct lightening raids on villages suspected of harbouring or supporting the rebels.
Very soon a grim pattern had formed.
“All indications suggest the conflict has settled into a vicious deadlock in which Khartoum is unable to dislodge the rebels ensconced in the Nuba Mountains, and the SPLA-N and its allies are incapable of holding much territory in the lowlands,” the International Crisis Group (ICG) said in a February 2013 report.
“The conflict shows every sign of strategic stalemate, with each side hoping pressure from elsewhere will change its foe’s calculations. Yet, it is exacting a horrendous toll, principally among civilians.”
The SPLA-N is a larger and better-resourced force than the Nuba contingent that fought off Khartoum’s eradication campaign in the 1990s. Now thought to number as many as 30,000 soldiers, it retained sophisticated weaponry when it splintered from the South Sudanese military.
The SPLA-N joined with two Darfuri rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) in November 2011. This alliance, known as the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF), gave it more military and political muscle and meant those trying to topple Bashir could attack his forces on multiple fronts.
By 2013, Bashir had deployed between 40,000 and 70,000 troops to South Kordofan, according to the ICG report. Local Arab tribes, the Misseriya, were coopted again by Khartoum to fight their black African rivals.
WORSENING HUMANITARIAN SITUATION
Since April 2012, almost 4,000 bombs have landed on civilian areas in South Kordofan, an average of between three and four every day. Out of the 4,577 recorded fatalities between June 2011 and May 2015, almost 500 were unarmed civilians, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED).
Civilians stand above a crater of a bomb that was dropped by the Sudanese government's forces in South Kordofan, Sudan, June 17, 2013.
The UN’s aid coordination agency, OCHA, says more than 565,000 people in the state are in need of humanitarian aid, of whom at least 184,600 are displaced.
“When the war started in 2011, it was bad. Every year, it is getting worse,” said NRRDO’s Konda. “People started by selling their properties, then they sold their livestock, now they have even started selling their utensils because they are starving.”
Last year saw a 55 percent increase in civilian deaths compared to 2013, and the situation in 2015, if anything, is getting worse.
Sources on the ground reported that more than 160 bombs fell in civilian areas in May, killing at least five people. Some locations were bombed for days on end and drones were seen scoping out churches and schools before they too were targeted. Fighter jets reportedly dropped four cluster bombs on 27 May in the same area – the Kauda valley – where a bomb had killed two children a couple of days before. Their mothers were also injured in the attack.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) pulled out of South Kordofan in January after its clinic was bombed for a second time, leaving Doctor Tom Catena at the Mother of Mercy Hospital as the last surgeon in the Nuba Mountains, performing around 1,000 surgeries a year.
Last December, Bashir vowed to end all of Sudan’s conflicts before the April 2015 election.
After operation “Decisive Summer” in 2014, he launched operation “Decisive Summer II” at the start of this year. But despite his rhetoric and nasty spikes in the intensity of the fighting, the frontlines have barely shifted since the outset of the conflict four years ago.
Because the Bashir regime forbids journalists from accessing South Kordofan, news is hard to gather, while humanitarian aid is hostage to an impossible Catch-22. The government insists that assistance to rebel areas must be overseen by its officials so it doesn’t go to the guerrillas, but the SPLA-N, fearing Bashir’s spies, says it must only come from areas not under government control.
The result is that the Nuba Mountains region, more accurately described as a large area of hills, is effectively under constant siege.
When the fighting is fiercest, some try to escape. At the start of this year, more than 500 people were fleeing from the Nuba Mountains every week to refugee camps in South Sudan. This is hardly a safe haven though, as a civil war is raging in South Sudan and Sudanese jets are accused of regular bombing raids there too.
PEACE EFFORTS
After winning more than 94 percent of the vote in April’s presidential election, Bashir was sworn in on 2 June for another five years: his promises to unite the country and offers of “full pardons” sounding hollow to rebel fighters.
More than three years since the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2046, calling for a negotiated settlement to the conflicts in Abyei, South Kordofan and Blue Nile, the peace process is in a state of paralysis. Sanctions and arms embargoes make little difference as Bashir’s regime is propped up by major investments from China, Qatar, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
The African Union, which has been mediating peace efforts under the stewardship of former South African president Thabo Mbeki, has sought to “synchronise” negotiations over Abyei, Blue Nile, Darfur and South Kordofan, but different processes remain.
Overshadowed by the civil war in South Sudan and the atrocities in Darfur, efforts to help the Nuba have fizzled out unnoticed. The latest round of talks involving South Kordofan was adjourned indefinitely when heavy fighting broke out in December.
“Given the situation in the Nuba Mountains, it is really unacceptable that the international community has been quiet all this time," said Konda.
“War in Sudan is not a new thing. The international community knows the tactics of the government of Omar al-Bashir. They know them very well. They don’t come to the negotiation table genuinely seeking a solution to the problem. They only come to buy time."
The Human Security Baseline Assessment (HSBA) for Sudan and South Sudan, a UN-backed research project, detailed alleged human rights abuses at the end of January.
“The vast majority (of violations were) reportedly committed by government or pro-government forces,” the study said, highlighting “indiscriminate and targeted aerial bombardment of civilian areas, recruitment of child soldiers, the mass rape of women and girls, the illegal detention of citizens in government-held areas.”
The international community was shown up for its failure to act by an unnamed interviewee quoted in April by the International Refugee Rights Initiative.
“I am sending my voice loudly to the international community and the Security Council to stop this government from killing its own civilians and to protect them,” the person was quoted as saying.
Facing what they see as a renewed threat to their existence, those joining the Nuba rebel ranks are quite clear about what is at stake.
"You want to ask me why I fight?” Thayr Urwa Hamdan Said, a new rebel recruit, exclaimed.
“After the separation of the South, Omar al-Bashir said that Sudan is now an Islamic Arab country that would be governed by Islamic sharia laws.”
"They have to recognise and bear in mind that there are other people living with them in this geographical area called Sudan," he told IRIN. "That is why if we do not overthrow this government we would be second-class citizens in our own country.”
"Your silence is a shame to humanity." - Unnamed interviewee
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Our Correspondent
Two injured for putting up resistance during mugging bids
Two men were injured by muggers on Wednesday in separate incidents as they offered resistance during attempted muggings.
A man was shot and injured for offering resistance during a mugging near the Super Highway. Police officials said the incident took place near Pakistan Kanta in Gulshan-e-Maymar within the limits of the Site Super Highway police station.
They said two unidentified armed men on a motorcycle shot and injured a 40-year-old man, Saeed, when he put up resistance. The assailants, fled the scene after shooting the man.
The injured man was taken to Abbassi Shaheed Hospital. A case was registered while further investigations are under way. In the second incident, a 25-year-old man, identified as Javed, was stabbed and injured for offering resistance during a robbery bid on Hub River Road in Baldia Town within the limits of the Saeedabad police station.
The injured man was taken to Civil Hospital. Police officials said unidentified persons stabbed him when he offered them resistance in the mugging. A case was registered while further investigations are under way.
Stray bullet injures woman
A woman was injured when she was hit by a stray bullet in the Macchar Colony area within the limits of the Docks police station. She was identified as 45-year-old Farida and was taken to Civil Hospital. Police officials said a stray bullet had hit and wounded her. The police registered a case over the incident.
Two extortionists arrested
Two suspected Lyari gangsters were arrested in injured condition after an exchange of fire with the Super Market police on Wednesday. Police officials said that Sher Yaqoob and Akbar Mohiuddin were arrested near the football ground in Ilyas Goth, Liaquatabad. The police also claimed to have recovered two pistols, a motorcycle and Rs100, 000 from the suspects, adding that the suspects had collected the extortion amount from a shopkeeper and they were trying to flee from the scene when the police intercepted and arrested them.
‘Criminal’ injured
A 25-year-old man, Ashiq Ali, was injured in a firing incident near Shoe Market in the Garden area. He was taken to the Civil Hospital for medical treatment. Police officials said that he could be a criminal as they had recovered an illegal weapon from his possession.
Suspected criminal found dead
A man was found dead in the outskirts of the city on Wednesday. Police officials said that the locals informed them about the presence of a body near from Malir River within the limits of the Sharafi Goth police station. The body was shifted to Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for an autopsy and later handed over to his family for burial. The victim person was later identified as 33-year-old Sharif, son of Hamid.
The police said Sharif was shot dead by some unidentified persons shot, adding that they had gathered his criminal record which suggested that he was a criminal and he alleged killed one of his gang members over a monetary dispute. A case has been registered while an investigation is underway.
30-year-old injured
A 30-year-old man, Rizwan, son of Khalid Essa, was shot and injured near Murghikhana Stop in the Quaidabad area. The injured man was taken to Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for medical treatment. Police officials said he was injured by some unidentified persons over unexplained reasons. A case has been registered while an investigation is underway.
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Feds Indict 7 Iranians in Infamous Bank Attacks
By Paul Wagenseil 2016-03-24T21:46:00Z Security
Seven Iranian men were formally accused of launching massive cyberattacks against U.S. bank websites in late 2012 and early 2013.
The Department of Justice indicted 7 Iranian nationals today (March 24) on charges related to the "Operation Ababil" wave of cyberattacks upon U.S. bank websites that lasted from the fall of 2012 through the spring of 2013.
(Image credit: mj007/Shutterstock)
The attacks "disabled victim bank websites, prevented customers from accessing their accounts online, and collectively cost the banks tens of millions of dollars in remediation costs," a DoJ press release said. It also said that "the attacks did not affect or result in the theft of customer account data."
Each of the seven defendants was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit and aid and abet computer hacking. One man was also charged with obtaining and aiding and abetting unauthorized access to a protected computer, related to a September 2013 network intrusion of the Bowman Avenue Dam in Rye, New York, just north of New York City. No damage was incurred at the dam.
MORE: 7 Scariest Security Threats Headed Your Way
The massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks knocked several banking sites offline at once, two or three times per week for extended periods. The affected institutions included Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, the New York Stock Exchange, PNC Bank, Capital One, Union Bank, Fifth Third Bank, HSBC, TD Bank, American Express and US Bancorp.
Claiming credit was a previously unknown group calling itself the Izz Ad-Din Al-Qassam Cyber Brigades, which called its attack Operation Ababil and posted manifestoes online in English and Arabic demanding that the notorious "Innocence of Muslims" video be removed from YouTube.
However, U.S. intelligence officials quickly said that the attacks came not from a religiously motivated "hacktivist" group, but instead from Iranian government entities. At the time, the sheer power of the attacks was thought to be out of range for hacktivists, but subsequent, unrelated DDoS attacks proved that wrong.
The indictments allege that the seven men were employed by two Iranian companies, ITSecTeam or ITSEC and Mersad Company. Both companies were seemingly controlled by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, the former street fighters who have become as militarily powerful as Iran's regular armed forces and control large sectors of the Iranian economy.
Three men — Ahmad Fathi, Hamid Firoozi and Amin Shokohi — are alleged to have been ITSec employees. Sadegh Ahmadzadegan, aka "Nitr0jen26," Omid Ghaffarinia, aka "Plus," Sina Keissar and Nader Saedi, aka "Turk Server," all apparently worked at Mersad. Fathi and Firoozi are 37 and 34, respectively; the other five defendants are all in their mid-20s. Each faces up to 10 years in prison for the banking attacks.
Firoozi is alleged to have been the person who penetrated the Bowman Avenue Dam's control systems and gathered "information regarding the status and operation of the dam, including information about the water levels and temperature, and the status of the sluice gate, which is responsible for controlling water levels and flow rates," according to the indictment. He faces an additional five years in prison for that.
The Bowman Avenue Dam intrusion is really not much of a hack, and security researchers snooping online often find similar industrial-control systems left unprotected or lightly protected. The indictment alleges that Firoozi could have opened the dam's sluice gate had it not been manually disabled at the time, but that would have had to take place during heavy rains to cause even localized flooding.
As with the five Chinese military personnel indicted in 2014 for alleged industrial espionage, the U.S. does not expect the Iranian defendants to appear in court any time soon.
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The Best PS4 Deals in July 2019
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Badger-Two Medicine
Saving the "Badger-2med"
Most people have never heard about my favorite place, let alone the David Vs Goliath fight that has taken place to protect it.
The Badger-Two Medicine, in Northwest Montana, is situated along the eastern flanks of the Rocky Mountain Front. The 165,000 acre area is bound to the south and west by the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area. Glacier National Park is directly to the west and north west, but separated by Highway 2. The 25 mile northern east boundary is shared with the Blackfeet Nation. With a few minor exceptions, the entire area is administered by the U.S. Forest Service, Lewis and Clark National Forest. The area remains largely un roaded and wild.
The Badger-Two Medicine Area is shown in the center of this map with the cross-hatching.
Sandwiched between Glacier National Park to it's North, the Blackfoot Nation to the East, and the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex on it's South and West sides - there is no place on earth like the Badger-Two Medicine.
The Badger-Two Medicine is my backyard.
The "B2M" or "Badger-2Med" is critical habitat for the endangered Grizzly Bears, the Canada Lynx, East Slope Cutthroat Trout, as well as home to healthy populations of elk, mountain goats, bighorn sheep and deer.
The entire area is designated as the Blackfeet Cultural Heritage District under the Historic Preservation Act, and is the Ceded area of the Blackfeet Tribe. The Tribe retains certain legal and cultural rights within the B2M. The Tribe and its members along with the public at large, are therefore affected by the management and future long term conditions of the area.
A land, most deserving of protection.
As part of an ongoing campaign to retire what are arguably illegal oil and gas leases, it is critical that we are able to show others what the lease areas look like.
Here are some photographs that show the Badger-Two Medicine area, of the Rocky Mountain Front, Montana.
Contact Tony Bynum for image licensing - all images are copyrighted and my not be used without license from Tony Bynum Photography.
View Tony's Badger-Two Medicine Archives
Contact Tony
East Glacier Park, MT
Tony Bynum Photography 2005-2019 • East Glacier Park, Montana • 406-226-9151
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Benedict Cumberbatch and the Changing Face of Hollywood
He doesn't quite look like a superstar, but talent, unconventional features, and the power of the Internet have made him into one.
Sophie Gilbert
Cumberbatch at the premiere of 12 Years a Slave, in Toronto.AP
The French have an expression called jolie laide—directly translated, it means "beautiful ugly," but as a concept it embodies the intersection between attractiveness and unconventionality that makes us relish imperfection. Jolie laide is Sarah Jessica Parker and Benicio del Toro and Jessica Paré. It's why Solange is visually more intriguing than Beyoncé, and why Meat Loaf, however improbably, was a sex symbol for much of the 1980s.
Sofia Coppola is often cited as the female embodiment of jolie laide, but as it relates to men, there's no more obvious example in contemporary culture than Benedict Cumberbatch. In bleached-blonde, Botox-browed Hollywood, he's the antithesis of everything we're supposed to find attractive.
Let's start with his name, which sounds positively Hogwartsian. He's purposefully Benedict, rather than the more casual Ben, which brings to mind 16 distinctly unglamorous popes, an order of monks, and eggs smothered with hollandaise. Then there's the Cumberbatch part, which conjures up images of either a professor of potions or the antiquated silk sash men sometimes wear with tuxedos. What's in a name? Michael Caine was once Maurice Joseph Micklewhite and Cary Grant was born Archibald Leach: In the flimsy, illusive world of film, names matter.
Or perhaps they don't, anymore, and perhaps 37-year-old Cumberbatch is the physical manifestation of a paradigm shift in a culture that seeks out slender, sensitive Edward Cullen over sweaty Magic Mike and prefers Sherlock Holmes to Superman. Perhaps this is why Cumberbatch is everywhere. This week, he’s in the news because he’s voicing a “super-duper smooth wolf” in DreamWorks’ upcoming Penguins of Madagascar. He's also playing Hamlet at the London Barbican. He's playing Richard III, possibly opposite Judi Dench. He's reading radio news scripts from D-Day on BBC Radio Four (in what seems to be a craven but successful attempt to get millennials interested in history) He's photo-bombing U2 at the Oscars. He's reading letters written by Kurt Vonnegut and Iggy Pop at the literary Hay Festival. He's one of Time's 100 Most Influential People in the World. He's officiating at same-sex weddings. He's crowd-funding short films made by a production company he set up, SunnyMarch Ltd. He's starring as Alan Turing in The Imitation Game. He's replacing Brad Pitt in The Lost City of Z. He's replacing Guy Pearce as Whitey Bulger’s brother in Black Mass. He's on BuzzFeed surrounded by photoshopped pictures of kittens. And, yes, he's also doing a fourth season of Sherlock, the cult British series that made detached sociopaths dreamy and Cumberbatch a household name.
It's not beyond the realm of possibility to conclude that 37-year-old Cumberbatch is the biggest star in the world right now, riding an improbably perfect storm of talent, timing, sensitivity, virality, and our postmodern rejection of conformist standards of beauty—at least insofar as they relate to men. With actresses, we seem to crave homogeneity (as a fun experiment, look at a lineup featuring Kate Mara, Ashley Greene, Anna Kendrick, and Isla Fisher and see if you can say with absolute certainty which one is which). With actors, it's more complicated. There are the schlubby, paunchy Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill types, sure, but there's also brooding John Hawkes and goofy Michael Sheen and the quirkily off-kilter former ballerina Ansel Elgort.
Aesthetically, Cumberbatch's appeal is almost impossible to define. He has naturally auburn hair, which he dyes for different roles, but which brings to mind Byronic literary heroes as diverse as Mr. Darcy and Christian Grey. His haughty pallor bears comparison with the vampiric charms of Robert Pattinson in Twilight, and with the young Mark Twain. His features are aristocratic in a way that used to suggest inbreeding among the upper classes—his mouth is only vaguely defined, and his jaw is slender rather than square—while his eyes are situated disproportionately far away from each other, tilting back towards his temples in a manner that makes his angular cheekbones more apparent. Physically, he's most frequently compared to an otter. In previous roles, he sported a ginger mustache while playing a rapist in Atonement, and he suffered through a hideous makeover to play the infinitely gruesome Julian Assange in The Fifth Estate (not even Cumberbatch’s charms could make that movie a success).
Emotionally and intellectually, he is, quite simply, the perfect male celebrity for our time. The feminist blog Jezebel refers to him as "your boyfriend Benedict Cumberbatch," an endorsement that takes into consideration his intelligence, his chivalry (he once punched a reporter who was rude about Keira Knightley, but did so “gently”), his sense of humor, his status as a straight ally for gay rights (hence the wedding he officiated), and his Buddhist regard for humanity and all the earth's creatures. He's an activist and an artist who donates his drawings to charity auctions. He has concerns about the fact that his legions of fans refer to themselves as Cumberbitches or Cumberbunnies because of the potentially sexist connotations; he prefers Cumberbabes. Of course he does.
If Cumberbatch is as uncomfortable with the level of attention he's getting as he says he is, then his ascent can be seen as a cautionary tale for other reluctant idols. In some indefinable way, Cumberbatch is a walking, talking meme. When he appeared on Sesame Street he had to repeatedly remind Murray that he was actually an actor, not a detective named "Benedict Sherlock," in a joke that was far too sophisticated to be targeted at preschoolers and was presumably intended for a YouTube audience. His presence is guaranteed to make anything go viral, whether it's a literary festival, a TV miniseries, or one of the most frequently staged Shakespearian tragedies. In London, people are paying around $170 just to jump to the front of the line when tickets go on sale for his Hamlet. Combine photos of him looking intuitive or alluring with pictures of fuzzy kittens and it's a wonder the Internet doesn't implode.
khanandkittens.tumblr.com via Buzzfeed
In Edgar Allan Poe’s Ligeia a character says, "There is no exquisite beauty … without some strangeness in the proportion." Perhaps the strange and incalculable ascendancy of Cumberbatch from a man the BBC initially didn't think was sexy enough to play Sherlock Holmes to one of the biggest stars in the world is a sign that our culture is maturing, and no longer considers classical good looks to be paramount. The 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant drew distinctions between things that are evidently beautiful because we can see they're beautiful, and things that are sublime because they demand an intellectual response. In a Cumberbatch-centric universe, the sublime is finally triumphant.
Sophie Gilbert is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where she covers culture.
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Ann Romney Wants You to Stop Being So Mean to Her Husband
Ann Romney, classy horse lady and wife of Republican nominee Mitt Romney, would kindly appreciate it if you laid off from criticizing her beau, lest you want to "get in the ring" and try running for President yourself.
This article is from the archive of our partner .
At least, that's what she told an Iowa radio station Thursday evening. Speaking at event earlier Thursday, she said "really hard for me as a wife," to watch the campaign. (She probably isn't a big Jason Sudeikis fan.) When she was interviewed by Radio Iowa later, she really went off on her husband's critics:
“Stop it. This is hard. You want to try it? Get in the ring,” she said. “This is hard and, you know, it’s an important thing that we’re doing right now and it’s an important election and it is time for all Americans to realize how significant this election is and how lucky we are to have someone with Mitt’s qualifications and experience and know-how to be able to have the opportunity to run this country.”
People have been tough on Mitt lately, after those pesky 47 percent comments. Peggy Noonan said the campaign needs "an intervention." Even Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol has been beating up on Mitt, saying Mitt's controversial comments were "arrogant and stupid." While it's true people have been saying critical things about her husband lately, it would have been nice if the potential First Lady could come up with something better than, "well, why don't you try!?"
This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.
Connor Simpson is a former staff writer for The Wire. His work has appeared in Business Insider and City Lab.
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Costain profits hit by project delays and cancellations
28 Jun The problem with relying on public sector infrastructure contracts for your workload is that you are at the mercy of political whim and that can be a risky place to be – particularly these days.
Watching and waiting for work to start
Costain has revealed today that its profits this year will take a hit from delays to several important public sector projects getting started and, in one case, a complete cancellation.
In a trading update ahead of posting its half-year results, Costain said: “The group has recently seen a number of delays to the timing of contract start dates and new awards. Projects affected include the M6 Smart Motorway, Preston distributor road and HS2 Southern Section main works. Additionally, the M4 Corridor around Newport project was cancelled by the Welsh government earlier this month. Consequently, revenue for FY2019 will be lower than previously anticipated and underlying operating profit for the full year is expected to be in the range of £38.0m to £42.0m.”
The £150m M6 project was meant to have started this spring but it has been put on hold with no new start date yet given.
Costain has also been hit to the tune of nearly £10m by a contract completed more than 10 years ago.
“The H1 2019 results will include a one-off charge of £9.8 million in respect of a recent arbitration award in favour of Diamond Light Source Limited for the cost of remedial works deemed required to the roof at the National Synchrotron facility which was completed in August 2006,” the company revealed. It continued: “The subcontractor who installed the roof would have been contractually liable for the remedial works but went into administration in November 2017. The nature of this contract is no longer within the group's strategy and, therefore, the underlying trading results will be reported before the impact from this one-off item.”
However, current contracts are all going to plan and new work is coming in, with tendering levels remaining high. New orders secured in the first six months of 2019 include the A19 improvement contract and long term AMP7 awards for Severn Trent Water, United Utilities and Yorkshire Water.
Revenue secured to date for 2019 is £1.1bn plus about £900m for 2020 already.
Costain's order book is £4.2bn, compared with £3.7bn a year ago, and a preferred bidder position of £600m.
Average month-end net cash balance for the first half of 2019 is expected to be around £65m.
Chief executive Alex Vaughan said: "Despite delays to the timing of certain contract start dates and new awards, our markets are strong, as evidenced by the breadth of our new contract awards in the first half.
"We have a strong balance sheet, profitable operations and a broad range of capabilities to support the growth of the business. Costain is well placed to secure the opportunities ahead of us."
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Home acting actress Canada AVA CUMMINGS IS AN ACTRESS KEEPING THE FAITH
AVA CUMMINGS IS AN ACTRESS KEEPING THE FAITH
acting, actress, Canada
Artists have always been the part of society that challenges us. They soothe us and at the same time make us uncomfortable by challenging us to consider what we truly think and feel as opposed to what we’re told; it’s a part of the creative individuals’ DNA. Anyone who studies any art form throughout years, decades, eons, and centuries has witnessed the fact that artists support and also demand variations and innovation. In a world that is exponentially modernizing and digitizing, the most rebellious counterculture move might be to present live art in person. It’s something that Canadian born actress Ava Cummings has always felt drawn towards. Choosing to pursue her acting/singing career on stage rather than on set, this isn’t the only uncommon facet of the career of this actress. While she doesn’t restrict herself to it, the majority of her musical theater roles have been in faith based productions. When considering these factors in her career path, Ava seems unexpectedly punk in a corporate rock world. The very idea causes her to laugh. She comments, “The first production I was in was “Snow White.” I played the wicked queen in our school play. I will never forget, the teacher Mrs. Elrick made me the understudy for the production but for some reason I did the opening night. The moment I hit the stage I knew it was where I was meant to be. That doesn’t really sound like the origin story of someone who bucks the system but I will admit that I don’t subscribe to taking the path everyone tells you to take. In my opinion, an integral part of being a creative person is finding your own path.”
Her role as Mrs. Wimble in “Little People, Big Things, and a Great Big God” gave Ava the opportunity to play a tough but well-meaning older teacher, poised for retirement and seeking to impart a sense of self-belief into her young students. The message of the play that young people should regard nothing as impossible and to strive for greatness was communicated through biblical tales such as the boy with loaves and fish (which fed the masses), a diminutive David defeating Goliath in battle, and others. As the only adult cast member, this play gave Cummings the opportunity to mentor many young actors and pass along some of the theater wisdom she has gained throughout her career. Writer/director Rodney Barnes notes, “Ava’s character and her performance was the unifying factor in our entire story. She gave it depth, heart, and grit. It speaks volumes about the talent of this exceptional actress that she could deliver Mrs. Wimbles strength and frailty simultaneously. She raised the bar for performances on everyone’s part with her commitment and preparation.”
Cummings performance as Mary (mother of Jesus) in “Mercy Tree” was one which humanized this revered figure. Rejecting the idea of presenting Mary as the perfect source of calmness, Ava depicted all of the emotional turmoil that devastated this woman. Having faced her own ridicule as a young pregnant woman, Mary is seen once again living with disbelief concerning the ability of society to inflict harm upon her family. The moving performance given by Ava in this role was also utilized in the play “Thomas” which told the story of the commonly referenced Doubting Thomas.
The actress played a much less recognizable character in the production “The Light.” Her appearance as the mother-in-law Shawran in this cabaret style musical theater presentation quickly became an audience favorite. Tarick Glancy appeared as King Herod in “The Light” and starred alongside Cummings. He professes, “Ava’s performance captivated the Christmas 2016 engagement. The story was an honest and fresh take on a tried and true biblical story which allowed us as characters to really draw in the audience's attention and connect with them. Each crowd was more responsive than the next. Ava quickly became noticed during the early performances. I often heard both gasps and bouts of laughter, shrieks and saw tears in people’s eyes by the ending. By the standing ovation at the end I knew our production had done the story justice. To work with an actress as giving and committed as Ava is truly special whether you are watching her or on the stage or alongside her.”
Theater has always been natural and a source of nurturing for this actress. She confirms, “I love Musical Theater. Being able to combine the two things I love, acting and singing, is the best of both worlds. Christian Theater will always have a special place in my heart because it allows me to share the most important thing in my life. I want to know that I have made a difference in people lives. Using story lines that impact this world is something that thrills me more than anything else. It's art with a purpose. There are a lot of broken people out there that need encouragement and messages of hope in these times. As an actress, I believe there is nothing better than feeling the energy from the crowd as you step on stage. With theater you have one shot to get it right for that audience. So every night you give everything you have and hope that the audience is tracking with you.”
With so many successful productions, thousands upon thousands of fans who appreciate her talent and accomplishments, Cummings is a long way from the Ontario High School where she was somewhat intimidated to get into theater. The shyness that led to her avoiding a number of opportunities has been replaced by a sense of confidence proven well-founded by her success. They say that your greatest weakness for an actor becomes your greatest strength. That fear of the unknown which she avoided in youth has become the target which she seeks out these days. Ava professes, “I revel in the unknown, the unexpected. The best thing for me when it comes to acting is being able to do what I love and that there is never a day that is the same. Each character brings its own set of challenges.” She admits that the entertainment industry may continue to bring even more unexpected opportunities her way and she will embrace these in the same manner. It’s all a part of what makes the life of Ava Cummings both unique and constantly evolving.
AVA CUMMINGS IS AN ACTRESS KEEPING THE FAITH Reviewed by JaamZIN on 7:11:00 AM Rating: 5
acting actress Canada
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Home filmmaking Holiday Love, Double Dumps, and Emotional Expression
Holiday Love, Double Dumps, and Emotional Expression
Sarah Walton has a thing for romance. An accomplished writer in Hollywood of numerous romantic comedy films including Jump! (Official Selection of the Burbank International Film Festival LA & Cinefest LA), The Dating Ring, Stage 3 Clinger, Em Pathetic, and others, Walton has made a career of manifesting the heartfelt moments for which true romantics yearn. “Write what you know” is what they say in the business; if that’s true then Sarah’s life has been a stream of self-affirming moments. The stories and characters fall under the heading “too good to be true” which is exactly the way Sarah and fans of these movies like it. It’s romantic escapism at its best, which doesn’t reject the yin yang of real romance. Still, there’s a good dose of suspending reality in her latest project Holiday Switch Up. Sometimes you go to your favorite restaurant, confident in their ability to prepare that dish on the menu exactly as you like it; the same is true for the films of Sarah Walton. She is the best proponent of stories that still cling to the fantasy of true love, even if it is found via trial by fire.
Walton is an ardent champion of the Rom Com genre. While she’s found this to be a major asset in Hollywood, the same was not true in her native home of Australia. She recalls, “Producers in Australia always wanted to change the ending of my films. They’d say ‘You don’t want to tie a bow on the end of it!’… but I love the bow, the bigger the bow the better I say! I’m now in negotiations with a major international network for Holiday Switch Up and have an A-list star in consideration for the lead.” A head of development at the film’s production company announces, “The character growth in Holi was so perfectly written that it remains to be seen why audience members fall for characters as hard as they do. Watching Holi open up and accept all parts of herself was beautiful and really made me root for her throughout the story. Zach is written so sweet and honest; the kind of pure that can feel so far away in people’s reality that it added a refreshing touch to this story. Walton made sure that page after page was full of cheesy, over the top scenes depicting a hilarious and heart-warming story. From a wide range of loveable, personable characters to the magic of connecting with your own emotions, this story will definitely be able to keep an audience intrigued”.
Sarah collaborated on the concept of Holiday Switch Up with Timothy O Johnson of Johnson Production Group, who has produced over twenty Hallmark Channel films as well as CBS Golden Globe winning TV series Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. It’s the story of Holi, a woman who has repressed her dreams of becoming a dancer and the grief of losing her father 10 years ago and instead set her sights on marrying her fiancé Brad. But when a double date with Brad’s coworker and her fiancé Zach Goodall, turns out to be a double dump, all Holi’s plans crash down around her. Zach is a kind, compassionate, emotionally expressive man who is also a dancer! When the two strike a deal to accompany each other to their respective family homes for the holidays and impersonate the other’s former fiancé, the situation provides ample canvas for crying, laughter… and crying with laughter. It’s notable that Walton has written scenes where Zach wells up with tears, exemplifying the type of sensitivity and emotional availability that lacks prevalence in male film roles. The writer agrees, “I’ve always been a sucker for a man who cries. I love vulnerability, I think it’s beautiful. I have no other expectation for my wedding day except that as I walk down the aisle toward the love of my life, they will be at the altar with tears in their eyes…or balling their eyes out works too.”. This kind of vulnerability is exactly what we need to see more of on screen in this day and age, promoting characters with healthy emotional expression, especially for men, is quickly becoming a wide spread phenomenon. Through her films, Walton paves the way for championing women to stand in their power and for men to feel the empowerment of vulnerability, leading to a more balanced gender dynamic, and sending the message that love and emotional expression are, and always have been, strength.
Holiday Love, Double Dumps, and Emotional Expression Reviewed by JaamZIN on 7:21:00 PM Rating: 5
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Clinton Makes Surprise Trip to Pakistan
Aamir Qureshi, AFP / Getty Images
It's time for some serious diplomacy. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Admiral Mike Mullen made a surprise trip to Pakistan aimed at calming tensions between the two countries following the mission against Osama bin Laden. Their meeting with President Asif Ali Zardari appeared strained, with little smiling and few opportunities for press. Clinton had been scheduled to visit Pakistan a month ago, but the trip was called off while the U.S. gauged Pakistan's reaction to the bin Laden raid. That reaction wasn't encouraging: They outed the CIA station chief and asked the Pentagon to remove its military advisers. This time, the visit was kept secret until the last moment and is scheduled to last no more than six hours. The State Department's Mike Grossman and the CIA's Mike Morrel went to Pakistan last week to prepare for Clinton's visit and to convince Pakistani intelligence to let the U.S. revisit the compound where bin Laden was killed, something they appear to have agreed to.
Read it at The New York Times
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March on Washington in 1963 Was Truly Militant, Despite Portrayals
Fifty years after the March on Washington, Jamelle Bouie recalls its militant, unpopular agenda.
Jamelle Bouie/The Daily Beast
Saturday’s March on Washington was a diverse, multigenerational cross-section of America, with people of every shape, size, and hue. But what stood out to me most were the signs.
“We demand equality for all!” said one, held by women from the League of United Latin American Citizens. “We march to end RACIAL PROFILING,” said several others, carried by groups of black college students. An older white woman shielded herself from the sun with a sign that asked observers to “Support Trayvon’s Law,” and a group of Filipino women stood on the outskirts of the Lincoln Memorial, in the middle of the crowd, with signs that read “STOP TRAFFICKING OUR PEOPLE!” and “Stop the Imperialist Exploitation of Women and Children!!!”
It’s not hard to imagine places in the United States where these signs are off-putting and as alienating as the “Don’t Tread on Me” signs that dot Tea Party protests. But that’s the point. The striking thing about the original March on Washington 50 years ago is how it wasn’t a moment of interracial unity—at least, not in the way it’s portrayed today. Rather, the 1963 March for Jobs and Freedom was militant, a demand for equal treatment under the law and direct investment in the long-neglected fields of black America. It wasn’t a popular agenda. That January, George Wallace was inaugurated governor of Alabama and declared: “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.” That June, Medgar Evers, field secretary for the NAACP, was assassinated in Mississippi while coming home from a meeting with lawyers. And that September, in retaliation for the march, four little girls would be killed after their church was bombed in Birmingham.
The only way to commemorate this legacy is with demands for justice and equality, and to its credit, Saturday’s event had speakers who did just that, including Julian Bond and Rev. Lennox Yearwood, president and CEO of the Hip Hop Caucus. “People here can meet, discuss, brainstorm, and further our social justice ambitions,” said DeAnna Murphy, a community organizer from St. Louis, Mo., who kept a small American flag flying from her bag for the occasion. Others, like a group of young activists, asserted the personhood of undocumented immigrants with a bullhorn and a chant. “Immigrant rights are here to stay,” they said.
At the same time, however, the 50th anniversary commemoration featured long speeches from such mainstream political figures as Attorney General Eric Holder and Newark Mayor Cory Booker. And while they were popular with the crowd, it’s hard to see how they were relevant. You could even say their presence was a mistake.
Yes, Booker gave a rousing speech. “The truth of the matter is, the dream still demands, the moral conscience of our country still calls us, that hope still needs heroes,” he said. But how does one square his platitude with the reality of his situation? After all, Booker is the Wall Street-friendly Democrat who criticized the Obama campaign last year for attacking private equity funds. How does Booker reconcile his views with the Martin Luther King Jr. who wrote in 1963’s Strength to Love: “The profit motive, when it is the sole basis of an economic system, encourages a cutthroat competition and selfish ambition that inspires men to be more concerned about making a living than making a life.”
The same goes for Holder, who in some sense embodies King’s dream—an America where the racial barriers to outstanding achievement have been lowered—but at the same time represents a status quo of mass incarceration that King would have stood against.
Worse yet, comparatively little time was given to our new generation of civil rights leaders. Rev. William Barber is president of the North Carolina NAACP and leader of the state’s Moral Monday movement. Through organizing and activism, he has created a multiracial political movement that draws thousands of people every week. It’s the kind of mass activism pioneered by the organizers of the civil rights movement. But compared to Booker and Holder, Barber was allotted just moments to speak. The same was true for the dozens of speakers who stood against income inequality, racism, and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender.
With all this in mind, it’s almost a good thing Barack Obama was absent from the event. The president of the United States is, by definition, a compromised figure. Circumstances close him off to the substantive King, the figure who a month after the 1963 march declared unemployment “a form of brutality, especially for those who live on the edge of poverty,” and who demanded government action to level the “obstacles of discrimination” and create “new jobs by public works.” Would the King who called for “nonviolence in all areas of human conflict” and “nonviolence on an international scale” have any sympathy for the president who pioneered “targeted” killings and drone strikes? And more important, would the public have any sympathy for this King?
In the 10 years of his greatest productivity as a leader and thinker, Martin Luther King Jr. called for guaranteed minimum incomes, affirmative action, disarmament, and a “Marshall Plan” for African-Americans. In short, reparations. He lambasted establishment leaders and showed sympathy to the Vietnamese communists. He was unpopular; in August 1966, a whopping 63 percent of Americans held an unfavorable view of the civil rights leader. Of those, nearly 70 percent held a highly unfavorable view.
The only Martin Luther King Jr. that President Obama—or most Americans—can celebrate and commemorate in a full-hearted way is one who’s been mythologized and shorn of his rough edges. That’s the one we have. Do we want that King? Or do we want to reclaim his radical legacy and at the same time sacrifice his popularity?
Given the inequality and the injustice that continues to plague our society, the second option is tempting.
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Media Coverage of Olympic Terror Threats Shines Spotlight on Wrong Players
By focusing on all the negativity and terror surrounding the XXII Olympic Winter Games, we’re letting the bad guys take home gold.
Dean Obeidallah
Pool photo by Antonin Thuillier
The 2014 Olympics haven’t even begun yet, but there is already one big winner: the terrorists. They’ve captured the gold medal for the most Olympic media coverage to date.
Let’s be honest: Can you name one US athlete who will be representing our country in the 2014 Olympics? I doubt it. But I’m sure you’ve heard story after story about the Olympic terror threat. And that’s exactly what the terrorists want.
Just look at some of the recent headlines about the Olympic games, which open this Friday: “Upcoming Olympics Most Dangerous Due to Terrorist Threat,” “Urgent Search for 'Black Widow' Suicide Bomber, May Be Already in Sochi”, and “U.S. Olympic Athletes Warned Against Wearing Uniforms,”
Even US Senator Angus King declared, “I would not go and I don’t think I would send my family.” House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul also suggested that if the security threat gets any worse, the games may need to be cancelled.
The terrorists must be loving this. The more press they attract, the more powerful they appear. The more powerful they appear, the more terror they can instill.
Brigitte Nacos, a professor at Columbia University and the author of the book Terrorism and the Media, agreed via email that the excessive media coverage assists the terror group in its mission of “spreading fear and anxiety.”
Paul Pillar, former senior CIA counterterrorist official and senior fellow at Georgetown University's Center for Security Studies, echoed those sentiments, noting that, “extensive media coverage…is part of what the terrorists are seeking.”
It was easy for Ali Soufan, former FBI Agent and CEO of The Soufan Group, to sum it up succinctly: “Terrorists are PR hogs,” he said.
Sure, in today’s tech-friendly world terror groups can easily self-promote via Internet videos and websites. But as Pillar noted, these groups “still want coverage by the mainstream media in order to realize their publicity goals.”
Let me be clear: I do not advocate disregarding or discounting the threat. In fact, all three experts I spoke to pointed out that there are credible security concerns in Sochi that must be addressed. “[The media] can’t just ignore the significance of this terrorism threat,” said Soufan.
But the media coverage is capable of doing more than just warn the public. In fact, they may actually enable terrorists to achieve their larger publicity goals. To this regard, Nacos warned that, “news organizations should refrain from over-coverage.”
To date, security issues have been the media’s primary focus for the 2014 Olympics. We’ve seen profiles of the terror group involved. We’ve heard about their past acts and their recent videos. At this point, there’s no doubt that the media has more than adequately warned the public about the terror risk.
So I propose this to members of the media: Barring credible evidence of a new threat, stop giving the terrorists free publicity and instead start focusing on the Olympic athletes and the events who deserve it. I know scary headlines get viewers, but for the greater good, let’s move on.
Here’s an idea: Why not cover the twelve new events in this year’s Olympics, including, say, “Snowboard slopestyle”? (I, for one, have no idea what exactly it entails.)
Or let’s hear more about the over 200 US athletes who have trained, sacrificed and dreamed for years about this big moment. Those like ski jumper Sarah Hendrickson who underwent surgery last August to repair two torn ligaments (ACL and MCL) in her knee. Some may have given up on the 2014 games after this injury, but she fought on and made the US team.
The youngest member of the US luge team, 18-year-old Tucker West, deserves some attention, too. He spent a year building a mini luge track with his father in their backyard in Connecticut.
There’s also Steve Holcomb, who seven years ago was nearly blind due to a degenerative eye disorder, but overcome his condition and made the US bobsled team.
And I’d love the media to explain curling! How did it start, what’s going on and why am I'm hypnotized by this event every time I see it on TV?
Those vowing to destroy the Olympic Games and kill innocent people are not the ones who deserve media coverage. The athletes do; the participants from around the world who have triumphed over great odds to proudly represent their respective countries in the Olympics, despite the safety threats that come with them.
So let the games begin—and let the media coverage begin to focus on those who have rightfully earned it.
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Robyn Lawley Doesn’t Hold Back
And according to her, neither should you.
Robyn Lawley’s list of accomplishments are exhaustive: model, writer, swimwear designer, photographer, cookbook author, and musician. Oh, and she’s a mother too. Yes, this is impressive. But, really, and I think Lawley would agree, who cares about a list of accomplishments. Whether you’re a multi-hyphenate multi-millionaire, a struggling working mum or anything in between — what matters is standing up for what you believe in. And the true beauty of Robyn Lawley is she speaks her mind — with thoughtfulness— and she firmly believes you can and should too.
I spent the day with Lawley in a small studio in Queens this August with an (almost) all-female crew for her first day back at work since she experienced a seizure at her home and fell face-first down a flight of stairs. An incident she has widely shared with the public to shed light on the poorly understood disease that she suffers from: lupus. She understands how the world is intricately woven in its magic and troubles, and in our conversation, and discusses how her health and body is connected to a history of women’s rights, women’s health, body-image, and the fashion industry.
Sweater Maggie Marilyn
Jumpsuit Zero + Maria Cornejo
Shoes Everlane
Ring left middle Dinosaur Designs Silver
Earrings Dinosaur Designs
Ring left middle Dinosaur Designs
All other rings The Shiny Squirrel
I grew up in Western Sydney, in Australia.
When did you move to New York and why?
I moved to New York when I was around 19 or 20 because an agency wanted to see me because curvy modeling was finally becoming a thing.
And was it a thing where you were back and forth for a little while, or you just decided to take the leap and move?
I decided to take the leap and move.
How did you get your start in modeling? Did you always want to be a model or was it accidental?
My auntie was a fashion model briefly, so I knew about it. And my sister wanted to model and she had the right body measurements, so she tried to coerce me into doing it. I was way too curvy to do the mainstream modeling, and then eventually, I did just regular modeling but with my actual body.
Have you noticed a change in the industry since you started?
There has been such a monumental change in the industry from when I started until now. It’s kind of gargantuan. I never thought it would happen the way it has. Now, looking back, you think we all sound crazy that we were obsessed with becoming anorexic basically for absolutely no reason. So yeah, I’m super stoked that body diversity is finally happening.
Cardigan Eleven Six
Pants Eleven Six
Bra Only Hearts
Rings The Shiny Squirrel
Dress Arcana
Blazer Arcana
Rings on right middle Dinosaur Designs
Did you feel pressure, in the beginning, to try to slim down?
Did I feel pressure, in the beginning, to slim down? Yes, 100 percent It was always not enough. Maybe you could just diet a little bit more or just lose a few more centimeters. And my bone structure is quite large, I’m 6’2”. I’m not like a small person by any means. So it was just virtually impossible to do that for them.
And when you say they, do you mean the agency or clients, or just kind of everyone?
Everyone, and they’re direct. They don’t cushion around it, so they’ll tell you, and send you home sometimes. They’ll tell your agents all kinds of stuff. So it’s a bit of both, really.
It’s a funny thing, modeling. You can be treated really like, you’re not a person, or invisible when being spoken about in castings or on-set. Have you noticed that that has changed, as well as the conversation around body diversity? Or do you think that’s something that is still being worked on?
I think it depends on the situation and the age of the model. I think as you get older, you start realizing your boundaries more, and I think when you’re younger, unfortunately, you have no idea what you’re doing. So you just allow everything to happen, and I think with age, I know what my boundaries are now. I think other girls do too. But yeah. There’s definitely a whole bunch of skeezy, sleazy male situations, but it’s such a great opportunity. You can travel the world with being a model; there are very few jobs that will offer you the world like that. And I thought, what an opportunity.
So in reading about you, and spending the day with you, you come across as unafraid; you’re very outspoken about the things that you’re passionate about. You have endless creative pursuits like writing, photography, music, modeling. For some of us, it can be overwhelming, to imagine putting our ideas or our creativity, or ourselves, out into the world. Do you have any advice for women who want to but are nervous to? The internet can be scary to face sometimes.
Don’t hold yourself back, girls. Like, Do Not Hold Yourself Back. I think girls, unfortunately, in this day and age, have to work a little bit harder, and that just shows the unfortunate sexism within our industry. I’ve been empowered lately because I’ve actually shot more with female photographers than ever before. Especially this last year alone, I’ve shot with more women photographers than in my entire career. So I think it’s going to change, and eventually, we’re going to be equal to men. And I think, yeah, don’t hold yourselves back; you’re just as good, if not better most of the time, and you just have to believe in yourself. You have to be your number one fan.
How is the experience of photographing with women different than men?
It’s different and yet the same. It’s easier to share a comradeship and to speak up if you’re not ok with a shot, or a pose you’ve been asked to do for example. Last year when we shot #inherownwords for Sports Illustrated, whenever someone felt uncomfortable, we took a break and asked how we could help and that they didn’t have to do this if they didn’t want too. We wanted women to feel comfortable. We also, the photographer, Taylor and I participated in the shoot, we had an all female crew and editors something that was a first for me.
So speaking of being brave, you have lupus and you recently shared on social media, a pretty harrowing experience as a result of that diagnosis. Can you talk a little bit about what happened and why you decided to share it?
Unfortunately, I had a seizure on a staircase, and I landed on my face and lost a tooth as well, hence my new lisps. But for me personally, I decided to share the experience because Lupus is so underdiagnosed. It’s really confusing, and there are no real statistics. The main problem with Lupus is people have heart attacks, and they have strokes under 40. And there’s no statistical evidence of it because a stroke is a different thing from a Lupus diagnosis. So I’ve had strokes and I’ve had seizures, and that’s all due to Lupus. I got diagnosed after my baby was born, and I wanted to bring more acknowledgment to the actual disease. It’s incurable and it’s for life. And the more people know about it, the more they can actually seek help themselves. If you’re starting to feel like your body is not working the way that it should and pursue doctors it can be incredibly sexist. They’re like, well, maybe it’s just women’s problems. You’re like, no dude, something is really not right with me, I need to get some help. I was fortunate enough I got diagnosed pretty quickly, thankfully.
Do you think that stigma exists around women being heard and understood with regards to health issues? I feel like it’s a story that I’ve heard a lot recently — endometriosis is another example where women are feeling like something is not right, and they’re just not really listened to.
One hundred percent I mean, it’s so often looked over like it’s nothing, but women’s health is critical. It’s super important and has a lot actually to do with our environment. The fact that plastics are in everything. They’re in every kind of water. They’re insoluble fibers, they’re in clothes, they’re in the air. The environmental implications and damages on our bodies is huge.
What are important lessons that you've learned about your body and popular perceptions of what women's bodies are supposed to look like, or what model's bodies are supposed to look like? What would be advice you would give young girls or women?
Stop buying labels that don’t represent you. I’ve learned over the past 15 years of modelling that you have more power than you think, your power is more in your honesty and acceptance of yourself. I love seeing women comfortable in their bodies just the way they are, I know it sounds cliche but YOU are the change.
Blazer Mara Hoffman
Pant Mara Hoffman
Shoes Brother Vellies
Bangles Dinosaur Designs
All rings the same as above
Well speaking of the environment, you are extremely passionate about the environment; that’s another thing that you talk about a lot on social media. Where does the love of nature come from, for you?
I would want to be a tree in another life. I love trees, I love nature, I grew up in it and around it. My mother is quite the hippie — I didn’t realize it at the time when I was younger, but now looking back, cloth diapers, reusable bottles, and reusable bags. She was doing that from when I was a little girl — so I just didn’t realize that was different. But I think the environment is the most important and pressing issue that we have today because, without the environment, we don’t exist. It’s such a sad thing that we’re not teaching in schools how to grow gardens, the nature of plants and the importance of bees, and getting rid of like, insecticides and pesticides, which have a lot to do with fashion. Because of cotton and all of the grown fabrics that we use even bamboo.
What role do you think fashion can, or should, play, in protecting the environment?
They should start by recycling more plastics. Currently, right now, only 9 percent of the world’s plastics are recycled; there’s a lot swimming in the ocean. Instead of making new fabric that burn more carbon, and pollute the atmosphere, if we actually combine more efforts to recycling what we’ve already produced that would really help. Not burning clothes like Burberry did. I couldn’t believe I heard that; I thought that was disgusting and malpractice. I think fashion should take acknowledgment of the detrimental effects that it’s causing to the environment. And recycling is probably the one thing that they could do right now that will have a good impact.
Are there any clothing companies that you particularly admire or think that people should know about because of their environmental practices?
Well, I’m very impressed with some of the brands used for this shoot like Zero + Maria Cornejo. There’s also Reformation, Stella McCartney, KITX and Style Saint are a few.
I do wish we had more priorities in this realm and were more conscious about recycled fabrics and more locally made brands. Even recycled plastics can make clothes, but also there are complications with microplastics and our waterways or making clothes from plants like hemp that don’t require as many resources to grow. Unfortunately, this is a complicated issue, waste, workers rights and chemicals in growing certain plants like cotton. Strive towards organic cotton if you can and wool that’s been obtained ethically from the animal.
The best thing you can do is probably shop at op shops, recycling clothes. Buffalo Exchange is a cool one in New York. You can also upshop. You can do up your own clothes; you can take the clothes that you have and fix them up yourself and change them in a way.
As someone who is part of the fashion industry, how do you manage the complicated politics of the industry along with your own personal beliefs, whether it's about the environment or about body image, obviously, you love fashion and you love what you do, but it must not always be easy....
That’s a great and important question. It can be very hard at times. I’m more hurt by people’s apathy to the environment than anything else. It’s the giant elephant in the room. It’s so giant in fact it’s enabled me to laugh at brands that don’t include size diversity for example, because they’re so backward in this day and age and I’m personally aware of much bigger problems at hand. I do wish more brands put more energy into obtaining more ethically grown fabrics or recycled fabrics.
I live upstate New York surrounded by forests, I garden and compost, I try to do my part, however, I’d like to do more. Growing up I would tree plant every Sunday with my mum in local communities. I’d like to start to do that again but in areas that greatly need cleaner air and get the general community involved.
Blouse Vintage
Dress Amur
How would you describe your personal style?
My personal style has definitely evolved since coming here. But at the same time, I’m still my weirdo self. I like really unique items that I’m not going to find often; that I can feel like have a story. So if someone is like, where did you get that and you’re like, I got it in Hamburg at this really weird shop, and then I met this lady. I like a story. I also like high quality; so I’ll wait a little bit and put my money into something that I actually really do like. And I’m also a normal person, I’ve bought fast fashion too. I’ve bought things that were cheap and fitted well, but I couldn’t help myself. And I think that’s why I want those brands to start embarking on recycling more because that would be just so awesome to know that your whole outfit is plastic, but it’s all recycled plastic.
What’s an item of clothing you can’t live without?
I love giant like comfy coats, I suppose. Especially with New York winter coming up soon, I definitely need my coat.
If you could imagine a fashion utopia, what would that look like, for you?
I think my real fashion utopia would be body diversity, recycled plastics and recycled plastic for fabrics. I believe that companies should probably endorse more into safe practices in growing plants like cotton, bamboo, and hemp, one of my favorite plants. I believe that these are all wishes that could actually happen today or tomorrow. So I know that the fashion world is trying; so hopefully, they’ll get there and they’ll make more effort to do that.
I think they will, I think they’re going to get there. Thank you so much!
Model: Robyn Lawley
Photographer: Lee O'Connor
Stylist: Liz Rundbaken
Make Up: Nancy Siler
Hair: Kiri Yoshiki
Editorial, Interview
Charli Howard Is Done Changing Her Body
How she learned to love herself.
What is an Ethical Modeling Agency?
With Role Models Mangement Founders Anne Therese and Valerie Emanuel.
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Stadium security worries experts
By Chris Talbott, The Associated Press
HATTIESBURG, Miss. | After more than a decade in counterterrorism, Jim McGee can no longer relax and enjoy watching a sports event.
The fans look like potential victims of terrorism to the former FBI agent turned college instructor. The players are possible targets and the security gaps are easy to detect.
"It's always in the back of my mind, even when I'm watching them on TV," McGee said. "You're kind of looking at things. The thing is if I can sit there or any spectator can sit there, and think, 'Hmmm, that doesn't look right,' that's probably a little bit of a risk there."
It was long McGee's job to worry about security at stadiums and arenas. Now, as part of the University of Southern Mississippi's Center for Spectator Sports Security Management, it's his job to teach others the concerns that face event managers in the post-9/11 era.
While professional leagues and NASCAR appear to be taking security seriously, officials worry enough isn't being done at college sports events.
Those contacted about the issue believe it's only a matter of time before another domestic or international terrorist attack targets a sports event. This time of year is especially worrisome because of all the high-profile games during bowl season.
Bill Flynn, head of Homeland Security's protective security coordination division, said stadiums and arenas are "a concern, something that we want to pay attention to. Why? Because we've seen attacks overseas in resorts, hotels and arenas, so obviously while al-Qaida and the terrorists have attempted to hit hard targets like refineries, soft targets and commercial facilities become more of a target of opportunity."
U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said basic procedures followed by professional sports security managers aren't followed by all colleges, leaving vulnerable those who cut corners because of cost or other reasons.
"What we found is that there's a need for athletic administrators, campus police, emergency medical service, for all those people to have training," Thompson said.
The Southern Miss program is beginning to fill that need. The security management program, created in October 2005, is believed to be the only program of its kind in the nation and is offered as part of the sports management master's degree program. The school recently won a $3.5 million grant from the Department of Homeland Security to conduct 95 training seminars around the nation to train and certify security professionals.
The program's director, Lou Marciani, said there are significant research opportunities for students in the program, and qualified security professionals are in demand across the country. The school also can help certify retiring federal agents and military personnel for second-career security jobs in the private sector.
Marciani said the center's research quickly showed that college sports events were among the most vulnerable, with hundreds of venues, varying security emphasis and a high emotional impact. More than 48 million people attend at least one NCAA football game a season, offering an easy target.
Researchers discovered most schools had never conducted an emergency evacuation drill or a threat assessment.
By far the largest variable, however, was training. Law enforcement and private security guards aren't the only employees in need of training for a venue to be safe. Everyone from ticket takers and ushers to the people approving credentials must be vigilant.
"In our lifetime you saw Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts being ushers," Marciani said. "The new usher is the first responder. Big difference, huh? Sixty-two percent of NCAA schools use an outsource company to manage their security. So the question is, 'Who are these people coming in to manage their security?" '
NCAA officials turned down repeated requests to discuss the issue, even in the broadest terms.
Marciani said certification of credentialing processes, stadiums and risk management plans will quickly harden so-called "soft targets." But one factor that will continue to limit security is money for operations, physical protection equipment and vulnerability assessments.
The best security plans include a buffer zone around the stadium or arena, a hard shell at the fence and enough personnel inside the facility to divide the crowd into small groups for easier monitoring.
As fans filtered into M.M. Roberts Stadium for a Southern Miss game this season, Marciani gestured toward the stands and talked about some of the security features. He said each section has its own observer, and security supervisors oversee three sections each.
An emergency operations center is run by the school police and everyone is patched into the communications network for quick response.
The precautions seem standard, but surprisingly are not universal.
"Some stadiums aren't fortunate enough to attract 30,000," Marciani said. "Some only attract 17,000. So where are you going to get the money to offset the black hole called security? People don't see security, so they don't want to spend money on security."
There have been very few terrorist attacks on sports or entertainment events on U.S. soil. The most prominent was Eric Rudolph's attack at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta to protest abortion.
Several security professionals said the Virginia Tech killings and the murders of Mississippi and Memphis athletes this year helped push security into a new light.
Marciani said security leaders understand it takes only one person not checking bags or one credential handed out to someone posing as a media member to create a hole in the net. Or worse, they worry about someone with security clearance working in tandem on a major attack.
"You have to be a hell of a lot more careful about who's delivering the truckload of Coke in the afternoon," said Mike Cleary, executive director of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics.
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Natural vegetation refers to a plant community that has been left undisturbed over a long period of time.
Classification of Vegetation
Based on climatic conditions, forests are divided into categories. They are −
Tropical Evergreen and Semi Evergreen forests
Tropical Deciduous forests
Tropical Thorn forests
Montane forests
Littoral and Swamp forests
Tropical Evergreen Forests
Tropical evergreen forests are found in the regions that receive annual precipitation of over 200 cm and mean annual temperature above $22^{\circ}C$.
Tropical evergreen forests are found in the western slope of the Western Ghats, hills of the northeastern region, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
In tropical evergreen forests, trees reach great heights, i.e., up to 60 m or even above. And, largely these trees do not have fixed time to shed their leaves.
Major examples of evergreen forests are rosewood, mahogany, aini, ebony, etc.
Semi-evergreen Forests
Semi-evergreen forests are a mixture of evergreen and moist deciduous trees, found in the regions that receive less precipitation than the evergreen forests.
Main species of semi-evergreen forests are white cedar, hillock, and kail.
Tropical Deciduous Forests are the most widespread forests of India and are popularly as Monsoon Forests.
Tropical deciduous forests are found in the regions, which receive rainfall between 70 and 200 cm.
Tropical deciduous forests are further categorized as the Moist deciduous forests and Dry deciduous forest.
The moist deciduous forests are found in the regions, which record rainfall between 100 and 200 cm.
The moist deciduous forests are found along the foothills of the Himalayas, eastern slopes of the Western Ghats, and Odisha.
Teak, sal, shisham, hurra, mahua, amla, semul, kusum, and sandalwood etc. are the main species of the moist deciduous forests.
Dry deciduous forests are found in the regions that receive precipitation between 70 and 100 cm.
As the dry season begins, the trees of deciduous forests shed their leaves completely.
Tendu, palas, amaltas, bel, khair, axlewood, etc. are the major trees of dry deciduous forests.
Tropical thorn forests are found in the areas, which receive rainfall less than 50 cm.
Tropical thorn forests are found in the areas of south west Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh.
Babool, ber, and wild date palm, khair, neem, khejri, palas, etc. are the important species of tropical thorn forests.
Mountain Forests
Mountain forests in India are normally classified into two types, i.e. the northern mountain forests and the southern mountain forests.
Deciduous forests are found in the foothills of the Himalayas.
Temperate forests found between an altitude of 1,000 and 2,000 m.
In the higher hill ranges of northeastern India; for example, hilly areas of West Bengal and Uttaranchal, evergreen broad leaf trees such as oak and chestnut are predominant.
Chir, deodar, pine, etc. are the important species of temperate forests.
Between 3,000 and 4,000 m, Silver firs, junipers, pines, birch, and rhododendrons, etc. are found.
However, at higher altitude, the tundra vegetation is found and major species are mosses and lichens.
At a higher altitude, the southern mountain forests largely belong to the temperate type, which are locally known as ‘Sholas’ in the Nilgiris, Anaimalai, and Palani hills. Some of the trees of economic significance include magnolia, laurel, cinchona, and wattle.
India is rich in Littoral and Swamp Forests.
Chilika Lake (in Odisha) and Keoladeo National Park (in Bharatpur, Rajasthan) are protected as water-fowl habitats under the Convention of Wetlands of International Importance (i.e. Ramsar Convention).
Mangrove grows along the coasts in the salt marshes, tidal creeks, mud flats, and estuaries; and, it has a number of salt-tolerant species of plants.
In India, the mangrove forests spread over 6,740 sq. km, which is 7% of the world’s mangrove forests
Mangroves are largely found in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the Sunderbans of West Bengal.
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The casein film can either be used as wrappers, like this, or it can be sprayed onto food. (USDA) (USDA/AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Here's a food wrapper you can eat
By Randy Rieland Smithsonian.com
Consider the cheese stick. It is not a pretty food. It also isn't very healthy. Cheese sticks are about as commonplace as snack food gets.
In the packaged version, each cylinder of mozzarella or cheddar is individually wrapped. And, every day, thousands of those little pieces of plastic wrap are thrown in the trash.
But maybe not for long.
Two researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture have made a film. It's made from a milk protein. The film can be eaten with the cheese. Which means that it may not be too long before we have a wrapper we can eat. It also could be healthy. Edible plastic exists. But it's largely made of starch. It isn't protein.
"It can be consumed with the food. So it gets rid of one layer of packaging, like with individually wrapped cheese sticks," says Peggy Tomasula. She is one of the lead researchers. "It also gives you the opportunity to add vitamins or minerals or ways to block light damage to the food. And, you can add flavors. If you wanted to add a strawberry flavor to something, you can embed that in the film."
There is a key factor in the innovative packaging. It is casein. Casein is a group of milk proteins. It has high nutritional value. Tomasula has been researching casein since 2000. She actually created a new version of the protein using carbon dioxide. She noticed that it wasn't very soluble in water. That made her believe it might be used to make a film coating that could extend the shelf life of dairy foods.
Tomasula kept exploring the potential of this research. Then another scientist, Laetitia Bonnaillie, joined the USDA team. Tomasula asked her to see if dry milk could be used to produce the film. That would also allow them to make use of surplus milk powder during times when dairy farms are producing too much milk. Bonnaillie also focused on refining the product. She wanted to make it less sensitive to moisture. She wanted to improve the process by which the film was made. She also wanted it to be more uniform and commercial.
At the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society, they announced the results of their efforts. It is edible, biodegradable packaging. The casein film could come in sheets. That is not unlike plastic wrap. Or it could be sprayed on as a coating. And, it's been found to be significantly more effective at blocking oxygen than ordinary plastic wrap. So it can protect food from spoiling for a much longer time.
There would be some limitations at first.
"This would mostly be for dairy products or foods that would likely be used with dairy. Like cereal," says Tomasula. "We wouldn't put this on fruits and vegetables in a market. You couldn't do that because of milk allergies. There would have to be labeling to let people know it's milk protein."
Also, this wouldn't mean that all packaging would be eliminated for cheese and other dairy products. They would still need to be covered in some way, in a box or packet to keep the food from getting dirty or exposed to too much moisture. But dispensing with the individual wrapping around each food item could mean a lot less plastic would end up in landfills. By some estimates, it can take as long as 1,000 years for plastic to degrade. And, unfortunately, less than a third of the plastic Americans throw away actually gets recycled.
The idea, said Bonnaillie, is to create different versions of the casein film. One might be very soluble, making it better suited for a product you dissolve in water. Another could be considerably less soluble. So it would be more resistant to moisture. It would work better as protective packaging.
"We are trying things with the extremes," she says. "We've just started exploring applications. There are many more things we can do."
Say so long to sugar?
For instance, instead of tearing open a paper container to make instant coffee or soup, you could just drop a casein packet of the ingredients into water. Everything would dissolve. Plus, extra protein would be added.
But food companies might actually prefer a spray version of the product.
"That way they could store a mixture of the particular milk proteins in water. And then make the coatings and spray them on when they're processing the food," says Tomasula.
One possibility would be to spray the protein film on cereal. The cereal can be coated with sugar to keep it crunchy.
"It could be fat-free." It is a healthier way to replace a process that's now largely done with sugar, says Bonnaillie.
Tomasula adds: "We're hoping that for something like meal replacement bars we can make the edible wrapping taste like chocolate. We could combine the ingredients together and provide a little more nutrition."
Tomasula and Bonnaillie say they've already been working with some companies. The researchers believe their edible packaging could be on the market within three years.
Since their announcement in August, they've been contacted by what they describe as "two major companies."
Filed Under: Food & Health Inspiration Science Smithsonian
Assigned 170 times
Why isn't this a “perfect” solution?
briemccoy-bak
wow!!!!I can't believe they found out how to make edible food rappers!They said it would be ready in three years,but I wonder if it would be ready any sooner or later than that?
mackenzieb-coo
I think that it is studied that they do this. This is kinda bad cuz I could get stuck in your throught. I know it's saving garbage but it's kinda weird. This is not a vary good idea.
leifp-ebe
Because people would eat it and it would be a possibility that it could get stuck in their throat.
cadenl-ebe
This isn't the perfect solution because it could be a chocking hazard!
libertyf-ebe
This isn't a perfect solution, because what if something goes wrong and the wrapper is making everyone sick, or what if your aleric to something in it and they don't sell cheese wrapped in plastic anymore.
nathanh-ebe
It wouldn't be a perfect solution because if they made it with ingredients that aren't very healthy not a ton of people would buy it.
sethw-ebe
This isn't a perfect solution because bagged food can make people sick.
nathanm-ebe
I think it isn't good because the film will probably taste horrible
jacobv1-ebe
I think its not perfect because the base is dairy, if exposed to chemicals i would fall apart.
ethana1-ebe
I think this isn't a perfect solution because to me edible palstic is just really weird and odd. Also I think it isn't healthier than normal food because it is plastic.
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African Cultural Anthropology
American and Canadian Cultural Anthropology
Anthropology, Global
Anthropology, Religion
Anthropology, Theory and Practice
Asian Cultural Anthropology
European Cultural Anthropology
Latin American Cultural Anthropology
Middle Eastern Cultural Anthropology
Methodology and Techniques
Architectural Theory and Criticism
Art Theory and Criticism
Animal Behavior / Behavioral Ecology
Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility
Early Childhood and Elementary Education
Philosophy and Theory of Education
Film, Television and Radio
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Keywords: New American... (3 Results)
Keywords: New American Cinema x
Edinburgh University Press (1)
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[[missing key: search-facet.tree.open-section]] Film, Television and Radio (2)
1937 1942 1953 1963 1965 1967 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 — 1937 1942 1953 1963 1965 1967 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
Sort by: RelevanceTitle - A to ZTitle - Z to ADate - Old to RecentDate - Recent to OldAuthor - A to ZAuthor - Z to A
Mette Hjort and Duncan Petrie
in The Cinema of Small Nations
10.3366/edinburgh/9780748625369.003.0011
Film, Television and Radio, Film
For a small nation Cuba has been a major player in the context of the Caribbean region. Following the 1959 revolution Cuban cinema emerged at the forefront of cultural production, facilitated by the ... More
For a small nation Cuba has been a major player in the context of the Caribbean region. Following the 1959 revolution Cuban cinema emerged at the forefront of cultural production, facilitated by the Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC), the first organisation of its kind in Latin America. For thirty years it played a key role, both nationally where it provided the resources for Cuban film-makers, and in relation to the pan-continental New Latin American cinema movement. Beyond the institute alternative Cuban cinemas also emerged, some funded by bodies such as the Radio and Television Institute and even the armed forces. Amateur production, linked to regional cultural centres, also became significant in the 1980s. Even more important has been the Cuban International Film and Television School (EICTV), inaugurated in 1986 as part of they New Latin American Cinema Movement, which became an important laboratory for innovation and experiment. The cultural field in Cuba changed in the 1990s following the end of the cold war, leading to a reduction in local production. But it has also generated new kinds of cinematic engagement through allegories of disconnectedness, and low and no-budget film-making utilising new technologies, leading to a more porous national cinema in Cuba.Less
Mette HjortDuncan Petrie
For a small nation Cuba has been a major player in the context of the Caribbean region. Following the 1959 revolution Cuban cinema emerged at the forefront of cultural production, facilitated by the Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC), the first organisation of its kind in Latin America. For thirty years it played a key role, both nationally where it provided the resources for Cuban film-makers, and in relation to the pan-continental New Latin American cinema movement. Beyond the institute alternative Cuban cinemas also emerged, some funded by bodies such as the Radio and Television Institute and even the armed forces. Amateur production, linked to regional cultural centres, also became significant in the 1980s. Even more important has been the Cuban International Film and Television School (EICTV), inaugurated in 1986 as part of they New Latin American Cinema Movement, which became an important laboratory for innovation and experiment. The cultural field in Cuba changed in the 1990s following the end of the cold war, leading to a reduction in local production. But it has also generated new kinds of cinematic engagement through allegories of disconnectedness, and low and no-budget film-making utilising new technologies, leading to a more porous national cinema in Cuba.
Keywords: Cuban cinema, ICAIC, New Latin American Cinema, EICTV, low and no budget production
The Politics of Place in the “Cinema of Allende”
Camilo D. Trumper
in Ephemeral Histories: Public Art, Politics, and the Struggle for the Streets in Chile
10.1525/california/9780520289901.003.0006
History, Latin American History
Chapter 5 studies documentary films as rich historical documents and creative political exercises. Chilean documentarians turned their attention to the streets in order to reconcile cinematic form ... More
Chapter 5 studies documentary films as rich historical documents and creative political exercises. Chilean documentarians turned their attention to the streets in order to reconcile cinematic form and political commitment in the three years of Allende’s presidency. The films they made emerge as key sources for political history. They shed light on the struggle over urban spaces as a political tactic. They also proposed a complex and reciprocal relationship between political and aesthetic modes. Their films were creative attempts to engage and understand the relationship between politics and visual culture, and act as evidence of how styles and forms of political participation were rapidly and radically changing in the 1960s and 70s.Less
Chapter 5 studies documentary films as rich historical documents and creative political exercises. Chilean documentarians turned their attention to the streets in order to reconcile cinematic form and political commitment in the three years of Allende’s presidency. The films they made emerge as key sources for political history. They shed light on the struggle over urban spaces as a political tactic. They also proposed a complex and reciprocal relationship between political and aesthetic modes. Their films were creative attempts to engage and understand the relationship between politics and visual culture, and act as evidence of how styles and forms of political participation were rapidly and radically changing in the 1960s and 70s.
Keywords: documentary film, visual culture, New Latin American Cinema, Patricio Guzman, Pedro Chaskel
D.A. Pennebaker
Keith Beattie
University of Illinois Press
10.5406/illinois/9780252036590.001.0001
This volume is the first book-length study of the extensive career and prolific works of D. A. Pennebaker, one of the pioneers of direct cinema, a documentary form that emphasizes observation and a ... More
This volume is the first book-length study of the extensive career and prolific works of D. A. Pennebaker, one of the pioneers of direct cinema, a documentary form that emphasizes observation and a straightforward portrayal of events. With a career spanning decades, Pennebaker's many projects have included avant-garde experiments (Daybreak Express), ground-breaking television documentaries (Primary), celebrity films (Don't Look Back), concert films (Monterey Pop), and innovative fusions of documentary and fiction (Maidstone). Exploring the concept of “performing the real,” the book's analysis interprets the ways in which Pennebaker's presentation of unscripted everyday performances is informed by connections between documentary filmmaking and other experimental movements such as the New American Cinema. Through his collaborations with such various artists as Richard Leacock, Shirley Clarke, Norman Mailer, and Jean-Luc Godard, Pennebaker has continually reworked and redefined the forms of documentary filmmaking. This book also includes a recent interview with the director and a full filmography.Less
This volume is the first book-length study of the extensive career and prolific works of D. A. Pennebaker, one of the pioneers of direct cinema, a documentary form that emphasizes observation and a straightforward portrayal of events. With a career spanning decades, Pennebaker's many projects have included avant-garde experiments (Daybreak Express), ground-breaking television documentaries (Primary), celebrity films (Don't Look Back), concert films (Monterey Pop), and innovative fusions of documentary and fiction (Maidstone). Exploring the concept of “performing the real,” the book's analysis interprets the ways in which Pennebaker's presentation of unscripted everyday performances is informed by connections between documentary filmmaking and other experimental movements such as the New American Cinema. Through his collaborations with such various artists as Richard Leacock, Shirley Clarke, Norman Mailer, and Jean-Luc Godard, Pennebaker has continually reworked and redefined the forms of documentary filmmaking. This book also includes a recent interview with the director and a full filmography.
Keywords: direct cinema, D. A. Pennebaker, documentary filmmaking, celebrity films, concert films, New American Cinema, filmography
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First cougar seen in Kentucky since Civil War is killed
A Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife officer killed a mountain lion on a Bourbon County farm on Monday, marking the first confirmed sighting of a mountain lion in Kentucky since before the Civil War.
First cougar seen in Kentucky since Civil War is killed A Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife officer killed a mountain lion on a Bourbon County farm on Monday, marking the first confirmed sighting of a mountain lion in Kentucky since before the Civil War. Check out this story on USATODAY.com: http://usat.ly/1AHWXwZ
USA Today NetworkJoseph Gerth, The (Louisville) Courier-Journal Published 1:11 p.m. ET Dec. 17, 2014 | Updated 1:56 p.m. ET Dec. 17, 2014
Puma. (Not the puma killed in Kentucky)(Photo: Courtesy: US Fish and Wildlife Service.)
A Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife officer killed a mountain lion on a Bourbon County farm on Monday, marking the first confirmed sighting of a mountain lion in Kentucky since before the Civil War, said Mark Marraccini, a spokesman for the agency.
Marraccini said a farmer spotted the cat and alerted the department. When the officer responded, he found the animal trapped up a tree by a barking dog and decided it was best to "dispatch it."
Mountain lions were once native to Kentucky but they were killed off here more than a century ago, Marraccini said.
Mountain lions are the largest cats found in North America and can measure up to 8 feet from nose to tail and weigh up to 180 pounds. Also known as cougars, pumas, panthers and catamounts, the cats are considered top-line predators because no other species feed on them.
Marraccini said the wildlife officer shot the cat because it was about 5:30 p.m. and getting dark and he feared that it would slip away in darkness and threaten people in the nearby city of Paris.
"If that cat had left that tree, it would have disappeared into the brush and it was a fairly populated area," said Marraccini. He said it would have taken several hours before a state veterinarian could retrieve a tranquilizer from her safe and get it to the scene had officials pursued that option.
Marraccini said the officer who shot the cat made the right call. "That's the way the officers deemed to handle it and I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be handled that way."
He said a state veterinarian was scheduled to conduct a necropsy on the cat Tuesday to determine if it was a wild cat or a former pet that was either released or escaped.
According to the Cougar Network, the species is mostly confined to the western United States but is advancing east. For years, the Mississippi River has been thought to be a barrier to the mountain lion's eastern expansion. But its clear they have been getting close to Kentucky.
They have colonized in South Dakota, Nebraska and Missouri, said Amy Rodrigues, a staff biologist for the Mountain Lion Foundation, and there have been sightings in recent years in Indiana and even downtown Chicago.
Rodrigues said that mountain lions each need more than 100 square miles to survive and many of the animals being killed as they expand east are young males under the age of 2 that have been kicked out by their mothers. They often travel east looking for deer, water and female cougars.
But Rodrigues criticized states that kill stray cougars and said the animals shouldn't cause fear. "If you're a deer, they're a little dangerous. If you're a human, not so much," she said. "Attacks on people are not that common. There have only been 22 deaths in the last 120 years."
She said people are at greater risk of dying from bee stings and lightning strikes than they are from cougar attacks.
They get a bad rap because "they are large animals with sharp teeth," Rodrigues said.
She added the presence of mountain lions in an ecosystem adds to biological diversity, which she said helps the environment recover from natural disaster and diseases that affect the fauna in a region.
Mark Dowling, a director of the Cougar Network, which advocates for the use of science to understand the animals, said the population was being pushed further and further west until the 1960s when a number of western and midwestern states began to classify them as game animals rather than vermin, and limiting people's right to kill them.
Since then, he said, the cats have been slowly reclaiming their old turf.
Marraccini said there is no official protocol about how to handle more mountain lions if they are found in Kentucky but he doubts that they will be allowed to colonize here like they have in many western states.
"Every one of them is handled on its own," said Marraccini.
Marraccini said that people and legislators probably would be opposed to allowing the cats to stay in the state. "When you have a population essentially that has had generations and generations and generations that have not had top-line predators, you think about it. You going to let your kids wait for the school bus in the dark? ...
"From a wildlife diversity perspective, it would be a neat thing but from a social aspect, probably not."
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1AHWXwZ
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A Chip off the Old Blocks
The University of Vermont has hired alum Joe Gasparini as an assistant coach effective immediately.
He takes the place of Willie Mitchell, who has returned to Canada and private business.
Gasparini, 28, a forward for the Catamounts from ’02-06, comes from a hockey family. He is the son of Gino Gasparini, who coached the University of North Dakota for 16 years, winning three NCAA titles for the Fighting Sioux. The elder Gasparini, after concluding his coaching career, became USHL commissioner and president. Joe is also the younger brother of Tony Gasparini, who was the head coach at Sioux Falls (USHL), an assistant at Union College, and is currently a scout with the Los Angeles Kings (NHL).
A native of Grand Forks, ND, Gasparini overcame a life-threatening illness as a teenager, but persevered and made the roster of the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders in the fall of 2000. After two seasons there, he was recruited to Vermont by Mike Gilligan and his staff. In his final two seasons, he played for Kevin Sneddon and John Micheletto.
Gasparini is one of the few players to have made the All-Academic team in both the ECAC and Hockey East. (Vermont joined Hockey East in Gasparini’s senior season.)
In recent years, Gasparini has worked as a scout for Cedar Rapids and Fargo and has also worked for former Fighting Sioux Justin Duberman’s Achieve Sports Management, which is based in Chicago.
Vermont made their final pick from between Gasparini and Alex Todd, who played at Union when Sneddon and Micheletto were there, and in recent years has resurrected the hockey program at Div. III Castleton State College.
Saturday at the Fall Elite League
On Saturday, after leaving the USHL Fall Classic, we moved north to New Hope, Minnesota to check out the Upper Midwest High School Elite League, where all eight teams were in action, including Shattuck-St. Mary’s, playing their first three games of the season (they won them all).
After the USHL, we found these games refreshing. The pace was fast. There were no “media timeouts,” or pushing and shoving after the whistle. The refs drop the puck and the players get after it. Is it too wide open? A few detractors feel so, but most people believe the league does what it is meant to do, i.e. give kids good competition in preparation for the high school season while allowing them to stay home and play other sports, and give scouts and recruiters an idea as to the skill level of the players.
As usual, there were high-end players on hand. Blaine 6’4” junior center Nick Bjugstad could be the top U.S.-born forward in June’s NHL draft. If the draft were held today, we’d take him over any of the U.S.-born forwards in the USHL. He has the earmarks of a potential first rounder, as does Warroad’s 6’4” center Brock Nelson, and 6’3” Minnetonka center Max Gardiner. 6’2” Minnetonka RD Justin Holl isn’t getting the attention those three forwards are getting, but has skill and, as the season goes along, could pass at least one of those guys in the draft rankings. Ditto for strong-skating 6’4” Cretin-Derham LD Mark Alt, who did not play the day we were there (football). In net, 6’1” Jacob Meyers of Benilde-St. Margaret’s and 6’2” Zane Gothberg of Thief River Falls are both draft eligible and will be followed closely over the winter.
We think there will be 10-15 players taken out of this league in next June’s NHL draft. And that’s not including Shattuck, from which 6’2” LW Jason Clark (Eden Prairie, Minn.) and 6’2” RW Joe Basaraba (Fort Frances, Ont.) will likely be the two highest picks.
There are also plenty of good-looking prospects for the 2011 draft. And, of course, there are college prospects galore. We’ve tried to highlight some of them below in a team-by-team format. We have broken the players down into two groupls: “elite,” meaning they have a very good chance of getting drafted this June, or in the future; and “Div. I”, which explains itself.
And that’s it, in a nutshell.
Team Southwest
Elite:
Troy Hesketh, D, 6-3/185, 7/5/91, senior, Minnetonka (Edmonton, 3rd rond, ’09 draft)
Justin Holl, D, 6-2/175, 1/30/92, senior, Minnetonka
Max Gardiner, C, 6-3/185, 5/7/92, senior, Minnetonka
Jacob Meyers, G, 6-1/175, 1/12/92, senior, Benilde-St. Margaret’s
Div. I Prospects:
Dan Molenaar, D, 5-11/170, 5/7/93, junior, Eden Prairie
Max Everson, D, 6-0/180, 2/22/93, junior, Edina
Charlie Taft, RW, 6-2/180, 9/12/91, senior, Edina
A powerful team, with strength at all positions. Meyers, the best goalie on Saturday --Gothberg, Marks, and Harper also played well -- was terrific, kicking out 36 of 37 shots vs Northwest. Holl is lanky and physically undeveloped, but makes good passes, is good on the pp, and can skate a bit -- a lot of upside with him. Hesketh, a third round pick of Edmonton in June's draft, is not the flashiest type, but he's extremely confident, poised, and just a solid defender who can get the puck out of the zone.
Team Southeast:
A.J. Michaelson, LW, 6-0/165, 2/8/94, sophomore, Apple Valley
Christian Isackson, C, 6-0/175, 1/20/92, senior, St. Thomas Academy
Joseph LaBate, C, 6-4/170, 4/16/93, junior, Holy Angels
Max Gaede, F, 6-2/185, 3/27/92, senior, Woodbury (DNP)
Div. I:
Zach Schroeder, RW, 5-9/150, 9/7/92, junior, St. Thomas Academy
Caleb Herbert, C, 5-10/175, 12/12/91, senior, Bloomington Jefferson
Joe Faust, D, 5-11/185, 11/15/91, senior, Bloomington Jefferson
Michael Zajac, LW, 6-2/200, 9/11/93, sophomore, Eagan
Justin Crandall, LW, 5-10/175, 4/5/92, senior, St. Thomas Academy
Another powerful team. We didn't see Gaede play Saturday (he was back on Sunday). He's a big strong kid who can skate. His game is power and physicality, not finesse -- and he's reported to be thinking about major junior. The knock on Isackson has been his skating, but it's come a long way. He has good (but not great) size, hands, and sees the ice well. Zach Schroeder, Jordan's younger brother, looks like a future Gopher to us. Very skilled, but lacks his brother's high-end speed or dynamic aspect. Michaelson, who can really go, is young -- just a '94 and a soph at Apple Valley. It will be fun to see how he develops. LaBate, tall and lanky as all get-out, is growing into his body. Needs to engage more. Herbert, Faust, and Zajac all look to be fine Div. I prospects. Looking at the numbers, this team has scored more goals than any other team in the tournament -- we saw a lot of skill spread over four lines. Crandall, by the way, leads the league in scoring with an 11-11-22 line in nine games. Along with his center, Herbert (6-14-20), and opposite winger Schroeder (5-10-15) that one line comprises three of the top four scorers in the league.
Team Wisconsin:
Joe Fiala, D, 6-3/185, 2/11/93, junior, Verona
Not a strong year for Wisconsin.
Team Northwest:
Nick Bjugstad, C, 6-4/185, 7/17/92. junior, Blaine
Jack Storo, LW, 6-3/190, 2/24/93, sophomore, Chaska
Scott Holm, LW, 6-2/175, 10/18/91, senior, Wayzata
Tyson Fulton, RW, 6-0/185, 9/19/91, senior, Breck
Christian Horn, LW, 5-10/155, 6/11/93, sophomore, Benilde-St. Margaret’s
Dan Harper, G, 5-10/180, 7/8/91, senior, Blaine
Bjugstad is the real deal - a very gifted player. Scored a couple of goals vs. North -- on one he just roofed it from the bottom edge of the faceoff circle, a big-time shot. Jack Storo is a kid we hadn't previously heard of. Just a soph, he will be highly recruited, if he isn't already. Harper kicked out 32 of 34 shots vs Southwest, a powerful team.
Team Northeast:
Ben Marshall, D, 5-10/165, 8/30/92, junior, Mahtomedi
Mark Alt, D, 6-4/190, 10/18/91, senior, Cretin-Derham Hall (DNP)
Div. I :
Ben Bahe, RW, 5-10/160, 1/10/93, junior, Hill-Murray
Connor Reilly, C, 5-11/155, 10/1/91, senior, Holy Angels
Ryan Reilly, LW, 5-7/145, 10/1/91, senior, Holy Angels
Max Birkinbine, RW, 5-11/165, 1/5/93, junior, White Bear Lake
As we mentioned above, Alt didn't play because of football. The Reillys looked great -- they can skate and are consistently noticeable. Fun to watch, they'll be good college players. Ben Marshall can skate and is highly skilled, and for those two reasons alone is fun to watch. You don't want to stifle him, and take away what he does well, but he also holds onto the puck way too long. Sometimes it looks like he's playing keep away -- and then he totally runs out of options. Gopher fans will be hoping that Marshall learns -- before arriving at the U -- that a quick, short pass is soemtimes the best option.
Team North:
Andy Welinski, D, 6-0/175, 4/27/93, junior, Duluth East
Willie Corrin, D, 6-3/175, 8/1/91, senior, International Falls (DNP)
Garrett Hendrickson, LW, 6-1/165, 6/29/92, junior, Virginia
Adam Krause, C, 6-2/180, 9/12/91, senior, Hermantown
Corrin didn't play, so can't say anything about him. Welinski, a '93, is the best prospect on the team, which was weak -- not much on the Iron Range this year.
Team Great Plains:
Zane Gothberg, G, 6-2/178, 8/20/92, senior, Thief River Falls
Brock Nelson, C, 6-4/185, 10/15/91, senior, Warroad
Brett Hebel, LW, 6-1/205, 3/15/92, senior, Warroad
Adam Knochenmus, RW, 5-9/165, 4/16/92, senior, Roseau
Tyler Larson, LW, 6-3/185, 11/21/91, senior, Moorhead
Logan Marks, G, 6-1/165, 1/21/92, senior, Moorhead
The strongest team Great Plains has had in the tournament. Nelson, who committed to North Dakota a couple of weeks ago, is a legitimate top two rounds guy. He's tall and lanky, has soft hands, and he can both make plays and finish. Played on the same line as Hebel and Knochenmus, probably the second best line here. At any rate, all three are in the top 10 in league scoring, with Nelson leading the way with a 7-10-17 line in nine games. The team was a little thin on the blue line, however. In net, Marks kicked out 46 of 50 in a strong performance vs. a very powerful Team Southeast.
Shattuck-St. Mary’s:
Kirill Gotovets, D, 5-11/187, 6/25/91, senior (Tampa Bay, 7th round, ’09 draft)
Jason Clark, LW, 6-2/183, 2/27/92, senior
Joe Basaraba, RW, 6-2/190, 5/2/92, senior
Geoff Ferguson, D, 6-2/180, 1/8/92, senior
James Polk, LW, 6-0/175, 2/13/92, senior
Kenny Gillespie, RW, 6-1/190, 12/1/93, junior
J.P. LaFontaine, C, 5-9/170, 2/13/92, senior
Peter Traber, G, 6-2/180, 5/1/93, junior
Josh Little, C, 6-0/172, 9/15/91, senior
Anthony Greco, LW, 5-9/155, 9/30/93, junior
Danny Elser, C, 5-11/170, 3/18/93, junior
Shattuck was playing its first two games of the tournament on Saturday, whereas the other teams in the tournament already had six games under their belt. It was no problem, though. As we mentioned above, they went 3-0-0, outscored their opponents 20-9 and look like the early favorites for Nationals. Gotovets, a Belarus native drafted in June (7th round; Tampa Bay) and headed to Cornell next season, is a little out of control at times, but he certainly has skill and he definitely competes. Clark has the size-talent combination on this team -- he's very smooth -- and has the potential to go quite high in June's draft. Basaraba will get drafted, too, though later: he's a big, physical banger. Ferguson is a solid D -- a little heavy-footed for pro consideration -- who will play Div. I somewhere. Polk is an excellent skater, and there's a chance he will get drafted for that alone, though we'd like to see him more involved physically and on the score sheet. Gillespie is young -- almost a '94 -- and doesn't have very good hands, but we like him anyway. He's a tough energy guy who keeps his feet moving, and, through his relentless physical play, opens up space for his linemates. He's a junior, so has two years to refine his game. J.P. LaFontaine, who does everything well but nothing great, reportedly got his forehead split open on Sunday by the edge of his own helmet. He'll be OK, but has plenty of stitches to show. Elser is a bit of an enigma to us. He's a great skater, but at times is invisible out there. That said, he put up more points than any other player on his team over the weekend. Go figure. Everything we say about Elser we could also say about Greco. We'd just like to see them get at it harder. Two players we've seen play very well at other times -- Jimmy Mullin and Tanner Sorenson -- were no factor in Saturday's games, so we kept them off the above list. Consider it our unique form of punishment. As we said, this was the opening weekend for Shattuck.
Here are their lines:
Greco-LaFontaine-Robbins
Polk-Mullin-Basaraba
Clark-Elser-Sorenson
Wang-Little-Gillespie
And defense pairings...
Sinz-Gotovets
Lutsch-Bruneteau
Ferguson-Racobaldo
Goalies are Traber and Terenzio
In Corn Country, U.S. Under-18s Lay an Egg
With continued expansion, the USHL Fall Classic, held over the weekend in Sioux City, Iowa, is becoming increasingly challenging for one person to cover: with Youngstown and the NTDP coming on board this year, there are now 14 teams playing games in two different rinks. That will increase to 16 in a year or two. Speaking of the NTDP, though both the U.S. Under-18 Team and the U.S. Under-17 Team will be playing in the league this year, the Under-18s were the ones on hand in Sioux City. On paper, this year’s Under-18s (’92 birthdates) appear to be the deepest since the ‘88s. Even with two forwards – Jacob Fallon and Shane Sooth – suspended (for drinking) until Dec. 1, we expected to be impressed by this group. After all, there are no true “mistakes” on this team. Everybody can play.
But they laid an egg.
Right from the opening faceoff of Thurday’s opener vs. Tri-City, the U.S. Team played a lock-down defensive style. Maybe that’s the favored approach of new U.S. Under-18 Team head coach Kurt Kleinendorst, who has worked in the defense-first New Jersey Devils organization for the last eight years. However, we don’t think that running a 1-2-2 in a showcase tournament is conducive to player development, to say nothing of the fact that it’s deathly boring to watch. In the first game, vs. Tri-City, the weakest team in the league, the U.S. managed a 3-1 win. Despite the win, skilled forwards like Matt Nieto, Jason Zucker, Billy Arnold and others looked totally indistinguishable from 90% of the other forwards in the tournament. No creativity. None. About the only forward who was able to sneak a little creativity into the attack, and actually make himself noticeable, was Austin Czarnik. We truly understand Kleinendorst’s desire to establish the importance of team defense early in the season, but these kids looked like they were being punished…well, two actually were. From what we saw, we believe it would be far preferable for the NTDP forwards to be scattered throughout the rest of the league – at least the college recruiters and NHL scouts would be able to see what they could do. However, that’s a story for another day. Meanwhile, if things stay like this, we wouldn’t be surprised to see kids jump to major junior teams by Christmas. Or beg to be traded to another USHL team.
We didn’t see the Under-18 Team play Friday’s late game – we’ll wait until October and watch them again – but they lost to Sioux City, 2-1, in a shootout. The following night they lost to Des Moines, 4-2…and Des Moines is a weak team. Over the course of three games, the U.S. Under-18 Team scored a total of only six goals, three coming off the sticks of defensemen. Of the three goals scored by forwards, two were on the power play. In 180 minutes of hockey, only one U.S. forward (Zucker) was able to score an even-strength goal. Think about that one for a second.
In short, it was an embarrassment for the U.S. Team.
(Note: Because of the situation, we didn’t bother ranking the U.S. players below. It was just too inconclusive, particularly up front. Even though we have a pretty good sense of what those players can do from having seen them a lot in the past, we feel it wouldn’t be fair to try to slot them in with the players from the other 13 teams below. We’ll take another look at the team in a couple of weeks when they come east to play BC and BU, and see what we can learn then. That said, Zucker looks like the top forward right now, but that could change. We expect a lot of movement among the forwards. Also, keep in mind that there are seven late birthdates on the team, meaning defenseman Adam Clendening, and forwards Nieto, Nick Shore, Brandon Saad, Michael Mersch, and Czarnik will not be eligible until the 2011 draft. Finally, we feel that if the draft were to be held today, the first four players taken from the Under-18 Team would be blue liners – and we’ll talk about that in a minute.)
Some players came to the Fall Classic and made statements. Connor Brickley was one those guys. While he was excellent at the Select 17 Festival in July, he took it up another notch here, playing like he was on a mission from his very first shift. In his opening-day game, a 4-2 win over Green Bay, the Des Moines forward, a Vermont recruit, used his speed, battered guys along the wall, scored a nifty goal in the final seconds of the period, and became the instant buzz among the NHL scouts. In the second period, he kept it up, but was pushed into the post, suffered a hip pointer, and was taken out of the game. He sat out Friday, but came back and played Saturday vs. the Under-18 Team. Brickley, who was passed over by the NTDP a couple of years ago, was reportedly determined to play in that one. And he scored the game’s first goal just 1:43 in, setting the tone as the Bucs went on to win 4-2. The last time we remember a prep player coming out here and making such a big impact in his first game was when Max Pacioretty came out here three years ago and took out both end boards and everything in between at the small rink in Des Moines.
Jaden Schwartz, a CC recruit who has played for the Notre Dame Hounds of Wilcox, Saskatchewan the past few years, is an impressive player. He’s only 5’10” but we can still see him going very high in the draft for the simple reason that he flat-out sees it. He finds the open man beautifully, his passes are tape-to-tape, and he can finish. He’s a point machine and, even though he’s on a poor team, he could still finish among the league’s leading scorers. Is he dynamic enough to play in the NHL at 5’10”? That remains to be seen. He’ll certainly be an excellent college player, and a potential Hobey Baker Award winner.
Nick Sorkin, a UNH recruit who was passed over in June’s NHL draft, continued to make a name for himself, and could go quite high his second time through the draft. At least one scout we have spoken to pushed his boss to draft him, but the team got cold feet due to the fact that Sorkin was playing midgets – in Maryland. There’s a lesson to be learned there – probably several.
Brian Ferlin, who was playing in anonymity for the Jacksonville Ice Dogs last winter, put himself on the map at the Select 17 Festival in July, and was immediately scooped up by Cornell. He continued his strong play here.
Among those draft eligible for next June, those four, in our book, were the “A” forwards at the tournament. As we mentioned above, several NTDPer’s, despite what happened here, are also “A” forwards.
On the blue line, the U.S. Under-18 Team’s 6’4” Derek Forbort, a North Dakota recruit who was playing at Duluth East last season, was excellent. Unless something changes dramatically, Forbort will be the top American chosen in next June’s NHL draft. The Under-18 Team’s Jarred Tinordi, Stephen Johns, and Jon Merrill all look like players who will go in the top two rounds as well.
Kevin Lind, a Notre Dame recruit in his second year with the Chicago Steel: Aaron Harstad, a CC recruit in his second year at Green Bay; Nick Mattson, a North Dakota recruit formerly with the U.S. Under 18s; and Kevin Gravel, a St. Cloud recruit who was playing for the Marquette Rangers (NAJHL) last season are our other “A” players on the blue line.
After that, there is a large, motley group of d-men – our “B” group -- who could emerge in various ways. Some are intriguing for their size, and while a few will inevitably turn out to be duds, a few may also turn out to be prizes. Oleg Yevenka, the 6’7” Russian defenseman, certainly has a chance to be one of those. There are still nearly nine months before the draft. A lot can, and will, change.
The buzz among the NHL scouts when it came to goaltenders was 6’4” Jared Coreau, a Perth, Ontario native who played last season for the Peterborough Stars (OHA). Coreau, a Northern Michigan recruit, fills up a lot of net and makes stopping the puck look pretty easy. Coreau is the new kid on the block, and all the NHL guys were watching closely.
Note: There were several players who we didn’t see that we would have liked to. Fallon and Sooth, of course, but also Yasin Cissé, the BU recruit who, for the second straight year has missed this tournament with an injury. Rightly or wrongly, the ’92 forward from Quebec is already developing a reputation as a frail player among NHL scouts.
6’2” Matt White, the 6’2” North Dakota recruit on Lincoln’s roster, was also out, so we missed him this time around. To avoid confusion we should tell you that the league’s “other” Matt White, the 5’9” UNO recruit who plays for Omaha, was really good here. He’s an ’89, though, so we expect him to be good.
2010 Draft Eligibles:
(* An asterisk before a player’s name indicates he was bypassed in last June’s draft)
“A” Forwards:
Connor Brickley, 2/25/92, 6-2/195, #20 Des Moines (Vermont)
Jaden Schwartz, 6/25/92, 5-10/180, #8 Tri-City (CC)
* Nick Sorkin, 6/30/91, 6-1½/166, #21 Waterloo (UNH)
Brian Ferlin, 6/3/92, 6-1/192, #16 Indiana (Cornell)
“B” Forwards:
Michael Parks, 2/15/92, 5-11/185, #61 Cedar Rapids (North Dakota)
Brendan Woods, 6/11/92, 6-2/180, #17 Chicago (uncommitted)
Scott Wamsganz, 4/27/92, 6-4/180, #16 Waterloo (uncommitted)
* Ludwig Karlsson, 3/31/91, 6-2/200, #25 Green Bay (uncommitted)
John McCarron, 4/16/92, 6-3/215, #9 Lincoln (uncommitted)
John Parker, 1/11/92, 5-11/178, #25 Indiana (UMass)
* David Gerths, 9/27/90, 6-0/195, #10 Lincoln (Notre Dame)
Alex Lippincott, 3/23/92, 6-1/182, #11 Fargo (Ohio State)
“A” Defensemen:
Kevin Lind, 3/31/92, 6-3/200, #7 Chicago (Notre Dame)
Aaron Harstad, 4/27/92, 6-2/183, #2 Green Bay (CC)
Kevin Gravel, 3/6/92, 6-4/175, #3 Sioux City (St. Cloud State)
Nick Mattson, 10/25/91, 6-1/177, #24 Indiana (North Dakota)
“B” Defensemen:
*Oleg Yevenka, 4/7/91, 6-7/230, #25 Fargo (uncommitted)
Mathieu Brisson, 3/9/92, 6-1/187, #52 Omaha (Cornell)
Brandon Carlson, 6/15/92, 6-2/200, #6 Des Moines (uncommitted)
Nolan Zajac, 8/1/92, 5-10/170, #44 Cedar Rapids (uncommitted)
*Andrej Sustr, 11/29/90, 6-6/195, #3 Youngstown (uncommitted)
*Jean-Laurence Beauchemin, 2/19/91, 6-4/187, #4 Youngstown (uncommitted)
*Alexander Kugali, 6/13/91, 6-2/225, #6 Indiana (uncommitted)
*Zach Palmquist, 12/9/90, 5-11/175, #17 Waterloo (Mankato)
*Brian O’Rourke, 4/4/91, 6-1/185, #28 Green Bay (Nebraska-Omaha)
*Justin Agosta, 10/9/90, 6-1/200, #19 Indiana (UNH)
*Luke Eibler, 3/21/91, 6-3/175, #18 Youngstown (Northeastern)
*Dan Senkbeil, 9/7/91, 6-4/185, #77 Youngstown (uncommitted)
Top Draft-eligible Goaltenders:
Jared Coreau, 11/5/91, 6-4/200, #33 Lincoln (Northern Michigan)
Willie Yanakeff, 4/30/92, 6-3/185, #37 Sioux City (Michigan State)
Cody Campbell, 2/25/92, 5-11/150, #29 Fargo (UNH)
Ryan McKay, 8/22/92, 6-0/196, #35 Green Bay (uncommitted)
Matt Skoff, 7/23/91, 6-1/175, #31 Sioux City (uncommitted)
Jeff Teglia, 6/24/91, 6-0/180, #1 Omaha (uncommitted)
2011 Draft Eligibles (all positions):
F - Seth Ambroz, 4/3/93, 6-3/205, Omaha (Minnesota)
F - Sam Warning, 9/29/92, 5-9/175, Cedar Rapids
F - Colten St. Clair, 11/22/92, 5-11/186, Fargo (North Dakota)
F - Cason Hohmann, 1/10/93, 5-7/150, Cedar Rapids (BU)
D - Jamie Oleksiak, 12/21/92, 6-6/215, Chicago (uncommitted)
D - Scott Mayfield, 10/14/92, 6-3/175, Youngstown (Denver)
D - Peter Hand, 8/27/93, 5-11/190, Chicago (Ohio State)
G – Matt Mahalak, 1/22/93, 6-2/185, Youngstown (uncommitted)
2012 Draft Eligibles (in other words, all three ‘94s at the tournament):
F - Richard Zehnal, 8/22/94, 6-0/200, Sioux City (uncommitted)
F – Brady Vail, 3/11/94, 6-0/196, Waterloo (uncommitted)
D - Nick Ebert, 5/11/94, 6-0/180, Waterloo (uncommitted)
The best team here was the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders. Sure, they won the whole thing, but we would have tabbed them as the best team even if they had lost most of their games. They are a skating team with high-end talent in Montreal draft pick Mac Bennett, Warning, Hohmann, Parks, and Zajac. They also have a bunch of uncommitted kids who are pretty good, too, so the college guys will be ringing up head coach Mark Carlson a lot once again this winter.
Sacred Heart Candidates
Here, according to our best sources, are the six candidates to replace Sacred Heart coach Shaun Hannah, who resigned Sept. 9:
Lou Santini, Sacred Heart assistant
C.J. Marottolo, Yale University assistant
Bob Prier, St. Lawrence assistant
Stan Moore, Providence College assistant
Mike Corbett, Air Force assistant
Ben Syer, Quinnipiac assistant
Interviews will be conducted today and continue through Wednesday.
Sacred Heart opens the season with a home exhibition game vs. St. Thomas University of Fredricton, New Brunswick on Oct. 4 – just six days away.
Justin “J.B.” Bittner has been named as an assistant coach at Ohio State University.
Bittner, 27, a Pittsburgh, PA native and former forward and two-year captain at Ohio State, played three years of minor pro hockey before returning to Ohio State last season and serving as the Buckeyes’ video coordinator.
Steve Brent has been moved up to the #1 assistant’s role.
These moves came about as a result of Jason Lammers’ move to Colorado College, where he replaced Mike Guentzel, now head coach of Des Moines (USHL).
We are working on pulling together our notes from the USHL Fall Classic and the Minnesota Fall Elite League. We aim to have the former ready tonight, and the latter ready sometime tomorrow.
Two NTDP D for BU
Boston University has commitments from a pair of NTDP defensemen: Adam Clendening of the U.S. Under-18 Team for the fall of ’10; and Alexx Privitera of the U.S. Under-17 Team for the fall of ’11.
-- Clendening, a 5’11”, 187 lb. right shot, is an excellent puck moving defenseman who sees the ice very well. He originally committed to Boston College last season, but was still interested enough in the OHL route that the BC staff backed off, figuring they would be better off putting their efforts into defensemen they felt certain would show up at the Heights.
Somewhere along the line, though, Clendening decided to get back into the NCAA picture, and Boston University has been recruiting him for some time.
However, the BU staff believes there is a slim chance that Clendening, from Niagara Falls, NY, might still go major junior. They are only certain of one thing: If Clendening follows through and plays college hockey, it will be for the Terriers. As with so many – too many -- college recruits these days, they may have to keep on recruiting him until September 2010.
-- Privitera, a 5’10”, 178 lb. right shot D, is a nice skater with a quick stick and the potential to run the power play down the line. A ’93 from New Jersey, he played with the North Jersey Avalanche and Bergen Catholic HS before joining the NTDP this fall.
Privitera chose BU over BC, Harvard, and Miami.
New England Fall Prep Leagues Gearing Up
The Western New England Fall Prep Elite Hockey League had its tryouts over the past weekend. Four teams were picked and the players chosen can be found at the link right here:
Game action gets underway this Saturday, Sept. 26 at Trinity College in Hartford with games at 6:30 pm and 8:15 pm.
On Sunday games will be at 1:15 pm and 3:00 pm.
The league will run through Nov. 14.
Prep coaches Matt Herr (Kent), Geoff Marottolo (South Kent), and John Gardner (Avon Old Farms) ran the tryouts on the ice, though four outside evaluators picked the players. Not one of the four teams has more than 25% of its players from any one school, which complies with NEPSAC rules.
Not many college coaches were in attendance – this was only a tryout – but we asked one who was there what he thought. “I thought it was a good level of play," he said, "especially when you break it down to the four teams. Guys are getting enough ice. The pace of the games was good. It was quick, intense, easy to watch, and looked like it was enjoyable to play in.”
"I like the whole setup because it’s so manageable for players and coaches, and it's great from a scouting perspective, too. It allows me to see the high-end prep players in one location before the season starts – and without running all over the place. It’s a win-win.”
We think the web site looks pretty good, too. Here’s the link to the main page:
Western New England Fall Prep Elite Hockey League
The Massachusetts-based New England Fall Prep Hockey League will also be getting underway for real this weekend, with games at both the Under-19 level (at Babson College) and the Under-18 level (at Salem, NH) scheduled.
The Mass League picked their players in the spring, and we posted rosters then. However, they are now official, and available on the league’s web site, along with schedules. All of that can be found here:
New England Fall Prep Hockey League
Some of this might be old news. If so, hang in there. We’ll have plenty of new stuff by the end of the week.
First off, we have some late college hirings. Jason Lammers, an assistant at Ohio State for the last three seasons, has been hired at Colorado College, where he will take the position vacated by Mike Guentzel, now the head coach at Des Moines (USHL).
Before going to Ohio State, Lammers, 34, spent one year as head coach at Geneseo State, his alma mater. And a succesful year it was, too, as Lammers led his team to the NCAA Div. III tournament. Before that, Lammers put in his time as an assistant at Clarkson, Alaska-Fairbanks, and Princeton.
Phoenix Coyotes scout Keith Sullivan, who had pancreatitis in July, has been in Beth Isreal Deaconess Medical Center in Boston for the past week recovering from gall bladder removal, which was necessitated by the fact that cysts that had formed in the healing from the original attack and were pressing on the spine. Not fun. Sullivan will be recuperating at his Vermont home and hopes to be back at work in a month.
Mark Workman, 38, who has been an assistant at Brown for six years and before that was the head coach at St. Scholastica, his alma mater, for six years, has been hired as an assistant at Robert Morris Univeristy. Workman replaces Joe Shawhan, who has returned to Northern Michigan Univeristy, where he will work in the athletic department and as Director of Hockey Operations.
A Personal Note
I want to thank all of you in the hockey world who were aware of the illness of my younger brother, Nick, and, from spring through summer, included him in your prayers, thus providing comfort in a very tough time.
On Thursday, my brother died of lung cancer. He was able to die surrounded by family at his farm in Western Massachusetts, the place where he was happiest. My brother was not an athlete and most USHR readers would not have heard of him. He was both a biomedical engineer and an artist – a painter, to be specific. He was also a craftsman in both wood and metal. Last, but far from least, he was a family man and a wonderful father to three great kids.
USHR will be a little quiet for the next week or so. I will not have time to chase down stories, but if something important happens, I encourage readers to drop me an email. As time allows, I will try to get those stories in print, or at least make up for it very soon.
Chris Warner
US Hockey Report
Philly Showcase Schedule
Here is the schedule for the MET/AJHL and 18U AAA combined showcase in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />West Chester, Penn. the weekend of September 18-20. All 24 MET Teams, seven AJHL teams, and ten 18U AAA teams will be on hand. The ten midget teams will be drawn from the Tier I Elite League and will consist of the five teams from the league's East Division (Boston Advantage, Buffalo Regals, Philly Jr. Flyers, Pittsburgh Hornets, Team Comcast) and five teams from the Detroit Division (Belle Tire, Compuware, Honeybaked, Little Caesar's, Victory Honda).
Met Kickoff Showcase:
https://www.ushr.com/assets/docs/2009/09-10METKickoffShowcaseAJ-18USchedule.xls
AJHL/Philly AAA Showcase:
https://www.ushr.com/assets/docs/2009/09-10METKickoffShowcaseSchedule.xls
Hub City Tournament This Weekend
The Second Annual Hub City Junior Showcase is scheduled for this Friday and Saturday Sept. 11-12 at the Bridgewater Ice Arena in Bridgewater, Mass.
Teams from three leagues will be competing:
EJHL: South Shore Kings, Springfield Pics, and Bridgewater Bandits.
AJHL: Northern Mass Cyclones, Walpole Express, Portland Jr Pirates, and NJ Rockets.
Midget AAA: Boston Advantage, Boston Jr Rangers, and Rice Memorial.
For the full schedule please follow the link below:
http://www.hubcityhockey.com/
Clarkson Recruits Charged
The Watertown (NY) Daily News is reporting that three Clarkson recruuits have been charged by the New York State Police with having sex with a 16-year-old girl without her consent.
All three will be arraigned this morning (Wed. 9/9) in Potsdam Village Court, charged with sexual misconduct and child endangerment, both of which are misdemeanor charges. The incident took place in early July at Clarkson’s summer hockey camp.
The three players are:
-- Defenseman Jordan Ciccarello of New Hartford, Conn. Ciccarello, who played at the South Kent School last season, is a recruit for this fall.
-- Defenseman Patrick McEachen of Stouffville, Ont. McEachen, who played for the Stouffville Spirit (OPJHL) last season, is also a recruit for this fall.
-- Forward Demetri Sakaris of Candiac, Que. Sakaris, a recruit for the fall of ’11, played for Vaudreuil-Dorion (LHJAQ) last season.
The players' status with the team has yet to be determined. The school is cooperating with the police and conducting its own investigation.
Whittet Makes a Statement
New Brown head coach Brendan Whittet has his first recruit – and it’s Berkshire School forward Jake Goldberg, who will arrive at Meehan Auditorium in the fall of ’10.
Goldberg, who is going into his senior year at Berkshire, is the kind of player Brown, which averaged under two goals a game last season, needs now. He’s a point producer, leading Berkshire in goals and total points with a 27-28-55 line in 33 games last winter.
The year before that, as a 10th grader, he posted a 21-17-38 line.
Goldberg, a 5’11”, 185 lb. native of Langhorne, PA is a 6/21/91 birthdate who attended the Eaglebrook School before going to Berkshire. He’s a natural athlete and was All New England in three sports at Berkshire – football, hockey, and baseball.
On the ice, Goldberg’s strong points are his hockey sense and his ability to see the ice. When he’s on, he can dictate the pace of the game. If there’s an area of his game he could work on this season, it’s the physical part. He may be skilled, but he still has to establish a presence in the dirty areas of the ice.
But with added strength, that might come. The bottom line is that Whittet has gone after – and snagged – a skill player who can score goals. That’s a species that has become rare at Brown in recent years.
Woodchuck Classic Schedule
The Fifth Annual Woodchuck Classic, hosted by the Green Mountain Glades, is scheduled for Thurs-Sun. Sept. 10-13. A link to the schedule -- it's an Excel file -- is below.
Games will take place at Gutterson Field House at the University of Vermont, and at Cairns Arena, which is in South Burlington and has two sheets.
There will be two divisions, a Junior A Division, and a combined Jr. B/Midget AAA Division.
Eleven of the 14 EJHL teams will be on hand. There will also be 10 Canadian teams, primarily from the Provinicial League -- Wellington, Georgetown, Oakville, et al -- as well as some CEGEP teams and one team down from the Maritimes -- the Woodstock Slammers.
The games will be on fasthockey.com and the results will be on Pointstreak.
2009 Woodchuck Classic Schedule
Bucs Make It Official
Longtime Div. I assistant and USHL head coach Mike Guentzel was officially named the head coach of the Des Moines Buccaneers (USHL) yesterday.
Guentzel replaces Dave Allison, who never got to coach a single game. Unable to get a green card, he is now scouting for Pittsburgh.
This is a big hire for Des Moines. For more on Guentzel, please check our initial story in the USHR News of Aug. 19.
A Tip
Here's an early opportunity for scouts and recruiters. The South Shore Kings (EJHL) will be facing off against a pair of Midget AAA teams in exhibition games at the Foxboro Sports Centre tomorrow (Wed. Sept. 2) and the day after (Thurs. Sept. 3).
On Wednesday, at 1 pm, the South Shore Kings face off against the Cape Cod Whalers.
On Thursday, at 1 pm, the South Shore Kings face off against the Neponset Valley River Rats.
USHR Headlines
Racine Shines at Beantown
New England Prep Hockey News
Sunday 3/8 Championship Games
Saturday 3/7/09 Semifinals
Prep Semis on Tap for Today
Prep Quarterfinal Recaps
Whitney, McNally DQs Upheld
Playoff Matchups/Final Standings
Sat. Feb. 28
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Playoff Seedings
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Nobody Asked Me, But …
By Captain Linton F. Brooks, U.S. Navy (Retired)
This html article is produced from an uncorrected text file through optical character recognition. Prior to 1940 articles all text has been corrected, but from 1940 to the present most still remain uncorrected. Artifacts of the scans are misspellings, out-of-context footnotes and sidebars, and other inconsistencies. Adjacent to each text file is a PDF of the article, which accurately and fully conveys the content as it appeared in the issue. The uncorrected text files have been included to enhance the searchability of our content, on our site and in search engines, for our membership, the research community and media organizations. We are working now to provide clean text files for the entire collection.
Why Doesn ’t the Navy Make More 'Jse of the Retired Community?
Among the many challenges facing he Navy in the post-Cold War world is naintaining continued public support ®r a strong Navy after the collapse of he Soviet threat. As it prepares for this challenge, the Navy is ignoring an important asset: the thousands of interred, articulate, and influential retired Navy officers throughout the nation.
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LOCKHEED MARTIN (KEVIN ROBERTSON)
Sea Strike: Projecting Persistent, Responsive, and Precise Power
By Vice Admiral Cutler Dawson, USN, and Vice Admiral John Nathman, USN
Sea Strike focuses on the offensive. It uses both lethal and nonlethal effects to attack key enemy targets. It involves not only strike aircraft (here, the Joint Strike Fighter) and cruise missiles, but also Marines, information operations, Special Operations Forces, and the joint strike capabilities of the Army and Air Force—as well as the offensive punch of our allies, coalition partners, and friends.
Sea Strike is a vision of what we will become as well as the focus of our capability today. It is about far more than putting bombs on target, although the delivery of ordnance remains a critical function. At its heart, Sea Strike is a broad concept for naval power projection that leverages C5ISR (command, control, communications, computers, combat systems, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance), precision, stealth, information, and joint strike together. It amplifies effects-based striking power through enhanced operational tempo and distant reach. It takes U.S. power to the enemy 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, creating shock and awe both immediately and persistently. Sea Strike is what it takes to win in the 21st century.
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Mercedes A-Class Interiors Officially Revealed
The German automaker has officially revealed the interior of the new 2018 Mercedes A-Class and it is just perfect. The fourth gen A-Class gets a unique interior incomparable to any of its competitors in its segment presently. The new 2018 Mercedes A-Class is expected to debut at 2018 Geneva Motor Show and leads Mercedes’ expanded, 8 car range on the same platform. Almost all manufacturers have their particular modular platforms now that can be changed easily as per the requirement and feature all types of body styles like SUVs, crossovers, sedans and hatchbacks.
The major focus of the car manufacturer was on making the interior of the car better in terms of luxury and comfort. Some things are kept similar to its elder siblings i.e. the E-class and the S-class. Mercedes Benz believes that adding luxury and borrowing features into smaller variants will improve the demand for compact vehicles aimed for the urban environment.
Mercedes’s compact car product manager, Christoph Eberlein said, “Some people want a small car because they live in a city or need to save space, but they still want to have all the luxury features and options. This is a luxury design for compact cars. Small doesn’t have to be non-premium.”
The new 2018 Mercedes A-Class will have higher level of in-car technology and a long list of options. According to the head of interior design of Mercedes, Hartmut Sinkwitz, the buyers of A-class are much younger than other models, the focus was on improving the overall dynamism.
Mr. Sinkwitz said, “There is a general trend for people to spend more on interior options rather than, for example, spending money on a better engine. People spend more time in their cars and want comfort, so their willingness to pay for interior options is growing.”
The fully redesigned dashboard has got two displays with a split in the middle featuring ambient lighting to give a sense of space. The base variants will get two 7.0 inch displays which can be upgraded to one 7.0 inch and a 10.25 inch or both 10.25 inch displays. The turbine style air vents feature ambient lighting available in 64 colors and come pre-loaded with 10 mood programs.
The three spoke multi-function steering wheel is taken from the S-Class and for the first time, the seats have got heating as well as climate control function. In the international market, the 2018 Mercedes A-Class will be available in three trim levels-an entry level style, a performance oriented AMG edition and top of the line-Progressive trim.
The two negatives of the current A-Class were the boot capacity, which has been improved by 29-litres to 370-litres and the access to boot has been revised by 200 mm wider loading aperture. The second one is the headroom for the front passengers which has been improved by 7mm to 1.024 mm.
We have to wait for the launch date of the Mercedes A- Class.
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by Louise Matsakis
Oct 31 2017, 3:42pm
Google Docs Is Randomly Flagging Files for Violating Its Terms of Service
Let this serve as a reminder that you have less control over your stuff online than it often appears.
Image: Shutterstock / Composition: Louise Matsakis
Update: 3:21 PM EST: A Google spokesperson reached out via email with the following statement saying that the bug has been fixed: "This morning, we made a code push that incorrectly flagged a small percentage of Google Docs as abusive, which caused those documents to be automatically blocked. A fix is in place and all users should have full access to their docs. Protecting users from viruses, malware, and other abusive content is central to user safety. We apologize for the disruption and will put processes in place to prevent this from happening again."
The original story follows below:
Google Docs, the collaborative, cloud-based word processing software, appears to be randomly flagging files for supposedly "violating" Google's Terms of Service. A member of Motherboard's team, as well as numerous users on Twitter, report that their documents are being locked for no apparent reason. Once a document is flagged, the owner of that document can no longer share it with other users. Users who have already been shared on a document that's been flagged are kicked out and can no longer access it.
When a draft Motherboard article was locked on Monday morning, a message took over the screen that read "This item has been flagged as inappropriate and can no longer be shared." It's not clear why this is happening, but it may be the result of a glitch in the system Google uses to monitor Google Docs. DownDetector is currently reporting Google Drive problems in the US and Europe, which may be part of the problem.
When I reached out to Google about the problem, it said it was looking into it. "We're investigating reports of an issue with Google Docs. We will provide more information when appropriate," a spokesperson told me in an email.
One Google employee on Twitter, Corrie Davidson, who is a Senior Program Manager at Google according to her LinkedIn profile, also said the Docs team is looking into the issue. The official Google Docs Twitter account also tweeted that the potential bug was being examined.
Google indexes your documents, which is what makes them searchable on Drive. There's nothing specific in the company's Privacy Policy about whether or not it is scanning Google Docs for information beyond this. I asked Google for information about what it collects about individual files and will update this post if I receive more information.
Google's Privacy Policy States that its "automated systems analyze your content (including emails) to provide you personally relevant product features, such as customized search results, tailored advertising, and spam and malware detection."
It's worth noting that until earlier this year, Google read users' emails in order to target advertisements (the tech was not used on G Suite business accounts). In June, the company announced it would continue to read your messages, but would stop using the data it collected to customize ads.
No matter what's causing the Google Docs bug, the issue is a pertinent reminder that you don't really have control over the content you put on the internet. The documents you create and save on Google Drive are ultimately controlled by Google—even if they can feel like they belong to us.
Update 11:55 AM EST: This post has been updated with comment from Google.
Got a tip? You can contact this reporter securely on Signal at +1 201-316-6981, or by email at louise.matsakis@vice.com
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Some Biblical Scholars Now Say It's Chill for All Jews to Eat Bacon
Is this the beginning of a new era for Jewish delis everywhere?
Photo via Flickr user Kim Ahlström
Many Jews choose to eschew pork, for what they've learned are well-established, religiously and historically important reasons. But now, those reasons have been thrown into questions by a group of Biblical scholars, who suggest that maybe the chosen people have been skipping bacon for, well, no reason at all.
In an article that ran last week in the Israeli publication Haaretz, it is posited that believers of Judaism could plausibly justify eating bacon and pork products because more and more Biblical scholars are now arguing that the Book of Leviticus might not have originally been intended to apply to the general public.
The idea that pork products aren't kosher stems from several passages of Leviticus, the third book of the Old Testament, in which it is written that it is only permissible to eat meat from "any animal that has a cloven hoof that is completely split into double hooves, and which brings up its cud."
READ MORE: Florida Inmates Can Now Nosh on Kosher Meals
But these religious scholars attest that the rules in Leviticus were meant only for
the priests of the Temple—not the general public. This could be a game-changer for ordering Chinese food on Christmas.
Traditionally, only one section of Leviticus—Chapter 21—has been read to apply to priests—the ban on ritual scarring and tattoos. The rest of the book (and its myriad rules) has been applied to one and all. But the new scholarship suggests that during the period of Babylonian captivity, someone had the bright idea to suggest that all of the rules in Leviticus should apply to all Jews, not just priests. The thought was that doing so encouraged the exiled community to cohere as a unified group, joined together by rules that apply to one and all.
As Professor Robert Gnuse of Loyola University points out, the ban on bacon encouraged "the enthusiastic self-perception that [the Jewish people] were all priests in the new Temple of God, the world." But this perspective's foundation has been rocked by new examination of how the rules of the Book of Leviticus should be applied.
As to whether this discovery will resonate with contemporary Jewish communities, well, that just might depend on how much they want it to. After all, bacon might just be the ultimate temptress.
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Vista Residences elevates “Ceboom” lifestyle with Vista Suarez Cebu
ALTHOUGH dubbed as the country’s “second city” as it is the second most populous in the Philippines after Metro Manila, Cebu actually lays claim to many firsts.
The Roof Deck will have landscaped areas where family can bond and enjoy the view and the famous Cebuano sky.
It is the country’s first and oldest city, the first Christian city, as well as the home to the country’s oldest university, Universidad de San Carlos, and the oldest Roman Catholic Church in the country.
Moreover, in terms of its economic development, Cebu is not to be missed. Nicknamed “Ceboom,” the city is the key shipping route and the gateway to Central and Southern Philippines and the country’s main domestic shipping port. It is home to over 80 percent of our domestic shipping companies, and the shipbuilding companies that abound in the city have made the Philippines the fourth largest shipbuilding country in the world.
Yet, while its business and commerce is thriving, Cebu still boasts a laid back atmosphere and lifestyle, making it a superior choice of place to live, invest, build a career or business, and raise a family in – something Vista Residences Inc. (VRI) intends to take full advantage of by building what could become one of the city’s finest vertical properties, Vista Suarez Cebu.
VRI makes a monumental contribution to Cebu’s real estate boom
In 2012, real estate became Cebu’s fastest-growing sector, with a revenue growth rate of 18.8 percent. “Ceboom” was creating a massive influx into the Visayan nexus. Thus, Cebu – one of the most highly developed provinces in the country – is currently in need of more homes. VRI – the condominium arm of the country’s premier property developer, Vista Land – is responding to that call with a magnificent 32-storey, two-tower development right in the heart of Metro Cebu.
A fascinating concept in maximizing a condominium’s capability, Vista Suarez will be both a hotel and a residential development. Connecting the two towers, the amenities area on the fourth floor will offer a gym equipped with top of the line exercise machines, an infinity and wading pool.
The mixed-use marvel will rise right on Gorordo Avenue, just off the Gorordo-Escario intersection, putting the vertical village right in the middle of the metro’s key hubs: Fuente Osmeña Circle, the Cebu Provincial Capitol, and the Cebu Business Park – making its location extremely accessible.
Blueprinted for both work and sanctuary, the exquisitely designed Vista Suarez Cebu will offer a minimal 27 units per floor in Tower 1, and only 14 units per floor in Tower 2. This will allow for more privacy, much less crowding in the public areas, and more breathing space – a huge premium in condominium living. Its unique L-shape was created to make sure every single unit share in the incredible views of the city and the mountains that fringe the Visayan metropolis.
At the street level, the elegant building will house retail and commercial shops and restaurants for the residents’ and guests’ convenience and enjoyment. The next two levels will be given over to offices and business centers. A fascinating concept in maximizing a condominium’s capability, Vista Suarez will be both a hotel and a residential development. The sixth to the 14th floor will be run as a hotel. The rooms – offering both studio and one-bedroom selections – will be outfitted and run with the same professionalism, expertise, and customer care as are the world’s top hotels. The 15th to the 28th floors make up the tower’s condotel floor or serviced residences, allowing owners to make good on their investments by having their units leased to long- or short-term staying guests.
At the top four floors will be superbly laid out residential studios, and one- and two-bedroom flats. More spacious than the hotel units, Vista Suarez’ homes-in-the-sky will provide 360-degree views of one of the most bustling, yet loveliest, cities the Philippines has to offer. The 32nd floor will be specially designed for the privileged few, offering penthouse suites with a touch of luxury.
The tower’s fourth floor and roof area will be part of Vista Suarez’ biggest draws. Connecting the two towers, the amenities area on the fourth floor will offer the escape and much needed diversions with an infinity and wading pool, a kids play area, a gym equipped with top-of-the-line exercise machines, twin lounging areas bracketing an all-day dining hall, and, for even greater rejuvenation, a spa. At the top of the tower will be a roof deck with a Sky Lounge where a series of lazing areas for unwinding will be set-up. Beautifully landscaped, the area will offer spa cabañas and al fresco dining spaces where the residents and guests can hold parties or romantic dinners. Both floors will be open to the sky, where one will happily enjoy the view and the famous Cebuano sky.
Two lavish lobbies with a concierge desk will welcome guests and residents home. Beyond all that, three below-ground guarded parking floors, 24/7 state-of-the art security, fire and smoke detection systems, and intelligent management and building systems convey the intense planning and thoughtful designing that will go into the creation of Vista Suarez.
Vista Suarez offers more for the investor
Realizing that a huge number of those who purchase their condominiums do so for investment purposes, VRI designed a selection of leasing options created to strengthen its customers’ investment opportunities. The Vista Residences Leasing Group is tasked to enhance property values and the marketability of these developments, both for its end users and investors, so as to turn their purchases into working investments, while also taking the burden of directly leasing out their properties off their customers’ backs.
The Leasing Group offers a selection of four leasing services designed as proactive solutions for unit owners. Vista Residences is the only real estate company in the country that offers this broad a selection of leasing options. In the roster are: Asset Management Service, Leasing Services Only, Serviced Suites, and the “Condormitels” specifically created for the University Series condominiums.
With the business and lifestyle dynamic Cebu has to offer, and the growth predicted for this busy metro, leasing opportunities are immense. Cebu is VISMIN’s key business hub. This means not only is the expat and employee population on the rise, but the number of schools and universities the city has to offer signifies a major growth in the student population as well. Add to that the number of meetings, conventions, and exhibitions the city attracts yearly, and the massive number of tourists coming in – not only to enjoy the gorgeous beaches, but the country’s biggest and most lavish fiesta, the Sinulog – you have what will be a monumental growth in both the hospitality and the residential industries, both of which Vista Suarez was designed to respond to.
With a rental rate in the area where Vista Suarez will rise being approximately P800-1,000/sqm/month, leasing out units in the property will get its owners huge returns in no time.
Vista Residences: thoughtful and sustainable design
At Vista Residences, every room, every space is designed with intensely creative, ingenious and practical space planning. Whether the property is themed, exquisitely elegant or sensibly practical; wherever possible, the rooms are designed with space to breathe, the designs are stylish and the amenities first-rate. The condominiums are designed to offer better privacy and many are given the luxury of balconies that open to amazing views of the surrounding cities. Function, design and the building of dwellings that families can truly call a “home” is central to the Vista Residences philosophy.
Vista Residences is a formidable player in the country’s condominium industry. In 12 short years it has managed to rise to becoming among the top five in the industry. The group carries with it Vista Land’s four-decades of experience in developing properties and creating master planned communities – integrating into every project an unparalleled expertise in space planning, and flair for finding accessible and attractive locations. The company is committed to assuming a chief role in the condominium sector, creating greater awareness of their capabilities, as well as enhancing efficiencies in their resource distribution.
VRI selects and offers towers in the most coveted parts of the country – within the most bustling metros and CBDs, and emerging cities. To date, Cebu has continuously been singled out as one the best, if not the best, places to live in the Philippines, as well as one of the best cities to invest in. If you’re interested in learning more about Vista Suarez Cebu or other Vista Residences projects, call: (63 2) 650 0753 or our mobile number: +63999 887 1705; or visit our web site at www.vistaresidences.com.ph. For news, updates, and announcements, follow vistaresidencesofficial on Facebook and vistarescidencesinc on Instagram.
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The world as we know it is about to end — again — if you believe this biblical doomsday claim
By Kristine Phillips
Kristine Phillips
Reporter covering national and breaking news
A few years ago, NASA senior space scientist David Morrison debunked an apocalyptic claim as a hoax.
No, there’s no such thing as a planet called Nibiru, he said. No, it’s not a brown dwarf surrounded by planets, as iterations of the claim suggest. No, it’s not on a collision course toward Earth. And yes, people should “get over it.”
But the claim has been getting renewed attention recently. Added to it is the precise date of the astronomical event leading to Earth’s destruction. And that, according to David Meade, is in six days — Sept. 23, 2017. Unsealed, an evangelical Christian publication, foretells the Rapture in a viral, four-minute YouTube video, complete with special effects and ominous doomsday soundtrack. It’s called “September 23, 2017: You Need to See This.”
Why Sept. 23, 2017?
[The ‘Christian numerologist’ whose biblical doomsday claim has some nervously eyeing Sept. 23]
Meade’s prediction is based largely on verses and numerical codes in the Bible. He has homed in one number: 33.
“Jesus lived for 33 years. The name Elohim, which is the name of God to the Jews, was mentioned 33 times [in the Bible],” Meade told The Washington Post. “It’s a very biblically significant, numerologically significant number. I’m talking astronomy. I’m talking the Bible … and merging the two.”
And Sept. 23 is 33 days since the Aug. 21 total solar eclipse, which Meade believes is an omen.
He points to the Book of Revelation, which he said describes the image that will appear in the sky on that day, when Nibiru is supposed to rear its ugly head, eventually bringing fire, storms and other types of destruction.
[Will the mysterious shadow planet Nibiru obliterate Earth in October? No.]
The book describes a woman “clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head” who gives birth to a boy who will “rule all the nations with an iron scepter” while she is threatened by a red seven-headed dragon. The woman then grows the wings of an eagle and is swallowed up by the earth.
The belief, as previously described by Gary Ray, a writer for Unsealed, is that the constellation Virgo — representing the woman — will be clothed in sunlight, in a position that is over the moon and under nine stars and three planets. The planet Jupiter, which will have been inside Virgo — in her womb, in Ray’s interpretation — will move out of Virgo, as though she is giving birth.
To make clear, Meade said he’s not saying the world will end Saturday. Instead, he claims, the prophesies in the Book of Revelation will manifest that day, leading to a series of catastrophic events that will happen over the course of weeks.
“The world is not ending, but the world as we know it is ending,” he said, adding later: “A major part of the world will not be the same the beginning of October.”
Meade’s prediction has been dismissed as a hoax not only by NASA scientists, but also by people of faith.
Ed Stetzer, a professor and executive director of Wheaton College’s Billy Graham Center for Evangelism, first took issue with how Meade is described in some media articles.
“There’s no such thing as a Christian numerologist,” he told The Post. “You basically got a made-up expert in a made-up field talking about a made-up event.… It sort of justifies that there’s a special secret number codes in the Bible that nobody believes.”
Meade said he never referred to himself as a Christian numerologist. He’s a researcher, he said, and he studied astronomy at a university in Kentucky, though he declined to say which one, citing safety reasons. His website says he worked in forensic investigations and spent 10 years working for Fortune 1000 companies. He’s also written books. The most recent one is called “Planet X — The 2017 Arrival.”
Stetzer said that while numbers do have significance in the Bible, they shouldn’t be used to make sweeping predictions about planetary motions and the end of Earth.
[For some, eclipse day showcases God’s majesty. For others, it means the Rapture is coming.]
“Whenever someone tells you they have found a secret number code in the Bible, end the conversation,” he wrote in an article published Friday in Christianity Today. “Everything else he or she says can be discounted.”
That is not to say that Christians don’t believe in the Bible’s prophesies, Stetzer said, but baseless theories that are repeated and trivialized embarrass people of faith.
“We do believe some odd things,” he said. “That Jesus is coming back, that he will set things right in the world, and no one knows the day or the hour.”
The doomsday date was initially predicted to be in May 2003, according to NASA. Then it was moved to Dec. 21, 2012, the date that the Mayan calendar, as some believed, marked the apocalypse.
Morrison, the NASA scientist, has given simple explanations debunking the claim that a massive planet is on course to destroy Earth. If Nibiru is, indeed, as close as conspiracy theorists believe to striking Earth, astronomers, and anyone really, would’ve already seen it.
“It would be bright. It would be easily visible to the naked eye. If it were up there, you could see it. All of us could see it. … If Nibiru were real and it were a planet with a substantial mass, then it would already be perturbing the orbits of Mars and Earth. We would see changes in those orbits due to this rogue object coming in to the inner solar system,” Morrison said in a video.
Doomsday believers also say that Nibiru is on a 3,600-year orbit. That means it had already come through the solar system in the past, which means we should be looking at an entirely different solar system today, Morrison said.
“Its gravity would’ve messed up the orbits of the inner planets, the Earth, Venus, Mars, probably would’ve stripped the moon away completely,” he said. “Instead, in the inner solar system, we see planets with stable orbits. We see the moon going around the Earth.”
And if Nibiru is not a planet and is, in fact, a brown dwarf, as some claims suggest — again, we would’ve already seen it.
“Everything I’ve said would be worse with a massive object like a brown dwarf,” Morrison said. “That would’ve been tracked by astronomers for a decade or more, and it would already have really affected planetary objects.”
Some call Nibiru “Planet X,” as Meade did in the title of his book. Morrison said that’s a name astronomers give to planets or possible objects that have not been found. For example, when space scientists were searching for a planet beyond Neptune, it was called Planet X. And once it was found, it became Pluto.
Stetzer encouraged Christians to be critical, especially in an information era marred with fake news stories.
“It’s simply fake news that a lot of Christians believe the world will end on September 23,” Stetzer wrote. “Yet, it is still a reminder that we need to think critically about all the news.”
He took issue with a Fox News story with a headline that appears to give credence to the doomsday claim — and was published in the Science section under the label “Planets.”
“Every time end-of-the-world predictions resurface in the media, it is important that we ask ourselves, ‘Is this helpful?’ ” Stetzer wrote. “Is peddling these falsehoods a good way to contribute to meaningful, helpful discussions about the end of times?”
Julie Zauzmer contributed to this story.
‘Black moon’ rising: No, it’s not the apocalypse
More people searched the Bible for “end times” because of same-sex marriage than because of Trump
Don’t panic, humanity’s ‘doomsday’ seed vault is probably still safe
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The West’s four-part strategy to deal with radical Islam
Kurdish fighters keep watch near Mosul. (Reuters) (Reuters)
Columnist focusing on foreign affairs
DAVOS, Switzerland
The conversation at Davos is often dominated by economics, and this year it’s no different. But the shock of the Paris terror attacks lingers, and discussions at the World Economic Forum here often turn to radical Islam. I posited in my previous column that the solution does not lie in more American military interventions in the Middle East. What, then, is the answer?
The problem is deep and structural (as I wrote a few weeks after 9/11 in Newsweek, in an essay titled “Why They Hate Us”). The Arab world has been ruled for decades by repressive (mostly secular) dictatorships that, in turn, spawned extreme (mostly religious) opposition movements. The more repressive the regime, the more extreme the opposition. Islam became the language of opposition because it was a language that could not be shut down or censored. Now, the old Arab order is crumbling, but it has led to instability and opportunities for jihadi groups to thrive in new badlands.
Over the past few decades, this radical Islamist ideology has been globalized. Initially fueled by Saudi money and Arab dissenters, imams and intellectuals, it has taken on a life of its own. Today it is the default ideology of anger, discontent and violent opposition for a small number of alienated young Muslim men around the world. Only Muslims, and particularly Arabs, can cure this cancer.
That does not leave the United States and the West helpless. Washington and its allies can support Muslim moderates, help their societies modernize and integrate those that do. But that’s for the long haul. Meanwhile, Washington and its allies must adopt a strategy that has four elements: intelligence, counterterrorism, integration and resilience (ICIR).
Intelligence is obviously the first line of defense, but it’s also essential to the attack. We have to know where jihadis and potential jihadis are and what they are planning. That means using sophisticated technology to search through various kinds of communications, but it also — and crucially — means developing good relations with communities. Most law enforcement professionals will argue that the key is to develop trust with, and ties to, local Muslim communities to identify early on those who might pose a threat. As the sheriff of Los Angeles County put it in congressional testimony in 2010, “Information that is relationship-derived is more reliable than information that is twice or more removed from the original source. ”
Counterterrorism is the natural follow-up to intelligence. When you know where the bad guys are, capture or kill them. It’s easier said than done, but the United States and other Western nations have had considerable success with this tactic — not only in war zones like Afghanistan and Pakistan but also in intercepting plots on their way to cities like Paris and London. All counterterrorism efforts have downsides. While drone attacks look seamless from the skies, they inevitably produce civilian casualties. Special forces operations are more surgical, although they risk American (or other Western) casualties.
In a revealing interview published in 2013 in Foreign Affairs, retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal said about counterterrorism, “Americans have got to understand that. If we were to use our technological capabilities carelessly — I don’t think we do, but there’s always the danger that you will — then we should not be upset when someone responds with their equivalent, which is a suicide bomb in Central Park, because that’s what they can respond with.”
Integration is something that America does well and with which Europe struggles. One of the chief reasons that the United States has not had as many problems as many predicted after 9/11 is that its Muslim community is well integrated and loyal, and it largely believes in American values. Europe still faces huge challenges in integrating those who are new or different into societies that have long been defined by blood and soil.
Finally, resilience. Terrorism is an unusual tactic. It doesn’t work if we are not terrorized. Bouncing back and returning to normalcy are ways of ensuring that terrorism does not have its desired effect. We have not always managed to do this. In recent months, we have massively overreacted to the Islamic State execution videos, which was why they were produced in the first place.
The Paris attacks were barbaric, as were those in Ottawa, Sydney, London, Madrid and Fort Hood. But one way to gain perspective might be to keep in mind the numbers. According to the Global Terrorism Database, in the 12 years between Sept. 12, 2001, and the end of 2013, the number of Americans who died on U.S. soil due to terrorism was 42. (And six of those were from the gruesome attack on a Sikh temple in Wisconsin in 2012.) Meanwhile, in one year alone, 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 32,351 Americans died because of firearms. The number who died in traffic accidents was 33,783. So “keep calm and carry on” is more than a slogan to wear on a T-shirt.
Read more from Fareed Zakaria’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
Read more about this topic:
Lawrence Summers: Focus on growth for the middle class
Dana Milbank: ‘While America slept’
Michael Gerson: Wished are not enough
Fareed Zakaria: U.S. intervention is not the answer
Feisal Abdul Rauf: Five myths about Muslims in America
Fareed Zakaria Fareed Zakaria writes a foreign affairs column for The Post. He is also the host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS and a contributing editor for the Atlantic. Follow
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Duluth Man Launches Faith Based Approach Mental Health Website
It’s Mental Health Awareness Month and a Duluth man who's a mental health advocate and has had his own struggles with mental health recently launched a website with the goal to break down barriers on the subject.
Nathan Stewart, the founder of the website Mental Health Pulpit, said he wants to help end the stigma of mental illness in our churches and our communities through faith based support. Stewart said he wants to create a community for people to openly discuss their experiences and offer resources and support to those struggling.
"I received a lot of information when I was growing up that said we don't talk about our mental health, especially in church. There’s a stigma that surrounds it that says this is just something you need to pray about, just have more faith and that'll make it go away but the reality is it doesn't, it's a biological issue,” Stewart said.
A Duluth man who's a mental health advocate and has had his own struggles with mental health recently launched a website with the goal to break down barriers on the subject.
The website offers resources on suicide prevention and helping in a crisis. Also a blog, podcast and YouTube channel for people to interact online.
The website offers faith-based coaching as well. Stewart hopes to bring awareness on mental health with speaking events soon at churches, schools, and businesses.
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Hometown Hero: Lemonade stand leads to tree company removing 100-year-old tree from Florence damaged home for free
Hometown Hero: Lemonade stand leads to tree company removing 100-year-old tree from Florence damaged
By Kristin Crawford | November 23, 2018 at 3:14 PM EST - Updated November 23 at 7:03 PM
WILMINGTON, NC (WECT) - Our community here in Southeastern North Carolina has been forever changed since Hurricane Florence. In the days, weeks, and even months following the historic storm, we’ve covered stories of struggle, heartache, and defeat. But we’ve also covered stories of hope and optimism. So many in the community stepped in to help their neighbors in need, even if they were strangers. We want to recognize those who have gone above and beyond in a new weekly segment we are calling Hometown Heroes.
This Friday we spoke to Amy Riggs who lives in Wilmington. Amy and her husband and 10-year-old son were the only family in their neighborhood that evacuated before Hurricane Florence. They went to Asheville. Riggs said they have never evacuated for a hurricane but they just had a bad feeling about this one.
Riggs and her family live in a house that was owned by her grandmother. She said many memories have been made in the home over the years.
An oak tree, estimated to be about 100-years-old, stood next to the home until recently.
While the family was in Asheville, escaping the hurricane, Amy received pictures of the damage Florence left to family’s home. The oak tree had fallen right through the side of the house spanning the length from the living room to the kitchen.
100-year-old oak tree that fell on Amy Riggs' house. (Source: Amy Riggs)
Riggs said seeing it for the first time when they were finally able to return home was shocking.
"When we did see it, it was…shocking," Riggs said. "When we walked in there was just water everywhere, tree everywhere, just mold, insulation. Nothing you’d ever think of to see big, huge branches right in the middle of the kitchen. Tree right in the middle of the kitchen and living room."
Oddly enough, being the only family in their neighborhood that evacuated, Riggs said their home was the only one with major damage.
They called multiple tree companies to get estimates of how much it would cost to get the monster of a tree out of their home.
All the estimates they were getting were anywhere from $10,000 to $15,000. An amount they really did not want to have to spend.
Their neighbors, and fellow classmates of Riggs' son, the Fox family, decided to hold a lemonade stand to try to raise money for them so they could pay to have the tree removed.
Coincidentally, Jacob, the owner of Tree Guardian, a tree company out of Louisiana that was in town helping with tree removal from the storm came by the lemonade stand.
Jacob with Tree Guardian after he found the lemonade stand. (Source: WECT)
He asked the kids what they were raising money for and when they told him he asked to look at the tree that had fallen through the Riggs' home.
“Jacob was like, ‘Well I think we might be able to help,’” Amy said. “And I was like, ‘Okay, so how much do you think it’s going to be?’ And then he was like, ‘We’re not going to charge you anything. We’re going to come get this tree out because it can’t be in here another day. You need to be able to save what you can.’”
Riggs said Jacob and his crew of about 12 came to the house around 6 p.m. that evening to get the tree out.
"They came back about 6:00 when they should have been going home and worked into the night about two hours and had it done, chopped up, and all out by the road," Riggs said. "And the only thing that was left was a stump and they came back four or five days later and got the stump and everything else and moved it out."
Riggs considers Jacob with Tree Guardian and the entire Fox family her heroes. She says they didn’t have to do what they did to help out her and her family but they did anyway.
"We were just strangers to them. They didn’t have to come. We were getting estimates of $10,000 to $15,000. It was a lot of money and a lot of work but they heard our story and they knew we had good hearts and you know, what goes around, comes around. When you do good, good comes back to you. And that’s what we live by and that’s what they live by and they just – they saw that and helped and just… They’re amazing."
If the Fox family hadn't done the lemonade stand to try to raise money for the Riggs, the tree may still be in the house to this day.
"Fox family, thank you so much," Riggs said. "I could never – I just can’t say it enough. Thank you. They’ve just been amazing."
If you would like to nominate a hometown hero, send us an email to newsroom@wect.com
Copyright 2018 WECT. All rights reserved.
Kristin Crawford
Digital Video Content Producer
Kristin Crawford joined WECT as a Digital Video Content Producer in August 2016 after graduating from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington.
She studied Communication Studies with a focus in TV Production and Media.
NC Zoo employee killed in ‘workplace accident,’ officials say
An employee of the North Carolina Zoo was killed Thursday morning in what officials are calling a “workplace accident,” according to a release from the NC Zoo.
FOUND: Brunswick County deputies locate missing 95-year-old man
Deputies with the Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office are asking the public for help finding a 95-year-old man who disappeared Wednesday afternoon.
Clint Bullock
Brunswick Co. deputy’s vehicle struck during traffic stop
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Reimbursements of New Technologies
By Adi Renbaum January 10, 2018
One of the greatest concerns regarding coverage and reimbursement of novel medical interventions is that commercial payers throughout the U.S. operate largely with opaque business practices.
They are part of decision-making hierarchies that eschew clinical dialogue with key stakeholders, and ultimately limit patient access to medical care. While the Coverage & Analysis Group at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has worked in recent years to improve the transparency, accountability, consistency, and reasonableness of its National Coverage Determinations, the opposite trend characterizes engagement with commercial payers.
The increasing lag between regulatory clearance and coverage/payment by commercial payers is currently depriving many U.S. patients access to some of the most innovative, safe and effective medical technologies. Acuity is greatest for smaller companies trying to bring a single product to patients—lag in establishing reimbursement denies them the critical resources needed to operate, and in some cases, can threaten their continued operations.
In fact, the challenges to obtaining coverage and reimbursement from commercial payers have reached a tipping point for patients and providers; medical technology innovators, specialty medical societies, and investors.
On November 8, 2017, a group of these interested stakeholders gathered in Washington, D.C. to identify and discuss these challenges, and to begin developing solutions to improve the process for all interested parties at the Patient Access Summit. It was hosted by the Medical Device Manufacturers Association (MDMA), AdvaMed and the Medical Imaging and Technology alliance (MITA).
The challenges are complex and involve multi-factorial components, especially when taking into account the numbers of private and public payers. They each require varying degrees of clinical and other evidence, and they have their own proprietary processes for making coverage determinations.
This problem is compounded even further when payers often give little or no guidance to their decision-making process either before or after they set coverage, and there is little or no sense of collaboration with patients and other stakeholders during the process.
Four key challenges
The stakeholders identified four key challenges:
Accountability to Stakeholders—Frustration that the lack of response by payers to requests for dialogue with physicians and patients, as well as medical technology innovators, during a coverage development process results in clinically inaccurate or inappropriate policies that do not reflect patients’ needs.
Consistency and Predictability of the Coverage Development Process—Stakeholder frustration over the variability and changing evidence requirements that exist within both public and private payers. There is a general sense that “value” has become a moving target for meeting coverage criteria. Methodologies are inconsistent between payers, and even the rationale provided by the payer may be inconsistent among two or more procedures/products in the same therapeutic category. This is often after medical societies have issued statements indicating a certain treatment or therapy is in the best interest of patients. There is a real concern that the clinical guidelines developed by specialty societies are increasingly ignored by private payers.
Reasonableness and Objectivity of Decision-Making Methodology—Private payers lack a reasonable, consistent or objective mechanism to incorporate “patient perspective” into coverage decisions. Stakeholders are increasingly concerned about lack of flexibility from private payers when evaluating newer technologies for coverage decisions (this is in contrast with the FDA’s risk-based approach). Further, unreasonable policies are in place to preempt coverage to many new treatments, thereby disrupting the physician-patient relationship, in which a physician might recommend newer treatment if the physician believes it to be best for the patient.
Transparency of the Overall Process—Unlike CMS, private payers are not required to make public their business processes or decision-making methodologies for coverage determinations. However the lack of transparency about these processes creates some insurmountable barriers to patient access. Attempts to increase collaboration and transparency with health technology assessment (HTA) organizations (which payers reference for evidence reviews) have failed. Many of these bodies are not transparent in their own processes and methodologies.
Now begins the work of developing solutions to these challenges, and through this stakeholder coalition, pursue multiple paths of public outreach to effect change among commercial payers. Several proposals are being developed and studied, including:
A “Best Practices” document for collecting appropriate clinical evidence for the purposes of coverage, with a public “scorecard”
Oversight letters from Congress to private insurers that could integrate points about how payers are now second-guessing the Food and Drug Administration
Starting a patient access caucus on Capitol Hill to organize patients
Having patients share examples of when they were denied access and harmed, and who gained access and benefited
Having physicians share their frustrations about how the current environment impedes their ability to provide patients wider treatment options
Coverage decisions
Health plans decide whether (and how) to provide coverage for specific health care items and services based on whether the item or service is “medically necessary.” But there is no single, consensus-based definition of medical necessity. Whether a treatment is “medically necessary” is often at the heart of coverage disputes between patients and insurers, and it causes delays to treatment for qualified patients.
Thus, patient advocates and physicians must be aware of how coverage decisions are made, and how nuanced coverage policies affect access to clinical care. As new treatments are developed, advocates will need to understand the processes and environment in order to influence outcomes and advocate for the most appropriate access to advances in medical care and treatments.
Coverage decisions are made by medical professionals who are employed by individual health plans, typically medical directors or chief medical officers.
An important consideration is that it can be difficult for a commercial health plan to outright decline to cover a service, even if it views the evidence as indicating only a modest clinical/health benefit. While binary “yes” or “no” decisions are sometimes made, it is more common for health plans to come to a “yes, and” or “yes, but…” decision.
In this scenario, an item or service meets the threshold for being covered, but the terms of coverage may limit the circumstances under which it is covered, or create a disincentive for doctors to prescribe it. Thus, the initial coverage decision may not be predicated on costs, but rather clinical evidence, patient/consumer benefit and risks, and provider practice among other considerations. However the terms of coverage can and do consider costs.
After an affirmative coverage decision, there can be a separate, hybrid, medical/business policy process to decide if there is a need for coverage parameters that limit access, limit utilization, or drive down price in some way. Those parameters typically involve utilization management, benefit design, or provider networks. Health plans view these parameters as medically-appropriate, while clinicians, patients or others sometimes disagree about the appropriateness.
One of the greatest complaints leveled against commercial payers is the lack of transparency of their coverage decisions. There is little public information available about how health plans develop coverage policies. One reason may be that want to protect their competitively important business strategy, and thus such information remains confidential. In other instances, the process itself is quite variable and not easily described in ways that address all situations.
However another reason for the lack of transparency may be that health plans set a wide range for the level of evidence required for coverage. While all plans state a need for evidence of the clinical effect on the patient’s disease state, most reports inconsistently rely on various other evidence inputs—independent validation studies, Medicare coverage decisions, and medical society recommendations.
The latter is especially important to clinicians. Societies of medical specialists, such as cardiologists, endocrinologists, and radiologists have processes in place to develop clinical treatment guidelines in their specific disease areas.
Crafting coverage policies
Plans will often adopt those guidelines as their coverage policies, or use guidelines as a basis for their own coverage even if they differ slightly. This practice is being challenged as well by payers.
In fact, it is unclear how health plans keep up with evolving medical society guidance about specific treatments. So that coverage policy lags behind the science, creating difficulties and/or conflicts for treating physicians.
In the absence of published evidence, health plans also consider the extent of provider and patient demand, and/or regulatory review among other influences and sources of evidence.
Cost is not part of the consideration at the level of “yes or no” coverage. However once a health plan has an affirmative decision, then they may apply constraints that seek to address the cost issues.
This is often referred to as nuanced coverage policy, when a health plan has the option to institute medically-appropriate utilization management (UM) as a business consideration rather than simply as a medical imperative.
However as noted earlier, this can sometimes become the source of debate, with health plans viewing the constraint as clinically-appropriate and consistent with clinical evidence, while some clinicians and patients may view them as barriers to medically-necessary care.
Once they reach a positive coverage decision, payers make decisions about the need for utilization controls to manage patient access. They do this in consideration of medically-specific reasons related to patient risks, or if there are many therapeutically-similar competitors, coverage may depend on costs.
As with many matters surrounding coverage decisions, there can be differences of opinion about what should be considered therapeutically similar and if any clinically important differences have been fully taken into account.
Utilization Managment Strategies for Patient Access
Utilization management strategies typically include prior authorization, step therapy, or linked services.
Prior authorization is a system of health plan pre-approval of a health care item or service. Hospitalization or surgeries might require pre-approval where the health plan might review the necessity of the hospitalization relative to other less costly alternatives, or to review the treatment history and diagnosis. Health plans view prior authorization within the context of medically-appropriate business decisions as a way to ensure that less costly or risky interventions have been tried and to ensure that that the surgical intervention is the most appropriate option at a point in time.
Step Therapy
Step therapy may be a result of prior authorization. A health plan may require that a patient exhaust what it has determined to be less costly, less invasive, less risky alternatives prior to receiving whatever therapy the health plan has put at the top of the staircase. Clinicians and patients may view step therapy as a barrier to clearly indicated care.
Linked Services
Health plans may make coverage of one service contingent on utilization of another service, such as case management, disease management, health education, or development of a comprehensive care plan that captures the full scope of care. The linked service is designed to improve the effectiveness of the underlying service so the two services are only covered in tandem.
Narrowing Provider Networks
As of early 2014, health plans in some regions of the country have become more aggressive in their developing exclusive provider networks. In this process, health plans choose to contract with a limited number of providers geographically, leaving providers without contracts as “out-ofnetwork.”
In the past, using an out-of-network provider meant that the patient had higher copays. Today, it can mean that the service is simply not covered—which obliges the patient to cover 100 percent of the cost for treatment, which does not count toward a deductible or out-of-pocket protective maximum.
Health plans have to use metrics such as costs to select providers for their network. Contracting providers may reduce fees considerably in exchange for more patient volume. Strict provider network rules are new to consumers, which again limits their access to care. It may come as a surprise that otherwise wellknown and well-regarded facilities are not included in the networks of major insurers.
Premiums are essentially shared costs between consumers and employers, or consumers and the government. So payers save money when health care costs move to the consumer’s out-ofpocket expense at the point of service, where the burden is heaviest on consumers who use more health services.
An example of benefit design is to limit treatment of venous insufficiency to a one-time per-leg, per lifetime approach that requires patients to pay 100 percent of costs if any follow-up treatment is required.
Tiering
This is used predominantly for the drug benefit (where the patient pays out-ofpocket costs in relation to the “tier” where the drug is placed) and is a common benefit design. Tiering moves cost to consumers, and may steer them toward one treatment and away from another.
Higher-level tiers equal higher patient costs. In addition to moving costs between plans and consumers and steering treatment choices, copay amounts may also affect the likelihood of initiating and remaining in treatment.
However, tiering is now beginning to extend beyond the pharmacy benefit to the medical benefit in commercial health coverage. Patients pay less to see preferred providers than nonpreferred providers (on a higher tier). Some plans have multiple levels of provider tiers, in contrast to just in-network and out-of-network coverage.
Health plan coverage decisions and processes are extremely complex. There are many factors that impact coverage decisions, including the type of health care item or service and the type of payer making the decision. Not only is the topic complex, but coverage policy and processes are changing rapidly against a backdrop of rising health costs and additional market rules put in place by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The tension between cost containment, consumer satisfaction, and provider satisfaction will continue and grow.
Utilization management programs will continue to create issues relative to coverage and access to care if health plans are not alert. We are likely to continue to see “yes, but” coverage with increasingly complex coverage rules that combine benefit design features, provider network rules, and linked services in new and innovative ways that will have implications for individual consumers or consumer groups.
By design, health plans have been put on the front line of cost containment in the U.S. By design, cost containment will become an unavoidable issue, and coverage policy will be at the heart of the discussion about the issue.
Thus, patient advocates and consumers need to be aware of how coverage decisions are made and how coverage policy affects access to clinical care. As new treatments are developed, advocates will need to understand the processes and environment in order to influence the outcomes and advocate for the most appropriate access to advances in medical care and treatments.
No doubt, your practice has experienced the frustrations of coverage denials and the need for administrative support to manage claims and appeals. Now you have an opportunity to get involved in a national coalition to accelerate patient access to care for treatments you value most for your patients.
Join your peers, your medical societies, along with medical device industry trade groups, investors, and patients to engage in this important public policy initiative.
If interested, contact me at adirenbaum [at] anrconsulting [dot] net.
The Long and Tortuous Path: New Technology Reimbursement
Is Health Care Really That Complicated?
Who’s On First? The Who and the What You Need to Know to Champion Success When Introducing a New Technology in the Vein Space
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Ontario Welcome Center History Walk: The First Canoeist
© Photographed April 8, 2017
Erected 2015 by Forward Ontario
Ontario, Vernon County, Wisconsin
The First Canoeist
Esau Johnson might have been the first white man to experience the unpredicability [sic] of the Kickapoo River. In 1842, after walking up the river from the Wauzeka area, he hollowed out a log into a canoe intending to travel home and return with his wife and family. But overnight rains lifted the water level three feet. In his diary, Johnson reported that using a pole caused him to continually run up against the banks. Only after switching to a paddle was he able to steer from the rear and keep the canoe on course.
Johnson claimed to have seen a moose standing in the Kickapoo River. That would not be likely today, but what other animals could you see on a journey down the Kickapoo?
Imagine loading a 35-foot long canoe with all of your possessions and moving with your wife and children up the Kickapoo River for more than 100 miles, pulled by oxen walking along the shore. Often Johnson had to stop and hack his way through the wilderness to move ahead. Leaving the Wauzeka area during the third week of September, [sic] 1842 and arriving two weeks later, he settled about two miles north of Ontario, beyond what is now Oil City, a hamlet at the intersection of Orbit Avenue and Highway 131. Within a few days, he and two other men built a cabin for his family.
Johnson and his two employees cut about 10,000 logs during the winter, but the next three years were dry and the Kickapoo was not deep enough to float the logs to the market in Prairie du Chien. Although Johnson rigged a dam to raise the water level, attempting to solve part of the problem, he still could not move all of his many logs down river.
He turned to farming, and his son Lewis is thought to be the first while child born in Monroe County.
Most logging took place over the winter, and logs were skidded down the hills and into the Kickapoo River. Giles White settled in the area in 1853, and [sic] in 1855, he established a sawmill. Also in 1855, he platted out the village of Ontario. Other pioneers joined him, engaging in trades connected to the lumber business. Soon stores and shops opened, and [sic] in 1857, the village was incorporated, one of the first to do so in Vernon and Monroe counties (the boundary between the two counties adjoins the village).
The marker is located along the Ontario Welcome Center History Walk at Palen Memorial Park and is accessible on the northeast corner of the intersection of State Street and Pleasant Street, Ontario, Wisconsin 54651.
Vernon Broadcaster (June 3, 2015): Ontario to celebrate opening of Palen Park on June 13
Click here to view all markers at the Ontario Welcome Center History Walk
The marker is located at the Ontario Welcome Center History Walk.
Looking west into town . . .
View coming into town from eastbound Wisconsin Highway 33.
The marker is located in Ontario, Wisconsin.
Labels: Vernon County Wisconsin Historical Markers
Location: State St & Pleasant Street, Ontario, WI 54651, USA
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Analyze This!
Under-23s well prepared
As the Under-23s prepare for a busy week with tonight’s play off semi final against West Ham at Molineux (7pm), and Wednesday’s Birmingham Senior Cup final against Leamington, Tom Heslop caught up with their match analyst Mat Pearson.
From Blackburn, to Qatar, and now at Compton Park, Mat Pearson has already built up a variety of experience in the role of Performance Analyst.
Pearson joined the club as Head of academy performance analysis in February following previous jobs with Rovers and the Aspire academy in Qatar and he revealed what it is like working in different environments and different cultures within the footballing world.
He says: “I started out at Blackburn Rovers Football Club working alongside their academy, so their under 16s and their under 18s, at a time when there weren’t a lot of staff around doing that sort of analysis work.
“From there I moved to Qatar and I worked for the Aspire academy which is the national academy. I was working with youth players aged between 12 and 18 on a full time basis, providing analysis support. In addition they had coaching sessions, schooling, and meals provided, everything was in-house over there. The academy was designed to feed the national team through the age groups.
“I worked with them on the analysis side of things working on the pre-match preparation, the in-game stats and then individual stats to see how players were developing.
“From there I went to work with the national teams where I did a year with the under 23s and a year with the senior team.
“That was a bit more competitive in the style of football as there was a lot more opposition analysis involved in it.
“Then, as of February this year I came to work with Wolves.”
Pearson admitted that his time in the Middle East was something that amazed him due to the amount of different techniques that were used by the different countries that were also working over there.
He continued: “The experience itself at Aspire was amazing because you are working with so many different people around the world.
“You get to pick up all different ideas from all different types of cultures of football from different parts of the world, and then they are all moulded together in one environment which was great to be a part of.
“It was a fantastic learning experience because I got to see how the Spanish did things, I got to see how they Germans did things, as well as how the Dutch did things.
“I was able to marry that to how we do things in England and I was able to adapt that to our own style over here.
“I think the biggest difference for me was the players just because of the culture and the language.
“We had to really focus on how we were going to communicate with the players because there were players who didn’t speak great English.”
Pearson now works alongside Scott Sellars and his staff with the under 23s and he explained just how things work behind the scenes on a daily basis.
“Like at a lot of clubs nowadays, analysis is a massive part of the process, depending on what they are looking for throughout the different age groups,” he explains.
“Primarily my job here at Wolves is working alongside Scott Sellars and the under 23s squad.
“I look at our games and the philosophy of the club and how we are matching up performances against philosophy.
“There are obviously certain things that we are trying to match up so we are looking at how we want to play as a club, and how we want players to perform at this club.
“We look at whether what we have discussed in the week is actually happening in the games and, if not, then why.
“We will show the players some of our feedback and then tell them this is what we want you to do and why. We try to do it as positive modelling where we will say this is what you have done well and this is what we want you to keep doing.
“Then we look at a little bit of pre-match preparation so we can see what the opposition are doing.
“We will look at how they are playing in their games and what sort of style they have, breaking down what they do well in games as well as what they might not do so well.
“Everything we do is allied to the club philosophy.
“We don’t try and change how we are going to play based on who we are going to play because – whilst we will know the opposition’s strength and weaknesses - there is a philosophy through the age groups here that we don’t really want to change.
“We do that because if we have players coming up from the under 16s who then go into the under 18s and then they make the step up into the under 23s, not a lot of things will have changed in terms of our preparations so they will hopefully find that a bit more of a smoother transition through the ranks.
“There is always a continuous feedback loop here at the club because we will always show the players what their next opponents are like, and then we work together with our preparations before the game to make sure we are in the best shape.
“Then they can go out and do what they can on the pitch with the best possible preparation to try and get the result that is needed.”
The Under-23s have certainly been picking up positive results so far this season.
And, with a place in the top division of the Premier League up for grabs, and the Birmingham Senior Cup Final against Leamington, there is still plenty to play for – and analyse – yet!
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Every fortnight I become the best of friends with 28,000 people
Wolves Fan
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RMIT converts sound waves into micro-manufacturing research
A team of RMIT researchers have demonstrated how sound waves can be used for micro- and nano-manufacturing, and be used in a range of applications including 3D printing, wound care, and even thin film coatings for paint.
By Aimee Chanthadavong | June 30, 2014 -- 01:55 GMT (18:55 PDT) | Topic: Innovation
High-frequency sound waves can be used for micro and nano-manufacturing — technology often relevant to the medical, aerospace, consumer electronics, and transportation markets — a team of researchers of the Royal Melbourne Institute Technology (RMIT) University in Victoria have uncovered.
In a research paper published in May, MicroNano Research Facility director professor James Friend and his team of researchers demonstrated how sound waves can be used to control the spread of thin film fluid onto the surface of a specifically-designed chip.
The process, dubbed as "acoustowetting", works on a chip made of lithium niobate — a material capable of converting electrical energy into mechanical pressure. The surface of the chip is covered with microelectrodes before it is connected to a power source, converting the power into high-frequency sound waves. Thin film liquid is then added to the surface of the chip, and the sound waves are then used to control its flow.
The research shows that when the liquid is ultra-thin — at nano and sub-micro depths — it flows away from the high-frequency sound waves, and the flow reverses and moves towards the sound waves when it's at slightly thicker dimensions. But when the depth reaches a millimetre or more, the flow reverses again and starts to move away.
Friend said the researchers had developed a portable system for precise, fast, and unconventional micro- and nano-fabrication.
"By tuning the sound waves, we can create any pattern we want on the surface of a microchip," he said.
"Manufacturing using thin film technology currently lacks precision — structures are physically spun around to disperse the liquid and coat components with thin film.
"We've found that thin film liquid either flows towards or away from high-frequency sound waves, depending on its thickness.
"We not only discovered this phenomenon but have also unravelled the complex physics behind the process, enabling us to precisely control and direct the application of thin film liquid at a micro and nano-scale."
According to Friend, the discovery could potentially be applied to a range of applications ranging from thin film coatings for paint to wound care, and 3D printing.
Australia CXO Digital Transformation Tech Industry Smart Cities Cloud
More from Aimee Chanthadavong
NSW Cyber Security Innovation Node now open
Department of Home Affairs extends cyber consulting contract with Archtis
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How to Write High-Functioning Autism
There are many different kinds of autistic spectrum disorder. People may classically think of children who struggle to communicate, have meltdowns, learning delays, and lack of any self-control. However this is not all there is to the autistic spectrum.
Every autistic person is different and has different symptoms.
The term high functioning also has many different meanings. For the sake of clarity in this context I am using it to refer to those autistic people who have an adult intellect and are able to live independently, both practically and financially.
This definition does not take into account the many ways autistic people can have high-functioning aspects to their character, however is accurate for the kind of character writing this post aims to address.
Girls present very differently to boys (and as a result, many girls—like myself—go undiagnosed until much later in life).
The IQ of the person concerned is a huge factor in how they are affected, as is their sensitivity to sensory stimuli.
Many people believe it is wrong to call autism a disorder at all and it should be considered a form of neurodiversity. In the case of high-functioning autism, there is a particularly compelling argument for this.
Many high-functioning autistic people have good jobs and successful relationships. These are people who are succeeding at life—and in many cases it is largely because of their autistic tendencies.
Being able to apply unswerving logic to a situation and visualise its possible mathematical solutions, or memorise huge chunks of text, lists of numbers, formulae, maps and rules, or notice the tiniest variations in a pattern can lead to excelling in many fields.
The people who have these abilities are often (although not always) on the autistic spectrum. They have the tools to succeed at solving problems where others may have failed.
This ability is what may have led to the current high incidence of high-functioning autism in the population. From an evolutionary perspective, the high IQ and problem-solving skills would have been a huge survival advantage, and therefore would have been selected for in the very early days of humankind’s history.
Neurodiversity should therefore not be written as something which needs to be fixed.
This is important. I may have some social differences, and some tics and obsessive behaviours, but I am not broken. I am different.
The BBC ran a documentary with wildlife broadcaster Chris Packham on how his Aspergers affects his life. It is well worth a watch for anyone who is writing a high functioning autistic character from the outside in.
My favourite quote from this documentary is “My having mild autism does not mean I experience my autism mildly, it means you experience my autism mildly.” This is definitely something to keep in mind when writing an autistic character.
Causes of Autism
The causes of autistic spectrum disorders are largely unknown. The only thing we DO know for certain is that there is absolutely no correlation to vaccinations.
There are likely to be significant genetic elements to the condition. Some families have a very high incidence of autism, and it is unusual for a child to be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and not have at least one parent that shows some autistic traits.
As mentioned above, there is a strong evolutionary case for autism being largely inherited.
Characteristics of high-functioning autism
Social difficulties
This affects everyone differently. Boys are likely to be unwilling to make eye contact, while girls often go undiagnosed until they are much older because this supposedly ‘defining’ characteristic is absent.
Autistic may appear ‘odd’ to neurotypical people. They may say things that seem irrelevant or tactless, and may be louder or quieter than other people.
A large number of autistic people also have related social anxiety disorders which affect their social interactions even further. Your autistic character may be obnoxiously loud when they meet new people and be unfairly judged by some people as a result.
Then again, they might not!
For someone with high-functioning autism the nuances of language are usually easy. An extensive vocabulary and exceptional memory allow them to structure and comprehend sentences that would defeat the average person’s ability.
What they struggle with is emotion and body language. The tight-lipped look that would warn most people they are on dangerous ground is likely to be lost on an autistic person.
It may be difficult to identify sarcasm, or to tell whether something is good-natured ribbing or someone being nasty, and they may be unaware when they are being emotionally manipulated.
An autistic person may also struggle to empathise with other people or to understand why someone else is upset about something. Sometimes they don’t understand why something upsets them, let alone other people.
Of course many learn to navigate these things—much as a neurotypical person would learn French or Spanish—as they grow up so the presentation of the autism changes even within an individual. Between individuals the differences can be astounding.
Importantly, people with many variations of high-functioning autism do not avoid social interaction by choice. The drive to be social is present—as it is for most people—and autistic people will seek out interactions.
Autistic children may find it hard to make friends and repeated failure in social situations can lead to them developing a wariness of new people, and a preference for solitude to avoid bullying. People can also be a source of the sensory stimulation—as detailed below—that makes the world difficult for some autistic people.
Sensory processing issues
One feature of autistic spectrum disorders is that certain senses may be intensified. A strong reaction to hearing certain noises is common. Even someone breathing too loudly may result in a sensation akin to physical pain.
As I type this the person sitting next to me has a slightly blocked nose and it is whistling as they breathe. It is making my skin crawl—I feel something not unlike the sensation of being stung by nettles, except on the underside of my skin. It is also making my chest tight and uncomfortable.
Flashing lights causing visual overload and certain touch sensations being unexpectedly painful are also common. An autistic person may struggle to wear certain fabrics, have an intense dislike for certain types of clothing (hats, scarves, gloves, socks, and belts are all common triggers). Tags on clothing can also be a source of discomfort.
These stimuli can lead to sensory overload, which can result in what I refer to as an autistic meltdown. Many people do not understand these meltdowns as they can closely resemble a toddler having a tantrum.
Unlike tantrums, meltdowns cannot be rectified by reason, bargaining, bribery, or threats! They are a form of panic attack, and once they start the autistic person is no more in control of them than they would be an epileptic seizure.
Phobia of change
This is another ‘defining’ characteristic of autistic spectrum disorder and is still used as a diagnostic certainty by many doctors. Of course, many autistic people do not have this characteristic and therefore go undiagnosed.
What the fear of change usually boils down to is a fear of being out of control. If an autistic person is prepared for a change, has precipitated that change, or welcomes that change then they are able to deal with it without issue.
If something is not right in their world, doesn’t align properly, or makes them uncomfortable they will WANT to change it, and doing so will provide them with a great sense of relief.
The changes that most often cause problems are those that are foisted onto the autistic person, that alter something that they rely on, or that seem to be for no apparent reason. They may also have a problem with rules that seem to be nonsensical, especially if they can see a better way of doing something.
Stimming
Stimming is something a lot of autistic people on all parts of the spectrum do: it is not limited to high-functioning autistics. Of course, it is also absent altogether from many people. I’ve never had a lot of stimming behaviours myself and have largely grown out of the few I did have.
Stimming is a repetitive physical action that helps to ground or calm the person. Common example include hand waving, tapping hands or feet, head shaking, and twirling things.
These are important coping mechanisms for many autistic people. In the past the advice has been to prevent a child from engaging in stimming. This resulted in a large amount of distress being caused, and current advice is simply to direct stimming into a non-destructive channel rather than try to prevent it altogether.
Highly focused interests
People with high-functioning autism are often extremely passionate about their interests. This typically goes beyond simple dedication or being a fan to it becoming an obsession.
It would not be unusual for a person with autism to be able to talk about their favourite TV show, not just in terms of the characters and plot lines, but also in terms of the actors, writers, producers, directors, and everything else about the making of the show.
Because many autistic people have extremely efficient memories these obsessions can develop quickly. They can also fade out just as quickly, although it is likely that a lot of the information they learned will be retained.
An autistic person will usually be able to talk at length, and without requiring a reciprocal input, about their interests.
The writers of The Big Bang Theory capture this in Sheldon Cooper’s obsession with trains. While in many ways this character is something of a caricature of a high-functioning autistic person, this aspect of his personality is accurate.
Self-centredness
This doesn’t mean that an autistic person thinks the world revolves around them and everyone should drop everything for them (ok maybe a little bit!)! It means that they have trouble relating to, or finding importance in, things that don’t directly affect them.
This may affect how they act. For example they simply might not realise that something impacts on somebody other than themselves. This can lead to behaviour that some people think is unreasonable or selfish.
The autistic person does not mean to offend people with this—other people simply don’t occur to them when they are planning their actions. If they do remember someone else exists they may do one thing that is kind and thoughtful but completely miss something blindingly obvious.
For example, I was accused by a neighbour of being ‘ignorant’ because I drove past her on the way home and waved but didn’t stop to offer her a lift. I was just thinking that I was being friendly by waving. It didn’t occur to me that she might appreciate a lift home.
These accidental faux pas are great for showing the impact autistic spectrum disorder can have on someone and their relationships with other people.
Inability to lie
This is a characteristic seen in a significant minority of high-functioning autistic people.
In some cases the autistic person simply will not try to lie, as it would not occur to them.
In other cases they may try to lie but this will cause such stress and abnormal behaviour that it is immediately obvious.
Treatment for high-functioning autism
As autism is not actually a medical condition which can be cured the word treatment is largely inappropriate. Asperger syndrome is part of who I am. As well as the difficulties it has caused me with social interactions it is also responsible for many of the greatest achievements of my life.
Support for autistic people may include:
Social interaction training for key life skills
Medication to control anxiety
Therapy or counselling to help with anxiety
Support groups for people with similar disorders
It is also thought that a gluten and casein free diet, and taking certain vitamins, can help to minimise the life-disrupting characteristics of an autistic spectrum disorder.
Applied behavioural analysis
One technique that has been widely used for children with some types of autism is applied behavioural analysis (ABA). This is a form of therapy based on rewarding desirable behaviours and interactions, and correcting undesirable ones.
The principle is similar to that of training a dog. The child is taught in a structured way how to act in certain situation, as opposed to learning this instinctively as a neurotypical child might. It has also been used on some adults.
Critics of this technique believe that it is the wrong approach for those with high-functioning autism because it focuses on forcing neurodiverse individuals to conform to society, rather than changing society to accept neurodiversity. People after all are not dogs.
There have also been cases where the use of this therapy has been shown to be excessive, such as administering electric shocks for incorrect actions. There are documented cases of this causing PTSD. Understandably this has raised serious concerns about the validity of ABA.
Most autistic people are against the use of ABA. It is likened to conversion therapy for gay and trans people, as it seeks to fundamentally change part of the person’s nature. This is widely accepted to be inhumane for gay and trans people, and yet is still recommended for autistic children by professionals.
This conflict is something that could potentially be explored in fiction or poetry.
Examples of high-functioning autism in popular culture
Please note there may be some minor spoilers in the following passages. Some of these examples are good examples of representation of neurodiversity. Some are less good.
There are scarily few of either good or bad. Considering the huge number of people with an autistic spectrum diagnosis we are remarkably underrepresented.
Sheldon Cooper—The Big Bang Theory
The character of Sheldon displays many characteristics of autistic spectrum disorder. The show’s creators have said they did not deliberately write Sheldon as an autistic character, however Jim Parsons, the actor who plays him, has said he has always assumed the character has Asperger syndrome.
This character is somewhat polarising. Although he does show an autistic character living a successful life and able to show personal growth, he is an exaggerated character. Some people feel that this contributes to perpetuating some harmful stereotypes.
This is a common criticism of autistic characters in film and television.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time—Mark Haddon
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is the story of the boy who gets carried away with an obsession over the death of his neighbour’s dog is considered by many to be one of the better representations of autism in literature.
Christopher is a complex character, his autism forming only a part of his character. He displays lots of typical characteristics and the books effectively explores how these affect his life.
The Seven Imperfect Rules of Elvire Carr—Frances Maynard
Although it is never named as such in the book, Elvire Carr’s big problem is that she is autistic—quite severely so—and has no idea how to interact with other people.
Elvire also shows some learning delays so is not as high-functioning as some of the characters in this list. She is however a great ambassador for the autistic community: well-researched and well-written.
Maurice—The IT Crowd
Although not one of the best known characters on television, Maurice may well be one of the best-written autistic characters. He is quite severely affected by the ASD but is portrayed sensitively making him likeable and relatable.
The IT Crowd is possibly the only TV show that manages to portray a person with Asperger syndrome as part of the jokes rather than the butt of them. For that reason Maurice is an important character, helping to dispel the stereotype that autistic people struggle to have any sense of humour.
He also accepts and owns his self-proclaimed weirdness which I absolutely love.
Abby Scuito—NCIS
Abby has never been formally given the diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorder by the writers of NCIS, but she has many characteristics that place her firmly on the spectrum. Relating more to computers than people, high IQ, and displaying various eccentricities without thought to how they impact people around her all make her highly likely to be on the spectrum.
Abby is one of TVs best-loved characters, which surely gives hope to those of us who have struggled to find acceptance with our neurodiversity.
Writing an autistic character can be challenging, but with the rise in recognition of neurodiversity it is something writers need to be thinking about more in order to write truly representative fiction.
The most important thing is to remember that every individual is different. There is no aspect of neurodiversity that is identical from one person to the next.
This gives a writer loads of room to experiment and write unique, complex characters to suit many different kinds of story. As well as being challenging, autistic characters can be great fun to write and read about.
So give it a go—write an autistic character the world can relate to. And let me know about it when you do!
Please note some links in this post are affiliate links and, as such, we will receive a percentage of the sale should you make a purchase after clicking the link. This doesn’t cost you anything or change the price of the product, it just helps to pay for hosting!
Tag:Autism Spectrum Disorder, How to, How to Write About Mental Health
Should You Choose a Small Press Publisher?
Sarah Hindmarsh
Sarah Hindmarsh is a private tutor by trade, and a writer in most of her spare time. She has self-published the award-winning Animal Adventures series for six-to-nine-year-olds and the ever-popular 1001 Writing Prompts series. She also has a growing collection of short stories and poetry published in various literary journals, magazines, and anthologies. In her remaining spare time she walks her miniature poodle, Kohla, and competes in showjumping and dressage (with significantly more success in the showjumping) on her horse, Callie. Sarah can be found on Facebook and Twitter.
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14th November, 2018 at 00:34
Sarah Daniels
This is such valuable insight for writers. Thank you so much for sharing!
Thank you Sarah, I am pleased you find it helpful.
I have made a minor update due to finding some more up to date research (typically the day after I make the post) which I hope will help further.
Clare Stevens
I think this is a valuable insight for everyone, not just writers. But the more people who write about autism from a position of knowledge, the better the understanding among the general population. There does seem to be better awareness than say 10-15 years ago. Do you think ‘The Curious Incident’ helped bring the topic of autism into the mainstream?
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This Portfolio (nfdarbe)
Toddler Toy Factory
Reading, Spelling, Memory, Hand/Eye Coordination... & playing with toys at the same time!
A travel to the beach was full of adventures.
Science Fiction Short Story Contest
A contest inspired by the serious need for more good sci-fi
17 camels
If we think that there is no solution, we won’t be able to solve the problem.
A bunny and a unicorn enjoy Easter
Insanity of Humanity
When you do the same thing repeatedly expecting different results.
You got another chance in life. To restart knowing what you know today. Would you do it?
Relationships with Yu-Gi-Oh! Girls!
Go on a romantic road with your favorite female Yu-Gi-Oh! characters
by Prosperous Snow Globe
Rated: 13+ · Fiction · Sci-fi · #1911561
He had to work overtime on his wedding anniversary
Created: January 3rd, 2013 at 2:18pm
Modified: September 1st, 2016 at 10:43pm
Location: Flash Fiction
Genres: Sci-fi, Career, Relationship
"Nice of you to decide to come home this morning," Marla glared as Harry attempted to slip into the house through the patio doors. "You could have called last night and told me you weren't coming home for dinner."
"I'm sorry, Honey," Harry attempted to kiss his wife, but she evaded him by sitting down at the dining room table. "The new boss decided every one was going to work overtime and, because of the security risk, sh... he confiscated all our cell phones and turned off all the office phones."
"Shahe," Marla frowned. "I thought you said his name was Johnson."
"Johnson's the last name, Sweet Heart," he picked up the hot champagne, wiped the dripping water off the bottle, and looked at the date on the label. "Were we supposed to celebrate something special last night?" He placed the bottle on the table next to a crystal champagne glass.
"You Dolt," she burst into tears. "Yesterday was our wedding anniversary!"
His brow knotted, "Are you sure, Cin... uh, Marla?" He rubbed his day old beard with his left hand, "I thought we were married on Valentines Day. This isn't February 14, is it?"
She picked up a butter knife laying beside the dinner plate and drove it into the breast of the baked chicken setting on the serving platter in the center of the table. "No, it isn't," she stood up, a dinner fork in her left hand. "Harry, February 14 was the anniversary of your first marriage." She raised the fork, stared at it and threw it across the room, hitting a still life hanging on the wall. "You divorced Cindy ten years ago."
"I... I'm sorry, Honey," he put his hand in the pocket of slacks and removed the car keys. "Happy second anniversary," he handed her the keys to their station wagon.
"Harry," she stared at the keys and then threw them into the gravy boat, "we've been married five long and, until now, I thought happy years."
"Marsha, uh, I mean, Marla," he put his left arm around her shoulders and his right hand under her chin. "I'll go shower, shave, and then we can go out to eat." He tried to kiss her, but she pushed him away.
"You're having an affair, aren't you?"
"No," he shook his head. "I don't think so."
She gaped at him, "Would you like a divorce?"
"No, Marla," he laughed. "I enjoy being married to you." He grabbed her, pulled her closer, and kissed on the lips.
When their lips met, she felt as if a robot had kissed her. Before she could say anything, the doorbell rang. Marla pushed Harry away and went to answer the door. Without looking through the peephole she opened to door and standing on the front porch, holding a single red rose, was Harry.
"Happy belated anniversary," he opened the screen door and held out the rose.
She turned around and ran back into the dining room. The man who had kissed her stood by the dining table, trying to fish the car keys out of the gravy boat.
"What's wrong," Harry followed her into the dining room. "Oh! It escaped!"
She stood there for five minutes looking from one Harry to the next. Then, she put her arms around the one holding the rose and kissed him.
"You must be the real Harry," she said, taking the rose and placing it on the table. "What is that?" She pointed to her husband's doppelganger.
"That's my clone," he took his cell phone out of his jacket pocket and dialed his boss.
"Ms. Johnson, we have a problem."
"My clone is standing in my dining room, with his hands in my wife's antique gravy boat."
"I wish I was joking," he went to his clone and placed his right hand on the creature's shoulder causing it to sit down at the table. "You need to send security guards and someone to interview my wife."
"Thank you," he closed his phone, put it back in his pocket, and took out a small red velvet ring box. "The rest of your anniversary present," he handed the box to Marla. She opened the box to find a diamond engagement ring and wedding band.
"I was going to ask you to renew our vows."
She closed the box and picked up the rose, "Fine, Harry! Thank you!"
© Copyright 2013 Prosperous Snow Globe (nfdarbe at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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Apple's New iPad in Production
Yukari Iwatani Kane And
Shayndi Raice
Updated Feb. 9, 2011 12:01 am ET
Apple Inc. has started manufacturing a new version of its iPad tablet computer with a built-in camera and faster processor, said people familiar with the matter.
The new iPad will be thinner and lighter than the first model, these people said. It will have at least one camera on the front of the device for features like video-conferencing, but the resolution of the display will be similar to the first iPad, these people said. It will also have more memory and a more powerful graphics processor, they said.
Apple's New iPad on the Way
Apple has started manufacturing a new version of its iPad tablet computer with a built-in camera and faster processor. WSJ's Yukari Kane joins Stacey Delo to discuss.
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Born in 1921, Jean Dieuzaide very quickly showed a passion for photography. He proved it ardently, everywhere, from Paris to Toulouse, passing through Arles. Launched by a photograph of General de Gaulle that would be largely distributed, Jean Dieuzaide became a photojournalist. Many of his reportages appeared in the international press, such as the one dedicated to the marriage of two tightrope walkers and published by ' Life ' Jean Dieuzaide also photographed for ' documentary ' works : Gascogne, Portugal, Périgord, Languedoc... Many are the prizes, nominations, requests for hischairing jurys, associations, contests to which the name of Jean Dieuzaide isattached.In addition, he was the winner of the prize Niepce in 1954, of the prize Nadar in 1961. He was named an Officer of the National Order of Merit and an Officer in the order of Arts and Letters in 1981. He received the grand prize of the Arts of the City of Paris in 1985, the gold medal of the city of Toulouse in 1986, the gold ' Sicof ' at Milan and was named a Paul Harris Fellow of Rotary International in 1988. He was also given an Honorary Fellowship by the Royal Photographic Society in 1994.
DÉCOLLAGE BALISÉ
Dali avant le bain
DALI SUR UN CRÂNE D'ÉLÉPHANT
DÉPART GRAND PRIX D'ALBI 1967
Voilure du Concorde 1968
Grand Prix de Pau, 1949, Fangio Maserati
Atterrissage caravelle
CONCORDE 20 FÉVRIER 1969
CONCORDE: ESSAIS DE FREINAGE 1968
Concorde dans son filet
Concorde dans son filet #2
TABLEAU DE LA FACULTÉ DE MÉDECINE, TOULOUSE MAI 68
Caravelle, atterrissage de nuit 1964
Grand Prix d'Albi, 1951, Louis Rosier
car race
Louis Rosier
ramp agent
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BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards 2019
Deadline June 30, 2019
Region Spain
The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards recognize fundamental contributions in a broad array of areas of scientific knowledge, technology, humanities and artistic creation, as listed in these call conditions.
The BBVA foundation frontiers of knowledge Awards, whose twelfth edition is now open, recognize and reward world-class research and artistic creation, prizing contributions of singular impact of their originality and significance. The name of the scheme is intended to denote not only the research work that substantially enlarges the scope of their current knowledge- pushing forward the frontiers of the known world- but also the meeting and overlap of different disciplinary areas and the emergence of new fields.
The disciplines and domains of the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards are:
Basic Sciences (Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics)
Biology and Biomedicine
Ecology and Conservation Biology
Economics, Finance and Management
Music and Opera
The Climate Change award recognizes both research endeavours in confronting this challenge and impactful actions informed by the best science. In Humanities and Social Sciences, the award will alternate annually between these two disciplinary domains, with this twelfth edition dedicated to the Social Sciences. Finally, the Music and Opera category encompasses composition, instrumental and vocal performance, musical and stage direction, and video art creation associated with musical or operatic works.
The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards will be decided before April 30, 2020. The awards will be presented at a formal ceremony to be held in Madrid on June 18, 2020, preceded by a gala concert held in Madrid’s Teatro Real on the evening of June 17.
Laureates must agree to attend the presentation ceremony. In the case of awards going to teams, these will be represented by no more than three of their members.
If an award goes to a legal person, it must furnish the following documents after being notified of the award decision:
A copy of its bylaws
A copy of its tax identification number
A statement from the pertinent governing body of the organization or institution confirming its acceptance of the award
The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards consist of 400,000 euros, a diploma and a commemorative artwork in each of their eight categories.
In the event that an award is shared by more than one person, its monetary amount will be divided equally among all recipients.
All awards, in whatever category, will be subject to the withholding and other taxes prescribed by current legislation, which will be deducted from their total amount.
Candidates may be one or more natural persons of any nationality, without limitation of number, that have made independent or convergent contributions to a given advance, whether due to a formal collaboration (with the nominees belonging to one or more groups) or parallel working.
The awards are also open to scientific or cultural organizations that can be collectively credited with exceptional contributions to scientific knowledge, cultural creation or the fight against climate change.
Eligible Regions: Open for All
The nominating institution or individual must provide the following information and documentation, at www.frontiersofknowledgeawards-fbbva.es
Award category for which the candidate is nominated
Name of the nominating institution and officer/body, with the corresponding contact data (postal and e-mail address, plus landline and cell phone numbers)
Letter of nomination signed by the nominating officer/body
Candidate particulars including institutional affiliation and contact data
Description of the salient contributions of the candidate and reasoned arguments for the nomination (maximum of three pages, single spaced)
Candidate’s curriculum vitae
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