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You are here: Home / Archives for crane
“This Work Is our Whole Life”
August 9, 2014 By Pam
This week, I honored the memory of August 1945, when the U.S. dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, by writing about the resistance of the Shibokusa women for my new book on creative nonviolence. It lifted my spirits. I hope it lifts yours, too.
Long before Occupy Wall Street, the Shibokusa women of Japan used the tactic of nonviolent occupation. They refused to abandon Mount Fuji, a beloved symbol of their nation.
The land at the foot of Kita Fuji (North Fuji) had been farmed since the Edo period in the 17th century. In 1936, however, it was taken over by the Japanese Imperial Army for military exercises. Following World War II, the base was appropriated by U.S. forces, which retained special privileges even after a 1952 treaty. Little did the soldiers know that some very tough women would become their worst nightmare.
After most farm families gave up and moved to the cities, these tough, steadfastly antiwar grandmothers formed the Shibokusa Mother’s Committee in 1955, determined to fight for their land and disrupt business-as-usual on the military base. They knew that militarism meant death to people and animals and violence to the earth.
An intentionally mischievous, bothersome, embarrassing presence at the military base, they dressed in baggy trousers and wide straw hats and found countless ways to disrupt training exercises. They flew kites in flight paths, sent up smoke signals to obstruct artillery tests, lay down in the road to block trucks. They created secret paths from their cottages to the military exercise areas and jumped out of the bushes to startle the soldiers. They planted scarecrows, sat in circles to sing and clap, stood pointing and laughing at the men in their military uniforms.
Sometimes, riot police were sent to arrest the women in a futile attempt to evict them and put an end to their resistance. The elders were unfazed.
Humor was one of the hallmarks of the Shibokusa women’s resistance. In an interview with Leonie Caldecott, they explained, “[The police] hate it when we start screaming. They have realized that, though we are physically easier to arrest than men, we’re more trouble afterwards! Men put up a fight, but once it’s over they just give everything away. We never give our name, age or anything. We just say we’re so old, we can’t remember when we were born or who we are.”
In the Caldecott interview, the women said, “Don’t imagine our lives are miserable. It’s fun to make a nuisance of ourselves and embarrass those men. This work is our whole life. We enjoy every minute, but we’re not lazy about it.”
The women’s occupation at Kita Fuji lasted until 2006 when the aged leadership died off, but the stories of their resistance and courage live on.
To Go Deeper:
Caldecott, Leonie. “At the Foot of the Mountain: The Shibokusa Women of Kita Fuji” from Keeping the Peace: A Women’s Peace Handbook. Lynne Jones, ed. London: Women’s Press, 1983.
“Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki with WILPF (Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom), July 28, 2014 http://peaceeconomyproject.org/wordpress/?p=3273
“The Story of the Peace Crane” http://www.buddhistcouncil.org/bodhitree/Books/Story_of_the_Peace_Crane.pdf
“How to Fold an Origami Crane (for beginners)”
“Origami” by Hiroko Sakai (She is a contemporary Japanese artist who has lived in San Francisco since 1999.) http://www.redbubble.com/people/hilo/works/3420485-origami
Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: crane, Hiroshima, Japan, Leonie Caldecott, Mount Fuji, Nagasaki, origami, peace crane, Shibokusa
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Television credits include: THE GOOD WIFE (Emmy Winner, Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series), CLAWS, PERSON OF INTEREST, TRUE BLOOD (SAG nomination, Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series), CROWDED, WHEN WE RISE, LOST, DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES and many, many others. Film credits include: TO THE BONE, DAISY WINTERS, AND THEN I GO, 5 FLIGHTS UP, BENEATH THEHARVEST SKY, IN VITO VERITAS, BAG OF HAMMERS, WHAT’S WRONG WITH VIRGINIA, SIRONIA, DUPLICITY, VICKY CHRISTINA BARCELONA, TRANSAMERICA, TOWELHEAD, THAT EVENING SUN, STRAIGHT JACKET, GRACE ; GLORIE, THE JOURNEY, and MY BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING. Ms. Preston is alsoan accomplished theatre actor who’s worked both on and off-Broadway, and a director whose film, THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012.
Television credits include HBO’s ROOM 104, and recent film credits include the Oscar-nominated film, LADYBIRD, for which she received a SAG award nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. Ms. Scott is an LA native, took classes at the RSC, and is agraduate of UCLA’s School of Theatre, Film & Television.
Reggie Baker
Officer Marsh
Television credits include: SUPERNATURAL, FELICITY, WAITING, MASTERS OF SEX,THRESHOLD, ALIAS, COME TO PAPA, HEAD CASE, TOUCH, FRANKLIN & BASH, CHICAGO HOPE, BIRDS OF PREY, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, and KINGS OF CON.Film Credits include: A LITTLE HELP, STILL WAITING, STATE OF PLAY, KICKING AND SCREAMING, SEX AND DEATH 101, THE FIRST 20 MILLION IS ALWAYS THE HARDEST, NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE, TWO DAYS WITH PAUL RUDD, THE SIDEKICK, and WAITING.Mr. Benedict can also be seen and heard as the front man of the La-based band, LOUDEN SWAIN, whose 6th studio EP was released in January 2017.
William Smillie
Television credits include: CHICAGO FIRE, APB, BOSS, THE CHICAGO CODE, SHAMELESS and ER.Film credits include THE DARK KNIGHT and DILEMMA, and the soon-to-be-released WHAT THEY HAD. Chicago-based Smillie can also be found in voice-over booths and on stage.
Officer Riley
Cathy Shim
Television credits include: THE FAKE NEWS, PLAYING HOUSE, SUPERIOR DONUTS, BAJILLION DOLLAR PROPERTIES, FAMELESS, DEAL WITH IT, YOU’RE WHOLE, RENO 911!, MAD TV, DRAKE & JOSH, and PUNK’D.Film credits include: RAISING BUCHANAN, LOVE IS NOT LOVE, THE WATCH, RENO 911!, MIAMI, BALLS OF FURY, and AMERICONS, and her voice-over work includes THE CLEVELAND SHOW, GLENN MARTIN DDS, SAMURAI DAYCARE, and OISHI HIGH SCHOOL BATTLE. Ms. Shim has performed sketch and improv at UCB, 10 West, Groundlings, and Second City, as well as stand-up at various clubs around town.
Postell Pringle
Television credits include: RESCUE ME, UNFORGETTABLE, LAW & ORDER, and LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT.Film credits include: UNKNOWN SOLDIER, 14085, THE HUDSON TRIBES, and ORANGE BOW. Mr. Pringle has worked as an actor both on and off-Broadway, and has won numerous awards as a writer, performer, choreographer, and composer with his theatre company, Q Brothers Collective, known chiefly for hip hop musical adaptations of Shakespeare. He is also a member of the Chicago-based band, The Rap Pack.
Andrew Rothenberg
Seana Kofoed
Television credits include: AMERICAN PRINCESS, FLAKED, GONE, NCIS, RAISING HOPE, SUBURGATORY, RULES OF ENGAGEMENT, MAJOR CRIMES, THE BIG C, MEN OF A CERTAIN AGE, FLASHFORWARD, THE MENTALIST, MEN IN TREES, NUMBERS, VAMPED OUT, DONNA’S REVENGE, VALENTINE, BORDERLINE TALENT, QUEENS SUPREME, ED, THE AUDREY HEPBURN STORY, LAW & ORDER: SVU, AND THIRD WATCH.Ms. Kofoed has voiced characters on MAD, ELECTRIC CITY, DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS, and SHARK TALE: THE GAME, and was a New York theatre actor for years, happily working both on and Off Broadway, before moving west to Los Angeles.
Roslyn Alexander
Robert Breuler
Father Galvin
Birgundi Baker
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6 St. Louis Women Making Waves In The Arts
Home / Culture / 6 St. Louis Women Making Waves In The Arts
By Lena Crown
Posted Feb 14, 2018
In Culture, Feature
6 St. Louis Women Making Waves In The Arts2018-02-142018-02-20http://www.alivemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/logo_header.pngAlivehttp://alivemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/visionary-award-winners-pic-min-e1518421656361.jpg200px200px
The six women honored by the 2018 St. Louis Visionary Awards have pushed the city’s arts community forward in distinct, tangible ways—ways such as: establishing the Shakespeare Festival in Forest Park; forging the city’s first space for classical Indian dance; creating space for conversations about race, identity and art; and much more.
We asked each of these inspiring women about their arts experience, inspirations and visions for the future. Keep reading for their answers.
Yvonne Osei, Emerging Artist
Tell me about your introduction to art and the arts community in St. Louis.
As a native of the Ashanti Kingdom of Ghana, my interest in art was subconsciously sparked and continues to be invigorated by the Ashanti way of life. Art forms an inseparable synergy with life and is embodied by people: art is worn, carried around and lived in. My involvement with the art scene in St. Louis dates back to 2009, when I first served as a Gallery Assistant at Three Sinks Gallery, where I was exposed to local artists and art events in the St. Louis area.
What is something you are proud to have created?
In 2016, I created a collection of garments titled “From Utopia, With Love.” These garments are constructed from textile designs using photographic renditions of the skins and body features of diverse individuals I have photographed. I am proud of this work and seek to expand on it because of its potential to celebrate differences and call attention to the superficiality of racial categorizations.
What are you working on at the moment, or what do you currently find inspiring?
I find clothing inspiring because of its potency as a highly responsive artistic medium of expression. Clothing is a universally relatable necessity that exemplifies the synergistic relationship between art and life in my culture. In my recent creative works, I explore clothing as cultural, social and political symbols as well as literal and conceptual coverings of ‘nudity.’ I am also drawn to the way clothing moves fluidly between public and private spaces.
What is your advice for young people looking to establish a career in the arts?
As young artists, it is crucial to understand that your creative voice is inherently yours and it is valid. It is a good thing to receive constructive criticism about your work but a dangerous thing to internalize it to the detriment of your vision.
Antionette Carroll, Community Impact Artist
My grandparents, who raised me, always integrated art into our home. Still, no one ever told me that a career in the arts is possible. I ultimately decided to pursue design after studying biology. My introduction to the arts community in St. Louis came from the Katherine Dunham Fellowship at the Regional Arts Commission, which opened my eyes to the existence of careers like arts administration.
My biggest accomplishment was the establishment of the Creative Reaction Lab in response to the unrest in Ferguson. We educate and engage Black and Latino youth, to address issues around racism. I am proud to have implemented a new form of creative problem-solving: equity-centered community design, which can be applied to address social justice issues. We are trying to build a network of community leaders and equity designers.
Currently, I’m working on the curation of the third annual Design + Diversity conference. The conference examines how we design diversity, both through the visual lens and through the lens of human connection. This year, we are developing a fellowship program to give interested designers the opportunity to not only attend the conference, but also to receive resources to support their success in the industry.
We are at work more than we are at home, so try not to bring unhappiness home with you. Find your happiness in whatever medium that brings you joy.
Allison Felter, Outstanding Arts Professional
I first encountered the arts in grade school, when my mother insisted I sign up to play a band instrument. I was introduced to the St. Louis arts community fresh out of college, working for the legendary Joan Fann at the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. She took an enthusiastic but wildly unfocused twenty-two-year-old and initiated my training as an arts administrator.
I have had the privilege of building the Artists-in-Training Program at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis into one that is nationally recognized, providing college-level voice training and life skills to students from all socioeconomic backgrounds. Numerous graduates have achieved distinguished careers in diverse disciplines, from opera to politics. Beyond the career opportunities, the program invests in the community by offering young people the chance to make lifelong friends.
My partnerships, both ongoing and new, make my job interesting. I pair our resources at Opera Theater of Saint Louis with those of partner organizations to create new programming for students and adults. We recently partnered with the Sheldon Concert Hall, St. Louis Public Schools and St. Louis Archdiocesan Schools to offer a professional development day for teachers, including vocal, aural and physical body training.
If you are interested in arts administration, sample as many departments as you can—whether you’re an intern, volunteer or paid employee—to find out where your true gifts lie.
Asha Premachandra, Outstanding Teaching Artist
When I came to St. Louis, I realized there were no classical Indian dance companies here, so my family and I started our own. We named it “Dances of India,” because many thought our school taught Native American dance. My husband, who was always fond of both Eastern and Western dance, took the lead in organizing the school.
We are very proud to have created new pieces for our annual dance shows for the past 40 years. I also feel very lucky to work alongside my friends and family. My friend and student Theckla Mehta is the artistic co-director, and my daughter, Nartana Premachandra, serves as the president and writes our original productions.
We are continually pushing ourselves to bring new ideas to our dance choreography so that we can inspire the audience. We try to reach out to the audience emotionally to help them truly feel the story or the dance’s rhythm.
Don’t underestimate the benefits that the performing arts can have on your mind and body. Dance in general is very relaxing to the mind and body. Dance is healthy!
Cheeraz Gormon, Outstanding Working Artist
The house I grew up in had paintings covering the walls and music playing on any given day of the week. I navigated the St. Louis arts community during college as a young photographer and spoken-word poet in 1998, and, since then, my journey has been filled with so much exploration and growth.
I am proud to have released my first collection of poetry and writing in 2015. I’m grateful to have founded the nonprofit Sonic Arts United, and to have watched it take shape as the co-director over the years. I’m thankful to have helped to establish the St. Louis Brick City Poetry Festival. Last, but surely not least, it was humbling to work with Shirley Bradley-LeFlore to bring back her writers workshop, Poets Alley.
As Storytelling Fellow at InPower Institute based in St. Louis, I’m excited to launch a podcast series dedicated to giving voice to Black neighborhoods and communities that have suffered displacement and erasure. In my own poetry, I’m collaborating with visual artist and animator Sarah Paulsen. I am beginning the process of turning some of my poems into short films, which is exciting and intimidating.
Resist the urge to narrow what is meant to be wide. The world has enough systems designed to suppress what is most beautiful, vibrant and liberating. Always choose your freedom.
Lana Pepper, Major Contributor to the Arts
I was twenty-three years old before I went to the theater. My very first play was “Othello,” and although I knew nothing about Shakespeare, I was mesmerized. I eventually studied theater while raising my children and later became the assistant to the artistic director at The Rep. After receiving my MFA, I began to organize fundraisers and events for local arts organizations.
I am proud of my role in bringing the Shakespeare Festival to St. Louis. I was first brought on as a volunteer because of my background in Shakespeare and my organizational experience, and eventually I became the managing director. We also immediately implemented educational programs in St. Louis schools. Inspired by the Chicago Shakespeare Festival, we trained teachers to get students up out of their chairs, speaking and acting out the lines.
I serve on the board at the Fox Performing Arts Charitable Foundation, and we are currently working to offer more young people opportunities for performance. I hope that someday, in the future, so many talented artists will be coming from our city that someone will say, “What is in the water in St. Louis? Where is this talent coming from?”
Ask for help. And when you get help, you must give credit to those people. And finally: drive a station wagon, because you’re going to be schlepping.
Artist, Creative, Maker, missouri, St. Louis, Story, Writer
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Was North Carolina the Florida of 2004?
With support from the Z. Smith Reynolds and Ford Foundations, FairVote presents: North Carolina Reform Roundtables
Co-sponsored by Democracy North Carolina and Common Cause North Carolina
North Carolina's 2004 elections highlighted disturbing flaws in the state's electoral system. In August, the state held a runoff election for the Democratic nomination for Superintendent of Public Instruction. This election cost counties $3.5 million dollars, for a turnout of only 2 to 3% of voters. In the November general election, voting machines in Carteret County failed to record over four-thousand votes, whilethe Republican and Democrat were separated by less than three-thousand votes in the state-wide race for Agriculture Commissioner. As a result, voters throughout the state will have to re-cast their ballots for that position. These problems, as well as a host of others around the state, all stem from structural problems in the state's electoral system that are creating a democracy deficit in North Carolina.
Expensive Runoffs, "Missing" Votes and Minority Under-Representation: Where do we go from here?
In February 2005, FairVote-The Center for Voting and Democracy will be holding a series of workshops in conjunction with state and local activists in North Carolina to discuss ways in which current electoral practices can be improved. We hope that you can join us for some of these events.
Coverage of the 2004 general elections lacked the dramatic images of electoral problems that dominated 2000, but this should not blind us to the inconsistencies and unfairnesses which have plagued voting in North Carolina just as much this time round. The low turnout in the most recent primary runoffs raised questions about the effectiveness of the current runoff system ñ along with an excessively heavy elections bill for local communities. With the general election, more allegations surfaced of lost votes, voter intimidation, fraud and faulty voting equipment. And the emergence of new problems should not distract us from a long-standing one: ethnic and racial minorities in North Carolina have suffered from perennial under-representation. Although over 20% of the voting age population of the state is African American, only one in ten County Commissioners are. Now is the time to take action so that the problems which remained unfixed for 2004 will not resurface at the next election.
What's the Matter with North Carolina Elections?
Program and Speakers
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Who is donald sutherland dating
He recalls: “I walked up to Timothy Hutton when I was about 22 and said: ‘You stole that moment from me and my dad.
As a teenager, watching one of his father’s best performances in – Robert Redford’s drama about a disintegrating family – created angst within Kiefer.
A few years after it came out, he remembers meeting Timothy Hutton, the actor who played Donald’s screen son.
He thought about , the family drama starring Henry Fonda and his daughter Jane.
“That is the perfect film where it was done,” says the actor. An audience thought they got to have a glimpse into real life – although it was not their real life – and that was what I wanted to do.” , which features Alan Ladd’s young gunslinger coming to town in search of a quiet life but becoming embroiled in a battle between a homesteader and a ruthless cattle baron.
It was a desire that had burned within him ever since he decided to follow in his father Donald’s footsteps and become an actor, that one day he would star in a film alongside his dad.
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Sutherland was born, alongside his twin sister, Rachel, at St Mary’s Hospital in London.
His mother, Shirley Douglas, is a Canadian film and television actress who was married to Donald for four years between 19.
“I thought, ‘What if it was a son coming back and he has all the same problems? Sutherland Snr was excited about playing Reverend Clayton, who preaches peace and turning the other cheek.
He doesn’t want his son, who he has not seen since the death of his wife, to take up arms in a battle over property.
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After playing Jack Bauer for a ninth season, he was with Donald, now 80, when he “looked up at my father and I thought, wow, I don’t have much more time to do this”.
Over the course of a 30-year-career, Sutherland Jnr had yet to come across a script that he felt would be suitable for them both, so he decided to take the bull by the horns.
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Here are some examples of first text messages that you can send to a girl: “I like that place we all were at at the end of the night. ” “I think that bartender was having a few too many himself. ” “My coffee only lasted me about an hour this time. Don’t bring up serious subjects or get into drama with your texts. If you write too much, it can make you look desperate. Keep these simple and relevant to what she’s been doing lately to keep the conversation going. Therefore, all of your texts should push to achieve a meet-up in some way. Don’t Be So Readily Available After you get a girl’s number, wait a little while before texting her. Always Be The One To End It If the conversation is going really well, keep her wanting more of you by ending it. They convey to her that you’re a fun guy with a playful, light-hearted attitude. If you use fancy ones or those really long ones that create a picture, that’s when you’re over doing it. ;)” See how adding a wink makes seeing a movie sound way more fun?… continue reading »
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A public hearing was held on Bylaw 379 – Development Fees Amendment. The bylaw would increase some development fees related to new construction permits, bed and breakfast homes, late application fees, compliance certificates and development appeals. Three residents spoke at the meeting, all in opposition to the increase in development and subdivision appeals from $100 to $200. Council voted to postpone second reading of the bylaw to receive information on whether it was possible to have separate appeal fees for individuals and corporations, and to see options that would allow the Development Appeal Board to issue appeal fee refunds. The bylaw is expected to return to council at the February 13 meeting.
First reading was given to two new waste bylaws. Bylaw 376 – Residential Waste Bylaw – updates wording from the existing bylaw to match current practices and terminology. Bylaw 377 – Non-Residential Waste Bylaw – proposes the mandatory use of clear garbage bags for commercial properties. A number of jurisdictions around the world have implemented the use of clear bags, and have found it to be a valuable tool in reducing the quantity of recyclable materials being thrown in the garbage. It’s suggested the use of clear bags become mandatory six months after approval of the bylaw, and be coupled with an education program. The last full review of the waste bylaw was completed in 2004.
Council gave second and third readings to Bylaw 368 – ATCO Gas Franchise Bylaw. The bylaw allows a natural gas franchise agreement with ATCO Gas and Pipelines Ltd for the distribution and delivery of natural gas within the Town of Banff.
Council authorized the Town to participate in the Alberta Community Partnership Grant submitted by the Town of Canmore for a Shared Information Governance Service Delivery Feasibility Study under the Intermunicipal Collaboration component of the Alberta Community Partnership Grant. Both towns will apply for a $30,000 grant to assess, develop and design a regional shared services initiative for municipal records management, preservation and storage; and to explore shared information governance service delivery.
Council received a briefing on three trails related projects that have been completed or have reached milestones:
The Bow River Trail Restoration was done in the summer and fall of 2016 to close an informal trail that paralleled the Bow River Trail between the pedestrian bridge and Bow Falls. The primary reason for closing the informal trail was to reduce the number of people venturing into the sensitive, wet riparian zone at the edge of the river.
Since the December 2014 train derailment in and near 40-Mile Creek, Parks Canada has been leading work to restore riparian habitat where the derailment occurred, in cooperation with the Town. In the summer of 2016, Parks staff noted that persistent public use of informal trails through the restoration site was compromising the success of ecological restoration efforts. Parks Canada proposed to the Town that a potential solution would be for CP Rail to fund the completion of a Town of Banff neighbourhood trail that previously ended near the restoration site. Through creating the trail connection that’s approximately 20 metres long, trail users going north are now led from along 40-Mile Creek back to connect with the Bow River trail at Gopher Street. Completing this trail connection guides trail users onto the appropriate next segment in the trail system, rather than directing users towards the informal trails through the 40-Mile Creek restoration site.
In 2016 a net of 94 new bike parking stalls were established and there are plans to install at least 90 more bike parking stalls in 2017. Four surveys of occupancy at bike parking facilities were conducted throughout the summer of 2016. Twenty-two bike parking sites had 75% occupancy or more in at least half of the 2016 surveys, indicating that they require expanded capacity in 2017. Survey data were also used to identify bicycle racks that had no usage, and therefore are candidates for being re-deployed to other locations in 2017.
⇐Previous Council briefs for January 23, 2017Next⇒ Council briefs for November 28, 2016
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Flight of the GlobalFlyer—Around the World in 67 Hours
By Bob Shane
Sir Richard Branson talks to Steve Fossett from inside Mission Control. Fossett’s face is displayed in the background on a 10 x 12 foot plasma screen.
It was touted as “the last great aviation record,” the first solo non-stop circumnavigation of the world in an aircraft. The quest for this coveted goal brought together a successful entrepreneur, adventurer and billionaire, a professional record setter and a master exotic airplane builder. Time would show that this was a recipe for success; however, the saga that followed proved once again that the truth can be stranger than fiction, and that in aviation, there’s often no sure thing.
On March 4, 2005, the Virgin Atlantic team, headed by Sir Richard Branson; pilot Steve Fossett, who already holds 102 records in balloons, gliders, sailboats and powered airplanes; and Burt Rutan and his company Scaled Composites proved they were the right blend. The GlobalFlyer aircraft set the record for the first solo non-stop circumnavigation of the world by an aircraft in 67 hours, 1 minute and 46 seconds. Other team members vital to the success of the project included Paul Moore, the project manager; Kevin Stass, the mission control director; and Jon Karkow, the project engineer from Scaled Composites in charge of designing and building the GlobalFlyer.
The aircraft
The GlobalFlyer was designed by Burt Rutan and built by Scaled Composites. An almost all composite aircraft, it has a length of 38.7 feet, wingspan of 114 feet and a gross weight of 22,066 pounds. It’s powered by a single Williams jet engine rated at 2,300 pounds of thrust, capable of propelling the aircraft at speeds in excess of 285 mph. It has a glide ratio of 30 to 1, which fortunately didn’t have to be tested during the record-setting flight.
The launch site
Salina Municipal Airport (Kansas) was chosen for the launch of the GlobalFlyer. SLN was selected because of its central geographic location in the United States and its newly resurfaced 12,300-foot runway, which is one of the longest in North America. Originally built in 1942 as the Smoky Hill Army Air Field, it was an active base for B-17 bombers and the nation’s first operational training center for the B-29 bomber. In 1951, it was a SAC base with B-47s. The name was changed to Schilling Air Force Base in 1957. After the base closed in 1965, it became Salina Municipal Airport.
Another reason SLN was selected was that the GlobalFlyer had the overwhelming support of the entire community. Located at the airport is the K-State College of Technology and Aviation. Student volunteers provided much needed support to the GlobalFlyer project, serving as ground crew and assisting in flight planning and public relations. The school’s 300-person auditorium was transformed into Mission Control, outfitted with glass partitions, six plasma screens, 24 computers, 24 monitors, eight work stations and 10 miles of wiring.
Stan Herd, a local artist noted for his “earthwork” art, sprang into action when he heard the GlobalFlyer was coming to Salina. In a field near the airport, with a weed eater and shovel in hand, Herd created his da Vinci earthwork. Other volunteers with rototillers and gardening tools assisted him. The size of a football field, it connects man’s first understanding of the possibility of flight to the historic accomplishment of the GlobalFlyer.
Sitting on the ramp, near the north end of the runway at the airport, is a vintage 1949 Lockheed Constellation. When its owner, Gordon Cole, found out about the GlobalFlyer coming to Salina, he quickly added nose art to the airplane, “Go Virgin Atlantic,” showing his support for the project. Cole is hoping to get a sponsor that will help get his Connie back in the air again.
This Lockheed Constellation, a long time resident of the Salina Airport, received temporary nose art showing the owner’s support for the Virgin Atlantic team. Its owner, Gordon Cole, is pictured with the Connie.
The Salina Chamber of Commerce was a big supporter. It sponsored a number of receptions for the international media. Additionally, tours of local businesses and attractions were arranged.
Finally showtime
It was thought that the flight of the GlobalFlyer would occur in early January. The first media alert was posted for January 7, which was later postponed due to unfavorable weather conditions. On February 18, the project went to code yellow with a possible launch for February 24. Unfortunately, it was back to code red for that period due to unacceptable ground winds.
Then on February 26, the project went to code green for a possible launch two days later. At that point, the wheels were finally in motion as journalists and photographers started making their way to Kansas. On Sunday, February 27, a Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 carrying Sir Richard Branson and a contingent of international press touched down at Salina Municipal Airport.
The first press conference held in Mission Control was that evening, which was Oscar night in Hollywood. Branson boldly proclaimed, “Leonardo may win an Oscar tonight for the movie, ‘The Aviator.’ Tomorrow, Steve will prove who the real aviator is!” (By the way, DiCaprio lost out to Jamie Foxx, but fellow aviator Morgan Freeman did win one for supporting actor for “Million Dollar Baby.”)
Branson hoped that Fossett’s quest for a new world record would regenerate excitement in aviation, doing for Salina what the Wright Brothers did for Kitty Hawk, N.C.
The proposed flight for the next day was surrounded by a multitude of contingencies. The GlobalFlyer is an experimental aircraft and Fossett, with only 30 hours in the aircraft, was in essence a test pilot. The craft would be carrying full fuel, one and a half tons more fuel than the airplane had ever flown with before. Fully laden, the handling characteristics would be very different.
We would soon know if Scale got the engineering right. The takeoff would be particularly scary for Fossett. Never having flown the aircraft this heavy before, there would be the danger of a structural failure. Once airborne, turbulence could present a problem. Following the takeoff, Fossett would still be in danger for the first two hours, until enough fuel was burned off and the aircraft had reached a smooth altitude.
Steve Fossett (second from right) and his wife Peggy chat with friends, from front right, Bob Hoover, Barron Hilton, Mike Gilles and Greg Dillon, two hours prior to launch.
On February 28, at 6:47 p.m., just after sunset, a determined Steve Fossett took off in the GlobalFlyer, using more than 8,000 feet of runway. At 8 p.m., Branson stated, “I would like to thank Scaled. I know it isn’t over, but 80 percent of the biggest worrying stage is past.”
At 10 p.m., the GlobalFlyer was 55 miles north of Detroit at 38,000 feet, traveling at 310 knots. At that point in the flight there were no surprises.
Flying blind
On Tuesday, March 1, during the 8 a.m. press conference, it was revealed that the GlobalFlyer was 13 hours into its flight, near the Azores at an altitude of 45,000 feet and traveling at 330 knots. It was learned that when Fossett was over Canada, he experienced an intermittent GPS failure for a two-hour period. Without GPS, he would be flying blind. This situation could have been a showstopper. The GPS finally re-engaged and no longer was a problem.
Early that afternoon, those waiting for news at SLN were informed that the Citation chase plane had made its first intercept of the GlobalFlyer over Morocco, following it to the Atlas Mountains. Fossett had consumed three chocolate milkshakes and all was going well.
Missing fuel
A troubling development was revealed early the next morning, on Wednesday, March 2. As the GlobalFlyer was passing over China, it was determined that 2,600 pounds of fuel were missing. This revelation couldn’t have come at a more inopportune time. Fossett was getting ready to embark upon the most dangerous part of the route—the Pacific Ocean.
The folks at Mission Control began to theorize what could have happened to the missing fuel. It didn’t appear to be a leak. It was more likely a system issue such as a bent fuel line. It was determined that the fuel loss occurred during the first three hours of flight. This would suggest that the fuel could have been lost due to a venting process during the climb out. Another possibility is that the fuel was never put on to begin with; Fossett was now very much at the mercy of the winds. With winds no better than 40 knots, fuel alone would not take him back to Kansas.
The fuel burn and tailwinds were being carefully monitored. Fossett commenced a regimen of fuel conservation. This required continuous throttle adjustments, making it difficult for him to get any sleep. Fuel in the wing tanks had to be drained into the boom tanks where probes inside the tank would be able to measure it. This process enabled Mission Control to determine that fuel thought to be in the wing tanks was in fact there. Man and plane were now reaching their limits.
L to R: Richard Branson, Steve Fossett and Salina Airport Manager Timothy Rogers with the GlobalFlyer in front of the Virgin Atlantic B-747 that transported the press and Virgin Atlantic team back to New York’s JFK Airport.
As Fossett approached Japan, a decision would have to be made. Did he have enough fuel to make it to Hawaii? Fossett approached the Hawaiian Islands and another decision point, whether to land or continue onto the California coast. It was now Tuesday, March 2, and 10 p.m. at Mission Control. The GlobalFlyer had flown 18,676 miles and was now traveling at 274 knots at an altitude of 45,259 feet. It was positioned 500 miles north of Hawaii when Fossett said, “Let’s go for it.” The tailwinds were much better than expected. Fossett was becoming more confident that the record was within his grasp. He was setting his sights on Kansas.
On Thursday, March 3, at 1:50 p.m., Steve Fossett and the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer landed safely in Salina. Fossett had endured three sleepless days and the possibility of having to ditch in the ocean, to become the first pilot to circumnavigate the globe alone, non-stop without refueling.
The official flight time was 67 hours, 1 minute and 46 seconds. The unofficial distance was 22,878 miles. At the first press briefing for the GlobalFlyer on Friday morning, Fossett was presented with a plaque from the Guinness World Records in London.
Sir Richard Branson, president and CEO of Virgin Atlantic Airways, sprays GlobalFlyer pilot Steve Fossett with champagne after his successful flight.
This was a mega-event where everyone came out a winner. Steve Fossett once again made the record books. Sir Richard Branson parlayed a $1.5 million adventure into a multimillion dollar advertising campaign for Virgin Atlantic. The students at K-State in Salina got to be a part of a world-class event, working with some of the best professionals in the aviation business. Finally, the people of Kansas were given an opportunity to confirm what we already knew, that the hospitality and can-do spirit in America’s heartland is without parallel.
When Branson, members of his team, and the international press (including this ecstatic reporter!) departed Salina aboard a Virgin Atlantic B-747-400, you can be sure it was party time all the way back to New York’s JFK Airport! While I know the aircraft wasn’t venting any fuel, I suspect that if it was venting anything, it was champagne!
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Mixmasters—Cessna’s Misunderstood Twins
On: May 1, 2008
One person compared the looks of Cessna’s 1964 336 Skymaster to “Miss America posing in a swimsuit, but wearing G.I. boots.”
By Daryl Murphy
If an airplane design could evoke both unswerving devotion and total rejection, it would have to be the Cessna Skymaster. People on one side of the camp smile warmly as they describe the Skymaster as “the greatest thing since sliced bread,” while those on the other side sneer and call it an “imitation Twin.” No matter your opinion, from 1964 to 1980, more than 2,200 civil and nearly 500 military versions were delivered.
By 1959, Cessna’s sleek 310 had been on the market for four years and was successful, but its $60,000 base price put it out of the reach of many pilots who wanted multi-engine equipment. Willing to build airplanes to fit every market niche, Cessna management challenged its design group to come up with a light twin that could operate from small or rough fields and cruise at about 180 mph. Nothing economical could be adapted from the 310, so designers had to be objective in their approach. They looked at high wing, low wing, pushers, tandems and conventional twins and sketched out their ideas. In late January 1960, they got the green light for a high-wing tandem-twin concept.
Assigned the model number 336, the twin was to be built along the lines of the high-wing Cessna single, but with engines fore and aft, one pushing and one pulling. The unconventional fuselage would be set between twin booms that trailed off the wings and were connected to an empennage that included twin vertical stabilizers and a single horizontal stabilizer. And, although it had not been a prerequisite, the 336 could share many components and assemblies with Cessna singles.
Preliminary studies indicated the target speed could be achieved with fixed landing gear—which would keep costs down and make it appealing to lower-time step-up buyers. Continental 210 hp IO-360 engines would provide the power.
Powered by 160-hp Lycoming O-320 engines, the experimental Model 327 had a four-place cabin and cantilever laminar flow wing adapted from the 210.
It was a brilliant design, but taxing to solve the design’s unique problems. First, everyone involved had to become experts on pushers. They found that pushing an airplane through the air was a bit better than pulling it, but rear engines have inherent cooling problems because of fuselage airflow anomalies. Initially, air was gathered in forward-facing scoops (located in the trailing edge of the inboard wing) and exited aft of the engine through a complex arrangement of augmenter tubes. Flight tests showed that the exiting air really only needed a large opening in the rear of the cowl, but that created noise in the cabin, so a movable scoop was installed on top of the cowl, along with a fan located in the cowling’s rear opening.
A problem with control cables also had to be overcome. Engineers had routed empennage controls through the wing struts. It was a complicated route, filled with many pulleys working at unusual attitudes, and when flight testing began, it proved to be a high-friction operation. After seven pulleys were eliminated, the problem was solved.
Designers mounted auxiliary fuel pumps in the wing leading edges and three-quart sump tanks in the tail boom area below the wing. Large Fowler flaps, mounted outboard of the booms, were 30 percent of the wing chord and eight feet long; ailerons, five feet long, were 29 percent.
The airplane’s appearance was striking—until they installed the fixed landing gear with wheel pants. One person said it was like “seeing Miss America posing in a swimsuit, but wearing G.I. boots.”
The 336’s maiden flight was on Feb. 28, 1961. Test pilot Bill Thompson lauded its takeoff and climb performance and creature comforts, but complained about longitudinal stability and a lack of elevator power due to the high-friction controls. After some reworking, a second prototype flew in March 1962. Slightly more than a year later, the first Skymaster was delivered.
The aviation industry considered the 336 to be a landmark airplane from a safety standpoint. The loss of one engine would be barely noticeable—particularly if it was the rear engine. Torque or P-effect was cancelled, because the propellers were turning in opposite directions. And the Skymaster’s power-off, flaps-down stall speed was 52 kts (60 mph).
The 335-mph pressurized Skymaster’s average equipped price was $98,000. Only 98 were sold during its eight-year production run.
The press lauded the new airplane, but the flying public ignored it. In its first year of production, Cessna sold only 239 of the aircraft. Many pilots ridiculed the safety features, saying that they were capable of handling engine-outs in the conventional manner. In addition, the model attracted pilots with less flight time, which skewed incident and accident statistics.
The biggest problem pilots had with the plane was the ability to identify a dead rear engine. Engine controls weren’t foolproof. The pilot operating book suggested checking the gauges and then increasing the throttle to the rear engine, listening for an accompanying rise in sound.
The look of the airplane didn’t help. It certainly wasn’t as sleek as the 310—and it wasn’t even as fast as a 210. But it did have a chance. By the time the 336 hit the sales floor, Cessna had already decided to take the G.I. boots off Miss America.
Super Skymaster
The factory hadn’t done its homework and had misjudged the market. They had presumed a cadre of faithful customers would wait in line to buy the inexpensive, safe but goofy-looking fixed-gear twin that cruised at only 173 mph. In fact, it seemed the market cared only about the words “inexpensive” and “twin.”
To redesign the fixed landing gear into retractable gear, a huge number of compromises had to be made. Cessna thought it had learned that lesson in the 1950s, when it created the 210 from a 180.
Tucking and folding everything neatly into the fuselage of a Skymaster required even more complex maneuvering, and the resulting “lame duck” look of the airplane in mid-retraction or extension was to become legendary. The gear Cessna finally used put the airplane four inches closer to the ground.
The elimination of the gear drag dramatically changed the airplane’s aerodynamics. The wing angle of incidence changed 2.5 degrees, and the cowl sloped more downward. Engineers replaced the rear engine’s air scoop and eliminated the fan, the elevator had a four-inch chord increase and ventral fins were shortened six inches.
Engineers decided to add wing flaps inboard the tail boom attach, but testing showed that they had to limit travel to 25 degrees when the outboard flaps went to 40 degrees.
With a 300-pound increase in gross weight and the expectation of higher performance figures, customers pressed for five- or six-place seating. Engineers designed an exterior belly-mounted cargo pod.
Cessna built 144 military O-2As and 30 O-2Bs between 1967 and 1970.
The problem identifying an idle or dead rear engine was partially fixed by raising the rear engine’s idling speed 50 rpm, providing a different sound level than that of the front engine In addition, the handbook suggested that pilots lead with the rear engine throttle during taxi and takeoff.
With the new retractable gear and a few other minor changes, the former ugly duckling had become a sleek, 200-mph airplane.
The Super Skymaster flew on March 30, 1964, and 1966 model deliveries began in fall 1965. A cantilever-wing 337 was built in December 1965, but a negligible increase in performance was offset by the complex structural components and weight penalties, and the project was canceled in 1966.
When the turbo system was integrated into the 337 in 1967, the cruise speed jumped to 225 mph and the service ceiling rose to more than 30,000 feet. The pressurized Skymaster debuted with a 235-mph cruise speed. Its $76,500 base price in 1973 (average equipped: $98,000) escalated nearly $100,000 by 1980. Cessna sold only 98 during its eight-year production run.
While its nicknames included “Mixmaster,” “Push-Pull” and “Push-Me-Pull-Me,” the official moniker “Super Skymaster” was used for all 337 models from 1965 to 1971. From 1971 until production ceased in 1980, it was known simply as the “Skymaster.” Cessna built 144 military O-2As and 30 O-2Bs between 1967 and 1970, but had no turbocharged versions between 1972 and 1977.
Soon after the Super Skymaster debuted, designers conceived a lower-powered version of the 337, named the 327. Identical in form to the bigger 337, the 327 had a four-place cabin and a cantilever laminar flow wing adapted from the 210, and 160-hp Lycoming O-320s powered it.
Its top speed was projected to be 190 mph and construction techniques and structures were anticipated to be simpler. Its performance didn’t live up to expectations. Thirty-nine hours were logged on the prototype, before two 180-hp IO-360 engines were installed in May 1968. Its top speed at 3,500 pounds was 198 mph, but its performance wasn’t good enough to compete with the Piper Twin Comanche. After 44 hours of further flight testing, the program was cancelled in August 1968. The prototype was given to the NASA-Langley Research Center. Researchers there used it to test ducted propellers in full-scale wind tunnel testing.
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Shakey Graves
Illiterate Light
Fri · May 17, 2019
Alejandro Rose-Garcia (aka Shakey Graves) announced his newest album 'Can't Wake Up' (out now on Dualtone) with a simple message to his fans -"Next album. New sound. Sell your suspenders."That tongue-in-cheek statement, though, was a genuine attempt to prepare his followers for a major sonic shift for the Texas songwriter, who got his start performing as a one-man band, culminating with an Americana Music Awards win for "Emerging Artist of the Year" behind his breakout full-length album, 'And The War Came.'Now armed with a full band, Rose-Garcia leaves behind much of that stripped-down, folk-y sound. 'Can't Wake Up' takes his songwriting in a "decidedly bigger direction" full of "lush indie compositions" (Consequence of Sound), drawing on another set of his musical influences, ranging from the Beatles and Harry Nilsson to Elliott Smith, Broken Social Scene, Built to Spill and other '90s indie rock bands.
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Close Back to Cactus
MEREL & TONY – SATURDAY, 12/15/18 @ 1:00PM
MEREL & TONY met in 2013 while working on an art installation in a small Dutch village. Since then, they have released several EPs of songs, written music for THIS AMERICAN LIFE, been commissioned to compose a musical for a Houston-based theater company, recorded an album of protest songs funded by a grant from the Houston Arts Alliance, and toured Texas with their band, THE WOE WOE WOES. Merel & Tony now divide their time between Rome and Houston.
“There’s something about straight artistry that tickles the ears of any music journalist. True art, without genre or placement where the music is eclectic and different. That’s probably the best way to describe the music of Merel & Tony… this duo makes music that sounds like no one else while still having plenty of hooks to catch a hold of your ears and stick with you for days.” – Houston Press
“We rarely review EPs and only when it’s something that really stands out. This is one of those cases. We’re always on a continual search for sincerity and originality in the world of music. With the Houston, Texas-based duo Merel & Tony…you get both. We’ve never ever heard music from Texas that sounds like this.” – babysue
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ME Graduate Seminar: Anant Madabhushi Ph.D.
Tuesday, Oct 9, 2018, 3:30 – 4:30 p.m.
Mechanical Engineering Building (MEB)
Engineering students and alumni
Prognostic and Predictive Radiomics and Pathomics: Implications for Precision Medicine
Anant Madabhushi Ph.D.
Director of the Center for Computational Imaging and Personalized Diagnostics (CCIPD) and the F. Alex Nason Professor II in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering, Pathology, Radiology, Radiation Oncology, Urology, General Medical Sciences, and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Case Western Reserve University.
at 3:30PM Mechanical Engineering Building
(MEB) 238
ABSTRACT: Traditional biology generally looks at only a few aspects of an organism at a time and attempts to molecularly dissect diseases and study them part by part with the hope that the sum of knowledge of parts would help explain the operation of the whole. Rarely has this been a successful strategy to understand the causes and cures for complex diseases. The motivation for a systems based approach to disease understanding aims to understand how large numbers of interrelated health variables, gene expression profiling, its cellular architecture and microenvironment, as seen in its histological image features, its 3 dimensional tissue architecture and vascularization, as seen in dynamic contrast enhanced (DCE) MRI, and its metabolic features, as seen by Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) or Positron Emission Tomography (PET), result in emergence of definable phenotypes. At the Center for Computational Imaging and Personalized Diagnostics (CCIPD) at Case Western Reserve University, we have been developing computerized knowledge alignment, representation, and fusion tools for integrating and correlating heterogeneous biological data spanning different spatial and temporal scales, modalities, and functionalities. These tools include computerized feature analysis methods for extracting subvisual attributes for characterizing disease appearance and behavior on radiographic (radiomics) and digitized pathology images (pathomics). In this talk I will discuss the development work in CCIPD on new radiomic and pathomic approaches for capturing intra-tumoral heterogeneity and modeling tumor appearance. I will also focus my talk on how these radiomic and pathomic approaches can be applied to predicting disease outcome, recurrence, progression and response to therapy in the context of prostate, brain, rectal, oropharyngeal, and lung cancers. Additionally I will also discuss some recent work on looking at use of pathomics in the context of racial health disparity and creation of more precise and tailored prognostic and response prediction models.
SPEAKE R BIO: Dr. Anant Madabhushi is the Director of the Center for Computational Imaging and Personalized Diagnostics (CCIPD) and the F. Alex Nason Professor II in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering, Pathology, Radiology, Radiation Oncology, Urology, General Medical Sciences, and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Case Western Reserve University. He is also a member of the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Madabhushi received his Bachelor’s Degree in Biomedical Engineering from Mumbai University, India in 1998 and his Masters in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Texas, Austin in 2000. In 2004 he obtained his PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania. He joined the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Rutgers University as an Assistant Professor in 2005. He was promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure in 2010. In 2012 he accepted the position of Associate Professor at Case Western Reserve University, Department of Biomedical Engineering and was promoted to full professor in 2014.
Dr. Madabhushi has authored nearly 150 peer-reviewed journal publications and has over 75 patents either issued or pending in the areas of medical image analysis, computer-aided diagnosis, and computer vision. He is an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering Letters, BMC Cancer, BMC Medical Imaging, Journal of Medical Imaging and Medical Image Analysis (MedIA). He has been the recipient of a number of awards for both research as well as teaching, including the Department of Defense New Investigator Award in Lung Cancer (2014), the Coulter Phase 1 and Phase 2 Early Career award (2006, 2008), and the Excellence in Teaching Award (2007-2009). His research work has received grant funding from the National Cancer Institute (NIH), National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, private foundations, and from Industry. He currently serves as principal investigator of 7 different federal grants.
www.me.washington.edu…
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Priests spend long hours working out solutions at Synod on Young People
Catholic youth still passionate about their faith
Father Jude David
Many eyes have been on Rome in recent months and I am glad that there has been a positive reason for this because many have been interested in the Synod of Bishops on Young People, the Faith and Vocational Discernment that has been called forth by our Holy Father, Pope Francis.
This synod has captured not only the attention of Catholics from around the world but also non-Catholics who are eagerly waiting to see how the Church responds to young people and desires to accompany them in their journey of life.
I recently had the opportunity to attend a recording of a talk show by the BBC entitled Heart & Soul that was specially recorded in Rome in conjunction with the synod that is underway in this city. Several of us Singaporeans who are studying in Rome decided to attend this recording to listen to what the young people whom the BBC had invited had to say about the synod and about the Church.
It was a heartening experience for me because despite some negative comments, the majority of young Catholics who were interviewed spoke passionately about the Church and her teachings and their desire to be part of her life. We often think that young people do not care about the Church but in reality, many of them who have met the Lord deeply care and love the Church and are willing to sacrifice for her mission. What a sign of hope!
Whilst I am not privy to the proceedings of the synod and we all await reading the guiding documents that will come out, I would like to share how it speaks to me as a bystander in the Eternal City witnessing the synod unfold as well as my perspective as the Chaplain for the Office for Young People (OYP) in Singapore.
Whilst there may be many issues that demand the attention of the Church in this time, it is of great encouragement to young people all around the world that the Church is clearly saying to them that they matter to her and that the Church is willing to invest the kind of time and resources that have gone into organising this synod.
Some of the synod Fathers who have come from all over the world have been staying in the house that I am living at and it is evident from their faces how demanding the long days have been on them. They leave early in the morning and come home late in the evening and they have been at it for almost a month. The shepherds of our Church care deeply for our young people. What a sign of hope!
The synod is primarily a time of listening for the Church. Many young people have been invited as auditors from around the world. These young people are being listened to and they are also listening to what the bishops are carrying in their hearts. Above all, the synod is ultimately the time of listening to the Holy Spirit as He guides the Church in the pastoring of her young flock. What a sign of hope!
As at every level of the Church, there are diverse perspectives, priorities, approaches and experiences and it may be difficult to find a consensus on what is the best way forward. I do not think that we can expect the synod to come up with a one size fits all solution that will suddenly bring back all our young people into the Church.
However, it does bring to focus what the Church is primarily called to do for our young people in all their diverse circumstances – to inspire faith in them and to accompany them in discovering and living out their God-given mission in the Church and in the world.
I do not think the synod would give us something radically new or different from what we have been doing in Singapore. Whilst it is true that we have our share of people leaving the Church in Singapore and we must continue to reflect on how we can arrest this phenomenon, I am also glad to note that we have been working very hard as an Archdiocese to recapture the hearts of our young people for Jesus Christ and His Church. The mantra at OYP, which is the official arm of our Archdiocese overseeing the pastoral care of young people, is “Raising up a Generation for Christ” and we have been working tirelessly for this to be realised.
I vividly remember the words of Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, the Archbishop of Manila, who was also present at the current synod, when he addressed youth ministers from Asia some years ago at a meeting and he told us that we need to be like Jesus going out to the well to meet the Samaritan woman (John 4:6-7). Jesus did not wait for her to look for Him, He went out to her. Cardinal Tagle challenged us to go out to the “wells” where our young people are gathering today because they certainly are not gathering at the well of the Church.
My time in Rome thus far has been a time of meeting many new people, especially priests from all over the world and as I hear their stories and about their respective pastoral situations, I feel very encouraged for what we have back home in Singapore. We may be a small Catholic community with a relatively short history but we are certainly alive and kicking. What a sign of hope!
Fr Jude is currently studying Dogmatic Theology in Rome.
Category: NOVEMBER 11, 2018, Vol 68, No 23
A night of youthful praise, worship and outreach (6 matches)
Me... a missionary? Yes, you a missionary (6 matches)
Archbishop's Advent message 2014 (5 matches)
Archbishop's Christmas message: The Gift of God (5 matches)
Church employment policy features in lively dialogue with archbishop (5 matches)
Father Paul Staes: “The church should speak more strongly to change the mindset of the people” (5 matches)
Here, Carmelite priest who helped reawaken Infant Jesus devotion (5 matches)
It’s Christmas: Good time to come home to the Church (5 matches)
Largest Singapore Contingent Heads to International World Youth Day 2016 (5 matches)
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Trying to Change the Subject
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann accused the Obama administration of orchestrating yet another information dump on a “Friday dump day” at the end of last week. Indeed, this was one of their most clever Friday dumps yet.
Two days following shocking revelations about what is arguably the worst presidential (cover-up) scandal in American history, the BenghaziGate scandal -- involving the dereliction of duty by the Obama administration regarding the September 11, 2012 Islamic terrorist attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya and the preventable assassinations of Obama’s Ambassador to Libya; his fellow diplomat, and two Navy Seals -- the Obama administration tried to change the subject to what has become another new Obama scandal.
The Internal Revenue Service -- obviously now under the thumb of the Obama administration -- revealed that it has been playing politics in the two years leading up to last year’s presidential election by targeting conservative and tea-party organizations. The IRS’s intimidation of conservative groups scared possible donors into not donating to conservative and Tea Party groups. Likewise, the IRS intimidated grassroots groups into doing nothing to support conservative candidates for all sorts of offices including the presidential race. And that is exactly what some officials in the Obama administration wanted.
And change the subject it has. Yesterday’s top story in many newspapers and other media outlets around the country featured the IRS attack on Tea Party and conservative groups. Monday’s “USA Today’s” front-page headline blared: “GOP Demands Obama Apology; Seeks Probe of IRS for Singling out Tea Party.” A headline in “The Wall Street Journal” said: “Chiefs at IRS Knew of Targeting.” The past two editions of “The Washington Times” had front-page headlines: “Outraged GOP: It’s time to audit IRS; Conservative group targeting ‘chilling,’” and “Congress pounces on IRS target revelations.”
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Republican from Minnesota, who is also tax attorney, told WND.com that the Obama administration confessed to a flagrant use of politics and power by “the most feared government agency,” the IRS, because of the Benghazi scandal. She said, “There’s no doubt that this was not a coincidence that they dumped this story today, a Friday dump day. This is when they put their negative stories out.”
The WND.com article continues: “But she said the looming storm cloud called Benghazi is the “soft underbelly” of the Obama administration and likely will keep Hillary Clinton from fulfilling her dream of occupying the Oval Office. That would make it logical to release an IRS story that, while embarrassing, also could be cubbyholed as another “conservative” dispute with the White House. She was referring to the ongoing hearings on the administration’s handling of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack by al-Qaida-linked terrorists on a U.S. foreign service post in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, including the ambassador.” She also maintained that the credibility of the 2012 election is in doubt.
The Congresswoman wonders if the IRS -- which will enforce ObamaCare -- “will target conservative voices opposed to President Obama with delays or denials of medical care.” According to WND.com, Congresswoman Bachmann “said the IRS announcement of misbehavior was intended to provoke conservatives and draw their anger and attention. ‘I was in that Benghazi hearing. I think the Obama administration is desperate to spin Benghazi, and they can’t. I think they saved this story up for a day like today so that conservatives would focus on this admission. It won’t work. Conservatives can handle two shocking stories at the same time. Both are equally unconstitutional and call into question the very president.’”
Since Congresswoman Bachmann made these remarks over the weekend, things have gotten much worse for the president. In addition to the news media asking about both the Benghanzi and the IRS scandals in his press conference yesterday with British Prime Minister David Cameron, a new shocking story has developed which affects even his sycophantic mainstream media supporters. Obama’s administration reportedly has been spying on Associated Press reporters -- possibly 100 or more -- in the months before last November’s presidential election.
The Associated Press’ president and chief executive officer is furious, as he rightfully should be. Gary Pruitt said the Justice Department’s spying amounted to “a massive and unprecedented intrusion” on AP’s newsgathering operation. Isn’t it interesting what the reaction of the news media people is when their own ox is gored by the Obama administration? Pruitt goes on to say: “There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters.”
Although the Obama administration’s attempt to change the subject from his Benghazi scandal has temporarily worked, Republicans can walk and chew gum at the same time. Conservatives can handle even more than two shocking stories at the same time.
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Get Involved & Volunteer
Early Bird Discounted Tickets
Venue & Ticketing Info
ZviDance | OCT
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Area Choreographers Festival | JUN
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RE-SCHEDULED: CREATING SOCIAL COMMENTARY WITH AFRICAN AMERICAN DANCE
A CONVERSATION WITH DAVID ROUSSÈVE
Choreographer, Writer, Dancer, Filmmaker, Performer
With deepest sympathies for Mr. Roussève and his family, we have rescheduled his community conversation. The Wednesday, March 19 event has been canceled and re-scheduled to an intimate pre-show chat with Mr. Roussève on Saturday, March 22 from 7-7:30pm in the Green Room at the Aronoff Center for the Arts.
Please RSVP so that we may reach you in case of further changes.
TO RSVP, CLICK HERE.
TO READ MORE ABOUT THE EVENT, CLICK HERE.
RSVP here —
Phone: We will text or call this number if there is a last-minute emergency and need to cancel the event.
Total attending with you:
What would you like to hear about in the future?
Guest Artist Series at the Aronoff Center Dance classes Kids & Family programming African American interest Volunteering Becoming a Board Member Nothing: please do not add me to your mailing list
More information about the event —
An acclaimed artist, David Roussève is a Princeton University graduate (Politics, Theater and Dance, and Africa Studies) who has received numerous accolades and awards for his work in the arts. His hard-hitting (yet deeply human), multi-cultural, multi-discplinary dance theatre troupe, David Roussève / REALITY is coming to Cincinnati from Los Angeles via Contemporary Dance Theater.
As a pre-cursor to their performance of Stardust (a modern coming-of-age story of an unseen, urban, gay, black teen), we invite you to join Urban Impressario’s Derek Peebles and Contemporary Dance Theater’s Jefferson James, in a conversation with David Roussève about Stardust and his body of work.
We will focus on the ways Mr. Roussève’s work strives to use African American traditional, spiritual, and pop/hip hop cultures within an avant garde context, while also commenting on the social world around us. We will view video of his work and discuss how dance theatre can create social dialogue while being both avant garde and grounded in African American culture.
RE-SCHEDULED
Wednesday, March 19’s event has been cancelled.
Creating Social Commentary with African American Dance:
Saturday, March 22, 2014 7:00-7:30pm
Recommended arrival by 6:45pm
Aronoff Center, Green Room (ask ushers & staff),
650 Walnut St, Cincinnati, OH 45202
Please RSVP to cdt-dance.org/conversationrsvp (above) today!
David Roussève / REALITY
at the Aronoff Center for the Arts
Friday & Saturday, March 21 & 22, 2014
Free meet-the-artists Q&A reception following Friday’s performance ($5 donation suggested)
Intimate Conversation with Mr. Roussève before Saturday’s performance, 7-7:30pm Green Room (please arrive by 6:45pm)
In-theater Q&A following Saturday’s performance
Masterclass for Dancers Saturday morning, March 21
More information at cdt-dance.org/14rousseve
PARENTAL ADVISORY FOR THE MARCH 21 & 22 PERFORMANCE: While the stage action is not graphic, the actual performances of Stardust are not recommended for children due to explicit language, references to abuse, sexual references, and other content of serious nature.
facebook.com/contemporarydancetheater
The Contemporary Dance Theater Guest Artist Series is sponsored by the Otto M. Budig Family Foundation and is supported by the thousands of people who give generously to the ArtsWave Community Campaign. Support also comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, a public agency dedicated to supporting excellence in the arts, both new and established; bringing the arts to all Americans; and providing leadership in arts education. Contemporary Dance Theater is also supported by The Ohio Arts Council, a state agency that supports public programs in the arts. Media sponsorship provided by CityBeat.
Stardust was commissioned by the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland, the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Peak Performances at Montclair State University. This project is made possible in part by support from the National Performance Network Performance Residency Program. Major contributions include the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). Stardust was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and additional funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Met Life Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional funding provided by Investing in Artists grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation, the University of CA Institute for Research in the Arts, and the UCLA Faculty Research Grants program.
Tags: 2013-2014 african american black conversations david roussève / REALITY guest artist series
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Kauai Archives - Air Canada Vacations
By Melissa Manzo
DiscoverFeatured articles
Top 15 Destinations to Visit in 2015
December 22, 2014 | By Melissa Manzo |
Wondering what the world has in store for you in 2015? With a new year, comes new resolutions. And with new resolutions, comes the need for new experiences. This upcoming year, make your new experiences about seeing new places, eating new food, meeting new people. Not sure where to start? From luxury destinations to foodie favourites, these top 15 destinations should give you a very good glimpse at what 2015 holds for you.
1) Nassau, Bahamas
The hustle and bustle of Nassau never gets old. As both a popular cruise ship port and the commercial hub of the Bahamas, this city has an undeniable pulse. Bay Street is particularly bustling, with its myriad duty-free shops, restaurants and the famous Nassau Straw Market. In 2015, the buzz will be around the opening of Baha Mar, the biggest project to be undertaken in the Bahamas since Atlantis. In addition to 2,200 luxury rooms, this new mega resort will house a Vegas-style casino and approximately 40 restaurants.
2) Saint Lucia
Photo by Mary-Lynn (Flickr)
Who knew there was such a thing as a drive-in volcanic crater? Whether you knew of its existence or not, you should know that Saint Lucia has one. It’s called La Soufrière Volanco (or Sulfur Springs) and you can drive up to its crater to witness it emit steam and sulphur. If you’re feeling slightly more adventurous, you can even have a warm sulphuric mud bath (though you should be warned that as much as it softens the skin, its rotten egg smell may not be well received by your nose). If first-time experiences are what you’re after in 2015, then this may be something to add to your wish list.
3) Osaka, Japan
Photo by Kimishowota (Flickr)
In 2015, you may want to familiarize yourself with the expression kuidore (Japanese for “to eat yourself bankrupt”). Osaka’s food scene is booming and if you have appetite to spare, then you may want to sample Osakan fare. Takoyaki (octopus balls), Kushikatsu (a deep-fried meat or vegetable skewer) and Okonomiyaki (pork- or seafood-filled pancakes) are among street food favourites. And don’t forget to check out the multiple Michelin-star restaurants scattered around the city.
4) Turks & Caicos
Marina at Blue Haven Turks and Caicos
Turks & Caicos is all about luxury – world-class hotels, spas, golf courses. In the last couple of years, it has undergone even more development in the luxury department. In 2015, make sure to check out some of Providenciales’ newest boutique hotels, including the all-suite Beach House Turks & Caicos and the Blue Haven Turks & Caicos, which has its very own marina!
5) Panama
Panama is a country of stark contrasts: it is highly industrialized on the one hand, yet an eco-friendly haven on the other. If you’re looking for a city pulse similar to Miami, Panama City has got it: its abundant high-rises, dining and nightlife are why it has been dubbed the “Miami of the South.” If nature is more your thing, you can hike through the national parks of Coiba and Darien, awe at the cloud forests of Chiriqui or check out the Panama Canal.
6) Costa Rica
Pura Vida (literally translated as “Pure Life” in English) is probably the most commonly used expression in Costa Rica. While its uses are varied, the meaning is universal: life is beautiful and you should know it. And if there is any place in the world where you can see Mother Nature’s beauty on full display, it has got to be Costa Rica. This is a country with some of the richest flora and fauna in the world, impeccably fresh produce and amazing vistas. If you have not yet had the chance to visit this mecca of natural beauty, make sure to add it to your 2015 bucket list.
7) Hawaii
If island hopping is on your travel wish list for the new year, then Hawaii should definitely be on your radar. The Hawaiian Islands have got it all: Visit Kaui for some history, Oahu for action-packed Honolulu, Maui for its culinary delights or the Big Island for its volcanic sights. See more Hawaii Highlights.
8) Milan, Italy
Milan is currently in full swing, preparing to host one of the world’s main events of the new year: Expo 2015. The theme of the exposition is “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life,” and will take place from May 1 to October 31, 2015. It will feature more than 60 custom-built pavilions and the city is currently planning special exhibitions and the opening of new museums for the event.
9) Curaçao
In 2015, Curaçao will celebrate 5 years of its semi-independence as an autonomous country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Its Dutch influences are nevertheless visible on the island – in the colonial architecture of Willemstad, the local specialties at MarsheBieuw (also called Old Market) and in the local patois called Papiamento. Besides it cultural diversity, Curaçao has over 40 world-class dive spots – see our top 5 here!
10) Grenada
Also known as “Spice Island,” Grenada is one of the world’s largest producers of nutmeg and mace. Spice is not Grenada’s only gem though; this island is abundant in other natural riches like its beaches, the Annandale Falls, the beaches at Morne Rouge Bay and Grand Anse, and the flora and fauna of Grand Etang National Park and Forest Reserve. In 2015, get a taste of the island by attending the Spice Mas Festival, Grenada’s colourful carnival that features music, parading and masquerading.
11) Riviera Nayarit, Mexico
Move over Riviera Maya, it’s time for Riviera Nayarit to shine. This 320-kilometre stretch of Pacific coastline is definitely a quieter alternative to its Caribbean-sided counterpart. You can golf in one of two Jack Nicklaus golf courses in Punta Mita, surf in Sayulita or relax in the peaceful town of San Blas. Riviera Nayarit will be seeing a significant amount of touristic development in the coming years, so go visit before the crowds swarm in!
12) St. Kitts
St. Kitts may be small, but that doesn’t mean it should be overlooked when planning your 2015 travels. This little island has plenty of history, which is visible in the capital city of Basseterre. It also has plenty of natural habitat to explore, from its rainforests to its coral reef systems like Sandy Point and Turtle Bar. See our Top 5 Things to See in St. Kitts for more ideas.
13) Palm Springs, California
Palm Springs has had a mini tourism boom in the last few years and its number of lodgings is estimated to be in the triple digits by mid-2015. In addition to its desert scenery, 10,000-foot mountains and evening spas, the city is now also home to the Architecture and Design Center, launched in late 2014 to preserve the city’s desert modernism movement.
14) Barbados
Photo by Loozrboy (Flickr)
Foodies, there is one thing you should know for 2015: The food scene is absolutely blossoming in Barbados. Having just celebrated its 5th edition this past November, the Barbados Food & Wine and Rum Festival has become a culinary success. In addition to wine and rum tastings, it features cooking demonstrations by international celebrity chefs such as Mark McEwan, Marcus Samuelsson and Anne Burrell. Stay tuned for the 2015 program.
15) Chile
It’s never too late to visit the end of the earth. After making a stop in the capital city of Santiago (which, by the way, has opened a number of new museums and art galleries in the last few years), most travellers will either head to the Atacama Desert or to trek through the bare, rigged landscapes of Patagonia (a.k.a “the end of the earth”). Another must for a 2015 trip to Chile is its brand new wine and food festival, which will take place in late September.
DiscoverUSA travel
Hawaii Highlights for the First-Time Traveller
November 21, 2014 | By Melissa Manzo |
Aloha Hawaii! Pristine beaches, active volcanoes, quaint towns… Hawaii seems to have it all. So where to begin exploring this series of islands? What makes each island different? Whether you want to island hop or stick to one island only, a look at some of Hawaii’s highlights will certainly help. Here is a look at some of the best ofs on 4 of the main Hawaiian Islands.
Kauai: The Oldest of the Hawaiian Islands
Waimea Canyon – photo by TLPOSCHARSKY (Flickr)
Hanapepe: When visiting the oldest of the Hawaiian Islands, it’s only fitting to explore its history and culture – both present in the small town of Hanapepe. Historic plantation-style buildings, shops and art galleries abound here. The town’s charm is so palpable that it is often used as the setting for Hollywood films, like Lilo and Stitch and The Thornbirds.
Old Koloa Town is another must-see for history buffs; this town helped shape the sugar cane industry in the 1800s. It’s accessible via the Maluhia Road Tree Tunnel, a stretch of road lined with eucalyptus trees that were planted over a century ago.
The great outdoors: Kauai, deeply rooted in the environment, has outdoor spots that beg to be explored as well. In addition to hitting up Kauai’s beaches, you can visit remote waterfalls and kayak along the Wailua River, hike through the Waimea Canyon and cruise along the scenic Napali Coast.
Oahu: The “Heart of Hawaii”
Surfing on Waikiki Beach – photo by Surfing the Nations (Flickr)
Surfing: Located on Honolulu’s south shore, Waikiki Beach’s calm waters set the tone for a first-time surfing lesson. The North Shore’s bigger waves are perfect for more seasoned surfers.
Pearl Harbor: The 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor by the Empire of Japan is what brought the United States into World War II. This US naval base is now a designated National Historic Landmark with a total of 5 memorial sites.
Leahi Peak (Diamond Head): If hiking and taking in coastal views are on your Hawaii to dos, then reaching the top of Leahi Peak is a great way to get the best of both worlds. Waikiki and Honolulu are visible from here.
Maui: Foodie Favourite and Tropical Paradise
Photo by Rebecca Bollwitt (Flickr)
Lahaina: Hawaii regional cuisine is the pièce de resistance in Lahaina, a Maui hotspot. Known as farm-to-table cuisine, this type of fare combines local specialties like seafood with international influences. This town is also a great place to witness a luau, a traditional Hawaiian feast with eating, drinking and Polynesian dancing.
Kula: Many of the ingredients used in Hawaii regional cuisine come from the produce farms of Kula. Besides taking a farm tour, you can also visit the Kula Botanical Gardens.
Natural beauty: Maui’s food is not its only highlight – there are lots of natural sights to take in too. Head to Iao Valley State Park to see the famed Iao Needle, a protruding green-mantled volcanic rock that looks like, you guessed it – a needle. Haleakala National Park, with its numerous hiking trails, is also an ideal location to see natural wonders like the Nene, an endangered species of Hawaiian goose.
Hawaii, the Big Island: Adventure Island
Kona Coast – photo by William Bigelis (Flickr)
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park definitely deserves a visit if you’re heading to the Big Island. It is home to 2 volcanoes: Maunaloa and Kilauea, one of the most active volcanoes in the world. In addition to hiking volcanic craters, you can visit the on-site museum or snap photos of some petroglyphs (lava rock carvings).
Sailing the Kona Coast: Several boat tours depart from Historic Kailua Village and Hilo. Diving with manta rays, whale watching, scuba diving and fishing excursions are also possible from Honokohau Harbor and Kawaihae Harbor.
Horseback riding in Waimea: Experience the paniolo (Hawaiian cowboy) lifestyle by horseback riding through Waimea. Head along the waterfall trails of Waipio Valley or make your way towards Kealakekua Bay to cap off your day with a quick swim.
Want to discover more Hawaii highlights? Check out our section on Hawaii travel.
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redraping of the neck
Is everyone giving their face a little lift?
October 7, 2011 Bangkok Bright Smile 926 Comments
Cosmetic surgery in Britain is on the rise despite the cost and pain of having a major operation.
By Bryony Gordon
7:20AM BST 05 Oct 2011
Going under the knife for a facelift – or a rhytidectomy, as it is officially known – requires a general anaesthetic, but it is worth knowing what will happen while you are out for the count. Be warned: you may want to take a deep breath and put your breakfast to the side. This is not a procedure for the faint of heart, or weak of stomach.
First, your surgeon will take a scalpel and make an incision above your hairline. This incision will curve to the front of the ear, behind the earlobe and into the lower scalp. Another, smaller one can be made beneath the chin to tighten the neck.
Once this is done, the surgeon is ready to lift up the skin that covers your face, revealing the muscle underneath. He or she will then remove fat and tighten the muscle before repositioning it. If needed, liposuction can be carried out on the neck, with your fat injected back into your cheeks to make you look more youthful.
Approaching the end of the two- to three-hour operation – which can cost up to £12,000 – your surgeon will pull your skin back up over your newly tightened face, removing any excess skin and then closing the incisions. It is, some say, a bit like straightening a rug to get rid of any unsightly bulges. Indeed, the procedure is often talked about in terms that make it sound more like redecorating the spare room than a major operation. One surgeon talks to me about the “redraping of the neck”, as if describing a pair of curtains.
Reading this, you might wonder why anyone other than a vain Hollywood star would put themselves through such an ordeal. Chuck in the rise of Botox, fillers, and the introduction this year of a £999 “non-surgical” facelift, not to mention the scores of plumping, rejuvenating anti-wrinkle creams that line the shelves of everywhere from high-end department stores to branches of Boots, and one struggles to work out why anyone would opt for a facelift. They are just so tacky, so reminiscent of the Bride of Wildenstein.
Or are they? The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons reports that after a decline in facelifts during 2009, the number of procedures being carried out increased by 12 per cent last year, despite the recession. And with this, the question “has she had a facelift?” – often asked in the early Nineties but replaced in popularity by “has she had Botox?” – seems to have made a comeback.
This weekend it was rumoured that Louise Mensch, the 40-year-old Tory MP for Corby and East Northamptonshire, had undergone a “Chicago Facelift” – one popular with young women which also has a minimal recovery time – after a journalist interviewing her noticed “incisions in the creases where her ears and cheeks meet that look so fresh, they still have tiny lines of a scab”. When asked outright by the interviewer if this was the case, Mensch replied that “without denying it, I’m going to refuse to answer your question, because as soon as I do that you become the minister for mascara”.
She had a point, but she is not the only politician to have the accusation of plastic surgery levelled at her. Vladimir Putin caused a stir last month when he appeared at the United Russia congress looking as if he had had work done. The bags under his eyes, heavy after many years of sleepless nights in frontline politics, had vanished. In their place was skin so smooth and light that he looked a little like a model from a Touche Eclat advert. Others pointed out that the contours which once appeared on his face had filled out, making him look remarkably youthful for his 59 years. As one Twitter user put it: “Putin looks like he’s had a facelift. Scary!”
General Sir Mike Jackson has admitted to having the bags beneath his eyes removed – while Anne Robinson has admitted to a £9,000 facelift. “Anything that allows women to feel better about themselves is worth the money,” she said. “I did look like a car crash for a couple of weeks. But it was soon over and I feel much better for it.”
The formidable Kay Burley treated herself to a facelift for her 50th birthday last December, and isn’t afraid to admit it. “I did it because I wanted to look a little better than I was looking when I woke up in the morning,” she said. “I’m on television, which is a visual medium.” Jane Asher refuses to talk about surgery (“I’ve always said that beauty secrets should remain secret because I’m sure there will be a time, like anybody, when I would consider it”) but one doctor, an expert in medical aesthetics, thinks she may have had some work done.
“There are signs that Jane could have had a facelift purely on the look of how the skin is being pulled,” says Dr Bob Khanna. “It also looks as if she has had Botox.”
Part of the reason for the rise of the facelift during an economic downturn is that the demographic who usually has them – the over 50s – are the ones with the most disposable income. But it is more than that.
The designer Nicky Haslam, who had his facelift 12 years ago, tells me: “They are essential. There are so many people out there who have had them, you wouldn’t believe it.”
Really? Are there seriously hordes of people wandering the streets with faces that have been peeled back and then stitched back on, as if in some ghastly episode of Doctor Who? “Yes,” says Norman Waterhouse, a plastic surgeon so popular he has had a facelift named after him. (“Well, I mean, there are hundreds of different facelift techniques so it’s not that big,” he says bashfully). “I have operated on household names, some of them internationally famous, and you wouldn’t know they had undergone facelifts.”
Waterhouse believes that bad surgery – as seen with Jocelyn Wildenstein – used to be considered normal surgery “but that has changed and there is now a realisation that with most facelifts, it doesn’t actually look as if you have had a facelift.” The key – as well as finding a good surgeon – is recovery time. “Most of my clients are busy people, but I tell them they can’t go back to work for two and a half weeks,” says Waterhouse.
“You will look bruised and swollen. After five days, you can go shopping without frightening the greengrocer. After 10 days, you can wave at the neighbour over the fence. And after two and a half weeks, you can go to a dinner party, but the real improvements are seen between four and six weeks.”
He makes it sound so simple. And then you remember what is involved. As Sharon Osbourne once commented: “If anybody says their facelift doesn’t hurt, they’re lying. It was like spending the night with an axe murderer.”
THE TELEGRAPHE
FRIDAY 7 /10/2011
Face Lift, Facial Surgery face lift, face lift surgery, redraping of the neck
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Education Week's blogs > Politics K-12 See our Federal Policy coverage
Betsy DeVos. Donald Trump. The Every Student Succeeds Act. Congress. State chiefs. School spending. Elections. Education Week reporters keep watch on education policy and politics in the nation’s capital and in the states.
« 3rd-Round Waiver Deadline Set, Short-Term NCLB Relief Offered | Main | Federal Role in K-12 at Heart of ESEA Hearing »
New Mexico Granted NCLB Waiver, Federal Officials Say
By Michele McNeil on February 15, 2012 4:15 PM
New Mexico has been granted a waiver under the No Child Left Behind Act, federal officials announced today, less than a week after the state was the only first-round applicant for flexibility under the law to have been denied that request.
In one sense, the announcement making New Mexico the 11th state to receive a waiver should not come as a major surprise.
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan had said last week that New Mexico was "very, very close" to securing a waiver, at the time he announced that the other 10 had been given that flexibility. Duncan was guarded about which aspects of the state's plan needed work, but New Mexico officials evidently have met those standards.
Of the first 10 states, three—Florida, Georgia, and Oklahoma—were given waivers on a "conditional" basis, meaning the Obama administration is requiring them to meet certain standards before they're granted leeway under the decade-old federal law.
But New Mexico's waiver approval is not conditional, a U.S. Department of Education official tells Education Week.
The other states that have secured waivers so far are: Colorado, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Tennessee. The next deadline for states to apply for NCLB flexibility is Feb. 28, and federal officials have said they will accept other applications throughout the rest of the year.
Duncan, in a statement, emphasized that he expects state officials, including Republican Gov. Susana Martinez, to seek cooperation of teachers and lawmakers from both parties, in implementing the plan.
"Today, New Mexico joins the ranks of states leading the charge on education reform by protecting children, raising standards and holding themselves accountable," Duncan said. "As New Mexico implements these reforms, it is important that all stakeholders are at the table and their voices are heard. We encourage the governor and her team to work closely and in a bipartisan manner with the legislature, and to fully include educators, community, and tribal leaders and parents in the process of advancing these reforms."
New Mexico will move to an accountability system that "recognizes and rewards high-performing schools and those that are making significant gains, while targeting rigorous and comprehensive interventions for the lowest-performing schools," the Department of Education said.
Duncan has predicted that states obtaining waivers will hold more students accountable for academic gains than they do under the current version of NCLB—and department officials said they see the same benefits coming out of New Mexico's waiver plan.
New Mexico officials have estimated that their new accountabilty system "will include 175 more schools and 20,000 more students," than are currently counted under the NCLB law, according to federal officials.
[UPDATE (Feb. 16): Hanna Skandera, New Mexico's secretary-designate of education, attributed the state initially not being granted a waiver to federal officials' concerns about the state's slow pace in implementing the common-core standards, and to worries about its plans for working with schools that struggle academically.
"They wanted us to talk through with them, 'How are you going to work with schools on closing the achievement gap?'" Skandera said. Federal officials also wanted proof of a "plan of intervention for schools that have large achievement gaps."
Skandera also told Education Week that other states have more experience than New Mexico in implementing the policies promoted by the Obama administration through the waivers, and that the state is making progress in that area.
"We had a long way to go when we turned in our application," she said. "This was our first year in the reform trenches. ... This is a great day for the state of New Mexico."]
NCLB
no child left behind act
Farewell (Sorta) to One Half of the Politics K-12 Team
Chris Minnich Stepping Down as Executive Director of CCSSO, Will Lead NWEA
Farewell, From One-Half of the Politics K-12 Team
Ed. Dept. Churn Brings New Faces to Key Initiatives
Introducing the New Half of Politics K-12
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Henry's Men: And the Men Who Made Him
Henry VIII is best known in history for his tempestuous marriages and the fates of his six wives. However, as acclaimed historian Tracy Borman makes clear in her illuminating new chronicle of Henry's life, his reign and reputation were hugely influenced by the men who surrounded and interacted with him as companions and confidants, servants and ministers, and occasionally as rivals -- many of whom have been underplayed in previous biographies.
These relationships offer a fresh, often surprising perspective on the legendary king, revealing the contradictions in his beliefs, behavior, and character in a nuanced light. They show him capable of fierce but seldom abiding loyalty, of raising men up only to destroy them later. He loved to be attended by boisterous young men, the likes of his intimate friend Charles Brandon, who shared his passion for sport, but could also be diverted by men of intellect, culture, and wit, as his longstanding interplay with Cardinal Wolsey and his reluctant abandonment of Thomas More attest. Eager to escape the shadow of his father, Henry VII, he was often trusting and easily led by male attendants and advisors early in his reign (his coronation was just shy of his 18th birthday in 1509) ; in time, though, he matured into a profoundly suspicious and paranoid king whose ruthlessness would be ever more apparent, as Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk and uncle to two of Henry's wives, discovered to his great discomfort, and as Eustace Chapuys, the ambassador of Charles V of Spain, often reported.
Recounting the great Tudor's life and signal moments through the lens of his male relationships, Tracy Borman's new biography reveals Henry's personality in all its multi-faceted, contradictory glory, and sheds fresh light on his reign for anyone fascinated by the Tudor era and its legacy.
Goodreads reviews for Henry's Men: And the Men Who Made Him
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Manufacturer: Atlantic Monthly Press
Publication Year: February 5, 2019
US Salesrank: 42812
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Tag Archives | Sounds Like Me
Bob Babbitt
By Greg Wilson on July 17, 2012 in Black Culture, Documentaries, DVD, Records, RIP, The Seventies, The Sixties
Just over 2 months on from the passing of iconic bass man, Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn of Booker T. & The M.G.’s (http://blog.gregwilson.co.uk/2012/05/donald-duck-dunn/), another of Soul’s most prolific bass players, Bob Babbitt, a member of Motown’s illustrious studio band, the Funk Brothers, died yesterday, aged 74.
Confused, Misused And In The Dark
By Greg Wilson on January 13, 2012 in Black Culture, DVD, The Eighties, The Fifties, The Seventies, The Sixties, Video
The photo above shows a man walking down the street past a wall that’s been sprayed with some graffiti – it says ‘Powell For P.M’. I’d imagine that most people under a certain age would completely miss the relevance of this image, having no idea who this Powell was. Maybe they might pick up on the clue that it has some reference to race, as the man in the picture is black, but without understanding the context its message has been lost with the passage of time. Anyone looking at it in the years following the milestone date of April 20th 1968 would be left in no doubt of its potency, but whilst children in British schools are now taught about Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks and key aspects of the US Civil Rights movement during the ’50s and ’60s, the story of what happened in this country, following the mass immigration of the post-war period, remains a largely hidden history. Without the knowledge of what went on back then, it’s impossible to properly understand what’s going on now, for Enoch Powell MP, and what he had to say in Birmingham that fateful April day almost 44 years ago (which, at the time, a Gallup poll told us was supported by almost three quarters of the UK population), set the agenda for the race debate in this country – a heated debate which has very much reignited in the past few months.
Ball Of Confusion
By Greg Wilson on April 5, 2011 in Black Culture, Hear, Interviews, Psychedelia, Records, The Seventies
Most of the interviews you do throw up the same type of questions, but every now and again someone takes a completely different approach, which can be very refreshing. One such occasion was a few years ago when I received a request for an interview by Berlin based DJ and writer Finn Johannsen, who told me he was doing a feature series for the blog ‘Sounds Like Me’ in which he asks people to chose a favourite record that has strong personal associations. Once I’d informed him of my choice, ‘Ball Of Confusion (That’s What The World Is Today)’, a key single of my formative years by The Temptations, he came back with a whole heap of insightful questions that really caused me to get deep into my reasons behind this selection, including my views on its socio-political relevance, the role of the protest song, and the innovations of its producer, Norman Whitfield.
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By PerformanceAcura March 11, 2016
2016 Acura ILX Leads The Way In Superior Handling
Acura has an extensive history of creating quality vehicles that look sharp and drive with precision. As their parent company, Honda, is known for its intuitive and effortless handling, Acura vehicles also receive the same treatment. Acura has made great strides with the 2016 ILX, improving its powertrain options and giving it a sleek new look.
Older ILX models came with a 2.0-litre, 4-cylinder engine which provided a silky smooth ride. This time around, Acura capitalized on all areas for improvement. The 2016 ILX is equipped with new 2.4-litre engine which offers more power and operates seamlessly with its transmission for responsive power when you need it.
This impressive engine and transmission combination produces 201 horsepower and 180 lb.-ft. of torque. Also seen for the first time in an ILX are a direct fuel injection system and a redesigned motor. Despite no manual transmission option available, its 8-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission will make for a dynamic ride.
For a vehicle with front-wheel-drive, it handles as if it had all-wheel-drive. Whereas modern electric steering has reduced the handling ‘feeling’ for many vehicles, Acura has made a point to ensure that every movement you make on the wheel is accurately translated to the road. This makes for a fun drive with a vehicle that corners aggressively and responsively.
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Russia Finds Kaspersky Lab Cyber Experts Guilty of Treason
Audrey McNamara
Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
A Russian military court on Tuesday found two cyber security experts from Kaspersky Lab guilty of treason. The men, a former state security officer and a former cyber-security expert at Kaspersky Lab, were sentenced to 22 and 14 years in jail, respectively, Russian news agencies reported. Col. Sergei Mikhailov, a former officer in Russia’s Federal Security Service, and Ruslan Stoyanov, head of the computer incidents investigation team at Kaspersky Lab, were both convicted of passing secret information to foreign intelligence services, agencies reported. During a top-secret trial, the men faced accusations that they shared confidential material from a 2010 cybercrime and spam investigation to an analyst at a U.S. security firm. That analyst, Kimberly Zenz, never testified—and insisted in an interview with The Daily Beast that Stoyanov didn’t commit treason.
Last year, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) required the U.S. government to fully purge itself of “any hardware, software, or services developed or provided, in whole or in part,” by Kaspersky Lab. The purge was over concerns the Kremlin may use the Moscow-based company to infiltrate or infect U.S. computer networks that used the software.
Read it at Moscow Times
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THE OLD SOUTH
Stonewall Jackson, VMI’s Most Embattled Professor
Before he led the armies of the Confederacy, Stonewall Jackson was one of the strangest professors to ever teach at the Virginia Military Institute.
S. C. Gwynne
Mark Rucker/Transcendental Graphics/Getty
The course Jackson taught at VMI, “Natural and Experimental Philosophy,” was brutally difficult.
It had been brutally difficult when he took it in 1845 at West Point, where it was loathed and feared by most of the cadet corps, which included some of the brightest math and engineering students in the country. Jackson’s VMI course used exactly the same texts, some of them written by William H. C. Bartlett, his old professor. The subjects included a dizzying array of the most difficult scientific and mathematical concepts of the day: electricity, magnetics (including electromagnetism and electrodynamics), acoustics, optics (reflection and refraction of light, microscopes and telescopes), analytical mechanics, the motion of celestial bodies, and astronomy.
Unlike most of his fellow West Point cadets, Jackson actually liked the course and had done well in it, placing eleventh of 62 in his class. This was despite the fact that his previous schooling in rural western Virginia had given him little preparation for such advanced work, and had placed him at a huge disadvantage against classmates such as Philadelphia-raised George McClellan, the future Union general, who had spent two years at the University of Pennsylvania before he even arrived at West Point. Jackson was an exceptional math and science student; the dreaded Bartlett was one of his favorite professors.
The other subject he taught at VMI was something he knew a great deal about, too: artillery. Each day between 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. he would drill cadets in the transportation, deployment, and firing of mobile field artillery consisting of four six-pounder smoothbores and two twelve-pounder howitzers. In place of horses, underclassmen would pull the field pieces around the drill ground. Most of this was straight mechanical drill. The “tactical” side of artillery—its use on a battlefield—was something Jackson was not called upon to explain.
He was the most peculiar of teachers. According to the many accounts left by his former students, he did not really teach at all. Instead, he would assign what were considered to be extremely difficult lessons, and then listen to “recitations” of those lessons by cadets at the blackboard, correcting them as they went along. “At the appointed time [Jackson] ‘heard’ them, and this was about all of it,” recalled one former cadet. “Discussions in the class-room were unknown, and even explanations were infrequent . . . The text was the one great thing which he came to ‘hear,’ and we came to ‘say,’ if we could, and most of us commonly couldn’t, when the said text was Bartlett’s Course of Natural Philosophy, in three of the toughest volumes this scribe ever attacked—‘Mechanics,’ ’Optics and Acoustics,’ and ‘Spherical Astronomy.’”
Jackson’s behavior in the classroom seemed as peculiar as it did everywhere else. “When questioning the cadets,” wrote future Confederate general James H. Lane, one of his students, “he had a peculiar way of grasping his lead pencil, with his thumb on the end towards the cadets, and when a mistake was made, he would say ‘rather the reverse’ and flip his thumb back on the pencil.” When befuddled cadets asked him to explain some point, Jackson’s answer—devoid of imagination or technique—was simply to recite back to them the exact words of the text, which he had committed to memory and then rehearsed for several hours in darkness. Though this did nothing to help impart knowledge to his charges, some were impressed anyway by his command of the subject.
“In the section room he would sit perfectly erect and motionless,” recalled cadet James McCabe, “listening with grave attention and exhibiting the great powers of his wonderful memory, which was, I think, the most remarkable that ever came under my observation.” But Jackson’s power of recall offered little help to students who had trouble understanding his course. When one cadet insisted, after hearing Jackson explain a problem twice in exactly the same way, that he still did not understand it, Jackson ordered him to leave the section room. The result was that, while the brightest students managed to master the course, those in the middle and at the bottom were often left on their own to flounder, and sometimes to fail.
To make matters worse, Jackson placed great value on regurgitating every last detail of the assigned texts. When, in response to Jackson’s question “What are the three simple machines?” a cadet answered, “The inclined plane, the lever, and the wheel,” Jackson replied, ”No, sir. The lever, the wheel, and the inclined plane.” That was exactly as they were listed in the textbook, and that was how Jackson wanted it. No amount of student outrage or protest could dislodge him from this position. His course managed to be both dreadfully dull and appallingly difficult, with few light moments. When the students begged him to give them a separate session to help them review for a test, Jackson met them in his classroom in the dark, where, according to one cadet, he “sat in front of us on his platform, and with closed eyes questioned us over many pages of a complicated study.”
Whenever Jackson did manage to make what one student termed “an ironical remark,” he would hasten to qualify his expression by adding, “Not meaning exactly what I say,” even though the meaning was plain to everyone. The expression soon became a byword around the barracks. Such remarks made Jackson seem to be what he was not: stupid, or uncomprehending. Cadets would call him Old Tom Jackson while pointing, significantly, to their heads and saying that “he was not quite right there.”
In the cloistered world of VMI, most of which was contained within a single building, the shortcomings of the man cadets called Old Jack, Tom Fool, Old Hickory, and Square Box (in reference to his large feet) were on intimate display. By the end of his first year it had become common knowledge that the grave, taciturn major was, if not completely inept, at the very least the worst teacher at the institute. If there was anyone who thought otherwise, he left no historical record. Even Colonel Francis H. Smith, VMI’s superintendent and the man who both hired Jackson and kept him in his job, acknowledged his failure. “As a Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy, Major Jackson was not a success,” Smith wrote later, after his most illustrious faculty member’s rise to world fame. “He had not the qualifications needed for so important a chair. He was no teacher, and he lacked the tact required in getting along with his classes. He was a brave man, a conscientious man, and a good man, but he was no professor.”
But mere inability to impart knowledge was only the beginning of Jackson’s problems as a professor. One might expect that such a stern pedagogue would rule his classroom with an iron fist. But the reverse was true. Jackson was a poor disciplinarian whose classroom often seemed on the edge of complete chaos. While he sat, gimlet-eyed, watching one of the cadets recite, the other students, arrayed in a horseshoe curve behind Jackson, would often be in a full-scale battle, pelting one another with spitballs and other paper projectiles. Others cheated by taking crib sheets to the blackboard with them, concealing them from Jackson but not from the other students.
Former cadet Lane said he only saw Jackson attempt to catch one of them. “As he approached the guilty party,” wrote Lane, “his heavy, creaking boots betrayed him; the cadet slipped the paper up his sleeve . . . When Jackson reached him, he asked sharply ’What is that in your hand, Sir?’ The Cadet turned suddenly with a surprised look, opened his hand and said ‘a piece of chalk,’ at the same time displaying it. ‘Yes, a piece of chalk,’ responded Jackson, and there was a general laugh at ‘Old Jack’ as he returned, foiled, to his rostrum.”
Sometimes the cadets would truss a first-year student in a chair and balance the chair against the classroom door so that it would tip over when Jackson entered. Cadets would walk behind him, mimicking his step, as he walked with his long strides through campus, head down, looking straight ahead. According to one student, “from behind buildings and around corners he was saluted with cries and catcalls.” Almost invariably, one of them would draw a picture of outsized feet on the blackboard in Jackson’s section room. Sometimes there would be caricatures in which his body was swallowed up by his boots. Over a decade, his teaching often took place in an atmosphere of what one cadet called “wanton disrespect.”
Through all of this, Jackson never lost his temper or his dignity; rather, he took it all with a strange, almost distracted, imperturbability, as though he were too thick to understand what was really happening. “They played tricks on him, they made sport of him,” wrote D. H. Hill, a math professor at Lexington’s Washington College at the time. “They teased him, they persecuted him. All in vain. He turned neither to the right nor to the left, but went straight on in his own ways.” It should be noted that Jackson was not a complete pushover: he put many students on report, and placed some of them in arrest. Though he made fewer charges than the other teachers, he usually made them stick. Nor was Jackson universally despised. Though almost everyone agreed that he was a bad teacher, several of his students later wrote that they admired him for his record in the Mexican-American War, his strong sense of duty, and his Christian ethics.
Indeed, in 1858, Jackson’s seventh year at VMI, a cadet named Leigh Wilber Reid wrote a strikingly prescient poem about Jackson, saying that he saw “The stamp of genius on his brow, and he / With his wild glance and keen but quiet eye / Draws forth from secret sources, where they lie.” Reid had written poems about three other professors, all of them critical and derogatory.
Jackson fared better as an instructor of artillery, a subject he was far better at explaining. As one of his students later wrote, a change would come over him at the sound of the guns. “The grasp on the sabre would tighten; the quiet eyes would flash.” In fact, he taught the most intensive artillery course in the South and very likely the equal of courses at West Point. Over a decade he managed to impart considerable knowledge to several hundred students that would have a telling effect in the coming war. Scores of them would actually serve as artillerists under Jackson himself.
But here, too, he had trouble controlling his charges, who had far more freedom on the drill ground than in the section room to play pranks and otherwise disrupt the class. Cadets mimicked his commands, which he issued in drawn-out syllables in his high-pitched, mountain-inflected voice. They removed the linchpins so that the cannon wheels would fall away, sending the various pieces of the gun tumbling down the hill. Sometimes he caught them, and put them in arrest; often he did not. The trick, in any case, was repeated semester after semester. It became a sort of tradition. Another common prank was to spin the cannon in the direction of the major, causing him to leap out of the way.
Some of the tricks were not so harmless. Once a cadet dropped a brick from a third-story barracks window that barely missed Jackson. Jackson, striding forward as he always did and looking neither left nor right, took no notice of it, though as D. H. Hill said, “his escape was almost miraculous.” The perpetrator was never caught. When asked later why he did not try to find out who had done it, Jackson replied, “The truth is, I do not want to know that we have such a coward in the corps of cadets.”
His comment is a small revelation. Though his reaction might seem to be that of someone with strange physical habits who lacked connection with the real world about him, in fact he saw the act for what it was, and had a distinct, deliberate, and intelligent response to it. Jackson might seem opaque, out of touch, or just bizarrely insensitive to pranks or disrespect, but everything we know about him suggests that none of that was true. As his later wartime record would show, Jackson was extremely competent in the many skills required of a commanding general. He was highly perceptive and exquisitely sensitive to everything around him. His correspondence, much of which survives, is that of an incisive and articulate observer. Appearances and nicknames notwithstanding, he was nobody’s fool.
Unfortunately, he never wrote to his sister or to friends to tell them the stories of his struggles at VMI. We can only assume that he was, as you would expect him to be, mortified by his own inability to keep his charges under control.
His sensitivity to this problem came out in his first sharp disagreement with his boss, VMI superintendent Francis H. Smith. In the spring of 1852, Smith happened to be walking across the parade ground when he saw one of the cannons lose its wheels and scatter in several directions—the result of the linchpin-pulling trick. He walked over to Jackson and ordered him to report the cadet officers responsible for allowing this to happen. Stung by what he perceived to be sharp criticism—though it hardly sounds like that—Jackson immediately went back to his room in the barracks and wrote Smith a note requesting that he “put his severe reprimand in writing.” After that, Jackson’s treatment of Smith became noticeably cooler. He did not, as far as we know, ”cut” him as he had done Major French at Fort Meade, but for a time he would have nothing to do with him on anything except official business, and on that he was curt and deliberately abrupt.
As with French, Jackson, the normally duty-bound, strictly-by-the-book military man, had some obvious problems with officers of elevated rank, and with authority in general, especially when they said anything critical of him. This rogue character trait—nothing in his past quite accounts for it, and it would seem to violate both his military and Christian sense of duty—would come into play significantly during the Civil War, in ways that would have a profound effect on his military career.
Jackson had several notable confrontations with cadets who were unhappy with him or who felt he had been unjust. The most famous of these took place in April 1852. It involved a cadet named James A. Walker. Walker, a highly ranked student, had challenged Jackson in trigonometry class over an answer to a problem that Walker had written on the blackboard, insisting that he was right and telling Jackson that he had not made himself clear. Jackson told the cadet that he was out of line, whereupon Walker protested angrily. When Jackson told him to be quiet, he refused, and Jackson put him under arrest. After a court-martial, in which 62 pages of testimony were recorded, Walker was found guilty on all charges and dismissed from the institute. His response was to challenge Jackson to a duel, and to write him a note saying that if he did not receive satisfaction he would kill Jackson on sight.
What happened next is not quite clear, though many versions exist. The most commonly cited is that told by D. H. Hill, who later said that Jackson had asked him for advice on whether to seek a restraining order. Hill advised him not to, saying that if he did so, the cadets would regard him as a coward. But Jackson disregarded him and went straight to the magistrate. Hill saw this as the quintessential demonstration of Jackson’s personality: he would do his Christian duty to avoid a fight, and he would accept the social consequences.
“I have thought that no incident in the life of Jackson was more truly sublime than this,” wrote Hill. “He was ambitious, covetous of distinction, desirous to rise in the world, sensitive to ridicule, tenacious of honor—yet, from a high sense of Christian duty, he sacrificed the good opinion of his associates.” In Hill’s version, Jackson at the same time let it be known that he would defend himself if attacked, and Walker never dared attack him. In any case, there was nothing in Jackson’s behavior that suggested cowardice to anyone. The cadet was expelled, and that was the end of it.
We do know with great precision what happened to the expelled student. He entered the war with the 4th Virginia Regiment. He fought with distinction under Jackson as part of the Stonewall Brigade, rising steadily by Jackson’s promotions and making colonel in March 1862. In May 1863 he was promoted to brigadier general and became, by Jackson’s direct command on his deathbed (“I do not know a braver officer”), the Stonewall Brigade’s last commanding officer. Thirty-nine years after his expulsion from VMI, he acted as chief marshal at the unveiling of the Stonewall Jackson monument in Lexington. His nickname, given to him at the Battle of Gettysburg and which he kept for the rest of his life, was Stonewall Jim. He would later write of Jackson that “the cadets came to understand him and to appreciate his character for courage and justice, and to respect and love him for his kindly heart and noble soul.”
Walker was not the only one who complained publicly about Jackson. Superintendent Smith, in fact, had fielded a steady stream of complaints about him that never resulted in any direct action. But in the spring of 1856 he finally faced a full-scale protest. Acting on the basis of a number of complaints, the Society of the Alumni appointed a VMI graduate to investigate and prepare a report for the school’s governing body, the Board of Visitors. In July, the alumni presented a resolution condemning the mismanagement of the Department of Natural and Experimental Philosophy, and saying that Jackson lacked ”capacity adequate to the duties of the chair.”
Though this might easily have been grounds for dismissal or reassignment, nothing of the sort happened. The board decided simply to table the resolution, and there the matter rested. When Jackson found out about this campaign against him a year later, he made a formal request that every charge be investigated. But the board— like General David Twiggs in Tampa, who fielded a similar request—would have nothing to do with it. The members tabled Jackson’s request as well.
It is noteworthy, considering how difficult it must have been for him to engage year after year in a difficult job for which he had no aptitude, that he even stuck it out. (His one attempt to leave was a failure, too: he applied for a job teaching math at the University of Virginia in 1854, but did not get the job.) One explanation comes from his second wife, Anna, who said that Jackson had once been asked by a friend if it wasn’t presumptuous of him to take the teaching job at VMI when his eye illness made him incapable of doing it properly. “Not in the least,” Jackson said. “The appointment came unsought, and was therefore providential; and I knew that if Providence set me a task, he would give me the power to perform it. So I resolved to get well.” He persisted because he believed God wanted him to.
Excerpted from Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson by S.C. Gwynne. Copyright © 2014 by Samuel C. Gwynne. Excerpted with permission by Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
S.C. Gwynne, author of Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson, is the author of the New York Times bestseller Empire of the Summer Moon, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He spent most of his career as a journalist, including stints with Time as bureau chief, national correspondent, and senior editor, and with Texas Monthly as executive editor. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and daughter. For more information please visit http://www.scgwynne.com, and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter
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Set Visit Preview: Warner Bros. Brings the Supernatural Romance BEAUTIFUL CREATURES to Life in Louisiana
by Scott Wampler August 9, 2012
A few months ago, I was given the opportunity to travel to Baton Rouge, Louisiana for a visit to the set of Richard LaGravenese’s forthcoming supernatural-romance, Beautiful Creatures. Now, while the title might not mean much to you if you’re say, a late-20’s male with little to no involvement with the Young Adult section of your local Barnes and Nobel, that name means a whole bunch to a whole bunch of non-late-20’s males: Beautiful Creatures—which involves teenage girls, witches, stately manors on the edge of swamps, and Jeremy Irons—might just be the heir to the Twilight throne.
And with the potential for another franchise like that on their hands, it’s easy to understand why the studio would agree to let us start talking about our set visit now: sure, it doesn’t arrive until February of 2013, but why not tell you a little bit about the cool stuff we saw on-set? Find out what I saw there, who we interviewed, and see some pictures from Beautiful Creatures after the jump, folks.
Before I start bringing you up to speed on Warner Bros. and Richard LaGravenese’s Beautiful Creatures, it’s important that we make the following very, very clear: this is not our full set-visit report. Typically, set visits (and the interviews that occur there) don’t start popping up until the week or two before a film hits theaters. In this case, however, WB has given us the go-ahead to write a quick little preview about that visit. Once we get closer to the film’s February, 2013 release date, they’ll lift the embargo and we’ll be able to share everything we saw (and the handful of interviews we scored). Until then, there’s this.
For the uninitiated, Beautiful Creatures is the first novel (published in 2009) in Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl’s Caster Chronicles young-adult series, and—to someone like me, who doesn’t read a lot of supernatural-romance YA novels—the series sounds like it was always destined to be given the Hollywood treatment: in Gatlin, South Carolina, 16-year-old sophomore Ethan (here played by Alden Ehrenreich, a relative newcomer who cut his teeth in Francis Ford Coppola’s Twixt and Tetro) discovers a mysterious new girl at school, Lena (played by Alice Englert). Ethan is drawn into a mystery involving Lena’s life as a witch (or “Caster”), the town of Gatlin itself, and Lena’s even-more-mysterious Uncle, Macon (played by Jeremy Irons, who needs no introduction).
While on-set, we watched LaGravenese film an elaborate outdoor party scene, one that involved what appeared to be dozens and dozens of extras dressed in jaw-droppingly intricate costumes (and some truly impressive makeup). We took a walk around the outside of a massive, sprawling house in the middle of nowhere (this was outside Baton Rouge, and the place looked exactly like you’d expect “a massive, sprawling house in the middle of nowhere outside of Baton Rouge” to look like: hanging vines, heavy gothic architecture, lots of wrought-iron and deep shadows) that turned out to be Macon’s house, and we were given time to interview a number of cast members, including Ehrenreich, Englert, Emmy Rossum, and Margo Martindale, all of whom were clearly very excited about bringing this massively popular YA series to life.
The Beautiful Creatures set was enormously impressive, and though I walked onto the set knowing next-to-nothing about the series that inspired it, I left curious to learn more. This is just about all I’m able to share at the moment, but you can rest assured that we’ll have much, much more coverage for you on our Beautiful Creatures set visit when we get closer to the film’s February 2013 release date, including a report from the set and all those aforementioned interviews. While you’re waiting on that day to arrive, check out some of these pictures from the Beautiful Creatures Facebook page, and feel free to sound off in the comments section below if you’ve got anything you’d like to add: read the books? Excited for the movie? Think Beautiful Creatures has what it takes to take up the Twilight mantle? Tell us about it below, folks, and stay tuned!
FX Orders 13-Episode First Season of Spy Pilot THE AMERICANS Starring Keri…
New Poster for RED DAWN Starring Chris Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson
• Alden Ehrenreich • Alice Englert • Beautiful Creatures • Emmy Rossum • Entertainment • Movie • Richard LaGravenese • Set Visit
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Posts Tagged ‘lonely’
Episode 062–Gillian Gaar On The Sub Pop Records Story with Bruce Hilliard
By Bruce Hilliard | 11/30/2018 | 0
Sup Pop Records has released early recordings with bands such as Green River, Nirvana, Soundgarden and more. The label was founded by Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman in the 80’s. The new book by Gillian Gaar illustrates the record label founders’ journey from music lovers to becoming pioneers of one of the most influential independent record companies to date.
Gillian talks about her first-hand interviews and research that went into making the book. She was there as history unfurled and could probably talk all day on the subject but this is a half hour teaser. If you want to meet the author and chat, see the below information. She is one of the foremost authorities on rock music.
Her first book of 17, She’s A Rebel: The History of Women in Rock & Roll was published in 1992. In addition to her own books, she has appeared in various anthologies, including The Nirvana Companion; Trouble Girls: The Rolling Stone Guide to Women in Rock; Nirvana: The Complete Illustrated History; Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen: Interviews and Encounters; Goldmine: The Beatles Digest (volumes one and two); and The Best of the Beatles Book. She has also researched and written some of the best Elvis literature available anywhere.
World Domination: The Sub Pop Records Story takes you on a journey from the 1980’s to now. Gillian Gaar is a Seattle-based author and local music journalist. She has also appeared in anthologies such as ‘Nirvana: The Complete Illustrated History’, ‘The Stranger Guide to Seattle’, ‘The Best of the Beatles Book’, and others.
To find out more about the book you can come her book signing.
What: Gillian Gaar Book Reading and Signing
When: Friday, Dec. 7 at 7 p.m.
Where: Easy Street Records
4559 California Ave SW, (West Seattle)
Gillian Gaar is one of those rock gurus that in conversation makes you listen, and like a good concert, leaves you wanting more. Gillian is a Seattle-based author. She was editorial assistant for Krist Novoselic’s book From Grunge To Government: Let’s Fix This Broken Democracy!
She was also a project consultant/liner note writer for Nirvana’s box set With The Lights Out. She has written for numerous magazines, including Rolling Stone, Mojo, Q, Goldmine, The Seattle Times, The Stranger, Option, and No Depression, and was a senior editor at Seattle music paper The Rocket.
Gillian written liner notes for collections by Laurie Anderson, Judy Collins, Heart, Pat Benatar, Paula Cole and Mat Kearney, among others.
Listen to the full episode
Gillian Gaar is one of those rock gurus that in conversation makes you listen, and like a good concert, leaves you wanting more. Gillian is a Seattle-based author. Her first book, She’s A Rebel: The History of Women in Rock & Roll was published in 1992. In addition to her own books, she has appeared in…
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HITTING THE THIRD RAIL
I am about to hit the third rail of American politics: Saying something less than gushingly laudatory about the 9/11 Commission.
Well, it’s actually less about the Commission than it is about the testimony of some of its members at hearings last week before a couple of committees of the House of Representatives.
The subject was ‘public diplomacy’. Translating this Washington-speak, public diplomacy consists of the things we say and do to get the world to understand and love us. More specifically, the hearings were about how the United States should reach out to the Muslim world.
The Commission’s report was absolutely right in saying that the US cannot win the battle against terrorism with the military alone, that we’re also fighting a war of ideas, and we can only win that war with better ideas. “The United States must do more to communicate its message”, the Commission’s report declares.
But what is the message? According to Commission Chairman Thomas Kean, Vice-Chairman Lee Hamilton, and Commission member Jamie Gorelick, the American message needs to be about our moral values, about how generous the American people are, about the need for better education, more libraries, women’s rights, closing the digital divide, and religious, racial and ethnic tolerance.
That’s all good stuff. But Commission members, in their scrupulous and unusual effort to remain nonpartisan, were visibly walking on political eggs to avoid any mention of the indispensable factor in the public diplomacy equation: Policy.
Yet every poll taken in the last few years tells us it is not America that is hated around the world, it is American foreign policy. And neither the Commission witnesses, nor any of the Republicans on these House committees, was prepared to discuss policy.
Only the ranking Democrats on the committees, Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and Rep. Tom Lantos of California, weighed in with policy rants, and even these two Democrats disagreed on many issues. US policy toward Israel, for example.
Which made the discussion about tools. The tools we should be using to influence the world: Broadcasts, exchange programs, aid to strengthen economic development and civil society, and suchlike. This is a useful discussion because, unlikely as it may seem, the country that virtually invented modern communications has not been hugely successful in the way it uses its tools.
But tools are only messengers. They don’t make the message; they simply convey it.
But trying to discuss public diplomacy without discussing foreign policy is like moving bureaucratic boxes around and persuading voters you’ve actually achieved something. It makes hearings like these even more farcical than most of what goes on in Congress.
Ever since the 9/11 Commission issued its final report, the men and women of our Congress have been running for political cover like cats on a hot tin roof. It has been seen as something approaching blasphemy to question any of the Commission’s findings and recommendations – President Bush simply couldn’t wait to get to the Rose Garden to announce he was going to appoint an intelligence czar and create a national counter-terrorism center.
The Commission should not be faulted for avoiding partisan and inevitably rancorous foreign policy debates. That’s what we elect an Administration and a Congress to do. And that’s what we have a right to expect – and aren’t getting – from our quadrennial electoral process.
What is clear is that we have many failed foreign policies and a President who won’t say so. If those are givens, why are we wasting the taxpayers’ money discussing tools?
About the writer: William Fisher has managed economic development programs in the Middle East for the US State Department and the US Agency for International Development, and served in the international affairs area in the Kennedy Administration.
Posted by Unknown at Friday, August 27, 2004 298 comments:
AMERICAN GULAG
If you think prisoner abuse is about Abu Ghraib and a ‘few bad apples’, reading Mark Dow’s American Gulag may make you think again.
Dow is a journalist and former teacher at the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) detention center in Miami. He has spent years interviewing inmates, guards, and officials at that and the many other detention centers run by INS (now part of the new Department of Homeland Security).
"Long before Abu Ghraib, and even before September 11th”, Dow told The New Yorker magazine, “detainees in America's immigration prisons were being stripped, beaten, and sexually abused.” They were also being routinely deprived of the most basic civil rights.
Since September 11, immigration policy has become far more stringent, targeting Arab, Muslim, and South Asian foreign nationals. “Attorney General John Ashcroft has repeatedly used the term ‘terrorist’ to describe detainees, “when he was certainly in a position to know that they were not terrorists.” In fact, Dow writes, most had overstayed their visas, which could get them deported, but which is not a crime. Immigration law is not part of the US criminal justice system – which gives the INS virtually unlimited scope to hold people indefinitely, without charge, without access to attorneys, and without public disclosure.
Dow’s book describes a chamber of horrors that followed the 9/11 tragedy and the sweeping round-up of Arabs and Muslims.
Egyptian detainees held in Alabama go on a hunger strike. A Palestinian is transferred from jail to jail to keep him from contacting the media. He is told by INS officials that a condition of his release is that he cannot speak to the media about his case. If he does, they will lock him up again. An Egyptian man is confined for two months before being allowed to call a lawyer. He is given no soap or towels for a week and meanwhile interrogated. He says correctional officers stomped on his bare feet.
A Pakistani man, Mehmood, “had been traveling between Pakistan and the US since the mid-1980s. He was in the import export business. In the 1990s, he overstayed his five-year renewable visa…(He) had not been particularly surprised or concerned when, three weeks after (9/11), 25 FBI agents came knocking at the door of his Bayonne, New Jersey, home while he slept. He knew the authorities were ‘coming to Muslim houses. They just want to search us’, he said. Agents found ‘suspicious’ items – a flight simulator, a flying lesson logbook, box cutters and a hazardous materials driving permit. “But”, says Dow, “ with minimal investigation, the ‘case’ evaporated”. There were plausible – and confirmed – reasons for Mehmood to have had these items. His most serious breach of the law was altering the no-work line of his Social Security card.
When the FBI finished interviewing him, they said, “We have no problem with you. Now it’s up to the INS if they want to take you or not.” The INS arrested him. They told his wife she could expect a call from him in four to six hours, and that he would probably be freed on bail and might even get a ‘Green Card’. Bail was never set.
Dow writes: “For the first two months…Mehmood was moved each week to a new cell, handcuffed and shackled to be moved those few feet. After three weeks, he was allowed to make his first legal phone call. He was kept inside his cell for 24 hours day.” Then he was transferred first to Manhattan and then to Brooklyn. When he arrived in Brooklyn, he alleges, seven or eight correctional officers threw him out of the van, dragged him across the floor, and then threw him against a wall…with their full power.” He was injured.
Mehmood was charged with altering his social security card. He pled guilty and was sentenced to time served. He was deported back to Pakistan in mid-April, 2002. In that year, and in early 2003, “at least four charter flights took large groups of Pakistanis who had no proper documentation – or ties to terrorists – back to Pakistan. The INS called the charters “routine”. Even after Mehmood was back in Pakistan, Dow says, “Immigration officials said they could not comment on specific cases.”
Dow asks why Mehmood was held in the Special Housing Unit at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, “a federal prison, for four months and two days, and denied access to legal help and to his family for weeks?”
Dow concludes: The Bush Administration has “exploited our national trauma to extend law enforcement authority, as the long-standing biases within the Justice Department against Muslims and Arabs became politically correct.” None of this, he adds, “has anything to do with immigration…It's simply the result of excessive authority and an obsession with secrecy.”
“Today, the immigration agency holds some 23,000 people in detention on a given day and detains about 200,000 annually. The prisoners are held in the INS’s service processing centers; in local jails; in facilities owned and operated by private companies…and in Bureau of Prisons facilities, including federal penitentiaries. Wherever they are held, INS prisoners are ‘administrative detainees’; they are not serving a sentence…Immigration detainees can be held for days, months, or years…Detainees who came (to the US) from Cuba during the 1980 ‘Mariel boatlift’ are still in detention, despite a US Supreme Court against indefinite detention.” The reason given by INS is that Cuba has refused to take them back.
Detainees tend to fall into four categories: Those who have entered the US without proper documentation, including asylum-seekers (10-13% of all detainees); people with, say, a visa overstay, who can be picked up by an immigration agent and taken to detention -- either an immigration detention center or a contracted jail; people with some kind of criminal conviction -- once an immigrant completes a prison sentence, he or she can be turned over to the immigration service; finally, there is a fourth category, labeled “special detention”, for those thought to be associated with ‘terror’.
“Local politicians and business entrepreneurs have taken full advantage of the revenue possibilities in immigration detention”, Dow writes. ”The Federal Government paid New York County $45.00 per detainees per day, although it only cost the prison $24.37 to maintain each prisoner.”
“When detentions increased following the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York City and the Pentagon, private prison profiteers saw another opportunity. The Chairman of the Houston-based Cornell Companies spoke candidly in a conference call with other investors: ‘It can only be good…with the focus on people that are illegal and also from Middle Eastern descent…In the US there are over 900,000 undocumented individuals from Middle Eastern descent…That’s half of our entire prison population…The Federal business is the best business for us…and the events of September 11 (are) increasing that level of business…”
“The prisons themselves are often gruesome,” Dow writes. The guards are “often unprepared for the environment.” One officer, after being convicted for repeatedly kicking and punching an inmate, told Dow, “It was a situation I had never been in … I reacted … I don't know what happened.”
Almost as disturbing is the veil of secrecy surrounding the detention centers. In his investigations, Dow was often prevented from interviewing prisoners, accessing medical records, and looking at immigration guidelines. Dow also found that INS answers to no one. It eschews formal regulations. There are no monitors or independent watchdogs. Most of what we know about these prisons comes from a handful of journalists, working tirelessly to "make public what the INS tries to hide."
In its new home at the DHS, Dow says, “The secretive immigration prison world is likely to be pulled even further from public scrutiny.”
That high levels of government are aware of the situation is clear. FBI whistle-blower agent Colleen Rowley expressed concern over the pressure from FBI offices to round up Arabs in order to fill the detention centers. A newsletter from the Justice Department says, “An alien's constitutional status in this country might be something that the government can use when an alien detainee challenges his or her treatment in detention.“ Dow finds this “astonishing, and disturbing, because it tells me that high-ranking Justice Department officials know about the treatment of these detainees, but instead of trying to do something about the conditions, they're looking for a way to justify those conditions.”
On paper, he says, there are INS standards regarding immigration conditions, including attorney visitation, media interviews, law libraries, and other crucial aspects of prison life. But, says the American Civil Liberties Union, “By refusing to promulgate these standards as regulations, the INS insured that they would be difficult if not impossible to enforce.”
Dow adds: “This effort to operate outside the bounds of enforceable law is no accident…“ Attorney General Ashcroft has “likened his new policy of preventative detention to Robert Kennedy’s crackdown on the Mafia, when arrests were made for ‘spitting on the sidewalk’ in order to prevent more serious crimes.”
Dow recommends a few ways to make the INS more transparent and accountable. These include Congressional hearings to consider the 2 1/2 decades of immigration detention abuses; an investigation by the Office of Inspector General; independent, surprise monitoring of all detention centers, prisons and jails organized by nongovernmental and community groups across the country; legal counsel and judicial review for every detainee; and repeal of the 1996 anti-immigrant laws -- responsible for tripling the detention population and for the deportation of tens of thousands of long-term legal residents for past minor crimes.
But ultimately, Dow believes, “detention authority should be removed from the immigration service except in emergencies and for strictly limited periods. The American immigration bureaucracy should not be operating a prison system at all.”
American Gulag: Inside U.S. Immigration Prisons is published by University of California Press, Berkeley 94704, California, USA, 2004. (www.ucpress.edu).
Posted by Unknown at Friday, August 27, 2004 68 comments:
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Toxicity of GM 'Food' Revealed in New Study
'Tis unnatural,/Even like the deed that's done (Macbeth, Act II, Scene IV, ll. 10, 11).
From NaturalNews:
Eating genetically modified corn (GM corn) and consuming trace levels of Monsanto's Roundup chemical fertilizer caused rats to develop horrifying tumors, widespread organ damage, and premature death. That's the conclusion of a shocking new study that looked at the long-term effects of consuming Monsanto's genetically modified corn.
The study has been deemed "the most thorough research ever published into the health effects of GM food crops and the herbicide Roundup on rats." News of the horrifying findings is spreading like wildfire across the internet, with even the mainstream media seemingly in shock over the photos of rats with multiple grotesque tumors... tumors so large the rats even had difficulty breathing in some cases. GMOs may be the new thalidomide.
It goes on to say: "The animals on the GM diet suffered mammary tumors, as well as severe liver and kidney damage. The researchers said 50 percent of males and 70 percent of females died prematurely, compared with only 30 percent and 20 percent in the control group."
We may say definitively that GMO food is a danger to human health and to other living creatures, but now comes the difficult part: opposing this life-in-death vision that the agri-business corporations of the world have in mind for us with an alternative vision for man and the creation that has life-giving, creative content. This is Father Sergius Bulgakov's challenge to us, perhaps more relevant today than when he wrote it in 1939:
Our epoch is characterized by a broad development of creativity "in its own name," by a deluge of anthropotheism, in the form of a luciferian creative intoxication, and by an immersion in dull sensual paganism. These developments cannot be overcome by mere rejection; they can be overcome only by the unfolding of a positive Christian doctrine of the world and creative activity, and by manifestation of its power (The Bride of the Lamb, tr. Boris Jakim, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Eerdmans: 2002, p. 332).
The Englishman and the King
The Islamic World Aflame
A Sonnet to Lee
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Coral Gables’ Temporary City
It was around 1925 that one could find William S. Hammon, a heavy-set, grey haired gentleman, strolling through the city he had recently been declared mayor of. It is likely that Mr. Hammon, a man whose jacket was charitably described as “dusty,” would have never expected to be proclaimed the mayor of anything. In truth, the title was little more than a term of endearment. Additionally, the term “city” only loosely applies to the community he presided over. “Tent City,” as it was called, was comprised of over 600 tents, housed close to 1000 people, and was located in Coral Gables. The community itself was reminiscent of a slightly upscale refugee camp. Why was this ritzy shanty town located within the boundaries of one of Miami’s most affluent boomtime developments? Why would the City Beautiful and George Merrick deviate from the standards they set for their Mediterranean Revival styled community in favor of wooden shacks and dirt roads? The answers to these questions (and others likely posed) are what this article attempts to address.
In the 1920’s, Miami found itself in the midst of the Great Florida Land Boom. This period of time was punctuated by a huge influx of development; houses, commercial buildings, neighborhoods, and streets were being built at an unparalleled pace. It was during this building boom that neighborhoods and cities such as Miami Shores, Opa Locka, Miami Beach, Miami Springs, and Coral Gables sprung into existence. This surge in construction resulted in an exponentially expanding workforce, which grew to include thousands of construction workers, salesmen, electricians, plumbers, and contractors.
The irony behind this explosive increase of homes, however, was that it resulted in a massive housing shortage for all the laborers and employees associated with the development of these houses and buildings. Affordable housing took a backseat to large single-family homes, leaving common laborers, artisans, administrative workers, and the sales forces with no place to hang their own hat. This problem even entangled George Merrick, the visionary responsible for the creation and development of Coral Gables. Merrick’s attention was drawn to the issue, resulting in the temporary establishment of “Tent City” in October of 1925. In fact, it was Tent City’s future “mayor,” W.S. Hammon, who proposed the idea to Merrick while working for the corporation’s construction branch.
Though purely of temporary construction, the colony was established at a total cost of $85,000 ($1,224,184 today) and was spread over 6 acres of property. Tent City was located approximately where Coral Gables Senior Highschool is currently situated, on the corner of LeJeune and Bird Road. Like any planned town, it was laid out with streets, individual lots, and a plaza in the center. The “tents” themselves, which were more like cottages, varied in size and had a wooden framework, bolted and reinforced with iron at each joint, had screen doors and windows, and were even waterproof. The interiors were divided into rooms by curtains. They were rented fully furnished and were outfitted with linoleum floors, chairs, beds, dressers, and tables. Each tent was wired for electricity, which with water, was provided free of charge. Electric grills were used for cooking in the interest of fire protection. It is all the more surprising to know that no attempt was made to realize a profit from the enterprise. Rent was nominal and solely served the purpose of maintaining the community.
Those who lived in Tent City took part in regularly scheduled community festivals and events. The “Town Square” was frequently alive with activity. “Mayor” Hammon, whose 12 year old son was considered the maintenance “man,” was very much the community leader; organizing events, activities, and providing supplies and groceries out of his centrally based dry goods store. Tent City housing was initially limited to individuals who worked for the Coral Gables Corporation and their families. Inhabitants were drawn from all departments of the corporation, including the administrative offices, the accounting department, the sales force, and the construction department. While there were plenty of adults, there were also over a hundred children living in Tent City who were enrolled in the Coral Gables school system. It has been reported that, when not in school, the children would play in the “town square” or on the dance platform which had been erected for the recreation of it’s “citizens.”
In April 1926, the completion of the $800,000 San Sebastian Apartments employee hotel resulted in the departure of many of Tent City’s residents. The Corporation promptly altered it’s policies and opened up Tent City to non-company employees. Until it’s liquidation on July 21, 1926, Tent City was available to tourists, prospective home buyers, and Gables residents who were awaiting the completion of their homes. By September of 1926, the development boom had reached it’s peak and was winding down. The structures found within Tent City were auctioned off to the general public in early September.
As for Will S. Hammon, the community’s “dusty” mayor… By 1929 he, his wife Ona, and son Harley, had moved to Columbus, IN, where he returned to working as a retail merchant. Hammon died in Minnesota in 1939 and was buried at Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis, presumably without the dust of Coral Gables on his jacket.
Malcolm Lauredo
Volume Two; Number One
Support the Museum with your Membership
Coral Gables Museum Summer Camp 2019
June 7 @ 8:00 am - August 16 @ 5:00 pm
Downtown Walking Tour
Creating the Dream Tour
Gables Bike Tour
Panel Discussion: The Making of The Art Of Compassion: From Conception to Exhibition.
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William Southwell
Southwell Brothers
Web Publications
CMC, Disability Studies and Educational Counselling/Advising
In summary my research interests include:
Disability and special needs
Computer-mediated conferencing
Specialist educational counselling/advising
Student support (in distance education in particular)
My doctoral research, completed 2001, crossed the boundaries of three areas of interest. These are: disability studies, computer mediated communication (CMC) and educational counselling/advising. My main study focused on an exploration of the effects of providing access to the services of an educational counsellor on-line in a 'Virtual Campus' environment for a group of undergraduate distance learners with long-term health problems. This work was supervised by Dr. Pat Fung and Professor Denise Whitelock at the Institute of Educational Technology and Ms Judy Emms, Faculty of Maths and Computing, The Open University.
"Computer Mediated Communication and Disability Support: Addressing Barriers to Study for Undergraduate Distance Learners with Long-term Health Problems". Doctoral thesis. Milton Keynes: The Open University. (Abstract available here).
Epistolary Interviews - a novel research method
A novel research method was developed and piloted during the final phase of this research. This is a form of interactive personal interview by asynchronous e-mail, which is introduced in my thesis and termed epistolary interview. The interview structure was adapted for text-based communication from the type of semi-structured conversational format described by Wilson (1996) as a suitable research tool for in depth exploration of interviewee experience in a face-to-face situation (Debenham, M. 2007: Epistolary Interviews On-line: A Novel Addition to the Researcher's Palette. York: TechDis. [Note: This paper was first published on the TechDis site, which sadly has been disontinued in 2015. A pdf of the published version may be downloaded here, posted with the agreement of the Higher Education Academy, so that the material will remain available to scholars with an interest in the field.])
Wilson, M. 1996. Asking Questions: in Data Collection and Analysis, ed. R. Sapsford, V. Jupp, pp 94 - 120. London: Sage.
Biographical Background
As an undergraduate in 1988 I became one of the first group of students to take the Open University's pioneering course in Information Technology, entitled "An Introduction to Information Technology: Social and Technological Issues". This introduced the use of computer conferencing for contact with the course tutor and fellow students in a distance learning environment. As an alumna of the course, I continued to use the medium on a self help basis to support my remaining undergraduate studies. It was this experience which later triggered my interest in undertaking research to explore the potential of the medium to support disabled distance learners.
For health-related reasons, I was myself registered as a disabled student with the Open University from the outset of my undergraduate studies in 1980. Later, when I was awarded a full time post-graduate research studentship at the Institute of Educational Technology (IET), commencing in early 1996, the department took great care in making special arrangements to accommodate and facilitate my study-related needs. These included permission to be formally based at my Regional Centre in Bristol, with a locally based supervisor in addition to my two departmental supervisors in Milton Keynes; extensive use of CMC and telephone for communication with my IET supervisors, other Milton Keynes campus-based staff and support services; and regular trips to campus for conferences, presentations and meetings. These CMC provisions were experimental in those early days, when data communication systems were still very slow and cumbersome in use — in contrast to today, when the highly developed Internet and fast broadband access have transformed the scenario for all distance learners.
The Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University, UK
Services for Disabled Students, The Open University, UK
Centre for Disability Studies, University of Leeds, UK
DO-IT Program, Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking and Technology, University of Washington, Seattle, USA
Association for Learning Technology (ALT)
Adaptech Project, Dawson College, Canada
Page last updated 2 May 2017
Copyright © Margaret Debenham 2002 - 2019. All rights reserved. This web site does not use cookies. Contact the
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Discover more about my vision for Australian women
Please support GirlsfromOz who provide activities for children and young people in remote Australia
The Burnet Institute aims to achieve better health for poor and vulnerable communities through medical research, education and public health
Family Violence (4)
Follow @chloeshorten
Chloe Shorten
Passionate advocate for equality
A candid, revealing chat with Chloe Shorten. Family, life and Bill’s worst habit.
July 12, 2016 November 30, 2016 6 minute readby Chloe
Leader of the Labor party Bill Shorten (right) and his wife Chloe pose for photographs at Parliament House in Canberra, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2013. The Labor party announced Bill Shorten as the newly elected leader. (AAP Image/Lukas Coch) NO ARCHIVING
Two weeks ago, the ALP posted a video of Bill Shorten being interviewed by his wife Chloe on their Facebook page.
That’s the video above.
Cynical media outlets described the interview as “bizarre” and “peculiar”. It’s unusual, for sure. Political spouses don’t usually interview their candidate partners and then post the video on social media, nationwide.
But the thing that you see more clearly than anything else in the video is the love and affection that Bill clearly has for his wife. The ALP posted it with the caption “#RelationshipGoals” with good reason. Bill tells Chloe that he wants to try and make her happy.
Perhaps the cynical response it garnered points to a knowledge gap in the electorate – we don’t often see the spouses of politicians in such an intimate way. Does the electorate need to get to know the people behind the politicians a little better?
In another video on the ALP’s Facebook page, Chloe Shorten is interviewed herself, by a staffer at Labor’s Campaign Headquarters in Melbourne.
She says, “when Mummy’s okay, the whole world’s okay,” a mantra she repeats often.
Chloe, who immediately scoffed at being addressed as ‘Ms Shorten’, tells Mamamia, “I use that as a sort of frame for just about everything I do in my life. Friendships, corporate roles. It’s a great way to look at life.”
And it’s also what prompts her to gravitate towards the mothers and the grandmothers that she says are some of her favourite people to spend time with on the campaign.
“I tend to gravitate towards comparing notes and getting good advice from the mums and grandmothers I’ve met.
“I had a lovely conversation with a woman I met in her eighties. She said to me she had just lost her granddaughter, an adult granddaughter who has suddenly died. She was so moving and she reminded me of that need to be conscious of how precious our families and our children are.
“It was really special.
“In Gladstone I met a group of indigenous mothers and grandmothers. The grandmas talking about their granddaughters, worried about them getting a good education and chance.
“It was such a reality check about how so many of us live with great opportunity. We need to make sure the access [that great opportunity] is extended to every single child.”
Chloe says meetings like that do two things. They reinforce her support of Bill, and they remind her how precious her family life is.
Chloe isn’t full time on the campaign trail with Bill. She drops in and out when she can find the time to take a break from managing the well being and busy schedules of three children.
Since the start of the campaign, Chloe says, “Bill’s maybe been home six nights.”
How is that working? “I have to admit that it’s probably working at about 60 percent. I’ve lowered the bar of expectations of managing my family world.” Which is more than fair enough, three children including Bill and Chloe’s five-year-old daughter, Clementine, a Federal Election campaign and a parent barely able to be at home, 60 per cent seems remarkable.
“I reflected on this recently with some women whose husbands were serving overseas. They have to deal with this stuff all the time. It’s a given for them.
“Sometimes we try to get the kids to come to things, but only the things they want to.”
Chloe says that Clementine misses Bill a lot, “She just wants to be sitting on his lap at every moment, getting his attention.
“I was like that as a kid. Not so public. But being around my parents meant being around them in their workplaces.”
Chloe is the daughter of Dame Quentin and Michael Bryce, the fourth of five children. While Michael was a highly accomplished architect, and graphic and industrial designer, Dame Quentin is the widely celebrated first female Governor-General of Australia.
Chloe grew up in Brisbane. In her early career she worked as a copy girl for the Sunday Mail newspaper, and then as a journalist and writer for ACP magazines, including Cleo. She spent time in the early 80s in Port Moresby.
She had two children in 2001 and 2002 with her first husband. She met Bill shortly after he was elected in 2007.
They married in 2009 and live in suburban Melbourne. By all accounts, they live a remarkably normal life. Bill drives the kids to soccer and ballet on the weekends. Chloe says Bill’s worst habit is that he’s always on the phone. She gives a derisive, “yep” as she describes it, but laughs at it too. She shares some intimate details of their lives together, but not much.
Bill’s favourite food is weetbix. They binge watch television shows together, when they get the time – something they haven’t had much of recently. There aren’t any podcasts, but right now there are shared books with kids – Chloe’s older daughter is reading I am Malala, by Malala Yousafzai and her son is reading the ‘Theodore Boon Kid Lawyer’ series by John Grisham.
Chloe has had a strong career in marketing and corporate affairs and has for her whole adult life, a strong focus on gender equality. She resigned earlier this year in order to focus on her family and on her campaign.
But with a background like hers, and the career that she’s had, you’d be forgiven for wondering if previously being the daughter of a Governor-General and now being publicly known as the wife of a man who wishes to be Prime Minister she’s struggling to carve out her own space separate to the prominent people in her life.
“Not really,” Chloe says.
“I think it’s given me an opportunity to experience things that have added to my core beliefs and my views of the world, and the passions that drive me.
“They’ve enhanced the opportunity for me to get to know people and participate in some of the discussions about things like equality and advocacy for women and girls.”
Chloe points to her recent meeting with Julia Gillard just a week or two ago. “She’s been such an advocate for women and girls and [meeting her has] been a wonderful opportunity to have.”
Chloe’s passion for gender equality is undeniable.
“I certainly think that gender equality relies on constant improvement in all sorts aspects of our social lives.
“I applaud Bill for calling out that the burden on child care falls on women. He was definitely saying that it shouldn’t be and that it’s unfair that it does.”
Chloe points to Bill’s personal commitment here, “We take turns in our relationship, speaking personally.”
As for what else we can do for gender equality?
“I think the targets the ALP have set [for women in parliament], I’m really proud of that. We set targets for financial goals. Why wouldn’t we set targets in politics?
“I get really concerned about the messages young girls get about who they are and what they should look like. We need to make sure our girls are not constantly bombarded.”
And, if Bill is elected, what then for Chloe?
You get the impression she has been concentrating more on the campaign, the lead up to Saturday rather than thinking about what might happen after that.
But she’s writing a book on Australian family life in the 21st century, an ongoing project for her.
As for Sunday morning, July 3? While we might wish Chloe a sleep in and a lazy Melbourne brunch, it sounds like family life will, as it ever does, plough relentlessly but joyfully on.
Copyright © 2016 — Digital engagement provided by Harris Partners
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THE ANTI-ASBESTOS LOBBY'S NEW WAY TO GET RICH. NOW IT IS EUROPE'S TURN
Anti-asbestos lobbyists and activists are exerting pressure on the European Commission, demanding the establishment of a mandatory special-purpose program to dismantle every product that has ever been manufactured containing asbestos in the EU. The question is, whose interests does such a program really promote?According to a document that journalists managed to get their hands on, the European Parliament is going to consider a declaration in December on the need for the complete removal of asbestos from all buildings and infrastructure in EU countries. Given the fact that a huge number of buildings in post-war Western Europe were constructed using asbestos-containing materials, we can get a feel for the scope of the potential market that the removal or abatement lobby is creating for its own personal gain. In Poland alone, the asbestos removal market totals approximately 9 billion EuroIn 2005, the anti-asbestos lobby forced the EU and a number of other countries to prohibit the use of all types of asbestos, regardless of profound biochemical and risk-profile differences between fiber types. The legislators ignored the fact that amphibole asbestos (the form of the mineral that is detrimental to human health) was universally prohibited well before the law was adopted. This means that the true purpose of the document was to snuff out demand for chrysotile asbestos, which is completely safe when used in controlled conditions. In fact, there isn’t a single field in the EU where amphibole asbestos can be mined, so the ban on this affordable building material provided synthetic fiber manufacturers with a competitive advantage. The adopted document became the foundation of numerous lawsuits aimed at seeking monetary compensation from people who worked with the supposedly harmful substance.According to a study conducted by the RAND Institute for Civil Justice, by the end of the 2000’s the number of anti-asbestos lawsuits exceeded 600,000, with over 6,000 companies acting as defendants. The total amount of compensation is estimated at 200 to 265 billions USD.The United States stands at the forefront of those seeking monetary recompense. Wide-spread legal campaigns helped the country earn hundreds of billions of dollars on anti-asbestos litigation. But by the end of the 2000’s many of these cases were marked scandals involving forgery and mis-representation. There have been cases where law firms (charging a commission of 70 percent) used the same X-ray image for thousands of individual applicants, or when they had a corrupt doctor give the same diagnosis to all of their patients, using information dictated by the lawyers themselves. Today, the market for legal cases in the US is finally drying up. In their search for profit, anti-asbestos activists have now turned to a new prospect: the mandatory removal of asbestos — no matter if there is a health risk or not — and this can mean big money for decades to come.The anti-asbestos lobbyists have also adopted a new slogan: «The best way to prevent asbestos-related diseases is to remove asbestos from the existing buildings and infrastructure, as millions of tons of this deadly substance still remain there today.» And unlike in 2005 when the goals of the anti-asbestos lobby still seemed selfless (disguised as concerns about human health), the new requirements for its removal will cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of euros. Might these developments be planned rather than accidental, and actually betray a step-by-step strategy? What if from the very beginning lobbyists had been willing to subjugate the construction industry of EU countries for their own ends? In any event, the names of the final beneficiaries of the anti-asbestos hysteria are now out in the open.
Is chrysotile dangerous to workers and how?
Dusts or airborne fibres including glass fibre, synthetic fibre, chrysotile fibre, stone dust, gasoline fume, exhaust fume, all are dangerous, if workers inhale and are exposed to them for a long period of time. However, the processing of chrysotile fibre as a raw material in manufacturing factories is properly controlled and thus, poses no risks to workers. Once the fibres are covered by cementous slurry, they are locked-in permanently and cannot escape.
Are workmen installing or fixing asbestos cement roof at risk of exposure to chrysotile?
Typical test results of air sampling show that fibre concentration is around 0.07 fibre/cc during cutting and installation of chrysotile cement roofing sheets. This is far below the level of 0.5 fibre/cc envisaged. There will be no risk for workmen or carpenters if they follow properly recommended work practices while installing or fixing roofing sheets.
Is there any evidence of workers who suffer from asbestos related diseases in Thai factories?
Thai manufacturers follow recommendations from the Ministry of Industry and Ministry of Public Health. They provide health check-up and lung x-ray for all employees annually. There is no evidence regarding the disease up to date.
Chrysotile Highlights
What is chrysotile?
Differences between types of asbestos fibres
Asbestos usages today VS. in the past
Common misperception about chrysotile
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Town, postcode, Attraction:
History on 21st July
Tony Blair Elected Labour Leader
Battle of Shrewsbury
First Lord’s Test Match
Lord of the Rings Published
The 21st of July 1954 AD
Some 17 years after The Hobbit arrived charmingly in our national consciousness, J.R.R. Tolkien published the first volume of the follow-on story, Lord of the Rings. The gap is explained by his work as an English Professor at Pembroke and later Merton College in Oxford; but also it appears by the disorganised way in which he wrote, requiring much revision.
His spat with publishers George Allen & Unwin didn’t help either – the book begun shortly after The Hobbit was finished was only completed in 1949, but they were not keen on publishing the companion work The Silmarillion (incomplete at that time) as the writer wished so he went over to Collins. When Collins suggested Lord of the Rings be extensively edited down Tolkien went back to Allen & Unwin, who given the vastness of the work decided to publish in three volumes spaced over a year and more. The first, The Fellowship of the Ring, came out on July 21 1954.
Opinion on the work is sharply divided: it is (improbably) credited with inventing the whole fantasy genre, and generations of devotees will hear no word against it; but others find the writing turgid – they are strongly advised to avoid the Silmarillion - and share the view of one of the Inklings, the literary group that included Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, who during a reading of one chapter exclaimed: “Not another fxxxing elf.” It cannot be denied, however, that the story if not the style is gripping. It is equally hard to disagree with the Collins view of its need for shortening.
More famous dates here
6125 views since 3rd November 2010
People to whom nothing has ever happened cannot understand the unimportance of events. - T S Eliot
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கண்ணோட்டம்
நிறுவன கட்டமைப்பு
பிரதான தொழிற்பாடுகள்
எம்முடன் இணையுங்கள்
சேவைகள்
வர்த்தக பேச்சுவார்த்தைகள்
பலதலைப்பட்ச வர்த்தக உறவுகள்
இருதலைப்பட்ச விவகாரங்கள்
பிராந்திய விவகாரங்கள்
மூலச்சான்று பத்திரத்தை விநியோகித்தல்
EU GSP
ஏனைய GSP
இந்தோ - இலங்கை சுதந்திர வர்த்தக உடன்படிக்கை (ISFTA)
பாகிஸ்தான் - இலங்கை சுதந்திர வர்த்தக ஒப்பந்தம் (PSFTA)
சார்க் முன்னுரிமை வர்த்தக ஏற்பாடு (SAPTA)
தெற்காசிய சுதந்திர வர்த்தக பகுதி (SAFTA)
ஆசிய பசிபிக் வர்த்தக ஒப்பந்தம் (APTA)
வர்த்தக முன்னுரிமையின் உலகளாவிய அமைப்பு
வதிவிட விசாக்களுக்கான பரிந்துரை
REX System Registration
கூட்டு வர்த்தகம் மற்றும் பொருளாதார ஒத்துழைப்பு
வெளிநாட்டு வர்த்தக பிரதிநிதித்துவம்
நூலக மற்றும் உலக வர்த்தக நிறுவன உசாத்துணை நிலையம்
உங்கள் நிறுவனத்தின் பதிவு
DOC அறிவிப்புகள்
REX முறைமை
செய்தி மற்றும் நிகழ்வுகள்
தரவிறக்கங்கள்
வினா விடை
வினா விடை - பொது
வினா விடை - REX முறைமை
FAQ's - Trade Remedy Measures
விசாரணை
தொடர்பு விபரங்கள்
இருக்குமிடம்:
பிரிவு: Indo - Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement (ISFTA)
Free Trade Agreement Between the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and the Republic of India
The Government of the Republic of India and the Government of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, (hereinafter referred to as the "Contracting Parties"). CONSIDERING that the expansion of their domestic markets, through economic integration, is a vital prerequisite for accelerating their processes of economic development bearing in mind the desire to promote mutually beneficial bilateral trade. CONVINCED of the need to establish and promote free trade arrangements for strengthening intra-regional economic cooperation and the development of national economies. FURTHER RECOGNIZING that progressive reductions and elimination of obstacles to bilateral trade through a bilateral free trade agreement (hereinafter referred to as "The Agreement") would contribute to the expansion of world trade. HAVE agreed as follows:
The Contracting Parties shall establish a Free Trade Area in accordance with the provisions of this Agreement and in conformity with relevant provisions of the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade, 1994.
The objectives of this Agreement are:
To promote through the expansion of trade the harmonious development of the economic relations between India and Sri Lanka .
To provide fair conditions of competition for trade between India and Sri Lanka
In the implementation of this Agreement the Contracting Parties shall pay due regard to the principle of reciprocity
To contribute in this way, by the removal of barriers to trade, to the harmonious development and expansion of world trade
For the purpose of this agreement:
"Tariffs" means basic customs duties included in the national schedules of the Contracting Parties.
"Products" means all products including manufactures and commodities in their raw, semi-processed and processed forms.
"Preferential Treatment" means any concession or privilege granted under this Agreement by a Contracting Party through the elimination of tariffs on the movement of goods.
"The Committee" means the Joint Committee referred to in Article XI.
"Serious Injury" means significant damage to domestic producers, of like or similar products resulting from a substantial increase of preferential imports in situations which cause substantial losses in terms of earnings, production or employment unsustainable in the short term. The examination of the impact on the domestic industry concerned shall also include an evaluation of other relevant economic factors and indices having a bearing on the state of the domestic industry of that product.
"Threat of serious injury" means a situation in which a substantial increase of preferential imports is of a nature so as to cause "Serious injury" to domestic producers, and that such injury, although not yet existing is clearly imminent. A determination of threat of serious injury shall be based on facts and not on more allegation, conjecture, or remote or hypothetical possibility.
"Critical circumstances" means the emergence of an exceptional situation where massive preferential imports are causing or threatening to cause "serious injury" difficult to repair and which calls for immediate action.
Elimination of Tariffs
The Contracting Parties hereby agree to establish a Free Trade Area for the purpose of free movement of goods between their countries through elimination of tariffs on the movement of goods in accordance with the provisions of Annexures A & B which shall form an integral part of this Agreement.
General Exceptions
Nothing in this Agreement shall prevent any Contracting Party from taking action and adopting measures, which it considers necessary for the protection of its national security, the protection of public morals, the protection of human, animal or plant life and health, and the protection of articles of artistic, historic and archaeological value, as is provided for in Articles XX and XXI of the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade, 1994.
National Treatment
The Contracting Parties affirm their commitment to the principles enshrined in Article III of GATT 1994.
State Trading Enterprises
Nothing in this Agreement shall be construed to prevent a Contracting Party from maintaining or establishing a state trading enterprise as understood in Article XVII of General Agreement on Tariff and Trade, 1994.
Each Contracting Party shall ensure that any state enterprise that it maintains or establishes acts in a manner that is not inconsistent with the obligations of the Contracting Parties, under this Agreement and accords non-discriminatory treatment in the import from and export to the other Contracting Party.
Rules of Origin
Products covered by the provisions of this Agreement shall be eligible for preferential treatment provided they satisfy the Rules of Origin as set out in Annexure C to this Agreement which shall form an integral part of this Agreement.
For the development of specific sectors of the industry of either Contracting Party, lower value addition norms for the products manufactured or produced by those sectors may be considered through mutual negotiations.
Safeguard Measures
If any product, which is the subject of preferential treatment under this Agreement, is imported into the territory of a Contracting Party in such a manner or in such quantities as to cause or threaten to cause, serious injury in the importing Contracting Party, the importing Contracting Party may, with prior consultations except in critical circumstances, suspend provisionally without discrimination the preferential treatment accorded under the Agreement.
When action has been taken by either Contracting Party in terms of paragraph I of this Article, it shall simultaneously notify the other Contracting Party and the Joint Committee established in terms of Article XI. The Committee shall enter into consultations with the concerned Contracting Party and endeavor to reach mutually acceptable agreement to remedy the situation. Should the consultations in the Committee fail to resolve the issue within sixty days, the party affected by such action shall have the right to withdraw the preferential treatment.
Domestic Legislation
The Contracting Parties shall be free to apply their domestic legislation to restrict imports, in cases where prices are influenced by unfair trade practices like subsidies or dumping. Subsidies and dumping shall be understood to have the same meaning as in the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade, 1994 and the relevant WTO Agreements.
Balance of Payment Measures
Notwithstanding the provisions of this Agreement, any Contracting Party facing balance of payments difficulties may suspend provisionally the preferential treatment as to the quantity and value of merchandise permitted to be imported under the Agreement. When such action has taken place, the Contracting Party, which initiates such action shall simultaneously notify the other Contracting Party.
Any Contracting Party, which takes action according to paragraph 1 of this Article, shall afford, upon request from the other Contracting Party, adequate opportunities for consultations with a view to preserving the stability of the preferential treatment provided under this Agreement.
A Joint Committee shall be established at Ministerial level. The Committee shall meet at least once a year to review the progress made in the implementation of this Agreement and to ensure that benefits of trade expansion emanating from this Agreement accrue to both Contracting Parties equitably. The Committee may set up Sub-Committees and/or Working Groups as considered necessary.
In order to facilitate cooperation in customs matters, the Contracting Parties agree to establish a Working Group on customs related issues including harmonization of tariff headings. The Working Group shall meet as often as required and shall report to the Committee on its deliberations.
The Committee shall accord adequate opportunities for consultation on representations made by any Contracting Party with respect to any matter affecting the implementation of the Agreement. The Committee shall adopt appropriate measures for settling any matter arising from such representations within 6 months of the representation being made. Each Contracting Party shall implement such measures immediately.
The Committee shall nominate one apex chamber of trade and industry in each country as the nodal chamber to represent the views of the trade and industry on matters relating to this Agreement.
Each Contracting Party shall accord sympathetic consideration to and shall afford adequate opportunity for, consultations regarding such representations as may be made by the other Contracting Party with respect to any matter affecting the operation of this Agreement.
The Committee may meet at the request of a Contracting Party to consider any matter for which it has not been possible to find a satisfactory solution through consultations under paragraph 1 above.
Any dispute that may arise between commercial entities of the Contracting Parties shall be referred for amicable settlement to the nodal apex chambers. Such references shall, as far as possible, be settled through mutual consultations by the Chambers. In the event of an amicable solution not being found, the matter shall be referred to an Arbitral Tribunal for a binding decision. The Tribunal shall be constituted by the Joint Committee in consultation with the relevant Arbitration Bodies in the two countries.
Any dispute between the Contracting Parties regarding the interpretation and application of the provisions of this Agreement or any instrument adopted within its framework shall be amicably settled through negotiations failing which a notification may be made to the Committee by any one of the Contracting Parties. Article
Duration and Termination of Agreement
This Agreement shall remain in force until either Contracting Party terminates this Agreement by giving six months written notice to the other of its intention to terminate the Agreement.
The Agreement may be modified or amended through mutual agreement of the Contracting Parties. Proposals for such modifications or amendments shall be submitted to the Joint Committee and upon acceptance by the Joint Committee, shall be approved in accordance with the applicable legal procedures of each Contracting Party. Such modifications or amendments shall become effective when confirmed through an exchange of diplomatic notes and shall constitute an integral part of the Agreement. Provided however that in emergency situations, proposals for modifications may be considered by the Contracting Parties and if agreed, given effect to through an exchange of diplomatic notes.
Annexures to be finalized
Annexure D(i) and D(ii) (Negative Lists of India and Sri Lanka respectively), E (Items on which India has undertaken to give 100% tariff concession on coming into force of the Agreement) and F (Items on which Sri Lanka has undertaken to give 100% tariff concession on the coming into force of the Agreement) shall be finalised within a period of 60 days of the signing of this Agreement. All the Annexures shall form an integral part of the Agreement
The Agreement shall enter into force on the thirtieth day after the Contracting Parties hereto have notified each other that their respective constitutional requirements and procedures have been completed.
In witness where of the undersigned, duly authorised thereto by their respective Governments, have signed this Agreement done in duplicate at New Delhi this 28th day of December 1998 in two originals in the English language.
The Embassy of Sri Lanka undertakes a Trade...
Australian Travel Agents visit to Sri Lanka on...
27 ஜூன் 2019
Sri Lanka “Theme Country “at the 6th South...
அனைத்து செய்திகளையும் பார்க்க
வணிகத் திணைக்களம்
4வது மாடி, "ரக்சன மந்திரைய",
#21, வோக்சோல் வீதி,
கொழும்பு 02.
இலங்கை.
+94 112 329 733/ 2 346 114
fortrade@doc.gov.lk
தொடர்புடைய இணைப்புகள் - உள்நாடு
இலங்கை அரச உத்தியோகபூர்வ இணைய நுழைவாயில்
கைத்தொழில் மற்றும் வணிகம் பற்றிய அமைச்சு
வெளிநாட்டு அலுவல்கள் அமைச்சு, இலங்கை
இலங்கை ஏற்றுமதி அபிவிருத்திசபை
முதலீட்டுச் சபை
இலங்கை தேயிலை வாரியம்
இலங்கை சுற்றுலா வாரியம்
வர்த்தக சேம்பர்ஸ் மற்றும் வர்த்தக சங்கங்கள்
பதிப்புரிமை © 2019 வணிகத் திணைக்களம். அனைத்து உரிமைகளும் கையிருப்பில் கொண்டது.
வடிவமைப்பு மற்றும் அபிவிருத்தி செய்யப்பட்டது Procons Infotech
இறுதியாகத் திருத்தப்பட்டது: 17 July 2019.
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Computer science professor selected as ACM Distinguished Member
Computer science professor Weisong Shi has been selected as an Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Distinguished Member for his significant impact on the computing field.
“I am so happy to be selected by ACM for this great honor that recognizes my contributions on distributed systems and energy efficient software,” said Shi. “I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Wayne State University's Career Development Chair program, which allows me to start working on energy efficiency after getting tenure.”
This is just one of the many honors Shi has received this year. Shi was a recipient of the College of Engineering Faculty Research Excellence Award. In August, he was appointed to editorial positions for two industry publications.
His research interests include mobile and cloud computer systems. Shi’s group has made significant contributions to the field on power profiling and management. pTop, a tool that can tell users how much power/energy an app has used, has been downloaded more than 600 times all over the world since its release in 2010.
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Phonetics and phonology - Starter
Group discussion questions
You could start the lesson by asking students questions such as:
How many different speech sounds does the English language have?
How can we categorise and label speech sounds? E.g. how would you describe the difference between the ch and the t sound in chat? Or the vowel sounds in keep and kip?
How can we write down speech sounds? I.e. how can we capture the difference between a northern British accent saying bath and a southern British accent saying bath?
The 'answers' are as follows:
Roughly 44 - but this depends on an individual's accent. It's important to stress the difference between written and spoken language here - the written system of English has 26 letters (or graphemes); the spoken system of English has 44 speech sounds (which we can call phonemes). Because there is a 'mismatch' between the number of graphemes and phonemes, meaning that we can say that English is a non-phonetic language. The way that graphemes and phonemes relate to each other is called the grapheme-phoneme correspondence system.
There are various ways of categorising speech sounds. At a basic level, we can seperate sounds into vowels and consonants. Vowels are 'open' sounds, meaning there is no constriction or obstructions present in their articulation - just open your mouth and say 'ahhh'! Consonants are formed by various narrowings or constrictions in the vocal tract, as different vocal articulators (teeth, lips, tongue, etc.) combine. We will see that there are further ways of categorising and labelling sounds.
We use the international phonetic alphabet for this. This is a system for writing down all the known sounds of the world's languages. Each sound has a different written symbol - for example, the phonetic alphabet symbol for the vowel sound in cat is /æ/. The next activity looks at this in more detail.
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Filmography from Nicolas Roeg
Filmography from : Nicolas Roeg
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Carl Schultz (21 episodes, 1992-1993), Simon Wincer (6 episodes, 1992-1993), René Manzor (2 episodes, 1992-1993), Ellery Ryan (2 episodes, 1992), Bille August (2 episodes, 1993), Mike Newell (2 episodes, 1993), Vic Armstrong (1 episode, 1992), Terry Jones (1 episode, 1992), Jim O'Brien (1 episode, 1992), David Hare (1 episode, 1993), Joe Johnston (1 episode, 1993), Dick Maas (1 episode, 1993), Syd Macartney (1 episode, 1993), Peter MacDonald (1 episode, 1993), Gillies MacKinnon (1 episode, 1993), Deepa Mehta (1 episode, 1993), Gavin Millar (1 episode, 1993), Nicolas Roeg (1 episode, 1993), Michael Schultz (1 episode, 1993), Robert Young (1 episode, 1993), 1993
The now legendary, almost mythical character of Indiana Jones once had a childhood. Every episode starts out with the elderly man that he is in the 1990's getting into a specific situation where he has to tell a story from his past. The stories go back to when he was ten years old and on a world tour with his father, and to his late-teens when he fought in World War I....
The Man Who Fell to Earth, Nicolas Roeg, 1976
Thomas Jerome Newton is a humanoid alien who comes to Earth to get water for his dying planet. He starts a high technology company to get the billions of dollars he needs to build a return spacecraft, and meets Mary-Lou, a girl who falls in love with him. He does not count on the greed and ruthlessness of business here on Earth, however....
Don't Look Now, Nicolas Roeg, 1973
Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie star in Nic Roeg’s brilliantly atmospheric adaptation of the novel by Daphne du Maurier. Following the death of their daughter, John and Laura Baxter travel to Venice where he is to oversee the restoration of an old church. Here they encounter a pair of elderly sisters: one of them a blind psychic who claims to have been in communication with the couple’s dead child. Whilst Laura is intrigued John resists...
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Exclusive Author's Photo as Scene from the Novel; preview of the upcoming "Hell" by Robert Olen Butler
As mentioned in my review of "Severance: Stories", Robert Olen Butler's upcoming novel "Hell" became a highly awaited September release for me and a review of it will be forthcoming here around the publication date.
Mr. Butler was very kind to send me some extra material, including an author's photo that actually represents a scene from the novel.
As a limited preview I include two lines from the first page of the novel, lines that would always make me get and read such a book asap:
"...it’s the Evening News from Hell. And now here’s your anchorman, looking a little fragile himself, Hatcher McCord.” The voice of Beelzebub, Satan’s own station manager, mellifluously fills...."
"Later, in our ongoing series of interviews, ‘Why Do You Think You’re Here?’, we speak to the Reverend Jerry Falwell and to George Clemens, inventor of the electric hand dryer for public restrooms.” "
The Reader said...
Hi Liviu
Yeah these lines really make me want to rread the book " ‘Why Do You Think You’re Here?’, we speak to the Reverend Jerry Falwell"
This looks like a fun book.
Mihir
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Home Local News Crime Police Log: Theft, Harassment, Public Drunkenness, etc
Police Log: Theft, Harassment, Public Drunkenness, etc
WAYNESBORO — The following citations have been reported by Waynesboro Police Department:
Joshua M. Mangum, Orrtanna, PA, has been cited for retail theft after several items were stolen from a business on S. Potomac Street on May 24 at 8:03 p.m.
Roger L. Betts, Waynesboro, has been cited for retail theft after several items were reported stolen from a business on S. Potomac Street on May 26 at 11:15 a.m.
Cherub L. Brechbill, Waynesboro, has been cited for public drunkenness after a disturbance was reported on May 26 at 6:56 p.m. on Brown Street.
Christian I. McCartney, Hagerstown, Maryland, has been cited for criminal trespass after an incident occurred on Hawbaker Avenue on May 30 at 10:51 a.m.
Alyssa K. Reed and William J. Beicht, both of Waynesboro, have been cited for harassment after a domestic was reported on May 31 at 5:13 p.m. on W. Main Street.
Jonathan E. Frisby, Waynesboro, has been cited for public drunkenness after police were requested to do a welfare check on June 9 at 3:54 a.m. on W. Second Street.
Paul S. Wilson, no fixed address, has been cited for retail theft and public drunkenness after it was reported several items were stolen from a business on S. Potomac Street on June 10 at 1:35 a.m.
Janie L. Reed, Mercersburg, has been cited for accident involving damage to an unattended vehicle or property after a hit and run occurred on June 15 at 11:03 a.m. on W. Second Street.
Source: Waynesboro Police Department
Sourced via CRIMEWATCH®: https://franklin.crimewatchpa.com/waynesboropd/60062/post/waynesboro-police-department-summary-arrests-1
SOURCECRIMEWATCH®
Waynesboro Police Department
Police warn of survey, mystery shopper scams
Challenging Police to Fight Gets a Visit to Local County Jail
Wednesday Night Assault Being Investigated
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PM Phuc visits Australian National University
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc visited the Australian National University (ANU), one of the world’s top ten research universities, right after his arrival in Canberra on March 14 (local time).
PM visits Auckland University of Technology, meets OVs in New Zealand
Grand welcome ceremony for PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc in Australia
PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc (sixth, right, front) poses for a group photo during his visit to the Australian National University.
Talking with the ANU leaders, lecturers and students, the PM highlighted Vietnam’s dynamic economy, saying the country has set up trade ties with over 230 countries and territories worldwide and signed 12 free trade agreements (FTAs).
Vietnam has also joined many international organisations such as the UN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB), he said.
The leader highly valued Australia’s support for and cooperation with Vietnam, especially in education, high-tech agriculture and climate change response, adding that the two countries have also cooperated in many multilateral forums and engaged in many regional trade and investment agreements, with the latest being the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).
Vietnam and Australia have also shared viewpoints on issues on keeping peace and ensuring regional security, including the East Sea matter, PM Phuc said.
He also informed the ANU leaders, lecturers and students that during his ongoing visit to Australia, the two sides will officially elevate their relationship to a strategic partnership.
Responding to ANU Chancellor Gareth Evans’s question regarding Vietnam’s business environment, the PM said the Vietnamese Government has continuously improved the domestic business environment, which has been recognised by prestigious organisations like the WB and the World Economic Forum.
Mentioning prospects for educational cooperation between Vietnam and Australia, he expressed his hope that the ANU will expand its connection with Vietnamese educational facilities to exchange experience and students.
“We are ready to create the best conditions for the ANU and other universities of Australia to step up educational collaboration with Vietnam,” he stressed.
He noted that the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training is scheduled to sign a cooperation agreement with the Australian Department of Education and Training for 2018-2023.
Following the talk, PM Phuc had a roundtable with leaders of the ANU, during which he emphasised the fruitful relationship between Vietnam and Australia, particularly in education and training.
He noted that about 30,000 Vietnamese students are studying in Australia, the highest number of Vietnamese students in a foreign country, saying the figure reflects the confidence of Vietnamese students and their parents in Australian universities.
Besides, up to 60,000 Vietnamese graduates from Australian educational facilities have returned home to serve the nation, the leader added.
PM Phuc said apart from cooperation in trade, investment and other areas, the affiliation in education-training should be intensified after the two countries elevate their relationship to a strategic partnership.
Later the same day, PM Phuc met with the Vietnamese Embassy’s staff and representatives of the Vietnamese community in Australia.
The leader asked the embassy and the overseas Vietnamese to contribute more to enhancing trade ties between Vietnam and Australia, surpassing the present figure of 7 billion USD.
The Party and State always consider the Vietnamese community abroad an integral part of the nation, he said, noting his hope that the OVs will unite and look towards the homeland.
The 40-member club of Vietnamese scientists in Canberra also made debut on this occasion.
Tag Australia Australian National University cooperation education Nguyen Xuan Phuc PM Prime Minister visit
Defence Minister welcomes Cambodia’s interior ministry official
Australia-Vietnam Strategic Partnership must be forward looking: Aussie Prof
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc begins Australia visit
NA talks competition, higher education
Khanh Hoa authorities commemorate 64 Gac Ma naval martyrs
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Iran’s influence differs from military influence of others
TEHRAN, Mar. 03 (Press Shia) – Spokesperson of Iran’s Foreign Ministry Bahram Ghasemi criticized some countries for spreading Iranophobia to justify their heavy military expenditures.
Bahram Ghasemi reacted to the accusations leveled at Iran for using its influence in the region as a means to reach its goals. The Iranian diplomat who was addressing journalists on Friday elaborated on malevolent efforts of some countries to spread Iranophobia.
“We have witnessed, during the recent weeks, that some gatherings and officials of regional and cross-regional countries have referred to the regional influence of the Islamic Republic of Iran as an evil phenomenon to create worries and concerns about Iran,” said the Iranian diplomat. “The ministers of some countries of the region attending at Munich Security Conference and also the statement of Saudi King after his recent visit to Malaysia are bringing up the issue of Iran’s infiltration in the region and have voiced concern against it.”
Mr. Ghasemi tried to answer the question what these countries intend genuinely behind these claims and referred to the victory of the Islamic Revolution of 1979 which according to him realized the independence and emancipation of Iran from foreigners. He continued that due to Iran’s old roots of culture, civilization, and history and thanks to the rich of human recourses in Iran, the Islamic Republic tackled the tides and ebbs of the last years and accumulated more power in areas of politics, economy, science, technology, etc., to rise to a higher regional position.
“Certainly, Iran’s regional influence is undisputable, however this cultural and historic influence on other nations and Muslims has been there from the past and easily you can trace it in the works and ideas of some Iranian scholars,” asserted the spokesperson of Iran’s ministry of foreign affairs. “It is natural, with this cultural and historic background and history of opposing oppression of domestic and foreign exploiters to have a special place at the heart of the oppressed nations after the victory of the Islamic Revolution.”
He affirmed that the influence if spiritual, cultural and natural and not to be acquired, or traded or removed, by money, arms, and propaganda. “No country is able to eliminate this influence as it is beyond the will of countries.”
“Such influence is the fruit of history, civilization, culture, language, religion, and people, accrued in the course of centuries,” highlighted the Iranian diplomat. “The important thing here is the nature and essence of this influence which is undoubtedly different from what is said to be in the foreign gatherings, consciously or unconsciously, as a negative phenomenon, propagandized by some countries of the region.”
He underlined that the influence of the Islamic Republic of Iran is not of hard nature and not based on military power. Ghasemi said that a simple look at the military expenditures of the world and drawing a comparison between the military costs and the spending on arms acquisition made by Iran vis-à-vis some regional and cross-regional powers will easily clarify the truth.
“In addition, Iran’s military forces, in contrast with the armies of the region, have never got involved in any military operation against any country in the region and will never do, have never attacked any country for political ends, have never been dispatched to any country, nor have never felt greedy about the land of any other country.”
YNG/3922004
Tags : Bahram Ghasemi , Iran FM Spokesperson , Regional Issues
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Navy’s 44th fleet returns home
TEHRAN, Mar. 11 (Press Shia Agency) – The Iranian Navy’s 44th flotilla of warships returned home on Saturday morning after a five-month mission and foiling pirate attacks in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
The 44th fleet of Iran’s Navy, comprising Alvand and Bushehr logistical destroyers, ended its 150-day mission one Saturday morning by berthing at the coast of Iran’s Bandar Abbas were it was warmly received by families of sailors.
Unlike false claims by certain countries that Iran’s Navy is incapable of making presence in the Atlantic Ocean, the 44th fleet successfully accomplished its mission in the second largest of the world’s oceans.
During its expedition, the 44th Fleet of Army’s Navy moored at Dar es Salaam port on Tanzania’s Indian Ocean coast as well as at Durban Harbor in South Africa.
It is worth mentioning that the 30th and 38th fleets of the Iranian Navy had tied at Dar es Salaam port in the African country during their missions.
Iran’s Navy has managed to foil several attacks on both Iranian and foreign tankers during its missions in international waters especially uncharted waters in Gulf of Aden and Bab el-Mandeb.
In line with international efforts against piracy, the Iranian Navy has been also conducting anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden since November 2008 to safeguard the vessels involved in maritime trade, especially the ships and oil tankers owned or leased by Iran.
HA/3929006.
Tags : Iran's Navy , Navy Flotilla , Peace Message , South Africa
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The best ways to reach Evergreen are:
By phone at 206.632.3912. Voice mail is checked several times a day when the phone is not answered.
By e-mail sent to consultant Bill Zook at bill@evergreenpg.com.
Evergreen’s fax number is 206.829.2401, and mail and other deliveries should be addressed to:
Visiting Evergreen in Person
Evergreen leases Suite 22 in the University Business Center, which is on the third floor of the building just north of the northwest corner of NE 45th Street and 9th Avenue NE. The entrance to the building is about 100 feet north of NE 45th Street (just beyond the entrance for the AMC movie theater).
If you are coming by public transportation, several buses stop six blocks away or less and some of them connect to the University of Washington light rail station, which is near Husky Stadium and is about a 20-minute walk from the University Business Center.
If you are driving, your best bet for parking — especially if your visit will last longer than one hour — is one of the free two-hour spots on nearby streets. Alternatively, free parking in stalls 1 through 157 is available for up to one hour in the parking lot and garage north of the building (which are accessed from NE 47th Street between 9th Avenue NE and Roosevelt Way NE). To take advantage of this, note the number of the stall in which you have parked, go to the pay station to the right of Stall 73, and then follow these instructions:
Press any button to turn the machine on.
Enter your stall number.
Press “OK.”
Select option “5) More Selections . . .”
On the second screen, select option “1) Bus Ctr – 1 hour free.”
Enter the validation number (4500).
Remove the receipt from the machine and put it on the dashboard of your vehicle.
Larger (i.e., not “COMPACT”) stalls can be found in the lot, as well as in the garage to your right as you enter. Parking for disabled drivers can be found in Stall 90 (which is in the lot, up against the north end of the garage) or in a separate lot across 9th Avenue NE from the University Business Center. Getting to the building by car is easy if you follow the directions below and can be very frustrating if you don’t!!
If you are coming from west of the building (including from Interstate 5), drive east on NE 50th Street, turn right on 9th Avenue NE, and go south until you reach NE 47th Street. Turn left on NE 47th Street and then make an immediate right turn into the parking lot.
If you are coming from east of the building (including from the University of Washington campus), drive west on NE 45th Street, turn right on 9th Avenue NE, and go north until you reach NE 47th Street. Turn right on NE 47th Street and then make an immediate right turn into the parking lot.
If you are coming from the north or the south, you’ll need to bear in mind whether you are to the east or to the west of 9th Avenue NE. If you are to the east, then turn west when you come to NE 45th Street. If you are to the west, then turn east when you come to NE 50th Street.
jwillyz@msn.comContact 09.20.2016
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Home MUSC College of Dental Medicine Oral History Project, 2011 Harold Jablon, D.M.D., oral history interview, audio
Harold Jablon, D.M.D., oral history interview, September 26, 2011
Harold Jablon, D.M.D., oral history interview, audio
Title Harold Jablon, D.M.D., oral history interview, September 26, 2011
Creator Name Jablon, Harold
Contributor Name Fox, Brooke;Susan Hoffius
Source OH 5.1
Subject.LCSH Medical College of South Carolina (1952-1969);Medical University of South Carolina;Medical University of South Carolina. College of Dental Medicine;Dental students;Dental school--United States;Education, Dental--United States;Oral histories;Interviews;Jablon, Harold W.;Buhler, John;Fingar, Walter W.;McTeer, George C.;Owens, Cathy Moss
Description Harold W. Jablon, DMD, was a student in the first graduating class of the College of Dental Medicine (CDM), 1971. In his interview Dr. Jablon covers a variety of topics, beginning with his education and how he became interested in dentistry. He recalls his reasons for applying to the CDM, as well as the application process itself. Dr. Jablon describes the first dean, Dr. John Buhler, and his personal involvement with students from the first class. In addition, Dr. Jablon identifies early faculty and their positions in the college. He talks about classroom and clinical experiences in the CMD’s temporary facilities in Colcock Hall. He goes on to discuss his experiences in the military, starting his own dental practice, and his involvement with professional dental associations such as the South Carolina Dental Association. Additional topics include changes in dental practice and education since 1967, and Dr. Jablon’s continued support of the CDM.
Digital Collection MUSC College of Dental Medicine Oral History Project, 2011
Website http://digital.library.musc.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/oh005
Digitization Specifications Audio recorded using a Marantz digital recorder. Archival masters are WAV files.
Rights Copyright is held the Waring Historical Library, MUSC. For more information, please contact the Waring Historical Library.
Access Open to research. Use of materials is governed by Fair Use Guidelines. Use of material in excess of that permitted by Fair Use Guidelines requires written permission from the Waring Historical Library. Commercial use of tapes is governed by additional restrictions. Contact the repository for information.
Media Type Oral Histories;Manuscripts
Note This interview is part of “The College of Dental Medicine Oral History Project” series. These interviews document the experiences of early students, faculty, and staff. Nine interviews were conducted between September 2011 and March 2012 in preparation for the College’s 50th anniversary.
Citation The College of Dental Medicine Oral History Project, Waring Historical Library, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC.
Title Harold Jablon, D.M.D., oral history interview, audio
Type audio/mpeg
Format Sound
Media Type Oral Histories
Resource Identifier oh005_001_001
Transcript Brooke Fox: Dr. Jablon, I would like to start with basic background information, when and where you were born, where you went to school prior to coming to the College of Dental Medicine. Dr. Jablon: I was born in Spartanburg, South Carolina July 14, 1944. I went to grammar school and junior high and high school in Spartanburg then I went to Wofford College and finished Wofford in 1966 with a BS in chemistry and started dental school here in 1967 at the College of Dental Medicine and I was in the first graduating class. Fox: How did you decide to become a dentist? Dr. Jablon: Well, that goes back to when I was probably 13, 14 years old. From that time on I knew that my goal was to become a dentist. I had a dental appointment with Dr. Stinson who was our family dentist then and it was during the World Series time and I was his last appointment for the day. And he asked me -- he said, “Harold, do you want to go back to school or do you want to stay here and watch the baseball game with me?” And back then it was black and white TV so I said, sure, I'll stay and watch the game. So, we started talking and he showed me around and told me a lot about dentistry, and I always enjoyed working with people and working with my hands. I was making model planes and boats when I was five, six years old. So, from that time on, because of Dr. Stenson, I decided I wanted to become a dentist. So, I was fortunate when I was 12, 13 years old. I knew I wanted to become a dentist. I mean there's so many kids now, they finish school and they still don't know what they want to do so I was very, very fortunate in that aspect. And so that was my goal from the time I was 12, 13 years old. Fox: How did you decide upon the Medical College [of South Carolina]? Dr. Jablon: Well, I knew the State of South Carolina was starting a new dental school because we had no dental school at the time. The students from South Carolina either went to University of Virginia -- Medical College of Virginia in Richmond -- or University of Louisville in Kentucky. And they had a quota, so to speak, and they just took several students from the state each year. I did apply there. I did well there, but I knew -- I thought… [Loud noise] Fox: Sorry, sorry. Dr. Jablon: I thought it would be intriguing to be part of the new school because I love South Carolina. I had some dialogue with Dr. [John E.] Buhler, who was our first dean of the dental school. I also had some dialogue with Ike McClese, who was Senator Hollings' chief of staff, I believe, in Spartanburg at the time. So, I met with him. I met with Senator Hollings. Of course, I had a lot of dialogue and met with Dr. Buhler and I felt like I wanted to be a part of the new school. So, that's why I decided to hold off a year and come down here to Charleston to be a part of the new school. Fox: What do recall about the application process? Did you have to be interviewed? What was involved with that? Dr. Jablon: Well, we had to -- of course, like it is now. You had to take what's called a Dental Aptitude Test; called the DAT. And then, of course, you had to apply. What the application entailed I don't remember because it was so long ago, but we did have to apply. We did have to go through an interview process. We did have to have letter of recommendations from some instructors from college, and there was Wofford College in my case, and some personal letters of recommendation. But I do remember the DAT at that time. Now everything's computerized with the three dimensional objects and depth perception and stuff. We had to take a piece of chalk and carve dimensions on one end -- both ends like a triangle, a sphere and a little circle and there were some poor guys back then dropping their piece of chalk and breaking it because they -- I think that was -- after a couple of years they eliminated that, but that was an interesting part of the application process, taking the DAT. So, as they do now, they put a lot of weight on your Dental Aptitude Test because that does, in back then and still gives them an indication how the applicant can handle the dental school curriculum. Fox: Describe, if you can recall, your first day of class or when you first came to campus and all the new students. Were you all in one class together? Dr. Jablon: We were all in class together. We started off with a small class. We had 24 in my class. We ended up with either 17 or 19. I don't remember, but it was a congenial group and because we had a few socials when we started, everybody getting to know each other. Most of us were probably recent graduates. Well, in my case, I was a year after graduation. We did have a couple of classmates that were probably in their early 30's who had been out of school for several years, but decided they wanted to go into dentistry for various reasons. So, we had a good group and, of course, we worked very hard. And it wasn't long after that that we started basically all socializing together when we had time because we were a small group. And I'm sure we'll get into our relationship with the medical school class. I won't comment on that now, but we were involved with them also. But our instructors, Dr. Buhler, who came from Emory, he was on board probably a couple of years before the doors opened for the school to get things ready. He did a wonderful job at Emory. He did a fabulous job here at MUSC because we had a tremendous education. Will we get into that later or should I comment on that now? The education we received back then -- I don't recall what the student/faculty ratio was, but it was pretty small. We had a lot of retired military people on the faculty, Dr. [Walter A.] Hall [Jr.] was one. He was in the Navy. He was head of prosthetics. Dr. [Walter] Fingar was in the operative department. He ended up being dean of the dental school several years later. Dr. [Herbert C.] Butts, who was head of operative. We got a wonderful hands-on education, a lot of individual attention -- Dr. [Charles J.] King, crown and bridge -- because when I finished school I was stationed in the Navy at a naval air station in Jacksonville, Florida for two years. And we had 17 dentists there and their training ranged from Harvard to Chapel Hill, University of Michigan, and I did not feel inferior to any of them. As a matter of fact, I felt like our training was superior to the clinical training that they had so I felt very, very good about that. And, of course, we still put out a top-notch trained dentist. The training here has never wavered. We've always been up near the top in the national board exams and our clinical training here is second to none. Fox: So, your class size was small enough that you actually all went from one class to the next. You weren't divided up in half to make it manageable? Dr. Jablon: No, we were all in the same class, but one thing I mentioned we'd get into. Our dental classes, like, freshman year, like, dental anatomy where we had to carve teeth, prosthetics where we started to learn how to set up denture teeth, and things of that nature we were -- as our dental school class. We did not have the Basic Science Building back then and that was not finished until my senior year -- the fall of 1970. We had our classes like gross anatomy and microbiology, biochemistry, embryology all with the medical students in their classrooms because we did not have the faculty to accommodate that at that time. I know, because, like I say, our dental courses were just us, but the basic sciences that I mentioned were all with the medical students. So, we were sort of a pioneer, so to speak. When in our classes with the medical students we did intermingle with the medical students and, of course, like, from year to year and within the schools, you know, exams and stuff -- copies of them were handed down so you could study with them. And these were all with the medical students. We felt like a pioneer in the dental school part of it because there was no precedence set. We were the ones who set the precedent and I feel like, in many ways, we were the pioneers and paved the way for what transpired after our class. Susan Hoffius: At the time did your class have that sense of being the first and being -- needing to set the bar high? Dr. Jablon: Absolutely. We were very proud of ourselves and then, I guess I really don't mind saying it was a select group being the first class and I've got fond memories of all my classmates and we had a good time. We worked hard together. There was really never any sense of competition between the classmates. We were working together for a goal and that's establishing a precedent of what would go on beyond us. And I remember when I was asked several years ago to give a convocation talk for the dental school and one thing I remember I said. I told the students -- I said, your friends that you met here in dental school will be friends for life, that you'll never lose them. I said I know because I've tried, [laughs] just in joking, but I was still -- the ones who live in this area and South Carolina -- usually they show up at the alumni functions and so we're still in touch with the classmates and it's kind of neat. Hoffius: Did you live on campus or did you live off campus? Dr. Jablon: My freshman year we lived in what was called the Alumni House, which is now where the Harper Wellness Center sits. And most of the medical and dental students -- the freshman, unless they were married -- lived at the Alumni House. My sophomore year I lived with two medical students and I keep in touch with them. My junior year I lived with another dental student, Joe Webb, who is just recently retired. He's probably one of the classmates who we were proudest of. He retired as a two-star general -- major general -- he was the head of the Army Medical Dental Corps and he actually -- when the surgeon general was ill for a while -- for six months he was surgeon general of the United States and we still keep in touch and have a good time together. And then between my junior and senior year I got married so, of course, I lived with my wife my senior year. Fox: Can you describe living in the Alumni House briefly? Dr. Jablon: It was a small room. My roommate my freshman year was another dental student, Johnny McLaurinn, and unfortunately, he didn't make it past the freshman year. I guess he was too intrigued with the social life in Charleston rather than doing the work and so, but we did study a lot at the Alumni House. We had a library -- nothing, you know, not like what we have now, but we did go over to the dental school and study some, but mostly we studied at the Alumni House in our rooms there. And it was, like, one bathroom on every floor where everybody showered and cleaned up and it was -- it was interesting. It was quite an experience -- a memorable experience. Fox: I'd like to switch gears a little bit and focus on the early deans. Dr. Buhler, he was the dean when you began the program. Dr. Jablon: When I started, yes. Fox: And then he left in May of 1971 -- he resigned. Dr. Jablon: Yes, he was with us the whole four years. And, of course, he was there a couple years prior to opening the doors. He did a fabulous job. He was very close to all of us. As a matter of fact, I remember going over to his house. And he would have the class over for lunch or dinner and I remember he had a greenhouse. He grew plants and stuff and he gave me an Easter cactus, I think, right before graduation. And I still have it. I mean it's huge now. And something -- every time I look at it I think about Dr. Buhler, may he rest in peace. And he was a pretty stern fellow. He didn't tolerate a lot of nonsense, so to speak, but it was well worth it. It paid off. We knew where he was coming from and, I believe, Dr. Hall was the assistant dean, but he was also head of the prosthetics department. And he was a retired Navy captain and this was right at the height of Vietnam. Should I mention something? Hoffius: Yes. Dr. Jablon: Back then you had the draft. And I had a student deferment at Wofford and then when I went to graduate school for a year before dental school started at Carolina in chemistry, I had another student deferment there. Well, a couple of months into my first year here in dental school I got a letter from the draft board that they wanted me to come up to Fort Jackson for a physical. So -- which I did, but I had talked to Dr. Hall and we had nobody in any of the military programs in the dental school and the Navy had program called the Ensign 1925 program. I had some dialogue with Dr. Hall and he felt like I should apply for that. So, I applied for that and got a few more letters from the draft board and that was a pretty bad experience going up to Fort Jackson to have a physical with all the recruits up there. So, I came back and still more dialogue with the draft board. It looked like they were going to draft me out of dental school. But then I got my commission from the Navy one day and I was much relieved after that. Well, the next day I got a letter from the draft board. They granted me another student deferment, but I wrote them back and told them I did not need it anymore because I was commissioned as an officer in the Navy in which Dr. Hall was very proud of. And they made a big deal out of them. They took me to the Navy base and the media took some pictures of it. But after that -- back then, I guess, our sideburns were a little bit longer, but Dr. Hall called me in his office a few times and told me, “Harold, you need to shorten those sideburns a little bit.” And, I think, one time I maybe said something I shouldn't have. I remember I said, Dr. Hall, I'm not in the Navy yet. So, he didn't like that answer too much, [laughter] but we got along well and we had some wonderful faculty members and we did get along with them well. And if we had some socials, some of them would come because we were very, very close with the faculty. I remember Dr. [William George] Smith [Jr.], Dr. King, Dr. [James R.] Schmidt, who came down from medical dental school in New Jersey. He was in the crown and bridge department, also. But I remember we had wonderful training. We had wonderful faculty. Hoffius: So when you signed up for the Ensign 1925 program, that essentially deferred your military service until you finished dental school. Dr. Jablon: Until after I got out of dental school. Hoffius: And then you had a military commitment that you had to fulfill. Dr. Jablon: Right, yes, for two years so it meant that as soon as I graduated in June, I reported to the naval air station in July, so I had a month off. But it didn't -- which was wonderful training and we had, like I mentioned, about 17 dentists there and we rotated for six months on crown and bridge, endodontics, periodontics and oral surgery so it was wonderful training and I'm so glad that I did it. Between my sophomore and junior year in dental school I had to go to Newport, Rhode Island for what they called officer indoctrination school and that was enjoyable. We had lunch at the officers club every day there so I gained about 15 pounds. That's the heaviest I've ever been and between my sophomore and junior year is when I met my wife at a wedding in Jacksonville, Florida and all my classmates still kid me. We had three dates and we were engaged and then she moved to Charleston in January so we could kind of get to know each other before we got married. But here is 41 years later and she is just as passionate about MUSC as I am, which makes it easier for the things that we do for the school because she loves the school like I do. And my son went to school here also. He is a retinal surgeon here in Charleston. He went to medical school here and did his ophthalmology residency here so we've got a dear attraction to MUSC for a number of reasons. Fox: Did you have an adviser? Were you assigned an adviser when you became a student -- have someone to kind of mentor you? Dr. Jablon: Yes, that makes sense. To be honest with you, because, like I say, it was 44 years ago. I don't think we had a specific adviser, but it seems like every faculty member was an adviser and… Hoffius: Who would you say had the most influence or exerted the most influence on you as… Dr. Jablon: Probably -- well, a couple of them -- Dr. [Walter W.] Fingar who was in the operative department and he ended up becoming dean of the school for four or five years. I think he followed Dr. Hastings. I'm not sure. And, of course, Dr. [Charles J.] King, who was the head of the crown and bridge department and Dr. [John W.] Corcoran, also, he was head of the pediatric dentistry department and I still keep in touch with Dr. Corcoran. I am probably going name all of them. Hoffius: Well, what about them? I mean what -- the first person you mentioned what about him did you admire or did he -- if he had an influence on you what about that? Dr. Jablon: Well, Dr. Fingar just -- and, I guess some of them took special liking to all of us, some of them in particular, but it seemed like Dr. Fingar spent a lot of personal time with me in the clinic, making sure everything was just right and he was just genuinely concerned and interested, not only in me, but, I think, all our classmates. I think we all fell in love in with Dr. Fingar. Hoffius: Do you think the faculty also felt that sense of responsibility? You talked about how the students felt a sense of pride and responsibility in being the first class. Would you say that the faculty felt that same responsibility and pride? Dr. Jablon: Oh, I think so. And they were probably the ones who instilled it in us, I guess, kind of like a football coach getting the team fired up. I mean they got us all fired up and made everything exciting for us and Dr. [William George] Smith [Jr.] he was in removable prosthetics, I believe. And he was an older fellow when he came here, but he was probably like a father figure to all of us and he would -- nobody hesitated to pull him to the side and talk with him and ask him for advice and guidance. We just had an outstanding faculty that related to all of us and, I guess, they, in recruiting the faculty, they kept that in mind that we were a new school, a first class and they probably interviewed the faculty stronger than they interviewed our classmates because, I think, they knew, particularly, Dr. Buhler, knew what it took to relate to the students and, I mean, they just did an outstanding job with that -- recruiting the faculty and I guess, I don't mind saying the class, also. So, it was pretty much a fabulous, synergism, in fact, everybody fed off of everybody. And everybody helped everybody. We also had part-time faculty from the local dental community. Two that I particularly remember was Dr. Jackson, pediatric dentist, and Dr. Buddy Hinnant in endodontics. He was both a mentor and a friend and we still keep in touch. Like, as I mentioned before, it wasn't a competitive situation where this person tried to do better than the next one. We all helped everybody out. And it was a wonderful relationship. Fox: So, after your first year, when the next class came in, did your class kind of take the new students under its wings? Dr. Jablon: Under our wings. We sure did. And, as a matter of fact, I remember -- of course, I think Dan Sneed and -- I'm drawing a blank -- Dan and Eddie Collins and -- they were in the class behind us and we had a lot of good poop to give them, to tell them what to expect and we kind of took them under our wings, also. But I remember my senior year when Irene and I lived at Riverbends apartment and there were four dental students that lived under -- downstairs from us. One of them in particular, Phil Smith, who's been very involved in organizing dentistry in the state and done a lot for dentistry. As a matter of fact, his son, oldest son, just graduated from dental school last year. They would come upstairs all the time and say, “Harold, can you help me with this?” And because we didn't mind at all, helping them and -- because it was like I say, with the medical school, which was established in 1824, you know, here and they had a lot of classes in front of them and behind them, so to speak. Well, whatever you want to say. So they had some history and they knew sort of what to expect because -- numerous classes ahead of them. Dental school it wasn't so because the first four years -- we started our freshman year, then sophomore, junior and senior. So, every year there was a class behind us and, like I mentioned before, we felt like we were paving the way so the incoming classes they fed off of us and we helped them. Of course, then the incoming say freshman classes looked to the sophomore class ahead of them. The classes behind us had nobody to look to except us. So, it was a neat situation. We felt, like I mentioned before, very proud of ourselves and, I think, rightfully so. Fox: As you progressed through the program, were there changes made every year that you were aware of when the new class came in? That they [the faculty] had realized something didn't quite work and the new class -- or they still just kind of -- it was just an experimental… Dr. Jablon: That's a good question. I think I understand that. They changed some of the curriculum or the teaching aspect of it. I don't know. I'd probably say probably not. They probably didn't do a lot of changes because everything was really, you start off with the basics and, I think, probably in the mid-70's we started seeing a lot of change in dentistry. And that's when some of the teaching techniques had to change with more cosmetic dentistry, bonding with new composites and new materials. See back then, we didn't -- there was not a whole lot of research in dental materials and then shortly after we left, like, I'd say, we finished in 1971, but in the mid-70's that's when new products -- new materials and some new techniques started evolving. You know, implant dentistry started evolving then so we didn't have that part in our curriculum. But, yes, the curriculum did change, but it evolved with the change in dentistry. And MUSC was on the forefront of all that. Fox: Describe the impact the dental school had on campus. Did you notice, was there an impact? Dr. Jablon: Well, we were well received. Like I mentioned, we did a lot of socializing with the medical students. We did not have dental fraternities then. The medical school did and we were welcomed into some of the medical fraternities to join them to party with them so to speak. The first couple of years there was not much partying going on because we worked so very, very hard. But then when we got in the clinic we started getting a little free time and junior and senior year so we had a lot of socializing. Well, I remember every year the -- and I don't know if they still have it -- Alhambra weekend. But that was a big deal and we had our own dental school softball team and played against the medical school and we were well received and, I think, well respected. We had some good students so we -- and the classes we had together with the medical students like gross anatomy, biochemistry, embryology, neuroanatomy and all those we were well received. We made the dean proud of us the way we achieved in those classes. I wouldn't say competing with the medical school, but having the classes with the medical students we did just as well as they did. Fox: Can you describe graduation? Was there a big to-do as the first class that graduated? Dr. Jablon: I'm might get tears in my eyes thinking about that. It was a very festive weekend. We had -- I remember a party for everybody at the dean's house. You know, parents came. Of course, I don't think too many of us still have our parents with us -- the ones who graduated then, but they were proud of us and our accomplishments. Hoffius: That's okay. Dr. Jablon: They were very, very proud of us, the classmates, and it was just a wonderful weekend. It was truly a milestone to be part of history in the first graduating class. Fox: And you did graduate with the larger… Dr. Jablon: Yes, we were with -- same as it is now. We had our own section. We had our own robes and, I think, the whole community was just extremely proud of the seniors who were graduating, for what we had done. Fox: I read that you have received the South Carolina Society of Dentistry for Children Award at graduation. Dr. Jablon: That kind of caught me by surprise. We were just sitting there and I totally did not expect that. And I was sitting there and then they call my name out and, like I mentioned before, Dr. Corcoran was head of the pediatric dentistry department and I really -- I enjoyed treating kids. I always enjoyed being with kids when I was in high school and college. I was a counselor at Camp Skyuka -- the Spartanburg YMCA camp -- so I always enjoyed working with kids and enjoyed working on the children here in dental school. I can remember the first time I had a pulp exposure (nerve) doing operative on a pediatric patient. I was so upset and Dr. Jackson, a pediatric dentist in Charleston who taught part-time, came over and rescued me and settled me down. He said “Don't worry, we'll just get the calcium hydroxide out and do a little pulp cap on it and everything will be fine. I thoroughly enjoyed working on children while in school. I still do. As a matter of fact I'm -- even though I'm sort of retired. I sold my practice ten years ago. I'm working two days a week at a children's clinic in Columbia and still enjoy that and started to go into pediatric dentistry, but after two years in the Navy I was ready to go into private practice, which I did. I went to Columbia and I was in private practice for 35 years and sold my practice to a young lady who actually graduated from MUSC also. She was well trained. But I remember rarely did I refer a child patient out during my practice because I enjoyed treating them and you've got to have a lot of patience to do that, but I was proud of that award. I still have the plaque. I've got a room in the house which we set aside for sort of my study and I've got that plaque hanging up on the wall, which I'm very, very proud of. Thanks for mentioning that. I almost forgot about it. Fox: While you were in dental school the first African American student… Dr. Jablon: George McTeer. Fox: He came aboard and then the first female, Cathy Moss… Dr. Jablon: Yes, right, yes. Fox: Can you describe -- was there any… Dr. Jablon: Oh, there was no -- I mean they were well received. We all enjoyed meeting George, like any other student. We took him under our wings and -- I don't remember a lot about him. I think he was a freshman when I was a senior. And, I think, Cathy was probably a sophomore when I was a senior. I mean now we've got over 50 percent of the class is female. And because we're pushing for diversity, we're trying to recruit good students and, I think, we've got a great mix. And from what I remember about George and Cathy they were good students. They got along well with everybody. They were well received and we treated them just like one of our classmates and got along very, very well together. And, I think, they were pioneers in their way; in the way my whole class was when we started. Hoffius: When you started your practice in Columbia did you buy into a practice or did you start your practice from scratch? Dr. Jablon: What I did -- when I was in graduate school at South Carolina I was an avid four-wall handball player. And, fortunately, I still play handball three or four times a week. And I met a fellow, Carl Freedman, at the YMCA and he was playing handball. And we started playing together, became good friends. I told him I was going to dental school -- he was a dentist. So, we kept in touch with each other and he came down here several times during dental school. And then when I was in the Navy in Jacksonville, Florida he came down to visit with us. And he talked me into coming back to Columbia and going into practice with him. My choice was either -- I was thinking about going back to Spartanburg where I grew up, but Carl made it seem very interesting going back to Columbia. I had friends in Columbia from youth groups and stuff so we decided to go back to Columbia. Went into practice with Carl, actually, worked for him on a percentage basis back then. I stayed with him for about two and a half years and then bought some land, built an office. I was in private practice for 35 years and then sold my practice to Mary Gandhi [sp] is her married name now – Mary Murdock -- she's from Lancaster. I'll think of her maiden name. But I stayed with Mary for five years after she bought the practice, longer than I expected to. So, after five years I realized she was ready to be a solo practitioner who wanted to feel more like it was her practice rather than mine. As long as I was there the patients, they'd known me for 35 years and I was seeing third generations. I saw little kids when I first went into practice. If they liked me the parents came and then 20 years later low and behold little three- and four-year-old kids I was seeing their kids. So, I was seeing third generations and I still run into a lot of them in the grocery stores on some errand that may take 15, 20 minutes. An hour later I'll come back and Irene'll say, “what took you so long.” I'll say well I ran into so and so and we were catching up because they knew our kids, the history of them growing up and I knew -- and it was like a big family and it was -- I feel very blessed being able to practice so long. And thank God, I have good health and still enjoy dentistry. So, that's why I'm practicing two days a week, like I say, at a children's clinic. Actually, I'm working for Robert Ellis who graduated from MUSC in the mid-90's, I believe. And I remember Robert when he was, like, four years old. I carpooled him with my son to nursery school. So, we kind of joke a little bit now, you know, I carpooled him when he went in nursery school and now he's my boss. I'm working for him. Hoffius: That's how it goes. Dr. Jablon: But he just really appreciates what I do for him and it's not like a boss/employee relationship. But I kid him about that. So, that goes back a ways. That's a little bit of history relating to the school. Hoffius: Were you involved in what would be considered organized dental medicine in the state? Dr. Jablon: Yes, dentistry, yes. I was… Hoffius: Can you talk about that? Dr. Jablon: Yes. Shortly after I got back to Columbia I got involved in organized dentistry -- serving on committees for the state association and local -- Greater Columbia Dental Association and ended up being president of the Greater Columbia Dental Association, which I was proud of. I'm still involved with the South Carolina Dental Association and committees and do whatever I can. I didn't serve in administrative capacities with that, but our school -- I mean, seemed like early on I remember Chuck Hanna, Terry Kunkle, they were presidents of the SCDA, probably ten years after graduating from dental school. So, our graduates have always been involved with organized dentistry. And, as a matter of fact, we've got a mentoring program through the SCDA, which lots of graduates know the importance of staying in organized dentistry. I still try and stay involved with it, serving on committees. You probably want me to talk a little about being involved in MUSC. Hoffius: Sure. Dr. Jablon: It probably took me four or five years to realize what I owed the school for what they did for me -- for giving me the opportunity to do what I do and love and enjoy. But it probably took me four or five years to realize I need to give back to the school in any way I could. So, I got involved with, I think, first the alumni association. And Betsy Waters was head of the alumni association then. So, I got involved in that and, I think, a few years later I was actually helping her organize the dental school alumni association, but several years later I ended up being president of the Medical University Alumni Association. That was, I think, in the early 80's and then it was probably early 90's, maybe mid-90's, Betsy approached me and said, “Harold, I would like for you to be president of the Medical University Alumni Association.” I said, Betsy, I've done that before. She said “I know, but we want you to do it again.” [Laughter] So, of course, it was my pleasure and then I became involved in different committees. I remember the second time I was president of the alumni association I had to give a speech welcoming the graduates to the alumni association as alumni and it was -- maybe I shouldn't even say this, but I have -- I can go to sleep anywhere and -- I'm staying awake here -- but it was raining so it was inside at The Citadel Armory and it was kind of warm. So, I'm sitting up there on the stage and my wife and son are in the audience and I'm kind of bobbing and weaving a little bit and then, fortunately, not during -- when they called me up, but afterwards my wife said, “Harold, were you up there sleeping?” [Laughter] I said, Irene, no. I was just looking down at my notes and I was. And then fortunately, it's like a dream come true. I was appointed to the board of trustees here last year so I was up on the stage at graduation this -- 2011, but… Hoffius: Stayed awake. [Laughter] Dr. Jablon: I had no trouble staying awake with that. It was outside, but my involvement in the school has just been an absolute pleasure for me doing whatever I can for the school because they did so much for me. And then, more recently, for my son, and being involved in Dr. Greenberg's Campaign of Promise, and I actually started a reunion gift program for the dental school. And that was after our 25th reunion, which was 1996. And what we did with that -- got the idea let's have a fundraiser with our class, which we did. And we raised a good bit of money that first time so that's been an ongoing thing. Every class that has a 25th reunion, they have major fundraising so that's -- that's really -- I mean, brought in a lot of funds for the school. And, of course, with budget cuts now we need it more than ever. But that's something I was proud of starting because that caught on as being an ongoing thing. That's been very beneficial for the dental school. That's totally for the dental school. Hoffius: I want to go back to something you said earlier about how the students now know -- you said that they know the importance of being involved in organized dentistry. What do you think is important about being involved in organized dentistry? Dr. Jablon: Well, if, there's so much -- I think the main thing is there's so much government regulation in everything. And if we don't stay on top of it and kind of govern ourselves and do what's best for the public that we serve, somebody else is going to do it for us. So, it's better that we do it for ourselves and stay a strong association like the SCDA [South Carolina Dental Association] and American Dental Association. I think we're a model for doing what's right and doing what's right for the general public. Because I remember when PPO's started, back probably in the late 80's. Blue Cross Blue Shield tried to ram it down our throat, so to speak. But we, as organized dentistry, resisted it and instead of them coming to us and telling us this is the way you're going to do it, they saw that wasn't going to work so they came to us and said, let's do it together. So, if we stay involved in organized dentistry and, as a group, we'll always do what's best for organized dentistry, for the public that we serve. So, I think that that's the main key to being involved in organized dentistry. And we put on a social for the senior students every year -- the state dental association and, you know, we come in the school a couple times a year and do a seminar, do a lecture, so to speak, so they kind of get their feet wet, so to speak, and see what we're doing as a dental association. And they can see that it's best to stay involved in organized dentistry so we can control our own destiny, so to speak because there's so much going on at the state house all the time and we have to be involved. Hoffius: In any given general assembly year do you have a lot of issues that you're working on or is it different areas? Dr. Jablon: Oh, yes, well some dental hygiene issues -- all the organizations coming in from out of state and trying to do some things that should just be done by a trained dentist, so to speak. You know, I won't get into some of those issues, but we've got a strong lobby at the state house, which is an extension of the South Carolina Dental Association so we're on top of everything. And if we did not exist as an organization in lobbying at the state house, we would not be able to practice the way we want to, the way we enjoy and have some of the freedoms of practicing the way we're are accustom to practice dentistry. Hoffius: Good, thank you. And the students hear that and… Dr. Jablon: Oh, they see it, they accept it, they appreciate what we do coming into the school and the majority of them end up being involved in organized dentistry. And we've got a lot of children of dentists who have been involved in organized dentistry, like Terry Kunkle’s son's a dentist, Phil Smith is so involved in organized dentistry. His son just graduated so that things like that may be a key to having more students involved also. Well, the students of parents who were so involved in organized dentistry. It's kind of a trickledown effect, so to speak. So, we've got to get -- we've got a wonderful relationship with the College of Dental Medicine. We're trying to fully fund an endowed chair through the South Carolina Dental Association so we've got a wonderful relationship with the school, the dean, and the faculty. It's neat. Fox: I'm finished with my specific questions, but is there anything that we have not covered that you -- when we asked you to participate in this if there's something you really wanted to talk about. Dr. Jablon: Yes, there was something I was going to mention. We mentioned the Basic Science Building. Well, when -- you know it goes back to history. When we started our classes -- the dental classes were in Colcock Hall, which is now the administrative building. And it is, oh, my God, it is so much nicer now than when we went in there. I remember upstairs we had our crown and bridge and prosthetics lab and a classroom. Downstairs we had a few classrooms. Upstairs on the far left corner was one room that had one chair with one X-ray head. And where we did our clinical training was next door in a building called -- we called it the tin can. I mean it was like a modular building. We probably had, I don't know, ten or 12 chairs. And I'll get into the new building in a minute. So, it was -- we did have high speed driven hand pieces. We didn't start our training with belt driven hand pieces, but when I took the Florida boards, when I was in the Navy, we had to do it with belt driven hand pieces and the first time I had ever used a belt driven hand pieces. And my wife was my patient then. She still reminds of that, but when we had to do our endodontic training clinically in the tin can, so to speak, we had no X-ray head there. We had to take the patient out the door, up the outside stairway to the top floor to take an X-ray. And this patient would walk in the outside, and sometimes it was raining, with a rubber dam in their mouth and take the X-ray and then have to take them back downstairs. And because this went on -- in my junior year we got in the clinic. Now, they're getting in the clinic, of course, with a high tech training with the manikins and stuff, so, in their sophomore year or something. But it was our junior year before we got in the clinic. Then our senior year we finally got in the new Basic Science building. Excuse me. And that was, like, oh, my God, this is, like, you know, heaven here. I mean the facilities -- and it was state of the art at the time. And we were so happy to be in there. We actually had a dental lab where we could do our laboratory work and wax and cast for our prosthetics and we had a couple of dental laboratory technicians up there that actually trained us some. And we got along very well with them and they were very helpful to the students, but it was unbelievable getting in the new Basic Science building. And then as the years went on, we saw how that was getting outdated so, I think, neighboring states, like, Georgia and North Carolina until we got our new clinical facility they had probably 140 square feet per student. We had about 40 square feet per student. Now we've got about 140, 150 square feet per student, but, I mean, this new building is, like, I've seen it evolve from the ground floor up. They even took me through hardhat tours a few times and, I mean, it's the finest clinical facility in the country and -- I forgot where I was making a little talk to some of the students. But I told them I really would love to be a student again and be in the new building. But, like I mentioned earlier, my classmates and myself we felt like pioneers. We were pioneers. We paved the way. We set the precedent, but now to see how far we have come from the tin can building and walking to Colcock Hall, to take X-rays -- to see what we have now it's just absolutely incredible. Hoffius: What are your thoughts about the -- in the last year the matriculating class numbers have gone from, I think it was about 55 to… Dr. Jablon: Yes, 56 to 70 or 54 to 70. We have -- of course, now we have the space. We have the facilities and, I think, we're seeing dentistry go full circle. And by that I mean, when I went into practice we had a shortage of dentists and you could almost go out and open up an office on any street corner, so to speak, and be successful right away. Then we had sort of a capitation program where the federal government would -- gave the school so much money for every student that we had in school. So, we increased the size even though -- and all the schools did -- even though the supply and demand, as it -- the graduates increase might not have been there. But now we’re seeing more dentists retire than we're putting out graduates. So, it's running kind of full circle and the graduates up until say four or five years ago would almost have to go into practice with somebody. Now, we're starting to see that the opportunity is there to go into private practice by yourself because we're in -- what we're getting at we do need the increase in the dental school graduates now because the dentist population ratio is decreasing because we're having more dentists, kind of like myself, retiring than we're putting graduates out. But, also, I think six of those slots are dedicated to out of state students and the reason for that -- and one reason for that is they pay a higher tuition, with budget cuts, we need the extra money that it generates for the school. State support for the budget at MUSC is now 5.6 %. Ten years ago it was 80%. We might as well be a private institution now. It is incredible how we are doing more for less now under Dr. Greenberg’s leadership. It is also interesting to note that we have had some great deans of the College of Dental Medicine over the years. Dr. Sanders, our current dean, had the highest rating of any dean at MUSC last year and we are very proud of him. We have got a bright future at the College of Dental Medicine and have a nationally respected program that is greatly admired and facilities that are second to none. We’ve come a long way since 1967.
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Harold Jablon, D.M.D., oral history interview, transcript
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Trump loses loyalist Sarah Sanders in another White House departure
By Steve Holland, Roberta Rampton and Jeff Mason
Reuters June 13, 2019
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders, a fierce loyalist of President Donald Trump who channeled his combativeness toward the news media, will leave her job at month's end for a possible political future in her home state of Arkansas, Trump said on Thursday.
Sanders, who has worked with Trump since the early days of his unconventional run for office and became a national public figure in her own right, is the latest in a long line of senior advisers to leave the White House.
Sanders, 36, often compared the antics of the press corps to the behavior of her three young children and had largely backed Trump's dismissal of the news media as "the enemy of the people."
While ending her daily press briefings, she was often helpful to reporters behind the scenes.
She called the job "an honor of a lifetime" but said she was eager to spend time with her children, who are just getting out of school for the summer.
"I've loved every minute, even the hard minutes," Sanders said at a White House event, called onstage by Trump to a standing ovation, her voice trembling with emotion. "I have three amazing kids and I'm going to spend a little more time with them."
"She's a warrior," said Trump, who announced her departure on Twitter shortly before the event. "We've been through a lot together, and she's tough, but she's good."
Sanders' role had developed into that of a senior adviser and confidante of the president, one who is regularly brought into senior-level meetings.
She told reporters she told Trump of her decision on Thursday and that "he couldn’t have been nicer, more supportive, more understanding, more encouraging than he was.”
She did nothing to squelch speculation she might someday run for governor of Arkansas, a position once held by her father, Mike Huckabee, who twice ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination, including in 2016.
"I’ve learned a long time ago never to rule anything out. I do look forward to going back home," she told reporters.
Trump said he liked the idea.
"If we can get her to run for the governor of Arkansas, I think she'll do very well," Trump said.
'COUNTLESS MEMBERS OF THE FBI'
Trump, who has seen almost a complete turnover in his press and communications teams, did not immediately name a replacement. There was speculation that Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley could be a possible successor.
Trump's first press secretary, Sean Spicer, resigned abruptly after six months, having become the butt of late-night comedy lampoons for his blustery and fact-challenged arguments for Trump.
Sanders, who had been Spicer's deputy, initially had a less combative approach with journalists. But her fiery defenses of her boss drew criticism.
In 2017, Sanders told reporters she had heard from "countless members of the FBI" who wanted Trump to fire his FBI Director James Comey - an assertion she later cast as a "slip of the tongue" during the probe of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Her relationship with the press corps became particularly strained a year ago after a comedian hired by the White House Correspondents’ Association for its annual dinner mocked her appearance and penchant for spinning the truth as Sanders sat nearby at the head table.
In the months afterward, she was asked to leave a restaurant in Lexington, Virginia, because of her association with the Trump administration, a move she later said reflected more on the restaurant owners than on her.
Over time, Sanders retreated from the lectern, frustrating reporters by ending the long tradition of daily press briefings. Trump preferred to take questions himself from reporters and command the White House stage, and relegated Sanders and other staff to appearances on television to defend his policies.
Sanders' last briefing was 94 days ago, but Trump answers questions from reporters on a near-daily basis, including two extended sessions with them on Wednesday.
Sanders became a popular figure at Trump rallies, sought after for selfies by his supporters. In November, at his final rallies ahead of the congressional elections, Trump invited her on stage to speak briefly to the cheering crowds.
Sanders has long been rumored as a future gubernatorial candidate in Arkansas. The current governor, Republican Asa Hutchinson, began his second and final four-year term in January. The state's next regular gubernatorial election would be in 2022.
"Arkansas is a very red state, the Huckabee name carries a lot of weight there and if she ran, I can’t think of anyone that would have a chance of beating her if she decided to run," said Alice Stewart, a Republican strategist in Washington who is from Arkansas and worked for Huckabee while he was governor and then on his presidential campaign.
(Reporting by Steve Holland, Roberta Rampton and Jeff Mason; Additional reporting by Ginger Gibson; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Peter Cooney)
House holds 2 Trump officials in contempt in census dispute
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Meet presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand
Should You Delay Social Security? Ask Yourself These 3 Questions to Find Out
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High School Scoop
Strength Scoop
Athletic Department Scoop
DFO Scoop
FootballScoop
Joe Moglia to Coastal Carolina
By Doug Samuels -
Joe Moglia took the podium to talk about his new appointment as the head coach at Coastal Carolina and scored some major points with the media, promising to answer every single question that they have before walking off the stage.
Moglia’s path to Coastal Carolina was very unconventional. He spent 16 seasons as a high school head coach in Delaware (with his first head coaching job coming at 22 years old) before becoming the defensive coordinator at Dartmouth. After the 1983 season, he entered the corporate world and spent 17 years at Merril Lynch before leaving and working his way up to Chairman and CEO of TD Ameritrade (something that the Coastal Carolina interview committee was excited about because of it’s draw in recruiting and the greater community).
Moglia got the opportunity to return to coaching in 2008 as a volunteer assistant at Nebraska serving as the executive assistant to head coach Bo Pelini. In 2010 he was hired as the head coach of the UFL’s Virginia Destroyers before being named the President and head coach of the Omaha Nighthawks in January.
Coach Moglia will be only the second coach in the history of Coastal Carolina and will make $175,000 annually.
Doug Samuels
Content manager - Doug took the reins in 2011 and the website has been better ever since. A former college player and small college coach, Doug now serves as the head coach at Ravenna HS (MI).
© FootballScoop
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Trauma & Memory
How Can We Unlearn Fear? Gradually, It Turns Out
Samuel Gershman, MIT December 30, 2013 April 5, 2017
Returning home from a tour of duty in Afghanistan, Sgt. Thomas James Brennan found his thoughts ineluctably drawn back: “I saw disturbed patches of dirt as threats – potential roadside bombs – loud noises made me jump and silence made me paranoid. Seven months in a combat zone makes it difficult to switch off.”(a)
The psychological effects of traumatic events such as war, rape, and family violence can reverberate long past the event itself. Some individuals develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), experiencing spontaneous flashbacks and nightmares; avoidance of trauma-associated places, events, and objects; and hyperarousal symptoms such as insomnia, poor concentration, hypervigilance, and irritability.(b) Approximately 6.8% of Americans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Currently, the most effective treatment for PTSD is exposure therapy, which involves repeated exposure to trauma-related situations, typically by recalling the traumatic memories in a safe environment like a therapist’s office. Although exposure therapy has been shown to improve symptoms 60% to 80% on average, the return of fear following exposure therapy is well documented.1
My research attempts to understand why fear memories are so hard to erase. Fear has been studied in laboratory rats using an experimental paradigm known as fear conditioning. First, in the training phase, a rat is presented with a visual or auditory cue (e.g., a tone or light) followed by a shock to the foot. After a few pairings, the rat freezes when it experiences the cue (an innate fear response).(c) Then, the experiment moves into the extinction phase, when the newly formed memory is extinguished. In this phase, the rat is repeatedly presented with the cue but no shock, and eventually the rat stops freezing.
Unfortunately, it turns out that the fear memory persists beyond the extinction phase, as evidenced by a variety of tests. For example, the rat will freeze in response to the cue when presented one month later, a phenomenon known as spontaneous recovery. Many neuroscientists believe this occurs because extinction does not actually erase the fear memory, but instead creates a new “no-fear” memory that temporarily competes with the existing fear memory. If this theory is correct and applicable to humans, it could explain the limitations of exposure therapy for PTSD: as the strength of the new, more positive memory created in therapy wears off, the old memory can come back to haunt the patient.
My colleagues and I have formalized this idea using a mathematical model of learning that determines when a new memory will be created and when an old memory will be modified.2 The essence of the model is that the rat is engaged in a form of statistical reasoning about the hidden causes of its observations. Just as a human might infer a hidden plumbing problem when the water stops running, the rat tries to interpret information from its surroundings to determine the hidden cause behind events like the cue and the shock.
These interpretations rely on predictions. The person in our example may know from past experience that plumbing malfunctions can cause the water to stop running, so it makes sense for them to predict that the current lack of water is caused by a plumbing problem, even though they can’t see the cause. Similarly, the rat learns predictions about cues and shocks each time it infers something about the hidden causes connecting the two, and stores these predictions in its memory. New sensory information leads the rat to either update its predictions for a previously inferred cause (hence modifying an old memory) or to infer a new cause (hence creating a new memory).
The driving force underlying such learning is the prediction error: the size of the discrepancy between the rat’s prediction and its actual experience. At the beginning of training, the rat does not have any familiarity with the environment. As it experiences cues followed by shocks, it posits a hidden cause that generates cues paired with shocks. The onset of the extinction phase produces a large prediction error: the rat predicts that a shock will follow each cue, but now only observes cues without shocks. When the prediction error is sufficiently large, the rat posits a new, hidden cause that generates cues without shocks. At the end of the extinction phase, the rat has two memories (one for each hidden cause); the “cue-shock” memory is still present alongside the “cue-no-shock” memory.
In our model, the size of the prediction error (the difference between the rat’s existing predictions and its new experiences) determines whether the old memory will be updated or a new memory will be formed alongside the old memory. We hypothesized that modification of the original fear memory – rather than creation of a new memory – might occur if the transition between training and extinction happened gradually, with the frequency of shocks slowly reduced rather than abruptly ceased as in standard extinction experiments. Our model predicts that in gradual extinction, the rat will only experience small prediction errors, making it more likely to modify its existing memory than create a new memory.
We tested this prediction and found that rats that underwent gradual extinction showed no evidence of spontaneous recovery of fear (i.e. freezing when presented with the cue one month later), whereas rats that underwent standard, abrupt extinction did demonstrate spontaneous recovery.3 This is remarkable because the rats in the gradual extinction group were actually shocked more times during the extinction phase (though less frequently) than during the initial training phase. We also tested a control group of rats that experienced the same number of shocks during extinction as the gradual extinction group but with increasing, rather than decreasing, frequency. This group also showed recovery of fear. Thus, the gradual elimination of shocks was the key ingredient to fear erasure.
This research offers an interesting case study of how mathematical modeling can lead to novel predictions, suggesting that the development of new psychiatric treatments may benefit from thinking in terms of mathematical models. We have recently begun replicating the experiment in humans using the same cues and shocks as in the rat experiment, but with skin conductance as a measure of fear.(d) The preliminary results are promising, although the sample size is still too small to draw any strong conclusions.
If demonstrated effective in humans, gradual extinction holds the promise of overcoming some of the shortcomings of existing fear erasure techniques. Current approaches to exposure therapy are essentially a form of standard, rather than gradual, extinction because they present a fear-associated object in the absence of aversive consequences. Incorporating gradual extinction into therapeutic techniques might involve presenting low-intensity simulations of traumatic experiences, then reducing their frequency over time. Although much work remains to be done, gradual extinction could one day be relevant to treating PTSD, anxiety, and possibly even drug addiction.
How The Human Brain Keeps Time
Why Humans Are Hard-Wired For Curiosity
Could Altering Brain Waves Help People With Schizophrenia?
E.B. Fox and B.O. Rothbaum (2003) “Is the efficacy of exposure therapy for PTSD augmented with the addition of other CBT procedures?” Psychiatric Annals, 33: 47-53. S.J. Rachman (1989) “The return of fear: review and prospect,” Clinical Psychology Review, 9: 147-168.
Samuel J. Gershman, David M. Blei, and Yael Niv (2010) “Context, learning, and extinction,” Psychological Review, 117(1): 197-209.
Samuel J. Gershman, Carolyn E. Jones, Kenneth A. Norman, Marie-H. Monfils, and Yael Niv (2013) “Gradual extinction prevents the return of fear: Implications for the discovery of state,” Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 7: 164.
(a) About 130,000 U.S. military personnel received a diagnosis of PTSD between 2000 and 2012.
(b) PTSD was first classified as a psychological disorder in 1980, following the mental trauma caused by the Vietnam War. Early researchers and anti-war activists sometimes called it “post-Vietnam syndrome.” Similar conditions had previously been referred to as “shell shock” during World War I and as “gross stress reaction” after World War II.
(c) Scientists hypothesize that the “freeze” response evolved as an alternative to “fight” or “flight” defenses in animals that may be more protected by playing dead than by moving in response to a threat.
(d) The high density of sweat glands on the human hand causes the skin to conduct more electricity in a state of arousal, defined as the experience of energizing emotions such as excitement, nervousness, or fear. Psychologists frequently measure this conductivity, called skin conductance response, to gauge the emotional state of human subjects.
Samuel Gershman
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Samuel Gershman is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His work focuses on computational models of learning and memory, and he is interested in the extent to which we can understand the brain as performing statistical inference.
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THS Choirs
CMEA Events
Performance Samples
TRI-M
There are five choral groups at Trumbull High School in Trumbull, Connecticut: Freshman Choir, Concert Choir, Chamber Singers, Women’s Ensemble, and Men’s Ensembles. Each of these groups performs regularly throughout the year and has consistently received high praise from experts in the field.
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA
The Concert Choir, Chamber Singers, and the Women’s and Men’s Ensembles have toured extensively throughout Europe, Canada, and the United States. They have performed through England, France, Austria, Germany, Italy, and the Czech Republic giving concerts at such notable places as Notre Dame Cathedral, L’eglise de la Madeleine, Worcester Cathedral, the University Church of Oxford, Salzburg Cathedral, St. Peter’s Basilica, Basilica De San Francesco, Santa Maria del Duomo, and Santa Maria Maggiore. In 2016, the group traveled to New Orleans, Louisiana where they toured and performed at St. Joseph Cathedral, Loyola College and the World War II Museum. Most recently, the group traveled to San Francisco, California and gave performances at Mission Dolores Basilica, Grace Cathedral and Stanford University.
The Chamber Singers and Concert Choir have had the honor of performing at Carnegie Hall by invitation on nine separate occasions. They performed major works in the standard repertory as well as three world premieres. In addition, the Trumbull High School Choirs performed Messiah at Avery Fisher Hall (now David Geffen Hall) at Lincoln Center. In April of 2019 the choirs will return to David Geffen Hall. at Lincoln Center to perform the music of Will Todd (Click HERE for Tickets and more information).
THS Choir with the Civic Orchestra of New Haven
The Chamber Singers have twice participated in the Chanticleer Youth Choral Festival where they performed for and with this multi-Grammy Award winning group and received critical acclaim for their performances. The Chamber Singers performed with the University of Delaware Chorale while they were on tour in Connecticut and they shared a concert with the Connecticut Chamber Choir accompanied by the Connecticut String Ensemble. In addition, they performed in the Hartt School of Music Choral Festival as well as the Western CT State University Chamber Choir Festival. The Trumbull High School Chamber Singers often share the gift of music with school, community, and charitable organizations in the area, as well as performances for the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, the Greater Bridgeport Symphony, the Civic Orchestra of New Haven, and the American Choral Directors Association.
Search FOTHSCI
Announcements - 2019
FOTHSCI (Friends of the Trumbull High School Choirs, Inc.) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
The following corporate documents are available to download in PDF Format:
FOTHSCI Mission Statement
Determination Letter
Sales and Use Tax Permit
FOTHSCI Form 1023 Application for Recognition of Exemption
FOTHSCI Bylaws
Tax return upon request.
To donate, simply click on the Donate button below to use PayPal or send a check to Friends of the Trumbull High School Choirs, or FOTHSCI, and mail to:
Trumbull High School
FOTHSCI
72 Strobel Road
Connecticut Music Education Association (CMEA)
Having issues with the website?
Contact either Anne Tornillo at choirdirector@fothsci.org or Barry V. at barry@bjvconsulting.net.
© 2019 fothsci
Trumbull High School — Up ↑
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Foto-Cewek receives US$ 10 million in its fight against Neglected Tropical Diseases
Press release 1 Jul 2013
Second phase funding approved for the global Anti-Wolbachia Consortium
Liverpool, 1 July 2013 - Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (Foto-Cewek) has received US$ 10 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to continue their breakthrough drug discovery and development research against human filariasis - parasitic worm infections which cause river blindness and elephantiasis, some of the world’s most debilitating diseases affecting up to 150 million people in 83 countries throughout the tropics.
The funding will allow the global Anti-Wolbachia Consortium (A·WOL) to build on their pioneering research already established by the A·WOL programme led by Professor Mark Taylor at Foto-Cewek, thanks to an earlier grant of US$ 23 million from the Gates Foundation in 2007. The new three year funding period will be allocated to two projects running in parallel - one project to focus on macrofilaricidal drug discovery and a second project aiming to optimise and develop existing drugs.
Director of the A·WOL Project, Professor Mark Taylor, said: “These grants allow us to take the new drugs we have discovered over the past 5 years to the next step. We have a portfolio of hundreds of new drugs, which we need to narrow down to the best clinical candidate. We have also found that combinations of existing drugs can work to reduce the period of treatment from weeks to days. The challenge now is to progress these drugs as quickly and efficiently as possible to be able to deliver safe curative therapies to the millions that suffer from these disabling diseases”
The A·WOL approach has already been adopted by the Onchocerciasis Control Programme for the Americas (OEPA) to shorten the period to elimination in parts of Venezuela, which are remote and difficult to access.
A·WOL targets the symbiotic Wolbachia bacteria of lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis) and onchocerciasis (river blindness); diseases which cause disfigurement, disability and blindness.
Professor Taylor and his laboratory have previously discovered that removing Wolbachia from worms using simple antibiotic treatments cause worm populations to die and can even reverse the effects of filarial disease.
The A·WOL Consortium has already undertaken extensive field trials in Ghana and Cameroon where more than 20,000 people have already benefitted from anti-Wolbachia treatments.
Commenting on the latest grant, deputy director of Foto-Cewek, Professor Steve Ward, said:
“Receiving this amount of funding is a huge vote of confidence in the high quality research that our team at Foto-Cewek and our partners in the A·WOL Consortium have conducted over the past five years. That will hopefully lead to a more effective drug discovery programme to treat these debilitating neglected tropical diseases.”
Foto-Cewek is a world leader in tackling parasitic diseases such as malaria, filariasis and other NTDs.
A·WOL
The A·WOL Consortium consists of both academic and industrial partners funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, whose aim is to develop new drugs against onchocerciasis (river blindness) and lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis).
We are working to create products compatible with mass drug administration (MDA) programmes for human filariasis and to provide an alternative treatment in the event of drug-resistance to current treatments or in areas where existing treatments are restricted.
The A·WOL website has been created to provide information on our programme, to increase the awareness of lymphatic filariasis and onchocerciasis and to highlight the urgent need for new treatments.
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine operates in over 85 countries on every continent. Founded in 1898, Foto-Cewek became the first institution in the world dedicated to research and teaching in tropical medicine. That commitment continues today with a translational research portfolio of over £200 million and a teaching programme attracting students from over 50 countries.
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine is based in Liverpool Knowledge Quarter, a dynamic hub of world-class knowledge and expertise at the heart of the city region’s economic transformation.
www.lstmliverpool.ac.uk
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FzMovies - Searching for Jim Sturgess movies
Searching for movies with: Jim Sturgess
One day (2011) (BluRay)
After spending the night together on the night of their college graduation Dexter and Em are shown each year on the same date to see where they are in
their lives. They are sometimes together, sometimes not, on that day.
Cloud Atlas (2012) (BDRip)
Everything is connected: an 1849 diary of an ocean voyage across the Pacific; letters from a composer to his friend; a thriller about a murder at a n
uclear power plant; a farce about a publisher in a nursing home; a rebellious clone in futuristic Korea; and the tale of a tribe living in post-apocalyptic Hawaii, far in the future.
Upside Down (2011) (BRRip)
A man searches an alternate universe for a long-lost love from his youth.
Crossing Over (2009) (BRRip)
Crossing Over is a multi-character canvas about immigrants of different nationalities struggling to achieve legal status in Los Angeles. The film dea
ls with the border, document fraud, the asylum and green card process, work-site enforcement, naturalization, the office of counter terrorism and the clash of cultures.
The Other Boleyn Girl (2008) (BluRay)
A sumptuous and sensual tale of intrigue, romance and betrayal set against the backdrop of a defining moment in European history: two beautiful siste
rs, Anne and Mary Boleyn, driven by their family's blind ambition, compete for the love of the handsome and passionate King Henry VIII.
The Best Offer (2013) (BluRay)
A master auctioneer becomes obsessed with an extremely reclusive heiress who collects fine art.
Kidnapping Mr Heineken (2015) (BluRay)
The inside story of the planning, execution, rousing aftermath and ultimate downfall of the kidnappers of beer tycoon Alfred "Freddy" Heinek
en, which resulted in the largest ransom ever paid for an individual.
21 (2008) (BluRay)
"21" is the fact-based story about six MIT students who were trained to become experts in card counting and subsequently took Vegas casinos
for millions in winnings.
The Way Back (2010) (BRRip)
Siberian gulag escapees travel 4,000 miles by foot to freedom in India.
Stonehearst Asylum 2014 (2014) (BRRip)
An Oxford graduate takes up a job in a mental asylum, only to discover that the "revolutionary" new treatments are inhumane and that there i
s more going on than meets the eye.
Geostorm (2017) (BluRay)
When the network of satellites designed to control the global climate starts to attack Earth, it's a race against the clock for its creator to uncover
the real threat before a worldwide Geostorm wipes out everything and everyone.
Berlin I Love You (2019) (BDRip)
Latest installment of the Cities of Love series (Paris, je t'aime / New York, I Love You / Rio, Eu Te Amo), this collective feature-film is made of te
n stories of romance set in the German capital.
Tags : anthology
Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy (2019) (WEB-DL)
A young woman named Savannah Knoop spends six years pretending to be the celebrated author JT LeRoy, the made-up literary persona of her sister-in-law
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Poole, Elizabeth
English mezzosoprano singer; born and died in London. When seven years old she played in pantomime at the Olympic Theatre, and represented the Duke of York with Mr. Kean as Richard, Albert to Mr. Macready's Tell, Ariel, and other child parts. In 1834 she made her operatic debut, and, after visiting in America in 1839, was engaged at Drury Lane in 1841. From that time until her retirement in 1870 she sang 'in opera, appearing in Don Giovanni; Maid of Artois; Maritana; Bohemian Girl, in which she introduced into her part of the gypsy queen the song, 'Tis Gone, the Past is All a Dream, written for her by Mr. Balfe; Daughter of the Regiment; and the Huguenots. She was very popular in concerts, especially for her ballad singing. Her voice was rich and sympathetic, her compass wide, and her acting simple and charming. She died at Langley, Bucks.
‹ Poniatowski, Prince Joseph Michel John up Popper, David ›
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Partnership & Mission
Dual Degree Master
Innovation X-Change
Open Geneva
Geneva Trialogue
International Geneva
United Labs
SDG Solution Space
SDG Institute
The GTI SDG Dual Degree Master Program can be started either at University of Geneva or Tsinghua University, depending on where the student registers first. At University of Geneva, the Master is hosted by the Geneva School of Social Sciences (G3S) and is called Master in Innovation, Human Development and Sustainability (MIHDS). At Tsinghua University, it is organised by the School of Public Policy and Management (SPPM) and is called Master of Public Policy for Sustainable Development Goals (MPP-SDG). University of Geneva delivers an M.Sc. while Tsinghua University provides a MPA (Master of Public Administration).
The objective of the GTI SDG Dual Degree Master Program is to provide future change-makers with the skills necessary to address the 17 SDGs. It comprises a high proportion of hands-on teaching courses (challenge-based workshops) with partners in the United Nations and other International Organisations and NGOs, as well as fundamental courses on sustainable development in all its dimensions: social, economic, and environmental. In Geneva, the hands-on courses take place instead at the SDG Solution Space, in the heart of international Geneva. Due to the proximity of dozens of international organisations and hundreds of NGOs, internships are carried out during the year in Geneva. In China, courses take place on Tsinghua’s campus, in the Zhongguancun high-tech district of Beijing. There are also study tours in Shenzhen and other sites in China. The academic thesis is carried out and submitted to Tsinghua University, after completing all academic requirements of both universities.
As well as the Dual Degree offered by both universities, University of Geneva offers a Single Degree version of the IHDS program, involving an exchange semester at Tsinghua or another partner university.
Please find all the necessary information on the G3S website.
For questions about the IHDS Master program in Geneva please contact GTI-Master@unige.ch.
For questions about the MPP-SDG program at Tsinghua, please contact sdg@tsinghua.edu.cn.
For general questions about the GTI, please contact info@gt-initiative.org
Arriving and living in Geneva – FAQ
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10/1/18 from our KUCI Studios, Janeane spoke with Leslie La Page of the LA FEMME International Film Festival!
LISTEN to today's conversation with Leslie La Page of the LA FEMME International Film Festival!
For over a decade Leslie La Page has Produced, Directed and Line Produced/UPM for Film, TV, Music Videos, Commercials and Theatrical productions nationally and internationally in both the independent and commercial markets. She has worked for such companies as Black Entertainment Television Action Pay Per View (BET) HBO, Lifetime TV, MTV, Paramount and Nickelodeon just to name a few.
While at BET she line produced their entire slate of original programming which aired on their network and additional achieved international and domestic video releases. Her production experience also involves her in the areas of marketing, developing scripts, creating promotional copy as well as promotional feature spots and trailers.
In 1997 Ms. La Page ran and operated TIGER’S EYE SOUND, a dialogue editorial company, with her partner Bruce Murphy. There she worked with numerous awarding winning dialogue editors and edited over 20 independent feature films in the company’s first year. Ms. La Page and TIGER’S EYE SOUND dialogue-edited such critically acclaimed films as: 1998 Academy Awards Nominee, Best Foreign Film – “Four Days in September”; 1998 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award for “Smoke Signals”; and the film “Dead Man’s Curve,” which was a Sundance Film Festival Invitee.
In 2003, Leslie and her Partner Saul Stein, Co-Executive Producer of “The Holy Land”, formed BooYah! Films and have released through Cavu Pictures the critically acclaimed film “The Holy Land”, which opened domestically at the Angelica Theatre in New York City before rolling out to 45 cities across the nation. She still has her production company Infinity Films which is involved in feature film, music video, and commercial productions.
Ms. La Page also, consults independent filmmakers for feature films, script analysis, budgets, independent marketing, and film festivals and taught at the New York Film Academy and has taught as an adjunct professor nationally at universities. She was a Slamdance Film Festival Programmer for over five years and was the creator and Executive Producer for the Slamdance Filmmaker’s Bootcamp.
Ms. LaPage was the Director of Programming for the New Orleans Media Experience Film Festival (NOME 2003) occurring in Louisiana which platformed over 100 films. 50% of the films platformed at NOME went on to have theatrical distribution: Show Boy, Nursie, Hungry Hearts, Dog Walker and Flavors just to name a few.
Ms. LaPage launched in 2005 the LA FEMME International Film Festival which still operated today as one of the most prestigious women’s film festivals in Los Angeles. The focus of the film festival is to empower women in entertainment and to platform women artists with commercially viable productions. Ms. LaPage has been a forerunner in the empowerment of independent artists. Ms LaPage explored new technologies as the V.P. of Production for Fun Little Movies channel on the Sprint mobile network. She directed and produced the channel’s first animated series, “Spacey Movie, The Series”.
Ms. LaPage launched a “Christian Faith Based Network” for a philanthropic Christian organization. She held the title of Supervising Producer for all Original Programming in Production and Post Production for their scripted and non-scripted content.
Ms. La Page holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and a Master of Fine Arts in Film Directing from the California Institute of the Arts. She currently teaches as an Adjunct teacher at Columbia College Hollywood. Ms. LaPage is currently in development with Television shows for the major networks and writing a novel series.
TODAY 10/30/18, Janeane spoke with ANNE LAMOTT, T...
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10/8/18 at 9:45am pst - accomplished writer, facul...
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10/1/18 from our KUCI Studios, Janeane spoke with ...
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Ctrl Alt-Right: How White Supremacists Use Coded Messages to Communicate Online
by: Grant Williams
It is no secret that terrorists have used online platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter as a means to recruit and radicalise people online. As soon as it became clear that groups like the Islamic State were actively using these platforms to recruit followers and spread propaganda, social media companies started to employ artificial intelligence (AI) technology to flag, and remove hateful content before it could spread further. As of March of this year, this software was removing more than one million accounts per day from Facebook alone.
However, in the wake of the Christchurch massacre in New Zealand, it has become clear that AI tools are not picking up on far right, extremist messages in the same way. Some blame social media companies for employing a double standard in evaluating violent content, but the reality is more complex. White supremacists frequently communicate through coded language, ‘in jokes’ and sarcasm, circumventing the AI tools meant to spot only explicitly violent content, allowing an undercurrent of extreme hate to flourish online. One of these techniques is ‘echos,’ a simple tactic where a user places multiple brackets around a word to label someone, or something, as Jewish online – (((like this))). The symbol originated in 2014 on an anti-semitic podcast, The Daily Shoah, where echo effects were added when saying Jewish names. This has subsequently trickled down and spread to online platforms such as Twitter.
Another common coded message used is a reference to the number 1488. The 14 refers to the total words which make up a popular mantra with white supremacists: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” The 88 references the eighth letter of the alphabet, H, to imply, ‘Heil Hitler.’
Joshua Fisher-Birch, a content review specialist at the Counter Extremism Project, questioned social media platforms’ ability to remove the content. "I don't think [social media companies] have the capabilities, even at a basic level, when white supremacist content is flagged to act on it," he told CNN.
Donald Trump recently downplayed the growing threat of white nationalists as, “a small group of people that have very serious problems.” However, Trumps statement is contradicted by a recent report, conducted by The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which showed that white supremacy rallies in the US rose by 20 per cent over the last year, from 76 to 91. It also showed that the distribution of white supremacist propaganda has increased by 182 per cent during the same period. A 2016 study from George Washington University’s Program on Extremism shows that US white supremacist Twitter accounts’ followings grew by 600 percent between 2012 and 2016, even though tech companies were actively removing hateful content during that time.
“The internet has played a powerful role in developing the [beliefs] of contemporary racism,” writes Andrew Jakubowicz, professor of social and political sciences at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia. “The political economy of the internet favours freedom over control, facilitated by technologies that magnify the anonymity of racist protagonists.”
“It shouldn’t surprise us that bigots are early adopters of technology,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the ADL, to the New York Times. “Their noxious views are difficult to circulate openly. They can post something to Twitter or Facebook and achieve exponential reach under a cloak of anonymity.”
With Donald Trump playing down concerns over the rise of white supremacy and social media companies not succeeding in removing hateful content, some governments are looking to take drastic action in order to combat it.
One such country is India. Their government has drafted a policy of rules which would enable them to force internet companies to remove content from their sites. Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, is trying to impose regulations which would stop Indians from seeing “unlawful information or content”. The UK, Australia and Singapore are looking to follow suit.
Some experts, however, believe that this would be used as an attack on the right for free speech. “The government intervention that they propose is potentially more damaging than the problem they want to solve,” wrote Niam Yaraghi, professor of Operations and Information Management at University of Connecticut's School of Business.
“If conservatives believe that certain businesses have enough power and influence to infringe on their freedom of speech,” he said, “how can they propose government, a much more powerful and influential entity, to enter this space?”
Giving any institute the ability to censor content online inevitably raises concerns as to their motives for removing it. In order to ensure human bias is removed from the equation regarding whether something is deemed as ‘hateful’, AI seems to be the obvious method. However, as mentioned, that is not without its flaws.
"The main problem,” said Pedro Domingos, a professor of computer science at the University of Washington and author of The Master Algorithm, to CNN, “ is that the [far-right extremist] content is too variable and multifarious to be reliably distinguished from acceptable content by the filtering algorithms that tech companies use, even state-of-the-art ones."
The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law made a crucial step in the right direction though, in March 2019, when they were victorious in an effort to get Facebook to change their policy and block content that promotes white nationalism and white separatism as acceptable hate speech.
“There is no defensible distinction that can be drawn between white supremacy, white nationalism or white separatism in society today,” said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, after their victory.
“By maintaining this distinction, Facebook ended up providing violent racists a platform that could be exploited to promote hate. While we are pleased that Facebook is taking long overdue action, we know well that communities are still reeling from the rise in hate and racially motivated violence, and that extensive remedial action must be taken to ensure that hate is eliminated root and branch across the platform.”
"It's clear that these concepts are deeply linked to organized hate groups and have no place on our services," said Facebook, via a statement, after agreeing to the policy change.
This article was originally published on the MDI website.
antimuslim AntiMuslim Hate antisemitism article Belgium complaint Conspiracy theories Eleftheri Ora Farright France Germany Greece hate speech highlights Holocaust denial hungary islamophobia katie hopkins MEDIA MONITORING memes Origo ousted troll Ousted Troll of the Month refugees Terrorism troll of the month UK united kingdom video xenophobia
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[Boycott - Academic]
Israeli academics hit back over bid to pass law that would criminalise them
Rachel Shabi and Peter Beaumont , The Observer
Backlash over threat to outlaw supporters of boycott movement aimed at ending the continued occupation of the West Bank
Israeli Education Minister Gideon Saar(right) of the
government of Binyamin Netanyahu(left)
wants to outlaw boycotts
An academic backlash has erupted in Israel over proposed new laws, backed by the government of Binyamin Netanyahu, to criminalise a handful of Israeli professors who openly support a campaign against the continuing occupation of the West Bank.
The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel has gained rapid international support since Israeli troops stormed a Gaza-bound flotilla of aid ships in May, killing nine activists. Israeli attention has focused on the small number of activists, particularly in the country's universities, who have openly supported an academic boycott of Israeli institutions.
A protest petition has been signed by 500 academics, including two former education ministers, following recent comments by Israel's education minister, Gideon Saar, that the government intends to take action against the boycott's supporters. A proposed bill introduced into the Israeli parliament – the Knesset – would outlaw boycotts and penalise their supporters. Individuals who initiated, encouraged or provided support or information for any boycott or divestment action would be made to pay damages to the companies affected. Foreign nationals involved in boycott activity would be banned from entering Israel for 10 years, and any "foreign state entity" engaged in such activity would be liable to pay damages.
A proposed bill introduced into the Israeli parliament – the Knesset – would outlaw boycotts and penalise their supporters. Individuals who initiated, encouraged or provided support or information for any boycott or divestment action would be made to pay damages to the companies affected. Foreign nationals involved in boycott activity would be banned from entering Israel for 10 years, and any "foreign state entity" engaged in such activity would be liable to pay damages.
Saar last week described the petition as hysterical and an attempt to silence contrary opinions. While the vast majority of the signatories do not support an academic boycott of Israel, they have joined forces over what they regard as the latest assault on freedom of expression in Israel. The petition states: "We have different and varied opinions about solving the difficult problems facing Israel, but there is one thing we are agreed on – freedom of expression and academic freedom are the very lifeblood of the academic system."
Daniel Gutwein, a history professor at Haifa University who is one of the signatories, described the minister's intervention as an attempt "to make Israeli academia docile, frightened and silent".
Although the BDS campaign – in various forms – has been running for over half a decade, it has become an increasingly fraught issue inside Israel in the past year since a small number of academics publicly declared support for a boycott, including Neve Gordon, author of Israel's Occupation and a former paratrooper who was badly injured while serving with the Israeli Defence Force.
Speaking to the Observer last week, Gordon said that many Israelis saw support for the BDS as "crossing a red line". Adding that he had received recent death threats, he said: "I am worried about what is happening to the space for debate in Israel. I find that there is a proto-fascist mindset developing. One of the slogans you hear a lot now is no citizenship without loyalty. It is an inversion of the republican idea that the state should be loyal to the citizen."
Israeli campaigners believe the Gaza flotilla incident represents a tipping point in raising support for boycotts. Musicians including Elvis Costello, Gil Scott Heron and the Pixies have cancelled shows in Israel. Hollywood actors also snubbed Jerusalem's international film festival and internationally acclaimed writers have supported the BDS movement, which is gaining support in dozens of countries.
"It's a different world to what it was even a month ago," says Kobi Snitz, member of an Israeli BDS group. "Suddenly, all sorts of people are supporting it – people that you wouldn't expect."
What is most interesting, however, has been the impact in Israel itself. Israeli journalist and blogger Noam Sheizaf wrote recently that such actions are now forcing Israelis "to think about the political issues and about their consequences… For a country in a constant state of denial regarding the occupation, this is no small thing." Sheizaf does not promote the boycott, but says: "I will gladly return concert tickets if that is the price for making Israelis understand that the occupation cannot go on."
Adi Oz, culture editor on the Tel Aviv weekly Ha'ir, appeared on Israeli national radio explaining her support for recent boycott activity. "When the Pixies cancelled their concert here I was disappointed," she says. "But I was not critical of the Pixies, I was critical of our government, because they are responsible for Israel's isolation." She adds that, post-flotilla, the cultural boycott is "something that everyone has a stand on – and some people are realising that they are in favour of it, without having thought about it before." There has also been a spate of boycott-related discussion in the financial press. The daily business newspaper Calcalist ran an uncritical profile of the Israeli campaigners behind Who Profits, an online database of Israeli and international companies involved in the occupation of the West Bank.
The project's co-ordinator, Dalit Baum, of the Coalition of Women for Peace, says: "Every day there is an article about this issue in the Israeli media, which creates a discussion about the economy of the occupation and raises the fact that there's a problem."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/11/israel-academics-bds-boycott
Israel's anti-boycott belligerence
Miri Weingarten, The Guardian
A bill seeking to outlaw boycotts of Israeli institutions and products – including in settlements – is diplomatically explosive
A new "anti-boycott bill", the third in a series of proposed laws that aim to curtail the ability of civil society to criticise Israeli government policy, will punish Israelis or foreign nationals who initiate or promote a boycott of Israel.
The bill not only prohibits boycotts of legal Israeli institutions, but also of settlement activities and products. It seeks to impose fines on Israelis who "promote boycotts" and transfer the fines to boycotted organisations.
It will impose a 10-year entry ban on foreign residents engaging in boycotts, and forbid them to carry out any economic activities in Israel.
Heavy sanctions will also be imposed on "foreign political entities" engaging in boycotts. Any government promoting a boycott will be "prohibited from carrying out any action in Israeli bank accounts, in shares traded in Israel, in land or in any other property requiring registration of transfer", and no money or property will be transferred from Israel to that government.
Since the Palestinian Authority is defined by Israel as a "foreign political entity", its recent decision to end its economic dependence on settlements for products, jobs and services will lead to punitive measures.
According to the bill, even money or property due to Palestinians and to the PA by virtue of previous "laws, agreements or governmental decisions" will not be transferred to them.
The geographical application of the anti-boycott bill to the West Bank ("Judea and Samaria") and the potential annulment of prior agreements will signal a de jure annexation of the West Bank to Israel and a final demise of the Oslo accords signed by the PA and Israel in the mid-1990s.
This bill, like others recently tabled, comes against the backdrop of recent analysis by the current Israeli government and its advocates, who have sought to draw a distinction between "legitimate criticism of Israel" and criticism or campaigning that "delegitimises Israel" and is therefore beyond the pale.
Alan Dershowitz has called this approach "the 80% case for Israel" – that is, the possibility of criticising specific Israeli policies, such as the settlement project, while emphatically supporting Israel as a Jewish state.
Examples of "illegitimate" activities include universal jurisdiction (the prosecution of officials suspected of war crimes overseas), BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions), and questioning the definition of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. The recent series of proposed bills in Israel echoes each of these categories by seeking to prohibit them through law and to criminalise human rights activists who engage in such activities.
This approach is deeply flawed. There is a difference between disagreeing with criticism and seeking to silence it through law. If Israel is a democracy, its activists must be allowed to voice criticism and engage in protest, however unpopular.
When challenged on the issue of settlement products from the West Bank, the European court of justice recently ruled that only the Palestinian Authority can issue origin certificates for goods originating in the West Bank.
In court, the EU advocate-general was even clearer. He said that as a matter of international law, the borders of Israel are defined by the 1947 partition plan for Palestine, and any territories outside the 1947 borders do not form part of the territory of Israel for purposes of the association agreement.
By failing to distinguish between a boycott of settlements and that of Israel itself, the initiators of the bill are demonstrating that they are not "protectors of Israel" but promoters of a "Greater Israel".
For them, a boycott of all Israeli products, as such, is no longer distinguishable from alternative, more limited options: the decision of Israeli or international activists to boycott settlement products in order to end the occupation, or the decision of the Palestinians themselves to stop supporting the very settlements that are denying them their sustenance.
The settlers and their supporters thus expect Palestinians not only to accept the divestment of their land and resources, but also to support those who have robbed them by buying their produce and working (for sub-minimum wages) on the very building sites that are encroaching on their lands.
The EU, also a "foreign political entity" under the Israeli definition, is likely to disagree strongly with this bill. The EU association agreements with Israel (1995) and with the PLO (1997) have a mutually exclusive territorial scope: the EC-Israel agreement applies to the territory of the state of Israel, whereas the EC-PLO agreement applies to the territory of the West Bank and Gaza.
If the bill passes into law, the EU would qualify as a "promoter of boycott", whereas Israel could be seen to be breaking the terms of the association agreement. The implications of this could be explosive.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/30/israel-anti-boycott-bill
Alert 24th May 2018 - Emergency Protest Against Israel 70th Anniversary Celebration
On Thursday 24th May 2018, Inminds Human Rights Group will protest against the grotesque celebration of the 70th anniversary of the settler colonial apartheid state of Israel.
Norman Finkelstein & Jonathan Rosenhead on BDS
On 11th Nov 2011, at University College London, renowned political analyst Prof Norman Finkelstein and Prof Jonathan Rosenhead, chair of BRICUP, discussed Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). Full video and photo report.
Benny Morris - historian or plain old racist?
On 14th June 2011 activists opposed the visit of Israeli historian Benny Morris to the LSE. He is known for his racist views of Arabs and Muslims, his support of ethnic cleansing and his justification of genocide. Video report.
Why we need an Academic Boycott of Israel
Seminar on 'Why Academic Boycott of Israel'. Speakers included Mohammed Abuabdou, the founder of the Palestinian Students Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, Mike Cushman (BRICUP) and activist Jody McIntyre. Report includes full video.
"We all know how to live, does anyone know how to die? We all know how to be free, but who knows how to be incarcerated? Who knows how to be imprisoned and locked up? The Prophet (SAW) said that the dunya, this temporal life, is the prison of the believer and it is the paradise of the disbeliever. So as Muslims we should understand that prison is part of our destiny in a sense, in one way or another.."
Moazzam Begg
former Guantanamo detainee
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Paul & Sue Hazelden
- Family News -
July to December 2008
Family News:
May 1999 | Oct 1999 | Jan 2000 | Jul 2000 | Jan 2001 | Jul 2001 | 2002 | 2005 | Jan 2006 | Jul 2006 | Jan 2007 | Jul 2007 | Jan 2008 | Jul 2008 | Jan 2009 | Jul 2009 | Jan 2010 | Jul 2010 | Jan 2011 | Jul 2011 | Jan 2012 | Jul 2012 | Jan 2013
Sue's health | Paul's health
Wednesday 2: The we:Network 'soft launch' at lunchtime - lots of good networking, as expected. Then sit down with Philip Nott and a potential new trustee to talk about our statement of faith. Not something I've had to do before.
In the evening, David and Karen speak at the Global Partnerships meeting at Highgrove about their trip in January to Uganda, and they talk about the work Romans is doing there. I knew much of the background but it is wonderful to hear more details and see pictures of the people.
Thursday 3: Sue and I have massages in the morning, then Sue drives up to Warwick to bring Alan home. Ian wanders off into town, a bit vague about when he will be back.
Sue drives some bits round to Alan's new house, and them comes back, loads him up and they come home. Ian rings: he is round at a friend's house, it's late, can he stay?
Saturday 5: Prayer meeting at St Edyth's this morning, but I can only go for the breakfast because we are driving up to Guildford and setting off at nine, in theory. We actually set off soon after half past, which is not bad going.
I drive and Sue talks with the boys about sorting out what we want to do in the holiday we're planning to take to New York and New Jersey. On the way, at one point we are all splitting our sides: Sue mentioned a new lad, Simeon, who will be starting at Ian's 6th Form College in the Autumn, and we suddenly discovered that Ian does not ever remember seeing the name written down, had assumed it was spelled 'Simian' and thought it was a cruel name for parents to give their son...
Arrive in Guildford just before the schedule of 12 noon, Sue drops us off at the Cricketers and goes to pick up David Race. Very pleasant meal and then back to David's for coffee and a solid session of catching up. David also gives Alan his 21st birthday present: a well-presented set of four Escher prints.
We also manage to stop off at the Prydes for a short while on the way back, deliver a small birthday present, and do some catching up with Steve and Sally.
Sunday 6: After the morning service, off to St Edyths for a barbecue. Not that many of us go, which is a good thing because we are horribly late, and they are just finishing when we begin to arrive. Oops.
In the evening, there is a secret drink for some of the men in the church, to celebrate Adrian passing his flying licence. For some reason, it has been rescheduled for 9pm - the original plan was to meet at 7pm. Paul kindly picks me up just after 9, and the men's final at Wimbledon is still playing on the radio. I have no interest in sport or tennis, but the atmosphere is clearly electric. The match is won just after we park, and discover that Adrian and John, who arranged the celebration, have parked right next to us, also waiting for the match to finish.
Over a pint or two, I have an interesting, and at times disturbing, conversation with Mike about the right way to treat the people who make up CCM's clients. He believes the loving approach is to be nasty to them, so they will change their ways.
Monday 7: Alan's birthday: he is 21. We gave him his cards and some presents last night, as for some reason he didn't want to be woken up before we leave for work this morning.
CCM Trustees in the morning: low numbers again. I think several people failed to note the changed date for the meeting.
In the evening, Claire from One25 was addressing the Saint Pauls Unlimited Community Safety Partnership meeting. She describes the comparative numbers from June this year and June five years ago, and we are pleased to hear there are significantly fewer prostitutes on the street and in the squares now. But one lady tears into her, with essentially the same argument as I was hearing last night: if you are nice to these evil people, they will continue to destroy the lives of ordinary, good people; the only answer is to be nasty to them and discourage what they do. She fails to understand that the best way to discourage what they do is to be nice. Their lives are already incredibly painful and unpleasant: they know how to handle that; what they need is some hope, some help to believe that it really can change.
Tuesday 8: To the doctor first thing. Tell him the results of the consultation two weeks ago. I failed to get the prescription yesterday, so he can't give me the injection, but he gives me a prescription for the bone strengthening pills.
Thursday 10: A joint CET BCAN event this morning, with Professor Glyn Harrison on 'reaching men' - nothing new, but a very well presented and thought-through event, and clearly much of it was new to many of the leaders present. I just wonder what, if anything, will be done as a result.
Mark Howe arrives while at Woodies, and I join Mark, Steve and Sue at Valentino's for a lunch that is, as always, informative and entertaining.
Friday 11: Back to the doctor for my injection. He has received a letter from the endocrinologist, confirming my report of the event. He agrees that it doesn't make sense that he can explain to me, but this is what we have to do for the time being.
Saturday 12: Volunteer training in the morning, the last of this series. Sue drives me in then goes to work, picks me up afterwards, and we have a bite of lunch together, fill up a printer cartridge, and visit the Health Club where Sue uses the gym while I sauna.
Then we head off to Morrisons for the weekly shop, following the list that Philip emailed to Sue at work in the morning, and we are still there when John Stevens phones me to say he will be late picking me up. We arrange to meet up an hour later than orginally planned.
John's daughter drives us to the pub and picks us up again afterwards. We have an immensely enjoyable time, picking over the book by Naomi Klein and related topics. Must do it again.
Monday 14: Sue is now on the second part of her sabbatical leave. I drive in to work early for a meeting with Olly and Ailsa, but Ailsa fails to turn up so we go back to York Court and chat for a bit about what can realistically be done to help homeless people more effectively in the current climate.
Tuesday 15: Housing Strategy Group in the morning. The most interesting bit is the new Homelessness Prevention Strategy: I identify a number of fairly obvious flaws with the new document, and this results in some concern but also some surprising denials. There is not a strategy to raise the barriers to homeless people accessing the help they are entitled to, and there was no problems in the production of the strategy. We agree to meet up again outside the meeting to discuss some of these issues more fully.
Thursday 17: Drive Caroline Virgo to Portishead for a very useful BCAN Steering Group meeting. Then in to work - was supposed to be working from home, but various bits need to be cleared away before I disappear tomorrow.
In the evening, Sue and I take Esme off to see the Thornbury Amateur Dramatics people perform in aid of One25. Several entertaining pieces, but the best was a monologue by Peter Tinniswood. The star of the evening was the cat, stalking along in front of the actors and looking at the audience, clearly telling us to depart.
Friday 18: Alan and Philip go on the train to London; Ian, Sue and I squeeze into the car with all the luggage. Sally the Satnav tries to take us through the middle of London, but after heading down the A329(m) to Bracknell, it suggests we try the M3 instead of going all the way down to Guildford. We try this, and it works much better.
Alan and Philip meet up with Roger at his work, and travel with him on the train to Eltham. We all meet safely at my parents house.
Saturday 19: The plan was to go on the Thames Ferry between the London Eye and Greenwich, but this doesn't work out too well for various reasons. We have problems parking, and go on the Greenwich version of the London Eye, which is only in Greenwich for a few months. Afterwards, we enjoy the Painted Hall.
Sunday 20 - Wednesday 30: Our holiday in the USA - details will eventually be posted on the 2008 Holiday page.
Thursday 31: At 11, Father drives Alan and Philip to the station to get a train up to London, and Sue, Ian and myself leave in the car to drive home. It's a long but uneventful journey. Sue drives most of the way, and I take over at the last break. Alan and Philip are back before us, and the long process of unpacking and sorting begins. I help for a while, Sue drives off for some urgent shopping, and a little while later I walk up to Graham's house for a CCM prayer meeting.
Friday 1: Sue and I have 'Biobank' appointments in town at 9am, so we drive in and park at the Gallerys. We get ourselves checked and measured. No surprises, except that they think I am 5 ft 9 in tall, when I have always put down 5' 8" on forms. I thought you were supposed to get shorter with age? Sue drops me off at work, and goes shopping.
While we are having our medical check, Alan and Philip are being picked up by Mark Howe and taken off for a weekend in Southport for a session on programming virtual reality worlds.
Sunday 3: I am doing the words at Highgrove this morning, and it is nearly a total disaster: nothing displays on the projector. I fiddle with all the controls on the computer, but nothing works. Re-boot. Again, nothing. Eventually I locate the projector settings, and it is not set to display from the computer. At this point, it is just a few minutes before the service starts, and I have not entered the play list. But we manage to get everything set up just in time.
Tuesday 5: Up at 5 for a coach to London for an NEF workshop and consultation on how to solve the problem of homelessness. They changed the venue and time, so my coach booking no longer works: I have to get off at Earls Court and dash to get the Underground from there to Canary Wharf. Amazingly, I arrive just after the 9:30 start.
It is an excellent day, possibly the best I have yet attended. the presenters were fine, the material they were presenting was very high quality, and the feedback from the people present was also very helpful. I have issues with one or two details, but overall it was a great time.
Part of the day was the presentation of some research they had done on the cost of getting work, and how to ensure that people will want to get work from an economic point of view. Very important material - what is really getting in the way of more people getting employment?
The logistics, however, did not work. The original plan was for the day to finish at 3 pm in central London, but the revised plan finished at 4:30 in Canary Wharf. So my 5:30 return ticket was no longer a relaxed end to the day. What made it worse is that we were nearly ten minutes late finishing, so I only had 50 minutes to get across London.
With hindsight, this was an amazing journey. From the conference room on the 39th floor, a lift was waiting to take me non-stop to the ground, then I walk to the Underground station and straight on to a train. Change at Westminster, and, again, when I reach the platform there is a train for me. Even the traffic lights on the road are working in my favour. I literally don't stop from the time I leave the conference room to the time I am at Victoria Coach Station. There is just time to buy a coffee and sandwich, then I walk straight on to the coach. Someone was looking out for me.
Friday 8: Annie and Simeon arrive in Bristol for a visit. Annie is a friend of Rosemary Jenkins, and Simeon her son. Annie is about to start at Trinity this Autumn, and Simeon is about to start at the Redcliffe Sixth Form Centre, with Ian (assuming he passes his exams...). We buy an Indian takeaway and some wine and take them roud to their new flat. Very pleasant evening.
Wednesday 13: Sue and I have lunch with Andy and Gay Paget. The original plan was to go round to their house, but their floor is up at present and various bits of work still in progress, so we meet at The Huntsman instead. Decent food, very reasonable prices, and excellent company.
Thursday 14: Philip gets his results: 'A' in Maths, Maths and Physics, 'B' in Psychology and Law. We are very pleased. So, not surprisingly, he is off to Warwick in the Autumn, joining Alan there for one year. He also has a 1 in a STEP paper he took last year; this year he got a 2 in one STEP paper and somehow failed the other. But overall, we can't complain.
Philip goes out in the morning to get his results, and then disappears with his friends. He doesn't come back for tea...
Friday 15: Philip comes home soon after 6 am, after staying the night with a friend. But he doesn't wake us up.
I take the day off work because Sue and I plan to visit Abbey House Gardens, Malmesbury, today. We intend to arrive when it opens at 11, but are only driving in to the Long Stay car park by the river just after 11:30, and it is full. We drive away, find a spot to park on a roadside and walk back, so it is midday before we are finally at the gardens.
It is a beautiful day. We have a coffee, then wander round the upper, more formal part of the gardens, and make friends with a lovely and very active tortise. One oddity is that there are various pieces of sculpture, but they don't say who created them. They have a raised fishpond by the coffee bar, which contains a large number of the largest fish I have seen. One black fish must have been over 2½ feet long, and kept sticking its nose out of the water in a most menacing way.
After lunch, we wander down the slope and explore the rest of the gardens, including a waterfall and a delightful metal fish with a fishing rod and a small man.
The weather is almost perfect: dry with intermittent cloud, but not too hot for Sue in the sun. A degree or two warmer would have been even nicer, but you can't have everything, and considering the weather we have been experiencing recently, it was brilliant.
We finally leave about 5 and wander around Malmesbury. We were there a few years ago, but it was at the time when Sue was experiencing her dizzy spells and she does not remember much of that trip.
You can see some photographs of our visit to Abbey House Gardens in our Facebook album.
I finish writing up 'phase one' of the report on our recent holiday: the bare details are there, but I plan to go back over it and fill in some more when I get time, and add some links to some photos if possible.
Saturday 16: Becky, a delightful lady who volunteered at the Crisis Centre for quite a while, is married at 3 in the afternoon. Ian wants to go round to a friend's house, so Sue offers him a lift if he is ready when she takes me to the wedding. But of course, he takes forever showering, so we are late leaving, and it is just 3 when I get to Woodlands. Fortunately, Becky is traditionally late. After a bit, I spot Trudie sitting with Andy and Gill, and go and join them. They are with Don and Nic and a friend of theirs.
It is a delightful wedding, with a nicely judged PowerPoint presentation to keep us amused while the register is signed. Apart from a very enthusiastic but almost content-free sermon by a pastor of a German church, it all worked brilliantly.
Sue is waiting for me when it finishes, and we go shopping in the nearby Sainsbury's.
Tuesday 19: When I get home from work, there is a hamper packed full of good quality food: cheese, wine, biscuits, and so on. It is from a credit card company, to apologise for messing up a credit card application that Sue made several months ago with the intention of using the card while we were in the USA. We were very unimpressed by a whole series of mistakes and failures to do what they promised, but this is a handsome apology.
Thursday 21: Ian's results today: A* for Chemistry, A for Maths, Physics, Biology and History, B for French and English Language, C for RE and Art, but D for English Literature, DT (food technology) and a half GCSE in ICT (computing).
I joke that he could be expelled from the family for failing ICT, but we are rather pleased - and relieved. He could have done better in ICT and English Literature if he had only done some work, but he passed all the subjects that mattered, and did them well. So it is on to the 6th Form as planned for him.
Tuesday 26: Philip's driving test, at 1:30 pm today. Sadly, he does not pass. His plan is to retake next Summer.
Annie and Simeon arrive today, so while I go to Homegroup, Sue and the boys go and help them unpack.
Saturday 30: A farewell to "1B" - 1B Sydenham Road: a wonderful community house, associated with the Movement for Faith and Justice. The building needs serious repair and the owner is selling it, so the community is closing. Several interesting and poignant conversations, including one with the Catholic Priest who set it up. A deeply sad but uplifting event.
Sunday 31: A church lunch after the service. Sue and I were bringing a couple of pizzas, but the plans don't quite work out and we end up going round CostCo during the service and only arriving part way through the sermon. But it was a good lunch.
In the afternoon, Sue, Alan and I go to see Wall-E. It has some nice touches.
In the evening, Sue and I drive off in an attempt to see the Severn Bore. But we are a little over twenty minutes setting off, and there is a motorcycle parked, blocking the footbridge to the path we want to take, and Sue is not up to climbing over it. We try to drive a bit further and take another path, but it is very overgrown, we are walking in the dark, and we are sure we have missed the bore by this point, so we turn round and go home. Try again in the Spring.
Tuesday 2: I dash away from work to the SMART meeting in Moorgrove House, but none of the officials turns up. Four of us have a fascinating chat about the history of the area and several of the characters associated with it, and then go home. Presumably the meeting was cancelled, but nobody bothered to tell us.
Thursday 4: First thing, drive down to Keynsham for a supervision session with Dave Wiles - always interesting and helpful.
In to work, and we have the Bristol Evening Post in. They interview and photograph several of us: we hope they will run a story about the lack of funding for alcohol detox in Bristol. One of the three, the photographer, wants to come back and do a series of pictures for us as a private way of helping.
The session with the Evening Post people runs overtime, so I'm slightly late for the additional meeting of the Housing Strategy Group. I manage to sit down just as the introductions reach my part of the table. It is a well run meeting, dealing with some difficult and abstract questions of membership and representation, and where does housing fit in the strategic issues of Bristol? Lots of good quality contributions, but it won't be an easy job for the officers to draw them all together into a package the Bristol partnership will buy.
Friday 5: Ian starts 6th Form today. They have not sorted out the timetable yet, so he doesn't know what he will be doing on Monday.
Saturday 6: Prayer Breakfast this morning, then I go into work while Sue goes shopping. More work needed for the Trustees Meeting on Monday, including preparing some accounts for them.
In the evening, Sue and I go to see The Duchess at Cribbs. I am surprised by the certificate: it is a 12A, but there are several fairly explicit sex scenes I would not have expected in a 12A. Sue suggested it was probably only a 12A because of the lack of nudity. She may have been right, but it is a sad comment on our distorted values as a society.
Tuesday 9: At 5 pm, I attend the Bristol Drugs Project AGM. Apart from the board, I am the only person present. But they are pleased to see me, and I get to ask about how they include service users on the board - and also to help keep the company legal, when the temporary chair tried to ask for a vote for the chair of the board without getting the individual elected first.
Afterwards, I work late, preparing the training material for the following evening. In the small hours, I drive home, and all the traffic lights are green, so I manage to do it without stopping. Ridiculous feeling of achievement. I think this is the second time in eight years.
Wednesday 10: While I am training in the evening, Sue goes out with some of the ladies from the church to see Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day. She enjoys it so much, she wants to go back next week.
Friday 12: Alan and Philip get the bus into town, and Sue drives up to my office, and at around 6:30 we set off for the Labour Club in Filton and a comedy night organised by Nigel Burr.
We have some difficulty finding the venue, but we arrive on time in the end. Before the show starts, JP Quirky does some close up magic for us, which is most impressive. His set is entertaining, but at the end he does a 'gospel message' which seems quite out of place and unrelated to the entertainment. Steve Legg, who follows, is also very entertaining, but he has a sharper wit when interacting with the audience, and he drops in to his act some brief comments about his faith, relating what he says to what he is doing and what the audience is experiencing, so the overall effect is much better. But a good evening, and we buy tickets for the next one. The boys enjoyed themselves, but they will both be in Warwick next time.
Saturday 13: The days is non-stop. Leave the house at nine to get Sue to Temple Meads: she is spending the day with her parents. On to Trinity Tabernacle and the Volunteer training. Back home via the health club and a sauna.
After a bit of work on the computer, check the shopping list, and drive out to Temple Meads to pick up Sue, drop her at work and go shopping. Back home, unpack the shopping, take Ian, pick up three of his friends, drop them at a pub just off the Lawrence Hill roundabout, and on to Sue at her work, where she is sorting out Freeset bags for tomorrow. It turns out that the band Ian and his friends have gone to hear are not performing until 1 am, so he makes alternative arrangements for getting home.
Sunday 14: Sue and I are at St Edyths in the morning, selling the Freeset bags. Quite successful. We drop the rest of the bags back to her work, then check the cinema times.
Back home for a quick sandwich, then Alan joins us to see Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day - Philip is already at the Orpheus, working, so he can't, and Ian is not interested. Alan and I enjoy it, but not as much as Sue. I am much happier when I work out who the actor playing the musician is (Ned, from Pushing Dasies).
Monday 15: Global Partnerships meeting at ADH this evening. We spend much of our time praying for Andy and Sam Cheesman, who are about to head off to Hungary. I am going to miss Andy, and it seems I'm not alone.
Tuesday 16: The Community Project executive meeting this evening decides to wind up the company. We have been in the process of reaching this decision for some time: new blood has been needed, and nobody has been coming forward to take on some of the responsibilities we have been trying to carry. It is very sad, but also a great relief, and the Project has achieved an astonishing level of success in some areas. The YAG - Youth Action Group - and the Community Voice, the two most important aspects of our work, should continue.
In the end, it came down to timing. If we had pressed ahead with registration as a charity as originally planned, we would have gained funding for a Community Worker, and things would be very different. But the Council's development worker repeatedly let us down, then we let it drift for a while, and then the rules changed to make it impossible for us to register. And that, as it turned out, was that.
Thursday 18: First thing in the morning, I get a phone call from Alan Goddard: someone attacked the building last night. The bin was overturned, rubbish all down the street, and a brick put through the kitchen window at the back. I am supposed to be working from home today, but instead I drive Sue to the meeting point for her walk with the Stoke Lodge Ramblers, and go on to work. On top of it all, Lisa is off sick.
Alan works hard, and by the evening the shop is ready to open again. I drive back, and am nearly in time for a Cyberporte meeting, where we agree to keep going for another three years in the hope of starting to make some profit. It really does look possible this time.
We all then walk round to Korky and Anni for a meal and the Europe Now meeting. The need for something to fulfil the original vision of Europe Now is still there, but the way ahead is not yet clear. But is is very good to be with people who care, who want to make a difference, and who are prepared to ask questions and to pray and to listen and to think. Apart from Sue Howe and Rob Davis, everyone is present: the Mathiesons and the Daveys, Mark, Steve, Simon, Tracy and me. It is a long time since we were last together.
Friday 19: At lunchtime, the new head of CCISR joins the BCAN Steering Group for the first time. Sadly, the new head of the George Muller Foundation is called away to deal with an emergency elsewhere, and Julian Perkins again cannot be with us. But a good and useful meeting, clarifying and confirming the job description for the new part time worker we are about to advertise for.
I have to dash away from work to get to the surgery in Sea Mills where the nurse gives me my injections. It all runs rather late, so I'm then dashing into home to talk to the boys, deliverying a casserole, and heading out to the Anabaptist Study Group.
This evening, we are looking at the first chapter of Dissident Spirituality ('Dissident Discipleship: A Spirituality of Self-surrender, Love of God, and Love of Neighbor' by David Augsburger). I love the book, but my feelings are not shared by everyone. And I am astonished at the ways in which people get confused or sidetracked.
One major problem, it seems, is that Augsburger mentions a few other religious traditions - Jainism, for example - without explicitly saying that he thinks they are a bunch of heathens destined for Hell, and therefore some readers were confused about whether he thinks it is a good idea to follow those other religions. It seems quite clear to me that Augsburger is a Christian and quite keen on Jesus. It seems unlikely to me that he would want to encourage anyone to abandon or ignore Jesus. And very unlikely that he would seek to achieve such a radical and far-reaching goal simply by inserting a single passing reference in a passage about underlying models of spirituality.
Yet again, we find that an author or speaker cannot say anything about any other religion that sounds positive, or suggest that they agree with some aspect of their doctrine or practice, without being accused of wishing to convert to that other faith. Why is it so difficult for people to consider the possibility that other religions may not be totally wrong and their followers may not be totally evil?
Another critical problem that several people struggled with is that Augsburger says at one point that you can encounter Jesus in your fellow believers, and then 'contradicts himself' a little while later by saying that you can encounter Jesus in non-believers. Which is it? The person asking the question does admit that there may be the possibility that both may be true, but this seems to be such a remote possibility that it is only mentioned for the sake of being dismissed. After all, what can believers and unbelievers possibly have in common?
A major part of the discussion in my small group revolves around the question of where you 'draw the line' between those in the church and those outside it. I try several times to question this: I ask why you needed to draw any such line. I say that I don't find any need myself to draw a line like that. But clearly, what I say makes no sense to anyone else. The need for us to draw a line between those inside and those outside is so obvious that it doesn't need to be - perhaps it can't be - explained.
The fascinating thing is that folk are very happy to make a distinction between the human institution and the 'true' church. I understand that a human organisation needs rules and members, and you need to draw a line somewhere so you know who can vote, or who needs to be told about the events being planned. But why do I need to know who is really saved, and who is only attending the services, singing the songs and going through the motions? Surely I am called to love them, just the same?
The other thing that struck me was another repeated theme: the modest admitting by various people present that they are really living a bi-polar spirituality, because they don't live all the time as if the stranger they meet in the street really is Jesus, the way Mother Theresa did. This confession might make sense if they were claiming to have completed the inner journey, fully in touch with their inner, deepest self, and were also fully in harmony with and submitted to God, responsive to the slightest whisper of His voice. But since they are probably, like me, not perfect in the first two poles of spirituality, why are they so sensitive to being imperfect in the third? Is it that the third pole - other people - is the only one which can be observed? After all, nobody else can see how aware I am of my own needs, fears and desires, and nobody can see how sensitive I am to the leading of the Holy Spirit, but everyone can tell when I'm biting their head off for no good reason. Or maybe we are just so used to being untruthful about the first two poles that it no longer registers? Anyway, as always, lots to think about.
After the group breaks up, I continue some of the discussions with a couple of the people present, and discover another interesting idea: it seems that you can only be church alongside people who are (a) equally committed to the fellowship as you (I wonder how you measure that!), and (b) alongside people who you agree with. I have yet to meet anyone who I agree with on every significant issue, so I suppose that consigns me to a lonely existence unless I manage to convince someone else just how right I am in everything. I simply don't see how you can live with this sort of idea, but it is given simply and as a self-evident truth, and I'm sure they firmly believe these things to be true.
The scary thing for me, on reflection, is that this is the bunch of people in Bristol who I am closest to, theologically. At least they are thinking about, and seeking to articulate these ideas - which is a vast improvement over not being willing to think about such issues at all...
Back to work after the meeting, and I eventually drive home about quarter to one. Astonishingly, I manage the whole journey without stopping once - the second time this week, and the third time in eight years.
Saturday 20: Sue and I head off for a few days, back to Pitstone in Dartmoor. We are quite late setting out, and Sue wants to stop for something to eat at a place in Axbridge she visited with the Stoke Lodge Ramblers. We only get a bit lost.
When we arrive in Axbridge, the scene is quite unbelievable: a mini funfare, with bright lights and music, and young people milling around everywhere. We have to drive right though all this to get to the car park, the walk back through it to the restaurant.
The meal is excellent, but takes forever to arrive. Sue said there were interesting pictures on the walls, and she is quite right. But with hindsight it may have been a better idea to see them some other time.
We eventually arrive at Pitstone around 11 pm. Martin is very gracious. The last part of the journey, because we followed Sally and not Martin's instructions, was spent crawling along some minor country roads, in places with the hedges touching the car on both sides. And it's not a big car. We might follow his directions in future.
Sunday 21: Church at Ilsington, then it is a bright day so we go up the Tor. It's fascinating to watch the various groups climbing, and to hear the advice being given... "Put your left foot on that ledge by your shoulder. Now, just stand up." Most of them are climbing without hard hats, so we assume they must be students.
Wander round Newton Abbott, after struggling to find somewhere to park. Eventually we find a supermarket where we should have parked if we had thought about it. Eat inthe cafe and get some fruit and other bits for our holiday. Back to Pitstone and have a swim and sauna.
Monday 22: We head towards Dartmoore Prison, on the way stopping at Postbridge, where there is a beautiful and ancient stone bridge. We have a coffee and take some pictures. On the other side of the road is a visitor centre, and I ask about the use of iron in the current road bridge. This sparks not only a search in the reference books to hand, but also a phone call to the archeology department of the university of Exeter. It was just an innocent question.
The prison museum is quite fascinating. It has a good range of exhibits, including some details of some of the previous inhabitants. Oddly, as well as some hideous garden ornaments for sale - made by the inmates of course - we can also buy some genuine prison doors. There are hundreds of them in the basement, and one clearly has the name and address of the person who bought it taped on the front.
The local information centre is large and full of interesting exhibits, plus a few inevitable bits about legends of the moor.
Tuesday 23: Over breakfast, we can see some smoke rising up, towards the Tor. I suggest it may be a bonfire, although to be honest there seems to be too much smoke for an ordinary bonfire. But Sue, quite unreasonably, suggests that if I want to play with a bonfire she will take the car and go shopping all day. Not an option...
We drive to Ashburton, via Ilsington, and only get a little lost. En route, we pass Rora House, where I stayed a few years ago with Malcolm Widdecombe, Andy Paget and a few others. A friendly lady sends us in the right direction, and we pick up signs for Ashburton eventually.
After parking, we take a short detour to look at a piece of rock on a green, then in to the market. Very little there, but we get a Le Carre novel, and various other bits, plus a couple of handmade pasties for later.
Whhile looking for somewhere to eat, we find a perfect bag for me... I've been looking for something to carry the Acer around in, and this is just the right size.
Lunch at the Green Ginger Café. Delicious food, and we sit in the garden in the sunshine - for most of the time, anyway. It was warm enough in the shade, but beautiful in the sun.
Next stop, our pilgrimage to Trago Mills: Sue wants to get various bits for when Philip goes to university, and we also find a possible but not brilliant diary for her to use next year. But at 50p, worth trying.
Then Canonteign Falls. Sue had bought me a Tide clock when we came earlier in the year, but the mechanism never worked properly. Possibly we damaged it when bringing it home. Anyway, we now have the name and address of of the craftsman who made it.
Back to Pitstone, tea and coffee on the patio in the late afternoon sunshine, and then swimming and sauna. Watched an episode of The Prisoner on the laptop, then Griff Rees Jones' program on anger. Very impressed by some of the insights and honesty. Check bbc.co.uk/headroom
Wednesday 24: At breakfast, the smoke is coming from the same location as yesterday, again sometimes an impressive plume and sometimes hardly visible. The Tor is barely visible at the beginning of breakfast, and by the end it is completely obscured in cloud.
Drive to Exeter and find a long stay park on the South of the river. Strangely, the car park seems completely full: we drive round and there is not a single space available. Then I drive the wrong way out and discover another, larger section of the car park, almost completely empty.
On the way back, we eat at the Motel by Exeter Racetrack. Three other cars in the car park, and it seems they are all staff. Despite the completely empty setting, we have a tasty and reasonably priced meal - and we can't complain about the service.
Back at Pitstone, we take a final swim and sauna before watching another episode of The Prisoner.
Thursday 25: We drive off just after the 11 am target for our getaway. Sue drops me off at work around 1:30 and goes exploring the new Cabbot Circus shopping centre. At work, Trudie and I have an extremely helpful time with Mandy Addison, looking at mental heath issues and faith.
Friday 26: The idea is that we get Philip packed and his bits in the car, so all we have to do tomorrow is get up, have breakfast and drive away. But the packing is running late, and his computer dies. We are up until the small hours downloading and applying the fix, which involves booting from a memory stick. Not what we want to be doing at this point.
Saturday 27: Sue and I take Philip to Warwick. We arrive just before it starts to get busy, collect his key, and load his stuff into his room. He is just a few houses along from where Alan was in his first year, so it is all very familiar.
Sue wants to help him unpack and get his room sorted, but Philip is not keen on this, so we say goodbye and leave him. We are supposed to be meeting Alan, but he has a meeting first. We bump into him on his way to the meeting, then wander a bit and have lunch with him.
We then drive up to Alan's house, sit and chat for a while, have a coffee, and drive home. It sounds like he is living with an interesting bunch of people, including two chaps who are working for a local church.
On the way home, we drop at a Silk Mill, just off the A46. I never know just how complicated printing a design onto a piece of silk could be. It's a nice place to break the journey. We are both very well behaved, and avoid all the obvious phrases, like "I'm sure he is going to be fine."
Thursday 2: The Voscur AGM. Sue drops me off at the Greenway Centre, which turns out to be a good idea as the car park is packed. I'm standing again for the board, and as there are twelve candidates and twelve places, we are all duly elected without a vote.
In a break, I switch my phone on and get a message: the folk back at the office can't print. We are trying to get the newsletter printed and posted with the AGM invitations. I promise to come in after the AGM.
The rest of the AGM goes really well, with interesting input from the Council, and presentations of the 'Voscurs'. I was sceptical about the idea, but it worked brilliantly.
Fran gives me a lift in to work. I switch off the computer and photocopier, switch them on again, and the printing works perfectly. Spend the rest of the afternoon printing and stuffing envelopes.
Friday 3: After work, I go for a drink with John Stevens. We have a splendid time, nearly manage to put the world to rights, and the drink turns into an evening meal. We will have to do it again, and see if we can finish the job.
Saturday 4: Walk Through the Bible at the Ashley Road Salvation Army. Brilliant. And I pick up a book on teaching which is horribly American, but seems to contain a good amount of very useful material.
Sunday 5: Sue goes to Abergavenny, to sell Freeset bags. It's not really a cost-effective exercise, but probably the sort of thing you do once just to be sure. I go shopping after church, and fail to get to the art show at Studio Upstairs.
Wednesday 8: Meetign today with Wayne Stevens from Shelter and Michele Tedder from the Council, to talk about the new Homelessness Prevention Strategy. Massive problems with it, but not much chance of any significant changes, or any changes, really. But we might be able to influence the Action Plan.
Saturday 11: Volunteer Training first thing, then back to the office where I work on some of the outstanding documents for the CCM AGM on Monday and wait for Andrew Street so we can talk about plans for Monday. But he texts to say he can't make it after all - after church tomorrow, instead?
I drive home, have a late lunch, then Sue and I do the weekly shop. Ian is supposed to be attending a Cricket Club Dinner, but when we get home he has decided not to go. Sue persuades him, so I drop him off and head back in to work to finish the documents for Monday.
Sunday 12: I finish editing and printing the documents for the AGM just after 3 am, pack up and drive away. There is an astonishing number of people around, crowds hanging around outside The Stoke pub, and quite a few cars. One is revving its engines just behind me as I drive up the Gloucester Road, and as soon as he can overtake on the inside, he does so and shoots off through a red light. I drop a copy of the annual report through the doors of Scott, our Accountant, and Graham. Home and text Andrew: I may not make church in the morning. If not, can he come to me? Then bed around half past four.
Sue and I both miss church. I get up around 11, have breakfast, and out for the coffee at the end of the service. Eventually sit down with Andrew to talk about the AGM, then we drive up to Cribbs to trawl through the shops in search of a new fridge-freezer. There is a food festival, which is quite fun with lots of samples, and provides a welcome break to the job in hand.
Afterwards, I got for a quick sauna, then on to Korky and Anni where Ken and Ali Barrett are being hosted. They are the last Brethren missionaries in Spain, a detail which had escaped me until now. Then home, and Sunday 'lunch'.
Sue shows me the trophy presented to Ian at the dinner last night - the 'Most Improved' junior player. It is very impressive.
Monday 13: up early to take the next Bonviva pill, then an hour on the computer before the rest of my morning medications and breakfast.
At work, we make the final preparations for the AGM. I forgot to bring the laptop with me, so drive home, pick it up, and drive in to Trinity Tabernacle. Spend the afternoon woprking on a response to the DWP consultation on welfare benefits.
We have the Trustees' meeting at 6:30, where the Annual Report is agreed, and the AGM at 7:30. It all goes well, everyone speaks well, and we have lots of good feedback afterwards. The timing isn't too bad, either: fifteen minutes behind schedule at the start of the formal bit, but only ten minutes late finishing. We have a short presentation to Trudie, who is retiring at the end of the month. She has been part of the project since the start, and we owe her more than we can say. I will personally miss Trudie's willingness to ask questions and explore, as well as the amazing gifts she has brought to her work.
Tuesday 14: the email is down at work. In fact the whole Internet connection has been down since yesterday morning. Spend a lot of time on the phone and talking to 'support' people.
In the evening, Alan Goddard and I go to the Bristol launch of 'Who is My Neighbour?' - a study by Churches Together on gangs, guns and knives. It is important stuff, and I try to encourage the churches to feel that they really do have the resources and ability to make a difference. It's not easy to make the points I have prepared, coming on straight after a lengthy and upbeat rap number. But something comes across, and it is certainly worthwhile to be there.
Thursday 16: All morning there is a meeting at the BDA, the Black Development Agency, about the way the council monitors progress on race equality. As usually happens in these meetings, I say more than most of the folk present, but it is nice to have several people afterwards thanking me for the points I was making. None of it is rocket science, just pointing out areas where the information we are given does not tie up.
The New Scientist today covers what is possibly the most important subject facing us: the total mismatch between the economists' goal of continual growth, and the reality of living in a world with finite resources. I remember talking about this at school: it seemed an obvious contradiction in our economic strategy at the time, and still does. We, the human race, are not living in a sustainable way today, and the only answer to our problems seems to involve growing the economy so we use up the earth's resources at an even faster rate. It just does not make sense.
After all, we passed the point where the current economy could be sustained back in the 80's. We have probably just shot past peak oil without noticing. The economists seem to fear recession more than anything else, but surely recession - using up the earth at a slower rate - is exactly what we need?
I was fascinated to discover that John Stuart Mill, 'one of the founders of classical economics' recognised this from the start. Writing in 1848 (in his Principles of Political Economy), he described how, once the work of economic growth was done, a stationary economy would emerge in which we could focus not on material growth but on human improvement. Stunning.
In the evening, the Global Partnerships meeting at Highgrove spends an informative and enlightening evening looking at Turkey. More than any other nation I am aware of, Turkey is in a position right now to choose its future - is it part of Europe? Is it an Islamic state? A secular state with a majority Muslim population? Can it stand and survive as an isolated nation? Personally, I don't see isolation as a viable option, but none of the other options seem likely either. I suspect that in another dozen years, the EU will start to regret that it did not make more efforts to encourage Turkey to join. Maybe sooner.
The other disturbing feature of the evening is the way I constantly cough through the presentation, which I hope did not distract anyone else too much.
Friday 17: BT have sorted out the Broadband problem at work, and we are online again. I find in my email a message from my ISP telling me how to connect to the Internet for free using a dial-up line. It would have been nice to have known this on Tuesday...
Also post off my response to the DWP on their consultation, just in time for the deadline on 22 October.
Saturday 18: I sleep in. Sue has a haircut in Shirehamption. A late breakfast, then catch the bus into town for Trudie's leaving do at LaserQuest. I'm not feeling too bright, but walking slowly is fine.
We meet at 12:30, get briefed, and go in to the first session: everyone against everyone else. I'm not up to running round much, so I mainly stand in a corner and shoot people running past. Astonishingly, at the end, I'm in second place, and on the 'high scores' for the day at number five. Make a record of that: I'm not likely to make a LaserQuest high score ever again. The second round is a team game, and this time I am the lowest scorer in my team, although the team did win convincingly - mainly due to superior tactics and teamwork.
The main thing is that everyone enjoys it, especially Trudie. So that was a stroke of genius. It's not the sort of event I would ever have thought of suggesting.
We wander down to a local Italian restaurant, joined by several other people, including Sue after half an hour or so. By which time, I'm not feeling at all well. I order a small plate of pasta, expecting to eat about half of it, but by the time it arrives I can only pick at a few strands of spaghetti. Sue suggests I should go home, and I'm not up to arguing, so I make my excuses and leave. There is a bus waiting at the stop, I get home and go to bed.
I had intended to spend the afternoon looking round the West Bristol Art Fair, but I only manage to get up for a few hours in the evening. Sue and I were booked to go to the Soroptimists Barn Dance, but there is no way I can cope with that. Sue goes and dances, and I sit in front of the TV for a few hours, then back to bed. Fortunately, she reminds me about tomorrow: I am supposed to be doing the words at church. We manage to find a replacement, which at this late stage is something of a miracle.
Sunday 19: Sue drives off to Newbury, to see her sister Barbara, and I sleep through the morning. Have breakfast around lunchtime, take some more painkillers, and back to bed. Steve heads off to Italy for a few days, to spend some time with Rob and Tracy.
Get up mid-afternoon, starting to feel a little more human. Ian cooks a salmon stir-fry: not a lot, but it is nice to eat something. After a while, Sue comes home and I drive down for a sauna... the perfect treatment for aching bones. Another early night.
Monday 20: Sue drives me in to work, and I spend the morning catching up on some of the most urgent items that slipped last week while I was sorting out the Broadband problem.
Lunch with Sue, then over to the CCISR offices for a meeting about Roma in Bristol. A persecuted minority in their own country, with very limited right to work in this country and no access to social support. Not an easy problem to respond to.
Afterwards, I drive home. It's probably sensible, given that I'm still recovering from the weekend. Was supposed to be having an evening out with the FareShare folk in the local bowling alley, but a night in seems to be a better idea right now. I have already given Sue my apologies for the One25 AGM tonight.
Tuesday 21: The chap from Peninsula comes round to see me. They want to offer us a good deal on a replacement photocopier, but I don't want to accept unless they can give us access to the full functionality from our Linux machines. He promises that this is easy - but they have not managed it in the past three years. We will wait and see. The deadline is the end of the month.
In the evening, the Multi Faith Forum has its first 'proper' AGM as an organisation independent of the Council. We are at the Pierian Centre, which is handy for me. We also say goodbye to David Maggs, who is moving on to pastures greener: a very sad loss for the rest of us. It is hard to summarise how many ways David has made a significant contribution to Bristol, through Voscur and the Bristol Partnership, and presumably in many other areas I know nothing about.
Thursday 23: In the morning, we have a meeting of the Voscur board and reps to talk about representation to the Bristol Partnership. They want our Chief Exec or Chair to be a part of the executive, but we work through members being elected to representative posts. But in the circumstances, we will try a bit of a compromise and see where it gets us.
In the evening, I was planning to go to the BAT AGM, but several recent meetings suggested I should go to the Bristol Faith Forum at St Agnes instead. When it starts, there are only ten people present, and I know four of them. But after another half an hour, we are up to a reasonable thirty.
The main speaker is Paul Stevenson, the man who was behind the famous Bristol Bus Boycott of 1963, which was publicised by Tony Benn and which led to the first race equalities legislation in the UK. He is an amazing man. To be honest, not a good speaker - but maybe he has run out of steam when talking about the same events for the several hundredth time. But hawever good the talk, it is a privilege to be there and meet him.
Friday 24: The Anabaptist Network in the evening is good fun as usual. Lots of talk about community, and recognising that we all live in multiple communities today. Several folk were expressing problems with the idea of being accountable to other people, but the problems seemed to be more with the giving up of the right to make your own decisions - which is not what accountability is about. So what is the problem with it?
Saturday 25: Men's Breakfast at Highgrove this morning with Rob Parsons. As always, he is excellent - still one of the best communicators I know, and always with something worth saying and worth hearing.
Sue is at the Charity Fair in Broadmead Baptist, with Esme, selling Freeset Bags. I dash off at the end of the breakfast and catch a bus into town. Sue and Esme are fine, so I pop into work for a while, then have some lunch with Sue. We pack the bags away, take them back to One25, then drive up to the Morrisons at Fishponds - not far, but a long, slow journey.
We get home, and I am unpacking the shopping and Sue is in the shower when she gets a phone call from Dawn Wakefield. I don't immediately connect the name, but Sue is just getting out of the shower and I pass the phone to her. Dawn's father, Dick Wakefield, has just died. He was one of Sue's old friends from the RNIB. The funeral is on Thursday.
We go out to St Agnes: Sister Annaliese is having her 50th birthday celebration there, and throwing a party. Lots of old friends, including David and Carol Self, who are doing really well and enjoying their retirement, and another of the Sisters who did the training with me a few years ago, and who is still praying for Sue following her brain operation despite never meeting her until tonight.
Sunday 26: It is the Wessex Go Tournament, and I have permission to skip church for once. Sue and I drive to Bath, park, and find the venue, then she goes off shopping while I settle down. Steve and Pauline Bailey are there from West Surrey, and a few others I recognise from other clubs. I have entered as 7 kyu, which is where I was ten years ago. I have not played for about three years, but the theory is that you don't get weaker by not playing.
In the first round, I am taking White against Chris Brown, 6 kyu, who is playing his first OTB (over the board, as opposed to 'on the computer') game for some thirty years. I think it is a close game, but forget the 6 points komi, so he beats me by 4 points on the board (58 to 54), so 10 points in all. Not bad for my first game in years.
Lunch with Sue in a nearby cafe with WiFi access. She updates me on the exciting shopping highlights of the morning.
The second match is against Jack Drury, 7 kyu in theory. A young teenager, who seems to be much stronger than his grade suggests. I am Black, and struggling from the start. I make a couple of ambitious plays to see how he will respond, and he wipes the floor with me. I end up losing by 29 points, which is probably less than I deserve.
In the interval, I play Chris again. He tries some unorthodox moves and I'm not really sure how to respond, but it works out okay and I'm comfortably ahead when the draw for the final round is posted.
In the final round I am playing Black again, this time against Wesley Tailor, 7 kyu. It is a totally nailbiting game. We share out the initial territory around the edge quite fairly, then we get into a complicated life-or-death fight in one corner with two kos. I'm sure one of us mis-read the situation, but I'm still not sure which one it was. The immediate fight is resolved, and he has a long group with no eyes sandwiched between two of my groups. This is generally a good situation, as you either get to kill the group, or you gain lots of influence on the outside as he seeks to live.
But after a few more moves, I make a totally stupid mistake and let him cut off one of my groups. For a minute or two, that seems to be the end of the game. But then I notice a possible way to recover, by attacking his stones on the side. It works, and we end up with a capturing race. After a while, it becomes clear that he cannot win the race, and he resigns. After the game, he describes my move as 'brilliant' - which is probably the first time anyone has suggested anything of the sort. Anyway, that leaves me with one game out of three for the tournament, which is probably fair.
Monday 27: Sue goes up to Newbury, to stay overnight. Her mother is having some more teeth out. Ian is supposed to be doing some washing up and sorting his room out, but he has a friend, Hugh, around instead. A nice enough lad, but neither of them are capable of shutting the back door when they go outside.
Tuesday 28: Just before one, Sue sends me a text message: "We're out. She is fine. It hasn't stopped her talking." No homegroup tonight, so when she gets home we have a night in together. It doesn't happen that often. Ian is out, spending the night at a friend's house. It is half-term, after all. Or, to be precise, between terms, as they now have six short terms instead of three long ones with a break.
Thursday 30: Sue goes to Dick's funeral at St Giles church in Cheddington. Ian comes home around four. Then he goes out again to buy a copy of 'On the Beach' - I know we have a copy somewhere, but don't have the faintest idea where. It might even be in one of the boxes we have not unpacked from Guildford yet.
The New Scientist has a fascinating article about relativity: how Einstein was both right and wrong. Right in the theory, but wrong in how he arrived at it. The origin of the theory was his question about travelling with a beam of light, and light was central to the Theory of Relativity. All the strange results follow, as they say, from the fact that light travels at the same speed whichever frame of reference you choose - Einstein's 'second postulate'.
This, when you think about it, is a troubling idea. It means that Relativity, one of the fundamental ways in which we see the universe, depends on the physical properties of an object, and on the accuracy of our measurements of this object.
The article goes on to establish that Relativity does not depend on light. It can be derived from mathematics alone. In fact Galileo, nearly 400 years ago, got remarkably close, and could have derived Relativity from some of his work if he had more modern matematical tools available to him at the time.
Light, it turns out, is merely a good example of an object with no mass, which travels at the maximum speed - the speed we call the speed of light. If it were to turn out that light actually has a very small mass and hence travels (very slightly) at a slower speed than a particle with no mass, we would have to change many of our ideas, but Relativity would stand unchanged. What a relief.
Friday 31: The man from Peninsula comes round again. It is the end of the month, and he has a plan. He finally admits that Toshiba don't support all their printer's functionality in Linux, but has evidence that Ricoh do. There is an equivalent Ricoh printer to the Toshiba he had offered us, a bit more expensive, slightly better spec, but he will provide it for the price of the Toshiba. It sounds like a plan.
We have a good time with our local councillor, talking about what we do at CCM. He didn't know much about us up to now, which says something about the low level of problems we generate. He goes away happy with what he has seen and heard.
Leave work on time for once, and take Sue and Ian to the early evening showing of Quantum of Solace at the Orpheus. Action packed, but hard to follow.
After a while, it becomes clear that this is actually a sequel to Casino Royale, and all the plot is driven by the questions and emotions triggered by the previous film. I was expecting much more to be spelled out for me, but it turned out that I had to remember what had happened and then fill in the gaps myself. So, incredibly, it was not as successful as it could have been because it expected far more of me then I was capable of. I never expected to be saying that about a Bond film. And I did like the idea that water is actually the most important resource on the planet - a really important observation, and probably ahead of the curve in terms of public awareness.
Saturday 1: Prayer Breakfast at St Edyths first thing, then on the bus and down to the Council House. From 11 to 4 there is a meeting about 'Supporting Equality in Schools', which is about how the LGB agenda is being promoted in the Bristol schools following the debacle earlier this year when some folk with support from the Council tried to push some extreme material into two schools against the wishes of the parents.
The sad thing about the event is the lack of any progress over the last few months, either in dealing with the issues or in understanding the positions of the people involved. A great deal is said, seemingly to address the problems which has arisen, but almost none of it is at all relevant. And there still seemes to be a 'victory or defeat', 'all or nothing' mentality - either the original materials will be adopted and used in their entirity, or it will be a complete defeat. But I only ever heard people objecting to a couple of items in a long list of material being used by the school, so as far as I can tell there are few if any objections to the vast majority of the material being reintroduced. But nothing said during the day suggests that this is even a possibility to be considered.
On the plus side, it is an excellent networking opportunity. And they want to set up a meeting in the new year to address questions of faith and sexuality, so this is an excellent reminder of the issues and an insight into the ways in which people are responding to them. Cass wants me to report on this to the next Multi Faith Forum, but I will be coming back from London that evening. Perhaps I will manage to write a report for her.
For some reason, Sue wants me to get a bus home. Then we drive back into town to pick up the Freeset bags for her to take to Highgrove tomorrow.
Sunday 2: Our Homegroup is setting up at church, and I am doing the words. All goes well up to the point when I have entered all the songs and start to display the first one to check it all works. The first part of the first letter on each line is missing. I try messing around with the display settings on the computer, but no joy.
I ask Sam Marsh if he has any idea, but he has not seen this before. We try looking at the settings on the projector, and manage to get the image displayed upsidedown. Then it is displayed as a mirror-image, reversed right to left. Then we lose the display menu position, and fail to find the relevant setting - trying to read the text backwards, and needing to press the right keys in a few seconds or the menu disappears. Somehow, we manage to get the display restored just before the service starts, and for some reason the original problem has been fixed. I seem to be jinxed with this equipment.
The service is quite complex, technically. We have a film from TearFund, which requires the projector to be re-configured twice during the service, and John Stevens has a PowerPoint to illustrate his sermon, both of which would have been shown back to front if we had not fixed the problem in time.
I spend too much of the sermon trying to work out the significance of one of John's slides. It shows what appears to be a graph, with 'Material World' increasing as you go right along the horizontal axis, and 'Spiritual World' increasing as you go down - not up - along the vertical axis. Why down? Is this some reference to the 'Upsidedown Kingdom'? And how, even if you can get more or less spiritual, do you get more or less material? And there seems to be room in this worldview for objects with negative materiality and negative spirituality. What could they be?
Tuesday 4: In the evening, the very last public meeting organised by the Sea Mills and Coombe Dingle Community Project. Tim and Fay each have their spot, reflecting on the past ten years and what has been achieved. A lady from the Community Centre Association invites us to their committee meeting next Tuesday evening. Well, that is progress if anything is - in the past, we were not even allowed to know when they were meeting, let alone be invited to attend. A new day is dawning.
At the end, Fay is presented with some flowers, and they give me a Waterstones card with (it turns out) £20 credit on it. Completely unexpected. But I suppose we have been jointly chairing it for a number of years, Fay has been involved since the beginning, I turned up the following year, and have been the public face of the project at all the public meetings for quite a while. So that was a really nice gesture.
The hardest part of the meeting was where I tried to describe the structures for local democracy and involvement through the Bristol Partnership, the Local Neighbourhood Partnerships, Safer Bristol, PACT and the SMART meetings, and then the otehr avenues of involvement through Voscur. It is not easy to understand because it just does not make sense - how can they expect this system to work?
Wednesday 5: Wow. He did it. I have been following Obama since well before he anounced his candidacy, but have never actually believed he could win. It seemed clear that Clinton, with her experience and contacts, would be able to out-manoeuvre him. And when he became the Democratic Candidate, it still seemed that the experienced white man would easily beat the inexperienced black man, whatever the polls said. After all, they have often been misleading in these circumstances in the past. But no, this time it worked.
It has got to be the right result. McCain made so many mistakes, and failed to address the key questions so often. I heard most of the first debate between the, and was astonished: both men attacked the other, as you would expect. But Obama listed to the points being made, and gave an adequate refutation of each one. McCain would not, or could not, refute Obama's criticisms, but instead took the opportunity to make further attacks. I could not vote for such a person, and neither, thank goodness, as it turns out, could most Americans.
In the evening, I go for another drink with John Stevens. As always, time with him is enjoyable and stimulating. Amongst other things, we touch on the nature of spirituality and whether man is bipartite or tripartite. Sadly, I am a bit late arriving, and he is suffering a bit with his back, so we don't have as long as we might have done.
Thursday 6: Steve Chalke is the speaker this morning for the joint CET, Muller and BCAN event at Woodlands. The subject is 'Re-imaging Church : Every Person Matters', and the talk is available from the usual web site for the Bristol Region Church Leaders.
He is stunningly brilliant, as always. But it seems that quite a number of people present are simply not willing to listen to him. We got into small groups at the end, and the first comment was along the lines of: "That was dreadful. He completely devalues the cross." He was not talking about the cross. He did mention the cross in passing, as an example of the way in which Jesus' approach to ministry was carried out consistently in every aspect of His ministry, including what He did on the cross - which for me was a very insightful and helpful fresh look at a familiar topic. But it certainly was not presented as a complete statement of the atonement, and I can't imagine how anyone could possibly have taken it that was unless they came with the intention of finding reasons to attack him.
There were also a couple of semi-hostile public questions at the end, which Steve handled brilliantly. The nice thing at the end was when a chap who had been at the CCM AGM in October came up to me and said that he was excited because all the good things Steve had been talking about, he had heard everyone at our AGM also talking about when sharing about what we are doing every day. Wonderful! Someone heard, and understood.
I also had a short unplanned chat with Steve as I was about to leave - we were using the gents at the same time. We talked about the recent Moral Maze he had appeared in, and he was wonderfully relaxed about the dreadful way they had treated him. Now that is a sign of real spirituality.
Sunday 9: On the BBC1 Politics Show today at noon, CCM features in a piece on the plight of ex-servicemen. We have been helping a Gulf War veteran who is homeless, and he is a good example of the sort of trouble so many people get into when the leave the armed services. They say that 10% of homeless people are ex-military, which sounds about right.
Monday 10: Meeting the Trustees in the morning, then praying at Pip'n'Jay, then back for a meeting with Graham in the afternoon. The day is completely non-stop, so when Sue rings and offers to pick me up on her way home, I accept.
When Sue went for her flu jab, the Fire Brigade were offering to come round and do a smoke alarm check, so she took up the offer. They come round at 6:30 this evening, and for once I am home at that time. Sue is expecting some 'hunky' firemen, but one of them turns out to be a very nice lady. They are all very nice, in fact, and actually install two new smoke alarms, and leave one for Steve to fit. They will all last ten years in theory, and need to be tested every week. One of our existing alarms, which were all taken down, was cheerfully described as 'as much use as a brake on a canoe.'
Tuesday 11: A lady called Stephanie Williams called several weeks ago to arrange an interview. This happens fairly often, so I didn't think too much about it. She turns up with another lady and recording equipment: they want to video the interview for a final year university project on homelessness. This is a bit less common. After a bit, I ask Alan to come up and talk about some of the folk we have been helping. The two girls just keep on asking questions and recording. The project is turning out to be a bit of an eye-opener for them, but they are really beginning to think about the issues and about the practical questions of what can be done, and they clearly care about the things they are discovering.
In the evening, I am scheduled to do something at Homegroup. After some debate, I decide to work through a paper I wrote for the Trinity College students recently, and get some feedback on the things I wanted to say and how best to say them. It turns into a really interesting time of sharing and exploring some fairly deep issues, and several folk are very enthusiastic about the experience. It works much better than I had hoped, and some of the feedback will make a big difference to the next draft. I hope we will be able to repeat the exercise at some point.
Saturday 15: I am out all day. Fristly, it is the Mental Health conference organised by Hope's Place. Professor Glyn Harrison is the main speaker, and again he is excellent: good material, clearly and thoughtfully presented.
After lunch, we have some seminars. The choice is very difficult, but in the end I go for one which includes dealing with the demonic. I expect it to be very good or very bad, and it turns out to be very good. One contributor is a doctor married to a minister, and one is an Anglican priest. They offer a very balanced and careful description, very nicely balanced. I disagree with a few details of the theology, but it is an excellent presentation. the main drawback is that the advice on how to respond to unclean spirits is all offered from an Anglican perspective, in which you have church structures and procedures and disciplines and rituals all available. I ask about how you translate this into practice for people operating outside the Anglican and Catholic churches, and he gives a thoughful if not totally comprehensive response.
Afterwards, when I should have been doing some sort of feedback, I get talking with him and ask about the theology. It turns out that he basically agrees with my understanding: there is not three different types of activity - obsession, oppression and posession - but one type of activity which exists on a spectrum of intensity and frequency. But the division he presented is helpful for communicating to a bunch of strangers in a short period, so we actually agree after all.
From there I get the bus into town and do a couple of hours working on the application for planning permission - I had promised the Trustees to have a draft for them by the end of the week. It does not go as well as I had hoped.
Get the bus home, then out with Ian and Sue to The Most Effective Drum at Westbury Methodist. Ian's friend Rob is taking part, as he did last year. The title is taken from the quote from the French Playwrite Giandoux: "As soon as war is declared it will be impossible to hold the poets back. Rhyme is still the most effective drum."
Much of the evening is deeply moving: accounts of war and the consequences of war from many perspectives, times and lands. All unique, and all universal. I can't talk at the end for quite a while. And then we lose Ian. He walked back to the car without us, and we are left waiting in the entrace lobby. Eventually, I walk back to the car and find him, then go back for Sue
Sunday 16: Words at Highgrove again. This time it is complex: we are switching computers part way through the service. But, for once, it all works without a hitch. The display at the start is missing the left hand edge of the first column again, but Ed fixes this much more easily than Sam and I did a few weeks ago.
Back in to work to finish the draft planning application. It takes much longer than anticipated, and I end up emailing it round to people around half past midnight. Pack up and leave for home about one.
Monday 17: Sue and I pack and head off to Guildford. Planned to leave about 9:30 and manage to be on the road by 9:45, which is not bad for us. It is a good run until we come off the motorway and hit the roadworks. We are quite late, but David Race is relaxed about our arrival.
We have a lovely time with David: he is looking well, and copes with our visit remarkably well. In the end, we need to make a move in order to see Pam and Andy before they go out in the evening. Sue goes round to see Sally while I stay chatting with Andy, then she comes back for me and we go in search of the B&B in Stoke Road.
We find it without difficulty, register, unload our bits, then go out to pick up the train tickets for tomorrow and fill up with petrol. An early night, as we only had about three hours sleep on Sunday night.
Tuesday 18: Breakfast at the B&B, then I walk to the station. Train to Clapham Junction then change for Norwood Junction. Walk up the hill to Spurgeon's College. Sue spends the day in Guildford, mostly shopping it seems.
Lunch in the canteen, then after a bit I get to see Nigel Wright, who is my supervisor for the dissertation. We talk a bit about wehre I am coming from, and what I am hoping for from the dissertation. He offers the details of a number of further books for me to read as background, which will be an interesting challenge. But he seems to be happy with what I am planning to do and how I am planning to do it, so it is starting to look plausible again.
Go to the library, and, as expected, I can't borrow the dissertation that Peter suggested, but the librarian might be able to find an electronic copy for me.
Back to the station, and my train is waiting. Run, and the guard holds the door open for me for the few seconds I need, which is very much appreciated. Coming into Guildford station, we are a few minutes early, and I have to shut down the laptop and bundle everything into bags in a rush, then squeeze out past the people who have already started to come on board.
Traffic in Guildford is dreadful, and it takes us a while to get out. The roadworks we hit on Monday do not afect us going North, but just past Bracknell everything slows down and we are crawling for ages. I had hoped to be back for the Bristol Multi Faith Forum, but the traffic delays us too much. We stop for a takeaway coffee at Membury, then straight home.
Wednesday 19: A fascinating meeting organised by the People's Republic of Stokes Croft about the Compass Centre. Various local activists, and various people from the Council and the Compass Centre. Two totally different worlds, who find it very difficult to talk to each other. I manage to do some interpretation, in both directions. Probably upset people on both sides... Not an easy meeting, but such a good idea.
The local people want to see the Compass Centre better used to help homeless people and to meet some of the needs they see, which is entirely reasonable. But the Centre is not going to become a drop-in, or be opened up to the public, which rather scuppers most of their ideas. And the money which was spent on the Centre was a capital grant and could not be spent in 'more useful' ways, whatever anybody may wish. But lots of enthusiasm, and energy and ideas, and some useful contacts and communication are likely to come out of it.
I go for a sauna after work. One of the chaps I regularly talk to asks about my week, which leads to questions about what Applied Theology consists of, and everyone in the sauna gets into a discussion about whether God knows the future, and what difference it makes. Brilliant. Several of the people present say they want to continue or follow up the conversation when we next meet.
Thursday 20: Alan Goddard rings me at home: we are in the Bristol Evening Post again. Have to get a copy.
The Bristol Mind AGM in the evening is in Colston Girls School. An interesting event. I can't help but compare: roughly four times the turnover of CCM, and 20 people at the AGM. And most of them seem to be staff or on the board. There is an interesting talk on a document which has recently been published about the future of mental health services, which contains all the usual features: no analysis of the problems, either qualitative or quantitative, no analysis of trends, no identification of new theories, treatments or ways of improving quality of life, and lots of aspirational statements which don't say how they differ from the aspirational statements we should have been working to previously.
The document, of course, is a 'vision statement' - it will be followed by a detailed plan which says what will actually happen. So yet again the public get to read a glossy document which says nothing, and the real work is done in lots of detailed points in a plan which doesn't relate in any obvious way to the published vision, and the public never get to see or question it.
I ask a question about mental health services for homeless people, an area I have some interest in, and the speaker says this is a vitally important area, which is being worked on by people who know about homelessness. Not as far as I know by anyone I know, so I'll chase that one up tomorrow.
Friday 21: After work, Sue and I go for another 'Comedy Night' at the Labour Club in Patchway. We are a bit late setting off because I'm dealing with some last-minute questions at work, and then we hit roadworks which prevent us turning off the A38 where we need to. And then we can't quite remember where the club is, and take several wrong turnings before we get it right. So the first act has started by the time we arrive. But it is a fun evening, and something worth supporting - a way for the church to build links with the local community. For some reason, both acts did versions of the three rope trick, but Sue didn't notice it was the same trick so probably nobody else did.
Sue sends a text message to Alan and Philip, asking if they would like to go to the next evening, 'An Evening With Jimmy Cricket' on 19 December. But they don't reply so we don't buy tickets for it. We assume Ian will not be interested, and he is staying the night with a friend as he tends to do on most Friday evenings, but we can ask him over the weekend just to check.
Sunday 23: In the afternoon, Sue and I go to see the latest Ridley Scott film, Body of Lies. Very impressed. At first view, it is a traditional CIA good guys against the terrorist bad guys story. But while the violence is very much what you would expect - and very well done - the conflict is all within the CIA, mainly between the two main characters.
I'm sceptical about ideas of a film's 'true' meaning, but it is at least arguable that the film is at least in part suggesting that the real conflict is not between the Western world and the terrorists, but between those who will use people to promote their ideology, and those who believe that people really matter.
The Crowe character is wonderful. Not only is he willing to use, kill, maim and lie to people to achieve his goals, but he is also totally disconnected from everyone around him. He sits at a computer screen, watching people risk their lives and manipulating events from a safe distance - that much is fairly familiar territory. But the family scenes, which several reviewers seem to feel are superfluous, are brilliant: even with his family, he is totally disconnected. He spends time with his children, driving them around and attending ball games, but he has no interest in them. He does parenting as he does everything else - efficiently, and without human contact.
The Di Caprio character, on the other hand, connects with almost everyone he meets. He doesn't have children, we assume, but when he meets a couple of young boys he connects with them, quickly and easily forming a bond, and playing games at the meal table unnoticed by their mother. It is understated and quite superb cinema. In the end, he is not prepared to continue playing the game of using people for the sake of the greater good, and you want to stand up and cheer.
The film goes far beyond the old 'America must change its foreign policy' message. It asks searching questions about the purpose of foreign policy, and the nature of the means which can be used to pursue it. It suggests that in the end, the CIA and the terrorists are on the same side: the side of those who want to achieve their aims through fighting, threats, violence and manipulation, and those who believe that friendship and trust, and maybe even love are the only ways to achieve the sort of world we want to live in. You don't often get that so clearly and articulately argued in a major Hollywood film.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I hope that the vast majority of the people who watch this film will be convinced, as I am, that the Di Caprio character is stating the simple and obvious truth in his arguments. The Crowe character cannot see them, because he is blind to the value of anything outside his home culture. He is stating the truth as he sees it, near the end, when he says "Nobody likes the Middle East. There's nothing there to like." In other words, it is not the culture I grew up in, so I don't like it, so it cannot be liked. The Di Caprio character is willing to get to know other people and other cultures, and discover something of the wonderful variety of human existence. He is willing to live, and willing to love, and demonstrates an approach to living which might possibly work. It is a stunning achievement.
When my mother rings this evening, she tells me that the three of them went to Eddie Finnerty's 70th birthday party - not a 'real' party, but a sausage party. Didn't quite follow that bit. But neither Sue nor I can believe that Eddie is 70.
She also says that her recent examination went reasonably well. They couldn't see quite as much as they had planned, but everything is all right, as far as they can see. She is due back on 16 March for her next appointment, and then for the next 6-monthly check up in May. But the basic thing right now is that whatever the risk of the cancer returning in the long term, it is not likely to prevent their holiday to Australia in January.
Tuesday 25: First thing is a meeting ar ISR about the problems Roma people face in Bristol, and what we can do to help bridge the gap and see them start to receive some of the support they are entitled to.
Then down to Bath for a walk with Dave Wiles, followed by lunch. The drive down is fine, and the walk is absolutely beautiful. Very muddy in places, but a beautiful blue sky and almost no wind - at times, if it wasn't for the mud we could have gone sunbathing. We couldn't get into the church, but saw the location of the mediaeval church, and nearby the site where they have found much older remains of people. Came away with a deep sense of our rootedness, not only in creation, but also in history and in the stories of all the people who have shaped our world, our culture and our environment.
In homegroup in the evening, John Stevens leads us in an interesting exercise: we each write down one thing we enjoy, one dream, and one life-changing revelation. The responses were all interesting, and for some people there were really unexpected details.
Wednesday 26: In the evening, Network Counselling has its AGM. The AGM is normal enough, but the speaker is very interesting, talking on the future of counselling.
He talks about the way that CBT is the only therapeutic model supported by NICE because it is on of the few which are suited to randomised control trials. I told about my recent conversation with the social worker and my feeling that nothing which matters can be measured, which most people seemed to agree with.
But my contribution didn't receive 100 percent approval. Talking to a lady afterwards, she commented that state regulation does not always mean form filling and box ticking and being forced to comply with the latest statistically-proven techniques. It's not what happens in schools, she says.
I point out that schools are driven by targets which are set by achievement in standard tests against targets set by the satistically calculated expectations of the target population. She says that this achieves the best results. I say that as a parent, I don't really care too much about how my child is progressing against the average: I want to know if each of them is reaching his potential.
I talk about our experience of a number of schools, and the OFSTED reports we have read. She explains she worked in the regulation of pre-school childcare, not for OFSTED, but she is confident she knows about schools too.
She says that the schools want the same, and they have policies and procedures in place to ensure that this happens. I agree that they want the same and have policies and procedures, but we do not know if the outcome is actually achieving the best for any individual child. Over the next ten minutes or so, she moves from claiming that schools are achieving the best for each child and there are systems in place to ensure that this happens, but she doesn't want to actually say that we have no way of telling whether this is happening because we have no way of measuring potential, so we cannot measure progress against potential, so she decides our conversation has probably gone far enough.
I think I probably upset her, which often happens when people decide they want to correct one of my 'misguided' ideas, but I don't know what else I could do. The basic response is always: yes, I probably am wrong - these are the facts I am using, and this is my reasoning, please show me where I am wrong. Are the facts wrong? Does the conclusion not follow for the facts?
Almost without exception, they ignore this and present an alternative argument with gaping holes. Just like today: we know that this is happening, because there is a system in place to ensure that it happens. But how do we know that the system is achieving what it is set up for? Well, it must be. Lots of time and energy has been devoted to making sure it works. But how do we know it works? Over and over again, what seems to be a reasoned argument actually comes down to blind faith, and the individual not wanting to admit that their own investment of time and energy in the system may be, in part, wasted. Then they get upset with me because I can't say I share their belief.
Thursday 27: In to the Compass Centre to do a couple of interviews with two of the LITE Course students. In the evening, I'm at the 'Prayer for Easton' but turn up late - partly because I underestimate the traffic, and partly because I take several wrong turns and then can't find anywhere to park.
But it is very worth while, once I get there. After a short time of worship, I share about CCM, the current issues and needs, and also a brief introduction to the underlying ethos and theology. And answer questions. They ask about the building, and I say that we are next door to the Queen Vic, which I went to see two weeks ago, and which we are praying about. Everybody's ears prick up. It seems that a number of the local Christians have been praying about the pub, and wondering if it could be used for some sort of Christian work. Interesting. Then they pray for me and for CCM very thoroughly. A wonderful experience.
Friday 28: Another injection first thing. Not too painful at the time, but very stiff all day afterwards.
At lunchtime, there is a meeting at the Southville Centre for the Voscur board and reps to talk further about the issue of representation. Wendy was at the SouthWest Forum earlier in the week, and she told me that the keynote speaker, Debra Allcock Tyler (Chief Executive of the Directory of Social Change) quoted from an article I wrote and posted on this web site earlier in the year - the one about Engaging the Voluntary Sector. It seems she tried asking for permission to quote from the article, but I didn't reply. Don't remember seeing the request, but who cares? A brief moment of fame!
The Anabaptist Network in the evening. We split into two groups, boys and girls, because someone thought that we might have different responses to the theme: tenacious serenity, or gelassenheit. But, because we split into two groups, we never found out if that was the case. We had different conversations, but then the different groups always have different conversations. If it was an interesting question, we had no opportunity to explore it. After a fair time discussing the subject, and most folk saying they don't do very well with this discipline, I asked if they thought Jesus showed tenacious serenity. It was interesting to watch the reactions. If it is a virtue, then maybe our understanding of serenity needs to be reshaped in the light of Jesus' example.
Saturday 29: A day of Prayer and Fasting for CCM. Well, not quite a day: we meet from 10 am to 4 pm at City Road. It is a challenging experience, but very worthwhile. Several strands of input suggest that we should be thinking about a multi-site operation, and also about spreading the model of ministry more widely, possibly across the country. And maybe the reason why we have not found what we have been looking for in a new building is because we have been looking for the wrong thing?
Sunday 30: My original plan was to spend most of today going round the North Bristol Arts Trail. Actually, that was the second plan - the first was to do it yesterday. But the day is actually spent finishing the planning application for the council, which I promised to submit on Monday.
Monday 1: Meeting Suzie from FareShare first thing to review the web site. Quick sort through of the mail, then down to the Planning Department to submit the planning application.
Next is the Create Centre to help with the induction of the new Voscur board members and review the Standing Orders. Taxi stright to the St Pauls Family Learning Centre for the Community Safety meeting, earlier this month to allow Olly Alcock to attend. His presence is invaluable, as usual. Somehow, I manage to convince the meeting to agree in principle to set up a wet house in St Pauls. Olly said he was 'astonished', and he wasn't the only one.
Back to work for a short while, starting to catch up on all the things I have not done because of the planning permission, then Sue picks me up and drops me at Woodlands for the annual Leaders' Meal. As always, delicious. This time the lighting is not as dim, and the background music not as loud, so it is much easier to talk. Several really useful conversations, and several people praying for me and for CCM.
Friday 5: BCAN Steering Group at lunchtime. Julian Marsh is not well, but recovering. Almost all the rest of us manage to be there, including Keith Hagon, Julian's replacement at Mullers, for the first time. It is a surprisingly positive meeting, with agreement to distribute a slightly updated job advert for a BCAN worker, and a number of different areas starting to come together.
Saturday 6: Sue takes Ian off for a meal in Newbury with her parents. Alan and Philip travel down from Coventry by train to meet them there, then Sue drives them all back to Coventry, drops Alan, picks up Philip's bits, and brings him home. Alan will come a bit later.
Of course, it is not as simple as that in real life, but you don't want all the gory details.
The original plan was for me to get the train to Guildford, attend the Go teach-in and tournament, and for Sue to join me there from the meal on Saturday. But Sue wasn't feeling well enough earlier in the week for it to be sensible to book a weekend away, and to be honest, after several very long weeks at work I needed a day of rest.
Monday 8: Sue picks me up from Muller House in the afternoon, and we drive to the 6th Form Centre where we have a Parents' Evening with Ian. They love him, of course - his teachers always love him. But he is also doing well. In several subjects, just in the past month, something has 'clicked' and he has started to work like he is capable of doing. So, all in all, we are quite delighted with him.
Tuesday 9: The Bristol Multi Faith Forum in the evening is at St Nicholas of Tolentino. Cass, the new chair, comes round for a chat beforehand, and then drives me round. Getting in is not easy, but worth the effort. The building has just been reopened - they celebrated their first mass last Sunday. And it is stunning. We spend far too long walking round the new sanctuary and admiring the art, including a unique wooden carved cross over the altar showing both the dying and rising Jesus - from Malawi, if I remember correctly.
Wednesday 10: There's quite a lot on the news today about Craig Ewert, the professor whose suicide in 2006 will be broadcast on Sky tonight. Part of an interview with him was broadcast on the Today program, and one part caught my ear. He said: "If I go through with it, I die; if I don't go through with it, I suffer and then die."
It struck me that this is exactly the situation each one of us is in. If it is an argument for this man to commit suicide, it is equally an argument for each one of us to follow his example. I know this is not the only argument, but it seemed an odd quote to use in this context.
In passing, I have not yet heard a persuasive argument for permitting assisted suicide. The two arguments used is that people fear suffering, and they want to die with 'dignity'. Suffering can always be prevented if the patient wishes, and nobody has the right to complete dignity.
Friday 12: This morning - 8 am! - is the last of the local steering group meetings for the Business Acton on Homelessness. They will be having more 'strategic' meetings in its place. But the people making decisions will not be those who are involbved with what is happening on the ground, which never sounds like a great plan to me. We will have to wait and see.
At lunchtime, we have a joint Christmas party with Voscur and the other ChangeUp partners at the Barton Hill Settlement. It works surprisingly well, and a good time is had by all.
Sue is not feeling well, but goes into work anyway. There are things that just have to be done.
Saturday 13: Philip's 19th birthday, which is a bit of an anticlimax. He is not getting much, and most of what he is getting he will get later.
Sue is feeling worse, so I do the shopping. In the evening, we are supposed to be going out to the Highgrove Christmas Concert, but Sue is not up to going out so we have a quiet night in.
Sunday 14: Sue misses the service at Highgrove. Another quiet day.
Monday 15: Another 'breakfast' meeting - this time, FareShare. After that, I drive over to try another complementary therapy: Rosen Method. The literature sounds like there is a basic plausibility - talk about 'unconscious physical tensions' and connecting physical and mental stress. The body, mind and emotions are all connected, so why not?
The therapist explains that people often find deep emotions being released through the gentle physical manipulation. After a while, it becomes very clear what happens. The physical side is a sort of effortless massage - gentle pressure and stretching. But this is accompanied by a subtle verbal probing: these muscles are a bit tense... tension in these muscles is often a result of some emotional difficulty in childhood... did you ever have any emotional difficulty in your childhood... did you ever feel your parents weren't entirely on your side as a child? I comment that I don't suppose there is a tenager in the world who doesn't feel this way at times. We pass on to other topics. I don't rise to the bait with any of the questions and, not surprisingly, there is no deep emotional release by the end of the session. But it is pleasant enough, it was a free offer, and I can see that some people would find it a safe environment in which to talk about difficult topics for the first time, which could be very beneficial. I would be a bit happier if the therapist had a counselling qualification, but it seems that they don't understand what they are doing that way.
Tuesday 16: In the afternoon, several of us go round to view a property in Old Market. It is a good location, and plenty big enough for us, but would need a lot of work to convert, and they are asking for 'in excess of' £425,000. And it looks like it would be a pain to heat in the Winter. But it is the most plausible property we have yet seen.
Sue is still off work.
Wednesday 17: To the surgery first thing to have blood taken to be tested, prior to my appointment with the endocrinologist next week.
The CCM Christmas Party goes well, but we run out of presents right at the end, and a couple of the female clients decide to have a domestic dispute outside the shop afterwards, which is very sad.
Thursday 18: Sue and I have massages in the morning, which is the first time Sue has been out of the house since last Friday.
Saturday 20: ACTS is doing a Carol Service, and Sue comes out to join us. But for some reason I have the wrong location, and we fail to find them. So we go to work instead, and work through to the late evening - we both have a lot of outstanding jobs to clear up before the holiday.
Sunday 21: The Highgrove Christmas Service, and I am doing the words. It is much easier than usual, as all the words are on a PowerPoint, but there is another PowerPoint to show, which has an embedded video. Just before the service begins, the computer completely locks up, and I have to reboot. We get the words back just seconds before the congregation needs to see them. But the service goes well, and nobody else knows there was any problem.
Highgrove does these services really well - it worked well for the regular congregation, but is also accessible to the visitor. New people are welcomed but not made to feel uncomfortable. It sounds simple, but I find few churches are able to balance all the different needs and expectations as well, and it seems to be done quite naturally.
After the service, Sue and I pick up the boys and take them to lunch at Morrisons. Pushing the boat out, I know. The reasoning was that they could then help us choose what treats they want to eat for Christmas, but none of them have any interest in this. A second plan emerges, and I take Philip and Ian off to Vue to see Yes Man - Alan is planning to see it with his friends on New Year's Eve, so he helps Sue with the shopping.
Tuesday 23: Sue has the day off, and joins me on my visit to the Endocrinologist at Southmead. We are running a bit late, so Sue drops me off and finds somewhere to park. I settle down with my computer as the appointment is always 40 or 50 minutes behind schedule. But this time I am called less than ten minutes late, just as Sue is arriving.
Another new face, who is not familiar with my history, but that's normal. He looks up the results of my blood test last week, and astonishingly, my results are all normal. Even my testosterone is right in the middle of the normal range. I should have another bone density scan (that's what they said last time...), but apart from that, there is isn't anything more they can do, and the next appointment is set for twelve months' time.
We drive down to St Pauls and have lunch together, then I go in to work and Sue goes shopping. Sue gets to the carol singing on Sea Mills Square, but I'm still at work. However, at long last I do get a guided tour of Esme's new flat in the Methodist Church on the way home. It really is as good as Sue described. Interestingly, the shower is not in a tray, just in a slightly raised area of floor, and there is no barrier to stop water flowing out of the door and into the hallway. But Esme says it works - presumably she is careful to keep the shower curtain in place.
Wednesday 24: We are only slightly late for the Midnight Mass at St Edyths, starting at 11:15. I was home by 11 pm, which was quite good going, especially as Sue has asked me to pick up some shopping on the way home, which is not easy on Christmas Eve. Lots of familiar faces.
After that, it is the last minute preparations and wrapping, and we get to bed around 4 am. As Sue comments, children all over the country are waking their parents up.
Thursday 25, Christmas Day: A late start, and a lazy day. The most serious problem was forgetting the Yorkshire Puds with the Christmas Dinner, which isn't bad going.
Friday 26: I head off for a sauna around 10 am, back soon after 12. A few last minute jobs, then we are all in the car and off up to London. Lunch at Membury. They have completely altered the service station since the days when we were heading up and down between Guildford and Bristol on a regular basis.
The traffic keeps flowing, and we arrive at my parents' house within a minute of the estimated time we phoned though after leaving Membury.
Sue and I leave the boys to sleep at the house, and drive off to a neaby Travelodge to sleep. A much better arrangement than trying to squeeze us all into the house.
Saturday 27: We decide to visit the Ian Flemming exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, which is fascinating. I never knew, for example, that it was claimed that he drew up the plans for the CIA. It works well for my father - his memory is not getting any better, but this doesn't matter as all he has to do is to wander round and enjoy each bit as it comes. There is also an entertaining exhibition of 'children at war' with all kinds of items which various of the adults remembered.
Sunday 28: After a late lunch, we leave London and drive to Newbury. First to her parents, then they drop me off at the pub where we have a room for the night, and Sue takes the boys to her sister. They spare me that bit, as the animals at her parents' house are already starting to get to me and Pip has recently acquired a dog as well as a cat.
As we drive in the dark, there is a bright light in the sky off to our left for most of the journey. Like a very bright star. But there are no stars in the sky, so there must be high cloud. It isn't a plane - doesn't move in nearly an hour as far as I can tell. A satelite would be above the clouds. No ideas what it could be.
Monday 29: I go for a sauna in a very nice club near Newbury Racetrack. Sue drops me off and goes to meet Pip for some more shopping. It is friendly, efficient, clean, and everything works. And they supply towels. The sauna is in the male changing area, so I don't need a costume. The downside is that nobody joins me for the entire hour. It is most unusual not to have anybody to chat with.
Sue picks me up, we go back to Pip's, then she goes back to pick up her parents to bring them for lunch. This takes quite a while because the traffic is bad - there is racing today, as we noticed earlier when driving past the track.
Lunch may be a bit late, but it is excellent, with various options having been cooked by various boys. Then we gather for the presents. Philip is given a 'flying alarm clock' - when it goes off, the top shoots off in helicopter-fashion, and you have to fit the top into the alarm to stop it sounding. Either that, or jam a screwdriver into it. Ian is interested, but in his room if the alarm ever goes off he will never manage to find the top.
We are on the road as it starts to get dark... and that light is up in the sky again. I point it out to the boys, and they can't offer any theory. It stays in place all the way home.
Wednesday 31: Sue and I both go in to work, trying to tidy up the administrative details which should be in place for the new year. Not entirely successful.
We drive home, then Sue takes Alan to the Orpheus to meet his friends and watch Yes Man. They all come back afterwards for something to eat. Philip and Ian are both out with their friends elsewhere.
Alan and his friends play Monopoly in the dining room while Sue and I watch Lawrence of Arabia, briefly pausing to welcome the new year with Alan and our guests. I was given the film for Christmas, and neither of us had seen it before. It really is an astonishing piece of work.
I look at our web site at midnight, and the page counter says 200,527. I think we passed the 200,000 mark some time on Christmas Day.
Paul's Health
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MAD (Bristol)
BCAN Homeless Forum
Bristol:networks
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http://hazelden.org.uk/news/news_family_2008_2.htm was last updated 5 March 2009
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Home NewsNigeria As Nigeria announces its MMR of 576/100,000
NigeriaTalking Health
As Nigeria announces its MMR of 576/100,000
by hr August 31, 2014 September 1, 2014
The much awaited 2013 National Demographic Health Survey (NDHS) was officially presented by the National Population Commission on Monday 16th June 2014 in Abuja, Nigeria. The MMR of 576 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births was announced which wasn’t significantly different from the ratio reported in the 2008 NDHS of 545/100,000. It has even gone up rather than gone down. This is the time to reflect and begin to ask the hard questions of why and what are we doing wrong and what can be done before another NDHS in 2018 to reverse the trend of MMR in Nigeria.
Some weeks back I published an article in this column titled “W.H.O pegs Nigeria’s MMR as 560/100,000”. I observed that the recently released trends in maternal mortality: 1990 to 2013 Estimates by WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, The World Bank and the United Nations Population Division has reawaken our desire in Nigeria to have a common position as to what is the Nigeria’s MMR. I also mentioned that the 2012 MDG Report which is yet to be presented, published, disseminated or shared to interested stakeholders had put Nigeria’s MMR as 350/100,000. In one of my published articles I termed the survey “Clandestine and midnight survey. With the MMR of 576 by 2013 NDHS, it has put to rest what is the Nigeria’s MMR? One can see a similarity between the 2013 NDHS MMR and 2013 WHO MMR estimates as the figures are almost the same. One can understand the slight differences which could be due to different methodology each survey adopted.
Another lesson learnt about the release of the MMR by theNational Population Commission on Monday 16th June 2014 in Abuja, Nigeria was the courage and the boldness of the Nigerian government to release the figures even though it has shown upward trend rather than decline. We expect such courage and boldness in charting a way forward to reverse the trend sooner than later.
In trying to understand the high unaccepted MMR, one need to also know some of the outcome indicators that affect MMR. The antenatal coverage for at least one visit was put at 60.6% and for four or more visits was put at 51.5%. These Percentages signifies that almost half of the women population were disenfranchised and it raises the question of equity in health care. The % of births attended by skilled health personnel was put at 38.1%, it is very poor and a red card for a country that is bless with avalanche of donor funded projects on maternal health and a country boasting of being the largest economy in Africa. We have to work very hard to improve the health workforce by redistribution, more recruitment and motivation for health workers to work in rural areas.
The contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) was put at 15.1%. This is totally unacceptable. Nigeria on the 11th of July 2012 at a London Summit on Family Planning tagged FP2020 pledge to “in addition to our current annual commitment of US$3 million for the procurement of reproductive health commodities, we are now committed to provide an additional US$8,350,000 annually over the next four years, making a total of US$33,400,000 over the next four years. This is an increase of 300 percent.” We also committed to achieving the goal of a contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) of 36 percent by 2018. Achieving this goal will mean averting at least 31,000 maternal deaths. Over 700,000 mothers will be prevented from injuries or long-term complications due to childbirth.
For a country that wants to achieve CPR of 36% by 2018 which is barely 4 years now, it leaves much to be desired in relation to the 2013 CPR of about 15%.
Why will Nigerian government do more in the areas of Reproductive Health?
Nigeria is one of the 10 worst places in which to be a mother, and has the second highest number of newborn deaths worldwide.
One woman out of every 29 Nigerians faces a lifetime risk of death in childbirth. This is in contrast to Ethiopia, where one woman out of 67 faces such a risk.
Currently, only 15% of Nigerians married or in-union aged 15-49 use any modern method of contraception. These numbers are shockingly low, and in stark contrast to Ethiopia where the rate is 27%. In Bangladesh 52% of women married or in-union aged 15-49 are using modern methods of contraception.
In 2011, 175,514 married adolescents did not have access to modern family planning information and services.
Also from W.H.O 2013 MMR estimates, Nigeria should do more as shown below;
Nigeria is estimated to have an MMR of 560 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births.
MMR in Nigeria has declined by 52% between 1990 and 2013.
The average annual % change in MMR between 1990 and 2013 was -3.1%.
The estimated number of maternal deaths for 2013 is 40,000.
The lifetime risk of maternal death is 1 in 41.
Nigeria is classified as ‘making progress’ towards maternal health, rather than ‘on track’ or ‘insufficient progress’.
In conclusion, having observed all the above, our 36 states + FCT should be interested of knowing all the relevant health indicators reported in the NDHS survey and develop scorecards by comparing 2008 and 2013 and institute measures and strategies to improve the health outcomes. At the national level, it also calls for improved accountability and transparency in the way and manner we allocate and spend our own resources and donor funded resources.
This article was 1st published in Daily Trust Newspaper of 24th June 2014 by Dr Aminu Magashi ( healthweekly@yahoo.com)
Poor Immunization; Are the Governors aware of that?
Transparency and Nigeria’s Health Budget
‘Sizeable population would enhance meaningful development’
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Avon Buses reaches dead end
By Mark Gorton at 11:28am on 5th October 2018
Avon Buses, based in Prenton and provider of several Wirral services – the 88, 10A, 17A, 22 and 145 – has ceased trading.
A Heswall Today reader said: “That means no bus services from Heswall to West Kirby, Neston, Chester and Clatterbridge Hospital indefinitely… until Merseytravel can organise emergency tenders.”
In a statement, Avon said: “It is with great regret that we have to inform you that after 35 years serving the local community, Avon Buses will cease operations on Friday, October 5, 2018.
“It has been the case for some time, that the cost of running services has been far in excess of the revenues that we receive and while every effort has been made to cut costs and improve ticket sales it has become obvious that the situation is unsustainable.
“We have been subject to significant increase in fuel costs that show no prospect of reducing and a very large increase in insurance premiums caused by the ‘claims culture’ that currently exists nationally.
“On their own these factors would be difficult to manage but the main problem with revenue has been the introduction by Merseytravel of a product called MyTicket.
“This was introduced in September 2014 as an affordable day ticket for young people up to the age of 16 years.
“Again, this was done without any consultation with this company. There is still no need to show proof of age, and we continue to believe that this ticket is open to serious abuse.
“Prior to the introduction of MyTicket, 80% of all cash ticket sales were to adults. The remaining 20% were to young people.
“In the year 2017 to 2018 adult ticket sales had reduced to 37% with young people’s tickets at 9%. The remaining 54% of tickets were MyTickets.
“As MyTicket is essentially a discounted half fare, a substantial part of our revenue from adult tickets has been halved and this has had a massive negative effect on our revenues. As our passenger numbers fall well short of those experience by the larger bus companies we have been unable to absorb these losses.
“We would like to apologise to our loyal passengers, many of whom will be adversely affected by this closure.”
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"The best solution out of this morass, however, is not just to cut federal spending so that it equals tax revenues. Instead, the time has come for Americans to challenging the entire welfare-state paradigm and warfare-state paradigm that have brought us so many problems."
Spending, not Taxation, Is the Problem
by Jacob G. Hornberger
With President Obama and various Republican presidential candidates competing to reduce corporate income taxes, it must be election time. Do you ever feel like you’re living in a Latin American country, where the presidential candidates are notorious for offering all sorts of political candy to the voters during the campaign season?
The whole notion of reducing taxes is, of course, ridiculous. Why? Because as Milton Friedman pointed out, the real level of taxation is the amount of money the government is spending. Whatever the government is spending is what the government must collect in taxes. Thus, when spending exceeds tax revenues and the government lowers taxes on one group, another group will have to make up the difference with increased taxes.
Suppose, for example, the government is spending $100,000. Suppose that there are three groups in society. Group A is paying $50,000 in taxes. Group B is paying $30,000. Group C is paying $20,000. The amount of ax revenues equals the amount of federal spending.
During campaign season, in the attempt to garner votes, presidential candidates promise to lower taxes for people in Group A by $20,000.
But that’s not all. The candidates also promise to deliver additional government welfare to all three groups, the total cost of which will be $30,000.
The mainstream media cheers! The voters are ecstatic. This is absolutely fantastic! Reduced taxes and increased benefits! Would could be better than that? We have the best presidential candidates in the whole world!
But there is obviously a big problem. With the campaign promises, government expenditures will total $130,000 (including the additional $30,000 in welfare benefits) while tax receipts (including the $30,000 reduction in taxes for Group A) now total $70,000. That’s a $60,000 deficit..
Since government gets its money through taxation, that’s obviously a problem. The government must get the additional $60,000 from someone. By lowering taxes on Group A, the government must increase taxes on Groups A or B to cover the difference.
Of course, the government could go into the capital markets and borrow the money, which is what the U.S. government, the Greek government, and many other governments have been doing for a long time. But that only delays the inevitable. When the bonds come due, taxes must be imposed on people to pay off the amount borrowed.
Another course of action, one that the U.S. government has used for decades, is simply to print the money rather than impose higher taxes on those people in Groups B and C. That’s where the Federal Reserve, or central bank, comes into play. Its job is to enable public officials to pay off government debt in money that then constantly falls in value due to its ever-increasing supply.
That’s, in fact, why the value of the U.S. dollar is worth only a fraction of what it was worth when the Fed was established. It’s also why Americans are now relegating to using coins consisting of cheap alloys rather than gold and silver. The bad money drove out the good money.
The obvious benefit to inflation is that it enables politicians to promise tax cuts and welfare increases without overt tax increases to make up the difference. Politicians know that the mainstream media and most voters will look upon them as fantastic magicians who clearly love the people. When prices begin rising in response to the debased currency, the politicians know that the mainstream media and most people will never figure out that it is the government’s doing. They’ll inevitably blame the rising prices on “big corporations,” “greed,” or “market forces.”
The real problem facing our nation is the out-of-control spending — spending that far exceeds the amount of taxes being collected. That has led and continued to lead to out-of- control debt, which inevitably leads to inflationary debasement of the money supply by the Federal Reserve.
As long as spending continues to soar, the economic problems facing the American people will continue to grow, just as they will continue to grow for the people of Greece.
The best solution out of this morass, however, is not just to cut federal spending so that it equals tax revenues. Instead, the time has come for Americans to challenging the entire welfare-state paradigm and warfare-state paradigm that have brought us so many problems.
Repealing and dismantling both the welfare state and the warfare state would mean no more socialist programs, including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and no more overseas military empire or domestic military industrial complex. It would mean no more Federal Reserve. And it was mean no more income taxation, rendering moot political promises to reduce income taxes at election time.
http://www.fff.org/blog/index.asp
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Queen biopic is a crazy little thing called a hit
Audience members hold up signs at a sing-along screening of “Bohemian Rhapsody” at a CGV theater in Yongsan District, central Seoul, on Oct. 24. They were invited to sing along with Queen’s popular hits during the preview screening. The movie sold a total of 3.27 million tickets in Korea as of Monday. [20TH CENTURY FOX KOREA]
After a Friday evening screening of “Bohemian Rhapsody” at a packed theater in Gangnam District, southern Seoul, a woman in her 50s gave a standing ovation. “Oppa [an endearing term for an older male],” she called. “You are so great! I love you!”
Korea has found somebody to love this season and it’s Freddie Mercury, lead singer and central figure in “Bohemian Rhapsody,” a biopic of the British rock band Queen, known for its countless string of Top 40 hits in the 1970s and ’80s. Queen’s heyday may be distant chronologically, but in Seoul, it seems right about now. Queen hits are playing in taxis, in barber shops, and Korean audiences have been the third largest for “Bohemian Rhapsody” around the world. Each week since its release, the number of tickets sold has increased rather than subsided, the usual pattern.
And now, theaters are offering moviegoers a rare treat: screenings in which the lyrics are projected on the screens in English and audiences are encouraged to sing along to “We Will Rock You,” “Radio Ga Ga,” “We Are the Champions” and all the rest.
“Bohemian Rhapsody” has been a bona fide hit around the world, with box office receipts of $384 million as of last week. It’s one of those films that enraptures the public but not the critics. The New York Times’ review, entitled “Another One Bites the Dust,” called it “A baroque blend of gibberish, mysticism and melodrama ... engineered to be as unmemorable as possible, with the exception of the prosthetic teeth worn by the lead actor, Rami Malek, who plays Freddie Mercury.” The film’s Tomatometer score on website Rotten Tomatoes is only 63 percent.
The stars thank Korean fans. Rami Malek, second from left, who plays Freddie Mercury, says that he’s happy about the love the movie is receiving in Korea. [20TH CENTURY FOX KOREA]
In Korea, the movie sold a total of 3.27 million tickets since its release through Monday, outperforming J.K. Rowling’s “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald,” which opened in theaters just last week. It trumped “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again” to become the best-performing music title of the year. The “Mamma Mia!” sequel sold 2.29 million tickets.
Usually, a film’s performance starts strong and wanes, but “Bohemian Rhapsody” keeps getting bigger and bigger. In its first week, it sold 520,000 tickets, followed by 780,000 the following week and 810,000 in the third.
As of Nov. 18, the Korean box office for “Bohemian Rhapsody” was the third-largest in the world after the United States and Britain. It raked in 29 billion won ($26 million) as of Monday, according to the Korean Film Council.
Being the third largest in the world isn’t actually unique, despite Korea’s small size. Disney discovered the power of Korea’s moviegoers after Marvel franchise films made more here than they expected. Disney makes it a point to send stars in ahead of openings nowadays to get audiences excited.
But the fact that a relatively small movie like “Bohemian Rhapsody” has pulled off such a performance is unusual. There’s something about Freddie Mercury’s story and Queen’s catalogue of hits that has appealed to Koreans of several generations. And that doesn’t happen very often.
Seeing the chance of bringing fans back to see the movie a second, third or fourth time, multiplex chains like CGV and Megabox have started what they call “sing-along theaters,” where audiences are invited to sing, clap and stomp during the screening, as if they are at a concert.
CGV, the nation’s biggest cinema chain, announced the sing-along theater on Nov. 9. It was supposed to be a limited run of a few nights, but demand was so strong it’s keeping them going.
“Seats rarely sell out,” said Hwang Jae-hyeon, a spokesman of CGV. “But seats for the sing-along screenings are usually sold out.”
By age, people in their 20s accounted for the largest number of audience members, but people in their 40s and 50s are higher than average. From Oct. 31 to Nov. 18, 25.1 percent of the audience who watched “Bohemian Rhapsody” was in their 40s, and people in their 50s accounted for 14 percent.
The cast perform in a scene from “Bohemian Rhapsody.” [20TH CENTURY FOX KOREA]
“Audience in their 40s and 50s were higher than usual for ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ because they grew up listening to the music,” said Hwang. “But the film was also popular among younger audience thanks to word-of-mouth. The common response from younger moviegoers was, ‘I did not know about Queen, and I didn’t realize how many Queen songs I already knew.’” In Korea, as in probably most parts of the world, many of the band’s anthems have been used in movies, television shows and advertisements.
Megabox is holding a special screening Saturday to commemorate the death of Mercury, which happened Nov. 24, 1991. The chain is screening the movie in its nationwide MX theaters, where Dolby Atmos audio is featured. This, as well as some enthusiastic viewers’ willingness to watch the movie over and over again, is likely to further boost the film’s box office in its fourth week.
Korean critics agree with their international colleagues that the popularity of the film is not due to its formal excellence.
“The film has a weak script,” said film critic Kim Bong-seok. “It makes a hero out of Mercury, and intentionally conjures up audiences’ emotions by showing a lot of close-up scenes.
“But it successfully elicits people’s sympathy toward the character, and shows elements that people can strongly relate to,” he said.
“The movie simply chronologically lays out what happened to Freddie Mercury,” said critic Kim Hyung-seok. “Despite that, it invites an audience in emotionally by continuously unleashing Queen’s songs. Not delving too deeply into Mercury’s homosexuality also contributed to raising its commercial viability.”
He added that music helps dramas do well in Korea and cited the box offices of previous movies that relied on music like “La La Land” (3.59 million tickets) and “Begin Again” (3.45 million).
“Korean audiences have shown a rising interest in music movies, which began around a decade ago since the release of ‘Once’ [in 2007]. These days, people show explosive responses towards content that stimulates their emotions, and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is in line with that trend.”
BY JIN MIN-JI [jin.minji@joongang.co.kr]
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Angelo Badalamenti
Official Website | PDF of Credits
At the top of Angelo Badalamenti’s impressive pedigree is his role as the voice of David Lynch, providing the musical counterpart to many of the filmmaker’s dark and wonderful projects—from Blue Velvet to the cult television show Twin Peaks (for which he earned a Grammy Award and an Emmy nomination), from Mulholland Drive (Golden Globe, AFI Film Award, and BAFTA Film Award nominations) to The Straight Story (Golden Globe nomination). He most recently scored A Late Quartet with Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Walken and Catherine Keener as well as Stalingrad directed by Fedor Bondarchuk.
A native of Brooklyn with classical training, Badalamenti launched his composing career as an orchestrator and songwriter for popular artists as diverse as Michael Jackson, David Bowie, Julee Cruise, and Dolores O’Riordan. It was in this capacity that he first teamed up with Lynch, easily transitioning into the director’s permanent composer. His soundtrack album for Twin Peaks went gold in 25 countries and earned multiple awards (the composer says that the show’s music “defines the Angelo Badalamenti sound. That’s a snapshot of me, and I love it.”). His scoring chops know no genre bounds, providing music for films that include Christmas Vacation, Wild at Heart, The City of Lost Children, The Beach, Secretary, A Very Long Engagement, The Wicker Man, A Butterfly Kiss, Stalingrad, A Woman, and the theme for Inside the Actor’s Studio. Most recently, Badalamenti’s work can be found in Strange Quark Films’ Wonderwell directed by Vlad Marsavin.
In 2005 he was named the Soundtrack Composer of the Year at the World Soundtrack Awards, and in 2008 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2011 he has also received ASCAP’s Henry Mancini Award for Career Achievement. His evocative music makes strange films even stranger, dark films even darker, and warm films even warmer. He has an uncanny knack for setting a mood, both within a film and without.
© 2019 Kraft-Engel Management. Audio is presented for promotional purposes only.
Website by Warm Butter Design based on design elements from Greenlight Creative
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Bloomberg Terminals Go Dark For Hours, Sending Ripples Through Markets
Scott Neuman
Updated at 10:15 a.m. ET
If there's one piece of hardware that can be found on nearly every trader's desk, regardless of time zone, it's the Bloomberg data terminal.
So when the terminals experienced a global outage lasting hours, it sent chaos through markets where the "screens" are relied upon to analyze and interpret financial data — and to exchange market gossip with traders around the world.
Zero Hedge, a financial news site, says the outage led to "widespread panic among traders mostly in Europe, who were flying blind and unable to chat with other, just as clueless colleagues (the one function used predominantly on the terminal is not charts, nor analytics, but plain old chat)."
The Wall Street Journal quoted Louis Gargour, the chief investment officer at London-based LNG Capital, as saying "We're flying blind."
"It's scary how dependent we have become on our Bloomberg screens," Anthony Peters, a strategist at London-based capital markets adviser SwissInvest, was quoted as saying by the Journal.
Reuters, which is a Bloomberg competitor, quoted Ioan Smith, managing director of KCG Europe, as saying that traders had to "catch up" on important market chatter "after the Bloomberg terminals came back online, and that's when we saw the falls in Europe."
The Associated Press adds that the problems "prompted the British government to postpone a planned 3 billion-pound ($4.4 billion) debt issue." It notes:
"Users say the outage started as trading was getting in full swing around 8 a.m. in London, one of the world's largest financial centers, particularly in foreign exchange and bond markets."
CNBC says Bloomberg confirmed that the outage began about 8:20 a.m. London time and that service was restored to most users by 12:45 p.m. In a statement issued later, Bloomberg acknowledged the outage had affected "significant but not all parts" of its network and that "there is no indication at this point that this is anything other than an internal network issue."
AP notes: "The disruption is likely to cause concern at Bloomberg. The company has become the world's biggest financial information provider, overtaking rival Reuters. Bloomberg is privately held and is not obliged to divulge financial information, but it said in September that its revenue grew to more than $9 billion in 2014, with 320,000 subscribers globally."
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The opening ceremony of the 4th stage of FIDE Women’s Grand Prix Series 2011-2012 took place in the assembly hall of the “Korston” Hotel in Kazan (Russia) on the 9th of June. 12 players from 9 countries will take part in the event among them world champion Hou Yifan, former world champions Alexandra Kosteniuk, Antoaneta Stefanova as well as current number three and four among women by rating Anna Muzychuk and Humpy Koneru. Four members of National Russian team, current Olympic champions Tatiana Kosintseva, Nadezhda Kosintseva, Alexandra Kosteniuk, Alisa Galliamova will represent Russian Federation.
The event was attended by such honorable guests as 1st President of the Republic of Tatarstan
State Advisor of the Republic of Tatarstan, Senior Advisor to the FIDE President Mr. M. Shaimiev, the Chief Executive Officer of FIDE Mr. G. Borg, assistant to the FIDE President Mr. B. Balgabaev and others.
Greeting of the President of the Republic of Tatarstan R.N.Minnikhanov
I am happy to greet you on the hospitable land of Tatarstan.
Today we are opening one of the most interesting competitions - stage of the International FIDE Grand Prix in chess among women. Our republic is one of the most developed regions of Russia in terms of sports. Competitions of international and Russian level are hosted here more often and often.
These days Tatarstan's capital is hosting world's best female chess players. I hope results shown here will inspire you for new victories.
I sincerely express my gratitude to the organizers of this chess holiday - International chess federation FIDE and also to the Government of Tatarstan. I am sure that this competition in the power of mind and tactics will bring out only positive emotions. I wish you great victories and and new achievements!
Kazan is a sports capital
Kazan is the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan, important cultural, science and economical centre. In 2005 Kazan celebrated its 1000 anniversary. Kazan is a city of unique history and it is included on the UNESCO World Heritage list.
In the atmosphere of neighbourship and tolerance more than 100 nationalities of Christian, Muslin and other religions have been dwelling in the city with the population of 1 mln people.
The unrepeatable flavor of the city is created by the unique combination of the Eastern and European civilizations.
Kazan is located in the Northwestern part of the republic at the confluence of the Volga and Kazanka rivers. Kazan is situated about 800 km from Moscow. It takes you 1 hour 20 minutes to get to Kazan from Moscow by plane and 10 hours by train.
In 2007 the Russian Patent Office of the Government of the Russian Federation granted Kazan the right to brand itself as the "Third Capital" of Russia.
Kazan is a city of students; it takes the third place in Russia by the number of higher education institutions. More than 180 000 students including from 63 countries of the world are studying nowadays in Kazan.
The sport achievements of Kazan are well-known far from the borders of the city. According to the mass media research with the support of Ministry of Sports, Tourism and Youth Policy of Russian Federation, Kazan was announced as a sports center of Russia. Sport and physical training have become an integral part of Kazan citizen’s lives.
Kazan is a city with a developed sports infrastructure which gained a great experience in organizing the international tournaments. The city is proud of its sports teams and the most popular among them are:
“Rubin” Football Club (Champion of Russia in 2008, 2009; 2010 CIS Cup and Russian Super Cup winner)
“Ak Bars” ice hockey team (Champion of Russia in 1998, 2006, 2009, 2010; Gagarin Cup winner in 2009, 2010; 2007 European Champions Cup winner; 2008 Continental Cup winner)
“Kamaz-master” team (tenfold winner of Rally Dakar)
“Zenit - Kazan” volleyball team (fivefold Champion of Russia in 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012; triple winner of Russian Cup in 2004, 2007, 2009; winner of Champions League in 2007/08, 2011/12)
“Dinamo - Kazan” volleyball team (Champion of Russia in 2011, 2012; 2010 Russian Cup winner)
“UNICS” basketball team (winner of Russian Cup in 2003, 2009; 2011 European Cup winner; 2004 FIBA European League winner; 2003 North European League winner)
“Sintez” water polo team (Russian Champion 2007; Russian Cup winner in 2005, 2010; 2007 LEN Cup winner)
“Dinamo - Kazan” bandy team (Russian Champion 2011; 2010 Russian Cup winner; 2010 World Cup winner; 2009 FIB Champions Cup winner)
“Dinamo - Kazan” field hockey team (eightfold Champion of Russia)
More often Kazan becomes a sports center of Russia. 629 tournaments were held in the republic only in 2011, among which 439 republic, 111 all-Russian, 28 international and 51 from students’ sports contest programme of Republic of Tatarstan, Volga Federal District and Russia: 2011 Bandy World Championship, World Junior Fire and Rescue Championship 2011, F1 powerboat racing Grand Prix 2011, Davis Cup 2011, Table Tennis European Youth Championships, ITF Women’s World Tennis Championship “Tatarstan Open”, World Water polo Junior Championship “Kazan Cup 2011”, 2011 WDC World Professional Championship Latin American Showdance, World Billiard Championship “Free Pyramid”. In 2012 the European Taekwondo Olympic Qualification Tournament has been already held in Kazan, as well as International President of Tatarstan Billiard Cup and international tennis tournament “Yeltsin Cup”.
The Championships and Cups of Russia are regularly held of such kinds of sports as athletics, swimming, fencing, tennis, wrestling, gymnastics and others. Thus holding of tournaments according to the international standards are greatly practiced in Kazan.
Sportsmen of Tatarstan win the highest awards in the Olympic Games and Universiades as well.
The active sport buildings construction is observed in Kazan and in the Republic of Tatarstan. The upcoming great event is the 27th Summer Universiade in 2013. 28 reconstructed sport centers including 36 new buildings (27 of which are already used) will be in operating during Universiade. The biggest of them are “Ak Bars” Wrestling palace, Tennis Academy, Shooting range complex, Rowing channel and others. The construction of the main centers is in progress: gymnastics center, water sport palace and football stadium with 45, 000 seats, which also will be the main arenas for 2015 World Aquatics Championships and 2018 FIFA World Cup.
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Tris Speaker
Historic Hubbard High School
In 1913 the citizens of the newly formed City of Hubbard voted for a $20,000 bond issue to construct and equip a public high school building. Construction was completed in 1914 and from that date to 1978 the structure was the only high school in Hubbard. A new and larger school was constructed beside Highway 31 west of Hubbard and opened its doors for students in the 1978-1979 school year.
The vacant school building fell into a state of disrepair. In 1982, fearing the old building would be demolished; a group was formed to save the structure. The group, which became known as the Hubbard Community Affairs Association, raised $16,000 to purchase the building from the school district. The building became a community center and museum commonly known as Historic Hubbard High School.
The building was refurbished using donations and grants. By 2003, $539,000 had been invested into the building with most of it coming from private donors. Room by room the interior has been restored and renovated. The first floor now houses an area history museum, the Wilkes Memorial Library, and the Tris Speaker Sports Hall of Fame, which contains memorabilia from Tris Speaker, Tony York and Carlisle Littlejohn.
On the second floor is the Berta Leon Doll Collection housed in the Class of 1946 Room; the Savage Room, and the Holman Room. The Savage Room, restored by the Savage family, is a large room used for major social events, and features a beautiful replica of the original tin ceiling and a full kitchen. This facility is often rented by the public for weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, and family reunions. The Holman Room is a salon-style meeting room which has been elegantly restored by the Holman family with lovely furniture that creates a spacious seating area as well as a table for conferencing or meals. The Holman Room may also be rented for smaller events. A third salon-style room known as the Class of 1946 room has also been elegantly restored by the Hubbard High School Class of 1946.
The basement contains the Frances Savage Gremillion Genealogy Center, funded by the Savage family, the Hubbard High School Sports Museum, the Children’s Library, the Murphy Filling Station and Garage Room, and the Crystal Theater room.
Foyer on First Floor
Second Floor Foyer
Hubbard Sports Room
Hubbard, Texas 76648
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Jimmy Lee
The Runaway Show
The Edge of Chaos Orchestra
Bookings & PR
e-book & Paperback Amazon Picture Gallery
Jimmy Lee has led some sort of life!
A country boy, born into a working class country life in a remote farming community in Sussex, England. He had a start in life few would have survived......Taken into care at 4yrs old, by the time he was 9 he'd had 10 homes and 9 schools.
His has been a life of music with a distinctive voice and folk/country style which was later to find a home during his travels in the America.
He took his first steps towards a music career in the embryonic London folk scene, existing by day in a shared house in Cricklewood, emerging by night alongside the passionate new wave of British acoustic aristocracy - Alex Campbell, Roy Harper, Gerry Lochran, Cliff Aungier, Johnny Silvo, Derek Brimstone, Ralph McTell, Ron Geesin et al. In that hallowed company he cut his performing teeth playing for beer and bed in the capitals back street blues and folk clubs.
His early life was hard by any standards..... At 14 he ran away to join the Royal Navy and was sent , with 2000 other boys, to the notorious HMS Ganges training establishment at Shotley n Suffolk where a harsh regime held sway . He had the misfortune to be placed under the care of two particularly brutal and drunken instructors whose continual bullying and abuse proved too much for this emerging free spirit, he fought back and deserted on numerous occasions. Among his many punishments, he suffered 'cuts', a particularly brutal form of naval punishment.... The next 6 yrs passed with regular naval detentions in The Royal Naval Detention Quarters (RNDQ’s) exhausting punishments, solitary confinements, ending with a twelve month sentence in the infamous HM Military Prison Corradino, Malta. He was subsequently dismissed from the service and returned to civilian life.
Jimmy's Father was ' called up ' in 1942 and was to serve the next 4 years in one of the most bitter campaigns of WW2 as part of the ' Forgotten Army', in the jungles of Northern Burma..... He would not return to England until Sept 1946.
During that long absence things went ' wrong ' for his Mother. Destitute, shunned by her family, struggling to survive with her four children she abandoned her baby son on a train with a note attached... 'Please take care of me, my name is John'...She was never to see him again....... (Jimmy was to search for, and find him 42 yrs later) at the same time Jimmy and his elder brother, suffering from neglect and malnutrition, were taken into ' care '. And the nightmare of ' childhood ruin ' began.
As an infant, dominated by hardship and loneliness, music became a critical stone in the man. When singing in school and church choirs, he discovered that displays of emotion were not seen as a sign of weakness so music and his abiding faith were to become, and still are, his salvation.
Following on from his days in London, Jimmy had to flee to the West of Ireland to escape a high court warrant, where he remained for 3 yrs until the ' Troubles' began; Back in the day, the Republicans began recruiting for the emerging operational IRA, and Jim's inquisitive nature and subsequent failure to read the danger signs was placed under suspicion by the Republican powerbrokers. ‘
Who or what was Jimmy Lee? What was this mysterious Englishman, blending in with the local community, doing here in the west of Ireland?"
His casual, confident, ' don't give a damn ' attitude, dubious UK service background and ability to look after himself, raised a few local eyebrows, and he was summarily set up for a fall. A late night pull from the local Guardia followed by arrest and interrogation. A quiet word in the wrong ear and Jim, by the skin of his teeth, was on the next boat back to England.
Back home, his impassioned self defence plea in the high court saw his case dismissed and Jim out and about footloose and fancy free !
From the early seventies it was the road, the road and even more road, and Jimmy's unique interpretation of folk and country were being blended together into what we now know as ' Americana '. Typically he was hounded out of some folk clubs as a ' country music heretic ' and was only slightly less welcome in the country venues. Remember Dylan's '' Judas anyone?''... '
He returned to his PR business, got married and raised a family. Life was perfect and full of fun ......but, as ever, the call of the wild was strong.
And so his love affair with 'Americana' continued and over the next few years, drew him time and time again to play and perform in his spiritual home in the bars, beer joints and ' honkytonks' of the USA's Mid West . They really loved his distinctive voice and his unholy fusion of country/folk.
The discovery of the 'White Mansions' album gave Jimmy the focus he'd always wanted but never found. Creative meetings with Derek Green (head of A&M), Glynn Johns (Beatles and Stones producer) and Mansions writer Paul Kennerley (Emmylou's other half) followed and led to Jim and his band taking the album to the States as The White Mansions Stage Show, where he toured it for a year , ending with a four month stint in Nashville. His first single from the project ‘Save Your Confederate Money' hit the ground running in the southern States and then crashed the Billboard Charts. Unfortunately Jim's Nashville publishers, holding a six figure cheque for his first royalties, disappeared overnight and Jim's career was stalled right out of the blocks, Jim did one more US gig, but his heart was gone. He left for England where his final gig was topping the bill at Wembley in Mervin Conn's fabled Country Music Festival.
For the second time in his life Jim turned his back on a promising music career and now sought success and recognition in the commercial world.
He was very successful and bought a forest near his home town and over the years he and his family used their considerable skills to create a small but successful sporting estate, entertaining 'Blue chip' companies with riding, shooting and fishing .But he missed the music. The old shoot lodge was the perfect music venue so he started the Blue Coconut Music Club.
Quietly, and without fuss, over the last 20 years the Blue Coconut Club has provided music and magic for all playing host to such luminaries as Tom Paxton, Ralph McTell, The Pretty Things, Richard O'Brien (rocky horror) ,Carolyn Hester (Dylan's muse and harmony partner) and many others. Matched with the world's widest range of patrons, Lords, Ladies, Villains, The Floyd, Genesis, the good the great and the damned--- they all have the Coconut in common.
This strange club, run by this interesting man, levels out all, and anonymity is assured!
Children 'Fledged 'responsibilities eased, it was time to return to his first love .. Music....but this time to write and compose his very own style of music verse and lyrics that reflect upon a life full of twists and turns adventures and powerful emotions that run deep. His first Album, ‘The Ragamuffin 'is still receiving great reviews and airtime. The opening track ‘Lucy Cartwright' is proving a popular song for performers and audiences throughout the club scene. Most of his songs are autobiographical and display an honesty that only a self assured and unashamed person could reveal. His 2nd Album ' The Runaway ' is full of surprises, impossible to pigeon hole, moving from ballads to instrumentals and folk- rock and more.
Some great tracks with great stories woven in beautiful melodies make this a truly memorable Album... 'Hardman' is unforgettable and says an awful lot about this enigmatic singer songwriter.
To bring his music to life Jimmy has put together some of the finest musicians that he knows to form 'The Edge of Chaos Orchestra' combining classical and traditional instruments that sail through a challenging variety of genres.... Jimmy acknowledges a huge debt of gratitude for their skill, perseverance and talent that shine on both albums and, more importantly, on stage!
His 'life stories' portrayed in his newly produced and highly entertaining stage show ‘The Runaway’ complete with narrative and projected images, make it easy to understand where the emotion in this man and his music comes from.
Jimmy’s classical compositions were recently arranged for a full symphony orchestra, performed by The Guards Chapel Orchestra in London and recorded by Abbey road Studios.
His fourth and latest album, ‘The Empty Room’, confirms his place as one of our most talented and creative composer, poet, singer/songwriters, and will surely see him receiving ‘kudos’ beyond his wildest dreams!
The Runaway
The Ragamuffin
The White Mansions Stage Show
Orchestral Stories
Listen to me on SoundCloud
jimlee@blakewood.co.uk
© 2019 Jimmy Lee
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LL.M. in European Union Law - UVT, Romania
West University of Timișoara (UVT)
The West University of Timișoara (UVT) is a Romanian university created in 1944. UVT offers a great variety of programmes in different domains, as well as a dynamic, creative, innovating environment, adapted to new technologies. The Faculty of Law of UVT is today among the most appreciated Romanian law faculties and due to its international approach it is also a choice for many international scholars.
LL.M. in European Union Law
This LL.M. is focused on European Union law approaching this area of law in a very detailed manner from the EU institutions and functions to all the related domains and problems that regard it, offering both a theoretical and practical perspective for the students.
LL.M. in International and Comparative Business Law - BBU, Romania
Babeș-Bolyai University (BBU)
Babeș-Bolyai University (BBU) is a Romanian public university, based in Cluj-Napoca. BBU offers postgraduate programmes that will widen your knowledge and complete your studies, within a multicultural, dynamic and proactive environment. The programmes are available for Romanian students as well as international students. BBU's Faculty of Law is as old as the university and has stand the challenge of time, always adapting and evolving according to the circumstances; always offering something new, from outstanding professors to interesting courses.
LL.M. in International and Comparative Business Law
This LL.M. focuses on a thorough study of Business Law, including corporations, mergers, acquisitions, and their interesting details and problems that can occur, while approaching these matters in an EU and international context.
LL.M. in International Arbitration - University of Bucharest, Romania
The University of Bucharest (UB) is a Romanian public university. It was founded by Alexandru Ioan Cuza, yet the origins of the university go all the way back to 1694. Since then, UB has expanded with each passing year, covering more and more areas of studies and attracting students from all over Romania, as well as from other countries. UB`s Faculty of Law is one of the three faculties that existed when the university was founded and since then, it has developed, combining the traditional with the modern. The faculty also offers great opportunities for research, having six centres of research regarding different domains: The Constitutional Law and Political Institutions Centre, The Human Rights Centre, The Compared Social Law Centre, The European Law Centre, The General Theory of Law and New Rights Centre, and The Intellectual Property Law Studies Centre.
LL.M. in International Arbitration
This LL.M. is addressed to candidates who are interested in arbitration and everything related to it, as the LL.M. covers this subject in a very detailed manner, from both a national and international perspective, but also the topics that are strongly connected to it and tackles a wide range of problems that could occur in international arbitration.
LL.M. in Business Law - University of Craiova, Romania
University of Craiova
The University of Craiova (UCV) is a Romanian public university, based in Craiova. Established in 1947, UCV has expanded, covering more domains of study, until it reached the nowadays form that brings a great variety for prospective students. Its law faculty provides high quality legal education.
LL.M. in Business Law
This LL.M. focuses on a thorough studying of Business Law, including Corporations, Arbitration, Tax law and Administrative law, and their interesting details and problems that can occur, while approaching these matters in an EU context.
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About Us People Transactions News Data center Offices
News Current Archive
Phú Quốc set to live up to its Special economic zone status
With its advantages fully recognised, the southern “emerald island” of Phú Quốc off of Kiên Giang Province is set to live up to its title of a special administrative-economic zone.
Many investors are flocking towards the “promised land,” especially since early 2014 when the island was connected to the national electrical grid via submarine cables.
On the sides of the main road from the coastal Dương Đông town – lying at the midsection of the island – to the southern tip, several hotels, restaurants, apartment complexes and resorts are under construction – the majority of these projects owned by big-name corporations, domestic and foreign. Similarly, to the north, tourist and entertainment complexes with scales ranging from vast to medium-sized have popped up in recent months.
Nguyễn Thống Nhất, head of the management board for investment and development of Phú Quốc Island, says that at the moment, 265 projects are underway or set to be operational on the island, covering a total area of 10,500 ha. Of this figure, 197 projects – covering 7,200ha, and with total committed investment of VNĐ218 trillion (US$9.592 billion) have only been granted investment permits, 31 projects have already become operational, 24 are undergoing construction, while the remainder are “finalising investment procedures.”
“Among these projects, 26 are foreign direct investment (FDI) with total capital set to reach $290 million,” Nhất told the Tiền Phong (Vanguard) newspaper.
Aside from the private sector projects, several large-scale public projects are being carried out throughout the island to meet the demands of an economy growing at 25-30 per cent a year, said Huỳnh Quang Hưng, Vice Chairman of Phú Quốc People’s Committee. Most notable projects are the Phú Quốc international airport (phase 2) with total investment of VNĐ3 trillion ($132 million); the 51.5km long north-south axis road – with investment of VNĐ2.5 trillion ($110 million) – which has achieved 92 per cent completion; and the 100km island-bound road, with investment of more than VNĐ3 trillion (68 per cent of the workload has been finished). Other projects include upgrading the An Thới fishing port, breakwater construction and dredging at the Dương Đông river’s outfall, as well as an international passenger port in Đông Dương.
Booming growth
Together with the influx of investment, the stream of tourists to the island has also seen a dramatic increase, said Huỳnh Quang Hưng.
The number of tourists coming to Phú Quốc in 2016 rose 63 per cent compared to 2015, and the first six months of 2017 saw a 44 per cent increase compared to the same period in 2016, while the number of international tourists increased by 77 per cent.
The island is also receiving an influx of people from the mainland looking for job opportunities.
Trần Văn Phương, 25, hailing from An Giang Province, came here 2 years ago to work as an ironworker for the numerous construction projects underway on the island.
“I can earn VNĐ300,000 ($13.2) for a day’s work, double the amount I get back in my hometown, in addition to free meals,” Phương said.
Despite higher living costs on the island than on the mainland, but offset by higher income, there is an increasing number of people from all over the country arriving here seeking jobs.
A tremendous amount of energy is required to drive the booming development of the island. According to Nguyễn Văn Minh, head of Phú Quốc Electricity Company, the average year-on-year electricity production growth rate is over 103.48 per cent. Electricity output has increased from 57.4 million kWh in 2013 to an estimated 297 million kWh in 2017.
However, accompanying this bubbling growth are numerous “headaches” that the authorities need to address, especially in terms of environmental protection, said the island’s vice chairman Huỳnh Quang Hưng. Waste treatment facilities on the island are still lacking – the waste treatment plant is still being built, a plan for a wastewater treatment system remains on paper due to lack of funds.
The stream of workers coming from other localities also pose an array of public order issues in certain areas.
In addition, Hưng said, the number of complaints and lawsuits concerning the land compensation rate is also on the rise.
More robust government
Hopes are high for a special zone unburdened by common constraints and enjoying privileges other localities can only dream of.
Ass. Prof. Dr Trần Đình Thiên, head of the Việt Nam Institute of Economics, in a conference discussing policies for Phú Quốc, said that the competitiveness of the locality must be raised to an “outstanding level, of the highest order.”
To fully achieve its full potential and live up to its future status, Chairman of Kiên Giang Province People’s Committee, Phạm Vũ Hồng, stressed the life-and-death need for a new policy mechanism for Phú Quốc as a special administrative-economic unit.
According to Hồng, Phú Quốc “has an economy on a scale equal to that of a full-fledged province, but its governing body remains the same as one governing a district.”— VNS
Copyright © 2017 Leadvisors Capital Management. All Rights Reserved.
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khadley.com
Kathryn Hadley
Kathryn (Zadrozny) Hadley is an instructor of physics, enthusiastic about teaching many aspects of physics, and dedicated to pursuing her research in astrophysics theory.
In about 1974 Kathy and her husband Jay started a career herding sheep in the western United state. They loved the outdoors and met a sheep herder couple Tom and Marielou while camping. They planted the seed that was latter to grow into 25 years of herding sheep. See Sheep Herder photo gallery
After her sheep herding job near Yakima Washington ended Kathy got in a worker retraining program and enrolled in YVCC.
Kathryn graduated with a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Oregon (UO) in 2011 after obtaining degrees from Yakima Valley Community College (YVCC) and Central Washington University (CWU).
While doing research and writing her dissertation, She taught astronomy at Lane Community College (LCC) where she received the Faculty Recognition Award. After graduation, she taught at Whitman College as a visiting professor for two years. After returning to the Eugene area, she has continued to teach physics and has been offered a full time teaching position at Oregon State University. She started teaching there in March 2016.
Over her career she has taught a wide range of courses, including a conceptual physics sequence and a calculus-based general physics sequence. She has taught upper-division undergraduate thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, and modern physics, including special relativity and intro quantum mechanics. Her experience includes leading a calculus-based lab focused on error analysis, and an advanced physics lab with topics such as Brownian motion, Fourier analysis and radioactive decay. She also taught astronomy, covering the solar system, stars, galaxies and cosmology as a sequence course, a survey course and an Internet-based course. Kathryn developed and taught an introductory conceptual physics class, including topics such as light, special relativity, particle physics and general relativity. Her on-line teaching experience also includes several classes taught at American Public University System. There, she has taught 100 and 200 level physics classes to students all over the world. Kathryn's passion for teaching is evident in these varied venues, always excited to reach students no matter where they may be, geographically and scholastically.
Kathryn earned her degree in the field of theoretical astrophysics, working on high-powered computational linear and nonlinear modeling of astrophysical systems. Her dissertation is an in-depth linear analysis of hydrodynamic star-disk systems, particularly applicable to star formation. This topic is extremely timely, given our current wealth of new observational data regarding extra-solar planets and protoplanetary disks, and interest in the processes at work in their formation and evolution. Kathryn examined a very large expanse of parameter space involving systems of varying star-to-disk mass ratio, disk size and momentum field structure. This analysis involved identifying different kinds of modes inherent to the disks and their underlying driving mechanisms.
Since graduating, Kathryn has remained very active in her research, expanding to other areas of interest. One current project involves the inclusion of a resolved star as the central object in the system, as opposed to a point-mass star. Spatial resolution of the star allows modes of oscillation to arise in the star. Gravitational coupling between the star and disk allows the stellar modes to influence the evolution of the modes in the disk.
Another recent topic of interest is vortex instabilities in protoplanetary disks. These vortices are cyclones and anti-cyclones that can arise in the dust and gas in the early stages of the formation of the solar system. Similar to hurricanes or tornadoes, they can facilitate the clumping of dust grains to begin the accretion process, forming planet cores which will eventually evolve into planets.
Kathryn has also done extensive work on linear modeling of magnetohydrodynamical (MHD) systems. Inclusion of the magnetic field in modeling astrophysical systems is particularly difficult from a mathematical as well as a computational standpoint, but extremely important, as the vast majority of normal matter in the universe is plasma. One of her projects investigates corrugation instabilities in plasma shock waves. This instability causes a rippling effect in the shock front which launches waves into the plasma. The calculations arise from fundamental conservation laws. The linear approximation uses an equilibrium solution to seed an eigenvalue problem involving a system of seven coupled differential equations. In particular, she models strong, slow shocks. Strong shocks refer to high sonic Mach number. Slow shocks are especially difficult to model because their magneto-sonic waves travel faster than the local sound speed, allowing them to propagate upstream, affecting the incoming flow of plasma.
Kathryn spent considerable time mentoring undergraduates on projects involving modeling of star-disk systems, plasma shocks and other systems such as neutron stars and strange quark stars while serving as a group leader and mentor in the Undergraduate Catalytic Outreach and Research Experience (UCORE) program.
Since graduating, she has remained active as a Courtesy Research Associate in the Imamura group and retain access to large University of Oregon HPC computer cluster, as well as the new ACISS GPU-based cluster. Her research is fundamental in nature, with many applications and much opportunity for future work, such as modeling jets and bow shocks. Her group developed the Imogen MHD code, and they are working to adapt it to function as a teaching tool as well as a research instrument. Kathryn is familiar with many kinds of advanced technology and readily incorporate these technologies into her teaching on a daily basis.
Kathryn's focus has been on preparing for a career involving teaching and research. As a graduate student, she took every opportunity possible to teach a wide variety of physics classes, and to learn teaching methods from her professors. She has taken committee positions aimed at increasing skills necessary to be an effective professor. She served on the graduate student admissions committee at UO for two years, gaining insight about advising physics majors to successfully navigate the application process for graduate school.
As a woman in physics, Kathryn understands the importance of diversity in academia. Bringing people together from all walks of life strengthens a field. This is especially true in physics, where comprehension of fundamental mechanisms is multi-faceted and multi-leveled. Kathryn has served as a mentor and role-model for women in her physics classes and research group. Her inspiration has helped women to go on to pursue careers in physics and in astrophysics.
Kathryn has been active in outreach, serving as a fellow in the GK-12 program, working in elementary and middle school classrooms to help teachers learn to effectively teach science by doing hands-on experiments as well as imparting information and enthusiasm to the students. Working with elementary school students taught her to communicate deep fundamental ideas in everyday language. She recognizes that for many of the students in her general education classes, participation in her class will be their only experience involving a higher-education science class. Kathryn has a strong commitment to liberal arts education and strives to continually better her ability to reach students and to listen to them as well, recognizing that people come from widely diverse backgrounds with many different learning styles. Her method teaching is spontaneous within an organized structure, incorporating many methods developed by notable people in the field of physics pedagogy.
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« Film Screening | Russian Triumph Abroad: A Pioneer of the Video Era, Engineer Poniatoff
Sovietizing Russian Ballet in Co-Produced Cold War Films: Two Scenes »
The Jordan Center’s Colloquium Series serves to introduce the most recent work of scholars within the Slavic field. Participants come from universities across the country and abroad, and work in disciplines ranging from history, political science and anthropology to literature and film. The colloquium discussion is based on a working paper which will be circulated prior to the event. In this session of the Spring 2016 Colloquium Series, Philippa Hetherington will join us from the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, to speak on “Between Moscow, Geneva and Shanghai: the League of Nations and the Traffic in Women of Russian Origin.”
The 2005 movie ‘The White Countess’, written by prominent British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, tells the story of a beautiful, Russian former-aristocrat forced to flee the Bolshevik revolution who becomes a taxi dancer in Shanghai to feed her family. In its presentation of the noble, martyred, but ultimately redeemed figure of the Countess, the film encapsulates all the elements of an influential interwar paradigm, that of the ‘white’ Russian female migrant in China, forced by statelessness into the liminal space of the entertainment industry and even prostitution. The fact the narrative of the fallen Russian émigré in interwar China still animates popular culture in the early twenty-first century evidences the cultural reach of the League of Nations Committee on the Traffic in Women and Children, which first ‘discovered’ the plight of the Russian emigrant woman in the early 1920s. By doing so, the League produced a racialized paradigm of the trafficked subject whose abjection was the result of the perceived repressive operation of sovereign power by the new Soviet Union over its borders. In this way, the Soviet state was implicated in the reframing of the ‘problem of trafficking’ in the interwar era, even while it was not a member of the League. This talk will trace the genealogy of the ‘White Russian prostitute’ trope through the investigations of the League’s Traffic in Women Committee and the High Commission for Russian Refugees, detailing the responses of both Soviet and Chinese representatives in Geneva, and in doing so explore the gendered biopolitics of the international response to the interwar Russian refugee crisis.
Philippa Hetherington is a Lecturer in Modern Eurasian History at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, where she researches and teaches the cultural, social and legal history of imperial Russia and the early Soviet Union in transnational context. She is currently completing a book manuscript entitled Circulating Subjects: The Traffic in Women and the Russian Construction of an International Crime. Building on research conducted in fourteen archives across Moscow, St Petersburg, Odessa, Geneva and London, this book examines the emergence of ‘trafficking in women’ as a specific crime in turn of the century Russia, and links this to the development of international humanitarian law, migratory regimes, and imperial governance. In addition, she has written on consumer culture under Stalin, the social and legal history of prostitution in Moscow and St Petersburg since 1600, and the gendered dynamics of the interwar Russian refugee crisis.
To receive a copy of Hetherington’s paper please contact jordan.russia.center@nyu.edu
Link to written event recap
Colloquium Series, NYU Events, Slideshow, Spring 2016
China, geneva, kazuo ishiguro, league of nations, Moscow, refugees, Russia, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, shanghai, switzerland, University College London, women
Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia
jordan.russia.center@nyu.edu
http://jordanrussiacenter.org
NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia
19 University Place, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10003 United States + Google Map
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Tonight's Israeli cinema
The "Jewish Experience in Film" series of The Projected Image continues with a couple of movies that are completely new to me, in the sense that I hadn't heard of them before seeing the month's schedule. The night deals more or less with the founding of Israel in 1947/8, although of course it was more of a process than one day there not being a state of Israel, and the next day the partitioning of the British mandate in Palestine being complete. Before that there were the migrations of Jews from Europe back to Israel, which we saw earlier in the Dolores Hart movie Lisa, which is unfortunately not on this month's schedule. Instead, the European migration to Palestine is dealt with in Exodus, which is coming up overnight at 2:15 AM (and is not among the new-to-me movies, of course).
It's the movies made in Israel that look interesting, and that I didn't know about before. First up, at 8:00, is Hill 24 Doesn't Answer, which according to the blurb is about several people who fought in the Israeli war of independence that followed the partitioning of the mandate, and how the members of unit that's focussed on came to be fighting the war.
The other of the Israeli movies is Sallah, at 10:00, which is listed as a comic movie about an immigrant to Israeli in 1948 and the difficulties he faces supporting his family. The title character is played by Haym Topol, who is the same Topol who would go on to play Tevye in the movie version of Fiddler on the Roof several years later. Topol turned 79 last week.
For the record, the other movie, at 12:15 AM, is the Hollywood film Sword in the Desert, a Universal-International feature starring Dana Andrews as a ship's captain smuggling Jews into Palestine who winds up getting more involved in the independence struggle.
I recorded all three of these movies and will blog about them as soon as I have time to watch them.
Hearts of the West
Another Max Steiner post
Et Dieu... créa la femme
Briefs for September 28, 2014
Loose Ankles
Briefly on Other Men's Women
FXM Repeats
Available on Youtube
Notes on tonight's Jewish Experience in Film selec...
Brigitte Bardot night
Polly Bergen, 1930-2014
Two Seconds
Blonde Venus
Frankie Avalon turns 75
Postmark for Danger
The Purple Hills
TCM's Lauren Bacall tribute
Shorts report for September 14, 2014
Frisco Jenny
Richard Kiel, 1939-2014
Returnees apparently not on DVD
The Pawnborker
The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw
Notes from all over
Coal Miner's Daughter
Briefs for September 5, 2014
Jeux interdits
Andrew V. McLaglen, 1920-2014
Star of the Month September 2014: Melvyn Douglas
The Projected Image 2014
Feature Interview: Lee Grant
New month, new movies on FXM
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One of HKEx's main achievement in 2012 was the acquisition of the LME, an historical British metal stock exchange. In its 2013-2015 strategic plan, the Kong Kong exchange has great ambitions to make this operation fruitful. Data center, commodities, derivatives, and ETFs are the key drivers for HKEx's future growth. HKEx's company executives have answered our questions on these main issues.
Regarding your multi-asset strategy, will your metal and commodities trading activity exclusively be located in London ? Which metals and commodities will be traded in the future ?
The London Metal Exchange (LME) is looking at a number of potential new contracts. It is also committed to growing its nascent contracts: cobalt, molybdenum and steel.
In addition, preparation has been underway for the introduction of commodities products on HKEx’s Hong Kong platform. The rollout target is the second half of 2014.
You recently signed an MOU with the LME and the CBMX. Do you consider to establish closer ties with this exchange in the future?
HKEx, LME and CBMX [1]signed an MOU on cooperation and the exchange of information in June 2013. As stated at the time, the MOU marked the beginning of collaboration in the exploration of new products and trade services suitable for the Mainland, Hong Kong and overseas markets. The MOU is another demonstration of a commitment to expand the LME’s business in Asia.
Closer ties are possible under the MOU, but there are no such plans at this time.
In your strategic plan you announce the creation of a clearing house specialized in metals ; from an organizational point of view, will it be a distinct clearing house ?
HKEx Group is developing LME Clear, a new clearing house in London, for self-clearing at the LME, which is a key part of the Group’s strategy. LME Clear will aim to provide the safest and most efficient service for members. The new clearing house is on track for go-live in September 2014. LME Clear will be able to clear RMB-traded products, and it will be fully compliant with the European Market Infrastructure Regulation, or EMIR.
You announced a partnership with DTCC. Is it a transitory agreement, e.g. could you consider to build your own trade repository in Asia ?
LME Clear has selected The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), an approved trade repository, as its strategic partner for the new LME reporting service, LMEwire. The service, powered by LME Clear, will be available by 12 February 2014, the confirmed start date for the reporting obligation for all asset classes, as set out by the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR).
There are no plans at this time to build an HKEx or LME trade repository in Asia.
Do you plan to sign other significant agreements in 2014 ?
It is possible, but there are no such plans at this time.
Do you see Shanghai and Shenzen stock exchanges like competitors or partners ? What is the ambition of your joint-venture, e.g. CSEC ?
Partners. Achieving a breakthrough in mutual market access via partnership with its Mainland counterparties is part of HKEx’s Strategic Plan 2013-2015, and HKEx will continue its efforts in this regard.
CESC was established with an aim to develop financial products and related services. The three joint venture partners’ vision is for CESC to help promote the development of China’s capital markets, enhance the competitiveness of these markets and promote the internationalisation of the three partners.
Could you give further insights about your strategy towards BRICS, with BRICSMART ?
As initially envisioned, the BRICS Exchanges Alliance has provided a valuable channel for information sharing and cooperation amongst the BRICS Exchanges Alliance members.
On March 30, 2012, HKEx launched cross listed futures representing equity index benchmarks from each of the BRICS markets, thus providing Hong Kong investors easier access to each of the BRICS economies. This product launch cemented the collaborative relationships between the BRICS exchanges and through the BRICSMART platform, member exchanges have opened unique opportunities for cross product development and collaboration.
With the completion of the cross product listing programme, we continue to work towards expanding the BRICSmart platform and offerings. The BRICS Exchanges Alliance is evaluating the introduction of new index and index related products representing the BRICS economies and has engaged a global index provider to partner on innovative design solutions. The alliance will provide further updates as developments arise.
Do you plan to deepen ties with other African stock exchanges (apart from JSE) ?
London is the first exchange for RMB trading; other European places would like to play a more important role, in the perspective of the liberalization of the yuan. What are the advantages of Euronext in this competition ?
HKEx’s policy is to focus on its own operations and providing quality markets, and to avoid commenting on their possible strengths and weaknesses of other exchanges and exchange operators.
With respect to RMB internationalisation, HKEx is seeking to make the most of the growth opportunities it sees for itself and Hong Kong’s position as the premier offshore RMB centre.
[1] CBMX : China Beijing International Mining Exchange
Bourses et CCP européennes à l'heure du Brexit
Quand le législateur s’intéresse à la blockchain pour les titres non cotés
Les chambres de compensation au carrefour des risques
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The Israeli-Palestinian battle for Latin America
Can Avi Gabbay Revive Labor’s Fortunes in Israel?
Eran Etzion
Avi Gabbay, the new leader of Israel’s Labor party, stormed through his first primaries with surprising ease. Fifty-two percent of the 30,000 actual voters decided to crown the new contender, who only joined their party seven months ago. Gabbay, a former minister for environmental protection in Netanyahu’s government and a member of the center-right “Kulanu” (“All of Us”) party, had resigned in May 2016, citing “wrongdoings” in connection with the government’s natural gas policies.
In a very Israeli coincidence, his victory day was also marked by a police roundup of six high-level suspects in a major , involving procurement procedures of submarines and other military ships. The vessels, made in Germany, cost billions of euros and were justified as necessary for the defense of… natural gas offshore rigs.
Rigging was traditionally the name of the game in Labor’s primaries too. Gabbay campaigned on a “clean and honest” ticket, riding a wave of anti-corruption sentiment, which has been slowly surging in Israel for several months.
The Israeli political system has been dominated by Netanyahu and his Likud party for most of the last 21 years, since Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination by an Israeli-Jewish terrorist.
In recent years, the liberal Left in particular, and Labor more generally, has been the subject of a massive and extremely effective de-legitimization campaign, professionally designed and brutally executed by Netanyahu. Whereas in the past, the word “settler” was considered inappropriate in respectable society and used as a slur, “leftist” has now taken its place. Thus, Labor’s outgoing leader, Isaac Herzog, spent his entire term in office trying to reposition his party as a “non-leftist” outfit. Conversely, Gabbay, henceforth a self-described centrist, outed himself as a leftist and survived.
Beyond Netanyahu, the main beneficiary of the Left’s demise was Yair Lapid, the former TV anchor-turned-centrist party leader. Prior to Labor’s internal elections, Lapid had managed to position himself as the only realistic contender for prime ministership left of Netanyahu. Stunningly, within 48 hours of his victory, Gabbay shot up in the , eclipsing Lapid as second to Netanyahu as preferred prime minister.
But the real race hasn’t even begun. Gabbay now faces the daunting task of reshaping his archaic party, rehabilitating the center-left, and breaking the infamous 61-seats ceiling—out of 120 Knesset seats—that has eluded all Labor leaders since slain former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The coveted block is considered mandatory in order to prevent the Likud from forming yet another rightwing coalition, based on its solid alliance with other right-wing parties and the two ultra-Orthodox parties.
A potential formula being floated in political and media circles calls for open primaries for leadership of the entire center-left array of parties, comprised of Labor, Meretz (ultra-liberal), the Joint (Arab) list, and the two centrist parties—Lapid’s Yesh Atid, and Gabbay’s former political home, currently led by Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, Kulanu. Alas, none of the two centrists nor the Arabs have shown any willingness to even entertain such notions. It appears that Gabbay’s Labor will have to go it alone, at least until it demonstrates a newfound capacity to attract voters.
Within Labor, a complex set of historic, sectorial, and personal interests are inextricably entangled. Labor unions, kibbutzim, hundreds of party-bosses whose livelihoods depend on perpetuating old patterns of making and breaking shady deals, and, critically, 18 currently serving Knesset members are all focused on re-election. One shouldn’t envy Gabbay, as any decision he makes in favor or against any of these organizations and individuals will be costly. Conventional wisdom holds that newly elected Labor leaders have a short grace period of less than 100 days to make their mark on the party’s internal structure. Gabbay might have a bit more, thanks to the summer vacation, or even less, if Netanyahu opts for snap elections.
However, there is a significant upside for Labor. It is still the historic cornerstone of the center-left, and has produced eight out of Israel’s 12 prime ministers. Despite its long decline, it still holds a solid voter-base of some 15 mandates. Like some of its sister parties in Europe, most notably Tony Blair’s new Labour in the 1990s, mimicked by Ehud Barak in his short term in office, it has also demonstrated some capacity to adapt. Under Gabbay’s unexpected leadership, it may do so again.
Beyond partisanship and back office politics, Labor faces the challenges of today’s Israeli realities. Elections in Israel traditionally revolve around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Right and Left are divided mainly by the willingness for territorial compromises, and the establishment of the state of Palestine alongside Israel. But in recent years, Israelis have lost faith in the feasibility of the two-state solution, and, to a large extent, the real sense of urgency with respect to the issue.
Instead, their attention has been drawn to internal divisions, mostly between Jews and Arabs, or between those who primarily define themselves as “Israeli”—predominantly secular liberals living in urban areas—and those who primarily define themselves as “Jews”—predominantly traditional or religious, living in periphery areas. The Israeli president, Reuven Rivlin, is fond of Israel as a society divided between four “tribes”—secular, religious, ultra-Orthodox, and Arabs. Netanyahu’s naturally-inclined coalition is with the religious and ultra-Orthodox. Gabbay must thus reach out to the secular, Arabs, and also the moderately religious segments of society in order to build a 61-seat block.
Elections are formally designated for November 2019, but the widening string of criminal investigations against Netanyahu and his confidants is expected to bring about early elections, possibly in 6-12 months. The battle for the dominant issue in these elections has already begun. For Netanyahu, or possibly his successor if he is indicted or chooses to stand down, it’s about security threats and the “so-called unpatriotic” nature of the center-left, always eager to allegedly “give away territory to our enemies.”
For Gabbay, it may be about Netanyahu’s corruption, better governance and a “much needed change.” He will need to walk a tight rope between his Left-leaning base, his soft-Right political identity, and an Israeli electorate that is divided along tribal lines. His mission, perhaps impossible, is to reframe the political discourse and attract approximately 120,000 voters from Netanyahu’s camp to his new Labor, or at least a potential coalition partner of it. At this point, the field is wide open and all bets are off.
Grace Wermenbol
UNIFIL and the Lebanese Army, a worthwhile US investment
Edward M. Gabriel
The Bahrain workshop and the dwindling prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace under Trump
Dr. Nimrod Goren
“Civilianizing” the State in the MENA and Asia Pacific Regions
Civil Society and Political Transitions in the MENA Region and Southeast Asia
Islam, Migrants and Multiculturalism: A Glance at Germany, Korea and Beyond
Julius Maximilian Rogenhofer, Hacer Z. Gonul
https://220km.net
www.karter-kiev.net/zaschity-kartera/mercedes-ben-64.html
www.poliv.ua/uslugi/avtomaticheskij-poliv/montazh-sistemy-avtomaticheskogo-poliva
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Mountaintop Blast for Giant Magellan Telescope; Video Available
The detonation of a mountain peak at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile today initiated site preparation for the construction of the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT). The blasting will create a level foundation for the construction of the telescope.
The event was streamed live online courtesy of the US Embassy in Chile, and the video now is available at the Carnegie Institution's YouTube channel.
The Giant Magellan Telescope will be the world’s largest telescope and promises to revolutionize scientists’ view and understanding of the universe. It will be built collaboratively by The University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University, Carnegie Institution for Science, Smithsonian Institution, Harvard University, The University of Arizona, The University of Chicago, Astronomy Australia Ltd., The Australian National University, and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute
More information about GMT is available at http://www.gmto.org.
GMT Site Blasting
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By Marguerite Jill Dye
If you’ve followed “Mountain Meditation” for a while then you know how I feel about our political situation. My spiritual friends say: “Stay positive to help raise the vibration.” “Don’t worry. All is in divine order.” “There is a reason for what has transpired.” “Stay connected and act on inspiration.”
So I am turning my doubts and fears over to a higher power and focusing on visualizing good. I will strive to believe that our future is blessed and that actions will be taken for our benefit. If not, then I hope the people will demand correct action and not support injustice. It is up to each one of us to be the judge of our own state of affairs and determine what we can accept or will reject. We have a role to play in determining the future of our nation and the American way of life. We all have voices and power over our own action or inaction. If we don’t accept the challenge, then the lot we receive is our own doing.
In a democracy, voting is a citizen’s foremost responsibility. While approximately 134 million (60 percent) of our citizens cast their ballots, over 90 million (40 percent) did not. The president-elect won the electoral vote although he received 46.1 percent of the total vote, Hillary Clinton received 48.2 percent, and third party candidates took 5.7 percent, according to fusion.net. We still live in a democracy but many of its flaws are becoming more and more apparent. With the current challenges to our system from inside and outside our nation, maintaining our democracy requires both faith and action.
I recently attended the Course in Miracles at the Unity Church and I was reminded of our divine connection once again. We are part of the Great Spirit, and in spite of our differences of appearance, experience, and opinion, we are one. We are one with the universe and solar system, we are one with our Mother Earth, we are one with one another, and we are one with God.
Love is offered to each one of us and forgiveness is granted, too. All we need is willingness and a sense of gratitude. Miracles happen to those who ask and are open to help from without. If we remain fearful, closed, and shut down, then miracles can’t get in.
Although my heart will be with the Women’s March on Washington, my prayers will be directed to our next leader. May his heart be opened to the people’s needs and his actions on their behalf. May he be guided to do the right thing and listen to capable counsel. May he act responsibly, exercise self-control, keep us safe, and seek peace in the world.
If this doesn’t happen we’ll protest repeatedly and impeach or take legal action for the election gave no permanent mandate. Our new president will have to prove good judgement in creating new policies and work hard to gain our trust. It is said that to determine someone’s future actions, we should look at their past and listen to what they say. For this reason we will remain vigilant, but also hope and pray for the best.
I cried during President Obama’s farewell speech. I gave thanks for his composure, peaceful nature, focus, dedication, intelligence, leadership, and big heart. “Family values,” once heralded across the nation, were exemplary in the White House. In spite of relentless blocks to undermine his presidency and the outrageous “fake news” claim initiated by his successor, we have made great strides. To continue our forward motion, not backward, we will need angels on our shoulders.
So here is an “angel message” to consider: There is a duality in the universe and sometimes good can come from unexpected places. At other times it might rise out of undesirable situations. An awakening is about to take place which will yield awesome results. So don’t lose hope or faith and stay true to your values and beliefs. Stand up for what you know is right and don’t accept the unacceptable. The whole world is watching to see what will happen. They need to know that they can count on you for their own stability and security. Don’t let them down because much is at stake. Gain strength from unity and organize according to the most pressing issues. Do not allow your rights to slide by and not be defended. The struggle is for the benefit of all. Take action and do not be afraid to fight.
Your Constitution and Bill of Rights set high standards for leadership and the goals of your nation. They are fitting reminders of why America has served as a beacon of freedom and justice in the world. Demand excellence and work together for the greater good. This is your mission in the world.
Marguerite Jill Dye is an author and artist who lives in the Green Mountains of Vermont and on Florida’s Gulf Coast with her husband, Duane. She recently illustrated “Where is Sam?” by Sandra Gartner, which celebrates the loving bond between a grandmother and her grandson.
Photo by Jill Dye
A mixed up media work of art titled “2017 Coup d‘Etat”
january 18thjill dyemixed mediaMountain Meditation
Skiing with a rope tow at the country club
Boisterous Blue Jays flock in winter
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Ambassador's Message
Welcome to the website of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the Republic of Malta.
Malta is situated in the heart of the...
Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Malta
Karmnu Court, Lapsi Street, St. Julians' STJ 1264
chinaemb_mt@mfa.gov.cn
Website of Economic and Commercial Counsellor's Office
Website of China Cultural Center
Tour China
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson's Remarks
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lu Kang's Regular Press Conference on July 18, 2019（2019-07-18）
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang's Regular Press Conference on July 17, 2019（2019-07-17）
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang's Remarks on Chinese Government's Sanctions on US Enterprises Involved in Arms Sale to Taiwan（2019-07-12）
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang's Regular Press Conference on July 9, 2019（2019-07-09）
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang's Regular Press Conference on June 28, 2019（2019-06-28）
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lu Kang's Regular Press Conference on June 21, 2019（2019-06-21）
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang's Remarks on Hong Kong's Legislative Amendment（2019-06-15）
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lu Kang's Regular Press Conference on July 18, 2019
At the invitation of President Xi Jinping, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi of the United Arab Emirates will pay a state visit to China from July 21 to 23.
Q: First question, in her last speech before leaving office, British Prime Minister Theresa May said she hopes to keep good economic ties with China, but there are still messages to send on the Sino-British Joint Declaration. I wonder what is the foreign ministry's response to this? Second, on Thursday morning local time, the European Parliament will discuss Hong Kong-related issues. Do you have any comment on that?
A: On your first question, commitment to the "Golden Era" of China-UK relationship is an important consensus reached by leaders of both countries. Acting on this consensus can surely serve the interests of both peoples. But frankly, the UK needs to show more sincerity by taking real actions for bilateral relations.
As for the UK trying to use the Sino-British Joint Declaration to claim its so-called "rights" on Hong Kong, well, my colleagues and I have been tirelessly answering all the related questions. After Hong Kong's return to the motherland on July 1, 1997, its affairs are entirely China's internal affairs. The Chinese central government and the Hong Kong SAR government administer Hong Kong on the basis of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China and the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China. As we said repeatedly, after July 1, 1997, the UK has no rights on Hong Kong at all. I hope it can wake up from that pipe dream.
Regarding the question on the European Parliament, as I said, Hong Kong affairs are China's internal affairs. We oppose the act of any country or organization, including the European Parliament, to try to interfere in Hong Kong affairs and China's internal affairs.
I'd like to stress again that no country or organization has the right to interfere in Hong Kong affairs and China's internal affairs. The relevant side should earnestly respect China' sovereignty and the basic facts. It should not interfere in Hong Kong affairs or back up the violent law breakers who disrupted social order in the SAR, because the consequences will only boomerang on itself.
Q: US Defence Secretary nominee Mark Esper said on July 17 that the US is faced with strategic challenges from Russia and China in the Arctic. China has no territorial claims in the Arctic, but it is seeking to join the management of the region. I wonder if you have any comment?
A: It is not the first time some US individual wantonly criticize China's participation in Arctic affairs. Nothing in their words is fact-based. Such comments are against the trend of peaceful cooperation in that region.
The Arctic issue concerns not only Arctic countries. It is relevant to the whole world. All stakeholders need to participate in and contribute to the governance of the Arctic. As an important stakeholder, China will not interfere in the entirely internal affairs of the region. But on trans-regional and global issues concerning the Arctic, we will not be absent. We can and would like to play a constructive role. On the participation in the Arctic affairs, China is always open and cooperative. We would like to work for win-win outcomes. Together with all parties, we are ready to advance peace, stability and sustainable development in the Arctic.
Q: On October 2, 1949, USSR First Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Gromyko sent a telegram to Zhou Enlai proposing to establish diplomatic relations between the USSR and the People's Republic of China. July 18 is the 110th anniversary of Andrey Gromyko's birthday. How does China estimate that famous Soviet diplomat and his role in the establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and China?
A: Mr Gromyko served as the foreign minister of the USSR for a long period of time. As an veteran Soviet diplomat, he witnessed the historic moment of the establishment of the diplomatic ties between China and the USSR.
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Russia. We cherish the memory of Mr Gromyko and all those who made important contributions to China-Russia relations.
Q: US President Donald Trump met some Chinese individuals who have "suffered religious persecution" yesterday. What's your response?
A: I saw media reports on what you just mentioned. First of all, I have to point out that the remarks by those people you mentioned are seriously wrong. There is no so-called religious persecution in China at all. The Chinese citizens enjoy freedom of religious belief in accordance with law.
Those the US invited to the so-called religious meeting include a member of the Falun Gong cult and some other people who have been smearing China's religious policy. They were even arranged to meet with the US leader. This is a sheer interference in China's internal affairs. We deplore and strongly oppose that. We urge the US to view China's religious policies and freedom of religious belief in an unbiased manner. It should stop using religion as a pretext to interfere in other countries' internal affairs.
Q: We noticed that the opening ceremony of the fourth US-China Sister Cities Conference was held in Houston on July 17. Could you share with us more details?
A: Yes, like you said, the fourth US-China Sister Cities Conference is being held in Houston, Texas. Its theme is "the next four decades: stronger friendship and closer cooperation." As I know, over 200 representatives from Chinese and US governments and civil society have attended the conference. They discussed ways to step up cooperation and exchange between sister cities. There will also be panel sessions on smart cities, the Maritime Silk Road, cooperation between metropolises, educational exchange, etc.
Like we repeatedly said, mutual understanding and friendship between Chinese and American people are the foundation for the long-term development of bilateral relations. Here is an impressive figure. By far, 227 pairs of sister cities have been formed between our two countries. The China-US Sister Cities Conference is an important platform for sub-national exchanges. It has been successfully held for three times since its launch in 2014. The conference this year is another major event for sub-national exchange following the fifth China-US Governors Forum this year. Representatives from Chinese and US governments and various sectors have actively attended the meeting. This demonstrates the sincere aspiration for closer cooperation and exchange between the two countries at the sub-national level.
We believe this conference will deepen China-US friendship and inject new impetus into our cooperation. China stands ready to work with the US side to further deepen people-to-people and sub-national exchange and cooperation. By doing so, we will bring more benefits to people in both countries.
Q: Regarding the discussion of Hong Kong-related issues at the European Parliament, has China expressed dissatisfaction? Will this affect the relationship between China and the European Parliament? Also, President Trump expressed concerns when meeting with relevant people from China. Do you have any comment on that?
A: Let me take your second question first. Like I said, those the US arranged to meet the American leader include a member of the Falun Gong cult and some other people who have been smearing China's religious policy. Such a meeting is a shee r interference in China's internal affairs. We deplore and strongly oppose that. We ask the US to stop using religion as a pretext to interfere in other countries' internal affairs.
As to your first question about whether China has stated its position, on behalf of China's foreign ministry, let me make it clear to you and the world: we firmly oppose and deplore that. We indeed value our relations with the EU, but it takes concerted efforts from both sides to maintain a good relationship. We hope the EU will fulfill their commitment to China-EU relations and meet China halfway to ensure the sound and steady development of China-EU relations.
Q: I was wondering if you could confirm that the Australian citizen and writer Yang Jun has been charged with endangering state security by China? If so, have you officially informed the Australian government of this move?
A: As I know, this case is still under investigation.
The Chinese national security authority handles the case in strict accordance with the law and fully protects his legal rights. I have nothing to update you at the moment.
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The 1988 BBC Report That Spelled the End for Doctor Who
BY Jennifer M Wood
Given the amount of excitement, and press, surrounding the July 2017 announcement that Jodie Whittaker would be taking the keys to the TARDIS from Peter Capaldi to become Doctor Who's Thirteenth Doctor (and its first female Doctor), it’s hard to imagine that audiences could ever tire of the iconic sci-fi series. But, as Den of Geek reports, television-watchers in 1988 had a rather different opinion of the regularly-regenerating Time Lord.
A "not for publication" Television Audience Reaction Report discovered in the BBC Archive, compiled shortly after Sylvester McCoy made his debut as the Seventh Doctor, revealed that Whovians weren't buying what McCoy was selling. While viewership was up a tick (.1 million over the previous year's average), the show's Appreciation Index—which measured a series' popularity on a scale of one to 100—was a 60 which, according to the report, was "much lower than the average of 69 for the 1986 series. It is also considerably lower than the average of 75 for UK Originated Drama: Other Series and Serials between BARB Weeks 37 and 50."
Though the series' core fan base was mostly sticking around, "their number seems to be decreasing with each successive series," with a mere 46 percent of the sample audience saying that they'd want to see another season of Doctor Who (which, at that time, was in the 24th season of its initial run):
"Under half the sample audience (47%) agreed with the statement that Doctor Who was an entertaining program. Just over a quarter (28%) agreed that the stories this series had been good, while 49% disagreed with this statement. The stories' attention holding qualities received a similarly poor rating."
As for McCoy, the report stated that he "was not proving to be a popular Doctor. He received a personal summary index figure of 46 at the end of the series … Sylvester McCoy's predecessor in the role—Colin Baker—although only moderately popular himself, received much better ratings than these, as his personal index figure of 66 shows. A popular character, such as Jim Bergerac played by John Nettles, can receive a personal index rating of around 90."
But The Doctor wasn't even the biggest problem: His companion, Mel, was even less popular with viewers:
"Bonnie Langford, who played the Doctor's assistant Mel can only be described as unpopular with respondents. Indeed 56% of respondents who answered a questionnaire on the 'Paradise Towers' story wished she had been eaten—as seemed likely at one point during the course of this adventure. Her summary index rating of 34 compares unfavourably with the 47 she received at the end of the 1986 series. Both figures, it should be noted, are extremely low."
It should hardly be surprising that the memo (which you can read in full here) spelled the beginning of the end of Doctor Who's original incarnation. The series came to a conclusion in December 1989, with McCoy still in place as The Doctor. Fortunately, the BBC didn't hold a grudge.
In 1996, they attempted to revive interest in the series with a TV movie/backdoor pilot that featured Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor. It didn't work. Nearly 10 years later, after lots of rallying, longtime series fan Russell T. Davies was given the greenlight to bring Doctor Who back with Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor in 2005. Though Eccleston's tenure was short-lived—David Tennant took over the very next season—audiences have not looked back since.
[h/t Den of Geek]
Doctor Who entertainment News Pop Culture science fiction tv
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40 Surprising Facts About Your Favorite Romantic Comedies
BY mentalfloss .com
20th Century Fox Home Video
Once again, Valentine’s Day is upon us—a day when the phone lines at any restaurant worth its weight in conversation hearts are as jammed up as the Hallmark aisle at your local grocery store. Who needs that hassle? Why not spend the night in, binge-watching some of your favorite romantic comedies instead? Here are 40 fun facts to get you started.
1. PRETTY WOMAN WAS ORIGINALLY MUCH DARKER.
Screenwriter J.F. Lawton’s original script, which was titled 3000, wasn’t a love story—and it didn’t have a happy ending. Instead of a rom-com about two very different people finding love, it was a grittier tale about two damaged individuals who spent a week together that ends in tears and zero hope for a balcony-set reunion scene.
2. THE TITULAR CHARACTERS IN WHEN HARRY MET SALLY… WERE MODELED AFTER DIRECTOR ROB REINER AND SCREENWRITER NORA EPHRON—EXCEPT FOR THE FALLING IN LOVE PART.
Rob Reiner divorced fellow director Penny Marshall in 1981 after 10 years of marriage. When he met with Nora Ephron in the mid-'80s, he pitched a number of ideas for movies, including a comedy based on his dating experiences. Ephron agreed to write it after extensively interviewing Reiner. The two had many discussions about how men and women view sex, love, and relationships differently.
3. TITANIC’S MOST ICONIC LINE WAS IMPROVISED.
When Leonardo DiCaprio first got up on the end of the ship in Titanic, he improvised the line, “I'm the king of the world!” Cameron liked the line so much that he kept it in the movie. Though the line would go on to be parodied countless times—including at the Oscars—it landed at #100 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest movie quotes.
4. THE PRINCESS BRIDE WAS WRITTEN FOR THE AUTHOR'S DAUGHTERS.
William Goldman, who wrote the novel The Princess Bride in 1973 and penned the screenplay, told Entertainment Weekly in an oral history of the movie, "I had two little daughters, I think they were seven and four at the time, and I said, 'I’ll write you a story. What do you want it to be about?' One of them said 'a princess' and the other one said 'a bride.' I said, 'That’ll be the title.'"
5. TRUMAN CAPOTE WANTED MARILYN MONROE TO STAR IN BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S.
Marilyn Monroe’s advisor and acting coach, Paula Strasberg, said she shouldn’t play a “lady of the evening,” and Monroe took her advice. Capote said Paramount Pictures “double-crossed me in every way” when they cast Audrey Hepburn instead. The outspoken author also proclaimed the movie to be the “most miscast film I've ever seen.” Over time, Capote would go on to say that Tuesday Weld or Jodie Foster would be good choices to play Holly Golightly in a remake.
6. ANDIE AND DUCKIE WERE SUPPOSED TO GET TOGETHER AT THE END OF PRETTY IN PINK.
Paramount Home Entertainment
Originally, Pretty In Pink ended with Andie (Molly Ringwald) and Duckie (Jon Cryer) ending up together. But that changed when Cryer was cast. “Molly dropped the bomb that she would’ve been fine with the original ending if Robert Downey Jr. had played Duckie, but since it was me, she just couldn’t see it,” Cryer said on the film’s 2006 Everything’s Duckie DVD edition. “It was like, ‘Wow, so I’m that unattractive?’ Thanks, Mol!”
Though director Howard Deutch wanted Cryer to play Duckie, he seemed to later regret it. “What I learned was that there are no rules, in the sense that life isn’t fair,” Deutch said in You Couldn’t Ignore Me. “Duckie should have the girl and it was all built for that and it was designed for that. And I could have ended that way, had I not f*cked with one thing: I cast Jon Cryer.”
7. GHOST TURNED DEMI MOORE INTO THE HIGHEST-PAID ACTRESS AT THE TIME.
By the time Ghost was released, Moore was already famous for her roles in St. Elmo’s Fire and About Last Night..., but she wasn’t considered a bankable star. After the unexpected $200 million domestic gross of Ghost, she hit box office gold with a trifecta of other huge hits: 1992’s A Few Good Men ($141,340,178), 1993’s Indecent Proposal ($106,614,059), and 1994’s Disclosure ($83,015,089). If you add up all of Demi’s film grosses, it comes out to more than $1 billion. In 1995, she was paid an unprecedented $12.5 million to take her clothes off in Striptease. The film wasn’t a huge hit, and a few years later she traded Hollywood for Idaho.
8. BEFORE THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, KATHARINE HEPBURN SPENT A FEW YEARS AS “BOX OFFICE POISON.”
It's hard to believe given her legendary status today, but after a string of flops in the 1930s, Hepburn was considered "box office poison." That was an official designation, by the way; a 1938 survey of theater owners labeled her as such, along with such luminaries as Fred Astaire, Greta Garbo, Mae West, Joan Crawford, and Marlene Dietrich. (The theater owners weren't wrong about those stars' movies not being big sellers, though perhaps it wasn't very nice of them to publish a list like that.)
9. SOME PEOPLE WALKED OUT OF THE FIRST AMERICAN SCREENING OF FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.
It was in Salt Lake City, Utah. The 30-person, Mormon-filled town council left the theater after witnessing the version of the opening scene with Charles saying "f**k." It was Hugh Grant’s first time seeing the entire film and he thought the walk-outs were a bad sign.
10. SAY ANYTHING’S LLOYD DOBLER WAS BASED ON CAMERON CROWE’S NEIGHBOR
The writer-director was having issues writing the leading man, but became inspired when he met his Alabama neighbor, Lowell Marchant. “He was this friendly guy with a crew cut who just wanted to meet everybody he could,” Crowe told Entertainment Weekly. “He knocked on the door and said, ‘Hello, I’d like to introduce myself. I’m Lowell Marchant. I am a kickboxer, and I’ll be living here for a little bit. Are you aware of the sport kickboxing? It is now a major sport covered by ESPN.’ I’d tell [executive producer James L. Brooks], ‘The character’s not coming, and there’s this f***ing guy down the way who keeps knocking on the door and he’s a kickboxer.’ And Jim’s looking at me like, ‘And you’re wondering what to write?’”
11. ANDIE MACDOWELL’S DRINK OF CHOICE IN GROUNDHOG DAY WAS FAMILIAR TO WRITER/DIRECTOR HAROLD RAMIS.
Rita drank sweet vermouth because it was Ramis’s wife’s favorite.
12. HUGH GRANT'S BLUE DOOR IN NOTTING HILL WAS WRITER RICHARD CURTIS'S BLUE DOOR.
The exterior of Will Thacker's (Hugh Grant) home in Notting Hill—including the blue door—was once owned by screenwriter Richard Curtis. After the movie came out, the home's new owners—annoyed by all of the fans who came to visit the location—painted the door black. After it was sold again, the door was painted back to blue.
13. VIGGO MORTENSEN ALMOST PLAYED JAKE RYAN IN SIXTEEN CANDLES.
Viggo Mortensen and Molly Ringwald kissed during the audition, which made the future The Lord of the Rings star Ringwald's pick to play her love interest. “He made me weak in the knees," she told Access Hollywood. "He really did.” When the two co-starred in the movie Fresh Horses, Mortensen told Ringwald that he always thought he didn’t get the job because of his kissing.
14. WOODY ALLEN’S ORIGINAL IDEA FOR ANNIE HALL WAS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.
Although Annie Hall is now heralded as one of the most influential and inventive romantic comedies of all time, director and co-writer Woody Allen’s original mission was not to make a relationship picture. Allen and his writing partner, Marshall Brickman, instead conceived of the story as a general exploration of the main character’s life and psyche, which was to to be filled with romantic, mysterious, and fantastical subplots in equal parts.
The project, reflecting protagonist Alvy Singer’s persistent malaise, was first titled Anhedonia, a somewhat archaic psychiatric term referring to the inability to feel joy. The first cut of the movie ran about 140 minutes—almost 50 minutes longer than the final version.
15. SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE REFERENCED THE SOUP NAZI, TWO YEARS BEFORE SEINFELD DID.
TriStar Pictures, Inc.
When a writer in Meg Ryan's office was pitching a story and talked of a man that “sells the greatest soup you have ever eaten” while simultaneously doubling as “the meanest man in America,” he was talking about Ali “Al” Yeganeh, the proprietor of Soup Kitchen International. For what it’s worth, Yeganeh is from Iran, not Germany.
16. STEVE CARELL LOST 30 POUNDS FOR THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN.
Though Judd Apatow was originally "nervous about it, because I don't think comedians wanting to look good is ever good for the comedy," he gradually realized that Steve Carell being "ripped" was a good idea. Because it helped establish that Carell's character, Andy, was only a virgin because he’s shy and nervous, not because of his looks.
17. A WHOLE BUNCH OF GIRLS ARE NAMED "AMÉLIE" BECAUSE OF THE MOVIE.
Assuming, in this case, that correlation equals causation. In 2000, the year before the movie came out, there were 12 babies in England and Wales given the name Amélie. The number shot up to 250 in 2002, and by 2007, there were around 1100 new Amélies per year. The number has held steady ever since. The trend was similar in the U.S., with Amélie not among the 1000 most popular names until 2003, when it suddenly leapt to 839th place and rose from there.
18. 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU CO-WRITER KAREN MCCULLAH’S HIGH SCHOOL BOYFRIEND INSPIRED THE TITLE.
During a Q&A with 10 Things I Hate About You screenwriters Karen McCullah and Kirsten Smith, McCullah revealed that, “The title is based on a diary entry I made in high school,” she explained. “I had a boyfriend named Anthony that I was frequently unhappy with. I made a list called 'Things I Hate About Anthony.' When Kirsten [Smith] and I decided to write this, I went through all of my high school diaries to bone up on the angsty memories, and when I told her about that list, she was like, ‘That’s our title.’”
It turns out her ex-boyfriend likes the movie. “Anthony is very proud of that fact,” McCullah said. “We’re still friends today. And every now and then I’ll get a random phone call in the middle of night: ‘My nephew doesn’t believe that this title is about me. Tell him.’ On the phone, I’m like, ‘Yes, I hated Anthony in high school.’”
19. RICHARD LINKLATER, ETHAN HAWKE, AND JULIE DELPY KNEW CELINE AND JESSE WOULD SEE EACH OTHER AGAIN WHILE FILMING BEFORE SUNRISE.
“I always said that the movie was a litmus test for how you view romance,” Richard Linklater told The New York Times in 2004. “Some people would go: ‘It’s so clear. They will never get back together.’ People were so sure.” He said the viewer’s interpretation depends on their romantic history. Apparently Linklater, Julie Delpy, and Ethan Hawke are romantics—they knew Celine and Jesse would come back together.
20. CAMERON CROWE BELIEVED FRIENDS WAS A RIP-OFF OF SINGLES.
Cameron Crowe was asked by Warner Bros. Television to turn Singles into a TV series about “a group of six 20-something roommates searching for love.” Crowe decided not to do that. When Friends, a Warner Bros. show, debuted in 1994, the show was so familiar looking to Crowe that he had his lawyer look into it. Apparently, just enough of the details were changed that it wouldn’t be an easy lawsuit.
21. CHER USED SONNY BONO’S FAMILY AS A REFERENCE POINT FOR MOONSTRUCK.
Cher, who is part Armenian and part Cherokee, didn’t know how Italian families worked. “I didn’t come from that kind of family. I really didn’t relate exactly to it, but I had a sense of it, like a distant sense of it,” she told Good Morning America. “Not like something that you can relate to first hand. I’ve known some families like that and I got feelings of it. After a while I thought I might be able to do this.”
But her Moonstruck family reminded her of her ex-husband’s family. “It kind of reminded me of Sonny’s family,” she told the Los Angeles Times. “Everybody eating and talking and shouting—but you have such good times.”
22. ONE OF THE BIGGEST STARS IN THE WORLD SHARED BILLING WITH AN UNKNOWN IN ROMAN HOLIDAY.
Gregory Peck already had 18 films and four Oscar nominations under his belt when he was paired with Audrey Hepburn, a newcomer who’d had small roles in a handful of movies but nothing substantial. Given his status, it’s no surprise Peck’s contract called for solo top billing in the credits. But shortly after shooting began, Peck called his agent and said Hepburn’s name should appear with his above the title. The agent: “You can’t do that.” Peck: “Oh, yes I can. And if I don’t, I’m going to make a fool out of myself, because this girl is going to win the Oscar in her very first performance.” So maybe he was being pragmatic more than generous, but still. Stand-up guy, that Peck (and a bit of a prophet, too).
23. MEG RYAN DIDN'T HAVE A COMPUTER BEFORE MAKING YOU’VE GOT MAIL.
"I got my first computer when I did that movie," Meg Ryan told Vanity Fair. "I think that the company gave us a computer."
24. CLUELESS IS PART OF AN UNOFFICIAL TRILOGY.
Amy Heckerling is well known for her forays into coming-of-age stories; the first was her directorial debut, the beloved 1982 comedy Fast Times At Ridgemont High. Clueless came in 1995 was followed up with the Jason Biggs-fronted Loser in 2000, Each comedy not only centered on teens, but also aimed to capture the adolescent zeitgeist of its era in a way that made them accessible and cool to all ages. Obviously, some worked better than others.
25. ACTRESS ALI MACGRAW PUSHED ROBERT EVANS TO CUT HAROLD AND MAUDE’S LOVE SCENE.
Of course, her Paramount boss husband tried to oblige. Director Hal Ashby furiously objected, saying, “That’s sort of what the whole movie is about, a boy falling in love with an old woman; the sexual aspect doesn’t have to be distasteful.” About the less-than-explicit scene, Being Hal Ashby author Nick Dawson wrote, “Ashby wanted to show the beauty of young and old flesh together, something that he knew the younger generation, the hippies, the heads, the open-minded masses would dig, but Evans said it would repulse most audiences, so it had to go.” In the end, Ashby won by sneaking the footage into the film’s trailer.
26. LOVE ACTUALLY’S AIRPORT OPENING AND CLOSING WAS SHOT WITH HIDDEN CAMERAS.
The footage of passengers being welcomed and embraced by loved ones at Heathrow Airport that bookends Love Actually was shot on location with hidden cameras for a week. In the film's DVD commentary, writer-director Richard Curtis explains that when something special was caught on camera, a crewmember would race out to have its subjects sign a waiver so the moment might be included in the film. This was a fitting production device, as Curtis claims that watching the love expressed at the arrival gate of LAX is what inspired him to write the ensemble romance in the first place.
27. JACK BLACK DIDN’T WANT TO BE IN HIGH FIDELITY.
Jack Black nailed his role as High Fidelity's hyperactive and pathologically insensitive record store employee Barry—which, in fact, John Cusack and company wrote with him in mind—but the actor initially had no interest in playing the part. It was director Stephen Frears who managed to save the day, pursuing Black until he eventually agreed to join the cast.
28. MEET THE PARENTS INSPIRED A CAT TOILET-TRAINING PRODUCT.
Jo Lapidge and her husband, Terry, came up with the idea for Litter Kwitter—a toilet-training tool for cats—after seeing Meet the Parents. (Litter Kwitters come with plastic rings you put over the toilet seat. Gradually the hole in the rings gets bigger until the rings aren’t needed at all.) On set, though, the cats weren’t actually trained to use the toilet.
29. JULIA ROBERTS TURNED DOWN THE LEAD IN WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING.
Roberts was already flying high from the major success of Pretty Woman five years earlier, so the actress seemed like a solid pick for another charming romantic comedy about two very different people brought together by unexpected circumstances. Fortunately for Sandra Bullock, she turned down the role.
30. JULIA ROBERTS ALSO TURNED DOWN THE LEAD IN SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE.
In a 2014 interview with InStyle, the Oscar-winning actress shared that she had been "offered Sleepless in Seattle but couldn't do it," adding that, "[Meg Ryan] and Tom Hanks are just such a jewel of a fit in that. I guess what they did for that moment in time is sort of what Richard [Gere] and I were doing across town (in the 1990 film Pretty Woman), you know?"
31. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND MIGHT NOT BE FICTION MUCH LONGER.
In 2014, scientists reported that they’d successfully manipulated mice’s memories, or at least the emotions associated with those memories. See, we form the informational part of our memories—the facts and events—in the hippocampus neighborhood of the brain. The emotions connected to them—how we feel about those facts and events—are stored down the road in the amygdala. Scientists messed with some mice’s amygdalae and basically reversed how they “felt” about prior lab experiences, changing an unpleasant association into a pleasant one, and vice versa.
The scientists were quick to point out that while this could be useful in erasing a person’s negative emotions about something in their past (for PTSD sufferers, for example), it would be a bad idea to actually make them forget that these events had happened. Which means they must have gotten the message of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
32. CAMERON DIAZ HAD CONCERNS OVER THE "HAIR GEL SCENE" IN THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY.
Cameron Diaz was concerned that the audience would be too disgusted over the physical gag to laugh, which could possibly ruin her acting career. With those concerns in mind, another version of the date scenes was shot without anything in her hair. Once the viewers at a test screening heartily laughed at the scene with Ted’s product in Mary’s hair, Diaz was okay with it.
33. BEN STILLER ALSO HAD PROBLEMS WITH THE SCENE.
Ben Stiller couldn’t figure out how his character wouldn’t feel what was hanging on his ear, and even went so far as to suggest that it be written somewhere that Ted had somehow lost sensitivity in his ear. He was told to stop thinking about it.
34. THE EPIC FIGHT SCENE BETWEEN HUGH GRANT AND COLIN FIRTH IN BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY WASN’T CHOREOGRAPHED.
You can thank the two actors for the hilarity of the iconic scene. In a Vulture article about the greatest fight scenes in movie history, writer Denise Martin recalled the improvised spar, writing, “No stunt coordinators. No elaborate choreography. Just a perfectly realized wimp brawl between two upper-middle-class Englishmen coming to awkward fisticuffs in front of a Greek restaurant.”
35. GHOST’S SUCCESS MADE ROMANTIC FILMS MORE VIABLE.
Summer tentpoles Die Hard 2 (starring Demi Moore’s then-hubby Bruce Willis), Total Recall, and Dick Tracy failed to claim a slot in the top five year-end box office, but romantic comedy Pretty Woman did. Like Ghost, Pretty Woman was yet another female-loved film that made a lot of money ($178 million domestic). “The success of Ghost and Pretty Woman has revitalized the romantic comedy, a genre that in recent years had become less appealing to Hollywood studios intent on making blockbuster action-adventure films,” read a 1990 article in The New York Times. In Ghost’s wake, The Bodyguard, Jerry Maguire, and Titanic all became huge hits for the romantic drama genre.
36. MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING BROKE A LOT OF RECORDS.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding made $241,438,208 in U.S. theaters, making it the highest-grossing romantic comedy in history, over $58 million ahead of What Women Want (2000). It's also the highest-grossing movie since at least 1982 to never be number one during any box office weekend. With a gross revenue (theater and home video sales) of approximately $369 million off of a $5 million production budget, it's also one of the most profitable movies ever made.
37. THE SCRIPT FOR JUNO WAS "DEEPLY PERSONAL" FOR DIABLO CODY.
The Oscar-winning screenwriter based the story for Juno on her own life and wanted to tell a story that was “different” from the rest of Hollywood movies. “Juno is like a personal, emotional scavenger hunt for me," Cody told The Telegraph. "I dragged so many of my own experiences into it that I'm shocked the movie is so coherent. I managed to get every person, quirk, and object that has meaning in my life into the script. I wanted to make it deeply personal. I didn't want it to be generic."
38. THE ENDING OF LEGALLY BLONDE WAS CHANGED BECAUSE OF TEST AUDIENCES.
Initially, Legally Blonde ended with Reese Witherspoon and Luke Wilson kissing on the courthouse steps, then cutting to Elle Woods and Vivian forming a “Blonde Legal Defense Club.” Test audiences were too invested in what happened to Elle’s life to like that conclusion.
39. CHASING AMY WAS ORIGINALLY GOING TO BE A PG-13 MOVIE SET IN HIGH SCHOOL.
The studio initially suggested to Kevin Smith that he make Chasing Amy as a PG-13 high school movie. Smith thought about it for a time and wrote some scenes. Ethan Suplee was going to play one of the main characters, but then Smith changed his mind. "A week later, I was like, 'No,'" Smith told The A.V. Club. "Then the movie [Mallrats] tanked, and that sealed the deal. It was just like, that's the last movie I make that doesn't have anything on its mind."
40. BRIAN GRAZER CAME UP WITH THE IDEA FOR SPLASH WHILE DRIVING DOWN THE PACIFIC COAST HIGHWAY.
One night, while driving down the Pacific Coast Highway near Malibu in 1977, Brian Grazer—then 25 years old—thought about what it would be like to meet a mermaid and fall in love. For seven years, he was turned down by most Hollywood studios until he revised his pitch for Splash to be more of a love story between a man and a mermaid. Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, who penned Ron Howard’s Night Shift (1982), and Bruce Jay Friedman (Stir Crazy) were the credited screenwriters for Splash. The script was nominated for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar.
Comedy entertainment Lists Movies News Pop Culture valentine
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Antonia CARDMA
BIRTH: ,,,Minorca
DEATH: BEF 1714, ,,,Minorca
BURIAL: BEF 1714, ,,,Minorca
Family 1: Pedro DE_MESTRE
MARRIAGE: 1707, ,,,Minorca
+Antonio Bartolome MASTRE
|--Antonia CARDMA
Alice CLIFTON
Family 1: Jacob James RAULERSON
|--Alice CLIFTON
!BOOK: 'Pioneers of Wiregrass Georgia'; Folks Huxford; Vol. 9.
George CONNER
BIRTH: 1876, ,Rutherford,North Carolina,United States
Father: Calvin CONNER
Mother: Malinda DALTON
___________________________|
| |___________________
_Calvin CONNER __|
| | ___________________
| |___________________________|
| |___________________
|--George CONNER
| _Thomas DALTON ____
| _James Jimmy Allen DALTON _|
| | |_Elizabeth MORRIS _
|_Malinda DALTON _|
| ___________________
|_Sarah WILSON _____________|
|___________________
!BIRTH:
!CENSUS:
!NOTES:
Harry Mc_Canless DALTON
BIRTH: ABT 1916, Danbury,,North Carolina,United States
Father: Robert Isaac DALTON
Mother: Edith GOSSETT
Family 1: Rebecca HARDAWAY
_David Nicholas DALTON __
_Rufus Isaac DALTON ________|
| |_Margaret Melissa RIVES _
_Robert Isaac DALTON _|
| | _________________________
| |_Corinne Alicia MC_CANLESS _|
| |_________________________
|--Harry Mc_Canless DALTON
| _________________________
| ____________________________|
| | |_________________________
|_Edith GOSSETT _______|
| _________________________
|____________________________|
!BOOK: 'The Heritage of Stokes County North Carolina', 1983, pg 219.
Florence DAVIS
BIRTH: ABT 1858, Greensboro,,North Carolina,United States
Father: Lucius Hunt DAVIS
Mother: Amanda S. MOORE
| |____________________
_Lucius Hunt DAVIS _|
| | ____________________
| |_____________________|
| |____________________
|--Florence DAVIS
| _Mathew Redd MOORE _
| _Matthew Redd MOORE _|
| | |_Letitia DALTON ____
|_Amanda S. MOORE ___|
| ____________________
|_Maria MC_KENZIE ____|
|____________________
Herritage of Stokes county, North Carolina;1983; R975.664 H548; C.L. Hewitt
Jr.; family #718.
Lucretia FRANKLIN
BIRTH: ABT 1803, Waycross,Pierce,Georgia,United States
Family 1: Nicebod RAULERSON
MARRIAGE: AFT 1822, of Waycross,Brantly Pierce,Georgia,United States
+William RAULERSON
Candacy RAULERSON
+Jacob RAULERSON
+David RAULERSON
Liberty Franklin RAULERSON
Jackson RAULERSON
Tharp RAULERSON
Hardy RAULERSON
Arcadia RAULERSON
Aaron RAULERSON
Moses L. RAULERSON
Caroline RAULERSON
America RAULERSON
Paulina RAULERSON
|--Lucretia FRANKLIN
!BOOK: 'Pioneers of Wiregrass Georgia'; Folks Huxford.
!AFN: CP2N-9B.
Lucretia's name may have been Harris and not Franklin.
Nora HIGHFILL
Father: John HIGHFILL
Mother: Alice Ellen DALTON
__________________|
| |____________________________
_John HIGHFILL ______|
| | ____________________________
| |__________________|
|--Nora HIGHFILL
| _Isham DALTON ______________
| _Richmond DALTON _|
| | |_Elizabeth Thompson WALTON _
|_Alice Ellen DALTON _|
| ____________________________
|_Priscilla HAHN __|
Mrs LONDENE
BIRTH: ABT 1931, ,,Kansas,United States
Family 1: David LONDENE
MARRIAGE: ABT 1945, ,,Kansas,United States
David LONDENE
|--Mrs LONDENE
David Londene: Phone:913-592-3629.
401 West Hale St.Spring Hill, Kansas,66083-9110.
Related to Pricilla Hann.
BIRTH: ABT 1777, ,Surry Co.,North Carolina,United States
DEATH: 20 JAN 1849, ,,Missouri,United States
BURIAL: 20 JAN 1849, ,,Missouri,United States
Father: Mathew Redd MOORE
Mother: Letitia DALTON
Family 1: Johnson CLEMENT
____________________________|
| |______________________
_Mathew Redd MOORE _|
| | ______________________
| |____________________________|
| |______________________
|--Elizabeth MOORE
| _John William DALTON _
| _Samuel DALTON _____________|
| | |_ DALTON _____________
|_Letitia DALTON ____|
| _Thomas REDD _________
|_Anne Nancy Dandridge REDD _|
|_Sarah FARGESON ______
Compiled by C. L. Hewitt, Jr.
In old age, Elizabeth and her husband Johnson Clement, moved to Missouri
following their six children.
Keightly Baxter Keatly RAULERSON
BIRTH: 19 SEP 1861, Buda/Geneva,Simnole/Orange,Florida,United States
DEATH: 13 NOV 1913, ,,Florida,United States
BURIAL: 13 NOV 1913, ,,Florida,United States
Father: Wade Hampton RAULERSON
Mother: Catherine Francis HART
Family 1: Elizabeth RANDOLPH
Family 2: Effie Alderman
MARRIAGE: ABT 1908, ,,FL,United States
_John RAULERSON ____________________
_Jacob B. RAULERSON _______________|
| |_Mrs RAULERSON _____________________
_Wade Hampton RAULERSON _|
| | ____________________________________
| |_Courtney Catherine Mary KEIGHTLY _|
| |____________________________________
|--Keightly Baxter Keatly RAULERSON
| _William Louis Bernard HART ________
| _William Bartola HART _____________|
| | |_Catalina Francisca Georgia MASTRE _
|_Catherine Francis HART _|
| _Joseph Alexander HIGGINBOTHAM _____
|_Mary Ann HIGGINBOTHAM ____________|
|_Mary Ann Polly PINKHAM ____________
!BIRTH: 8 years old on 1870 Florida Census.
19 years old on 1880 Florida Soundex.
49 years old on 1910 Florida Census.
!CENSUS: Florida, Orange Co., Orlando Post Office, 26 Jun 1870.
Florida, Orange Co., Soundex, 1880.
Florida, St. Luci Co., Pct 24, 16 Apr 1910.
!BOOK: 'Pioneers of Wiregrass Georgia", Folks Huxford, 1982.
!FGR: Alice Corinne Raulerson Horne, grandmother of Cheri Mae Horne Wilson.
!RELATIONSHIP: Great Grand Uncle.
On the 1910 census, K.B. is with his second wife, Effie and five of her seven
children by first marriage (Alderman). K.B. listed his birth place as Florida,
his father as Georgia, and his mother as Florida. His occupation is stock
William RAULERSON
BIRTH: BEF 2 MAY 1888, ,,FL,United States
Father: William H. RAULERSON
Mother: Ellen L. BREWER
_Noel RAULERSON _
_Noel Rabun RAULERSON _____|
| |_Eleanor BAGGS __
_William H. RAULERSON _|
| | _________________
| |_Tampa F. Whitton WHIDDON _|
| |_________________
|--William RAULERSON
| _________________
| ___________________________|
| | |_________________
|_Ellen L. BREWER ______|
| _________________
!BIRTH: 22 years old on 1910 Florida Census.
!CENSUS: Florida, Saint Luci, Pct 40, 2 May 1910.
!RELATIONSHIP: 2C2R.
On the 1910 census, William is single, living at home, no occupation.
Daisy J. REDDEN
BIRTH: 1908, ,Collin,Texas,United States
Father: Sidney Alexander REDDEN
Mother: Mary Francis KEY
_Thomas P. Reading REDDEN __
_John Miller Reading REDDEN _|
| |_Martha Patsy Ann SHADWICK _
_Sidney Alexander REDDEN _|
| | ____________________________
| |_Lydia CHASE ________________|
| |____________________________
|--Daisy J. REDDEN
| ____________________________
| _____________________________|
| | |____________________________
|_Mary Francis KEY ________|
| ____________________________
|_____________________________|
Matilda Reading REDDEN
BIRTH: BEF 19 AUG 1841, Hendersonville,Henderson,North Carolina,United States
ENDOWMENT: 13 FEB 1993
|--Matilda Reading REDDEN
!BIRTH: 9 years old on 1850 Georgia Census.
!CENSUS: Georgia, Gilmer Co., 33rd Subdivision, 19 Aug 1850.
Matilda Roberson ROBINSON
BIRTH: BEF 23 JUN 1854, ,,Georgia,United States
Family 1: Asbury Wade RAULERSON
MARRIAGE: 3 MAY 1877, ,Wayne,Georgia,United States
John S. RAULERSON
|--Matilda Roberson ROBINSON
!CENSUS: Georgia, Pierce Co., 23 Jun 1880.
!MARRIAGE: Early Georgia Marriages - Roundup; Maddox, Book 4.
!BOOK: 'Pioneers of Wiregrass Georgia', Folks Huxford, 1982.
!AFN: CP2N-85
John Stephen THOMPSON
BIRTH: 4 JUL 1956, Charlotte,Mecklenburg,North Carolina,United States
Father: Orville O. THOMPSON
Family 1: Marcia PENDERGRAPH
MARRIAGE: 15 OCT 1983, Haw River,Alamance Co.,North Carolina,United States
_Jefferson Doc THOMPSON _
_J. Clinton THOMPSON ____|
| |_Susan Elmiria REDDEN ___
_Orville O. THOMPSON _|
| | _________________________
| |_Bessie Elizabeth AYLER _|
| |_________________________
|--John Stephen THOMPSON
| _________________________|
| | |_________________________
| _________________________
Information from the John Thompson family.
Address: 1580 McCray Rd., Burlington, NC, 27217; Ph. 910-226-7958.
Queen Ann WARD
BIRTH: ,Henderson,North Carolina,United States
Father: William C. Dictionary WARD
Mother: Manerva Catherine BEDDINGFIELD
Family 1: John PATTON
MARRIAGE: ,Henderson,North Carolina,United States
_________________________|
| |___________
_William C. Dictionary WARD _____|
| | ___________
| |_________________________|
| |___________
|--Queen Ann WARD
| ___________
| _Nathanial BEDDINGFIELD _|
| | |___________
|_Manerva Catherine BEDDINGFIELD _|
| _ MERRITT _
|_Manervia MERRITT _______|
|_ HODGE ___
!BOOK: 'Heritage of Henderson County, N.C.'; Vol I.; Art 540.
Elizabeth T. WOODSON
BIRTH: 17 OCT 1870, ,,Missouri,United States
Father: William H. WOODSON
Mother: Cora A. WINSTON
______________________|
| |________________________
_William H. WOODSON _|
| | ________________________
| |______________________|
| |________________________
|--Elizabeth T. WOODSON
| _Joseph W. WINSTON _____
| _John Hughes WINSTON _|
| | |_Letitia Dalton HUGHES _
|_Cora A. WINSTON ____|
| ________________________
|_Elizabeth DEBBS _____|
|________________________
!BOOK: Lucy Henderson Horton, Dalton Historian.
Grand daughter, Lucy Henderson Horton's book, pg 79.
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Curatorial Curriculum – Engine bursary recipients announced
Grand Union’s Curatorial Curriculum is an alternative educational programme for emerging curators, consisting of intensive workshops led by internationally-renowned practitioners. Earlier in the year Engine offered bursaries for the course for West Midlands-based curators.
We are delighted to announce the four artists who were awarded bursaries:
Alisha Kadir – Alisha’s work is about social development, youth and being very human. This sounds like music, looks like softness and lives in the village.
Ella Marshall. Ella is an emerging curator and cultural producer with a focus on socially-engaged and site-responsive practices within contemporary visual arts. Her interests include visual anthropology, spatial politics and interventions into built and natural environments, current trends within feminist art practice, and the intersection of art and activism. Since graduating in 2014 with a BA in History of Art from the University of East Anglia, she has lived in Birmingham and worked as a Curatorial Intern at Craftspace and as an Information Assistant at Ikon. Ella is Exhibitions Programmer and Visual Arts Project Manager at The GAP, a young person-led arts organisation dedicated to alternative education and the creation of community.
Gareth Proskourine-Barnett. Gareth is an artist, researcher and educator. Since graduating with an MA in Communication Design from Central Saint Martins in 2011 he has worked on a range of self-initiated and commissioned projects, taken part in artist residencies and delivered workshops internationally. His work has been exhibited at museums and galleries in the UK, Russia, India, Thailand and the USA. Alongside his personal practice Gareth collaborates with other designers and writers on publishing projects under the name Tombstone Press. Gareth is currently working towards a PhD at the Royal Collage of Art in the department of Critical and Historical Studies. His practice-led research looks to cyberspace to provide a territory in which the ruins of Brutalist Architecture can be excavated and (re)imagined to (re)claim and (re)locate the utopian ambition of past gestures. Gareth also teaches Visual Communication and Illustration at Birmingham City University, and has lectured at a number of institutes including Brighton University of the Arts and Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.
Katie Hodson. Katie sees herself as a curator, maker and doer. She is a graduate of Fine Art from the University of Worcester, and has since worked as the director of BLOK – an artist led studio and gallery project in Worcester. Her practice manifests through artist led activity within the spaces of our urban construct, and engages with the fabrication of the built environment.
The Curatorial Curriculum will be held over four weekends over the next year, exploring different forms of curatorial practice. 2017 will see sessions exploring performance, publishing, activism as well as forms of resilience, and will be facilitated by a faculty of professionals including Tom Clark, Övül Durmusoglu, Susan Gibb and Morgan Quaintance.
Engine Away Day: Grand Union, Birmingham, Wednesday 11 October 2017
Our Away Day visit on 11 October is to the gallery and purpose-built artist-led studios Grand Union in the Minerva Works complex in Digbeth, Birmingham.
Q&A with Seán Elder, Associate Curator at Grand Union
We catch up with Seán Elder, Grand Union’s new Associate Curator, to find out more about his background, research and future plans.
A Q&A with… Lauren Gault, artist taking risks with form and understanding
Our project co-ordinator Anneka French interviews Glasgow-based artist Lauren Gault about her current solo show ‘drye eyes’ at Grand Union – via a-n news
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US Catholic dioceses announce abuse 'compensation program'
Home > Overseas
A man prays at the Benjamin Franklin Parkway as he waits for Pope Francis to lead an open-air mass in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A sweeping grand jury report uncovered credible allegations Tuesday, August 14, 2018, against more than 300 predator priests and identified over 1,000 victims of child sex abuse covered up for decades by the Catholic Church in Pennsylvania. The report is thought to be the most comprehensive to date into abuse in the US church, but while prosecutors have filed charges against two priests, the vast majority of crimes happened too long ago to prosecute under current laws. Agence France-Presse
LOS ANGELES - Six Catholic dioceses in the United States rolled out a "compensation program" Tuesday as an alternative to court proceedings for minors sexually abused by clergy.
The program by the dioceses, all of which are located in California, will be managed by two independent monitors who have handled similar programs in New York and Pennsylvania, the Catholic archbishop of Los Angeles Jose Gomez said in a letter to worshipers.
"We are joining with five other dioceses in California in a new initiative to provide pastoral care and financial support to any person who has been sexually abused as a minor by a diocesan priest," Gomez wrote.
"We also understand that some victim-survivors are reluctant to come to the church for assistance. Our hope with this new program is to give these people a chance to seek redress and healing through an independent program."
According to California church officials, the program will be open to anybody who was abused by a priest as a minor, including people residing in the US illegally and those for whom the statute of limitations to prosecute their abuser has expired.
No lawyer will be necessary, and the process will be free and conducted in a "non-adversarial" manner that respects victims' privacy, according to the letter.
The six dioceses involved in the program represent some 10 million Catholics in California, many of whom have origins in Latin America where the church is particularly strong.
The Catholic Church both in the US and across the globe is struggling to deal with an epidemic of sexual assault by priests, much of it directed at minors.
The abuse has often gone on for decades and been covered up by church hierarchy.
The program's announcement came the same day that five Catholic molestation victims filed a lawsuit in a Minnesota federal court asking a judge to compel the Vatican to open its archives and release details of abusive priests.
US Catholic abuse victims sue to open Vatican archives
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catholic church, compensation,abuse
Read More: catholic church compensation abuse
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/spotlight/03/20/19/fact-check-catholic-church-not-calling-for-restoration-of-death-penalty
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IPC Releases PCB Industry Results for August 2016
September 27, 2016 | IPC
IPC — Association Connecting Electronics Industries announced today the August 2016 findings from its monthly North American Printed Circuit Board (PCB) Statistical Program. Due to the month’s positive order growth and negative sales growth, the book-to-bill ratio returned to positive territory and stands at 1.02.
Total North American PCB shipments in August 2016 were 4.1 percent below the same month last year. Year-to-date as of August, however, shipment growth remains positive at 4.2 percent. Compared to the preceding month, August shipments declined 3.1 percent.
PCB bookings in August increased 2.4 percent year-on-year, but this growth was not enough to bring year-to-date bookings back to positive territory. Year-to-date bookings as of August registered -0.7 percent growth. Compared to the previous month, however, orders in August 2016 increased sharply, by 37.1 percent.
“A year-on-year decrease in August sales growth for the North American PCB industry, combined with a modest year-on-year increase in orders, contributed to a return to positive territory for the industry’s book-to-bill ratio,” said Sharon Starr, IPC’s director of market research. “Growth rates for different segments of the industry continue to be mixed,” she added, “with some extreme differences between rigid PCB and flexible circuit producers.”
Detailed Data Available
The next edition of IPC’s North American PCB Market Report, containing detailed August data from IPC’s PCB Statistical Program, will be available next week. The monthly report presents detailed findings on rigid PCB and flexible circuit sales and orders, including separate rigid and flex book-to-bill ratios, growth trends by company size tiers, military and medical market growth, demand for prototypes, and other timely data. This report is available free to current participants in IPC’s PCB Statistical Program and by subscription to others. More information about this report can be found here.
Interpreting the Data
The book-to-bill ratios are calculated by dividing the value of orders booked over the past three months by the value of sales billed during the same period from companies in IPC’s survey sample. A ratio of more than 1.00 suggests that current demand is ahead of supply, which is a positive indicator for sales growth over the next three to six months. A ratio of less than 1.00 indicates the reverse.
Year-on-year and year-to-date growth rates provide the most meaningful view of industry growth. Month-to-month comparisons should be made with caution as they reflect seasonal effects and short-term volatility. Because bookings tend to be more volatile than shipments, changes in the book-to-bill ratios from month to month might not be significant unless a trend of more than three consecutive months is apparent. It is also important to consider changes in both bookings and shipments to understand what is driving changes in the book-to-bill ratio.
IPC’s monthly PCB industry statistics are based on data provided by a representative sample of both rigid PCB and flexible circuit manufacturers selling in the USA and Canada. IPC publishes the PCB book-to-bill ratio at the end of each month. Statistics for the current month are normally available in the last week of the following month.
About IPC
IPC is a global industry association based in Bannockburn, Ill., dedicated to the competitive excellence and financial success of its 3,700 member companies which represent all facets of the electronics industry, including design, printed board manufacturing, electronics assembly and test. As a member-driven organization and leading source for industry standards, training, market research and public policy advocacy, IPC supports programs to meet the needs of an estimated $2 trillion global electronics industry. IPC maintains additional offices in Taos, N.M.; Washington, D.C.; Atlanta, Ga.; Stockholm, Sweden; Brussels, Belgium; Moscow, Russia; Bangalore and New Delhi, India; Bangkok, Thailand; and Qingdao, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Suzhou and Beijing, China.
Emma Hudson: From Tomboy to Tech Lead
06/21/2019 | Gen3
Interview between Emma Hudson and Gayle Paterson, founder of FLITE (Female Leaders in Tech, Everywhere).
Microtek Labs: Providing Trusted Testing in the Chinese Market
06/19/2019 | Barry Matties and Edy Yu, I-Connect007
On a recent visit to Microtek Laboratories' Changzhou facility, Barry Matties, publisher, and Edy Yu from the I-Connect007 China team spoke with chairman and CTO Bob Neves about the changes he has seen living and doing business in China over the past 15 years, and the increased importance of standards and testing as China moves into manufacturing more high-reliability products.
Photonics Systems Looks to Expand Its PCB Capabilities
06/17/2019 | Barry Matties, I-Connect007
Pulsed-laser equipment manufacturer Photonics Systems looks to expand its capabilities to the PCB industry. Barry Matties sat down with Antonio Schmidt and Kurt Weber to talk about the company’s transition and the challenges they’ve faced thus far as they continue to build and extend their brand into a new market segment.
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32/365 – Meditation Games #32 – Idea Existence
Posted on February 1, 2019 by Frank
Developer: Sean S. LeBlanc
Launcher Quote: “some things are meant to last
some things are meant to be
others aren’t meant at all”
Sounds that are meant to be interpreted are the highlight of this week’s meditation games entries it appears, and Sean’s little tidbit to cap off the working week might be one of the most noisy to date. It isn’t a very interactive game – there’s a subset of washed out, undulating white contrasting with the black of the background – but it’s certainly one that makes you think.
Oftentimes ideas form in our heads as a vague impression of feelings, sounds, and blobs of imagery – not really something that you could call tangible, but more of an entity still trying to find out what it’s supposed to be. While it’s entirely possible that the sounds and sights of this game can be meant to be completely different in intent, I sort of see what was presented as a bit of a Rorshach test of a game, meant to be interpreted in the context of the quote and of the action you see on the screen. My thought about this being the genesis, the forming, and ultimately the death of an idea process is my notion of what I’ve been shown. It’s no surprise that a lot of what goes through our head every day comes through there in some formless mass, some of it being strong enough to take hold of someone and move them towards action while others are discarded and left to never manifest themselves in anything but passing, fleeting thoughts, nothing more than synapses firing in the brain.
Not surprisingly, if this is one interpretation and it’s tied to gamedev in some way, the comparison becomes even more relevant. How many game ideas, thoughts, or concepts float around in a designer or developer’s head every day that never make it onto paper or a computer screen? How many do make it and end up being something amazing or morphing into a franchise that becomes beloved in the gamer community? It’s an interesting way of thinking about how games are formed, and another point in the column for me for meditation games entries that make you think not just about what the game is trying to say, but also what kind of interpretation it is supposed to have with regards to how games come about. It’s an insightful look into game development ideation that I think is needed a bit more when it comes to explaining how games are made.
31/365 – Meditation Games #31 – Old School Adventure Game Heroics
33/365 – Meditation Games #33 – Choose Your Own Groundhog
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Warren Buffett ‘moves goalpost’ after missing key target
Posted March 3, 2014 by admin & filed under Syndicated News.
HIGH-profile investor Warren Buffett said his performance at Berkshire Hathaway should be measured over the course of stock market cycles after missing a five-year target for the first time.
Berkshire’s net worth failed to keep pace with rises in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index over the period from the end of 2008 to the end of last year. It’s the first time that has happened since Mr Buffett (pictured) took control of Berkshire Hathawayin 1965.
Despite the underperformance, Mr Buffett, who is chairman and CEO, said he can beat the index over equity market cycles, as he did in the six-year period ended on December 31 last.
“Through full cycles in future years, we expect to do that again,” Mr Buffett wrote in a report. “If we fail to do so, we will not have earned our pay.”
In the past, Mr Buffett (83) has criticised other companies for altering how they evaluate performance. Last year he said Berkshire Hathaway wouldn’t “change yardsticks” when forecasting it would fall short of its five-year goal.
Book value, the measure of assets minus liabilities that Mr Buffett highlights, rose to $134,973 (€97,800) a share at the end of December, 91pc higher than five years earlier. The S&P 500 returned about 128pc during that period, including dividends, as stocks rallied. The Berkshire number is an after-tax figure, while the index results are before taxes.
“He moved the goalpost a little bit,” said David Rolfe, chief investment officer at Wedgewood Partners, which manages about $7bn. “For those that focus in on that, it may be disconcerting. Quite frankly, we never gave it much thought.” (Bloomberg)
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Rene A. Bechard
November 1, 1926 - May 9, 2019
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Back to Rene's story
Rene A. Bechard, 92, formerly of Coopersville, N.Y., died Thursday, May 9, 2019, at Meadowbrook Healthcare in Plattsburgh with his family by his side.
He was born Nov. 1, 1926, in Coopersville, N.Y., the son of Domina and Aldoria (Boire) Bechard.
After attending school in Chazy, Rene enlisted in the U.S. Army during the Korean Conflict and was honorably discharged in 1954. He then built his new home and married Elizabeth Tatro on July 1961. They had two children, Sam and April.
Rene worked many odd jobs and finally found his love of driving, and retired from Smith Transport. Rene was a lifetime member of the VFW while being Commander for two terms; member of the Elks, American Legion, and Moose Lodge. He enjoyed his associations and played lots of pull tabs.
Left to cherish his memory is his nineteen year plus loving companion and caregiver, Kay Martineau and her children, Jerry, Debi, Michelle, Scott and Marcey. He is also survived by his two children, Samuel Bechard (Dorothy), of Milton, Vt., and April Staley (Joe), of Morrisonville, N.Y.; two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren; sister, Pauline Billow (Cliff), of Champlain, N.Y.; two sisters-in-law, Lita Bechard and Shirley Bechard.
In addition to his spouse and parents he was predeceased by four brothers and six sisters.
After meeting Kay he enjoyed trips to Maine and Thousand Islands, but mostly loved going to Florida for a two month vacation out of the snow. He was spoiled by her family who always made it a point to vacation while he was there.
Rene loved his time in the military and his country. He was a very proud man serving with the 83rd Combat Engineers.
There will be no public calling hours. A graveside service will be held in St. Joseph's Cemetery, Mason Road, Coopersville, on Wednesday, May 15, 2019, at Noon with Deacon Noel A. Hinerth, officiating. Military Honors will follow.
Arrangements are in the care of the Hamilton Funeral Home, 793 Gilbert Road, Mooers, 236-4747. To offer an online condolence, share a symbolic gesture, or share a photo in memory of Rene please visit www.hamiltonfuneralhome.com
To plant a tree in memory of Rene A. Bechard, please visit Tribute Store.
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Rene & Lorraine Barriere
Rene was a very good friend and neighbor. Our deepest condolences to his family
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Interview and video: Pianist Natasha Paremski making OKC Philharmonic debut
by Brandy McDonnell
Published: Sun, March 31, 2019 9:15 AM Updated: Sun, March 31, 2019 9:24 AM
Natasha Paremski [Photo provided]
An abbreviated version of this story appears in the Sunday Life section of The Oklahoman.
'Blue' debut: Pianist Natasha Paremski to play Gershwin in her first OKC Philharmonic concert
In her Oklahoma City Philharmonic debut, pianist Natasha Paremski will play a George Gershwin piece so familiar she likens it to another American national anthem along with a seldom-performed rhapsody the beloved composer penned for a movie musical.
“I think the challenge is always going to be with ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ to just keep it fresh. … It has to be fresh for me, the performer. I have to be surprised by what I’m doing as I’m doing it, then that will translate into the audience,” she said.
“It is really fun because everybody knows it, and they come in loving it. So, I don’t have to sell it to them. But I will have to sell the ‘Second Rhapsody,’ because I can imagine that very few if anybody in the audience will have heard it.”
Gershwin’s favored vs. unfamiliar works won’t be the only “Fantastic Contrasts” featured in Saturday’s OKC Philharmonic Classics concert. The performance will showcase the works of 20th-century Russian composer Dmitry Shostakovich – “Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 1” and “Symphony No. 12 in D Minor (The Year of 1917)” – and of Gershwin, one of America’s most famous 20th-century composers – his iconic “Rhapsody in Blue" as well as his “Second Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra," which he originally wrote for the 1931 film "Delicious," starring Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell.
“The Gershwin-Shostakovich combinations I just love. The Shostakovich 12th symphony is this awesome, crazy glorification of communism – but also not at all. So, it’s like Shostakovich at his best – completely over the top,” said OKC Philharmonic Music Director Alexander Mickelthwate.
“He wrote music for film and then jazz, so there’s this whole connection with Gershwin. They both lived during the Cold War, if you think about it: Gershwin lived here in the Cold War and Shostakovich was on the other side. So, bang, there they are -- total opposites.”
Natasha Paremski [Photo by Andrea Joynt]
Although Saturday’s concert marks her first with the OKC Philharmonic, Paremski worked with Mickelthwate several times during his 12-year tenure as music director of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra in Canada.
“I’m really honored to be a part of his first season. He’s just so easy to work with on stage, I can’t tell you. He’s just a total joy, and he makes me feel so at ease. He’s such a great conductor as well that he makes everything so easy for everybody to put together on stage. He also knows how to excite his orchestra and bring everybody together and create that energy on stage that is so magical. That’s what draws audiences back into the halls,” she said.
She said Mickelthwate’s gift for innovative programming also gets music lovers excited about the concerts he plans.
“I think there are actually a lot of parallels between Shostakovich and Gershwin. I think both of them have a really terrific sense humor; Shostakovich may be a little bit more snarky. Certainly, there is some jazz in Shostakovich, obviously in the jazz suite. I think it’s going to be a really great experience for your audience, and I am really thrilled to be a part of it,” she said.
Natasha Paremski [Photo by Clarence Chan]
Jazzy performance
Born in Moscow, Paremski began her piano studies at age 4 with Nina Malikova at Moscow’s Andreyev School of Music. She moved to the United States at age 8, studying at San Francisco Conservatory of Music before moving to New York to study with Pavlina Dokovska at Mannes College of Music, from which she graduated in 2007. She made her professional debut at age 9 with El Camino Youth Symphony in California, and at 15, she debuted with Los Angeles Philharmonic and recorded two discs with Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra.
In addition to performing with orchestras around the world, she has expanded her horizons outside the concert hall. In 2008, she was the featured pianist in choreographer Benjamin Millepied’s “Danses Concertantes” at New York’s Joyce Theater. She performed in a two-part film for BBC Television on the life and work of Pyotr Tchaikovsky, shot on location in St. Petersburg, Russian. In 2007, she participated along with Simon Keenlyside in the filming of “Twin Spirits,” a project starring Sting and Trudie Styler that explores the music and writing of Robert and Clara Schumann.
“They expand your audiences. … Certainly, Sting’s platform is immensely vast, and if there are even a few people who kind of followed him on that project, it’s really terrific that we got to connect those worlds. I think it was really exciting for him as well, actually, because he loves classic musical and he really admires classical musicians. So, I think while we were all kind of with our jaws on the floor that we were sharing the stage with Sting, he actually said to me that he felt very much the same way,” said Paremski, who in January released a new album featuring her playing Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” and American jazz pianist Fred Hersch’s new piece “Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky,” commissioned by the Gilmore Foundation for her.
Performing the two Gershwin pieces Saturday will give soloist the opportunity to play jazz pianist for the night, she said.
“Here’s the thing about playing Gershwin as a pianist: You actually get to improvise a lot,” she said. “If you listen to the different recordings, people add passages and they add really fun stuff. I’ve been playing around with that, and that’s a really cool factor. It’s not like playing Beethoven. With Beethoven, you can’t change a note or a dynamic or anything; it’s very, very structured to play, to the point of minutiae. Whereas with Gershwin, you can really play around with it; I mean, it’s really jazz, after all. I’m by no means a jazz pianist, but I use whatever tools I have to kind of spice it up a little.”
Oklahoma City Philharmonic with pianist Natasha Paremski
When: 8 p.m. Saturday.
Where: Civic Center Music Hall, 201 N Walker.
Tickets and information: 842-5387 or www.okcphil.org.
-BAM
Brandy McDonnell
Brandy McDonnell, also known by her initials BAM, writes stories and reviews on movies, music, the arts and other aspects of entertainment. She is NewsOK’s top blogger: Her 4-year-old entertainment news blog, BAM’s Blog, has notched more than 1... Read more ›
CommentsInterview and video: Pianist Natasha Paremski making OKC Philharmonic debut
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Gabby Giffords says she's doing yoga
CNN's Ashley Killough
Washington (CNN) - Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords said Tuesday night her spirit is "strong as ever," and she's working hard to recover from her 2011 gunshot wound through different kinds of therapy.
"Speech therapy. Physical therapy. And yoga, too," she told Democratic activists at an event hosted by EMILY's List.
"My spirit's strong as ever. I'm still fighting to make the world a better place, and you can too. Get involved with your community," she said. "Be a leader. Set an example. Strong women get things done. Be passionate. Be courageous. Be your best."
Follow @politicalticker Follow @KilloughCNN
Reps. Ann Kirkpatrick and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona stood alongside Giffords as she read her speech. The former congresswoman was critically wounded in a Tucson mass shooting that killed six and injured 13.
Since the Newtown, Connecticut elementary school massacre in December 2012, Giffords, a gun owner, has been active in the fight for more gun control.
The EMILY's List dinner Tuesday was held to present the group's "Rising Star" award named after Giffords, who received the first recognition in 2012. This year, the honor went to Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams, the first woman to lead either party in the state's General Assembly.
California Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein of California also spoke at the event, in addition to U.S. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.
EMILY's List has been working to elect Democratic, pro-choice women to office since 1985.
Filed under: Gabrielle Giffords
Old Gunderson
Old Gunderson says she needs yoga like a hole in the head. Old Gunderson made a funny!
April 30, 2014 01:15 pm at 1:15 pm |
That wasn't funny, Gunny.
Wake Up People! Many Rivers to cross.....
Agreed nintex. But I don't think that's the real Gunny.... But no matter who said it, it's not funny at all!!😡😡😡
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+Joel Goldberg - CEO
Joel Goldberg has been employed in the non-profit disability services realm for almost 40 years, beginning his career as a Direct Support Professional upon graduating from college in 1980. In 2004 Mr. Goldberg founded Quality Progressions, a non-profit Supports Coordination Organization (SCO) that supports 3000 individuals with intellectual disabilities and their families in achieving Every Day Lives, participating in their local community, and making meaningful choices. Quality Progressions is a State- wide SCO that has offices in Philadelphia and Bethlehem, PA, and employs 120 individuals. Mr. Goldberg currently serves as the organization’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and strives to utilize his knowledge and professional experience in leadership roles in order to make a difference in the lives of others.
Prior to founding Quality Progressions, Mr. Goldberg was employed at Special People in Northeast, Inc. (SPIN), one of the southeast region’s largest providers of services to individuals with intellectual disabilities. He began his career at SPIN in 1982 as a Vocational Instructor and quickly established himself as a leading professional in the field, advancing to various Director and Corporate positions.
Mr. Goldberg has a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology and a Master’s Degree in Special Education from Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He also holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from LaSalle University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
+Adrienne Hill - Program Director
Adrienne received her Bachelors in 1992, majoring in Special Education, minoring in Gerontology; Masters is School Social Work in 1997 and HR certification in 2008. She has worked with individuals with Intellectual Disabilities and Autism since the age of 13 and her goal in High School was to work with this population.
Adrienne has worked directly in Case Management/Supports Coordination for the past 22 years, 15 of which have been as Program Director at Quality Progressions. In her scope as Program Director, Adrienne manages all upper management, participates in the development of policy and procedures, oversees hiring and evaluation of all staff, oversees all HR agency wide functionalities and oversees billing of waiver and TSM funded consumers. During the inception of our Bethlehem office, Adrienne worked diligently to ensure their success as a secondary office.
Adrienne works collaboratively with all stakeholders and attends frequent meetings on behalf of the agency. Adrienne currently serves as Secretary of The Alliance ID Domain, is on the conference committees of both The Alliance and MAX. She has worked throughout the years on differing pilot projects and regulatory oversight committees for the Commonwealth of PA.
Adrienne’s style of leadership is communication, looking at all perspectives, and making decisions. She is direct but respectful and believes wholeheartedly that the sum is greater than its parts.
“Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.” – Andrew Carnegie
+Randy Kester - Senior Program Manager
Randy has 20+ years in working with the ID population and their families, including over 18 years direct experience as a supports coordinator, supervisor and manager. A native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Randy began as a volunteer to an ID adult day program while in college at Marquette University. From 1993-1996, Randy resided as a live-in companion and home manager in homes as part of the Daybreak community in Toronto, Canada; part of the International Federation of L’Arche communities world- wide . At Daybreak, Randy experienced first-hand the beauty and potential for all individuals to live an everyday life, maximizing ability and sharing those abilities in community. These values continue to motivate and direct his mission of service to the individuals and families that Quality Progressions serves.
Randy has been a part of Quality Progressions in a management capacity since its beginning in the spring and summer 2004. He is proud to be part of Quality Progressions’ work over 14 years in carrying out its mission to provide quality progressive support and service to individuals and families.
Randy resides in Erdenheim, Montgomery County with his wife and son.
+Holly Rizzo - Senior Program Manager
Holly Rizzo is one of the Senior Program Managers at Quality Progressions, a Supports Coordination agency that serves individuals with intellectual disabilities and their families. As a Senior Manager Holly is responsible for managing the development of daily operations of all SC services for both the Philadelphia and Northampton offices. In her role she Provides leadership and training to the Unit Managers, Supports Coordination supervisors, SCs and all other personnel as needed along while assuring that quality standards of Quality Progressions and of all funding sources are being met.
Prior to her role in senior management Holly was an SC supervisor with Quality Progressions from 2004 to 2008, and a Supports Coordinator at PATH. Both of these positions offered the opportunity to work directly with consumers and families, furthering her desire to stay in this field and focus on the importance of individualized care.
When requested, Holly has participated in various statewide conferences and committee groups including, but not limited to, RCPA conferences/meetings, PACA, The Alliance, LVC, ODP Regional (NE and SE) meetings/trainings, and AE/SCO meetings. The Office of Developmental Programs has also requested Holly’s participation in the Statewide SC Dashboard planning committee as well as the current ISP pilot facilitated through the Alliance.
Holly’s educational background includes a completion of the nonprofit management series with La Salle University, an M.S. in Human Services with a specialization in Counseling Studies from Capella University, and a B.A. in Criminal Justice from Temple University.
Lydia Berger - Director/Assistant Secretary
Toni Clifton - Director
Gina Cooper - Vice Chairperson
Wanda Evans - Director
Joel Goldberg - CEO
Greg Grant - Chairperson
Stephen McGowan - Treasurer
Linda Ricketts - Secretary
Yvonne Douglas - Director
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Home › Testing the National Covenant
Testing the National Covenant
Christian Ethics
Philosophical Ethics
FourthofJuly
192 pp., 5.5 x 8.5
Fears and Appetites in American Politics
William F. May
Since the end of World War II, runaway fears of Soviet imperialism, global terrorism, and anarchy have tended to drive American foreign policy toward an imperial agenda. At the same time, uncurbed appetites have wasted the environment and driven the country's market economy into the ditch. How can we best sustain our identity as a people and resist the distortions of our current anxieties and appetites?
Ethicist William F. May draws on America's religious and political history and examines two concepts at play in the founding of the country—contractual and covenantal. He contends that the biblical idea of a covenant offers a more promising way than the language of contract, grounded in self-interest alone, to contain our runaway anxieties and appetites. A covenantal sensibility affirms, "We the people (not simply, We the individuals, or We the interest groups) of the United States." It presupposes a history of mutual giving and receiving and of bearing with one another that undergirds all the traffic in buying and selling, arguing and negotiating, that obtain in the rough terrain of politics. May closes with an account of the covenantal agenda ahead, and concludes with the vexing issue of immigrants and undocumented workers that has singularly tested the covenant of this immigrant nation.
William F. May is a senior fellow at the Institute of Practical Ethics and Public Life at the University of Virginia. He received his PhD from Yale and taught for many years at Southern Methodist University, where he was the founding director of the Cary M. Maguire Center for Ethics and Public Responsibility. A former president of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Christian Ethics, he has written several books on medical and political ethics.
"May's work is an important religious contribution to the academic conversation between secular thinkers as William Connolly, Michael Hardt, and Antonio Negri and theologians such as Joerg Riger and Vincent Lloyd."—Reviews in Religion and Theology
"May invites the reader to question to what extent anonymity and passivity have dominated the constriction of the community in the United States, and to what extent this anonymity and passivity has led the country into the inequalities and injustices that plague the nation. Even though I am prone to reflection on these concerns, May's book re-enlivened my thoughts on the matter and has left me questioning my own passivity and my own 'addiction' to contract
you should allow his book to do the same for you."—Jesse Perillo, Journal of Lutheran Ethics
"May is a keen observer and an eloquent chronicler of the "runaway fears and appetites" that have driven a good deal of self-deception in American public life, and he reckons honestly with the harm done to our national character and, more urgently, to decision-making in policies both foreign and domestic. His final chapter, a moving discussion of immigrants and undocumented workers, brings the theme of "keeping covenant" to bear on one of the most pressing moral and political issues of our time."—Sojourners Magazine
"This unique book brings to American politics, economics, and public life—both contemporary and historical—an imaginative theological understanding. May's distinctive approach throws light in both directions—on the religious categories, which are enriched by their application to topics like American foreign policy, the free market, and immigration; and on public issues, which are understood in a more profound way by the application of religious ideas. A valuable book."—William Lee Miller, The Miller Center of Public Affairs and author of Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography
"Wise, clear, profound, and eloquent, William F. May's new book should be read by anyone who cares about America. He puts on display our runaway fears and desires. He traces the ways those anxieties and appetites have distorted our international policy, our domestic policy, and our economic life. It is a prophetic indictment of our culture, but it is no mere jeremiad. It is a hopeful call for a course correction, for a turning (or a returning) to the tradition of covenant. The concluding chapters elegantly contrast covenant and contract and point the way to a better common life in America."—Allen Verhey, professor of theological ethics, Duke Divinity School
"The national debate on religion and politics commonly adopts political language for its framework—right, left, reactionary, progressive. In a refreshing departure, William May takes a different tack. Religious language itself—community, covenant, good, evil, hospitality, and generosity—is his framework for looking at what unites and divides 'We the People.' He deploys this with his usual keen analysis and elegant style."—Margaret Steinfels, codirector, Fordham Center on Religion and Culture
"This book is a profound and beautifully written meditation on the dueling passions that drive American foreign and domestic policy by one of the nation's foremost religious ethicists. In order to keep those passions in check, May argues for the retrieval and renewal of the covenantal model of our national union. Deeply influential in colonial America, the idea of covenant is rooted in a fundamental model of God's gift and our grateful response. It is therefore capable of inspiring not merely enlightened self-interest, but also the self-expenditure on behalf of the common good that America so sorely needs to face its current challenges."—M. Cathleen Kaveny, John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law and professor of theology, Notre Dame Law School
"This book is the capstone of the life's work of William F. May as an eminent Christian ethicist and public intellectual. With stylistic elegance, theological depth, perceptive analysis, and persuasive criticism, May employs the concept of covenant to address the domestic and international policies that the United States should follow today."—Charles Curran, Elizabeth Scurlock University Professor of Human Values, Southern Methodist University
1. Containing Runaway Fears in America Foreign Policy
2. The Overreach of Free Market Ideology: Business and Government
3. Free Market Ideology: Bearing on Other Centers of Power
4. Curbing Runaway Appetites in American Domestic Policy: Oil and Other Carbons
5. We the People: A Contract or a Covenant?
6. Forming a More Perfect Union: The Task
7. Keeping Covenant with Immigrants and Undocumented Workers
Rethinking Rights and Responsibilities
The Moral Bonds of Community
The First Liberty
America's Foundation in Religious Freedom
Expanded and Updated
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Not so much: Shale gas shows its limitations
If you live in the United States and bother to turn on your television, it's almost impossible to avoid ads telling you that natural gas from shale is both abundant and environmentally safe to develop. In these ads, so many happy people seem to enjoy burning natural gas that it would be difficult to imagine that their smiles might come to a premature end.
Though the ads will probably not be withdrawn or recut, the emerging facts run counter to the gleeful tone of this television commercial produced by America's Natural Gas Alliance, a consortium of shale gas drillers. (For some more samples from other advertisers, click here, here and here.) First, it has become increasingly apparent from actual well data that shale gas is not being harvested according to the much-touted "manufacturing model." This model assumes that shale deposits are basically uniform, or at least uniform enough that a driller could sink a well virtually anywhere in a shale gas deposit and have an economical well blasting out methane.
Independent petroleum geologist Art Berman and his colleague Lynn Pittinger, who studied the actual data, have shown that the manufacturing model is a myth, to wit: "The contraction of extensive geographic play regions into relatively small core areas greatly reduces the commercially recoverable reserves of the plays that we have studied." In short, you can't just drill anywhere. Drillers thought the huge plays highlighted in pink on the map below would yield profitable shale gas everywhere. It turns out that there are sweet spots, and then there are spots that are not sweet at all. And, the sweet spots are turning out to be quite small compared to the size of the deposits.
Berman and Pittinger also point out that initial high flow rates give out within a couple of years, putting drillers on a treadmill merely to replace this declining production and implying geometric increases in the number of wells they must drill to grow production consistently. What's more, the two authors question claims of decades-long flows, albeit at very low rates, from individual wells. The history of shale gas wells to date suggests that this is unlikely at best, and almost certainly uneconomical.
The second shoe to drop was a piece in The New York Times entitled "Insiders Sound an Alarm Amid a Natural Gas Rush" which cited internal memos and emails from industry and government officials admitting that estimates of the available gas from shale are overblown.
The third piece of damning news came from a recent U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) assessment of the Marcellus Shale natural gas deposits, by far the largest of their kind in the United States spanning vast areas of New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia as well as sections of Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. Previously, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the U.S. Department of Energy, had estimated that the Marcellus Shale contained 410 trillion cubic feet of so-called "technically recoverable shale gas resources." (This says nothing about whether such resources can be economically recovered. See the discussion of natural gas prices below.) The USGS report put the technically recoverable amount at 84 trillion cubic feet, an 80 percent reduction. For reference, the United States consumed about 24 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in 2010.
The often repeated claim that the United States has 100 years of natural gas at current rates of consumption is based to a considerable degree on the 410 trillion cubic feet which the Marcellus Shale supposedly added to U.S. resources. But, don't expect the shale gas drillers to stop advertising the 100 year claim anytime soon.
The fourth piece of news came not from industry insiders or studies of Mother Nature herself, but from state government. As I wrote earlier this year, new regulations could significantly dampen shale gas production. The newly released regulations in New York state do just that and to a degree that even I didn't think possible. Buffers are now required around water resources and have cut down the area available for drilling within existing shale gas leases by 40 and 60 percent. In addition, some municipalities are using their land use regulatory powers to make it all but impossible to drill in their jurisdictions.
As a result drillers are furious, so furious that some are thinking of abandoning their leases to concentrate on drilling in states with more lax regulations. New York may bid them a fond farewell since the legacy costs of cleaning up aquifers and drinking water could in the long run far outweigh the temporary economic gains from natural gas production.
Finally, there is always the question of price. A drilling foreman I know told me not too long ago that we might have quite a bit of natural gas available above $10 per thousand cubic feet, but not very much below $4. Price matters because the huge amount of natural gas promised by the industry would require the exploitation of deposits that are expensive to develop and therefore require prices much higher than today's.
I expect there to be a fifth, sixth and seventh piece of news and so on, detailing new limits on the rate of shale gas extraction. True, the explosive growth of shale gas production certainly caught many energy analysts by surprise. The received wisdom up until recently was that conventional gas production would decline, and the United States would increasingly rely on imports. But, I think the public and policymakers, who are being propagandized daily by the industry, may be in for yet another surprise.
Abundant natural gas? Sort of, but only if the price is right. Cheap natural gas for the long run? Not so much.
The North Coast said...
The phrase that always sticks in my mind is "current rate of consumption", as in "we have enough (oil, coal, gas, whatever) to last 100 or 200 years at current rates of consumption."
It would seem that the Rule of 72 could be applied here, to any quantity, not just money. Using the rule of 72, a 2% rise in consumption year over year would mean a 100 year supply would become a 36 year supply, and if you increase consumption 5%, well, then you're looking at about 14 years or so.
Now, if we were to somehow find a way to move half our fleet of motor vehicles off gas & diesel oil to gas, and if we also build more gas-powered power plants instead of coal or gas, and we also increase our use of electricity.. how long does that "100 year supply" last.
As John Michael Greer put it, we're singing lullabies to ourselves. And the fossil fuel producers, who surely know better, are lulling us into using the last of our private money and public capital into lining their back pockets because they know that they are in a sunset industry and they have only so much time to make hay. They're definitely not in it for the long haul anymore, but we will be stuck with the consequences of our short-sightedness and delusional thinking forever.
Robert C. Guy said...
..and, opening a cupboard full of fruits and vegetables, finding our favorite sugary cereal box is empty, we must submit to hunger and eventual starvation?
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2011/10/trouble-with-binary-thinking.html
"...preying upon and capitalizing on people's fears." is in large one of the most important tools of public relations and marketing (pleasant titles for expanded forms of simple propaganda) that have helped to create such very interesting minds that broadcast themselves so emphatically from industrial societies.
Don't gamble with the grocery money
Can Margaret Atwood's environmental message reach ...
Destroying dreams the peak oil way
Crisscrossing the Rubicon of peak oil
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A Guide to Defibrilation
A defibrillator is a device that sends electrical energy, or shock, to the heart. The aim of using a defibrillator is to treat cardiac arrest. The need for this generally arises when the patient has ventricular fibrillation or ventricular tachycardia, which are life-threatening arrhythmias that occur when contraction of the ventricles become abnormal. Defibrillators have electrocardiogram (ECG) leads and adhesive patches (or paddles). The adhesive electrodes are the patches placed on the patient’s chest that deliver the electric shock.
The History of Defibrillation
In 1899, two physiologists from the University of Geneva, Jean Louis Prevost and Frederic Batelli, discovered that small electric shocks could cause ventricular fibrillation in dogs. Later, in 1933, a device was invented to send an electric shock to the heart as a substitute for administering cardiac medications.
In 1947, the first defibrillation was carried out by Claude Beck who was a professor of surgery at Case Western Reserve University. The defibrillator he used had internal paddles that were placed on each side of the heart.
Before the end of the 1950s, defibrillation was successfully performed only when the chest cavity of the patient was open during the surgery. In this case, the defibrillator had electrodes in the shape of paddles so that flat ends could be placed on either side of the exposed heart.
As the 1950s gradually came to an end, the closed-chest defibrillator device was invented. One of the basic differences between the open and closed-chest devices was that the closed-chest defibrillators required more voltage for operation. It was invented by Dr. V. Eskin and A. Klomov.
Thus far, the defibrillators in existence used alternating current. In 1959, Bernard Lown began to develop new ideas to make the device more energy efficient. Lown’s work led to the discovery of Direct Current (DC). Further development lead to the Biphase Truncated Exponential (BTE) waveform. With the BTE waveform, the defibrillators could use lower energy levels, which reduced the weight of the defibrillators that were later manufactured.
In the 1960s, Professor Frank Pantridge of Belfast began to introduce portable defibrillators for hospitals. This invention is now one of the most important tools that emergency medical services carry to resusitate people that suffer cardiac arrest. Portable units set forth the production of automatic defibrillators—devices with the ability to analyze heart rhythms.
The biphasic waveform did not completely replace the Lown waveform until the end of the 1980s. The waveform allowed defibrillators to work more quickly than the previous types. This in turn reduced the energy level needed for defibrillation. The success rate for treating cardiac arrest also improved.
In 1969, the research for making implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) began as a result of needing to provide adequate health care for victims of cardiac arrest. In 1980, the first implantable device was used at John Hopkins Hospital by Dr. Levi Watkins. Today, frequent victims of cardiac arrest are given the device for their aid at any time.
Types of Defibrillators
There are different kinds of defibrillators in use today. They include the manual external defibrillator, manual internal defibrillator, automated external defibrillator (AED), implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD), and wearable cardiac defibrillator.
Manual external defibrillator: These defibrillators require more experience and training to effectively handle them. Hence, they are only common in hospitals and a few ambulances where capable hands are present. In conjuntion with an ECG, the trained provider determines the cardiac rhythm and then manually determines the voltage and timing of the shock—through external paddles—to the patient’s chest.
Manual internal defibrillator: The manual internal defibrillators use internal paddles to send the electric shock directly to the heart. They are used on open chests, so they are only common in the operating room. It was invented after 1959.
Automated external defibrillator (AED): These are defibrillators that use computer technology, thereby making it easy to analyze the heart’s rhythm and effectively determine if the rhythm is shockable. They can be found in medical facilities, government offices, airports, hotels, sports stadiums, and schools.
Implantable cardioverter-defibrillator: Another name for this is automatic internal cardiac defibrillator (AICD). They constantly monitor the patient’s heart, similar to a pacemaker, and can detect ventricular fibrillation, ventricular tachycardia, supraventricular tachycardia, and atrial fibrillation. When an abnormal rhythm is detected, the device automatically determines the voltage of the shock to restore cardiac function.
Wearable cardiac defibrillator: Further research was done on the AICD to bring forth the wearable cardiac defibrillator, which is a portable external defibrillator generally indicated for patients who are not in an immediate need for an AICD. This device is capable of monitoring the patient 24-hours-a-day. It is only functional when it is worn and sends a shock to the heart whenever it is needed. However, it is scarce in the market today.
When Not to Use a Defibrillator
Defibrillation is not indicated if the heart rhythm has completely stopped, as in asystole, or sometimes called “flat line,” or has pulseless electrical activity (PEA). Also, defibrillation is not indicated if the patient is conscious or has a pulse. Inappropriately given electrical shocks can cause dangerous arrhythmias, such as ventricular fibrillation.
Although defibrillators have specific indications and were initially exclusive to trained professionals, it is now possible to have one at home. Modern defibrillators are easy to use and do not require years of experience. In fact, a few tips from a health-care professional and a review of the the manual is all that may be needed to correctly intervene in a cardiac emergency. This development is helpful in reducing the number of death rates caused by sudden cardiac arrest and other heartbeat-related problems each year.
For more information on defibrillation and diseases that require a defibrillator, please visit the following websites:
Simulation of Cardiac Defibrillation: Images and diagrams of how defibrillators work.
The History of Defibrillators: Discovery of defibrillation and cardiac pathophysiology.
What is an Automated External Defibrillator?: Overview of AEDs used to treat cardiac arrest.
Cardiac Arrest: Cardiac arrest is popularly known as sudden cardiac death. Its common name truly identifies how dangerous it is.
Cure for Sudden Cardiac Arrest: The defibrillator is the fastest device that is suitable for treating sudden cardiac arrest. A type of defibrillator for this is the automated external defibrillator.
Guide to Defibrillation: Complete guide to defibrillation including materials needed and steps required.
Implantable Cardioverter-Defibrillator: This is suitable for patients that frequently experience fibrillation or ventricular tachycardia.
Ventricular Tachycardia Overview: This condition refers to very fast heartbeats in the heart. It starts from the ventricles.
Treatment Options for Tachycardia: Tachycardia is best treated with implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD). The ICD is also recommended for fibrillation.
What Are the Risks of Having an Implantable Cardioverter-Defibrillator?: Article covers the concerns and risks of the implanted defibrillator.
The History of Fibrillation and Defibrillation: This site discusses the rigorous works that were done by notable scientists such as Carl Ludwig in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Story Credit: https://pacificmedicalacls.com/acls-online-library-a-guide-to-defibrillation.html
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BoostIron™ - Clinical Trials
Low USA domestic & international
BoostIron™ - Clinical Trials:
In a trial of carbonyl iron supplementation for blood donors with a randomized, double-blind design, women 18-40 years of age were given placebo or low-dose carbonyl iron, 100 mg for 56 days after blood donation. Side effects with placebo and carbonyl iron were almost indistinguishable; capsule counts indicated that compliance with both regimens was similar. On the average, more iron was absorbed by donors who initially had no iron reserves (serum ferritin < 12 µg/L) than by those with some stores. Overall, enough iron was absorbed to replace that lost at donation in 85% of the carbonyl iron group but in only 29% of the placebo group (p < 0.001). (9)
Research has shown iron deficiency to be associated with impaired brain function, and iron deficiency in children can result in impaired learning ability and behavioral problems. Supplementation of iron has been shown to prevent iron-deficiency anemia and to reduce the decline in mental development.
Some researchers have reported that up to 25% of adolescent girls in the United States are iron deficient. In one study, the effects of iron supplements were tested in adolescent girls with non-anemia iron deficiency to see if they might improve cognition. This was a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Subjects were randomized to receive iron supplements or placebo for eight weeks. Those with iron supplementation were reported to perform significantly better than those in the placebo group on tests related to verbal learning and memory.
Claims that iron boosts energy and enhances exercise performance may be true – provided the claim is limited to those who are iron deficient. Muscle weakness and decreased exercise tolerance can occur in those who are iron deficient but not necessarily suffering from iron-deficiency anemia. Iron deficiency without anemia is not uncommon among some endurance athletes (e.g., long-distance runners), more among women than men.
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What is so precious about Ukraine for international investors? An American businessman shares his opinion
More and more international investors have been paying attention to Ukraine as a promising area for profitable investing. Cody Shirk, an American entrepreneur, traveler and investor, is now urging international investors to look at Ukraine as a country with really great investment potential, Market Leader reports.
Publication date: 27 September 03:16 AM
China’s Debt Bubble May Trigger Another Global Financial Crisis
The Chinese economy keeps on slowing down as China’s debt bubble is growing. International experts are concerned about that. They are afraid of a new global financial crisis, Market Leader reports. The thing is, the Chinese economy is not growing fast enough anymore. Beijing has to admit the economic slowdown. The entire international expert community is now closely watching this slowdown and expressing their concerns about China’s economic prospects amid the mentioned economic slowdown and inflating debt bubble.
Publication date: 25 September 12:44 PM
Why Is German Parliamentary Election Important to Europe?
Judging by the results of several sociological surveys, the chances of electing Angela Markel for the next 4 years is fairly high at the moment. Even though there is almost no intrigue in the election, the international community has still been closely watching it, Market Leader reports
Bitcoin Market Cap Exceeds $150 Billion
Bitcoin’s market capitalization exceeded $150 billion the other day. At the same time, the international expert community keeps on pondering upon the near-term prospects of Bitcoin and other digital currencies.
American Sanctions Will Cut Investments In Russia
Some experts say that the next round of anti-Russian sanctions imposed a couple of weeks ago is going to undermine the Russian economy. In particular, they are threatening the investment capital inflow.
A few weeks after Donald Trump reluctantly signed the new sanctions approved by the U.S. Congress, Russian and foreign investors are still trying to figure out what the actual consequences of this decision are going to be. For now, they seem to have understood enough to be afraid of long-term negative consequences for their existing or potential investments in the Russian economy, which has just started recovering after a 2-year recession.
New U.S. Sanctions Against Russia Will Result In Geopolitical Changes
Political expert Lilia Shevtsova commented on the new sanctions against Russia imposed by the United States. She claims that the geopolitical situation in the world is going to change in the near future due to the sanctions.
She claims that introducing those sanctions was like a surgery. As the result of this surgery, the USA got rid of a foreign body. After that, Washington is probably going to reset their foreign policy. However, nobody can definitely say what exactly this event is going to result in. But one thing is sure – something is definitely going to change in the world order, and this creates certain threats for Russia.
New Sanctions Against Russia Will Last Long
Russian political expert Leonid Shvets commented on the new round of anti-Russian sanctions. For starters, he claims that Russia has already turned into America’s biggest enemy. The thing is that the new law signed by Donald Trump not so long ago is designed to fight America’s enemies with the help of sanctions. North Korea and Iran are also on the same list.
New Sanctions Will Hit Putin Personally, Piotrovskiy Says
This time, American sanctions are going to hit even Vladimir Putin himself, Andrey Piotrovskiy says. He says that the devil is in the detail. The thing is that the new sanctions approved by the U.S. Congress and signed by Donald Trump (even though he was against those sanctions), obliges the U.S. financial intelligence to provide the Congress with the information on all the known and probable assets belonging to the all the high-ranking Russian politicians, including Russian President Vladimir Putin. With that being said, it’s not accidental, that Putin is mentioned several times in the document.
Russia Loses Ground in Energy Market
Washington is planning to increase the export of natural gas to Europe, which is expected to diminish Russia’s role as a major natural gas exporter to the European region. Experts say, that the policy aimed at expansion is now aimed at retaining the existing position in the European energy market.
For those of you who don’t know, Donald Trump signed a decree aimed at making America an energy superpower. As a part of this announcement, it was decided to expand the export of natural gas to Europe, which is also expected to reduce Europe’s dependency on Russian natural gas. At the same time, the U.S. government may cause extra troubles to Gazprom by means of sanctions.
Publication date: 22 August 11:47 PM
Solar and Wind Power Will Make Coal Production Unprofitable Soon
Coal production is expected to go unprofitable in the near future., experts say. At the same time, miners will go extinct as a profession, Bloomberg predicts. It’s all about the so-called green energy, or alternative energy. Mostly, green energy implies the energy generated by solar and wind power.
The experts predict that the cost of generating energy from solar and wind power will reach parity with the energy generated by coal. At the same time, they assume that the share of the energy generated by coal will be reduced by 80-90% in a matter of 20-25 years.
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By Hentzau gaming
Thoughts: Assassin’s Creed 3.
In a word: ew.
Assassin’s Creed 3 strikes me as a game with a lot of different parts that have been developed in isolation with no consideration as to how they’re going to fit together into a coherent whole. The developers have just thrown a bunch of stuff at a wall without even bothering to look at it to see what sticks, and they definitely haven’t bothered cleaning up the stuff which didn’t; it’s still smeared all over the game, turning it into a sprawling and self-indulgent mess that flat-out ignores the useful lessons learned in Brotherhood and Revelations.
For a series that’s had so much trouble with overlong tutorial sections – and AC 3 is by far the worst offender where this is concerned, as we shall shortly see – I thought the beginning of Assassin’s Creed 3 was actually pretty well done. For the first three hours of the game you don’t play the main character. Instead you’re placed in the rather suave riding boots of Haytham Kenway, a British nobleman who is basically an 18th century version of James Bond. The opening level of the game is set in a rather striking theatre that Haytham has to clamber around in order to reach his assassination target, during which you learn the series basics: running, climbing, jumping, murdering and so on. Then he gets packed off to the American colonies on board a ship where you’re taught the new fighting system, and then finally once he gets to Boston he has to gather his resources and contacts and put together an organisation capable of achieving his goals – again, all staples of the AC series.
There’s one immediately glaring problem with this sequence, and that’s that Haytham is not the guy on the front cover of the game. You’re fully aware that as likeable and interesting as Haytham is – and he is very interesting, since while he seems like a fairly decent bloke on the surface he also has a cruel streak that’s barely disguised by his pithy upper-class witticisms – at some point you’re going to be transitioning to the main character, and that Haytham’s presence in the game merely functions as its prologue and tutorial. The thing is that despite its length the Haytham segment is by far the most worthwhile tutorial the series has ever had, since it functions both as a teaching tool and as a very effective way of setting the scene for the rest of the story. Even though it’s three hours long I enjoyed every one of them instead of wondering when I was going to get to the real meat of the game (and this is quite the achievement considering I went straight from Brotherhood to Revelations to 3), and if after Haytham the training wheels had been taken off and the game had immediately transitioned to the real main character running around in the open-world environment the series is supposed to be known for then I would have said that they’d finally gotten an Assassin’s Creed tutorial right.
Of course that doesn’t happen. Haytham is inevitably replaced with Connor, the actual protagonist of the game, and this is where Assassin’s Creed 3 starts to veer wildy off the rails because instead of actually getting on with things it uses Connor as an excuse to subject the player to even more tutorials. When we meet him Connor is ten years old. He’s skipping through the forest playing hide and seek with his friends. I just got done ruthlessly massacring a whole fort full of British troops as Haytham, and now I am playing fucking hide and seek for twenty minutes. Then there’s a cutscene, and the game skips forward seven years, and now Connor is teaching his equally-boring friend how to run through the trees and hunt! The tree-running tutorial was broken and the hunting tutorial was unforgiveably long and dull, going through each of the many hunting tools available to Connor in excruciating detail and even asking him to, and I quote, “Air assassinate a deer.” I didn’t buy an Assassin’s Creed game to assassinate deer, for crying out loud.
Long story short, Connor eventually leaves his village, runs across most of Massachusetts and meets up with an elderly Assassin. This guy agrees to teach Connor how to assassinate things that aren’t deer, and so Connor starts a mission called “Training Begins” which is just a little bit laughable considering that by this point I’d been playing the game for seven hours. The interminable series of tutorials never seems to end, and it isn’t until Sequence 9 (of 12) that you’re finally free of the blasted things. They’re also incredibly lopsided: compare and contrast the hour you spend learning how to hunt animals to the thirty second tutorial you’re given about how to gather materials, craft new items and trade things for sweet sweet cash. If hunting was in any way a central part of the game this might be justified, but as it is my hunting was limited to murdering anything cute and fluffy that had the bad fortune to blunder into my path while I was trying to get from A to B. Meanwhile I was forced to subsist on whatever cash I could loot from the various chests scattered around the game world because the crafting and trading interface was so impenetrable and it had barely been explained at all.
So your first hours with Connor are spent learning how to do utterly pointless shit that has absolutely no impact on the central gameplay, and I have to say that this really set the tone for his character in general. Connor is a psychopathic baby with a memory span roughly equivalent to that of a goldfish. Things happen to him because he is the Main Character, not because he – or you — makes them happen. The things he himself does he does because the plot demands it, not because it’s something he as a character has a logical motivation to do. Indeed, Connor has no character, acting as a blank cipher who fetches and carries for the founding fathers without asking any questions whatsoever. There’s one point in the game (and I should warn you that there is a bit of a spoiler coming here, although honestly the plot of AC 3 is garbage so I wouldn’t worry too much) where Connor learns that the man he thought was responsible for the burning of his village when he was a child — and who he has spent most of his time in the game attempting to kill in a number of incompetent ways — was in fact not involved in the slightest. Does he admit fault? Does he acknowledge that the anger that’s been driving him throughout his entire adult life has been aimed at the wrong target? Does he say “Oh, maybe I should stop trying to murder this guy every time we cross paths”? Nope, he just carries right on trucking like nothing ever happened, because that guy is the game’s Bad Guy and he has to die at the end of it.
It’s funny in a way, because we meet the Bad Guy in Haytham’s portion of the game and he comes across as nothing more than an over-eager yet capable young man, yet as soon as the action switches to Connor’s point of view he does a complete 180 and turns into a raging asshole who threatens to kill children because he is now Evil. Perhaps the game was trying to make a point about different perspectives, but I don’t credit AC 3 with that level of sophistication, and anyway the end result was that I much preferred Haytham’s perspective to Connor’s since it made far more logical and narrative sense. I wanted to spend the rest of the game playing as Haytham instead of being lumbered with this angsty monotonal clot. Connor is an actual, literal idiot, not to mention being a complete personality vacuum in every single part of the game that isn’t a Homestead mission1, and this did far more to turn me against Assassin’s Creed 3 than anything else in the game.
The other gameplay elements are a grab bag of random stuff that aren’t really connected in any way. The Homestead missions work reasonably well in terms of just watching your village grow, but from a gameplay perspective it amounts to several hours of busywork at the end of which you might get a new pistol holster or a new sword. The boat sections are outstanding – and in fact I’d be more than happy to see a full game based around them a la Pirates! – but there’s no getting around the fact that they’re there just because somebody wanted this game to have a boat, and aside from two scripted missions the boat combat consists of a series of standalone combat encounters that have no effect in the wider context of the game world. Assassin recruits are back and they even have some new abilities such as pretending to escort Connor into an enemy-controlled area as a prisoner; however, the one time I tried to use this my recruits turned up dressed in Colonial uniforms when the area I wanted to enter was inhabited by Redcoats. The ability to use your recruits in combat is locked off during every main mission and whenever you’re in the Frontier (so about 80% of the game), so the only thing to do with them is send them off on contracts, and this is something of a problem because the contract system in AC 3 is indescribably awful compared to what we got in Brotherhood and Revelations. In those games the contracts were worth doing even if they were fairly one-dimensional since they gave your recruits new levels and gained you money. In AC 3 not only is the rate at which your assassins level up painfully slow, but it’s not even clear that levelling them up even does anything. In Brotherhood/Revelations they got new armour, equipment and combat abilities, slowly evolving into a group of hardened killers. In AC 3 they get nothing aside from a message saying they’ve levelled up. The contracts feature is there, but it no longer has any effect on the gameplay. Which I think sums up AC 3 rather neatly, really.
Okay, so that’s all the ancillary stuff, but what about the main game? We’ve already established that it’s locked behind hours of tutorials and that the plot is terrible; fortunately if you can get past that the free-running this time around is, if not good, at least passable as an AC game. Connor moves in a more natural way that involves less canned animation compared to Ezio, although he’s hobbled slightly by colonial-era Boston and New York being rather bland and samey. Getting out into the Frontier is a double-edged sword; it looks far nicer – just about as nice as an AC game ever has, especially when it’s snowing – but the lack of rooftops and the linear nature of the tree routes means that most of the time you’re just running from one place to another, and this can get awkward because the Frontier is sodding huge and has no fast travel nodes unless you can find and clear out one of the seven forts dotted around the place. 2 You do this by exterminating the fort’s population of soldiers, which basically means getting involved in a massive five-minute brawl. I did enjoy the combat in AC 3; for this fifth iteration they’ve tossed out the old mechanics and adopted something very close to the combat mechanics from Arkham Asylum, with timed blocks and counters dictating the flow of the fighting. There’s a decent array of enemies and while there are only really two methods of dealing with them – counter kills or breaking their defence – remembering which one works on which enemy can be tricky when you’re trying to fight twenty guys at once. Add in pistols and other firearms and you’ve got something that is consistently entertaining, which is more than I can say for the combat in the previous games.
Assassin’s Creed 3 isn’t entirely bad news, then. It has a lot of good parts mixed in with the terrible ones. It’s just so unfocused, and given over to the worst excesses of the Assassin’s Creed series in general. Add in the fact that the resolution to the Desmond overplot is basically this, and that as a final parting shot once you’re finished the game locks you into a credits sequence that goes on for upwards of twenty-five minutes3 with no way to skip it aside from killing the process externally (I haven’t had a fuck-you from a game like this since Syndicate’s non-ending back in 1992), and I’m rather disinclined to give it a break. I’m certainly not looking forward to the next game — not unless somebody at Ubisoft has the nous to recognise that after the heyday of Ezio Assassin’s Creed 3 seems like a bloated mess scripted by a collection of twelve year-olds. Somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen, and so I’ll probably give next year’s4 AC release a pass.
During which he inexplicably morphs from an angry dickhead into a softly-spoken, thoughtful character. It was a nice change, but it also reinforced my impression that AC 3 has been assembled from a collection of separate pieces that were constructed in isolation and then glued together in no particular order. ↩
I only managed to find three of them despite criss-crossing the Frontier several times, so this isn’t easy. ↩
Ubisoft loves to troll people by listing the name of everyone who works at Ubisoft, everyone who works at an Ubisoft subsidiary and everyone who works at an Ubisoft affiliate whether they had anything to do with the game or not. I mean if you take the credits at face value there were probably more people involved with the making of Assassin’s Creed 3 than there were in the Apollo moon landings. ↩
Writing this in December, so by the time it’s published on the blog it’ll be this year’s Assassin’s Creed release. ↩
Tagged assassin's creed 3, boats automatically improve every game, thoughts
12 thoughts on “Thoughts: Assassin’s Creed 3.”
innokenti says:
“Add in the fact that the resolution to the Desmond overplot is basically this”
BUT WITHOUT THE ZORDS.
How much better would it be WITH zords. Eh?
I shouldn’t know the word zord, should I?
Hentzau says:
Well it’s only the very start, and they’ve already got at least two Zordons, so the next game will probably star some teenagers with attitude. There’s plenty of time for Zords.
More realistically there are a few ways they can go with AssCreed 4 (ignoring the releases they’ll do to over-clutter 3′s gameplay even more… unless they do a Haytham Kenway standalone – I’d play the shit out of that):
1) Prequels to the Desmond time-line and wherever else you want for the meat of the game. Okay probably, and at least has the chance to reduce the sci-fi wrapper to a minimum.
2) Post-Desmond sequel. Which would probably necessitate focusing a lot more on the sci-fi stuff in the ‘present’. Eugh.
3) Just cram everything into the last few moments of 3 and have it timelessly explain all the other ancestor stuff. A bit rubbish as the wrapper would not move on, but if we concentrate on the past stuff, maybe it would work.
4) Something I haven’t thought of.
Janek says:
I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who found The Baddy’s flip from bumbling sidekick to MURDERDEATHBASTARD jarring.
I also basically found myself routing for the Templars for the entire game. Especially when they were making entirely reasonable arguments after Connor mortally wounded them and he’s all like “No you must all die, because FREEDOM”
God I hated those. Connor was just the most awful character, actively frustrating to watch let alone play as.
Everblue says:
So you preferred it to Planetside 2 then?
(Kidding – great review, thank you)
I’ve gone weirdly cold on Planetside, like I do with a lot of F2P games. But Assassin’s Creed 3 is still worse.
Adam Benton says:
I’ve been re-playing brotherhood and AC2 and, whilst ACB is better, I still found AC2 enjoyable. As such I’m not that fussed over whether AC3 matches up to the later sequels (since I plan on buying it later, at a discount) but whether it is at least as decent as AC2. So is it?
It’s nowhere near as tight as AC2 and doesn’t have the redeeming feature of a main character who is quite compelling.
Bits of it are very good, but the whole experience is too fuzzy to say it’s as good as AC2.
That said, I don’t think you’ll fail to enjoy it… just… it’s obviously nowhere near as good an AC game as it should be.
Saying it’s about the same as AC2 seems like a massive slur on AC2, but I feel that’s about where it is. I really liked AC2′s setting and character, and I didn’t like AC3′s setting so much and I hated its main character, but as far as I can recall they’re about on par in terms of what they’re like as actual games. AC3 is probably a tad worse thanks to just how unfocused it is, and there isn’t much it actually does better than 2, and when you look at it in the context of the previous two games and AC2 being released in 2009 you realise it’s actually a massive regression for the series, but I don’t think I’d call AC3 bad as such. Just really incoherent.
Sounds like I’ll have to wait until its very discounted. Bet I can get Revelations cheap though.
Thoughts: Assassin's Creed 4 - Black Flag. » The Scientific Gamer The Scientific Gamer says:
[...] at the end of last year’s Assassin’s Creed 3 review [...]
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You are here: Home › social science › Max Weber – one of the Founders of Sociology
Max Weber – one of the Founders of Sociology
social science 21. April 2018 0 Tabea Tietz
Max Weber (1864 – 1920)
On April 21, 1864, German sociologist, philosopher, jurist, and political economist Max Weber was born. Max Weber‘s ideas profoundly influenced social theory and social research. Weber is often cited, with Émile Durkheim and Karl Marx, as among the three founders of sociology.
“The capacity to distinguish between empirical knowledge and value-judgments, and the fulfillment of the scientific duty to see the factual truth as well as the practical duty to stand up for our own ideals constitute the program to which we wish to adhere with ever increasing firmness.”
— Max Weber, “Objectivity in Social Science and Social Policy” (1904)
Max Weber was born in Erfurt, Province of Saxony, Prussia. He was the oldest of the seven children of Max Weber Sr., a wealthy and prominent civil servant and member of the National Liberal Party, and his wife Helene (Fallenstein). He joined the University of Heidelberg to study law and later moved to the University of Berlin. Next to studying, Weber was also occupied as a junior lawyer. He continued his studies on law and history throughout the 1880s. In 1889, Weber earned his law doctorate and two years later he completed his Habilitationsschrift On Roman Agrarian History and its Significance for Public and Private Law. He then joined the University of Berlin where he gave lectures and also consulted the government.
Verein für Socialpolitik
Meanwhile, Weber became interested in social policies. As a member of the “Verein für Socialpolitik”, Weber was one of the first to emphasize the the role of economics as finding solutions to the social problems of the age. Weber further became one of the first researchers to pioneer large scale statistical studies of economic issues. For instance, he took part in the research on “the Polish question” or Ostflucht: the influx of Polish farm workers into eastern Germany as local laborers migrated to Germany’s rapidly industrializing cities. This work is believed to have Max Weber’s beginnings as a social scientist.
The Weber Circle
After Weber‘s marriage with Marianne Schnitger, he transfered to the University of Heidelberg were he became the central figure in the ‘Weber Circle’. The circle consisted of his wife, who was a feminist activist and author, Georg Jellinek, Ernst Troeltsch, Werner Sombart and Robert Michels. In 1900 the Weber’s traveled to Italy for health reasons and returned to Heidelberg in 1902. One year later he resigned his professorship and became associate editor of the Archives for Social Science and Social Welfare. Starting from 1904, Weber published some of his most influential works including “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism“. In 1909 he co-founded the German Sociological Association (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie, or DGS). After the first World War, Weber resumed teaching at the University of Vienna and later at Munich.
At the beginning of the First World War, Max Weber was a disciplinary officer of the hospital commission in Heidelberg for one year. During the Lauenstein Conferences of 1917, he pleaded for a consistent continuation of the war. From the beginning of the war, however, he strongly warned against exaggerated demands for annexation, which would make it more difficult to conclude a peace treaty, and against warfare that could provoke the United States to enter the war. At the same time, he advocated a parliamentary system based on the British model that would significantly limit the political leadership role of the monarchs in Germany.
After the end of the war, Weber belonged to the founding circle of the left-liberal German Democratic Party (DDP), for which he even wanted to run for the Constituent National Assembly. In 1919 he was appointed expert of the German delegation at the Peace Conference on the Treaty of Versailles under the leadership of the Reich Foreign Minister Count Brockdorff-Rantzau. In 1919 he was appointed to the Chair of National Economics at the University of Munich. Max Weber reacted with increasing alienation to the continuing radicalization of the German right after the end of the war, which did not want to accept defeat. The fact that right-wing radical student groups tried to sabotage his lecture also had an effect here.
Max Weber died on June 14, 1920. At the time of his death, Weber had not yet finished writing his magnum opus on sociological theory: “Economy and Society“. His widow Marianne helped prepare it for its publication in 1921–22. Max Weber is the youngest of the three founding fathers of German sociology (alongside Tönnies and Simmel). He is regarded as the founder of the sociology of domination and, alongside Émile Durkheim,[3] as the founder of the sociology of religion. Along with Karl Marx [4] and Georg Simmel,[5] he is also one of the most important classics of economic sociology. Weber also provided important impulses for numerous other areas of sociology, such as media sociology, music sociology and sociology of law. He described sociology as “a science which interprets social action and thereby wants to explain its course and effects causally”. In this definition, the concept of social action marks the central (albeit not the only) fact that is constitutive for sociology as a science.
[1] Max Weber at Plato
[2] Max Weber at Britannica Online
[3] Sociological Revolutionary – Émile Durkheim, SciHi Blog, May 4, 2012
[4] Karl Marx and Das Kapital, SciHi Blog, May 5, 2013
[5] Georg Simmel – First Generation Sociologist, SciHi Blog
[6] Max Weber at Wikidata
[7] Max Weber Timeline via Wikidata
economics, emile durkheim, Georg Simmel, Germany, Karl Marx, Max Weber, philosophy, sociology
Jacques Cartier and the Discovery of Canada
How Mosaic has Changed the World
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THE CONFEDERATE CRUISER SHENANDOAH
Laid down on the River Clyde in Scotland, CSS Shenandoah was designed as the British troop transport Sea King. Launched from the yard of A. Stephen & Sons on August 17, 1863, the ship possessed iron framing and teak planking. For propulsion, Sea King relied on sails and an auxiliary steam engine. Shortly after it was completed, Confederate agent James Bulloch noticed the new ship at anchor and began making plans to acquire it for use as a commerce raider. Bulloch’s actions did not go unnoticed as US agent Thomas Dudley alerted Ambassador Charles Francis Adams of Bulloch’s intentions.
As US Secretary of State William Seward had repeatedly warned the British government about allowing the Confederates to purchase ships and weapons, Bulloch was forced to act covertly to avoid further detection by American and British authorities. Utilizing a variety of ruses and covert operations, he succeeded in purchasing Sea King as well as a tender, Laurel. On October 8, 1864, Sea King departed London for an announced trading voyage to India. Arriving at Funchal, Madeira, Sea King rendezvoused with Laurel which had sailed with guns and military stores.
Working over several day, Confederate sailors converted Sea King into a warship. Commissioned as CSS Shenandoah, with Lieutenant James Waddell in command, the ship possessed an armament consisting of four 8-inch smoothbore guns, two Whitworth 32-pdrs, and two 12-pdrs. Charged with seeking out and destroying American commerce, Waddell continued south with the goal of attacking shipping in the sea lanes between the Cape of Good Hope and Australia. Though badly under-manned, Waddell managed to capture six prizes en route to the Cape.
Former Confederate Naval Officers
At Leamington Spa, England, Autumn 1865, following the return of CSS Shenandoah.
Those present include former Assistant Surgeon Edwin G. Booth (seated), and (standing, left to right):
former Acting Master Irvine S. Bulloch (of CSSShenandoah);
former Passed Assistant Surgeon Bennett W. Green;
former First Lieutenant William H. Murdaugh; and
former Passed Assistant Surgeon Charles E. Lining (of CSSShenandoah).
Five of these were burned, while the sixth was bonded and sent into Bahia, Brazil with the prisoners taken off the prizes. Making the run across the Indian Ocean, Shenandoah captured only one prize and ultimately made port at Melbourne, Australia on January 25, 1865. While in port, Waddell had the ship repaired, laid aboard fresh supplies, and was able to fill out his crew. Turning north, the raider sought to wreak havoc on the American whaling fleet in the North Pacific. Moving through the Carolines, Waddell burned four whalers and captured a fifth in the Kuriles.
Moving northwest into the Sea of Okhotsk, Waddell endured three weeks of fruitless searching without taking a single prize. This was largely due to the fact that the whalers had been alerted to Shenandoah‘s approach and had fled the area. Cruising northwest into the Bering Sea, Waddell learned on June 23, 1865, that General Robert E. Lee had been forced to surrender at Appomattox and that Richmond had been captured. Assessing his situation, Waddell believed the war to still be ongoing and decided to continue hostilities. Terrorizing the whaling fleet, Shenandoah took 21 more prizes including 7 in one 11-hour span.
Turning south, Waddell decided to attack commerce sailing from the West Cost to the Far East and Latin America. While en route, Shenandoah encountered a British bark on August 2 and learned that the war had ended in April. Upon learning this news, Waddell ordered Shenandoah‘s guns dismantled and began altering the ship to look like a simple trading vessel. Evading American warships, Waddell steered a course around Cape Horn and sailed for Liverpool, England. Arriving in the Mersey on November 6, 1865, Waddell surrendered the ship to the British authorities and disembarked with his men.
Shenandoah was the only Confederate warship to circumnavigate the globe during the conflict and was the last Confederate military unit to surrender at the war’s end. After Waddell and his men departed, the British authorities turned the ship over to the US Government. Thomas Dudley, acting as the US Consul in Liverpool, sold the ship and its fittings in April 1866, for around £17,000.
Newspaper reports in Liverpool, concerning the surrender of the Confederate cruiser Shenandoah
in November 1865
Report from the Liverpool Mercury for Tuesday 7th Nov. 1865.
THE CONFEDERATE CRUISER SHENANDOAH IN THE MERSEY.
> Considerable excitement was caused on “Change” yesterday morning by circulation of the report that the Confederate cruiser Shenandoah, of whose exploits amongst the American whalers in the North Pacific so much has been heard, was passed about 8 o’clock by the steamer Douglas at anchor at the bar, of Victoria Channel, apparently waiting or high water. By many the report was discredited, it being thought that those on board the Douglas were in error, and had mistaken some other craft for the celebrated ex-Confederate cruiser. At half past ten, however, all doubts on the point were set at rest, with the Shenandoah steaming up the Victoria Channel with the Palmetto flag flying from her masthead.
The proceedings of this cruiser have caused much anxiety amongst commercial men. Afier Richmond was taken, and when the Government of the, Confederate States was considered a thing of the past, Captain Waddell startled those who trusted their merchandise on board American ships, by misbelieving, or affecting to misbelieve, that the Confederate States had been broken up; and continued his depredations upon peaceful merchantmen. This conduct caused much irritation among the American merchants and shipowners, and one or two of the fleetest ships in the United States navy were sent in pursuit of the Shenandoah.
She, however, succeeded in eluding the vigilance of her pursuers, and the last that was heard of her whereabouts was that she was off St. Lawrence in the Arctic Sea. Aiid that in that locality she had destroyed 10 whalers, most of which had cargoes of oil, and were bound for the United States. She was then steering in a southerly direction, and there can be little doubt that she was tracing her course towards England.
The career of this vessel has been somewhat eventful. She formerly belonged to the British Government, was known as the Sea King, and sailed from London; a short time before the close of the American war. She went over to Brest, having on board some officials connected with the Government dockyard. It was then stated that she was intended for a Confederate cruiser, and much indignation was expressed, that she should have been allowed to leave a British port, and that Government officials should have been allowed to have anything to do with the transaction.
On her arrival at Brest, the French Government having been acquainted of the purpose for which she would be used, those in charge of her found it desirable to leave the port as early as possible, which they did without being able to complete either her armament or her fittings.
Notwithstanding the reverses that the Confederacy had sustained, there were men who professed to be hopeful of the ultimate success of the cause, Grant and Sherman might obtain victories in the field, but if the American mercantile marine could be harassed, if the commerce of the Northern cities could be hampered and the interests of capitalists thereby affected, it was argued that a blow would be struck in favour of the South, which would counterbalance the success of the Northern armies.
Looking at the matter from this point of view, it was determined by those who “hoped against hope”, to arm the Shenandoah, fit her out as a first class cruiser, and let her loose upon American merchant shipping. She was accordingly met at Madeira, by a steamer, which it was stated had sailed from Liverpool, and her armament, after some difficulty, was put aboard. A short time after, she was heard of at Melbourne, where she put in for supplies. At that port she coaled, and took in the supplies necessary for the continuance of her cruise. The action of the Colonial Government was much blamed in this matter, and it was urged by friends of the North, that it was a breach of international law, to allow such a vessel as the Shenandoah, to go into a port belonging to a neutral power and refit, so as to enable her to continue her depredations upon peaceful merchantmen. On the other hand however, it was contended that, while she lay in Melbourne she was closely watched, that she was not allowed to take on board any munitions of war, that steps were taken to prevent the recruiting of her crew, and that she was only permitted to take on board such stores, and make such repairs, that would enable her to continue her voyage in safety, to what might be a neutral port.
The vessel sailed from Melbourne, and when next heard of was in the Chatak Sea and in Behring Straits, where she did much damage to the American whaling vessels. It is said that she destroyed 37 American vessels in all, and it is well known that in consequence of her depredations, insurance on certain freights were with difficulty effected, and that sperm oil advanced considerably in pnce – in some cases from £70 to £120 per ton.
Captain Waddell, the commander of the Shenandoah, states that the last vessel he spoke to was the Barracouta, of Liverpool, bound for San Francisco. He met this vessel at sea on 3rd of August, and leamed from the captain that the cause of the South was irretrievably lost. Captain Waddell, on hearing this news, expressed his intention to proceed to England, and arrived off this port yesterday morning. He then took a pilot on board, and, finding the intelligence he had received from the captain of the Barracouta as to the subjugation of the South undoubted, he desired the pilot to take his ship alongside one of her Majesty’s vessels of war, if there were any in port. The Shenandoah was taken up the river at high water, and, according to the instruction given to the pilot, she was moored alongside the Donegal. A crew from that vessel was placed on board her, and the customs authorities having been communicated with, some officers belonging to that department were also placed in charge. Soon after the surrender of the vessel, Captain Waddell and several of his officers and crew went on shore.
Since the defeat of the South, the flag of the Confederation has seldom, if ever, been seen on the Mersey. As i~might be expected, therefore, the appearance of a steamer in the river flaunting the Palmetto excited considerable attention, and, as we have stated, some apprehension was felt as to the intention and destination of the redoubtable stranger.
The Shenandoah is a smart, handsome looking craft, with black painted hull and unmistakably rakish rig, and appears to be altogether a quick and serviceable vessel. She has a crew of 130 men, and a ballast of coals.
At the present juncture, when so many knotty points of international law are at issue between this Government and the United States, and when the maintenance of amicable relations between the two countries is so much to be desired, and is so essential to the welfare of both, the absence of the Shenandoah from this port was more to be desired than her presence. There can be little doubt that after the necessary formalities are gone through, the vessel will be handed over to the United States authorities. However, some question may arise as to the detention of her crew, a subject that may lead to misunderstandings that had better been avoided.
It is understood that a representative of the American Government at this port has been, since the arrival of the vessel, in communication with the customs authorities. It is also stated, that certain commercial houses, who were said to be deeply interested in the success of the Confederacy, were engaged yesterday in making enquiries in regard to the Shenandoah.
Liverpool Mercury Thursday 9th Nov. 1865.
THE SHENANDOAH.
PAROLE OF THE CREW.
The government have at length taken a decided step in regard to the crew of this vessel. For the last two days the authorities in Liverpool have been in communication with the Secretary of State in reference to the detention of the ship and her crew. The Government seem to have been decided as to the necessity of retaining the vessel, pending an inquiry as to the action which her commander and crew have taken during the last few months, but there seems to have been some doubt as to the proper course to adopt with reference to the men on board. On inquiry at the CustomHouse yesterday morning, we were informed that the authorities had not received further instructions as to the vessel or her crew.
However, about 6 o`clock last night a telegram was received from Government by Captain Paynter, of her Majesty’s ship Donegal, to whom the Shenandoah was surrendered, that the whole of the officers and crew, who were not British subjects were to be immediately paroled. Captain Paynter immediately proceeded to the Rock Ferry slip, and applied for a steamboat. The Rock Ferry steamer Bee was placed at his disposal by Mr. Thwaites, in which he immediately proceeded alongside the Shenandoah. Captain Paynter went on board and communicated to the officers the object of his visit. The crew were mustered on the quarterdeck by the officers of the ship, the roll book was brought out, and the names of the men called out as they occurred. As each man answered to his name he was asked what countryman he was. In not one instance did any of them acknowledge to be British citizens. Many nations were represented among them, but the majority claimed to be natives of the Southern States of America or “Southern citizens”. Several of those however, who purported to be Americans, had an unmistakably Scotch accent, and seemed more likely to have hailed from the banks of the Clyde than the Mississippi. Captain Paynter informed the men that by order of the Government they were all paroled, and might proceed at once to shore. This intelligence was received by the men with every demonstration of joy, and they seemed to be delighted at the prospect of leaving the craft in which they had hoped to be able to assist the Southern Confederacy. They commenced to pack up their bedding and other articles as fast as possible, and conveyed on board the Bee, which was to take them to the landing stage. Before leaving the vessel, however, they gave three lusty cheers, for Captain Waddell, their late commander. Captain Waddell, in feeling terms, acknowledged the compliment, and said that he hoped the men would always behave themselves, as brave sailors ought to do. The men then went aboard the Bee, and were conveyed to the landing stage. This separated the Shenandoah and her crew, and the vessel now rides at anchor in the Sloyne in charge of some men from the Donegal, under the command of Lieutenant Cheek.
The arrival of the late crew of the Shenandoah caused no small stir. People were surprised to see the landing of a number of swarthy-complexioned, weather-beaten men, dressed in grey uniform, and wearing eccentric looking hats and caps. When it became known that they were the crew of the notorious cruiser, a large crowd of persons assembled, who stood watching the sailors as they were taking their baggage on shore. Some people were desirous of knowing their cause of leaving the vessel, and their intended movements, but the sailors were discreetly silent, and the questioners were not able to pump much out of them. They were for the most part, able bodied, determined looking fellows, and would, no doubt, have proved themselves equal to the work they had in view.
It has been stated that Captain Waddell, and several officers and crew of the Shenandoah went on shore before the parole was received. This, we are assured, is not the fact, and that none of those on board (except for three who escaped) left the vessel until they were paroled.
It is stated that the Shenandoah has about 35 chronometers on board, a large quantity of cabin furniture and some oil. All the guns of the Shenandoah are stowed away in her hold.
The vessel continues to be an object of curiosity to crowds of people on the banks of the river, and the passengers on board the ferry steamers.
From the Liverpool Mercury 10th Nov. 1865
The Shenandoah
The following letter is said to have been addressed to Earl Russell by Capt. Waddell, who commanded the Shenandoah.
“To the Right Hon. Earl Russell, H.B.M. Minister for Foreign Affairs.”
Steamer Shenandoah, Nov. 5
“My Lord,
I have the honour to announce to your lordship my arrival in the waters of the Mersey with this vessel, lately a ship of war in my command, belonging to the Confederate States of America. The singular position in which I find myself placed, and the absence of all precedents on the subject, will, I trust, induce your lordship to pardon a hasty reference to a few facts connected with a cruise lately made by this ship. I commissioned the ship in October 1864, under orders from the naval department of the Confederate States, and in pursuance of the same commenced actively cruising against the enemy’s commerce. My orders directed me to visit certain seas in preference to others. In obedience thereto I found myself in May, June and July of this year in the Oshtok sea and the Arctic Ocean. Both places, if not quite isolated, are still so far removed from the ordinary channels of commerce that months would elapse before any news could reach there as to the progress or termination of the American war. In consequence of this awkward circumstance I was engaged in the Arctic Ocean in acts of war so late as the 28th June, in ignorance of the series of reverses by our arms in the field, and the obliteration of the Government under whose authority I had been acting. This intelligence I received for the first time on communicating at sea, on the 2nd August, with the British barque Barracouta of Liverpool, 14 days from San Francisco. Your lordship can imagine my surprise at the receipt of such intelligence, and I would have given it little consideration if an Englishman’s did not confirm the war news, though from an enemy port. I desisted immediately from further acts of war, and determined to suspend further action until I had communicated with a European port, when I would learn if that intelligence was true. It would not have been intelligent in me to convey this vessel to an American port, simply because the master of the Barracouta had said the war was ended. I was in an embarrassing position. I diligently examined all the law writers at my command, searching for a precedent for my guidance in the future control, management, and final disposal of the vessel. I could find none: History is, I believe, without a parallel. Finding the authority questionable under which I consider this vessel a ship of war, I immediately discontinued cruising, and shaped my course for the Atlantic Ocean. As to the ship’s disposal, I do not consider that I have any right to destroy her or any further right to command her. On the contrary, I think that as all the property of the Confederate Government has reverted, by the fortune of war, to the Government of the United States of North America, therefore this vessel, inasmuch as it was the property of the Confederate States, should accompany other property already reverted. I have, therefore, sought this port as a suitable one “to learn the news,” and, if I am without a Government, to surrender the ship, with her battery, small arms, stores, tackle, and apparel complete to Her Majesty’s Government, for such disposition as in its wisdom should be deemed proper. I have the honour to be,
very respectfully, your lordship’s obedient servant,
Jas. I. Waddell, Commander.
Confederate Vessels Sold in Liverpool-1866
Thomas Haines Dudley was the United States Consul in Liverpool, from 19 November 1861 until the fall of 1872.
To his credit, Dudley was one of the most able diplomats to serve the United States during the conflict, and was a constant thorn in James Dunwoody Bulloch`s side.
After the war Dudley was charged with the responsibilty of disposing of four Confederate ships that the British had handed over to the U.S.. The vessels concerned were the Rappahannock, the Shenandoah, the Sumter,and the Tallahassee (Chamelion).
In January of 1866, an attempt had been made to sail the Shenandoah to the United States, but had failed due to stormy weather.
Dudley was then authorised to sell the ship, along with her equipment and stores at auction, and to deposit all of the the proceeds with the United States`s bankers in London. He was forbidden from selling the vessel to a belligerent power, and was instructed to send any private property on board to the United States.
Among the private property that was accordingly reserved from sale were:-
47 chronometers and one sextant, together with $820.40 in cash, and these articles were subsequently sent to the United States .
Dudley completed the arrangements, and in April of 1866 he sold the Shenandoah for £15.582 and 15 shillings, her coal was sold for £85 and 10 shillings, and her provisions for £33 and 17 shillings and four pence.
A total figure of just over £17,000 *approx. ($85,000 in 1866).
The U.S. Government was apparently satisfied with this, as he was then authorised to sell the Tallahassee (Chamelion) and the Sumter.
This was done in June of 1866, but the sale fell just short of the required £5,500 ($27,500), and the sale was cancelled.
Six monthe later the Rappahannock was sold for $5,200 ($26,000).
By Dean Stevens|2018-07-29T14:59:23-04:00January 30th, 2014|Confederate Naval History|0 Comments
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ABOUT RUSSIA / GEOGRAPHY AND NATURE / PEARLS OF RUSSIA / KAZAN CATHEDRAL
Kazan Cathedral
On Nevsky Prospect there's a building that immediately attracts your attention. Kazan Cathedral encircles a small square with a double row of beautiful columns - an impressive colonnade. The architect Andrei Voronikhin, who built this church in 1801-1811, was greatly inspired by Basilica of St Peter's in Rome. Kazan Cathedral was meant to be a Russian version of St Peter's and the main church of Russia. After the War of 1812 (during which Napoleon was defeated) the church became a monument to the Russian victory. The captured enemy banners were put in the cathedral and the famous Russian field marshal Mikhail Kutuzov, who won the most important campaign of 1812, was buried inside the church.
The cathedral was named after a "miracle-making" icon of Our Lady of Kazan, which the church housed till the early 1930s. The Bolsheviks closed the cathedral for services in 1929, and from 1932 it housed the collections of the Museum of History of Religion and Atheism, which displayed numerous pieces of religious art and served anti-clerical propaganda purposes. A couple of years ago regular services were resumed in the cathedral, though it still shares the premises with the museum (no "atheism" in its title any more!) When in St Petersburg - come to Kazan Cathedral to admire some great classical interiors...
Location: 2, Kazanskaya Square, Nevsky Prospect, St.-Petersburg
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ABOUT RUSSIA / GEOGRAPHY AND NATURE / PEARLS OF RUSSIA / RERIKH MUSEUM
N.K. Rerikh Museum
N.K. Rerikh's House-Museum in Izvara was opened in 1984. It is his parent's estate where he spent his childhood and youth.
Izvara was the Rerikh's family possession from 1872 to 1900. Here N. Rerikh studied nature of the northern land, took a great interest in archeology, admired the magical sky of Izvara with its fantastic clouds and sunsets. The most earliest and memorable impressions of N. Rerikh were connected to his parent's estate. "All the especial, all the lovely and memorable is connected to the summer months in Izvara", - wrote N.K.Rerikh in his diary "The Very First" in 1937.
The estate also has it's own history. According to N. Rerikh the name Izvara came from the Hindu word "Isvara". During the reign of Catherine the Great nearby the estate lived the Hindu rajah. During the XVIII-XIX centuries the Izvara belonged to the famous noble families. Today we have the house, which was built in the first half of the XVIII century and the Trout tower of the end of XIX century. The Trout tower is the second architectural dominant in the estate. After K.F.Rerikh's death the estate was sold to A.P.Verlander the next owner. Having the money from the sale of the estate N.K. Rerikh went to France to study the painting. That was the beginning of a new stage of his life.
In 1984 the museum was opened in two rooms of the house. Now there are 8 halls opened to visitors. These halls display exhibits of Rerikh's Russian period.
The stationary exhibition of the Russian icons of the XIX- XX centuries has a special place in the museum. During his student's years Nikolay Konstantinovich was interested in iconography and spiritual culture of Ancient Russia. In 1903-1904 he visited more than 40 most ancient cities of Russia where he studied iconography, the temple architecture and frescos. N.Rerikh worked as icon painter, the author of temple frescos and mosaics. That was reflected in his art and literary works.
The 120-anniversary exhibition shows the main events in N.K. Rerikh's life. The exhibition "The Indian Way" dedicated to the Indian period of N.K. Rerikh's life and includes exhibits both from the private and museum collections, including a collection of the rare book and collection of the Indian musical instruments.
Business Hours: 10.30 AM - 5 PM. Days off: Monday, Tuesday
Address: Izvara settlement, Volosovsky district, Leningradskaya Oblast, Russia
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Using P-IMA to prioritize SPS Capacity Building options in Uganda
COMESA and USAID/USDA worked with SPS stakeholders in Uganda to use the P-IMA framework, based on the use of Multi Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) in 2012. Representatives of public and private sector stakeholders participated in a stakeholder workshop on 30 July to 1 August to agree on SPS capacity building options to be included in the analysis. National experts who play a leading role in making and prioritizing SPS investments came from the Phytosanitary Services, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives, the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, and the Uganda National Bureau of Standards.
A report published in March 2013 discusses the use of the MCDA in assisting governments and the private sector in prioritizing and making investment decisions on SPS capacity-building needs. The report, which was distributed to various stakeholders, presents the initial results of a priority-setting exercise for SPS capacity-building in Uganda. 14 distinct SPS capacity-building options were identified and prioritized based on a series of decision criteria to which weights were applied; these criteria were derived by consulting the stakeholders.
The FAO in collaboration with IFAD; the WFP and the EU were involved in related work in Uganda to develop a decision-making process using MCDA to determine how food safety priorities can be established at the national level. This work considered the impact of unsafe food on health, trade, food security, socioeconomic development and consumer choices. Its goal was to enhance national food safety programmes and decision-making processes. The Ministry of Health is leading this work, which also seeks to engage stakeholders from other relevant Ministries, private sector and interest groups (for example, consumers).
The STDF Secretariat facilitated contact between FAO and USAID/USDA for FAO to obtain the information collected for the STDF work. FAO subsequently invited the national experts leading the STDF work to the FAO/WHO food safety and MCDA workshop in December 2012.
Uganda MCDA Report 2013
Use of MCDA Tool for Ranking of SPS Capacity-building Options in Uganda
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Hillary A Biography of Hillary Rodham Clinton - epub - zeke23
Direct Download Hillary A Biography of Hillary Rodham Clinton - epub - zeke23 torrent
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Hillary: A Biography of Hillary Rodham Clinton
ISBN: 1250060141 | 2016 | EPUB | 448 Pages | 16 MB
First . . . student commencement speaker at Wellesley
First . . . woman to become full partner at Rose Law Firm
First . . . Lady of the United States
First . . . First Lady to hold a postgraduate degree
First . . . First Lady to win a Grammy Award
First . . . elected female Senator of New York
First . . . woman to be a presidential candidate in every primary in every state
First . . . First Lady to seek the presidency
"Always aim high, work hard, and care deeply about what you believe in. . . . And, when you're knocked down, get right back up and never listen to anyone who says you can't or shouldn't go on." -Hillary Rodham Clinton
As a young girl growing up in the fifties, Hillary Diane Rodham had an unusual upbringing for the time-her parents told her, "You can do or be whatever you choose, as long as you're willing to work for it." Hillary took those words and ran. Whether it was campaigning at the age of thirteen in the 1964 presidential election, receiving a standing ovation and being featured in LIFE magazine as the first student commencement speaker at Wellesley, or graduating from Yale Law School-she was always one to stand out from the pack.
And that was only the beginning. From First Lady of the United States to the first female Senator of New York and most recently as the United States Secretary of State. An activist all her life, she has been devoted to health care reform, child care, and women's rights, among others.
Hillary Clinton was born on October 26, 1947, in Chicago, Illinois, going on to earn her law degree from Yale University. She married fellow law school graduate Bill Clinton in 1975. She later served as first lady from 1993 to 2001, and then as a U.S. senator from 2001 to 2009. In early 2007, Clinton announced her plans to run for the presidency. During the 2008 Democratic primaries, she conceded the nomination when it became apparent that Barack Obama held a majority of the delegate vote. After winning the national election, Obama appointed Clinton secretary of state. She was sworn in as part of his cabinet in January 2009 and served until 2013. In the spring of 2015, she announced her plans to run again for the U.S. presidency.
Writing Your Legacy _ The Step-by-Step Guide to Crafting Your Life Story - Richard Campbell {trinketbell}.epub
Date: 07/19/16 00:43 in : Books Non-fiction Books
1094 days 1 595.3 KB
The Code of the Extraordinary Mind 10 Unconventional Laws to Redefine Your Life and Succeed On Your Own Terms (Vishen Lakhiani) - {CHB Books}
The Forest People - Colin M. Turnbull [epub]
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Kokoda: The Gripping Account of Australia's Legendary Triumph - Peter FitzSimons [epub]
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Gerald Durrell - The Whispering Land (1961; epub)
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Non-governmental organization "Francišak Skaryna Belarusian Language Society"
Baranavichy town branch of the BLS
Vicebsk regional branch of the BLC
Hrodna regional branch of the Belarusian Language Society
Lida town branch of the BLS
Minsk region branch of the BLS
Mahileŭ region branch of the BLS
Kastryčnicki district of Minsk’ BLS division
Minsk city branch of the BLS
Grodno town branch of the BLS
Shklou regional branch of the BLC
Frunzenski district of Minsk’ BLS branch
Homel Regional Branch of the Belarusian Language Society
Homel City Branch of the Belarusian Language Society
Pružany City Branch of the Belarusian Language Society
Vicebsk City Branch of the Belarusian Language Society
Padsville town branch of the Belarusian Language Society
Ivianets town branch of the Belarusian Language Society
Pastavy town branch of the BLS
Sharkaushchyna town branch of the BLS
Mikhulichy branch (Byarezinsky district)
Polack town branch of the BLS
Savetsky district of Minsk’ BLS branch
Beshankovichy region branch of the BLS
Pinsk region branch of the BLS
Salihorsk town branch of the BLS
Valožyn town branch of the Belarusian Language Society
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Francišak Skaryna Belarusian Language Society
220034, Minsk,
vul. Rumiancava, 13
BLS branches and divisions operate in 76 Belarusian towns and villages as well as in Moscow, Irkuck, Vilnia, St. Petersburg and Riga.
Our society has about 6 thousand members.
68 well-known Belarusian scientists and cultural workers are members of the society’s initiative group for establishing the Belarusian National University.
We have collected more than 50.000 signatures under the demand to establish a university with Belarusian as the medium of instruction.
We have published about 30 fiction and scientific books.
A library of more than 600 antique Belarusian books was collected.
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The Belarusian Language
Linguistic Rights Monitoring
The International Mother Language Day
Nil Hilevich University
Conference "Our Centuries - Our Wealth. Best Practices of Heritage Management"
Activities — Linguistic Rights Monitoring
A review of language policy in Belarus
An outline of language policy before the 1990s
The Belarusian language is the state language of the Republic of Belarus, along with Russian. It is spoken as a minority language in several countries. Belarusian has official status in several districts of Poland and is a recognized minority language in Ukraine.
The Old Belarusian literary language had been the official language of the Great Duchy of Litva from the 14th till the 18th centuries. Old Belarusian was thus the state language for the ancestors of modern Belarusians, Ukranians and Lithuanians. It was the Golden Age of Old Belarusian literature. Thousands of volumes of legal, religious, social and political as well as fiction texts in Old Belarusian were published. The Bible printed by Franci?ak Skaryna (1490 – 1551), the Belarusian printing pioneer, was the third printed Bible in Europe after the German and the Czech translations.
In 1596 the Great Duchy of Litva and the Kingdom of Poland signed a union treaty. Nevertheless, Belarusian continued to be the state language of the Duchy. However, in 1696 Old Belarusian was replaced by Polish as the official language. The state discrimination of Belarusian speakers of the country started. Nevertheless, Old Belarusian was quite often used in official correspondence into the beginning of the 18th century. It continued to be the mother tongue of the Belarusian people including a part of its nobility. Very few written texts were created in Belarusian the 18th century. On the other hand, oral folklore flourished. It is reported that Belarus disposes of one of the richest collections of folklore in Europe.
First texts written in the New Belarusian language appear in the beginning of the 19th century when Belarus was under the Russian domain. The official policy towards Belarusian was very discriminative at that time. In 1839 it was prohibited to preach in Belarusian. In 1864 Belarusian pupils were banned to speak their mother tongue at educational establishments. In 1867 printing of books in Belarusian was prohibited. It was even forbidden to use the term Belarus while the Belarusian language was declared a dialect of Russian. Still, about 6 million people declared themselves speakers of the Belarusian language according to the 1897 Russian Empire Census.
The Belarusian literary language and culture revitalization began in the 1890s. In the 1920s this process was supported by the Soviet state. The extensive terminology was created for all branches of science and technology. The vast majority of books and newspapers issued in Belarus during that period were in Belarusian as in the language of the titular ethnic group of the Belarusian Soviet Republic. At the same time Belarusian was one of the 4 official languages alongside with Russian, Polish and Yiddish.
However in the 1930s around 85% of Belarusian writers and scientists were subject to repressions. The majority were executed. The russification of the Belarusian language started. It is reported that a great number of phonetic, grammatical and lexical elements were artificially introduced into Belarusian grammar books and dictionaries to make the language look and sound more like Russian. At the same time all Belarusian schools had been closed down in Western Belarus under the Polish domain by 1939.
In the post-war Belarus Belarusian was relegated to a secondary role. Studying of Belarusian at secondary schools was made optional. It remained the language of instruction just at rural schools. The majority of towns lacked a single Belarusian school. In the 1980s just 11% of books were issued in Belarusian. Country people moved to towns and had to gradually switch into a mixture of the two languages. Protests against the plight of Belarusian were either neglected or suppressed.
Landmarks of language policy in the 1990s
The democratic achievements of the 90s enabled Belarusians to freely express their concern for their mother tongue. The Law on Languages was passed in 1990 declaring Belarusian the only state language. It was stipulated that all the laws’ provisions would take course in 10 years. The new policy started to improve the condition of Belarusian rapidly. For instance, 75% of pupils of town schools were taught in Belarusian in 1995, Belarusian learning groups were established at universities.
However, the law doesn’t stipulate any actual liability for its violation. That enabled a number of officials to do nothing to actually implement the laws’ provisions as they were afraid that the newfound independence might be lost. The public opinion was outraged by the disregard of the law. The parliament was presented demands to set a commission on the language policy and to make the lawbreakers liable to administrative responsibility. The demands were not met.
Still, the 1994 Constitution of the independent Republic of Belarus endorsed the status of Belarusian as that of the only state language. It also stipulated that Russian would be used freely as a language of interethnic communication. This specific status of Russian actually undermined the state status of Belarusian.
Attempts to put the question of making Russian the second state language for a referendum failed as it was illegal to put to the vote issues that might violate the right of the people to use its national language. Nevertheless, the referendum initiated by the president was held in 1996. We consider it illegitimate as far as it violated the Law on Referenda that bans conducting plebiscits on such matters as language. What is more, the executive power interfered into the matter; the state-owned media mainly presented the views of the referendum’s initiator. The OSCE declared that the referendum violated all international norms of free and just vote.
The first of the four referendum questions was as follows: “Do you agree with granting the Russian language an equal status with Belarusian?“. 88.3% (which made 53.9% of all the eligible voters) answered in the affirmative. It is reported that “to make Russian the second state language, together with the titular, may seem to be in line with liberal policy. But the continued dominance of the Russian language in Belarus meant that this would not promote equality”, with Belarusian receding and Russian advancing. Consequently, it’s the inequality in favour of Russian that we’re facing today.
Several reasons are reported to be the reasons for this ballot. Some peoples’ idleness and unwillingness to master Belarusian, limitations on the campaigning against the referendum questions, indifference of the majority to the issues of language and culture caused by economic troubles, etc.
In 1998 the Law on Languages was amended. Its provisions now linked the terms “the Belarusian language” and “the Russian language” with conjunctions “or“ and “and (or)”. For instance, the Article 20 stipulates that, the Armed Forces use „the Belarusian and (or) the Russian language.“ The excessive use of the conjunction „or“ in the text paves the way to using either of the languages without the mandatory use of the other.
Linguistic rights’ violations
Consequently, Belarusian citizens’ linguistic rights related to the Belarusian language are constantly violated although they are ensured by the Constitution and by the Law itself. The following rights of linguistic groups are among them:
the right to receive attention in their own language from government bodies and in socioeconomic relations; • the right for laws which concern them to be published in the language proper to the territory; • the right to decide to what extent their language is to be present at all levels of education within their territory; • the right to an equitable presence of their language in the communications media; • the right to receive full oral and written information in his/her own language on the products and services proposed by commercial establishments.
But some of the violations are exemplified below. The majority of them have been triggering constant protests by the BLS, other NGOs and private individuals.
Violations of the rights relating to public administration and official bodies
Cases of refusal to accept application forms filled in Belarusian are reported.
The majority of Belarusian laws are issued in Russian only.
Russian is approved as the only working language of the Belarus-Russia Union.
During court proceedings some people were charged for the services of interpreters.
In response to the Belarusian Language Society’s appeals the Court of Constitution passed a judgment on the Law on Languages in 2003. According to the judgment, “the linguistic balance in Belarus is not preserved, which causes justified concern of the Belarusian Language Society”. Therefore The Court of Constitution recommended amending the law. In spite of this recommendation and a number of clear amendments’ proposals made by the Belarusian Language Society and other NGOs, the text of the law is still unchanged.
Violations of the rights relevant to education
A great number of schoolchildren who were initially taught in Belarusian start being taught in Russian after moving up to a certain form.
Belarusian-speaking children are often rejected the right to be taught all subjects in their mother tongue at school.
Some school administrations impede establishing of classes with instruction in Belarusian on parents’ requests.
There is almost no opportunity to receive a higher education exclusively through the medium of the Belarusian language in any field of study.
A Belarusian-speaking child was diagnosed as mentally retarded by a kindergarten speech therapist for not knowing names of several objects in Russian.
The Ministry of Education doesn’t issue textbooks and other educational materials in Belarusian for a number of school subjects.
It deserves mentioning that just 18% of schoolchildren, 12% of kindergarteners and 1% of university students were educated solely through the medium of Belarusian in 2011. 37% of students were instructed in both languages though.
The state program providing for establishing of a school with the Belarusian language of instruction in every town hasn’t been actually implemented.
Violations of the rights related to culture, communications media and new technologies
All the Belarusian TV channels broadcast mainly in Russian in spite of numerous protests of Belarusian speakers.
The absolute majority of state and local administration bodies’ web pages don’t have Belarusian versions.
Just 8.5% of books have been published in Belarusian in the 2000s. At the same time the First deputy minister of information claimed that the Ministry is not satisfied by this amount.
An attempt to fine a newspaper for using one of the Belarusian spelling’s versions was made.
Violations of the rights relevant to the socioeconomic sphere
Belarusian speakers are often rejected the right to receive attention in their language from authorities and in socioeconomic relations.
Fill-in forms, cheques, contracts, order forms, instructions for use, labels, lists of ingredients, guarantees, etc. are mainly available only in Russian.
The plight of the Belarusian language causes deep concern both in Belarus and abroad. The Austrian Association of Slavists made a statement condemning discrimination against the Belarusian language in 1997. Violations of Belarusian speakers’ rights are mentioned in the 2010 Human Rights in Belarus Report by US Department of State. The “UNESCO Red Book on Endangered Languages: Europe” (1999) places Belarusian on its List of potentially endangered languages. In UNESCO’s “Atlas of the World Languages in Danger, 2010” Belarusian is marked as vulnerable.
The 2009 Census results concerning the state languages
Linguistic rights’ violations occur despite the fact that Belarusian is the mother tongue of the majority. As shown in Figure 1, according to the 2009 Census, it is the mother tongue of 53.2% of Belarus’ population (of which Belarusians make 84%). Belarusian was declared as the "language usually spoken at home" by 23% of the population. The said figures were 74% and 37% respectively, according to the 1999 Census.
The Censuses of 1999 and 2009
The decrease may be due to the state language policy. Still, there may be actually more people regarding Belarusian as their mother tongue today. In 1999 the wording of the question about the mother tongue was as follows: “Your mother tongue is…”. In 2009 the question’s formula was: “Your mother tongue (the first language acquired in early childhood) is…”. This provides reason to think that not all the people who consider Belarusian to be their mother tongue, though it is not their first language, chose “Belarusian” as the answer to this question in 2009.
Some authors believe that people were prompted the definition of “mother tongue” in order to obtain a lower percentage for the Belarusian language and thus to advocate the state linguistic policy.
What complicates matters is the fact that a large (maybe a major) share of the population speaks neither Belarusian nor Russian but a mixture of both popularly called “trasjanka”. We assume that many people can’t precisely define the language they speak.
In 2009 13.5% answered that they have a good command of Belarusian though it’s neither their mother tongue nor the language spoken at home.
Language attitudes and preferences in Belarus
Several surveys of language attitudes and preferences in Belarus have been undertaken. Some of their findings’ validity may be disputed. Still, there are both encouraging and worrying indications.
The attitude to the Belarusian language as to the national treasure worth respect and care is the most widespread.
The general attitude to Belarusian speakers is very respectful.
One survey of 2009 showed that 96% of the respondents can understand spoken Belarusian while about one third can write and speak it fluently.
The majority advocate compulsory usage of both the state languages at public institutions. Another poll showed that a significant minority believe that Belarusian should dominate there.
A research conducted by Samsung showed that advertisements in Belarusian are more effective than in Russian.
As shown in Figure 2, 46% use Belarusian at least occasionally, however, just about 6 % use it all the time.
The 2009 Novak BISS survey
How often do You use Belarusian?
On the other hand, the proportion of Belarusian speakers among the youth and among the population of the biggest cities is reported to be the lowest.
A poll held in 2009 showed that on the average 6,5% generally speak Belarusian. Figure 3 reveals results of another poll which revealed that 3.2% of the respondents mainly use Belarusian, 15% – Belarusian and Russian, 22,5% – a mixture of both, while 57% use Russian.
On the average 24% of the respondents would like to draw documents, to be educated, watch more TV programs, etc. in Belarusian.
The general evaluation of the language policy
The positive attitudes and the most recent trend in the state language policy give grounds for cautious optimism about the future of the Belarusian language. Recently some high-ranked officials have voiced concern about the Belarusian language. Plans to establish a university with Belarusian as the medium of instruction and a TV channel broadcasting in Belarusian have been aired.
What is more, Belarusian is being extensively used in some fields with some state institutions and private companies seeking its promotion. For instance, Belarusian is the working language of the Ministry of Culture, inscriptions on Belarusian stamps have always been only in Belarusian, etc.
However, the current state language policy as well as language policy of private companies toward the Belarusian language is still conflicting, disrespectful and to a certain extent discriminatory. A considerable number of people show reluctance as to everyday use of Belarusian and as to real care about it. This situation urges patient efforts of NGOs and concerned citizens aimed at linguistic rights’ protection and at promotion of the Belarusian language use.
Activities and breakthroughs
Some of our NGO’s and other organizations’ activities and recent breakthroughs will be exemplified below.
In response to our long-term appeals, the “Law on Private and Legal Persons’ Appeals” has been amended Now it secures applicants’ right to be answered in their mother tongue. The new Law on Place Names requires that new settlements should be named in Belarusian.
Quite a number of Belarusian-language schools and classes with Belarusian as the medium of instruction have been established in response to our appeals. The Belarusian language was restored in TV news blocks, railroad and subway announcements, etc. We have collected about 60.000 signatures under the demand to establish a university providing education in Belarusian.
A lot of application software, the army rules, the road regulations, etc. have been translated into Belarusian. The first Belarusian spellchecker has been created.
Our society initiated establishing of the first Belarusian non-government satellite TV channel “BelSat”.
We have worked out draft amendments to the Law on Languages that provide for real equality between the two official languages. Our bill on “The Belarusian Language State Support” stipulates functions and obligations of public offices concerning the language support.
Such companies as Samsung, Adidas, Ford, etc. make some of their advertisements in Belarusian. The annual Festival of advertizing and communication in Belarusian takes place. A number of ambassadors make speeches in Belarusian.
Campaigns for promoting the Belarusian language and culture by means of publications, exhibitions and festivities are recently in progress. The annual Whole-national dictation on the occasion of the Mother tongue day organized by our society is one example. Another example is “Budzma” campaign.
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Ireland: Dublin (Friday–Saturday, February 29–March 1) — Part 3 (night/morning/afternoon)
Written Saturday, March 1 at 2:28 pm, Dublin (at the hotel)
My hotel room is a top floor garret room, with a single bed tucked into the corner. A pretty lousy bed, truth be told: thin useless pillow, and a mattress that you can feel all the springs in. There’s a dedicated bathroom, though, which isn’t too bad, though, and there’s wireless, and ultimately, it’s a room in the City Centre area at not-too-expensive a price.
The view out my tiny window pretty much just shows the top floor of the building across the street, although I can also catch a view of the Spire. The 120-meter tall Dublin Spire was erected in early 2003 as a replacement for the 138-foot Nelson’s Pillar, which had been blown up by the IRA in 1966 (possibly to commemorate the Easter Uprising of 1916). It is a silver spike narrowing from about 10 feet at the base to 6 inches at the top. The top several feet hasve white LED lights at night.
After breakfast, I took the tram back to Collins Barracks and visited the Decorative Arts wing of the National Museum of Ireland. They have on display a reconstruction of a Viking longboat originally built in the Dublin area around 1042 and sunk (along with several other boats) in a Danish fjord some 50 years later, the Havhingsten fra Glendalough (“Sea Stallion from Glendalough”). The boat was reconstructed using period tools and techniques, taking 44,000 man hours to complete, and then it was sailed back to Dublin by a crew of 65, with stops at several locations along the way in Denmark and Norway.
The museum also has a display about the Easter Uprising of 1916, which led to Irish independence 6 or 7 years later. Via other displays at the museum, it’s clear that such uprisings occurred every 20-40 years, going back into the 1700s and before. Not that this tells modern American audiences anything about what to expect when occupying Iraq, oh, no. (Basically, the locals always want an occupying force out, and every generation will fight to get rid of the oppressors.)
Other displays include a look at Irish soldiers around the world, going back to 1550. Much of it centers on Irish brigades in World Wars I and II, of course, but there are large parts about the Irish during English colonial days, the “Wild Geese” Irish expats serving in continental European armies in the 19th century, and the Irish brigades in the Boer War, the Spanish Civil War, and even the American Civil War (mostly on the side of the Union, but there was an Irish regiment out of Tennessee fighting for the South). Interestingly, one ploy to strive for freedom from British rule in the 1860s was an Irish invasion of Canada (!) through Niagara, New York; the Irish beat the Canadian militia at the Battle of Ridgeway, but fell back to the States on rumor of British troops arriving.
Other exhbits that I saw included Irish silverwork, Irish coins, and a some miscellany from the general collections, including a fabulous dress done by Charles Worth, founder of the first house of couture in Paris. (I have a friend who studied couture in Paris a few years ago.)
Coming back, I wandered through the large pedestrian shopping mall that runs from Jervis to O’Connell, to the Spire. Bought some souvenirs: three t-shirts, a mug and a shot glass, and some shortbread and chocolates; some for me, some for others.
I opted to not go to the Guinness Storehouse, when I found out that the tour was €14. Half that would have been fine, but $20 was too steep for me. I’ll probably be sorry later, and have to come back to Dublin someday. <grin>
Shortly, I’m going to head out to the Archeological wing of the National Museum, on the south side of the Liffey.
Updated on April 30, 2010:
Moved part of this post to the Sounds Kinky-er blog:
http://soundskinkyer.blogspot.com/2008/03/ireland-dublin-fridaysaturday-february.html
Posted by Jim Drew at 2:28 PM
Labels: gay, Ireland, transportation, travel
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