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There will be an agreed upon announcement on Pashinyan-Aliyev meeting – Armenian PM’s spox
March 25, 2019 by administrator
There will be an agreed upon announcement for the meeting of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, the PM’s spokesman Vladimir Karapetyan told Armenpress.
Various media reports mention numerous versions for the dates and place of the meetings, but no official announcement has been made yet by the sides and the mediators.
In their March 1 statement the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs welcomed the readiness of the Armenian PM and the Azerbaijani President to meet soon under the auspices of the Co-Chairs.
This will be the first official meeting of Pashinyan and Aliyev. They already held three informal meetings in Dushanbe, St. Petersburg and Davos.
Ararat Mirzoyan and Nancy Pelosi discuss US-Armenia cooperation in Washington
As part of the Leadership Forum in Washington, President of the National Assembly Ararat Mirzoyan met with Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to discuss bilateral cooperation opportunities and projects. The chief of Armenia’s top legislative body briefed the US parliament official on the developments in the country, thanking her for a […]
Armenia opposition MP suggests “burning” Venice Commission President Gianni Buquicchio
I propose burning [Venice Commission President] Gianni Buquicchio. Naira Zohrabyan, a member of the opposition Prosperous Armenia faction in the National Assembly (NA) and chairperson of the NA Standing Committee on Protection of Human Rights and Public Affairs, on Tuesday wrote this in a Facebook post. “The Armenian political establishment is in shock since yesterday,” […]
President Donald Trump’s team has settled on a sanctions package to punish Turkey for Russian missiles – Bloomberg
President Donald Trump’s team has settled on a sanctions package to punish Turkey for receiving parts of a Russian missile defense system and plans to announce it in the coming days, said people familiar with the matter, according to the Bloomberg report. The administration chose one of three sets of actions devised to inflict varying […]
Yerevan: In depth Interview with The former Armenian Minister of Justice Honorable Arpine Hovhannisyan a lawyer and a Politician at age 35. Video
Yerevan: Wally Sarkeesian Interview with The Honorable Arpine Hovhannisyan a lawyer, Politician, former Minister of Justice of the Republic of Armenia, and former Vice President of the National Assembly. also the first female to ever hold the position of Justice Minister in Armenia. An incredible achievement at age 35. We ask the question in English […]
How the development of the 5 medicine and science changed the whole world.
Some drugs had a major impact on the development of medicine and science and changed the whole world. Here we list the top five most important drugs developed: Penicillin Prior to the invention of penicillin, outbreaks and epidemics of infectious diseases killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world. In 1928, bacteriologist Alexander Fleming […]
Pashinyan Don’t want charity yet Standing in the Middle of charity organization COAF SMART Center, he wants to change to development programs
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan visited the COAF SMART Center of the Children of Armenia Fund (COAF) in Debed village of Lori province, The PM toured the Center, got acquainted with the investment program and the works carried out so far. COAF SMART is an informal education environment, providing equal opportunities to 150.000 young and […]
After avalanche of Reports: Finally Armenian Ministry of Health recommends not to diminish on the beaches of Sevan where there are algae
The Ministry of Health encourages citizens to avoid swimming in the coastal areas of Lake Sevan, where brighter algae are observed. An official from the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Armenia informed “Armenpress” that cyanobacter (cyanobacter) or bacterial algae meet all over the world, especially in non-flowing, nutrient-rich waters. Some species produce toxic […]
Yerevan residents collect Garbage from street and throw at the entrance of Yerevan City Hall building
A number of Armenian citizens threw Garbage on Monday at the entrance of Yerevan City Hall building. Sona Aghekyan, a former member of the Yerevan Council of Elders, has released a video from a protest rally near Yerevan Municipality. “We bring the street garbage to the municipality to make it clear that every day we […]
Armenian PM in Singapore on official visit, orchid will be named in his honour, at Singapore Botanic Gardens
SINGAPORE – Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is making his first official visit to Singapore at the invitation of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. The visit reaffirms the warm and friendly relations between both countries, and will be an opportunity to deepen bilateral cooperation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Sunday (July 7). On […]
Anna Hakobyan, the Armenian first lady, Invite Vietnam counterpart, to visit Armenia
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The US Embassy in Armenia celebrated Independence Day.
On July 2, 2019 the US Embassy celebrated the 243th anniversary of the United States Independence which was marked by a beautiful evening of music, coupled with American hospitality and fireworks, US Embassy in Armenia reports. In his speech addressed to the guests, USAID Armenian mission director Deborah Grieser reaffirmed United States support for Armenia’s […]
Yerevan: The “Return to the Roots” project was presented by the national costume concert titled HAYOTS TSILER «Հայոծ Ծիլերը»
By Karine Gevorgyan, The event was dedicated to the 2018-2019 academic year. graduates of the year. A group of graduates from Tavush marz and the capital were present. Designer, fashion designer, Return to the Roots Designer Vergine Alaverdyan, who has created a whole bunch of cultural heritage without his sponsorship and who can talk a […]
Wally Sarkeesian, meeting Armenia’s the most Active first lady since the second Republic the Honorable Anna Hakobyan. PHOTOS.
Anna Hakobyan, is the wife of the current Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan. She is the editor-in-chief of the Armenian Times newspaper. Chairperson of the boards of trustees of the My Step and City of Smile charitable foundations She adopted three focus areas for her activities: “My Step” and “City of Smile” charitable foundations […]
Armenia’s second president arrives at Yerevan penitentiary
YEREVAN. – Armenia’s second president Robert Kocharyan has arrived at Yerevan Kentron penitentiary. Earlier the judge ruled to uphold the appeal of prosecutors and to arrest Kocharyan who is charged with overthrowing constitutional order. He went out of the car to hug his son Levon and to welcome his supporters. Asked by reporters to comment […]
Armenia court announces decision on Robert Kocharyan vs Nikol Pashinyan case
Upon the decision of Judge Lilit Sargsyan of Yerevan city court, the proceedings of the case of Robert Kocharyan vs Nikol Pashinyan has been terminated based on fact that the plaintiff discontinue the claim. The court published its decision today and decided to confiscate AMD 200,000 from the plaintiff as compensation for court costs. In […]
Nikol Pashinyan: Individual effort should mark ‘turning point’ in realizing government changes
An individual contribution should mark the major turning point in Armenia’s future development, making every citizen a decision-maker in realizing government objectives, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at a regional business forum on Saturday. In his speech at the event entitled “My Step for the Tavush Region”, the Armenian leader elaborated on the idea and […]
Two judges hearing ex-President Kocharyan’s case ask for guarantees over their safety
Two judges who are hearing the case involving Armenia’s second President Robert Kocharyan have asked for guarantees of their safety. Iravaban.net reports that the judges have applied with the respective request to law enforcement bodies. “Judges Davit Grigoryan of the Yerevan Court of General Jurisdiction and Armen Danielyan of the Yerevan Criminal Court of Appeals […]
Prime minister vows ‘crushing defeat’ to ‘enemies’ of Armenia
All the enemies of Armenia – whether internal or external – will unequivocally and inevitably face a crushing defeat thanks to our police forces who maintain the security of our borders day and night, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in a speech on Friday. The premier visited the General Headquarters of the Police earlier today […]
Vigen Kocharyan elected member of Supreme Judicial Council of Armenia
The National Assembly of Armenia elected Vigen Kocharyan a member of the Supreme Judicial Council with 114 votes in favor, ARMENPRESS reports Vahagn Hovakimyan, Chairman of the National Assembly Committee on Counting, said during Hune 21 parliament session. He informed that 4 MPs voted against. Biography Born 4 May 1972, Yerevan 1996-2006 Lecturer of Constitutional and International Law, […]
Judge to deliver judgment in ex-president Kocharyan’s case next week
YEREVAN. – Judge of the Court of Appeal Armen Danielyan who is considering the complaints in relation to the criminal case against Armenia’s ex-president Robert Kocharyan made an unexpected decision to end the trial. Having not heard the objections of Kocharyan’s attorneys, Danielyan went to the deliberation room to make a judgement. Danielyan said the […]
Bolton prepares to host Armenian, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers
Assistant to the U.S. President for National Security Affairs John Bolton will meet Armenian and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers, according to a tweet he posted on Tuesday, June 18. “Looking forward to meetings later this week with the Foreign Minister of Armenia and the Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan, to encourage continued dialogue between them,” Bolton said. […]
Yerevan: Թեժ երեկո «Ֆլորենս» ռեստորանում՝ Իվետա Մուկուչյանի և «ֆլորենս բենդ»-ի մասնակցությամբ, Hot evening at Florence restaurant with Star Iveta Mukuchyan and “Florence Bend” Video
Հաճելի մթնոլորտ, բարձրաճաշակ երաժշտություն, համեղ խոհանոց. ահա թե ինչու չի կարելի բաց թողնել օրը «Ֆլորենս» ռեստորանում անցկացնելու հնարավորությունը: Հունիսի 12-ին «Ֆլորենս» ռեստորանն իր ամառային դռները բացեց, ինչպես տեղի, այնպես էլ արտասահմանցի հյուրերի համար: Օրվա գեղեցիկ մեկնարկը տվեցին «ֆլորենս բենդ» -ի անզուգական կատարողները, իսկ երեկոն ավելի թեժացավ հայտնի և սիրված երգչուհի Իվետա Մուկուչյանի ելույթներով: Իվետա Մուկուչյանը, […]
Kim Kardashian speaks on criminal justice at White House
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Breaking News: Zareh Sinanyan former Mayor of city of Glendale appointed chief commissioner for Diaspora affairs by Pashinyan.
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Transitional justice and judicial vetting may require constitutional changes ‘in the long-run’
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Prime minister hails elections in Abovyan as ‘democracy’s victory’
The mayoral elections in Abovyan reaffirmed democracy’s victory in Armenia, allowing a candidate with no affiliation with the governing political force to be re-elected to his office, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said today, offering his congratulations to the re-elected mayor of the city. “These elections came to affirm, yet another time, that Armenia is a real […]
Armenian wrestlers win gold, silver on last day of European C’ships
Armenia’s representatives won one gold and one silver medals on the last day of the Freestyle Wrestling Junior European Championship ended in Pontevedra, Spain. Hrachya Margaryan (61 kg) won the champions’ title of the European Championship while Mher Markosyan (61 kg) became a runner-up, the National Olympic Committee reported. In the final Hrachya Margaryan defeated […]
Iraqi government launches pilot bus Iraq-Iran-Armenia route
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EURO 2020: Armenia defeats Lichtenstein 3-0
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IMF’s Christine Lagarde warns of disruption from fintechs, Startup companies move into bank territory
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Glendale City Council member Zareh Sinanyan leaves City Council to work for Armenian government in charge of Armenia’s diaspora affairs,
By Lila Seidman, Glendale City Council member Zareh Sinanyan is stepping down from his municipal post to accept a position with the Armenian government. Sinanyan, first elected to the local council in 2013, announced his resignation on Friday, according to a city statement. “Zareh has had a very positive impact on City Council,” Glendale Mayor […]
Armenian FM: Issue of Azerbaijan’s undeclared drills raised within OSCE
The issue of Azerbaija’s undeclared military exercises has been raised within the OSCE, Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan said at the National Assembly on Thursday. His comments came in response to a question by opposition Prosperous Armenia lawmaker Tigran Urikhanyan whether Azerbaijan’s move could be viewed as a demarche not only against Armenia or Artsakh, but also […]
Yerevan: The AUA Auditorium was fully packed Honoring and Celebrating Dr. Der Kiureghian’s Lifelong Service to the American University of Armenia
By Wally Sarkeesian The Auditorium was fully packed with well-wishers and dignitariesstudent, government officials, colleagues from all over the society On June 5th AUA honors the achievements and legacy of their beloved President Armen Der Kiureghian! The AUA community is incredibly grateful for Dr. Der Kiureghian’s unwavering support and commitment to the University throughout the […]
Gazprom Armenia fined 10,000,000 drams by public services watchdog
Gazprom Armenia has been fined 10,000,000 drams by Armenia’s public services watchdog for violations of gas distribution requirements. The Public Services Regulatory Commission of Armenia (PSRC) said it conducted a monitoring at Gazprom Armenia to validate the company’s report submitted in regard to a process of a new connection from February 28 to March 6. […]
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Turkish Gravediggers Rummaging for Genocide Era Armenian Treasures
April 8, 2019 by administrator
By Harut Sassounian
Haber Turk TV recently interviewed one of the thousands of Turkish gravediggers who try to recover Armenian treasures leftover from the genocide era of a century ago.
It is not enough that 1.5 million Armenians were killed and dispossessed of their properties and homeland, now some Turks are ‘proudly’ rummaging for precious metals by desecrating Armenian graves and other ancient Armenian sites such as churches and homes.
Here is the text of the interview on Haber Turk:
“How can Armenian Gold be Stolen?”
Host: Oylum Talu
Guest: Ugur Kulac
Guest: An infidel does not show the place of the treasure to a Turk because we are trying to find their money. We are looking for money of Armenians or Greeks.
Host: So you are a professional treasure hunter?
Guest: Yes, I am.
Host: You are a very interesting person. First of all, your books are amazing. I want to give these books to the people as a gift.
Guest: Thank you.
Host: Maps, explanation of maps. It is a very amazing book. What is a treasure hunter?
Guest: The treasure hunter is a gold digger. The only thing the treasure hunter thinks of is gold; nothing else. Of course, they are destroying places where they dig carelessly. The treasure hunters know many secret places which are even unknown to archaeologists. That is a gold finder.
Host: Wow! So cool! Gold finder! How many treasure hunters are there in Turkey?
Guest: There are more than 500,000 treasure hunters who are registered with my company.
Host: Really?
Guest: Yes!
Host: 500,000 treasure hunters?
Guest: I am in this field for about 18 years. I have been producing these devices and selling them. Right now, I have sold them to 25,000 people. And now we are 130 companies in Turkey. We are serving in this field for the people. For example, if the state would ask treasure hunters to bring all historical materials, these materials would then be more than the materials in the museums.
Host: Wow!
Guest: The treasure works in Turkey are in three types. In tons, pots and kettles.
Host: What are you talking about? Pots, tons and kettles?
Guest: Yes.
Host: You mean, they put all the gold into the kettle, they covered the top because there were no banks at that time. They escaped…
Guest: Of course.
Guest: The history of this work is approx. 100 years. At the time of the deportation, some minorities were deported out of the country. They could not take their belongings with them. They buried them in different places, thinking that they would return. But most of them could not find any way to return. But their children, at a certain time of the year, are coming to Turkey where their ancestors lived. And then they dig and take the money where their ancestors buried. They have the maps. They stay as a guest of their ancestors’ neighbors. When the owner of the house falls asleep, they go out and dig the ground, take the money and leave. Treasure hunting is divided into two groups. The first group is near term — hunting of minorities’ belongings. The second group is composed of those who are looking for treasures of ancient civilizations. [The guest then demonstrates how he finds treasures through his search device which unfortunately does not work!]. If you get caught the first time by the state, there is no penalty! The region of Izmit was the capital of the Roman Empire and there are very nice buried treasures in there. Of course, there are small buried treasures which belong to minorities of the near past. Magic must be done over there. The treasure is given to the genies for protection. We are looking for gold coins. Gold is very important for treasure hunters. For example, statues made of gold or anything else or gold coins. These are very valuable. They can be sold everywhere. They melt them and sell them or directly sell to smugglers or can be sold to the state. Let them give me permission, I will find the money to repay the Turkish government’s debt to the International Monetary Fund.
Host: Why is then this gold not coming out?
Guest: Because these countries do not want this gold to come out of Turkey! Treasure hunters are not interested in ancient cities or areas. The only interest for them is to find the grave, dig it, and take the valuable things and leave.
Host: Why don’t archaeologists like you?
Guest: Because we break the historical materials.
Host: So you say that “we are looking for the money of the deported minorities in the last 60 to 90 years?”
Guest: I have parliamentarians, doctors, businessmen, professors as customers. Now Spring is coming, the treasure hunters liven up. They have been patient for months. They will attack now. It is always like that every year. The materials found in the digs made this year will be sold abroad again. We are not materialistic. We believe in spirituality too. Muslims must be rich and powerful. Why should we be poor? We are a special country created by Allah!
Host: Thank you very much.
These thieves are not only stealing the treasures belonging to Armenians and other minorities, but are also breaking Turkish laws. It is incredible that such thieves are appearing on Turkish television and recounting their criminal activities with such brazen arrogance! Turkey has strict laws for treasure hunters whose permits are limited to 30 days and an area of 100 square meters. There is a long list of “cultural areas” such as religious sites and graves where even licensed treasure hunters are not allowed to dig.
Turkish Anti-Armenian Lobbying Extends to City of Armenia in Colombia
By Harut Sassounian, The Breitbart website published an article by Frances Martel describing the Turkish lobbying efforts in the Colombian City of Armenia which was founded in 1889 and originally called Villa Holguín. According to Wikipedia, the South American city changed its name to Armenia “in memory of the Armenian people murdered by the Turkish […]
Yerevan: fire broke out Sunday nearby the Armenian Genocide Memorial
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What is the UN asking of Turkey?
In a letter of inquiry to Turkey’s Ambassador, Sadık Arslan, three groups tied to the UN Human Rights Council posed critical questions concerning what Armenians experienced in 1915 and the years that followed. Edvin Minassian, who lives in the United States, wrote about the importance of the letter and how the Armenian community has responded […]
Hypocritical Jewish Organizations and the Armenian Genocide
By David Boyajian, “It’s all about the Benjamins [$100 bills], baby,” Tweeted Congresswoman Ilhan Omar in February. She was accusing super-wealthy AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) of bribing Congress into supporting Israel. AIPAC, ADL (Anti-Defamation League), AJC (American Jewish Committee), B’nai B’rith, and Congress condemned Omar as anti-Jewish. 2,153 persons at JewsWithIlhan.org, though, defended […]
WSJ: Turks Should Face the Past, as Germans Have
What happened to the Armenian people was not reasonable—it was genocide. There is no “significant In his June 14 letter regarding Christian deaths in Turkey, Turkish Ambassador Serdar Kiliç points out that Holocaust survivor and human-rights champion Raphael Lemkin coined the word genocide, but he fails to note that Lemkin cited the horrors endured by […]
UN Sends a Stunning Letter Questioning Turkey on the Armenian Genocide
By Harut Sassounian Twenty nine years ago the United Nations Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities adopted a report acknowledging the Armenian Genocide as a case of genocide. Until recently, there has been no other activity at the UN on this issue. Unexpectedly, on March 25, 2019, a surprising letter was sent […]
Arat Dink, who was tried for signing the Peace Declaration, appeared before the ruling
Barış Akademisyenleri’nin “Bu suça ortak olmayacağız” bildirisine imza attığı için hakkında dava açılan Hrant Dink’in oğlu Arat Dink, “Terör örgütü propagandası yapmak” iddiasıyla 1 yıldan 5 yıla kadar hapis istemiyle hakim karşısına çıktı. İstanbul 36. Ağır Ceza Mahkemesi’ndeki ilk duruşmaya, tutuksuz yargılanan Arat Dink ve avukatları Fethiye Çetin ve Ümre Deniz Tuna katıldı. Arat Dink’in […]
NEW MEMBERS JOIN ARMENIAN CAUCUS AS ARMENIAN ASSEMBLY PROMOTES STRONGER UNITED STATES-ARMENIA RELATIONS
WASHINGTON, D.C. – New Members joined the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues and more members co-sponsored the bipartisan Armenian Genocide resolution as a result of successful meetings led by the Armenian Assembly of America. The Armenian Assembly, along with its state chairs and grassroots activists, met with a host of congressional offices to discuss strengthening U.S.-Armenia relations, co-sponsoring House Resolution […]
Dutch parliament slams Erdogan’s comments on Armenian Genocide
The Dutch House of Representatives on Tuesday, June 11 adopted a resolution condemning Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s April 24 comments concerning the victims of the Armenian Genocide, lawmaker Alen Simonyan said in a Facebook post. Erdogan said back then that the deportation of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century was […]
Armenian Genocide commemoration held in Canberra
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France and Rwanda: Re-examining France’s role in the genocide
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US Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee’s Acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide
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Turkish American Cenk Uygur who runs a show called The Young Turks now Admit that Armenian Genocide did happen he was wrong. +37 -2
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Trump: A Coward on the Armenian Genocide Like Obama, Bush Jr., Clinton, and Bush Sr.
By Harut Sassounian, Pres. Donald Trump issued last week his third April 24 statement “on Armenian Remembrance Day.” And for three years in a row he did not muster the courage to use the correct term — genocide — to describe the annihilation of 1.5 million innocent Armenian men, women, and children by the Ottoman […]
Garo Paylan to Turkey’s vice president Show me the documents on Armenian Genocide, That Erdogan mentioned, archives are open before all those who aim to discover
Following issues were highlighted in the Palyan’s inquiry” 1. Aren’t the records of the court-martial kept in the state archive? 2. When were the mentioned records first submitted to the archive? Where and in which archive’s catalogue were the data of the records for the last time? 3. Where and in which archive those records […]
The Portuguese Parliament recognizes the Armenian Genocide, Պորտուգալիայի խորհրդարանը ճանաչել է Հայոց ցեղասպանությունը
Պորտուգալիայի խորհրդարանն ապրիլի 26-ին ընդունել է բանաձև՝ ճանաչելով Հայոց ցեղասպանությունը։ Ինչպես հաղորդում է «Արմենպրես»-ը, այս մասին ֆեյսբուքի իր էջում գրառում է կատարել Մերձավոր Արևելքում Արցախի Հանրապետության մշտական ներկայացուցչության խորհրդական Պետո Դեմիրճյանը։ On April 26, the Portuguese Parliament adopted a resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide. As Armenpress reports, Peto Demirchyan, Adviser to the Permanent Representation of the Artsakh […]
Next Step Armenian Must start lobbying Israel and U.K. to get U.S., Australia and New Zealand to Recognize Armenian Genocide.
Next Step Armenian Must start lobbying Israel and U.K. to get U.S., Australia and New Zealand to Recognize Armenian Genocide. Remember 49 States of United State recognized Armenian Genocide because of the state legislators represent American People, similarly Australia’s largest province NSW recognize Armenian Genocide. However, Washington DC, foreign policy is inline with Tel Aviv […]
Congressman Frank Pallone slams Erdogan’s April 24 speech as ‘disgusting denial’
U.S. Congressman Frank Pallone has slammed the April 24 remarks of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as “a disgusting denial of historical facts.” “This hate-filled speech Erdogan gave yesterday on the day to commemorate the Armenian Genocide was a disgusting denial of historical facts,” Rep. Pallone tweeted. “I stand with [Armenian Prime Minister] Nikol Pashinyan […]
Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak issued a strong proclamation recognizing April 24, 2019 as Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day in Nevada,
By Andy Armenian, Las Vegas Honorary Consul of Republic of Armenian Las Vegas, Nevada – April 24, 2019: Close to 1000 Armenian-Americans either marched or throughout the day gathered at the Armenian Genocide Memorial Monument at Sunset Park to commemorate 104th Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. Las Vegas commemoration events concluded at the Sunset Park with a […]
German MP of Turkish descent calls for including Armenian Genocide issue in textbooks
German MP of Turkish origin Cem Ozdemir made a post on Facebook on the 104th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide marked on Wednesday, April 24, stressing the need to include the topic of genocide in textbooks. “Today we commemorate the 104th anniversary of the genocide of Armenians and other Christians. We must never let this horrible […]
Cyprus supports Armenia’s efforts for international recognition of Genocide, says President
Cyprus supports the efforts of Armenia for the international recognition of Genocide, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades said in a statement made on the 104th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, reports Financial Mirror. In the statement the Cypriot President and government condemn this appalling crime against the Armenian people, describing it as a stain in the […]
Gladys Berejiklian ‘confident’ Australia will recognise Armenian genocide despite PM’s backflip
By Jenny Noyes, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has renewed calls on her colleagues in federal government to formally recognise the killing of more than a million Armenians during World War One as a genocide – and slammed the Turkish government’s “tactics of denial” as “textbook”. Speaking on the eve of Anzac Day at an event […]
Alexis Ohanian: I don’t know whether to bow my head in grief or shake my fist in anger
Today, Armenians all over the world gather for Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, recognizing the onset of the Ottoman Empire’s campaign of ethnic cleansing 0 0
Armenian PM urges the world to speak out against Erdogan’s hate speech, Calling Armenian Genocide Victims Gangs
Terrorist State of Turkey Erdogan “Calling the victims of the Armenian Genocide, The Armenian gangs. Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has urged the world to speak out against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s hate speech. Pashinyan took to Twitter to respond to Erdogan’s statements on “Armenian gangs.” “Calling victims of the Armenian Genocide, Ottoman Empire’s […]
Armenian Americans in California demand genocide recognition VIDEO
By Associated Press, LOS ANGELES — Huge crowds of Armenian Americans marched in Los Angeles on Wednesday in an annual commemoration of the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians under the Ottoman Empire. The march was intended to press demands that Turkey — the successor of the Ottoman Empire — recognize the deaths as genocide. Turkey […]
Los Angeles Marks Anniversary of Armenian Genocide in 2019
Thousands of people were marching through Hollywood and the Mid-City area Wednesday to mark the 104th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, again calling on Turkey — and the United States — to officially recognize that it occurred. See images of the march below. 0 0
‘We will be consistent in international recognition of #ArmenianGenocide’ – PM Pashinyan addresses message
Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan addressed a message on the Remembrance Day of the 1915 Armenian Genocide, the PM’s Office told Armenpress. The message reads: “Today we are paying a tribute to the memory of the Armenian Genocide victims. One of the peculiarities of the Armenian Genocide is that the people who were subjected […]
Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, We join Armenian communities in Canada and around the world to honor memory of Armenian Genocide victims”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has issued a statement today on the 104th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. “Today, we join Armenian communities in Canada and around the world to honour the memory of the victims of the Armenian genocide, a dark chapter in human history which must never be forgotten. “Although more than a […]
Trump Cowardly Statement on #ArmenianGenocide Remembrance Day @realDonaldTrump
U.S. President Donald Trump has issued a statement on April 24th, the Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, but once again refused to use the term “genocide”. “Today, we commemorate the Meds Yeghern and honor the memory of those who suffered in one of the worst mass atrocities of the 20th century. Beginning in 1915, one and […]
Several US Presidential Candidates support recognition of the Armenian Genocide
Several US presidential candidates joined the resolutions recognizing the Armenian Genocide, which were submitted to the Senate and Congress this year, Al Monitor reported. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Kamala Harris, D-Calif., are both cosponsoring the Menendez resolution. Reps. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, and Seth Moulton, D-Mass., who announced his presidential campaign this week, signed on […]
Turkish police block Armenian Genocide rally in Istanbul
Turkish police officers prevented the ceremony to be held at the Sultanahmet Square in İstanbul today to commemorate the ones who lost their lives in the Armenian Genocide of April 24, 1915, correspondent reported from Istanbul. The policemen have been on duty throughout the area and have not allowed anyone to take any action. This […]
Jerusalem Post: Meretz MK Mossi Raz call on Israel to recognize Armenian Genocide
“The time has come to stop giving in to Turkish pressure,” Yair Lapid said. By Lahav Harkov, Lawmakers called on Israel to recognize the Armenian Genocide on its annual memorial day Wednesday. “The time has come for Israel to officially recognize the genocide of the Armenian people and stop giving in to Turkish pressure,” said […]
France marks first national commemoration of Armenian genocide
France is marking its first “national day of commemoration of the Armenian genocide” on Wednesday, fulfilling a pledge by President Emmanuel Macron that has angered the Turkish government. Macron announced the commemoration at a meeting with representatives of the country’s large Armenian community in February, honouring a promise made during his 2017 presidential campaign. “France […]
Arab News: Why the Armenian Genocide won’t be forgotten Video
Up to 1.5 million Armenians were wiped out by the Ottoman Empire beginning on April 24, 1915, a reality Turkey continues to deny The day will be commemorated around the world today as a growing number of countries recognize the atrocity DUBAI: More than 100 years on, Armenians and experts alike remember the brutal atrocities […]
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The Opioid Crisis: What We Should Learn from the Aids Epidemic
January 3, 2019 by News
There are important lessons to be learned from the successes and failures of the AIDS response that could inform our response to the opioid epidemic, according to a new paper by researchers at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Decades of HIV research have demonstrated that the existence of an effective biomedical treatment is rarely, in and of itself, sufficient to combat an epidemic, suggesting that both a social as well as a biomedical response to the opioid crisis are necessary in order to be effective. The paper is published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“Despite the effectiveness of medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorders, the mortality rate for opioids has surpassed that of the AIDS epidemic during its peak in the early 1990s–a time when there was no effective treatment for HIV/AIDS,” says Silvia Martins, MD, PhD, associate professor of Epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School.
Over 2 million Americans had an opioid use disorder in 2016. The rate of opioid overdose deaths has increased by 500 percent since 1999.
“Even as efforts are under way to scale up access to medication-assisted treatment for opioid use, it is vital not to assume a position of ‘if we build it, they will come,'” says Caroline Parker, PhD candidate in the Department of Sociomedical Sciences. In the case of HIV/AIDS, “the benefits of scientific progress have been unequally distributed, with growing ethnic and sexuality-related disparities. This failure of equity should draw our attention to the importance of social factors in shaping who benefits from effective biomedical therapies.”
To improve the population health impact of opioid use medication-assisted treatment (MAT), the researchers provide a five-point action plan:
1. Identify the cultural, social, economic, and structural barriers to care for the 80 percent of people with opioid use disorders who currently receive no treatment. “As the HIV/AIDS epidemic has taught us, the existence of effective medical treatment does not mean that people who need treatment can and will obtain it,” says Parker.
2. Stop considering only one person at a time and address the structural drivers of the crisis, such as profit-driven health care, insufficient regulation of pharmaceutical markets, and eroding economic opportunity.
3. Address stigma and discrimination against people with opioid use disorder through legislation to decriminalize substance use disorders, and through training key community actors, such as police and churches, rather than just focusing on changing individual attitudes. “It is critical to directly engage affected families and communities in policymaking and changing legislation to stop the criminalization of substance use disorders,” observes Parker.
4. Mobilize family and community support networks to help improve healthcare engagement. Leverage the resources and social networks that facilitated HIV treatment and adherence to improve access to MAT. Develop policies that recognize and compensate people for caring for people living with opioid use disorder.
5. Recognize that community activism is crucial to making MAT widely available just like engaging society and stakeholders was central for expanding access to antiretroviral therapy.
“As millions of dollars are appropriated at the state and federal levels for the opioid crisis, we face a choice. Committing those resources exclusively to biomedical solutions is likely to reproduce the sharp disparities that we have seen with HIV, but learning from the failures and successes of our response to HIV can help us leverage support to ensure that the opioid response benefits all sectors of society,” says Martins.
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Tag: Oprah Winfrey Network
Adults, Business/Finance, Community, Hair & Beauty, Health & Fitness, TV, U.S. July 11, 2018
Natural Hair Care Maven and Curls CEO Mahisha Dellinger to Guide Female Entrepreneurs on Summer Series “Mind Your Business With Mahisha” on OWN
Mahisha Dellinger(image courtesy OWN)
by Denise Petski via deadline.com
The Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) has greenlighted new unscripted series Mind Your Business with Mahisha, featuring Curls CEO and creator Mahisha Dellinger, for premiere Saturday, August 11 at 10 PM.
In the hour-long series, Dellinger focuses on helping female entrepreneurs take their business to the next level. In each standalone episode, Dellinger meets with entrepreneurs and guides them with inspiration and a little bit of tough love. She tests their passion and determination while demanding that they give it their all – just like she did – in order to reach their goals.
This series will feature successful businesswomen including: Gloria Williams, Founder and CEO of Footnanny pedicure products and known as Oprah’s personal pedicurist; Bad Girls Club star Mehgan James, owner of 800 West clothing line; Lia Diaz, owner of The Girl Cave, a three-store chain of beauty bars and beauty supplies in Southern California; and Chef Shalamar Lane, owner of My Father’s BBQ, a family run BBQ restaurant in Carson, California.
Dellinger of South Sacramento, California, turned a creative idea into the multi-million-dollar hair company, Curls, a family of organic hair care products targeted for women embracing their natural textures.
Mind Your Business with Mahisha will follow Iyanla: Fix My Life, (9 p.m. ET/PT) for an all-female led
Saturday night lineup on OWN, the No. 1 network on Saturday nights for African American women.
Read more: https://deadline.com/2018/07/curls-ceo-mahisha-dellinger-summer-series-own-mind-your-business-with-mahisha-1202423965/
Filed under: "Mind Your Business with Mahisha", 800 West, Curls, female entrepreneurs, Footnanny, Gloria Williams, Lia Diaz, Mahisha Dellinger, Mehgan James, My Father’s BBQ, natural hair, Natural Hair Care, Oprah Winfrey Network, organic hair care products, OWN, Shalamar Lane, The Girl Cave
Awards Shows, Awards/Honors, Commemorations, Entertainment, Events, International, Movies, TV, U.S., Videos December 13, 2017
Oprah Winfrey to Receive 2018 Cecil B. DeMille Award at 75th Annual Golden Globes
Oprah Winfrey (CREDIT: VARIETY)
by Danielle Turchiano via Variety.com
Oprah Winfrey will be honored with the 2018 Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 75th Annual Golden Globes.
Each year the recipient of the prestigious award is selected by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) board of directors and must be someone who has made “an incredible impact on the world of entertainment.” HFPA president Meher Tatna said Winfrey embodies this qualification for the generations she has “celebrated strong female characters on and off screen, and has been a role model for women and young girls for decades.”
“As a global media leader, philanthropist, producer and actress, she has created an unparalleled connection with people around the world, making her one of the most respected and admired figures today,” Tatna said in a statement. “Holding titles such as Chairman, CEO and Founder, Oprah is one of the most influential women of our time, and this honor is well deserved especially in this 75th anniversary year of the Golden Globe Awards.”
Chairman and CEO of her own cable network — OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network — Winfrey is currently an executive producer on series such as “Greenleaf,” “Queen Sugar” and “Oprah’s Master Class.” In 2017 she executive produced and starred in the Emmy nominated HBO original movie “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” and in 2018 she will appear in “A Wrinkle in Time” from Ava DuVernay. She is also the founder of O, The Oprah Magazine, and oversees Harpo Films.
Golden Globe Nominations: Complete List
Perhaps best known as the host of her multi-award-winning talk show, “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” which came to an end in 2011, Winfrey is also the founder of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa, which provides education for “academically gifted” girls from disadvantaged backgrounds and is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year and celebrating the school’s seventh graduating class.
Winfrey has been celebrated by the HFPA before, with a Golden Globe Award nomination for her role in “The Color Purple” in 1986.
Morgan Freeman, who received the same award in 2012, announced Winfrey’s honoree status during the airing of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s (HFPA) “Golden Globe 75th Anniversary Special,” which aired on NBC.
In addition to Freeman, recent honorees include Audrey Hepburn, Barbra Streisand, Denzel Washington, George Clooney, Harrison Ford, Jodie Foster, Lucille Ball, Martin Scorsese, Meryl Streep, Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Robin Williams, Sidney Poitier, Sophia Loren and Steven Spielberg.
The 75th Annual Golden Globes will be hosted by Seth Meyers and air live coast-to-coast on Jan. 7, 2018 starting at 8pm ET/5pm PT on NBC.
Watch Freeman announce Winfrey as the 2018 Cecil B. DeMille Award recipient below:
Source: http://variety.com/2017/tv/awards/2018-cecil-b-demille-award-recipient-oprah-winfrey-1202640271/
Filed under: "A Wrinkle In Time", "Greenleaf", "Queen Sugar", Audrey Hepburn, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, Barbra Streisand, Cecil B. DeMille Award, Denzel Washington, George Clooney, Golden Globe Awards, Harrison Ford, HFPA, Hollywood Foreign Press Association, Jodie Foster, Lucille Ball, Martin Scorsese, Meher Tatna, Meryl Streep, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, Oprah Winfrey, Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, Oprah Winfrey Network, OWN, Robert De Niro, Robin Williams, Seth Meyers, Sidney Poitier, Sophia Loren, Steven Spielberg
Entertainment, TV, U.S. July 18, 2017
Oprah Winfrey Network Orders Drama “Love Is_” from “Being Mary Jane” and “Black Lightning” Executive Producers Mara Brock Akil and Salim Akil
Mara Brock Akil (l), Salim Akil(r) [photos via Variety.com]
by Daniel Holloway via Variety.com
OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network) has given a series order to “Love Is __,” a new drama from Mara Brock Akil and Salim Akil. The Akils will create and executive produce the series through their company Akil Productions. Mara Brock Akil will serve as show runner. The series, which had previously been in development at ABC as a multi-camera comedy, will be produced in association with Warner Horizon. It is slated to premiere in 2018.
“I’ve dreamed of working with the Akils,” said Oprah Winfrey. “I’ve been a huge fan of their work since first viewing ‘Girlfriends.’ They know just how to hit the cultural nerve to make you think and laugh at the same time.”
“To have a partner that brings the attention to detail and sheer excellence that Oprah has built an empire on is an absolute dream come true for Salim and me,” said Mara Brock Akil. “That, and it’s Oprah! ‘Love Is ___’ is not only a passion project, but is a personal one for us as well. We’re grateful to have her wholehearted support and magic touch behind this story.”
Based on the Akils’ relationship, the series will tell the story of a power couple navigating the landscape of Black Hollywood. Mara Brock Akil is the creator of “Girlfriends” and “Being Mary Jane.” She and husband Salim Akil, director of the film “Jumping the Broom,” co-created “The Game.” The two are executive producers of the CW’s upcoming DC Comics-based superhero series “Black Lightning,” on which Salim Akil serves as showrunner.
Source: Oprah Winfrey Network Orders Drama From Mara Brock and Salim Akil | Variety
Filed under: "Being Mary Jane", "Girlfriends", "Love Is_", Akil Productions, “Jumping the Broom”, Black Lightning, Mara Brock Akil, Oprah Winfrey, Oprah Winfrey Network, OWN, Salim Akil, The Game
Entertainment, TV January 29, 2016
OWN Drama Series “Queen Sugar” Casts Dawn-Lyen Gardner, Kofi Siriboe & Omar J. Dorsey In Lead Roles
(Courtesy of OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network)
Dawn-Lyen Gardner (Unforgettable, Heroes), Kofi Siriboe (Awkward, Whiplash) and Omar J. Dorsey (Ray Donovan, Selma) have been cast opposite Rutina Wesley on OWN’s new original drama series Queen Sugar, from Ava Duvernay and Warner Horizon Television.
Written, directed and executive produced by Duvernay, the contemporary series is adapted from the first-time novel by Natalie Baszile. It centers on Nova Bordelon (Wesley), a formidable journalist and activist based in New Orleans. Her life, and that of her brother and their extended family, undergoes significant change when her sister, Charley, returns to Louisiana from Los Angeles to help run the family sugarcane farm. Oprah Winfrey will have a recurring role on the show.
Gardner will play Charley Bordelon West, the charismatic and savvy manager and wife of professional basketball superstar Davis West, with whom she has a challenging, conflicted relationship. The proud mother of Micah, Charley is originally from New Orleans, but never seems to get the time to go back home in the midst of her busy, exciting and public life in Los Angeles.
Siriboe is Ralph Angel Bordelon, the youngest Bordelon sibling. Formerly incarcerated and somewhat worn out by life, Ralph Angel is trying to make a new start — and find a job — while raising his beloved 6-year-old son Blue with the help of family members, notably his aunt Violet. Dorsey will play Hollywood Desonier, a rugged, resourceful man and staunch supporter of the Bordelon family. The longtime boyfriend of Violet Bordelon (aunt to Charley, Nova and Ralph Angel), Hollywood clearly loves her — and doesn’t think anything of their 20-year age difference.
article by Denise Petski via deadline.com
Filed under: "Queen Sugar", African-American television drama, Ava DuVernay, Dawn-Lyne Gardner, Kofi Siriboe, Natalie Baszile, Omar J. Dorsey, Oprah Winfrey, Oprah Winfrey Network, OWN, Rutina Wesley, Warner Horizon Television
Business/Finance, Entertainment, Media/Internet, TV January 3, 2016
Oprah Winfrey’s OWN Delivers Its Most-Watched Year in the Network’s History
OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network closed out 2015 as its most-watched year in the network’s history, achieving its fourth consecutive year of double-digit prime growth in total viewers (up +13% with 487,000 total viewers).
2015 was also the network’s best year ever and fourth year of growth in the key 25-54 demographic for women (W25-54, up +10% vs. 2014). OWN’s W25-54 prime average ranked #25 among ad-supported cable networks, up +4 spots vs. 2014.
OWN is the fastest-growing top 25 ad-supported cable network in prime among W25-54 and is one of only two ad-supported cable networks to have achieved double-digit prime growth in total viewers in each of the past four years. Additionally, OWN was the #2 cable network in prime among African-American women.
For 2015, OWN was the #1 cable network for women and the #1 network on all of TV among African-American women and total viewers on Tuesday nights. Popular Tuesday night series “The Haves and the Have Nots” and “If Loving You is Wrong,” from Tyler Perry, both ranked among the top seven original scripted series on ad-supported cable for W25-54 and were primetime’s top two original cable series among African-American women.
Both series ranked among Tuesday night’s top three original cable series for W25-54 and W18+ and were Tuesday night’s top two original series on all of TV among African-American women and total viewers.
OWN was Saturday night’s #2 network on all of TV among African-American women. Saturdays on OWN yielded the top nine original series on ad-supported cable (non-sports) among all African-American women.
These popular series included: “Iyanla: Fix My Life,” “Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s,” “Legends: OWN at the Apollo,” “Livin’ Lozada,” “Raising Whitley,” “Flex & Shanice,” “2 Fat 2 Fly,” “Deion’s Family Playbook” and “Oprah: Where Are They Now?”
Additionally, on Friday nights, OWN was the #2 cable network among African-American women. Comedy series “For Better or Worse” and “Love Thy Neighbor,” both from Tyler Perry, ranked among Friday night’s top three original cable series for African-American women.
Source: The Nielsen Company
Read more at http://www.eurweb.com/2016/01/own-delivers-its-most-watched-year-in-network-history/#m4qu5jyL3i8xhIh4.99
Filed under: "Deion's Family Playbook", "Flex & Shanice", "If Loving You Is Wrong", "Iyanla: Fix My Life", "Oprah: Where Are They Now?", "Raising Whitley", "The Haves and Have Nots", "Welcome To Sweetie Pie's", African-American women, African-American women tv viewing, “2 Fat 2 Fly”, “Legends: OWN at the Apollo”, “Livin’ Lozada”, Oprah Winfrey, Oprah Winfrey Network, OWN, Tyler Perry
Business/Finance, Commemorations, Entertainment, Promotions, TV August 14, 2015
OWN Promotes Jill Dickerson to Senior Vice President of Programming and Development
OWN Senior Vice President Jill Dickerson (Photo: COURTESY OF OWN)
OWN has promoted Jill Dickerson to senior vice president of programming and development, the cable channel announced Friday.
Dickerson has been serving as vice president of programming and marketing since 2009 and has worked on the OWN series “Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s,” “Flex & Shanice,” Deion’s Family Playbook” as well as Holly Robinson Peete and Rodney Peete’s upcoming “For Peete’s Sake” and the new primetime show featuring Rev Run and Tyrese Gibson. In her new role, she will continue to collaborate with producers in the development of nonfiction programming for OWN and supervise editorial management of outside production.
“We are thrilled to announce Jill Dickerson’s move up to the next level in her career as she has been integral to OWN’s success,” said OWN prexy Sheri Salata. “Jill is an exceptional team player and a seasoned pro who brings a wealth of experience in non-scripted television to our programming efforts.”
Dickerson has a strong background in the reality TV world and her previous credits include serving as consulting producer and head writer for the Sydney, Hollywood and Brooklyn seasons of MTV’s “The Real World.” She also was a series producer for TLC’s “Miami Ink,” supervising producer for the VH1 series “My Fair Brady,” and co-executive producer on “Venus & Serena: For Real.”
article by Whitney Frielander via variety.com
Filed under: "Deion's Family Playbook", "Flex & Shanice", "For Peete's Sake", "Miami Ink", "My Fair Brady", "The Real World", "Venus & Serena: For Real", "Welcome To Sweetie Pie's", black female television executives, Jill Dickerson, Oprah Winfrey Network, OWN, Sheri Salata
Business/Finance, Entertainment, Media/Internet, TV September 1, 2013
Oprah Winfrey’s OWN Solidifies Profits with Higher Ratings and Ad Revenues
(Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) is in the black for the first time since its rocky start two-and-a-half years ago. More than 30 new advertisers are joining original heavyweight sponsors Procter & Gamble and General Electric, and are paying higher rates as the channel has found its programming and distribution footing. Headlines about profitability and audience growth have replaced the drumbeat of speculation that her ambitious venture with Discovery Communications might end up a costly flop and an uncharacteristic failure for Winfrey.
Now, Winfrey says, “rewarding” is the word for her experience at OWN, both as the chairwoman and CEO shaping the channel and as a viewer lodestone who hosts several series including “Oprah’s Next Chapter” and “Oprah’s Lifeclass.”
“I no longer have such fear and anxiety about it. I really have more confidence in my decisions,” Winfrey said. “In the beginning, I was in a lot of meetings where people said, ‘You don’t understand cable.’ … I’d say, ‘But I do understand the audience. Aren’t people the same?’”
The answer is yes, says Winfrey, who’s enjoying a career renaissance with OWN’s turnaround and her return to big-screen acting in “Lee Daniels’ The Butler,” No. 1 at the box office for two weeks with more than $50 million in tickets sales.
Her confidence in OWN also is backed up by numbers. For the year to date, viewership is up 22 percent among the target audience of adult women and 23 percent among all viewers compared to last year, according to Nielsen Co. In the third quarter, prime-time viewership among women 25 to 54 and total viewers each are up more than 60 percent compared to 2012. For August, OWN drew a channel-high 536,000 prime-time viewers, a fraction of the millions that watched Winfrey’s talk show but respectable for a developing cable channel.
Continue reading “Oprah Winfrey’s OWN Solidifies Profits with Higher Ratings and Ad Revenues” →
Filed under: "Oprah's Next Chapter", "The Haves and Have Nots", cable television, Discovery Communications, Erik Logan, Lindsay Lohan docuseries, Oprah Winfrey, Oprah Winfrey Network, Oprah's Lifeclass, OWN, OWN profitable, Sheri Salata, Tyler Perry
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Interior architecture student draws on theater background in design projects
Mary Beth Faller
Editor’s note: This is part of a series of profiles for spring 2019 commencement.
Working in an ensemble theater that has a focus on civic dialogue turned out to be a useful background for Courtney Davis when she decided to pursue a master’s degree in interior architecture at Arizona State University.
“Our company does a lot of engagement and we do unconventional work, in different sites, not theaters,” she said. Davis has been a member of the Sojourn Theatre ensemble for several years.
“Working in those sites, you get a sense of bodies in space — what it looks like to have a performance happen in a car dealership instead of on a stage in a theater,” she said.
“You’re really working with the architecture of what exists and that sparked something in me.”
Davis, who was named the outstanding graduate student for the spring semester by the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, got her undergraduate degree in theater and worked as an actress for several years. She later launched an interior-design business that flourished.
Then the family moved to Phoenix, where she decided it was time to pursue her interest in design. She is graduating after completing the three-plus-one program, a master’s degree for students whose undergraduate degree is not in design.
Davis said her background in theater has informed her design work.
“Our theater company works in communities and talks to people and finds out their stories and then expresses those stories and thinks about them critically,” she said. “We don’t make shows about one side or the other. We try to present questions.
“And as a designer, you have to ask all the questions of all the angles before you can even get started designing,” she said.
Davis was profoundly influenced by Design and Arts Corps, an initiative in which students partner with community groups. It's directed by Stephani Etheridge Woodson, a professor in the School of Film, Dance and Theatre.
Davis spent a semester last year working with Chrysalis, a women’s shelter in Phoenix, to renovate a two-bedroom transitional apartment.
“So through the course, Stephani mentors you through the collaboration process and communication with your partners and how to treat them as an equal in the design process. That’s core to how I think about design now,” she said.
“Our spaces can do a lot to care for us in ways we don’t always think about, so I’m always putting that lens on things now, especially when I think about public spaces.
“I was so honored to help them.”
Davis answered some questions from ASU Now:
Question: What was your “aha” moment, when you realized you wanted to study the field you majored in?
Answer: Because I was in the three-plus program, that first year I was wondering, "Is this meaningful to me?" But when I started working on my health care semester and with Chrysalis, I saw that this is science-based. This has impact. If I place this window so there’s a view of green, it can affect this patient and whether they need to take pain medication. Once I had that knowledge, I was like, "I get it." You can apply those wellness principles anywhere.
Q: What advice would you give to someone thinking about the master's degree in interior architecture program?
A: People ask me all the time about the difference between architecture and interior architecture, and I say it’s about the human experience in space. I love architecture and it’s important, but I recognize that we spend most of our time inside and so I like to think about the space that people are in. And do Design and Arts Corps because it changes the way you think about your client.
Q: What was your favorite spot on campus?
A: I remember my first year, it was so hot out but the air conditioning was cranking in the studio, so we would go sit on the upper patio of Design North to warm up. And it became one of my favorite spots. I spent time with other people out there and I also used to go out there by myself. I would give myself a little quiet space. You get a nice view of people walking by.
Q: If someone gave you $40 million to solve one problem in the world, what would you tackle?
A: I would spend the money on antiracism training for everybody. There’s a lot that people with privilege and power don’t recognize. They don’t recognize the difference it makes when you don’t have that power. We all need to dig deep and explore what it’s like to be someone else and have their experience.
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HeinOnline Research Tip: Use “More Like This”
HeinOnline has added several search enhancement tools over the past year, including “More Like This”, a feature that helps you find similar articles to the current article you are viewing.
The HeinOnline toolbar you will see when you log into HeinOnline.
Here’s an example of how “More Like This” can help you find additional relevant documents:
1. Run a keyword search in the Law Journal Library.
For example, I am searching for articles on the issue of product liability in the cannabis industry. Let’s use “cannabis product liability” as our search term.
2. View a resulting article that looks particularly relevant.
Let’s try “Budding Torts: Forecasting Emerging Tort Liability in the Cannabis Industry”, Loyola Consumer Law Review, Vol. 30, Issue 3 (2018), pp. 338-392.
3. Click on the “More Like This” button found at the top of the screen when you’ve opened a document. This will generate a new list of articles topically similar to the original document.
The algorithm behind this feature finds “interesting” or significant keywords in your article.
The alogrithm then compares all articles in HeinOnline and ranks them in order based on which articles’ keywords are most similar to those identified in the original article.
Categories: Legal Research | Tags: HeinOnline, periodicals, commentary, tips | Permalink.
Finding Hansard Online: Canada and Ontario
It is the universal dilemma of the researcher in the Digital Age: suspecting the information you seek is accessible online, but not knowing where or how to find that information. While not all of the Hansard transcripts (Debates) of the Parliament of Canada and the Legislative Assembly of Ontario are available online, a significant portion has been digitized and made freely available on public websites. This blog post is meant to act as a quick guide to finding Hansard online.
Canadian Parliamentary Historical Resources
This portal provides digitized versions of the debates, journals, and selected committee documentation of the Senate and the House of Commons from the 1st Session of the 1st Parliament (1867) until the end of the 1st Session of the 35th Parliament (1996).
Parliament of Canada Website
“House Publications” – View sitting dates by browsing through the House of Common sessions from the beginning of the 1st Session of the 35th Parliament (1994) onwards (current day). Also provides access to the Journals and Order and Notice Papers for the same time period.
“Debates of the Hansard (Senate)”– View sitting dates by browsing through the Senate sessions from the beginning of the 2nd Session of the 35th Parliament (1996) onwards (current day). Also provides access to the Journals and Order and Notice Papers for the same time period.
This research tools provides detailed information about federal bills, including direct links to debates of the Senate and House of Commons for all bills starting with the 37th Parliament in 2001.
To find Ontario debates online see our post, Ontario Hansard Then and Now.
Categories: Legal Research, Legislative Research | Tags: debates, hansard, legislative assembly, queens park, transcripts | Permalink.
Law Times Ceases Weekly Print Issues
The Law Times recently announced the discontinuation of its print issues. The weekly legal tabloid “covering Ontario’s legal scene” started publishing in 1990. Its last print issue was April 29, 2019 (Vol. 30. No. 15).
Law Times competitor, The Lawyers’ Weekly moved to a digital-only daily format in 2017.
Law Times subscribers now receive a daily e-newsletter highlighting top news stories on the publication’s website. Starting later in 2019, longer-form, less time-sensitive content will be published in a special new Law Times section in each of the 10 print issues of Canadian Lawyer.
Where to find issues of the Law Times:
The Great Library has a complete run of the print issues (January 22, 1990 – April 29, 2019) in our Periodicals Collection. Currently, you can access archived weekly issues from 2008 – 2019 on the Law Times website.
The latest issue, as well as daily news stories, commentary and case law summaries are available on the Law Times website.
Categories: Legal Research | Tags: Law Times, Legal news, Legal publishing, newspapers | Permalink.
Doors Open: 20 Great Library Facts
It’s that time of year again! As the crabapple blossoms begin to open, Osgoode Hall prepares to welcome the public to another Doors Open Toronto on May 25 & 26. This year’s theme is 20 Something to celebrate the 20 years that the Toronto community has opened its numerous doors to the public.
Osgoode Hall is one of Toronto’s top attractions, welcoming 10,521 visitors at last year’s Doors Open. We are also celebrating the 20 years that we have participated in this wonderful event.
In honour of 20 years of Doors Open Toronto, we have complied a list of 20 interesting facts about the Great Library.
20 Quick Facts about the Great Library
The library covers three floors and over 20 rooms in Osgoode Hall.
The library’s three principal rooms were built during different stages of the building’s construction: the Reference Office in 1847 (as a courtroom), the Main Reading Room in 1860 and the American Room in 1894/5.
The library’s collection in 1829 consisted of 264 mainly British books.
The library today provides access to approximately 120,000 print volumes and thousands of databases of digital legal information from a variety of countries including Canada, UK, US, Australia, and New Zealand.
Our oldest book dates from 1531 and is a book of Roman law, written in both Latin and Greek.
Last month (April 2019), library staff answered 1,838 questions either in person, by e-mail, phone, or chat.
The library’s Main Reading Room is a triple cube, measuring 40 feet high by 40 feet wide by 120 feet long.
The Great Library got its name in the days when Osgoode Hall Law School was still located at Osgoode Hall. The name “Great Library” was given to distinguish the larger practitioners’ library from the smaller students’ library.
The floor of the Main Reading Room is covered with cork tiles, installed in 1948. These were thought to absorb sound.
The American Room was the first room in Osgoode Hall be fitted for electric light, though it was converted to gas when it was discovered that the arc lighting (also used for street lighting) was so bright it blinded the patrons.
The Great Library stamped all of its books with a gold-leaf Law Society crest up until 2008.
The letters VR seen in the etched glass windows of the Main Reading Room refer to Queen Victoria, the monarch at the time the room was built.
The most viewed post on the library’s blog, Know How, is Greatest Legal Movies. Coincidentally, the library has been used in several movie shoots, including Flash of Genius (2008) and The Time Traveller’s Wife (2009), both of which feature scenes shot in the Main Reading Room.
The architects Cumberland and Storm, who are responsible for designing the central block of Osgoode Hall (including the Main Reading Room), also designed University College at the University of Toronto.
The Great Library has a staff of 17. Some have worked here for over 30 years; some for just over 6 months.
There are 16 Corinthian-style columns in the Main Reading Room. They are purely decorative and are not meant to hold up the ceiling as they are made of wood and are hollow.
The Great Library was named one of Toronto’s the Most Beautiful Indoor Places by BlogTO.
The WWI memorial in the library’s Main Reading Room was installed in 1928. However some of the names of fallen soldiers listed on the monument were added afterwards – two as recently as 2015. One of these names was missed when the list was originally copied and the other was added because he died during the war but not in battle.
One of the first shipments of books for the library was lost at sea on its way to Canada from England in 1833.
A ghost researcher has been seen twice in the Main Reading Room. In the mid-1960s George Johnston, the head librarian, saw someone get up from a desk and walk through a wall. More recently a cleaner saw a man in the library after hours. As he approached to tell the man the library was closed, the man disappeared.
If you still need more convincing to visit us this coming weekend, watch this YouTube video shot during last year’s Doors Open highlighting the stories and experiences of Osgoode Hall visitors and volunteers.
For more information, see Explore Osgoode Hall at Doors Open 2019.
Categories: Great Library | Tags: Doors Open Toronto, history | Permalink.
Being as old as it is, it is no surprise that the Great Library at Osgoode Hall harbours many secrets. As we usher in spring (if it ever comes) with our guided library tours and with the City of Toronto event Doors Open, we hope to prepare all those who venture into the Library for the many mysteries they may encounter—and to open some doors of our own.
As grand and as impressive as it is, the Great Library did not always encompass over 20 rooms on three floors. In fact, the library was first built to be contained in a single room. Over the years it became clear that this would not be enough space and so the Library expanded, slowly but surely taking over unused and unsuspecting spaces. Needless to say, most of the rooms which now make up the Library were not originally intended to be used for such a purpose. This is especially evident in the stacks room located on the first floor.
At first, it may appear unassuming—sure, the book stacks may zig-zag through some tight spaces, but nothing truly out of the ordinary. Until, that is, we reach a seemingly ordinary door located at the far end of the room which opens to…
…another door. Which opens to…
…you guessed it—another door.
Now, this last set of doors does not lead to another set of doors, but to a very cold room with a high vaulted ceiling featuring a wall lined with many rectangular compartments.
We can hazard a guess or two on the purpose this room may have served. If we revisit the fact that the room which harbours this mysterious nook was not always a part of the Library, and combine that knowledge with the other clues that the Law Society of Ontario’s curator has discovered and reviewed in her post “It was a Dark and Stormy Night”, we can guess this room may at one point have acted as the vault for a stamp office.
Currently, this room is vacant, and only used by staff when the pages from our loose-leaf materials go missing and the need for a holding cell arises.
Oh, did I say that we had reached the end of the long line of doors?
Not quite. But this is one door that this Librarian does not have the courage (or strength) to open.
Categories: Great Library | Tags: architecture, building, doors, Doors Open Toronto, history | Permalink.
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John Singleton Chronicled the Complexities of Black Life [Video]
By Cherese Jackson on May 3, 2019 No Comment
John Singleton chronicled the complexities of life in the black community. He gave the outside world an inside view of life, love, and pain in the hood. The trailblazing filmmaker’s expansive catalog of work spans across the big screen, television, and even music videos. Singleton was a revolutionary of sorts; telling authentic African American stories long before it became popular. He had a knack for finding and fostering new talent, making a major impact on the careers of several stars including Morris Chestnut, Regina King, Tyrese, Taraji P. Henson, Tupac Shakur, and Ice Cube among others. Singleton died at only 51-years-old, but the impact of his work cannot be forgotten.
When news emerged that John Singleton had passed away following a massive stroke last week, audiences and filmmakers from around the world braced themselves to mourn one of the community’s hardest working and most inspirational figures. The “Empire” producer was an artist and storyteller who throughout his work and career had shown a new path through the entertainment industry for young and diverse filmmakers.
The media loved painting young African Americans as trouble makers. Singleton recognized that problem and used to the film to get to the root of those damaging stereotypes, debunking the myth that we are inherently bad, and forcing the system to acknowledge its role. Singleton refused to showcase the black community it in a cookie-cutter, “Cosby Show” style. Instead, he chose to keep it real.
His films birthed a generation of young scholars, explorers, artists, community leaders, entrepreneurs, and storytellers. Singleton made movies that will live long after his body is memorialized. His stories touched the lives of many while shining a light into the life and love in the black community. He chronicled the struggles and highlighted the successes. Flicks like “Boyz n the Hood” displayed gang violence along with the power of a strong black father in the home. It not only showed black-on-black murders in the community but explained the ache of gentrification and the power of love in the midst of hard times.
Hollywood has lost a legend. Singleton gave voice to the black American experience in a way that had not been done before. His stories felt real. They felt raw. At the age of 24, this legend the youngest individual and the first African American ever to be nominated for a Best Director Academy Award.
The adored film writer died on April 29, 2019, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, in Los Angeles, CA due to complications from a stroke he suffered. In the wake of Singleton’s untimely death, the producer’s family is urging the black community to heed the warnings in their body and get checked out often. Hypertension is one of the leading causes of death in the African American community.
Singleton will long be remembered as a pioneering voice and activist for the black community. He knew early on that he would become an independent filmmaker because there was no point of reference for what he wanted to do. He wanted to chronicle and showcase the complexities of love and pain in the black community. The Oscar-nominated filmmaker did just that. He made an impression in the entertainment industry and homes around the globe since his premiere film.
A celebration of life for John Daniel Singleton will take place at Angelus Funeral Home in Los Angeles’ Crenshaw community on Monday, May 6, 2019. The service will begin at 10 a.m.
By Cherese Jackson (Virginia)
NPR: Ground-Breaking Director John Singleton Dies At 51
The Grio: Remembering a Legend: 5 iconic films from John Singleton
Top Image Courtesy of Canadian Film Centre – Wikimedia Creative Commons License
Featured Image Courtesy of Canadian Film Centre’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
John Singleton, Singleton
John Singleton Chronicled the Complexities of Black Life [Video] added by Cherese Jackson on May 3, 2019
View all posts by Cherese Jackson →
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Now This
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Trump is racist, and this is the kind of bravery we need in our leaders
Anna Sheffer
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has only been in office for a matter of days, but she’s already proved that she’s a politician to watch. Since being sworn in, the new legislator has proposed bold policies like the Green New Deal and effortlessly clapped back at trolls who mocked her for dancing in college. Most recently, she showed that she’s not afraid to speak out against President Donald Trump. In a January 6th 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper, Ocasio-Cortez didn’t hesitate to condemn Trump for racism, arguing that he has enabled white supremacists.
“The president certainly didn’t invent racism,” she acknowledged. “But he’s certainly given a voice to it and expanded it and created a platform for those things.” When Cooper asked Ocasio-Cortez if she thought the president was racist, she responded with a definitive “no question.”
"When you look at the words that he uses, which are historic dog whistles of white supremacy," she said. "When you look at how he reacted to the Charlottesville incident, where neo-Nazis murdered a woman, versus how he manufactures crises like immigrants seeking legal refuge on our borders, it's night and day."
.@AOC says the president is a racist, “no question.” The White House told 60 Minutes that President Trump “has repeatedly condemned racism and bigotry in all forms.” https://t.co/HmucF1z6zg pic.twitter.com/N5RlRfHoA9
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) January 7, 2019
The White House defended the president in a statement to CBS.
"Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez's sheer ignorance on the matter can't cover the fact that President Trump supported and passed historic criminal justice reform," the statement read, adding that Trump "has repeatedly condemned racism and bigotry in all forms."
The White House’s statement of course ignores the reality of Trump’s rhetoric. The 45th president has called African nations and Haiti “shithole countries” and suggested that Mexican immigrants are criminals and “rapists.” As Ocasio-Cortez alluded to in her interview, he first responded to the Charlottesville incident by claiming there had been violence on “many sides,” neglecting to mention white supremacy at all. And The New York Times notes that the Justice Department sued Trump Management for racial discrimination in 1973—when Trump was president of the company.
Needless to say, we’re grateful to have politicians like Ocasio-Cortez tell it like it is. Members of government have been tip-toeing around Trump’s racist ideologies (often for their own political self-preservation) for far too long, and we hope this encourages others in Washington to stand up for what’s right.
By Anna Sheffer
E. Jean Carroll's friends have publicly corroborated her sexual assault allegation against Trump
Cory Booker said he will "fight to protect" black transgender women, and this is so important
Bill Nye surprised AOC at SXSW, and it's the video moment we never knew we needed
Use these 8 Harry Potter World hacks to plan your trip like Hermione would
A Black Lady Sketch Show will have an incredible amount of huge-name guest stars, and we can't wait to watch
Donald Trump Racist
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I'm an All-Around Gymnastics Fan: My events include reading, watching, commenting, and writing
August 1, 2012 Hilary
I'm a big women's gymnastics fan. Knowing I love dance, sports, and nearly all things feminine and strong, this should come as no surprise. If you know me it's also no surprise that while I took gymnastics as a kid I didn't last long. I was flexible, but I was also fearful (I would think to myself, "Why should I risk falling off that beam when I can read a book about someone else on the beam?"). It's been a thrilling 24 hours for fans of USA gymnastics, with the women's team winning the team gold in decisive fashion.
As Aly Raisman and Gabby Douglas prepare to compete in the All-Around competition I've been preparing for my own All-Around gymnastics meet. My best event is the first- reading- and I'm really trying to up my game in the last event- writing.
1) Reading- Every four years the gymnastics shelf at the library gets restocked. This year the bookshelf is especially full (likely due to the continued popularity of Nastia Liukin, Alicia Sacramone, and Shawn Johnson from the last Games) for both kids and adults.
First is Donna Freitas' Gold Medal Summer, which I especially enjoyed knowing Freitas is a professor (of religion).
The message of Gold Medal Summer-- that you should pursue your dreams and not give them up for romance-- is a good one for young girls (especially because the romance still comes eventually). The protagonist, 14-year-old Joey, has an interesting back story with her sister and family which gives the book more layers than the typical middle school activity-romance-friends storyline.
Two new series about young girls doing gymnastics are also aimed at young readers. The McKenna American Girl books, which I've written about before (and which has now been made into a movie, discussed more below) are better for the elementary school crowd. 1996 Olympic gold medalist Dominique Moceanu lends her name and expertise to another new series, The Go-for-Gold Gymnasts, aimed at middle-grade readers. My favorite was Book 2, Balancing Act, because it obviously is meant to reflect some of Moceanu's own experiences as the child of Romanian immigrants.
I also liked that Moceanu and Thompson present important, and often overlooked, aspects of gymnastics in Balancing Act. They highlight that earning an NCAA scholarship is a worthy and important goal for many gymnasts-- that the Olympics aren't the end-all-be-all for most. They also highlight that there are many hidden costs associated with competitive gymnasts (it's not just tuition and fees but also ace bandages and ice packs and hair accessories). The characters aren't as nuanced as they are in Freitas' book, but the background knowledge is a bit deeper. The New York Times Book Review ran a review of the series and Freitas' book if you're interested in more comparisons. I thought the observation that these particular books do not portray typical stage parents of the main characters is right on, but stage moms do make appearances in other parts of the stories.
In addition to her fictional series Moceanu also just released her memoir, Off Balance. Readers get a sense of her gymnastics training along with an often shocking look at her family life-- including the discovery of a long-lost sister. If you've been watching the Olympics and wondering why Bela Karoyli never mentions Dominique's name, you'll find out why he doesn't by reading Off Balance.
A different new memoir about gymnastics provides some insight as to why people like me-- non-gymnasts-- get so into the sport. Dvora Meyers' ebook Heresy on the High Beam: Confessions of an Unbalanced Jewess, is a quirky look at how love of a childhood sport can continue throughout young adulthood and offer continuity through unstable life stages.
Another quirky, recent book is My Father's Dream of an Olympic Trampoline: Life Story of George Nissen, written by Nissen's daughter Dagmar. Because it's written by his daughter the tone is a bit over-laudatory. But it was fascinating to read about how the trampoline was invented and marketed (and how it got its name from Nissen's time in Mexico). I also found it fascinating how Nissen's experiences as a gymnast and as a diver helped create the trampoline, now used for training in both (if you've been watching the springboard and platform diving you know how acrobatic the divers are).
Why did I include a book about trampolining here? Well it's not just artistic gymnastics that's included in the Olympics, there is also rhythmic gymnastics and trampolining. Yes, trampolining is its own sport in the Olympics as of 2000. I'm actually very excited to watch the Olympic trampolinists who perform some truly out of this world high-flying tricks.
2) Watching- Speaking of watching I try to give my reading eyes a rest by watching television. In addition to coverage of the sport itself (from nationals to Trials to the Olympics) there have been two different television specials about gymnastics.
The first is McKenna Shoots for the Stars, based on the American Girl books. Despite an all-star cast-- including the somewhat head-scratching trio of Nia Vardalos, Ian Ziering, and Cathy Rigby-- the movie is cringe worthy at times thanks to an overly saccharine and staged feel. I actually laughed out loud when McKenna, upset about an injury, melodramatically rips her gymnastics posters off her wall. You can get a taste of it from the trailer if you watch around 1:13.
A more interesting take was a three-part, two-hour long documentary on Aly Raisman, Quest for Gold [now achieved!] shown on the Comcast network (you can also watch all of it in chunks on the website Gymnastike). I fell in love with Aly's father and brother while watching the last part of the documentary. There's a great scene of them watching Aly at Nationals (only her mother went with her to that competition while the rest of the family stayed in Massachusetts) and yelling at the TV for her to stick. If you haven't seen the now viral video of her mom and dad watching her compete bars in Olympic team prelims then you're missing out.
One television show is glaringly absent from my line-up and that's ABC Family's Make It or Break It. I don't have anything against the network (as you know, I've been watching Bunheads), but I never got into this show-- probably because I didn't love the inspiration for it, the movie Stick It.
3) Commenting- While I've converted my husband to the dark side of emotional gymnastics viewing it's still great to commune with other fans via message boards and Twitter. My favorite gymnastics blog is Get a Grip. The author also puts together the wickedly clever and funny Gym Memes.
I tweet about gymnastics fairly often and I love reading comments from gymnastics commentators and expert fans. I put together a public list of those who provide some of the best insight.
While this seems like the shortest event for me (the vault of my All-Around fan experience, if you will), it actually takes up quite a bit of time!
4) Writing- In addition to tweeting and blogging I do write articles. Researching a recent short piece on Brestyan's American Gymnastics Clubs (that appeared in July's Boston Magazine as "From Coddled Kids to World-Class Gymnasts") was great fun because I actually got to see both Aly Raisman and Alicia Sacramone train (for the record they were both vaulting while I watched and Aly also worked on her beam set-- which she'll now be competing on in the Olympic event finals!). I was professional on the outside, but fangirl-y on the inside.
It's been wonderful to see Aly share her gold medal with Mihai Brestyan who is clearly a dedicated, but level-headed, coach. Even during such a busy time Mihai spoke with me for over an hour impressing me with his thoughts on developing young talent in the US. One important point that didn't make it into the printed article is that Bretyan knows not everyone is an Aly or Alicia. He emphasizes NCAA gymnastics as a wonderful outlet, and as a way for families to recoup all they have invested monetarily in gymnastics over the years in the form of a four-year college scholarship. Local news is already reporting families with young girls flocking to the gym in Burlington. While their daughters might not end up as Olympians, or even college athletes, parents should know that Brestyan will help mold their daughters into all-around people.
And All-Around fans like me will enjoy watching from the sidelines.
In Afterschool activities, Playing to Win Blog Tags Aly Raisman, Balancing Act, Dominique Moceanu, Donna Freitas, George Nissen, Get a Grip, Go-for-Gold Gymnasts, Gold Medal Summer, Gym Memes, Gymnastics, Heresy on the High Beam, London Olympics, McKenna American Girl, Mihai Brestyan, My Father's Dream of an Olympic Trampoline, Off Balance, Olympics, Quest for Gold, Trampolining
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STARIN, John Henry
45th (1877–1879), 46th (1879–1881)
External Research Collections
STARIN, John Henry, (grandson of Thomas Sammons), a Representative from New York; born in Sammonsville, Fulton County (then a part of Montgomery County), N.Y., August 27, 1825; pursued an academic course in Esperance, N.Y.; began the study of medicine in 1842; established and conducted a drug and medicine business in Fultonville 1845-1858; postmaster of Fultonville, N.Y., 1848-1852; founder and president of the Starin City River & Harbor Transportation Co.; director of the North River Bank, New York City, and the Mohawk River National Bank; also interested in agriculture and stock raising; elected as a Republican to the Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth Congresses (March 4, 1877-March 3, 1881); president of Fultonville National Bank 1883-1909; engaged in railroading; member of the New York City Rapid Transit Commission; died in New York City March 21, 1909; interment in Starin mausoleum, Fultonville Cemetery, Fultonville, N.Y.
Manuscripts and Archives Department
Greenville, DE
Microfilm: In the John B. Jervis Papers, 1820-1884, 13 microfilm reels. Subjects include John Henry Starin.
History, Art & Archives, U.S. House of Representatives, “STARIN, John Henry,” https://history.house.gov/People/Listing/S/STARIN,-John-Henry-(S000808)/ (July 18, 2019)
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Images from April 2013 results: 58
U.S. Air Force Uganda
U.S. Navy U.S. Air Force Uganda
U.S. Navy U.S. Air Force Kenya Rwanda Uganda
U.S. Army Uganda Health Partnership
U.S. Army U.S. Air Force African Union Training Military-to-Military Partnership
U.S. Army U.S. Air Force Commander Djibouti Camp Lemonnier U.S. AFRICOM
U.S. Navy Djibouti
U.S. Army U.S. Navy Djibouti Health
U.S. Army U.S. Navy Exercise Djibouti Health
U.S. Army U.S. Air Force U.S. Marine Corps Commander Djibouti Senior Enlisted Leader Camp Lemonnier
U.S. Army U.S. Air Force Commander Exercise Djibouti Camp Lemonnier
U.S. Army U.S. Air Force Commander Exercise Djibouti Camp Lemonnier U.S. AFRICOM
U.S. Army U.S. Air Force U.S. Marine Corps Commander Exercise Djibouti Senior Enlisted Leader Camp Lemonnier U.S. AFRICOM
U.S. Navy U.S. Air Force Piracy Commander Maritime Security Djibouti
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Tag Archives: classical music
Exclusive and Magical Interview with Talented & Creative Melika Lux on Much More than Her City of Lights Novel
Today, we have a special treat because we have an exclusive interview with a very talented and sweet person, author Melika Lux. You can read my review of Melika’s book by clicking CITY OF LIGHTS.
Our interview is VERY in-depth and you will marvel at Melika’s original personality, including how a trained stage soprano has such an addiction to Great White Sharks!!
I am pleased to have you stop by for a visit today, Melika! You sound like a fabulously creative person. How are you?
Melika: I am great, Erin, and thrilled to be here!
Erin: So happy! Let’s move on and learn more about you and your writing!
Q: When did you first begin to write? What gave you the inspiration?
A: My love for writing grew out of an early love for reading. I think what led me to this point, what essentially caused the inspiration to germinate, was that my mother started reading to me when I was in the womb, and my father told me wild, not-exactly-verifiable tall tales while I was still in the cradle. I remember writing little stories and vignettes when I was a very young child and also staging my first play (an adaptation of King of Kings) when I was eight years old. The budget was nonexistent, so my family was conscripted into the production, with my dad and mom playing six parts each. I think that was when the writing bug first reared its head and bit me squarely on the heart. I felt a little like Cecil B. DeMille after that. There is a VHS of the play floating around somewhere. It is one of my first memories of writing.
One turning point I can recall was when I was about eleven or twelve. I wrote a very short story along the lines of Jurassic Park. It was about a brother and sister being chased to the edge of a cliff by a T-Rex. The kids gave the Rex the old “one-two-jump!” fake out and the dinosaur tumbled over the cliff. End of story—happily ever after for everyone except the Rex. But the point was that it was fun! I had actually finished something I’d set out to write! It was great, even though it was only six pages long! You have to start somewhere, right?
Q: What inspires you currently in your overall writing?
A: What began to stand out more and more to me as the years wore on, and what I think was the real reason I truly grew to love writing so much, was the freedom it gave me to be able to get lost in a different world. I love creating characters and their individual stories. Everything that a person experiences in his or her life affects the person they become and how they react to situations, so being able to explore this with my characters is something I am always eager to do—uncovering what motivates them, what drives their worldview, why they would make a decision in a particular situation, what makes them tick, etc. It is thrilling when characters develop so fully that they essentially start to write the stories themselves.
Currently, I’m most interested and inspired by trying out different storytelling mediums and POVs. My preferred method of telling a story is first person, but in my latest works, I’m using third person limited and also third person omniscient, which presents a whole heap of challenges! I’m also experimenting with short stories. You would think this would be easier, but I’m finding it an exciting challenge to tell a complete and gripping story in 40 pages or less rather than having a broad canvas (my last novel, Corcitura, was 700 pages long) on which to paint, essentially, the characters’ lives.
My last two novels were primarily historical fiction, City of Lights: The Trials and Triumphs of Ilyse Charpentier being an historical fiction/family saga set in Paris in 1894, and Corcitura being an historical fiction/supernatural thriller, complete with hybrid vampires, which takes place over the years 1888-1895 in locales across Europe and in Gilded Age New York. I have felt very comfortable writing in this era due to the fact that I read a tremendous amount of fantastic Victorian literature during my high school and college years and fell in love with the period. However, I am now transitioning into dystopian, horror, comedy, and fantasy. Talk about freeing! I no longer have to worry about when a word came into the vernacular! Huzzah! Besides that added bonus, I love to genre-hop and not confine myself to one particular time period. It keeps thinks exciting.
Q: Did your musical background play any part in your writing? Also, explain your musical background for our readers.
A: Definitely. I’ve been surrounded by music since I was born and have been singing, dancing, and playing the violin and piano since I was three years old. I was part of a children’s performing group for most of my childhood and was also a member of a local youth symphony orchestra from the ages of 8-18. In addition to singing throughout my community and state, I also performed the role of Meg Giry in a college production of The Phantom of the Opera. What a blast! 😀
In regards to my writing, I draw a lot of inspiration from certain pieces of music, especially movie soundtracks and instrumental numbers, which I love to have playing in the background as I write. Currently, for the dystopian/fantasy novel I’m writing, I keep epic music/soundtracks looping at a low volume in my ear buds. It really spurs my imagination and helps when trying to strike the right mood in battle and intense scenes, especially when there are “creatures” involved.
For City of Lights, Hanging by a Moment by Lifehouse was a huge inspiration and a song I kept looping in the background as I wrote the novel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESWjziG5B54
To me, this song epitomizes Ilyse and Ian’s love story, and remains a favorite of mine to this day.
Q: Have you ever danced or been on the stage? If so, explain and if it helped in the writing of your book. What inspired you to write about a Parisian chanteuse in City of Lights?
A: Yes! As I mentioned above, I was part of a children’s performing group from the ages of 3-11. Additionally, I am a classically trained soprano. My most recent performance was in February 2012, at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine, FL. You can view the entire concert or excerpts of my solos by clicking on the following link: http://booksinmybelfry.com/music/
Music has always been inextricably linked to City of Lights. The entire novel was actually inspired by a song. One night in December 2002, I was puttering around in my room when I suddenly started singing verses of a song I had made up in that moment.
“Tonight’s the last time that I’ll see your face, my love. This dreadful moment has finally come to be. Tonight the passion ends for you and me, my love. I’m traveling to a place where life will be hell for me…good-bye.”
My mind exploded with questions. Who was this girl? Why was she being forced to give up her love? Why would her life be so awful?
From that song, City of Lights: The Trials and Triumphs of Ilyse Charpentier was born. The song became Tonight, the lyrics directly inspiring the novel and making their way into a pivotal scene toward the end of the book. Now, the only thing remaining was a setting. I’m a singer, a Francophile, and a devotee of fin de siècle culture and literature, so the idea of Paris, a cabaret, forbidden love, and the added tension arising from my heroine being estranged from her brother (her only living relative) was too exciting not to pursue.
My grand plan all along was (and still is) for City of Lights to be a musical. In addition to Tonight, I wrote eight other songs that inspired further chapters and the overall story arc, the lyrics of those songs also being adapted into dialogue and scenes. Even though the musical is still on the distant horizon, the spirit of the songs thread through the entire novel. And in case you were wondering, the recordings are securely stored in an undisclosed location, waiting for the day when they will see the light once again. 😉
In May 2003, at the age of eighteen, I began writing Ilyse’s story. Eight months later, City of Lights was complete, and another four years later, it was published. Now, it has been given a new look and is being made available to an entirely new readership!
Q: Myself, I love books and information on the late 1800s to early 1900s in Paris. The entire ballet scene and its behind the scenes drama can be an infuriating tale to tell. Apparently, women still endure the dealings of men pulling their strings so to speak. What interests you most about this time period? Any further thoughts on the performance industry?
A: I’ve been interested in the fin de siècle for as long as I can remember. I think I first became cognizant of how exciting this time period was when I was about 8 or 9 and had just learned to play Orpheus in the Underworld with my local youth symphony orchestra. The Galop Infernal in that operetta became, of course, the Can-Can theme. That piece stayed with me over the years and led me to do research when I got older. As I learned more about France and the culture surrounding the cabarets and dancehalls, I was hooked and became a confirmed Francophile. Since writing City of Lights, I have become increasingly interested in that whole milieu and have since read Camille (A brilliant and tragic novel about the lives of the demimondaine—highly recommended!) and a few novels by Colette. I’m always on the lookout for new reads from or about that fascinating time period when securing the right patron could either make you a star or confine you to the gilded cage, as was the case with Ilyse.
As for the performance industry, the main facet that I culled and incorporated into City of Lights was favoritism. Ilyse, although she is talented and the best singer to have graced the Parisian stage in years, is Sergei’s favorite. He “plucked her from obscurity” (a fact he never lets her forget) and made her a star. Without him, she most probably would have starved or been forced into a life of squalor, but given how controlling and suffocating Sergei’s hold over her is, accepting his patronage is a choice Ilyse regrets almost immediately.
Q: I read the biography on your website and laughed to myself because in high school I decided I was either going to school to be a writer or a marine biologist (same as you)!!! I decided I was not cut out enough for the math and just loved the ocean and animal cause, so I went to college for Journalism instead so I could write all about all the many things I love. I came away also with English and History degrees. That all said, besides being afraid of sharks, what really did pull you towards your creative pursuits as compared to science? How do you feel about your decision?
A: Haha, what a coincidence!!! I’ve been obsessed with sharks from a young age. I remember going to Sea World as a three-year-old and spouting off names of all the sharks in the little pond outside the Shark Encounter ride. I also literally started watching Shark Week at the age of two during its inaugural season 26 years ago (dating myself here ;). I still remember them flashing the poster of an enormous Great White shark with a Bermuda-shorted surfer inside its gaping mouth. Fun stuff! 😉
Then came Jaws—the movie, not the book. Let’s not even go there in regards to the book. I’ve never been more disappointed with a reading experience in my life! But I digress… I became fascinated with Jaws around the age of five when I went to Pic ‘n Save and saw the movie poster. What is it with me and posters? Anyway, I now make it a point to watch the movie twice a year, once on my birthday and once on the last day of Shark Week. You probably wouldn’t want to watch the movie with me because I know practically all the lines and usually say them in the same voices the characters use. My favorite, obviously, is Quint. “I’m talkin’ about sharkin’!” I sing his little sea shanties with him, too. 😉
What made me consider a career change, however, probably had something to do with Nigel Marvin and the premiere of Air Jaws around the year 2000. The fact that sharks could rocket out of the water was a paradigm shift for me and sort of tilted my world off its axis. Breaching sharks! It was a literary goldmine! Not to mention that it scared the wits out of me to think that I could be quietly minding my own business in a nice safe boat when Mr. Whitey would suddenly decide to go airborne and take me along for the ride. So that was when I knew I’d have more fun writing sharks into my stories instead of sharing the water with them. Strangely enough, though, a small insane part of me would still love to go cage diving with them in South Africa. We’ll see… 😉
As far as creative pursuits in comparison to science, I still love the minutiae of marine and ocean studies, but I now find it much more exciting to be able to do the research or incorporate what I know about sharks and their behavior into my writings. In the dystopian epic I’m working on, white sharks play a huge role as one of the main antagonists (technically, a race of antagonists, because there are a lot of them!) of the story. They have their own species name, stratified society, unusual sharky abilities, and rather wicked roles to play in the oppressive world I’m creating. They are the toothed enforcers of the realm and have a symbiotic relationship with the undead soldiers who train them. They also get to wear steel helms and are so fierce you honestly can’t help thinking they are just a little bit awesome, as all Great Whites generally are. 😉 If I say any more, I’ll be giving away the plot, but suffice it to say that sharks are fascinating in real life and in literature, so I’m having a tremendously fun time giving them their own personalities and storylines and writing about their undeniable appeal in the new book. By the way, I’m a bit of a shark snob, so pretty much the only species of shark I’ll ever write about are Great Whites—my favorites. I tend to view every other shark as a poser. 😉
As a side note, I recently took the Discovery Channel’s shark personality quiz and was matched with, you guessed it, Carcharodon carcharias. I always had a feeling… 😉
Q: What do you feel was an interesting or important point in history in regards to women and women’s history?
A: I’ve often wondered how I would have fared as a woman writer if I had been born a few centuries ago. When I think about this, the person who always comes to mind in regards to the restrictions on women and how they were looked down upon for being writers (as were women who chose to go on the stage; the horror! Remember the scandal with Nell Gwyn?!) is Charlotte Bronte and how she originally signed her name to Jane Eyre as Currer Bell. I know the novel had been rejected many times and she was listening to the advice of Wordsworth and others, who claimed that “novel-writing wasn’t the proper pastime of a lady,” but it must have been infuriating to not be able to lay claim to your own work, especially a work as brilliant as Jane Eyre. It’s infuriating to me nearly two centuries later! In my own writing, particularly in the first book of my fantasy duology, I have a character who looks down on his fiancée because she reads too many novels. Can you imagine that kind of attitude today?! So, as far as women’s history goes, I believe that when we started to take charge of our writing careers and not care what men and other women (who could be just as spiteful and controlling, if not more so) or society thought of our chosen profession, this was a giant leap forward and an important advancement, at least to my thinking, for the suffragette movement and ensuring the right to vote.
Q: Do you feel women should “schedule” time for themselves as writers? Do women sacrifice too much instead of pursuing the muse inside them? How do you make time for writing?
A: I think it depends on your situation in life. If you’re single, of course you should have more time to write, or at least I would hope so! If you have family and job obligations, however, it becomes much more difficult to carve out pockets of time, but still not impossible. If you’re driven enough and passionate about your writing, though, you can find time to write in just about any instance, even if it’s only a few seconds to scribble down ideas on the corner of a napkin. I’m speaking from experience here. 😉
I do think, however, that women should try to set aside some quiet time (easier said than done!) where they can be alone and just let inspiration flow onto the page. I have a friend who designates specific days during the week where she will not take any phone calls or make appointments and just dedicates those set times to writing, so you can make it work; you just have to be creative about it.
I try to carve out writing time at least every day. Sometimes I’ll have a span of maybe four or five hours in the evening, and sometimes weekends are totally devoted to writing. It depends on family obligations and other things that are going on, those so-called “life interruptions” that can be so detrimental to letting the muse have its day! 😉
Q: Where are some grand places you’ve traveled, or would like to travel? And why?
A: To date, I’ve been to Switzerland, England, Wales, France, Belgium, Germany, the Czech Republic (visiting Prague was a great help in setting the scene for the latter part of Corcitura), Austria, and Hungary. In addition, I’ve been to several Caribbean islands and 25 of our 50 states, my favorite being Hawaii, which I had the opportunity to visit eleven years ago. I do not have an ounce of Hawaiian blood, but my first name is Hawaiian (it means Melissa), so I’ve always felt an affinity for the islands.
I would love to visit Ireland and also Russia one day—Ireland because my paternal grandmother’s family is from there and I’ve always been fascinated by the country (most recently by the entire Home Rule debate—thank you Downton Abbey! ;), and Russia because I’ve been a Russophile since I saw the animated movie Anastasia when I was twelve. The viewing of that film also engendered in me a fascination with the Romanovs that continues to this day.
Q: Do you have some favorite authors? Some authors who have mentored your thoughts?
A: Yes, several! Some of my particular favorites would have to be P. G. Wodehouse, Jean Plaidy, Georgette Heyer, Daphne Du Maurier, Agatha Christie (I can never get enough of her mysteries! So entertaining!), Alexandre Dumas, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott, and Sarah Rayne for her riveting novels of psychological suspense! Wilkie Collins is my wild card in there, too, and I also love everything I’ve ever read by Shannon Hale. Her novels are pure magic.
As far as mentoring, it would have to be Dumas for his amazing ability to write action scenes, Wodehouse for showing me the trick to making people laugh in fiction, Jane for the effortless way she writes the “dance of romance,” and Tollers and Jack (Tolkien and Lewis) for being the standard by which I measure all fantasy and motivating me to always be original.
Q: What other writings have you done? What’s next for you?
A: My latest novel, Corcitura, was published last year. Here is everything you need to know about the novel in a nutshell: Two vampires…one victim…endless trouble. Beginning in London in the year 1888, Corcitura tells the story of best friends Eric Bradburry and Stefan Ratliff, two eighteen-year-old Englishmen who are experiencing their first taste of freedom by setting out on a solo, grand tour of Europe. But what begins as the adventure of a lifetime, quickly explodes into a twisted untangling of centuries-old secrets as our protagonists are forced to flee from people who turn out to be much older—and somehow possess alarming otherworldly powers—than they originally appear. I am talking, of course, about vampires, and the two progenitors of the Corcitura are the stuff of nightmare: a half-wolf, half-vampire Vrykolakas and a five-hundred-year-old Upyr with an uncontrollable desire to create a hybrid creature to use as his own personal agent of destruction.
But vampires are just one facet of this story. Not only are the vampires horrifying, and their trickery something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, but they have fascinating backstories that are inextricably linked with one of the main protagonists and his family—especially his sisters, who have a crucial role to play in how this story works itself out. If you love seeing female vampire protagonists having a major role in the outcome of the story, then you will love the two in this book. Let’s hear it for the girls! They have enough history and chutzpah to fill volumes more—which is my intended plan. They also happen to be werewolves. And if that duality doesn’t intrigue you, I don’t know what will!
My current project is the book with the sharks that I was talking about before. It is a complete revamping and reworking of my original first novel that I began at the age of fourteen, but abandoned for school, life, and other projects. I have been working on it since July of 2012 and have been totally transforming it into a dystopian epic set in a brutal and lawless world. The entire theme and outcome of the story have changed drastically (the sharks were always there, although they are a much bigger part of the story now), but all the exciting bits (mythical beasts, hidden identities, battles, political intrigue, and some truly horrifying and treacherous villains) are still part of the fabric of the story. With the passage of years, however, everything within the story seems to have more meaning and gravitas to me now. It is definitely not the same book I would have written as a fourteen-year-old, so I am very happy I put the novel on hold.
Additionally, I am mapping out and reworking my fantasy duology (which I’ve also been writing since 2003—that was my banner year for creative ideas, it seems!) and am currently finishing up a collection of short comedy/fantasy/horror stories set in Eastern and Northern Europe in the 1800s. It has been an exciting challenge to essentially create mini-novels in 40 pages or less for this collection.
Q: How can readers connect with you?
A: I would love for readers to connect with me on any or all of the following sites:
My website: http://www.booksinmybelfry.com/
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/950456.Melika_Dannese_Lux (Books are my passion. I love discussing great novels and non-fiction/history with other readers, so feel free to send me a friend invite!)
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BooksInMyBelfry
And if you want to contact me directly, here is my email: booksinmybelfry@hotmail.com
Erin: Thank you so very much for sitting down and talking with me today. We wish you much continued success in all your creative pursuits! It was so nice to get to learn more about you.
Melika: This has been so much fun, Erin! Thanks for letting me share a bit of myself and my work with you and your readers! 😀
City of Lights, Synopsis~
Books in My Belfry, LLC
What would you risk for the love of a stranger?
Ilyse Charpentier, a beautiful young chanteuse, is the diva of the 1894 Parisian cabaret scene by night and the unwilling obsession of her patron, Count Sergei Rakmanovich, at every other waking moment.
Though it has always been her secret desire, Ilyse’s life as “La Petite Coquette” of the Paris stage has turned out to be anything but the glamorous existence she had dreamt of as a girl. As a young woman, Ilyse has already suffered tragedy and become estranged from her beloved brother, Maurice, who blames her for allowing the Count to drive them apart.
Unhappy and alone, Ilyse forces herself to banish all thoughts of independence until the night Ian McCarthy waltzes into her life. Immediately taken with the bold, young, British expatriate, Ilyse knows it is time to choose: will she break free and follow her heart or will she remain a slave to her patron’s jealous wrath for the rest of her life?
Melika Lux, Biography~
I write historical fiction, suspense, supernatural thrillers, horror, fantasy, sci-fi, short stories—you name it, I write it! I love to read just about anything and everything and am particularly fond of historical fiction, the classics, mysteries, epic fantasy, history, and non-fiction. I am also a classically trained soprano/violinist/pianist and have been performing since the age of three. Additionally, I hold a BA in Management and an MBA in Marketing.
I am a HUGE fan of Psych, most British drama, comedy, and mystery shows, and am always up for a movie quote challenge. Jaws is my favorite movie of all time, with The Lord of the Rings being a very close second. Tell me something about yourself, and I’ll most probably be able to “Six Degrees of Separation” it back to Gandalf.
Lastly, I love to spend time with my family and friends, and I absolutely adore traveling. Not only is it great to experience other cultures, but travelling expands my horizons as a writer and sets my imagination reeling with a million different ideas for stories. If I hadn’t decided to become a writer (And there’s a Gandalf story for that, too.), I would have become a marine biologist, but after countless years spent watching Shark Week, I realized I’m very attached to my arms and legs and would rather write sharks into my stories than get up close and personal with those toothy wonders.
I am currently working on the sequel to my supernatural thriller/historical novel Corcitura, a collection of comedy/horror/fantasy stories set in Eastern Europe in the 1800s, and the first book of a planned fantasy duology. To learn more, please visit www.booksinmybelfry.com.
Link to Tour Schedule: http://hfvirtualbooktours.com/cityoflightsvirtualtour/
Twitter Hashtag: #CityOfLightsVirtualTour
Tagged as advice for aspiring authors, books in Paris, City of Lights by melika lux, City of Lights Trials and Triumphs of Ilyse Charpentier, classical music, comedy, drama, entertaining reads, fantasy, France, horror, Jaws, Lord of the Rings, Melika Lux author, Phantom of the Opera, post-revolution France, romance novels, Shark Week Discovery, stage productions, tragedy, vampires, women authors
@yolandasfetsos That’s so cute! 💛🤗🦈 1 hour ago
@sjgomzi @huntershea1 Oooo thanks for picking this one up! I’m very proud of being the editor. It’s a fun read! 😃 1 hour ago
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Alexander unveils National Infrastructure Plan
December 4, 2013 12:32 PM
Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander has published the Coalition Government's National Infrastructure Plan - a plan for more than £375bn of public and private sector investment in energy, transport, flood defence, waste, water and communications infrastructure up to 2030 and beyond.
It comes on the day that six major insurers announced plans to collectively invest £25bn in UK infrastructure over the next five years. Much of this investment could go into the projects published today.
Commenting, Danny Alexander said:
"The Liberal Democrats are building a stronger economy in a fairer society, enabling everyone to get on in life.
"Our economy is growing because of the hard work of people and businesses throughout Britain. But the Coalition's economic plan is the rock on which our recovery is being built - it wouldn't be happening without the Liberal Democrats.
"The announcement today that six major insurers will invest £25bn over the next five years is a massive vote of confidence in the UK economy. It supports the wider £100bn public investment to rebuild Britain over the next seven years that I announced at the Spending Round 2013. Underground, overground, on shore, offshore, wired or wireless, tarmac or train track. You name it, we're building it right now.
"This is great news for the people of the UK because after years of neglect, the UK's energy, road, rail, flood defence, communications and water infrastructure needs renewal. It will boost the UK economy creating jobs and making it easier to do business. It will also make the UK a better place to live for everyone who calls it their home."
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Home / Tips and Tricks / What was the first electronically programmable computer?
What was the first electronically programmable computer?
Answer: Colossus
Colossus was the first computer in the world to be fully electronic, digital and programmable. The machine was designed in the early 1940s by Tommy Flowers and put into operation in 1943. The device was a special computer focused on Nazi encryption. Colossus did not crack the codes directly, but processed encrypted messages, simulated mechanical code breakers, and then generated potential key combinations that could decrypt encrypted communications.
By today's standards it was quite limited as programmable machines go. It was not possible to store programs in the machine, so each new program had to be entered manually with a series of switches and plugs. In addition, the war after the war was of limited use, as it was specifically designed for cryptographic tasks and could not easily be adapted for civilian needs ̵
1; although the program was classified until the 1970s, this was not a problem.
After the program ended, the machines (nearly a dozen Mark 1 and Mark 2 brand computers), documentation and plans were destroyed in the 1960s to ensure the project's secrecy and decades of staffing. The project was never recognized for its achievements , In the 2000s, a project to reconstruct a Colossus Mark 2 began with input and guidance from the remaining engineers working on the original computers. The project was completed in 2008 and the rebuilt Colossus participated in a Cipher Challenge – a competition to see which code breakers around the world were able to decrypt original encrypted World War II messages the fastest. The machine did not win (it lost to a modern computer), but it was discovered that the easy-to-use Colossus was about the equivalent of a 5.8-MHz chip – an extremely impressive representation of a computer running in The computer was installed in the early 1940s.
Image – Public Domain.
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Rangitikei News
Wanganui Chronicle - February 1
I MUST say I have really enjoyed getting out and about in the Rangitikei and the greater Manawatu Whanganui region over the past month or so.
Last week I attended the Ratana commemorations along with Prime Minister Bill English, five ministers and 10 National MPs, including my colleague Chester Borrows.
We all received a very warm welcome, after which the Prime Minister talked about the Government's plans over the coming year and his vision to work alongside Maori. His message was clear: "It's you who know your whanau; it's you who know who they can trust.
Government doesn't know that, can't know it, shouldn't pretend that it does, and that's rangatiratanga, and we believe in that. So we need to be better, and will be, at working with you".
The Ratana movement has a long history with politics and politicians and our visit and warm reception represented a great start to what will be a busy year.
I was privileged to open the new Wildbase wildlife hospital in Palmerston North last week in place of Conservation Minister Maggie Barry, following the cancellation of her flight. Massey University has reason to be proud of this thoroughly modern and fit-forpurpose facility, which will provide the next generation of conservation care.
Wildbase remains the only dedicated wildlife hospital in New Zealand. Staff and vet students treat and actively help their patients return to the wild as quickly as possible, and past and present Massey staff and students have made an enormous contribution in the 15 years since a Wildbase Hospital was first established. They started with 50 patients in 2001; by last year that number had grown to 317. This 534 per cent increase illustrates the high demand for the quality care they are providing.
This new, larger, facility was very much needed. Half the animals treated at Wildbase are threatened or endangered species. It's an example of a strong working partnership between the university, business, community groups and individuals who, together, have funded the upgrade. It also reflects the Government's belief that growing conservation is a joint responsibility.
The last weekend in January heralds the Turakina Caledonian Society's annual Highland Games and I enjoyed an opportunity to catch some of the action on Saturday.
Celebrating their 153rd year, these are New Zealand's longest-running Highland Games. This year's event was another great rendition with plenty of traditional drumming, piping, highland dancing and various field events to keep competitors and spectators alike engaged. The day was helped by great weather and an excellent crowd.
It is National's first caucus meeting of the year at Parliament today, and the formal opening of the new session of Parliament on Tuesday next week.
Get updates from Ian McKelvie and National
Stay updated with Ian as the news breaks
Authorised by Ian McKelvie MP, 47 Manchester Street, Feilding.
Visit MyNational
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Producer Says Spider-Man: Homecoming, Venom, and Silver and Black Will Exist in Same World
Filed to: spider-man homecomingFiled to: spider-man homecoming
silver and black
Sony’s Spider-Man spinoffs, Venom and Silver and Black, may not exist in the Marvel Cinematic Universe... but Sony has plans for all of their Spider-Man films to share the same universe. And, contrary to reports, the door isn’t closed on Tom Holland showing up in them.
In a recent interview, Spider-Man: Homecoming producer Amy Pascal revealed that all three movies will exist in the same world... even if Spider-Man: Homecoming is connected to the MCU in a way the other films will not be. The relationship between the films in Sony’s Marvel Universe (still a weird name) has been up in the air, especially since director Kevin Feige confirmed that Venom (played by Tom Hardy) would not be part of the MCU. Here’s what Pascal said:
Both movies will all take place in the world that we’re now creating for Peter Parker. I mean, they’ll be adjuncts to it, there may be different locations, but it will still all be in the same world and they will be connected to each other.
Pascal was then asked if Holland would appear as Spider-Man in one or both of those films, to which Pascal replied: “There’s a chance... there’s always a chance.” I mean, I’m not a linguistics expert... but that sounds like they’re trying to make it happen. This is a bit surprising, as it was previously implied that Holland’s Spider-Man would not appear in the films at all, and it’s not certain how it would even work. Holland is contracted for at least six movies with Disney and Marvel, including three solo films.
It’s unclear what this will mean for the relationship between Sony and Marvel, which is complicated enough with Spider-Man alone. If these characters exist in the same universe as Spider-Man: Homecoming, but not in the MCU itself, that could open a big wide hole of complications and contradictions in the normally controlled cinematic universe.
More on Sony Marvel Universe
Sony's Black Cat/Silver Sable Movie Might Have a New Name and a New Director
The Venom Movie Has Chosen Its Star/Symbiote Host: Tom Hardy
Listen to a Heroic Sampling From the Spider-Man: Homecoming Score
The His Dark Materials' SDCC Trailer Is Grand as It Is Gorgeous
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New Orleans-based Iguanas brings its music to Narrows Center Arts Fest
By Jay N. Miller/For The Patriot Ledger
You could make a serious case that, when booking a festival with music, The Iguanas include so many varieties and styles they could be the only group you'd need to delight a broad audience. As it turns out however, the 17th annual Narrows Center Arts Fest, taking place Sunday both inside and outside the Fall River venue, will include a long list of performers, and it's all a free event.
The Iguanas have a long and unique connection to southeastern Massachusetts, perhaps beginning when they were opening Jimmy Buffett's 1994 tour at Great Woods (now The Xfinity Center) in Mansfield. When they headlined the 2005 Green Harbor Roots and Blues Festival at the Marshfield Fair, it occurred on a weekend when a hurricane was bearing down on their hometown of New Orleans. Wrapping up their set that day, the Iguanas joked that they hoped they'd have homes when they returned to the Crescent City, but Hurricane Katrina devastated their city beyond anyone's expectations, and the members of the band would have to temporarily re-locate to Austin, Texas for the next few years.
The last time we talked with the band, they were on a swing that included gigs at the Narrows Center, and also Johnny D's in Davis Square, Somerville, two of their regular stops. But of course now Johnny D's is gone.
The appeal of the Iguanas music, however, is enduring and that's what made them such an intriguing attraction since they began in 1989. Lots of New Orleans groups play some kind of musical gumbo, but the Iguanas really take the cross-cultural mixmaster thing to a delightful extreme, as their music melds rock, Latin and Tex-Mex elements, rhythm and blues, jazz, Chicano rock, mambo and second-line rhythms. The band's music has popped up on soundtracks to the TV series "Homicide: Life on the Streets" in 1994, and in the movie "Phenomenon" in 1996. They've recorded for Buffett's Margaritaville Records, on the major label MCA imprint, and for their last two albums on an indie co-op label that was in New Orleans.
The Iguanas' ninth and most recent album was 2014's "Juarez," which was a bracing collection of their genre-crossing, but always sizzling and dance-happy music. That album's cuts, for instance, ranged from the irresistible Mexican-flavored dancefloor workout "Wedding of Chicken and Snake" to the spacey "Blues for Juarez," to the doo-wop influenced ballad "Make That Magic Happen." Just for good measure there was also the New Orleans mambo of "Slumming," and the accordion romp "Matamoros Way." As their website notes, the Iguanas' recent records are a delectable combination of "Rue Bourbon, Muscle Shoals and Plaza Mexico" all intersecting.
The Iguanas include Rene Coman on vocals, bass, and keyboards, Rod Hodges on guitar and accordion, Joe Cabral on saxophone and vocals, and Doug Garrison on drums and percussion. After more than 20 years of ferocious touring, the Iguanas take a more relaxed approach these days, in part because they have a Wednesday night residency at their hometown's Circle Bar.
We caught up with Coman this week, as the Gulf Coast was preparing for yet another tropical storm. He mentioned that New Orleans had cancelled school on Tuesday, but it had turned out to be a nice, sunshiny day, with the storm expected to hit overnight.
"We've had that Circle Bar residency for a couple of years and it's really been fun," said Coman. "It's an early evening gig, so one of the keys is that it lets people who are out of the habit of going out, have some fun and get home early. It's become kind of a scene all its own, and it's pretty well attended. The thing is that it's a nice size room, so we don't need a ton of people for it to feel full. It has great sound, so we can really play to the room. The sound quality is really warm, but it also has a low threshold, so too much sound can blow it out. We play the room like a speaker, and we're able to use precise dynamics, and a relatively low volume that works well for our music."
Obviously, such a regular show offers the ability to try new material.
"We do use the Circle Bar residency to work new stuff into our set," said Coman. "We can add to our repertoire, or pull older stuff out and revive it. We like to try new songs, covers, and it makes for an attitude where we can just say, "Let's try this, let's try that.' Sometimes we will run into something where we decide we might be better off trying it once or twice in rehearsal, but most of the time we can handle almost anything. It's like a regular chance to turn the engine over, not like it would be if we'd been off for a couple months. Playing this weekly gig, results in having the band operate on a whole nice, solid level, as if we'd been touring for months. But, it's a very copacetic atmosphere."
With four years since their last album, are the Iguanas planning to release new music?
"We have a bunch of new material," said Coman, "and the next issue is to figure out the best way to release the new music. Every few records, it seems, we have to work in a new vein of the business. We've been on Margaritaville, and MCA, and our last two records were on this local co-op label, which we did with the Tidy Street Studios, right here in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. That worked well, and they put out a lot of great albums, but they got to the point where they sold the building. They have moved out to the country – roughly two hours away. So, by choice or necessity, we have to find another way to release our next record. It does keep things interesting."
"We did release a single during Jazz Fest down here," Coman added. "We did a new tune called 'Needle in a Haystack,' and put it out on iTunes, and with a YouTube video. It's a really fun new song that gets people dancing, and that release worked pretty well for us. I don't know if we'd continue to do one or two-song singles like that, or maybe try an EP. If people don't buy CDs anymore, what do we want to do? People tell us vinyl is making a comeback, and that's fun but how many pieces would we sell that way? So we're not convinced, yet, that we should move in any one direction. It seems that, just like the last decade or so, the business is in a time of flux."
The Iguanas' touring schedule is also a bit tricky, as they seek to balance the demand for their shows around the country with their residency commitment, and the fact that they all have families now and months on the road isn't as attractive an option as it used to be.
"We did a substantial tour of the Midwest in June, getting up as far north as Virginia," Coman noted. "We're coming back out for this quick weekend to New England. Then we have a quick trip to Colorado for two or three dates the week after. We don't go out for too long these days, and working around the Wednesday residency is part of it. We used to like to go out and stay for weeks at a time, but what you find is that so many of those early-week dates, Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday, you just end up paying for a hotel room and waiting for the weekend dates. So that sort of long touring is not as sustainable for anyone as it used to be."
Through whatever changes the music industry has, the Iguanas' hunger for new sounds and trying new things continues, and the four members still love what they do.
"I think if there's any new flavors in our new music today, it's a certain hill country blues direction," Coman mused. "Then we toss out a few other flavors. We've still got eclectic tastes. There's a bundle of things we do, new music and our older stuff, that have gone through some permutations that are really cool. We keep trying to find new ways of doing even the oldest stuff, and we have not exhausted that approach yet.
"I think you can see that progression, that constant trying different things, through all our records," Coman added. "Our third album, for example, was more experimental. We've always brought unconventional ways of playing our music to the records. Live, onstage, we tend to be much more dance-oriented. It's great to be going back to play at the Narrows Center, and playing on a festival like this, we'll probably take a slight shift in our set, including more of the good-vibe material that enhance the whole celebration."
Away from music, Coman also hosts a podcast called "Troubled Men" on iTunes, with New Orleans gadfly Manny Chevrolet. "He's a perennial candidate for mayor down here," said Coman. "He's going to keep running until he wins, but we talk about everything, and that's been a lot of fun."
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Vous êtes ici : Accueil → Recherche → Séminaires et Congrès du Laboratoire
ISFA-COLUMBIA Workshop speakers
José BLANCHET
Jose Blanchet is a faculty member in the departments of IEOR and Statistics at Columbia University. Jose holds a Ph.D. in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University. Prior to joining Columbia he was a faculty member in the Statistics Department at Harvard University. Jose is a recipient of the 2009 Best Publication Award given by the INFORMS Applied Probability Society and of the 2010 Erlang Prize. He also received a PECASE award given by NSF in 2010. He worked as an analyst inProtego Financial Advisors, a leading investment bank in Mexico. He has research interests in applied probability and Monte Carlo methods. He serves in the editorial board of Advances in Applied Probability, Journal of Applied Probability, Mathematics of Operations Research, QUESTA, Stochastic Models, and Stochastic Systems.
Stephane LOISEL
ISFA, Lyon 1 University
Professor Stephane Loisel holds a PhD in applied mathematics from University of Lyon, a MSc in actuarial science and finance, and is a fellow and former member of the board of the Institut des Actuaires. He is now full professor at ISFA , Universite Lyon 1. He was visiting professor at ORIE, Cornell University in 2014 and has been lecturing for several years in Universite Paris 6 and ENSAE. Associate Editor of IME, MCA P, BFA , Risks and co-editor of EAJ, his main research interests include ruin theory with dependent risks, Solvency II, regulation and ERM, longevity risk and customer behaviour in insurance. He is the coordinator of the ANR 4-year research project LoLitA (Longevity with Lifestyle Adjustments) and of the research chair Actuariat Durable sponsored by Milliman Paris. He received the SCOR PhD award in 2005, the Lloyd’s Science of Risk runner-up prize in 2011 and the Hachemeister prize in 2013. Stephane also serves on the CERA review panel and is the scientific director of the French CERA program. He is a board member and member of the audit committee of April Group.
Lam DANG
BNP Paribas Cardif
After graduating from AgroParisTech and ENSAE, Lam Dang started his carrer in 2013 as Data Analyst for RMS, where he did marketing and pricing analysis for numerous clients in retail industries. In 2015, he joined BNP Parisbas Cardif as Data Scientist, working on Machine Learning, Big Data and promoting Analytics. Lam is passionate for Data Science and has a big interest for Deep Learning and AI
Edouard DEBONNEUIL
Edouard holds masters of engineering, biostatistics, biogerontology and actuarial risks from Centrale Paris, UCLA, Paris V, ISFA. He worked on web behavioral models (IBM Research Center in Germany, IPO.com in the USA), biomedical and bioinformatics research (cardiopulmonary remodelling at Marie-Lannelongue and Inserm, genetics at the Pasteur Institute), actuarial derivatives and statistics from large databases regarding financial risks, longevity risks and health risks (Derivatives at HSBC, AXA Group and AXA France, Celtipharm). Passionnate in transforming societies towards longer and healthier lives, he tries to have an understanding both from biomedical and actuarial sciences and he is co-founder and member of the board of the International Longevity Alliance, an association present in more than 50 countries.
Nicole EL KAROUI
Pierre et Marie Curie University, Paris
Nicole El Karoui is currently emeritus professor of Applied Mathematics at the Laboratoire de Probabilités et Modèles Aléatoires of Pierre and Marie Curie University and previously professor at the École Polytechnique and Université du Maine (France). Her research has contributed to the application of probability and stochastic differential equations to modeling and risk management in financial markets. Nicole's research is focused on probability theory, stochastic control theory and mathematical finance and more recently on population dynamics and longevity risk. Her contributions focused on the mathematical theory of stochastic control, backward stochastic differential equations (BSDEs) and their application in mathematical finance. In mathematical finance, she is known for her work on the robustness of the Black-Scholes hedging strategy, superhedging of contingent claims and the change of numéraire method for option pricing. Nicole is the coordinator of ANR Project LoLitA (Longevity with Lifestyle Adjustments) in Pierre and Marie Curie University.
Christophe GEISSLER
Advestis
Christophe graduated from «Ecole Normale Supérieure» Ulm (mathematics and computer science), and member of the French Actuaries Institute. He has occupied various positions in quantitative finance since 1986 in banks (Lazard, CPR, BNP Paribas, Société Générale) before launching Advestis in 2011. His fields of interest include quantitative finance, asset allocation models and machine learning. Christophe is also partner of Quinten, a french company created in 2008, applying data science to healthcare and insurance.
Nabil KAZI-TANI
Nabil Kazi-Tani holds a PhD in applied mathematics from Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, a MSc in mathematics and in economics and is a former student of Ecole Normale Supérieure in Cachan. He is now associate professor at ISFA, Université de Lyon 1.
Nabil specializes in probability theory, in the study of stochastic differential equations, dynamic risk measures and optimization, with applications in actuarial science and in particular in reinsurance models.
Olivier LOPEZ
Pierre et Marie Curie University
Olivier Lopez is Professor of applied mathematics at Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris VI, Laboratoire de Statistique Théorique et Appliquée. His topics of research cover high-dimensional statistics, duration models, and copula theory.
JingChen LIU
Columbia University, New York City
Jingchen Liu is Associate Professor at the Department of statistics at Columbia University. His research interests are Importance sampling, rare-event analysis; extremes of Gaussian random fields, queueing networks, and random ordinary and partial differential equations; latent variable modeling, cognitive assessment; computerized adaptive testing, sequential analysis; Bayesian modeling; missing data problems and multiple imputation; Markov chain Monte Carlo theory and applications.
Xavier MILHAUD
Xavier Milhaud is currently associate lecturer at ISFA, Université Lyon 1. He was previously assistant professor at ENSAE ParisTech, partly in charge of the actuarial department. He did a PhD in AXA insurance company in which he mainly worked on understanding policyholders’ behaviours in life insurance, more particularly focusing on modelling static and dynamic lapses. His research interests are closely linked to segmentation methods in order to model some portfolio heterogeneity by the use of regression models or non-parametric techniques. Typical practical applications are related to pricing and reserving in insurance.
Karthyek MURTHY
Karthyek Murthy is a post-doctoral research scientist in the Department of Industrial Engineering & Operations Research at Columbia University. He completed his PhD at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai where he was the recepient of IBM International PhD fellowship and TCS Research fellowships. His research interests lie broadly in applied probability & stochastic processes, with special emphasis on models that arise in operations research, insurance and mathematical finance. Building on his PhD work on rare events, he has been recently investigating stochastic modeling techniques that are robust to model risk. His PhD thesis was awarded with the TIFR-SASKEN Best thesis award for the year 2015
Frédéric PLANCHET
Professor Frédéric PLANCHET holds a PhD in actuarial sciances from University of Lyon and is a former student of the École Nationale de la Statistique et de l’Administration Economique (ENSAE). He is a fellow of the Institut des Actuaires. He is now full professor at ISFA, Université Lyon 1. His main research interests include market consistent valuations, economic scenario generators (both risk-neutral and historical views) – Modelling censored and truncated data (mortality, disability, lapse, etc.): best estimate assumptions for reserve calculations, longevity risk evaluation, catastrophic risk in life insurance.
Evgeny PUTIN
Insilico Medicine
Evgeny Putin is a Deep Learning Lead at Insilico Medicine, Inc, a bioinformatics company headquartered at the Emerging Technology Centers at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore applying deep learning techniques to biomarker development and drug discovery and repurposing for cancer and age¬-related diseases.
A winner of multiple mathematical competitions and olympiads, E.Putin did his graduate work at the Mathematics & Mechanics Faculty of Saint Petersburg State University. Evgeny Putin also works at the ITMO University teaching Deep Learning courses and coaches Kaggle competition teams at the university. He was one of the winners of the 6-day hackathon on deep learning, DeepHack.Game, at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. E.Putin is one of the leaders of Phrama.AI, an Artificial Intelligence division of Insilico Medicine, where he is heading several projects evaluating aging biomarkers based on common blood biochemistry tests and transcriptomic data.
Christian ROBERT
Professor Christian Robert holds a PhD in applied mathematics from University Paris Denis Diderot, a MSc in Finance and Statistics, and is a former student of the Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l’Administration Economique (ENSAE). He is a fellow of the Institut des Actuaires.
He is now full professor at ISFA, Université Lyon 1. Formerly, he was Associate Professor in Actuarial Science at ENSAE and Director of Graduate Studies at the Centre d’Etudes Actuarielles. Christian is an Associate Editor of the European Actuarial Journal.
His main research interests include extreme value theory and statistics, actuarial theory and practice, and statistical finance.
Matthias SCHERER
Prof. Scherer’s (b. 1979) research area is mathematical finance and stochastics. The aim of his research is to appraise complex financial products and quantify their risks. His work mainly revolves around modeling dependency structures and assessing portfolio derivatives.
Prof. Scherer studied business mathematics at the University of Ulm. He obtained his Master of Science in mathematics at the University of Syracuse (USA). He went on to do his doctorate in structural credit risk models at the University of Ulm (2007). In early 2007, he became coordinator of TUM’s “Finance and Information Management” elite study program. Prior to his appointment as associate professor of mathematical finance (2010), he acted as interim professor for two semesters.
Nicholas TATONETTI
Dr. Nicholas Tatonetti is assistant professor of biomedical informatics in the Departments of Biomedical Informatics, Systems Biology, and Medicine and is Director of Clinical Informatics at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at Columbia University. He received his PhD from Stanford University where he focused on the development of novel statistical and computational methods for observational data mining. He applied these methods to drug safety surveillance where he discovered and validated new drug effects and interactions. His lab at Columbia is focused on expanding upon his previous work in detecting, explaining, and validating drug effects and drug interactions from large-scale observational data. Widely published in both clinical and bioinformatics, Dr. Tatonetti is passionate about the integration of hospital data (stored in the electronic health records) and high-dimensional biological data (captured using next-generation sequencing, high-throughput screening, and other "omics" technologies). Dr. Tatonetti has been featured by the New York Times, Genome Web, and Science Careers. His work has been picked up by the mainstream and scientific media and generated thousands of news articles.
Julien VELCIN
Lyon University
Julien Velcin is associate professor of Computer Science at the University Lyon 2, with the qualification for supervising research (HDR, in French). I am a member of the Data Mining & Decision team of ERIC Lab. His current research focuses on machine learning with applications to the analysis of social media and opinion mining. He is particularly interested in weakly-supervised clustering techniques and topic modeling.
Alexander ZHAVORONKOV
Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD is the CEO of Insilico Medicine, Inc a Baltimore-based company utilizing big data analysis and deep learning for aging research and drug discovery. He also heads the International Aging Research Portfolio (IARP) knowledge management system for aging research and serves as the chief science officer of the Biogerontology Research Foundation in the UK.
Prior to Insilico Medicine, he co-founded the First Oncology Research and Advisory Center (FORAC), served as the director of ATI Technologies (Nasdaq: AMD) and as the director of GTCBio. Dr. Zhavoronkov is the author of over forty peer-reviewed scientific as well as popular papers and books including “The Ageless Generation: how biomedical advances will transform the global economy” published by Palgrave Macmillan.
He holds two bachelor degrees from Queen's University, a masters in biotechnology from Johns Hopkins University and a PhD in physics and mathematics from the Moscow State University and is the international adjunct professor at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.
Academics : 50€
Others : 100€
Back to the program
About Emil Gumbel
Ceremony in honour of Emil Julius Gumbel, famous statistician and former at ISFA and Columbia University ...
https://isfa.univ-lyon1.fr/recherche/seminaires-et-congres/isfa-columbia-workshop-speakers-831536.kjsp?RH=1454769584292
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NEWS WHISTLER
Whistler to get $7.5M in RMI this year PROVINCE BOOSTS TOTAL PROGRAM FUNDING TO $13 MILLION
BY BRADEN DUPUIS SOME RECENT CHANGES to the provincial Resort Municipality Initiative (RMI) program mean good news for Whistler—namely, more money to direct towards tourism offerings. The RMOW will get $7.5 million in RMI funding in 2019—a big boost from the approximately $6.5 million the resort received last year. “It’s pretty exciting,” said Mayor Jack Crompton. “Wonderful news. Thank you Province of British Columbia.” RMI money accounts for $13,150,000 in proposed RMOW project funding over the next five years, with $5,986,780 in 2019 alone. Some big RMI projects on the books for this year include $3,052,000 for three public washrooms in the village, $350,000 for the Alpine Trail Program and $310,000 for recreational trailheads. It remains to be seen how the extra $1 million will impact tourism offerings on the ground in the short term, but in general, the RMI funding is “critical to the success of our tourism economy,” Crompton said. “As a community of under 12,000 that
BIG BOOST Provincial Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture Lisa Beare, pictured here at an April 29 event, recently announced some changes to the province’s Resort Municipality Initiative program, including an increase of about $1 million for tourism offerings in Whistler in 2019.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE PROVINCE OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
supports a visitor population of 3 million annual visitors, this funding has played a critical role in Whistler’s success,” he said. In other good news, the province announced a big boost to the RMI program
as a whole, increasing the total budget to $13 million (from an average of $10.5 million annually in recent years). The announcement comes on the heels of the provincial government making RMI
a part of the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture’s core budget earlier this year. The program—intended to assist small, tourism-based municipalities to support and increase visitation—has doled out more than $129 million in funding to 14 communities since 2006. Other changes to the program include a new funding formula that provides a minimum of $100,000 to each of the RMI communities every year, as well as a new, annual, “performance-based” component based on tourism activity. “What we’re most enthusiastic about is the idea that there is performance benefits,” Crompton said. “When we see increased visitation, we have more funds to manage the impact and opportunity.” In 2016, the 14 resort communities that received RMI funding released a report, which found that tourism spending grew by more than 38 per cent from 2011 to 2015 while the rest of the province grew 20 per cent. The accommodation revenues collected in those communities grew 42 per cent (the rest of the province grew 29 per cent). The 14 RMI communities welcome 5.34 million visitors every year—105 visitors for every local resident. n
Whistler Publishing
Pique Newsmagazine 2618
Pique Newsmagazine for May 2, 2019
whistlerpublishing
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Tag Archives: bill withers
Montreal Jazz Fest: Scintillating if Sweaty — Herbie, Kamasi, Medeski, more.
By now, you’ve probably heard about the heat wave that landed in Quebec, just in time for the 39th annual Montreal International Jazz Festival, which in some years has attracted an attendance estimated at two million. It was a scorcher of historic proportions, with temps rising into the high 90s during the day and not dropping below the mid-80s on some evenings.
The cool vibes of the fest, which ran for 10 days in mid-summer and featured performances by 3,000 musicians from 300 countries at 500 indoor and outdoor shows, nevertheless made a soothing balm for that extended bout of steam heat.
For my fifth visit (if I’m counting correctly), I enjoyed what felt like a year’s worth of great shows in a short period — four days’ and nights’ worth of memorable concerts, from Friday, June 29 through Monday, July 2.
Montreal’s jazz fest, unlike some others, which, say, focus on smooth jazz or have turned into predictable affairs dominated by nostalgic hitmaking acts, successfully programs several varieties of jazz, and also incorporates other genres — notably blues, world music, Americana, and new and classic pop, rock, and hip-hop.
Most importantly, for jazz fans, the fest continues to bring in high-caliber artists playing acoustic/straightahead jazz, fusion, Latin jazz, avant/outside, and other varieties variously influenced by funk, soul, and rock.
The fest’s multiple series of “Invitation” shows, held in the cool, comfortable Gesu, an intimate theater beneath an historic stone church, are always a treat. I have fond memories of Cuban piano monster Gonzalo Rubalcaba‘s series at the fest, way back in 2002 (During Rubalcaba’s stint, I interviewed him for downbeat).
This year was no exception: John Medeski, the gifted pianist, organist and keyboardist in the long-running trio Medeski Martin and Wood, over three nights offered close-up views of his eclectic musical passions.
Medeski’s most accessible performance was with Mad Skillet, a group generally inspired by New Orleans rhythms and textures. The quartet included guitarist Will Bernard; NOLA tuba wizard and Dirty Dozen Brass Band co-founder Kirk Joseph, who spiced his tuba ministrations with special effects; and drummer Julian Addison. NOLA funk was the operating groove, and a color-shifting take on Sun Ra’s “Golden Lady” was one of several gems the band played on June 30.
Mad Skillet sounded more confident and more open to taking chances with their arrangements and their repertoire than when I heard them in January 2017 at the GroundUp Music Festival in Miami, with Terence Higgins on drums (I reviewed the fest for JazzTimes).
For a June 29 trio set with guitarist Marc Ribot and drummer J.T. Lewis (above), Medeski held forth on B3 organ, and gave lots of space to Ribot’s bluesy, bent six-string excursions. The three mostly dug into into jazz-funk for the likes of Horace Silver’s “Strollin’ ” and an imaginative version of Steppenwolf’s “Sookie Sookie.”
Night 3 (July 1) was all about nearly nonstop electroacoustic improvisations, with Medeski joined by a pair of drummers — MMW bandmate Chris Wood, and Mark Guiliana — and the three collectively generating multicolor sounds and funk, rock, hip-hop, and EDM rhythms via a large arsenal of keyboards and percussion instruments. (The Medeski series was followed by two others — by Guiliana, overlapping with his show with Medeski, and Dr. Lonnie Smith).
There was much more to hear and see, of course, as hundreds of thousands of concertgoers flooded onto the streets around the Place des Arts performing arts complex. My review of the fest’s first few days for JazzTimes, which the mag combined with Sharonne Cohen‘s overview of the second half, is available here.
A quick look at some of the other jazz-oriented shows I caught in Montreal:
Herbie Hancock, above, at the beautifully appointed Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier theater, led a quartet with guitarist Lionel Loueke, bassist James Genus, and drummer Trevor Lawrence Jr. They offered 100 minutes of high-energy fusion and funk. Pulling out his keytar at one point, the jazz legend aired out some new tunes, along with the likes of “Come Running to Me,” “Cantaloupe Island,” “Actual Proof,” “Watermelon Man,” and the closing “Chameleon.” Six-string bass guitar virtuoso Thundercat applied his falsetto vocals and speedy solos to a blast of soulful next-gen fusion.
Kamasi Washington, above, the widely celebrated L.A. tenor saxophonist and unofficial leader of a newfangled, school of soul-rooted, R&B-influenced jazz, was garbed in a yellow-and-purple robe for his ecstatically received, SRO set at the huge Mtelus nightclub. Joined by his father, Rickey Washington, on soprano sax, trombonist Ryan Porter, bassist Miles Mosley, singer Patrice Quinn, keyboardist Brandon Coleman, and drummers Robert Miller and Tony Austin, he turned in soaring, spiritually minded anthems, deep funk grooves, and occasional detours into hard bop, partly imbued with a cosmic black-power vibe. Those musical and visual references to John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, and Sun Ra? Yes, they were organic, but also intentional. The set, drawn from this year’s “Heaven and Earth” album, last year’s “Harmony of Difference” EP and 2015’s breakthrough “The Epic” album: “Street Fighter Mas,” “The Rhythm Changes,” Giant Feelings,” drums feature “Bobby and Tony’s Day Off,” “Space Travelers Lullaby,” and “Fists of Fury.”
Cory Henry, the former Snarky Puppy keyboardist, cranked up his synthesizer and amped up the jazz-funk at the MTelus on “Love Will Find a Way,” a raucous cover of “Proud Mary,” and “Send Me a Sign,” among other crowd favorites.
Jose James, opening for Henry, offered smartly arranged, perfectly calibrated versions of Bill Withers‘ old-school R&B classics: “Ain’t No Sunshine,” “Grandma’s Hands,” “Who is He (and What is He to You),” “Use Me,” and “Lean on Me,” the last one complete with a call-and-response section with the crowd and a statement of faith: “This is my religion .. diversity and unity,” he said. Backed by a group including the top-shelf rhythm section of bassist Ben Williams and drummer Nate Smith, James also brought out “Kissing My Love,” “Just the Two of Us,” and “A Lovely Day.” Most or all of those tunes will be heard on James’ forthcoming Withers tribute album, “Lean on Me.”
(My review of Americana hero Ry Cooder‘s set will be published in a forthcoming issue of Relix magazine.)
Posted in bassists, drummers, guitarists, jazz, jazz festivals, JazzTimes, keyboardists, montreal international jazz festival, music criticism, pianists, Relix, saxophonists, Travel, trumpeters, Uncategorized
Tagged actual proof, ain't no sunshine, ben williams, bill withers, brandon coleman, cantaloupe island, chameleon, chris wood, come running to me, cory henry, DownBeat, dr. lonnie smith, gonzalo rubalcaba, grandma's hands, groundup music festival, Herbie Hancock, j.t. lewis, james genus, jazzlands, jazztimes, john medeski, jose james, julian addison, kamasi washington, kirk joseph, lean on me, Lionel Loueke, mad skillet, Marc Ribot, mark guiliana, miles mosley, montreal, Montreal International Jazz Festival, Nate Smith, New Orleans, NOLA, patrice quinn, Relix, rickey washington, rio tinto, robert miller, Ry Cooder, ryan porter, sharonne cohen, snarky puppy, sun ra, terence higgins, thundercat, tony austin, trevor lawrence jr., use me, who is he, will bernard
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Category: Induction
Client Side Technologies
January 17, 2018 by kcimgdtonymulligan, posted in 1st Day
Client: A desktop computer or workstation that is capable of obtaining information and applications from a server.
HTML: Hypertext Markup Language, a standardized system for tagging text files to achieve font, colour, graphics, and hyperlink effects on World Wide Web pages.
CSS: A cascading style sheet (CSS) is a Web page derived from multiple sources with a defined order of precedence where the definitions of any style element conflict.
Bootstrap: A technique of loading a program into a computer by means of a few initial instructions which enable the introduction of the rest of the program from an input device.
Javascript: An object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers.
Query: A query is a request for data or information from a database table or combination of tables. This data may be generated as results returned by Structured Query Language (SQL) or as pictorials, graphs or complex results, e.g., trend analyses from data-mining tools.
AJAX: The method of exchanging data with a server, and updating parts of a web page – without reloading the entire page.
Angular: Is a structural framework for dynamic web apps. It lets you use HTML as your template language and lets you extend HTML’s syntax to express your application’s components clearly and succinctly. AngularJS’s data binding and dependency injection eliminate much of the code you would otherwise have to write.
Cookies: A small text file (up to 4KB) created by a website that is stored in the user’s computer either temporarily for that session only or permanently on the hard disk (persistent cookie). Cookies provide a way for the website to recognize you and keep track of your preferences.
Protocol: a set of guidelines for implementing networking communications between computers. Among the most important sets of the Internet protocols are TCP/IP, HTTPS, SMTP, and DNS.
FTP: The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is the standard network protocol used for the transfer of computer files between a client and server on a computer network. FTP is built on a client-server model architecture and uses separate control and data connections between the client and the server.
CMS: A content management system (CMS) is a computer application that supports the creation and modification of digital content. It typically supports multiple users in a collaborative environment.
Web-Server: Web servers are computers that deliver (serves up) Web pages. Every Web server has an IP address and possibly a domain name. For example, if you enter the URL http://www.webopedia.com/index.html in your browser, this sends a request to the Web server whose domain name is webopedia.com.
Database: A database management system (DBMS) is a computer software application that interacts with end-users, other applications, and the database itself to capture and analyze data. A general-purpose DBMS allows the definition, creation, querying, update, and administration of databases.
PHP: A scripting language that is widely used to create dynamic Web pages. Combining syntax from the C, Java and Perl languages, PHP code is embedded within HTML pages for server-side execution.
SQL: Structured Query Language (SQL) is a standard computer language for relational database management and data manipulation. SQL is used to query, insert, update and modify data.
mySQL: MySQL is an open source relational database management system (RDBMS) based on Structured Query Language (SQL). … LAMP is a Web development platform that uses Linux as the operating system, Apache as the Web server, MySQL as the relational database management system and PHP as the object-oriented scripting language.
ASP.net: ASP.NET is a set of Web development tools offered by Microsoft. Programs like Visual Studio .NET and Visual Web Developer allow Web developers to create dynamic websites using a visual interface. … ASP.NET is built on the.NETframework, which provides an application program interface (API) for software programmers.
Live-Action Video Game Trailer.
L.A Noire: Black screen, then a man walking into a dark alley, Turns to the cameras. The camera runs in the other direction. (Switch to gameplay of Car chase) Switch to man running down another small alley with Gun. Sirens in the background. Police shout “GET ON THE FLOOR OR I’LL SHOOT!”. (Gunshot) Black screen.
(Gameplay) Man Sitting in a room. Interrogation. Slams hand on desk. Shouts “Damn it”. Why Did you do it?!. (Switch back to gameplay of someone shooting someone.)
Idea 1:
Add people walking on black screen for audio. Police sirens,
January 9, 2018 January 10, 2018 by kcimgdtonymulligan, posted in 1st Day
REFRESH STUDIO
November 8, 2017 March 8, 2018 by kcimgdtonymulligan, posted in 1st Day
History Of App Design
November 8, 2017 November 8, 2017 by kcimgdtonymulligan, posted in 1st Day
Today, Android and iOS users can download from a selection of literally millions of apps. But long before we were swapping faces on SnapChat, designers were paving the way for us to use our mobile devices to play games, do business and, yes, even change the world.
1984: The Psion Organiser
The Psion Organiser, thought to be the world’s first PDA, is the granddaddy of your favorite mobile “smart” device. Advertised as “the world’s first practical pocket computer,” the Psion Organizer was 14 by 9 centimeters, making it a pocket computer only for the most liberal definitions of “pocket.” By modern definitions of “computer,” it was also quite modest, with a mere two kilobytes of RAM and four kilobytes of ROM. However, for the time, it was an incredibly forward thinking device, and its six-month battery life is still enviable by contemporary standards.
1996: Birth of the Palm Pilot
the release of the Palm Pilot PDA. With a choice of either 128 or 512 kilobytes of built-in memory (you could add up to 2 megabytes of RAM via the memory slot, but it would cost you), and with a 160×160 pixel monochrome screen, the Pilot was hugely influential both in its time and even today. Many of the features we now associate with modern smartphones, including touchscreens and data synchronization, were introduced in the 90s as features of the Palm Pilot.
1997: Snake on the Nokia 6110
While not a smartphone, the Nokia 6110 made a major innovation when it came to mobile app design: it shipped with three games, the most famous being Snake.
2007: The iPhone Changes Mobile App Design Forever
Millennials and mobile app design geeks may recall the 2007 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference with the same mix of wonder and nostalgia with which baby boomers remember Apollo 11. That’s when Steve Jobs introduced us to the iPhone for the first time and permanently changed the game for mobile app designers and developers.
2017: iPhone still leading in app design.
Industries & 3D Modelling
September 15, 2017 by kcimgdtonymulligan, posted in 1st Day
Architecture, Publishing, Geology, Weapons, Dental, Entertainment,
3D publishing concerns the production and distribution of content for 3D printers. 3D publishing holds out the promise of an industry for the creation and distribution of files for the production of 3D objects.
Any individual or organization producing files for 3D printers can be considered a 3D publisher. With the advent of specialist software, scanners and cloud based tools, access to 3D publishing is spreading fast. The development of online tools to facilitate and monetize publishing is bringing a new industry to fruition. Boundaries between value chains are disappearing, leading to new business models. While 3D publishing and 3D publishers is a fairly new concept, a lot of development is happening in this space alongside the breakneck development of 3D printing hardware and software.
Movie Planning Requirements
Before Pre-Production:
Script (ideas/dialogue etc),
Pre-Production:
Hiring Crew/Cast
Locations Scout/Recce
Set building, Props
Story Boarding/Animatic
Live Sound & Audio
Live Special Effects
Updated Scripts
Post Production:
Foley (Remaking Sounds that cant be picked up when filming)
Soundscape and Sound Track
CGI/Compositing
Marketing/Merchandise
Pre Release Screening
EDL (Edit Decision List/Paper Edit)
Pre-Production: Pre-production is the process of fixing some of the elements involved in a film, play, or other performance. Pre-production ends when the planning ends and the content starts being produced.
Production: In production, the video production/film is created and shot. More crew will be recruited at this stage, such as the property master, script supervisor, assistant directors, stills photographer, picture editor, and sound editors. These are just the most common roles in filmmaking; the production office will be free to create any unique blend of roles to suit the various responsibilities possible during the production of a film.
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President Museveni receives Sudans ruler
ganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has expressed his gratitude to learn that the situation in Sudan is now normalising following the agreement reached between the Military Council and other groups in Khartoum.
“I had a good briefing from His Excellency. I am very happy now the Military Council has agreed with the groups. I encourage the Sudanese to agree because this type of agitation is very dangerous. It scares away business and it scares away investors,” he said.
The President made the remarks on friday 5th, 2019 after meeting the Chairman of the Transitional Military Council, H.E. Abdalftah Alburhan Alrahman, who called on him at the State Lodge in Mbale Municipality, Eastern Uganda.
The Chairperson of the Sudanese Military Council was accompanied by a delegation of members of the Council together with the Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Sam Kuteesa.
President Museveni pointed out that Uganda had a long experience in a similar situation and later realised that a lot of development time had already been lost.
“By the time we were trying to get out, we had lost a lot of development time. The earlier we agree to move in a democratic way the better,” he said.
The visiting Chairperson of the Military Council, H.E. Abdalftah Alburhan Alrahman on his part, said they were very happy to be in Uganda to meet President Museveni. He added that the visit had come at a critical time when there is now an agreement between the Military Council and other groups in the Sudan.
He described President Museveni as a father and a wise man of Africa who has a lot of experience, which can be given to the neighbouring countries and Africa as a whole.
“We wish that the visit will have a very positive reflection on the way forward for Sudan internally, regionally and externally,” he said. He assured his host that Sudan is going to be accommodative to everybody and will restore its former glory.
Previous President Kenyatta mourns lawyer Karanja Kabage
Next President Uhuru Kenyatta to preside over the commissioning of Bandari Maritime Academy
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Project Tag: comparative studies
The Shape of Ancient Thought
Author: Thomas McEvilley
I approached McEvilley’s tome in a full post-Modernist ride. Around four years ago, I began to look into Indian and Buddhist philosophy to find solace and inspiration – something I could not find in the western philosophies I have been taught at school. That has been my gateway into proper philosophical inquiry, however hesitant and stumbling.
The recent turn has been to pursue a degree in philosophy, which of course is exclusively western. So I was interested in looking at possible connections between the two traditions. Specifically, the single piece of information which prompted me to buy the book was the hypothesis – not a new one – that Greek skepticism was influenced by early Buddhism. Several books, more modest in their dimensions, have come up recently to deal with that particular issue; however, I wanted to have a broader picture, so I opted for McEvilley’s work.
I’m glad I did so. Concerning the diffusion hypothesis in support of Buddhist influence over Pyrrhonism, McEvilley is clear in pointing out that the main elements of the Pyrrhonist doctrine should be traced back to the Greek Skeptic tradition of the Democritean lineage, rather than to the Buddhist; the ‘suspension of judgement’ precept, for example, serves the psychological purpose of attaining tranquillity in Skeptisim, not the religious aim of escaping transmigration of Buddhism.
For McEvilley, the hypothesis is even turned upside down: a detailed inquiry into the development of dialectic in the Indian tradition suggests that it underwent an abrupt change, which could be observed in the works of Nagarjuna, an extremely important author of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition that is generally claimed responsible of a the ‘second turning of the Wheel of Dharma’. McEvilley points out that Mahayana has been developed in the Gandharian area, which had a strong Greek presence from the days of Alexander’s expedition; McEvilley parallels elements of Stoic and Epicurian logic with Madhyamika’s, but Greek traditions went through a steady development of dialectic, whereas it is hard to trace any logical argumentation of Nagarjuna to the ancient Indian tradition.1)“With Pyrrhon of Elis’s trip to India the pre-Alexandrian period ends. In that period Indian and Greek thinkers had developed similar dialectical attitudes. But only in Greece, it seems, had these attitudes equipped themselves with formal methods in this period. After Alexander’s colonisation of northwest India a five-hundred-long period of Greek and Indian cultural intermixing took place. Toward the end of this period, the array of Greek dialectical forms turns up in India, mature, complete, and without evidence of developmental stages, in the school of Buddhist thought called Madhyamika.” McEvilley, T. (2002) The Shape of Ancient Thought (Allworth Press, New York) p.416
Of the two important moments of diffusion across Greek and Indian philosophies sketched out in the book, what I have just briefly described points to a diffusion of methods. The second concerns a diffusion of contents, and it dates back to the pre-Socratic period. I knew very little about eastern influences in Greek thought, even though Greeks themselves acknowledge that much knowledge in astronomy and mathematics, for example, derived from Mesopotamia. So much for external influence – which is not preeminently subversive, as it comes from the Near East, though unbeknownst to the lay student. And although evidence begins to be gathered, Indian influence over Greek thought is even more difficult to be accepted, mainly for ethnical reasons.
And here comes the post-Modernist wave: it is destabilising for its relativisation of values, and precious for its eagerness of stripping out historical analysis of ethnical prejudices. I am all for whatever inquiry that aims at recognising an ethnically broad set of contributions to the history of mankind, at whatever may reduce the unnecessary and unjustified gaps of Western supremacy vs. Eastern subordinancy. At the same time, that research shouldn’t be done unrigorously, under pressure of post-colonial rehabilitation, for example. Yes, cultural and intellectual change occurred at a much faster pace in Greece than in India, probably for its weaker connections with religion. Still, the traditional division into “Greek=rational”, “Indian=mystical” is quite outdated, as a detailed comparison of both traditions sketches out a balanced compenetration of mystical pursuit and argumentative wit on both sides.
Let’s finally come down to the diffusion of contents: McEvilley argues that through the medium of Persia – where Greeks and Indians lived together at the cosmopolitan court of Persian emperors – Indian thought shaped Greek philosophy2)The dissemination process can be expanded as follows: “A teaching that came into Greece and India in the Bronze Age or earlier seems to have been reinforced in Greece in the sixth century by a wave of Indian input, which probably originated in the same Bronze Age source but had undergone significant reinterpretation as its context changed. The Mesopotamian doctrine, in other words, if such there was, had travelled both into Greece and India by 1000 B.C.; subsequently it remained inconspicuous and, probably, unchanging in Greece, but in India it underwent further development, associating it with convergent doctrines from the non-Vedic community, and so on; the this developed form of the doctrine in turn was disseminated from India into Greece in the sixth century B.C.” McEvilley, T. (2002) p.287 on the side of monism, substance monism, atomism, elemental transformation and probably reincarnation: “Upanisads seem to precede Parmenides in monism, and to have directly influenced Heraclitus’s view of the process of nature; Jain atomism and Carvaka materialism would seem to precede Democritus.”3)McEvilley, T. (2002) p.653
Probably the most striking parallel is of ethical order, and it concerns the precept of imperturbability (object of the last chapter of the book): Platonism and Neoplatonism, the Vedanta and most schools of Mahayana Buddhism devise a transcendentalist approach to connect with a higher Being by means of perceptual disengagement; Theravada Buddhism, Epicurianism, Skepticism and Stoicism ground imperturbability on the understanding of natural laws. Imperturbability (ataraxia) is that mental condition by which a man is indifferent and equanimous to the events of daily life; it is a virtue ethics theme, which claims that the same act performed under different mental conditions has different ethical values. Only Aristotle advocates for a full engagement in feelings and passions. It was very interesting to me to note such similarities, and I could not help but to think about how ethical directives from such different backgrounds could be compared, given that nowadays the precept of imperturbability is brought on by the revival of Stoicism, Buddhism and Zen. Owen Flanagan outlined in The Bodhisattva’s Brain how an hypothetical assessment of ethical effectiveness could proceed only after defining which type of ‘happiness’ each tradition seeks; afterwords, one can proceed to gather the ethical guidelines and see if they could match their goals. Given although that two different types of ‘happiness’ are compared, nothing much could be said about which to prefer. The surprisingly closeness of ‘imperturbability’ definitions among such different traditions made me wonder if an operational definition could be given to perform neurophysiological studies; the question of grounding morality in science is far from being resolved and highly controversial, but in this case, having a somewhat similar ethical goal, it would be possible to test different guidelines empirically against each other. The question then may be if imperturbability is even a desirable goal. On one hand, it is undeniable that humans search for mental stability, in different degrees; yet at the same time, many would argue that a life without emotions is not a life anymore.
McEvilley’s chapters can be read as brief stories, inasmuch how historical and anthropological his outlook is, and not necessarily in its entirety, for the main concepts are broadly repeated; the length of the volume keeps the promise of dwelling into lots of historical, philosophical, philological and artistic details. With an overtly abused label: an ‘highly recommended’ reading.
Further notes and interesting remarks:
The famous Pythagoras’s tuning experiments were not groundbreaking: basic harmonic ratios were already well-known and studied in Mesopotamia. Mesopotamian influences are much broader that one may think (the calendar, the sexagesimal system, the Processional cycle).
You can turn the title into a question: “What shape is ancient thought? Round.”4)McEvilley, T. (2002) p.91
First notions of ethics found in the Vedic emphasis on rituals: “Good is equated with the correct performance of the rite, bad with the incorrect performance.”5)McEvilley, T. (2002) p.114
How many times do we think of our civilisation as the most cosmopolitan and liberal of all times? Not to say that we have not made progress, but let’s not forget how long it took us to get here, and that others have attempted to do so in the past as well: “The Achaemenid state was the first world empire in history to proclaim a completely tolerant and benevolent treatment of the cultural traditions of dozens of peoples and tribes.” 6)McEvilley, T. (2002) p.125
The Bull of Wall Street? A symbol of growth which traces directly back to Sumerians.7)McEvilley, T. (2002) p.265
On the history of the concept of infinity: it arose with conscious effort in Greece with Anaxagoras, much before Indian thought came to grasp the concept.8)McEvilley, T. (2002) p.313
On the reported beginnings of phenomenalism in western tradition: the Democritean attempt to explain and save the relationship between human experience and the physical reality of atoms and void: “Sweet exists [only] by convention, bitter[only] by convention, color [only] by convention: in reality there is only atoms and void.” (Fr. 9) The Parmenidean emphasis on the illusory character of sensorial experience is thus safeguarded.9)McEvilley, T. (2002) p.316
On matters of atomism, McEvilley goes further to argue that the basics of Democritus’s philosophy could be found even earlier in India, under the teachings of Ajivika Pakhuda Kaccayana.10)McEvilley, T. (2002) p.318 The author points out that, during the described influence of Indian thought on Greeks through the medium of Persian Empire, atomism may well have been among the subjects of philosophical contamination.11)McEvilley, T. (2002) p.321
To challenge the common belief that Indian philosophy may be treated unitarily, as an almost coherently metaphysical thought: Carvakas held for a materialistic naturalism which made them think of “conceptions of religious ethics, such as karma, samsara, and moksha [liberazione] … as deliberate deceptions by the priestly caste which profited economically from them.”12)McEvilley, T. (2002) p.328
Parallels between Buddhist and Epicurean utilitarian hedonism; in Buddhism, although, the evaluation involves not only a personal account of happiness, but also the sufferings of people who are involved in the course of action that is under evaluation.13)McEvilley, T. (2002) p.338 Examples of moral progress, if we take Singer’s definition in The Expanding Circle. No wonder Buddhism has gained momentum in America over the last 50 years; as the author points out, “logical positivism, pragmatism, linguistic criticism, empiricism, and utilitarianism seem to have been characteristic of early Buddhism.”14)McEvilley, T. (2002) p.340
Substantial difference between contemporary ‘skeptical movements’ and ancient skepticism: “Sextus’s statement that the Skeptic “keeps on inquiring” does not mean that he is actively engaged in a search for the truth, but that he has not settled on a position.” 15)and that “The most important effect of the Skptics’s epochè is to preserve him from philosophical discussion.” McEvilley, T. (2002) p.479
On the origins of the Buddhist Mahayana tradition (that which is led by the Dalai Lama, to be clear), of which, as touched upon before, Nagarjuna is the ‘founder’: it “seems to have been originated in the Greco-Buddhist communities of India, through a conflation of the Greek Democritean-sophistic-skeptical tradition with the rudimentary and unformalised empirical and skeptical elements already present in Early Buddhism.” 16)McEvilley, T. (2002) p.503
Hints of probability as an useful epistemological tool in Epicurean logician Philodemus.17)McEvilley, T. (2002) p.512
1. ↑ “With Pyrrhon of Elis’s trip to India the pre-Alexandrian period ends. In that period Indian and Greek thinkers had developed similar dialectical attitudes. But only in Greece, it seems, had these attitudes equipped themselves with formal methods in this period. After Alexander’s colonisation of northwest India a five-hundred-long period of Greek and Indian cultural intermixing took place. Toward the end of this period, the array of Greek dialectical forms turns up in India, mature, complete, and without evidence of developmental stages, in the school of Buddhist thought called Madhyamika.” McEvilley, T. (2002) The Shape of Ancient Thought (Allworth Press, New York) p.416
2. ↑ The dissemination process can be expanded as follows: “A teaching that came into Greece and India in the Bronze Age or earlier seems to have been reinforced in Greece in the sixth century by a wave of Indian input, which probably originated in the same Bronze Age source but had undergone significant reinterpretation as its context changed. The Mesopotamian doctrine, in other words, if such there was, had travelled both into Greece and India by 1000 B.C.; subsequently it remained inconspicuous and, probably, unchanging in Greece, but in India it underwent further development, associating it with convergent doctrines from the non-Vedic community, and so on; the this developed form of the doctrine in turn was disseminated from India into Greece in the sixth century B.C.” McEvilley, T. (2002) p.287
3. ↑ McEvilley, T. (2002) p.653
4. ↑ McEvilley, T. (2002) p.91
10. ↑ McEvilley, T. (2002) p.318
15. ↑ and that “The most important effect of the Skptics’s epochè is to preserve him from philosophical discussion.” McEvilley, T. (2002) p.479
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Meet John
Hearing Info
Hearing Loss Information
Brain Health, Memory Loss, and Hearing
Did you know that one in four Americans between ages 65 and 74, and half of those 75 and older, have disabling hearing loss? It is the third most prevalent chronic condition affecting the elderly, after high blood pressure and arthritis. Hearing loss is more than an auditory problem. Research has shown that it affects quality of life, emotional health, and even raises the risk for dementia.
Jennifer A. Deal, PhD, director of graduate studies in the department of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, co-authored a study in which the cognitive function of 253 older men and women was tested over a period of 20 years. The study found a greater decline in memory and other mental abilities in those who had moderate-to-severe hearing impairment.
“We found a difference…equal to approximately a three-year increase in age,” says Deal.
A separate study found that restoring hearing by use of a cochlear implant — a surgically implanted electronic device that does the work for damaged portions of the ear — improved cognitive function in elderly patients. Attentiveness, memory, and mental flexibility scores increased among seriously deaf seniors within a year of cochlear implantation.
Brain Issues and Hearing
The brain center for hearing stores sounds and noises for up to three years following the onset of a hearing loss. But after about seven years the memory becomes weaker and weaker.
Therefore, it is important to have your hearing tested and hearing aids fitted when you find that you are losing some of your hearing. Once you have a hearing aid the hearing processing resumes supplying signals to the brain.
If the fitting of a hearing aid is seriously delayed not even a hearing aid will be able to transform the incoming sound signals into understandable information. This is referred to as hearing atrophy. This means that the brain no longer recognizes ordinary everyday sounds and noises, such as the hum of the refrigerator or the computer.
A Canadian study found that depression and loneliness are more common among seniors experiencing untreated hearing loss. Professor and researcher Charlotte A. Jones found that “You can just imagine not being able to catch the punchline on a joke or not hearing everything said and responding inappropriately […]. People start to shy away from social interactions and social events and eventually become isolated and lonely.” Mishearing and having to ask for repeated comments can become embarrassing and frustrating.
The best solution to avoiding these sorts of hearing related situations is to call your hearing health provider today. Appointments are non invasive and can help you get back in the swing of things with ease.
What Causes Hearing Loss & How Do I Know When To Seek Help?
Not all hearing loss is age related. It can be caused by infections, head trauma, abnormal bone growths, tumors such as an acoustic neuroma, and certain medications. Loud noises, like an explosion or prolonged exposure to music at a high volume, can cause acoustic trauma— or damage to inner ear structures — leading to hearing loss.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), some 15 percent of American adults under age 70, and 16 percent of teens, have hearing loss that may have been caused by exposure to noise at work or through other activities.
So, how do you know if you should make an appointment with a hearing professional? If you answer yes to three of the following 10 questions, you are advised to make an appointment for testing:
Do you have difficulty following a conversation when two or more people are speaking?
Do you have to strain to understand conversation?
Do you have trouble hearing in a noisy background?
Do you find yourself asking people to repeat themselves?
Do many people you talk to seem to mumble?
Do you misunderstand what others are saying and respond inappropriately?
Do you have trouble understanding the speech of women and children?
Do people get annoyed because you misunderstand what they say?
Give us a call to discover if hearing aids may be right for you.
Do you have questions? Contact us below!
Legacy Hearing Centers
507 North Nokomis St Alexandria, MN 56308
(320) 219-7744 John@LegacyHearingCenters.com
Copyright © 2019 Legacy Hearing Centers - All Rights Reserved.
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No plans to cap H-1B work visas for Indians: Senior US official
News June 21, 2019 Ritu Jha
The US has no plans to place caps on H-1B work visas for Indians, a senior administration official told reporters on Friday.
In a background briefing ahead of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to India next week, the official said that he (Pompeo) “will be able to assure the Indian leadership that we have no plans to place caps on H-1B work visas” for nations that are requiring local storage of data by American companies.
A review of the H-1B visa program is taking place, but “that is not targeted at India; it is completely separate”, the official said and acknowledged the importance of the visa program for US companies. “Indians have contributed under the H-1B program to the US economy.”
Some media reports had said that the US was going to cap the H-1B visas issued to Indians at 15 percent in retaliation for Indian regulations requiring some financial services companies like credit card issuers to store data within India. About 70 percent of H-1B visas now go to Indians.
The official also said that Pompeo’s visit will seek to deepen the relations between the two countries, especially in strategic and trade areas, as both democracies shared a commitment to open Indo-Pacific regions and shared concerns about the developments in the region.
Described External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar as “one of the visionaries behind the expansion of the India-US strategic partnership”, the official said Pompeo looked forward to meeting him and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The official saw Modi’s re-election with a stronger mandate as helping deepen ties with the US, especially in trade and business as it would mesh with his vision of building a strong India.
“Modi’s mandate strengthened the way he can implement his vision for a strong India that plays an important role in world affairs and US wants to help achieve it by moving the relationship on an upward trajectory,” the official added.
Trade will be an important part of Pompeo’s interactions in New Delhi, according to the official. He will seek to “jump-start a discussion on trade and move quickly to resolve long-standing irritants”, the official said, while acknowledging that they are not going to be resolved in one meeting but it will have to be a credible process.
The official also said that although bilateral trade has increased and US deficits have come down, India did not offer US companies a level playing field.
Welcoming India stopping the purchase of crude oil from Iran in response to US sanctions, the official, however, said that any change in the US policy to permit resumption of purchase was unlikely.
At the same time, the official confirmed that India’s Chabahar port project will be exempt from US sanctions. India will be able to continue essential humanitarian supplies to Afghanistan as well as to provide Afghanistan with economic alternative, the official said.
Regarding the S-400 Russian anti-missile system India is buying, the official said that it could run afoul of US sanctions against some military trade with Russia.
“We are encouraging India to look at alternatives,” the official said.
The US sought to enhance the quality of defense technology relations and was offering high technology available only to close allies like Japan, South Korea, and Australia, the official added.
Chabahar port, H1-B visa, S-400 Russian anti-missile
Trump administration reportedly considers cutting H-1B visas for Indian tech works
Yoga yet to fully reach poor, tribal people: Modi
Controversial ad rails against H1-B visas
Green card hopes flounder as DACA deal sinks
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Collie urged to shine a light on road safety
The Collie community is being urged to use Road Safety Week (8-14 May) to shine a light on the tragedy that is occurring on local roads.
Four people have died in single-vehicle crashes in the Collie area since 2016, rocking a town that has seen more than its fair share of road carnage. Most of the people who died were from the Collie community and three were less than 20 years old.
Last year, 195 people died on WA roads – 119 of them in regional areas and 26 in the South West. Another 235 people were critically injured. Of the fatalities, 62% were a result of crashes police suspect involved at least one driver behavioural factor be is speed, alcohol, fatigue, or inattention.
“We need to shine a light on this human tragedy that is occurring right in front of us,” Industry Road Safety Alliance South West chairperson Simon Dent said. “Road crashes have far-reaching consequences be it on the individuals involved, their family and friends, their workmates, the emergency services who attend, and it goes on and on. We are all impacted and we all have a role to play in stopping this trauma and in keeping ourselves and others safe on our roads.”
Road Safety Week is being marked across WA this week (8-14 May) by the Shine a Light on Road Safety Campaign. Major landmarks around the State are being illuminated in yellow and road users are being urged to show their support by driving with their headlights on throughout Friday, 12 May.
Mr Dent said the industry, local government and state government players that made up the Industry Road Safety Alliance South West were supporting the campaign and urged others to get behind it.
Synergy’s Alliance representative Greg Yates said the Shine a Light Campaign resonated strongly with the energy provider’s Collie workforce given the loss of two young apprentices in road crashes in less than 12 months. “While it’s estimated road crashes cost the Australian economy $27 billion a year, we have witnessed first-hand how the human cost is far greater,” Mr Yates said.
Premier Coal’s Alliance representative Jamie Wood said he had also witnessed first-hand the trauma of road crashes through his involvement with Collie Volunteer Fire and Rescue. “Driving is not a game,” he said. “Speed, alcohol, fatigue and inattention kill. We see it too often and it has to stop.”
WA Police’s Alliance representative Supt Mick Sutherland said close country communities felt the effects of fatal crashes harder than most. “The victims are not just a statistic but a family member, a friend, a co-worker, a teammate,” Supt Sutherland said. “If you don’t know them you know their family or friends. Collie police are part of the local community and are not immune from the impact.”
Collie Shire’s Alliance representative Brett Lowcock said the suffering needed to stop. “Every time we get behind the wheel we must think about how we can keep ourselves and others safe and act accordingly,” Mr Lowcock said. “Please show your commitment to road safety and drive with your headlights on throughout Friday, May 12th.”
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“Over the past decade, the influence of Chabad cultists in the world has not only grown but also entrenched. This is the only Jewish religious sect, which, assuming the role of leader of world Jewry, climbed into world politics. Its presence greatly affected American politics. In addition, the heads of state of the former Soviet Union are listening to Chabad.”
– Ukrainian author /activist Rabbi Baron Eduard Hodos
Factions of those in the domination game include persons within Chabad Lubavitch and Zionist infiltrators. A Messianic Jewish theocracy is very much part of the overall, top level psychopathic designs merging into the totality that is Pathocracy. More importantly, these factions are nodes within an overarching global occult influence as will discover in greater detail further along. As one faction of this emergence, these would-be-leaders of Chabad working within Judaism have definite objectives tied to foundational beliefs. Let’s remind ourselves what some of those beliefs are:
The abolition of Christmas.
The labelling of Christians or Gentiles as “idol worshippers.”
The instruction to all Christians to give up their religion or be put to death.
The education and instruction of a belief that Jesus practiced sorcery; worshipped stone idols and was sexually immoral.
To establish a caste system in the US based on heredity and religion.
The forcing of US citizens to adopt a synthesized “religion” invented for a servant class.
A World theocratic Jewish State [1]
As bizarre as it may sound, these are all part and parcel of Chabad Lubavitch literature, most typically the Noahide (or Noachide) Laws which are revered, respected and taken very seriously indeed. As German author and journalist Wolfgang Eggert reminds us:
“By 1723 freemasonry had already incorporated the Noachidic statutes into its Constitutions… Charges & Regulations; freemasons have always called themselves ‘Noachids’. In 1991 when the first war on Iraq was started, George Bush Senior forwarded this peculiar “blessing” to the whole nation: The seven Noachidic laws were solemnly declared to be the foundation of the United States by the Congress and the President.” [2]
Which may, in part, offer an insight as to why the Jewish Kabbalah has been so important in freemasonry and how Zio-Conservatism has comprehensively infiltrated US politics. Lubavitchers – or if you prefer, Chabadniks – are also embedded in the socio-political infrastructure of the United States.
Now, doesn’t that feed into the red herring “conspiracy theory” of Jews hoping to control the world?
Hopefully, at this stage the reader will know it is much more complex than that. Ponerology dictates which cluster of psychopaths will mount the best defence of their realm, and it appears the religious authoritarian megalomaniacs within the rabbinical hierarchy of Chabad Lubavitch and Ashkenazi Revisionist Zionism are major candidates for that particular mantle. So, to imply that it is strictly a “Jewish conspiracy” across the military-corporate and media complex is to do a huge injustice to ordinary Jews. Similarly, the conspiracy at work is largely public having been normalised by a variety of puppets and players within the 3EM. In order to see their various strains of psychopathy within our culture, entrenched beliefs and parallel taboos cannot be ignored. Hence the exploration of Chabad Lubavitch.
With Chabad Lubavitch rabbis from around the world, U.S. President George W. Bush signs a presidential proclamation in honor of Education and Sharing Day, highlighting the important work of the Chabad Lubavitch movement. | Joyce N. Boghosian—Offical White House Photo
While many Hassidic Jews would not associate themselves with such beliefs. Others go further, interpreting Lubavitch doctrine in the strictest terms. Chabad Rabbi Manis Friedman made an interesting comment in 2009 from the Jewish magazine Moment perfectly illustrating the minds of elder Chabadniks: “I don’t believe in Western morality, i.e. don’t kill civilians or children, don’t destroy holy sites, don’t fight during holiday seasons, don’t bomb cemeteries, don’t shoot until they shoot first because it is immoral. The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle).” [3] It seems that Friedman has taken his bizarre inspiration from the Yahweh-driven bloody wars of the ancient Israelites. The rabbi issued a statement not long after – in all probability at the request of Chabad hierarchy – so that he could “clarify” his initially, revealing prose. He was at pains to say that his opinion was his alone and that it did: “… not represent the official policy of any Jewish movement or organization.” [4]
Despite this, his statements are mild compared to what we would find in classical Jewish doctrine of the Talmud, the Tanya and a succession of Grand Rebbes’ proclamations. It seems he also forgot the legacy of Schneerson. Though he paid lip service to “compassion” it was clearly the words rather than the basic premise that gave rise to the invective which was “irresponsible” and “misleading.” Another fine example of paralogical and paramoralistic discourse at work. Like the banking, oil and weapons and hedge fund billionaires of today, philanthropy conceals a multitude of sins. With the Establishment hierarchy it is a conscious means to and end which has little to do with alleviating humanity’s suffering rather, philanthropy offers a way to keep the illusion of altruism in place and to buffer the disconnect between what they say and what they do. Organised Religion, with its cults and sects are no different. The hierarchical structure comes first regardless of whether the moral and ethical pillars have long since been eaten away by parasites. The vast majority of responses from presumably Jewish readers condemned the Rabbi’s views in the strongest possible terms. Though there were scattered posts praising or excusing what are essentially statements celebrating a cold-bloodied religious psychopathy.
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson
For high level Chabadniks and Zionists who lobbied the Bush Administration and now Barack Obama, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson was more than a spiritual inspiration, he was perfection embodied; the Messiah or “Moshiach”. Accordingly, what he said was taken very seriously and encouraged to be interpreted literally. The “Great Rebbe” told his followers “The main avodah of this generation is to go out to the final war of the Golus,* to conquer and to purify all the gentile countries.” [5] Schneerson was telling the present generation of Jews to go out and “conquer and purify” the Gentile (non-Jew) nations as laid down in the Noahide Laws. Lubavitcher Bryan Ellison tells us that Chabad followers have a special duty; the generation of Jews after the creation of Israel:
“… is the last generation of exile and darkness, and the first generation of Moshiach and the Redemption. All of us — Jews and Noachides — have an urgent responsibility to transform the world immediately in order to bring Moshiach, and this involves going well beyond the minimum of the Law.” [6]
During the Bush Administration key positions were taken up by Chabadniks. Among those handed the keys to Office were Press Officer Ari Fleischer, Chief of Staff Joshua Bolton and Vice-Secretary of Defence, Paul Wolfowitz. All three were great admirers of Schneerson and believed in his Messianic vision. Though Fleischer, Bolton and many others were highly effective in contouring political opinion and military support for Chabad designs it was Lubavitcher devotee Wolfowitz who was considered one of the key intermediaries between, Chabad, the Israeli-Zionist lobby and Neo-Conservative ideology and practice.
Paul Wolfowitz (wikipedia)
Whereas Dov Zakheim’s task was to oversee US Depart of Defence fiscal policy tipping the balance toward weapons shipments into Israeli hands, Wolfowitz’s influence and power extended into higher realms of foreign policy and geo-political strategy. His major contribution to the militarisation of the American energy policy necessarily included foreign interventions which were integrated into Cheney’s much quoted doctrine of perpetual war to defend and protect newly acquired resources. Wolfowitz was renowned for being the intellectual force behind radical Neo-Conservatism, the maturing of which was fostered by the late Albert Wohlstetter during his doctorate at the University of Chicago in the late 1960’s. Wohlstetter worked for the cold war strategy think tank the RAND Corp, [7] and besides being steeped in Zionist ideology, was a believer in the view that nuclear deterrence was not a satisfactory basis for strategic doctrine; the United States actually had to be not only the best in nuclear strategy but prepared to unleash the dogs of war in order deter the enemy –no doubt wiping out Israel’s perceived enemies in the process. (Consequently, the craziness of Wohlstetter was one of the inspirations for the film Dr. Strangelove.)
As Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz were transforming a largely Jewish, right wing agenda into Neo-Conservatism, Richard Perle and Douglas Feith – both fanatical Zionists – had already worked in high level positions in both the Reagan and Bush Administrations. Perle was also a protégé of Wohlstetter, bringing together two minds with a singular purpose: an Israeli-driven world revolution and a personal association that would remain through the intervening years. It was Wohlstetter, with the encouragement of Zionist insider and intellectual Bernard Lewis that lurked in the shadows encouraging Feith, Perle and Wolfowitz to help create the Iraq WMDs deception and the installation of CIA-stooge Ahmed Chalabi who would later become Prime Minister in Iraq. [8]
Albert Wohlstetter 1969 – (Source: wikipedia)
In the mid-1980s working as Middle East analyst at the National Security Council Douglas Feith was found to be passing classified information to the Israelis and was fired after a low-key FBI investigation. The fact that Neo-Conservative allies had multiplied in federal agencies, think-tanks and government it meant that Feith was back into power in just a few years, this time as undersecretary for policy at the Pentagon. Similarly, with Feith’s help Perle was able to attain a position at the Defence Policy Board.
Like Feith, Perle had long been seen as a possible Israeli agent since he had been doing exactly the same as Dov Zakheim and attempting to move all armaments purchasing to Israeli companies. The only differences to be seen was in the somewhat more prominent position of Assistant Secretary of Defense for international security policy in the Reagan administration and that he made sure he received a direct cut of profits. [9] As a veteran advisor he was able to transform Neo-Conservatism into a radical expression of Revisionist Zionism. He was a latter-day Jabotinsky with a supremely Machiavellian take on politics and warfare. The Zio-Conservative networks came alive through Perle and others, mostly through flagship lobbying think-tanks such as the Heritage Institute, American Enterprise Institute, Project for the New American Century (PNAC) Hudson Institute, Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf and Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, to name but a few. Slowly, Zio-Conservative radicals were moving into key positions, with foreign policy as the prize. Conveniently, when the New Pearl Harbour arrived, the PNAC dreams of pre-emptive attack were realised.
Douglas Feith (left) and Richard Perle
Richard Perle was to be the mentor for both Feith and Wolfowitz. As September 11th 2001 came and went, Feith and Wolfowitz worked together to make the invasion of Iraq and other countries a sure-fire reality by creating an official philosphical and ideological mandate for Empire. Yet, the evolution of what was to be called the “Wolfowitz doctrine” started long before the invasion policies of the Bush Reich and the police state which followed. This particular plan for American military domination came to fruition during the administration of George H.W. Bush Sr.
In 1992, Wolfowitz was working in the Department of Defence and was asked to write the first draft of a new national security strategy, a document entitled “The Defense Planning Guidance.” It was here that the full force of Neo-Con ideology took shape, pushing for dramatic increases in defence spending, pre-emptive attack and the use of unilateral military force with or without the support of allies. Perle had been working for Benjamin Netanyahu, who was Prime Minister of Israel by 1996. “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” was their policy which set out a game plan that would solve Israel’s security problems in the Middle East by emphasising “Western Values.” It was another example of using the USA as a proxy nation to its bidding. The removal of Saddam Hussein and aggressive policies of invasion in the Middle East were advocated. One particular passage from the document openly reveals its agenda where “peace” was transformed into economic support from US taxpayers in order to increase a political ideology: “While there are those who will counsel continuity, Israel has the opportunity to make a clean break; it can forge a peace process and strategy based on an entirely new intellectual foundation, one that restores strategic initiative and provides the nation the room to engage every possible energy on rebuilding Zionism, the starting point of which must be economic reform.” [10]
By the year 2000, George W. Bush Jr. had taken office and the foundation of Jewish, Neo-Conservative power fused with the National Security State and its military-intelligence apparatus. This was to oversee the rise of ruthless corporate psychopaths Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, and Chabad supporter Deputy Secretary for Defence Paul Wolfowitz, all of whom had cut their teeth on the past administrations of Ronald Reagan and Bush Sr.
Paul Wolfowitz at a Friends of Israel meeting 2009
Zionist enablers out for all they can get – former Vice President Dick Cheney talks with his partner in crime the then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld during a video teleconference, 2006. (White House photo by David Bohrer)
As Michael Chertoff was busy reordering America’s fear and loathing into the Homeland Security State, 2005 saw the departure of Douglas Feith leading eventually to the Directorship of the Center for National Security Strategies and as a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute. Wolfowitz headed to the World Bank in order to do further incalculable damage to any hint of normal human progress.
Having honed his knowledge of globalisation by redefining American dominance so that international treaties, the United Nations and World economic policy could benefit US neo-liberalism and Israeli economic and foreign policy. He was able to implement economic configurations such as “public-private partnerships” which not only placed corporations in the front line of a socio-cultural imperialism but allowed global warming legislation to mix with corporatism. The plan was scuppered just two years later resulting in: “Wolfowitz’s resignation and departure in disgrace over a sordid corruption scandal involving his role in securing improper salary raises for his mistress, and trying to cover it all up.” Columnist Dr. Srdja Trifkovic explained: “According to the Bank insiders, however, her employment contract was used as the handy pretext to get rid of Wolfowitz, the true reasons being gross mismanagement, utter misunderstanding the Bank’s role in the world, and an extreme display of arrogance.” [11]
The Wolf marking his territory once again?
Wolfowitz and his colleagues managed to fuse corporatist, Zionist, Chabad Lubavitch and other highly influential Zio-Conservative-based think-tanks into a powerful force for war. The Wolfowitz Doctrine lay behind “Clear break” and PNAC’s “Rebuilding America’s Defences” which defined the blueprint for Zio-Con conquest well into the future. The latter document was written in September of 2000, one year before the 9/11 attacks, where they acknowledged: “Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor. …” And just one year later, their most pressing desire was fulfilled.
Paul Wolfowitz played a major role in the genesis of the 9/11 attacks either in its creation or taking full advantage of all the opportunities such a “catalysing event” could offer. What the Doctrine proved that this was an ideology of Straussian authoritarianism inspired by the Hegelian solution. By using the US as a proxy war machine the Zionists had pulled off a major coup in toppling Saddam Hussein and invading Iraq with their sites on monopolising oil reserves, the driving interest for corporatists like Rumsfeld and Cheney. But the full force of a religious-occult imperative would be revealed in the 9/11 false flag ritual which heralded the destruction of Iraq – the first phase of biblical and Chabad-led, Talmudic prophecy.
As reported by Munich-based author and journalist Wolfgang Eggert an “occult summit” was convened on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, February 21st, 2003. In attendance were:
“… the head of the Operations Directorate of the Joint Chiefs of Staff whose name wasn’t published and seven leading representatives of military intelligence, amongst them the three-star general Lowell ‘Jake’ Jacoby, Director of the Defence Intelligence Agency and Wolfowitz’ deputy Dr Linton Wells who manages the ‘nerve centre’ of the Pentagon” and mostly notably “Bible code specialist” Michael Drosnin and Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz.” [12]
The fact that top members of US government would be willing to trust the advice of Drosnin’s highly controversial study of predictive word codes is worrying enough. What is more concerning is the reliance not only on Biblical prophecy but the fusion of both Christian Evangelism, Jewish Messianism and occult Zionsim. Eggert explains that there was “only one item on the agenda” and that was to discover what the Bible said:
“… about the present situation in the Middle East, terrorism and about the fate of Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden … It is said that a special interest was taken in decoding when devastation was expected to descend upon the Iraqi president. Result: the Jewish year of 5763 which corresponds to the year 2003 of the Christian calendar. The outcome of this conference is said to have been analysed immediately after by American and Israeli intelligence. The Americans “took it very seriously”, Drosnin later said. The White House started the campaign “Iraqi Freedom” within the prophesised time frame.” [13]
And they “took it seriously” because Zio-Conservatives and military-intelligence apparatus is saturated in occult workings all of which are underpinned by the Jewish Kabbalah in some form. One of these is based around the Jewish calendar of the Shemitah, its origins in the Old Testament. Originally a form of agricultural divination focused around debts and blessings to it is now used as a tool of prediction for world events and calamitous occurrences. As Eggert observes, Chabad Lubavitch saw 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq as one long mythical war prophesised long ago and even cited in the sect’s magazine Emes News which stated: “While the press doesn’t foresee such a move and while the US-State-Department is denying any plan of attack against Iraq, those who know about the Lubavitcher Rebbe know quite well, that when he said, America would wage war against Basra [a city in Iraq], nothing in the world could stop such an event coming true.” [14] It is for this reason that the Christian Zionists and Fundamentalists are so crucial to the Chabad’s messianic drive since they are well aware that they make up around 37 percent of voters in America. Head of the World Jewish Congress Ronald Lauder reaffirmed this strategic link in a recent interview where he said: “Evangelicals … are the critical support for Israel…We have one great friend: Evangelicals.” [15]
Crucial to the End Times tribulation is the yearned for second coming induced by conflict at Temple Mount. The Iraq war started one and half years later on March 20th 2003, the Holy Day of Purim care of one of the main instigators of a Chabad ritual and the needed outbreak of war: Paul Wolfowitz. During the aftermath of the Iraq war, Chabad supporters Joseph Lieberman and Senator John McCain were the allotted PR figureheads for announcing that: “… the Iraqi conflict-based-strategy followed exactly that line which he himself together with his colleague had imposed in the US Congress by pushing through the ‘Iraq Liberation Act’.” [16]
At this point, the reader may be forgiven for thinking that all these war-mongering corporatists, Zionists and rapacious banksters are simply in it for the money and the power. Important as those things are for essential psychopaths there is also the underlying foundation of the military-occult complex suffused with a masonic branch of Existential Satanism which have traditionally relied on psychological warfare to achieve their ends. Within the Zionist Establishment, the Mossad hierarchy and Chabad Lubavitch is a form of Kabbalistic Satanism with links to Order of Zion freemasonry, in turn, connected to the overall global occult elite. Those whose personalities have been irrevocably altered and fragmented as a part of MK-ULTRA programs (which are the ones we know about) have undoubtedly been carefully positioned within the political establishment. This brings us back to the testimony of Kay Griggs and which will prepare us for the final series of posts exploring the occult significance of 9/11.
The Hebrew Kabbalah or Tree of Life / © Infrakshun
As you may recall, Griggs endured 11 years of bizarre behaviour and emotional abuse from her Navy SEAL husband, who was a victim of mind control operations inflicted on children of the military-intelligence apparatus from the 1950s to the 197os. Evidence has been mounting over the years that such programs resulted in a large number of assassins programmed to kill, commonly known as “Manchurian candidates.” After her husband went missing Griggs decided to go public after receiving death threats and psychological intimidation from members of military intelligence.
In 1996 she took her story to Sarah McClendon, a former senior member of the White House press corps and gained protection, as well as a wise confidante who gave her experienced advice on how to stay alive when dealing with military intelligence agents. By 1998 Griggs had sufficient confidence to make an eight hour video recording of her experiences for Pastor Strawcutter which found their way to the internet adding vital pieces of the puzzle regarding the hidden workings of military-intelligence groupings. Griggs, a committed Christian, gave evidence that was at times clearly difficult for her to relate due to the nature of the information. This included confirmation of government hit squads, Zionist cabals, brain-washing, murder and organised sex-cults of “Cap and Gown, and Skull and Bone society,” though not exclusive to the US Navy to which her husband and other high level Marine officials belonged.
Griggs’ information is derived from her discussions with the wives of US Army and Navy personnel, the harrowing experiences with her tragic husband and the details she was able to glean from his diary which was left behind following his disappearance. From the knowledge she was able to piece together Griggs believes that the handlers of these covert cults as well as the programmed child-victims who do their bidding for many decades: “…are first generation German sons, mostly who run things in the military through tight friendships made in Europe and at war colleges. PSYOPS is a controlling group and Paul Wolfowitz is a major player.” Henry Kissinger and Donald Rumsfeld are also named as those with German-Jewish origins, chosen for their psychological make-up to be handlers and/or operators assigned with particular roles.
Recall the testimony of Dr. Corey Hammond and his revelation of Greenbaum mind programming which provided evidence of a Hassidic element to “Dr. Green” – a probable codename for a group of programmers across the spectrum of mind control operations and which continues to this day. At root, the pathogenic nature of this psychological deviance manifested through a direct transference of Zio-Nazi black arts and their technology of mind. In other words, via Operation PAPERCLIP and the installation of numerous intelligence officers, psychologists and scientists, most importantly perhaps, the Nazi SS General Reinhard Gehlen, who was head of German intelligence operations. Under the cover and success of this Nazi brain drain he went on to be one of the leading architects of the modern CIA. The General was only one of numerous high level Germans who were to define the future of America.
Wolfowitz on 9/11 Commission: How we laughed.
Finding out who the various kingpins of the September 11th attacks is an impossible task as they will always be one step ahead, as the present disinformation and managed perceptions within the 9/11 truth movement attests. What we do know is that any well-known public figures which have been mentioned throughout this blog are likely not the true perpetrators of this crime against humanity. What we do have is a Catholic-based Nazism, tied to a Anglo-American Liberal-collectivism further complicated by Zionism – all of whom have their own take on building a New Order Empire, that will lock in once and for all a Golden Age of neo-feudalism where psychopaths rule.
9/11 was the global turning point.
The occult lies behind all major cabals, religions and organisation in the 21st Century ranging from the amateur to the sophisticated; forms of freemasonic Satanism, the maturation of various brotherhoods of Rosicrucian Illuminism and occult Zionism. Dispense with all the manufactured labels and “- isms” and the simple truth is a increasing psychopathy with its long term plan to dominate ordinary humanity. THAT is the real Secret of the Ages and the only conspiracy worth considering, everything else is just window-dressing. It is the probable mass inculcation of disturbed, pathological individuals who are insinuated into the social fabric and attached to suitable ideologies so that they may act as channels for ponerogenesis.
In one sense, all that has gone before in this series represents a careful, methodical prelude before presenting this information on occult Zionism since it is a tough one to contemplate, not least because it is using Judaism and the Jewish tribe as its vehicle. Zionists and Ashkenazis – Khazars – are not the ordinary Jewish people. Palestinians and Jews lived together for centuries, and there is good reason to believe that ordinary Jews and Muslims are still keen to live together in peace. They hold much more in common than we may think – not least their shared Semitic genes. Zionists however, by brainwashing Jews in particular, have effectively encouraged moral blindness and victimhood. Peace between these peoples is anathema for the pathological aggression that is the life-blood of Zionist existence.
Those psychopaths who lie within the middle and higher tiers of the Chabad/Zionist pyramid thrive on maximising conflict between the two Semitic peoples. History and myth reveal that they have socially-engineered Jewish culture to accept this conflict as a fight for survival while in reality it is merely another geo-political ruse to extend their rule over ordinary people. Consequently, it is metaphorically correct to call such actions “Satanic.” Futhermore, as we look deeper into the nature of occult forces which surround the nationalistic violence of Zionism and the theology of the upper most hierarchy within Chabad Lubavitch, we will see quite clearly that it is the influence of the Babylonian Talmud with its Levitical roots in Black Magick and Satanic lore which informs their operations in the 21st Century.
Admittedly, this is a very hard fact to swallow for most, since a) we have been awash with cultural conditioning and a superficial history told by the victorious that prohibits such discussions of occult practice, though its presence lies directly or indirectly behind all of our socio-political and economic institutions; and b) the Jewish culture of victimhood and inculcated ethnocentrism has similarly prevented any constructive criticism, reinforced by the Jewish cultural Marxism of political correctness. Once we accept such a hypothesis as at least a possibility, we will then be better able to absorb the information regarding the events of September 11th as the grand occult ritual that it was.
Before we do so, we need to take a closer look at the Talmud.
* Golus is Hebrew for “exile” usually referring to the exile of the Jewish people from their perceived homeland. The word avodah means “work” and of a type that is carried out as a service to God.
[1] Paraphrased from ‘Merry Christmas, and Off With Your Head!’ by Carol A. Valentine, President, Public Action, Inc., http://www.Public-Action.com May 15, 2002.
[2] op. cit. Eggert | See also: ‘Patronymic Paralogy’ – Excerpt: “March 20, 1991 President Bush signed into law a Congressional Joint Resolution entitled, “A Joint Resolution To Designate March 26, 1991, As Education Day, USA”. This joint resolution became Public Law 102-14. Public Law 102-14 states emphatically that all civilization from the beginning has been based upon a set of laws entitled “The Seven Noahide Laws” and thus officially put the United States under Noahide Law. These seven supposed universal laws, according to the Encyclopedia Americana, p. 737, state that they are “a Jewish Babylonian Talmudic designations for seven biblical laws given to Adam and to Noah before the revelation to Moses on Mt. Sinai and consequently, binding upon all mankind.” The Encyclopedia Americana continues its explanation of the Noahide Laws, “Throughout the ages, scholars have viewed the Noahide Laws as a link between Judaism and Christianity, as universal norms of ethical conduct, as a basic concept of international law, or as a guarantee of fundamental human rights for all.” They are meant to be a substitute for the Ten Commandments. They are a set of seven moral imperatives that, according to the Talmud, were given by God to Noah as a binding set of laws for all mankind. According to Judaism any non-Jew who lives according to these laws is regarded as a Righteous Gentile and is assured of a place in the world to come (Olam Haba), the Jewish concept of heaven.[2] Adherents are often called “B’nei Noach” (Children of Noah) or “Noahides” and may often network in Jewish synagogues.”- http://www.files.meetup.com/1503563/Your%20Name%20Under%20the%20Law.pdf
[3] ‘Ask the Rabbis: How Should Jews Treat Their Arab Neighbors?’Moment Magazine, May/June 2009. Rabbi Manis Friedman, Bais Chana Institute of Jewish Studies, St. Paul, MN.
[4] ‘A Statement from Rabbi Friedman’ June 5, 2009 by maxinesp, Moment Magazine| http://www.momentmagazine.wordpress.com/2009/06/03/a-statement-from-rabbi-friedman/
[5] Shabbos Parshas VaYelech, 5746. | http://www.noahide.com/rebbe.htm
[6] ‘The Law is Only a Minimum’ By Bryan J. Ellison. http://www.noahide.com/minimum.htm
[7] [RAND] had established itself as the leading think-tank for Pentagon, and had access to all its secrets. They were mainly economists by training, and had developed a vocabulary for ‘thinking about the unthinkable’ which had all the weaknesses of economic jargon. The universe of nuclear strategy was so difficult to comprehend, and the horrors it contained were so repugnant to normal people, that its study required the same clinical detachment as the study of venereal disease. But that very detachment tended to blind the experts to the human realities, and to enslave them to abstract concepts, the validity of which had never been tested.” – Denis Healey, The Time of My Life . Published by Penguin, 1989 ( p.246).
[8] p. 287; Soldiers of Reason: The RAND Corporation and the Rise of the American Empire by Alex Abella. Published by Harcourt, 2008.
[9] “Aide Urged Pentagon to Consider Weapons Made by Former Client”, By Jeff Gerth, New York Times, 17 April 1983.
[10] ‘A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm’ – “Following is a report prepared by The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies’ “Study Group on a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000.” The main substantive ideas in this paper emerge from a discussion in which prominent opinion makers, including Richard Perle, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser participated. The report, entitled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” is the framework for a series of follow-up reports on strategy.” – The Institute for Advanced and Strategic Political Studies, Jerusalem, Washington.| http://www.iasps.org/strat1.htm
[11] ‘Wolfowitz the Undead’ by Srdja Trifkovic, Chronicles Magazine February 7, 2008. | http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2008/02/07/wolfowitz-the-undead/
[12] op. cit Eggert
[15] Ronald Lauder: ‘We have one great friend: the Evangelicals’ World Jewish Congress https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJA7KhYvZIY
[16] Ibid. Wolfgang Eggert quoting Rainer Apel, Eurasien ist gegen Irakkrieg, in: Neue Solidarität, February 6th, 2003.
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Osama and Al-Qaeda V: Pass the Pop-Corn
‘It’s one big lie, not one word of it is true’
– Seymour Hersh on the death of Osama bin Laden
Seymour Hersh is one of a dying breed of investigative journalists with genuine integrity and a nose for truth. A five-time winner of the Polk Award in 1969, 1973, 1974, 1981, and 2004; winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1970 for exposing the My Lai Massacre and recipient of the George Orwell Awardafter blowing the whistle on the serious abuse of prisoners by the U.S. Military at Abu Graib prison in 2004. As the above quotation shows, Regarding the bin Laden raid in which the terrorist mastermind was apparently killed, he didn’t believe a word of it, like any one who has cast a careful eye over the story will attest.
Hersh has very little time for the Obama administration whom he likens to the Bush government in that it “lies systematically”, and where the US media does little in the face of this corruption. In a Guardian interview By Lisa O’Carroll, on September 27, 2013 the veteran journalist claims: “It’s pathetic, they are more than obsequious, they are afraid to pick on this guy [Obama].” And regarding the state of America in general he is unequivocal: “… we lie about everything, lying has become the staple.” But it is more than that. Mainstream media is thoroughly shackled and has been for a long time.
Milking the Osama Bin Laden myth and the promotion of the “hunt for Bin Laden” had to come to end one day and it seems 2011 was the year for a theatrical propaganda exercise to send him off with some fireworks and military whoops and bangs. On May 2, 2011, two helicopters from the 160th Special Ops Air Regiment, serving the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) took off from a base in Afghanistan loaded with around 40 US Navy SEALs. Code named Operation Neptune Spear, they were part of a carefully selected group named SEAL Team 6 which was dissolved and renamed “Naval Special Warfare Development Group” tasked with hunting down Osama Bin Laden who was said to have been be holed up in a private, secure compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. [1]
They flew over the residential area and target location. At 1:00am local time, the team apparently stormed the compound and after a brief but intense fire-fight, four occupants were killed. One of these targets was alleged to have been Osama bin Laden, 54, whose body was then taken into custody by the US team. We were told that 40 minutes was spent on the ground searching the compound for information and clues to ascertain Al-Qaeda’s fiendish plans for the future.
The Hollywood propganda machine went into overdrive to reinforce total fantasy. Firtly, with “Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden” (2012) and the multi-award-winning and CIA sponsored “Zero Dark Thirty” (2012) billed as: “the story of history’s greatest manhunt for the world’s most dangerous man”. In fact it offered the official story of the killing of bin Laden as well as a tacit approval – even glorification – of torture which led to the capture and execution of bin Laden, neither or which took place. The latter film was directed by Kathryn Bigelow of “The Hurt Locker” fame which gave an equally myopic view of the reality of the Iraq war.
President Obama announced bin Laden’s death, with suitably vengeful gravitas: “His demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity. Justice has been done.” Jaw-flexing and with eyes moist (perhaps from auto-cue strain) he continued: “We are reminded that we are fortunate to have Americans who dedicate their lives to protecting ours. We may not always know their names, we may not always know their stories, but they are there every day on the front lines of freedom and we are truly blessed.” [2]
The loved ones who are left behind to cope with the fall-out from war and covert operations is always tragic but what cheapens and debases those deaths is when the official stories don’t match reality. The above sentiments then become cynical and hollow. Obama repeated the same weary script, describing the event as “the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat Al-Qaeda”, and seen as a “significant turning point for global security and the War on Terror.” [3] As journalist James Corbett reminds us, when Obama pronounced bin Laden dead this would be: “… at least the ninth major head of state or high-ranking government official to have done so.” [4]
Now why would that be?
Since French intelligence disclosed that Osama bin Laden had been treated at a Dubai hospital in July 2001 for kidney failure, Hepatitis B and other serious ailments, he was thought to have no more than two years to live.[5] It is common knowledge in military and intelligence fields worldwide that he died in December of that year, yet to suggest such a thing in public is to offer peals of incredulous laughter. This is a largely thanks to the MSM and its love affair with the terror industry. Nonetheless, there are many instances of officials, analysts and a wide range of academics speaking out against this propaganda.
In the following year the FBI’s top counter-terrorism official, Dale Watson, said, “I personally think he is probably not with us anymore,” an affirmation of which was also repeated by Afghan President Hamid Karzai in October of 2002.[6]
In July 2002, New York Times journalist Amir Taheri also highlighted the psychology of the situation by observing: “With an ego the size of Mount Everest, Osama bin Laden would not have, could not have, remained silent for so long if he were still alive. He always liked to take credit even for things he had nothing to do with. Would he remain silent for nine months and not trumpet his own survival?”
Originally cited in the Pakistan Observer a report surfaced in December 2001, that bin Laden had “died a peaceful death due to an untreated lung complication.” The statement came from an unlikely but more believable source: that of a Taliban leader who had everything to gain by not revealing the truth. Nonetheless, he states that bin Laden was indeed dead and that he had “… succumbed to the disease in mid-December, in the vicinity of the Tora Bora Mountains,” further claiming that “… bin Laden was laid to rest honourably in his last abode and his grave was made as per his Wahabi belief.” The source further reported: “About 30 close associates of bin Laden in Al-Qaeda, including his most trusted and personal bodyguards, his family members and some ‘Taliban friends,’ attended the funeral rites. A volley of bullets was also fired to pay final tribute to the ‘great leader.’ [7]
The late former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto, confirmed this from her own pronouncements in an interview recorded in 2007 where she stated that Osama bin Laden had been killed by Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a man convicted of kidnapping and killing journalist Daniel Pearl. Bhutto also repeated before her death that bin Laden’s ghost was being used as a pretext to destabilise Pakistan. It has since been proven conclusively that “under cover of a ‘suicide bombing’ she was shot in the neck and head from close range.” Bhutto’s bodyguard Khalid Shahenshah a key witness to her murder was also killed in a drive-by shooting at his home on Karachi. He was expected to be called to give evidence in a United Nations probe into her death. [8]
Still from an interview with Benazir Bhutto by Sir David Frost in 2007 in which the late politician also claimed bin Laden had been dead since 2001; killed by Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh
The death of Bhutto removed the chance for Pakistan to release itself from Pakistani-ISI-CIA led control and the Bush-Cheney administration’s manoeuvring to strengthen their political control of Pakistan by expanding the War on Terror across the region. Of course, the assassinations were predictably blamed on Al-Qaeda, without any mention of the fact that the organisation has long been an American military-intelligence operation.
Bhutto’s statements were echoed in January 2002 in an interview with CNN, by Pakistan’s President General Pervez Musharraf who thought that bin Laden was probably dead because he has been unable to get treatment for his kidney disease. He commented: “I think now, frankly, he is dead for the reason he is a … kidney patient.” [9] Musharraf, a onetime CIA asset was also targeted as he fell out of favour with Anglo-American powers.
In April 2002, top US government insider Dr. Steve R. Pieczenik, gave valuable public support to the consensus that Osama bin Laden died in 2001 stating he had been “dead for months” and that the CIA knew the Al-Qaeda leader’s death represented significant, mileage in the propaganda war. Pieczenik, who served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under three different administrations still works as a consultant for the Department of Defence and is not someone easily ignored. Responsible for developing strategies for hostage rescue which were employed around the world, he also formulated: “… the basic tenets for psychological warfare, counter terrorism, strategy and tactics for transcultural negotiations for the US State Department, military and intelligence communities and other agencies of the US Government.”
Having personally met Osama Bin Laden during the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the 1980s and worked with Elite brokers James Baker, George Schultz, Cyrus Vance and Kissinger et al, he is one of the most connected military intelligence men ever to go public on the Osama myth. The former intelligence officer believes that Osama died from Marfan syndrome, an incurable degenerative genetic disease which severely shortens the life span of the sufferer. Pieczenik is certain that George W. Bush and the intelligence community knew perfectly well that bin Laden had died shortly after 9/11 in his Tora Bora cave complex and proceeded to build and “doctor up the situation” for geo-political ends. It was not necessary to kill him because he had already died of natural causes. [10]
“The U.S. national security team gathered in the White House Situation Room to monitor the progress of Operation Neptune Spear.” (Source: wikipedia) Unfortunately, it was all a staged photo-op.
Images released by the White House in May 2011 (see above) show a tension-filled room full of senior US government officials including Joe Biden, Robert Gates, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton staring fixedly ahead at the live enactment of the operation to assassinate Osama via video feeds on the Navy SEAL’s helmets.
If the photos looked staged, it’s because they were.
According to Pieczenik:
“This whole scenario where you see a bunch of people sitting there looking at a screen and they look as if they’re intense, that’s nonsense,” … “It’s a total make-up, make believe, we’re in an American theater of the absurd … why does the government repeatedly have to lie to the American people, [?]” […] This is orchestrated, I mean when you have people sitting around and watching a sitcom, basically the operations center of the White House, and you have a president coming out almost zombie-like telling you they just killed Osama Bin Laden who was already dead nine years ago …” [11]
This mini-PSYOPS operation, pre-packaged for the media which had President Obama and his national security team watching events unfold in real time had to be quickly abandoned. Former Reagan Administration economist Dr. Paul Craig Roberts explains why: “If Obama was watching the event as it happened, he would have noticed, one would hope, that there was no firefight and thus, would not have told the public that bin Laden was killed in a firefight. Another reason the story had to be abandoned is that if the event was captured on video, every news service in the world would be asking for the video, but if the event was orchestrated theater, there would be no video.” [12]
Still from “Zero Dark Thirty” (2012) depicting the Navy SEAL team tracking down bin Laden
Indeed, the whole story of the Osama hit became an embarrassing media spectacle because the official narrative changed so many times. First there was a fire-fight. Then there wasn’t. Bin Laden was armed. Then he wasn’t. His wife was there as a human shield, then she wasn’t. She was killed then she wasn’t. His sons were present and killed, then they weren’t. In fact, they weren’t there at all. Oh, and the helicopter that was lost due to mechanical failure? No. Actually, it crashed because it was the wrong kind of temperature in Osama’s compound. Tricky these terrorist micro-climates … [13]
Finally, with so many falsifications, contradictions, inconsistencies and amendments the original story became unrecognisable. As it progressed into the arena of farce with Barack Obama’s feeble reasoning that it was due to the “fog of war” which was enthusiastically taken up by much of the US media, the President and US officials refused to offer more details, explanations or more disturbingly, any photos or other evidence to support the official story. Since there was no “fog” or no “war” and a bullet caused the demise of the most valuable intelligence asset ever to be captured, it is more than confusing as to what the President was referring to.
As Paul Craig Roberts notes:
When such a foundational story as the demise of bin Laden cannot last 48 hours without acknowledged “discrepancies” that require fundamental alternations to the story, there are grounds for suspicion in addition to the suspicions arising from the absence of a dead body, from the absence of any evidence that bin Laden was killed in the raid or that a raid even took place. The entire episode could just be another event like the August 4, 1964, Gulf of Tonkin event that never happened but succeeded in launching open warfare against North Vietnam at a huge cost to Americans and Vietnamese and enormous profits to the military/security complex. [14]
It wouldn’t be the first time, as Craig Roberts reminds us. False flags and government duplicity is standard practice for the state. Rather than an occasional aberration during times of war, in soft totalitarianism brought on by the presence of many psychopaths wielding power, it becomes a way of life. Obama’s photo op was merely a microcosm of far bigger lies; one of many addictions to deceit which has taken America into a irreversible tail-spin.
“Known and documented, Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda is a construct of the US intelligence apparatus. His essential function is to give a face to the “war on terrorism”. The image must be vivid.”
– Michel Chossudovsky, economist, geo-political analyst
More embarrassment followed the Osama bin Laden raid in Pakistan, with the mass publishing of a photo purporting to be a dead bin Laden which was obviously fraudulent having been circulated on the internet since 2009. The New York Times published another fake photo from a separate source and by then the media was awash in obviously phony images. On May 4 2011, Obama wisely decided not to release any photos or anything else connected to the operation. The hole was alredy deep enough. [15]
On May 3, just a day before the announcement, journalist Patrick Henningsen, Editor of 21st Century Wire created a stir when he gave Russia Today TV an interview on the raid and stated conclusively, “There will be no photos or video released at all.” Henningsen explained how he was able to make such a prediction: “If you have been paying attention to this story over the last 8 years, then it’s not very difficult to predict this. If you apply basic common sense, the evidence weighs in favour of Osama bin Laden having died years ago. Or you can choose to believe the Hollywood version of events that we have been fed over the years, one which requires no effort.” [16]
More recently in March 2012, Iranian intelligence minister Heidar Moslehi joined the chorus claiming that Osama had died way before the storming of his alleged Abbottabad compound. Moslehi said that Iran has: “credible information that bin Laden died some time ago of a disease,” furthering pointing out in a Cabinet meeting that: “If the US military and intelligence apparatus have really arrested or killed bin Laden, why don’t they show him [his body]? Why have they thrown his corpse into the sea? [17]
Osama bin Laden’s compound (Photo by Sajjad Ali Qureshi, (Wikimedia)
The USS Carl Vinson which was said to be the vessel which carried the body of bin Laden dumping him at sea. Unfortunately, the US Dpartment of Defence cannot find any record of the event. Oops. I wonder why that would be? (wikipedia)
The issue of military incompetence is not only believable but expected given the history US military operations, but to suggest that there was a rationale behind the hasty dumping of the mythical terrorist’s body in the sea and dispensing with what would surely have been a primary vindication of intelligence and military prowess, is a much harder tale to swallow. It only makes sense if there was something to hide. The exact same insults to the intelligence are at play here just as they are surrounding the events of 9/11. The proffered reason for doing so in the original storyline was that no country would accept the body in accordance with Islamic traditions and customs – so read Obama’s auto-cue info from which he read so dutifully. However, headaches soon arrived. Prominent Muslim academics and leaders swiftly repudiated this latest offering, explaining that a sea burial of bin Laden was actually a violation of Islamic tenets which prompted the in-house scriptwriters to carry out more hasty re-writes coming up with the idea that it was actually a “shrine.” As journalist at the New American Alex Newman commented: “That lie fell apart, too, when it was widely reported that bin Laden’s brand of Islam calls for unmarked graves — building any sort of shrine would have been blasphemous. So far, no new excuses have been concocted for allegedly feeding the body to the fish.” [18]
And surprise, surprise, heavily redacted internal military emails obtained by the Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act in 2012, reveal no sailors witnessed the burial at sea nor could the US Department of Defence find any images or videos of bin Laden’s aboard USS Carl Vinson, the vessel which is alleged to have carried the body of the dead bin Laden. [19] Furthermore, it explained why the Pentagon not only failed to produce an autopsy report and death certificate but refused to provide the results of DNA tests. Presumably, this tests were not carried out. How can you do tests on a body that doesn’t exist? Once you do so, it is clear that the whole narrative would be seen for what it is: a total fiction. This didn’t stop more attempts to fill in the gargantuan holes in the official story.
On May 6, 2011, the Obama administration released a short video recording from an original five. It was edited by the Pentagon without sound and what US officials said was footage of Osama watching TV with a remote in his hand, in the Jalalabad compound flat sometime before the raid. Numerous reports immediately cried foul. For example, the real bin Laden was left-handed, the man in the video is holding a remote control in his right hand. The ears, nose – in fact, almost everything about this individual – in these “new videos” screams fakery.
Pakistani residents weren’t having any of it either as a BBC News report revealed just a few days later. A neighbour of Osama bin Laden, a Pakistani man named Shabir told the BBC that the man in the video is actually a friend of his and not the Al-Qaeda founder. “His name is Akhbar Khan (Han), He owns the house that was Osama’s house. I know him very well,” Another Abbottabad resident Mohammed, “who has been selling newspapers in the two for the last 50 years” said: “It’s all a fake, nothing happened.” The report further stated that: “Out of the 50 Abbottabad residents interviewed by the BBC, only one believed that Osama bin Laden was in their town. Others claimed the pictures and video of bin Laden in his home are fakes made with a computer.” [20]
“Bin Laden” watches TV in the compound (top)
“bin Laden” with school-girl ear compared to the more Vulcan-like example from the real bin Laden below:
The decision to launch a hoax on the back of Osama’s death was taken to boost Obama’s approval ratings which had become dangerously low, or as Dr. Steve Pieczenik claims, to make Obama – as the latest monkey in front of the organ grinder – appear “viable.” It was also entirely in line with the foreign policy objective to isolate and destabilize Pakistan put into motion by banking and Zio-Conservative cartels which ran the Bush-Cheney gang.
Another reason for implanting the dénouement of an 8-year PSYOPS operation was Pakistan’s increasing opposition to the Predator drone program, which had killed hundreds of Pakistanis. Since government departments crowed that the success of the operation was directly sourced from data drawn from enhanced interrogation techniques inflicted on rendition victims in secret CIA prisons, (“torture” to you and I) they wanted the American public to see the value and success in those methods too. By extension, the practice of extrajudicial killings abroad and the intelligence that goes with it could be vindicated in such a grand spectacle of “justice” simultaneously bolstering Obama’s standing as a leader at home and abroad. Sure enough, once the dramatic assassination of bin Laden was aired on all media channels Obama’s ratings shot up. Spontaneous celebrations erupted in the streets of New York and outside the White House in true Pavlovian style.
President Barack Obama showing his auto-cue and acting skills once again when he announced the death of Osama bin Laden on May 1st, 2011. With a reminder about 9/11 and the loss of life telegraphed on a May Day holiday what better way to ensure a tearful catharsis?
Obama’s “historic” announcement according to The Washington Post produced: “… a rare moment of national unity at a time of deep divisions on many domestic and foreign policy issues,” all of which was prime political capital against the record unemployment figures, the continuing descent of the dollar, fracturing infrastructure and trillions in government debt – the Obama administration needed to build on the quintessential American propensity for illusion programmed by 9/11 fear and vengeance, it was bound to work. A heightened security level status was introduced with the media excited at the prospect of possible retaliatory attacks from Al-Qaeda. The US population was primed and on alert, while the Obama Administration and the intelligence community sat back and had a beer.
Playing the patriot card on the back of the September 11th anniversary of the attacks is a potent opportunity for more manipulations. There is also propaganda investment in the death of Osama bin Laden as justification for a future false flag attack on United States soil, should it be deemed necessary. We have been told by US officials that alleged 9/11 ring-leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told Guantanamo Bay interrogators Al-Qaeda would detonate nuclear devices if bin Laden was captured or killed. Mohammed told his jailers they would unleash a “nuclear hellstorm” if Osama bin Laden was ever captured. [21] All this leaves the field open for new enemies to arrive. In the same global theatre with different characters, Iran may yet be ushered onto centre stage for a starring role.
Steve Pieczenik explained in a radio interview that 9/11 was a similar operation on a much grander scale, naming it a “stand down … false flag operation in order to mobilize the American public under false pretenses …” […] “I taught stand down and false flag operations at the national war college, I’ve taught it with all my operatives so I knew exactly what was done to the American public…” [22]
No Easy Day written under the pseudonym of “Mark Owen”, an apparent Navy SEAL who was part of the alleged team who killed Osama Bin Laden was published in September 2012, with suitable “controversy.” However, rather than addressing the whole suspect nature of the operation itself, a big fuss was made about certain minor contradictions by the media which had the effect of leaving the basic premise of the official story unquestioned and strengthened, by default. If the author claims that “… the raid was being reported like a bad action movie” this, and many other criticisms simply vector the attention away from the whole reasons for such an operation. In this light, Mr. Owen may have even believed he had the body of bin Laden under foot when the reality may have been very different. Whether by default or design, the whole book (and others like it) acts as a PSYOPS operation from start to finish. [23]
Unfortunately, not many members are left alive to comment either way.
On August 6, 2011, 30 US special forces, a civilian interpreter and seven Afghan commandos were killed in the Chinook helicopter crash in Afghanistan, right around the time that Washington’s official version of the Osama Bin Laden hit was falling apart at the seams. Among the 38 dead were also 25 US Navy Seals. The helicopter went down during a military operation to give support for a US Army unit engaged in battle with Afghan militants in Wardak Province, West of the capital, Kabul. [24] The single largest loss of life in the ten year war in Afghanistan, it was reported that the Taliban shot down the helicopter with a rocket launcher, later admitted by US officials without confirming the source of the attack. What they did reveal, after the fact, was that the dead Navy Seals were part of the Team Six unit allegedly involved in the May 2011 assassination of bin Laden. However, according to an MSNBC report: “None of those killed in the crash is believed to have been part of the SEALs mission that killed bin Laden, but they were from the same unit as the bin Laden team.” [25] No confirmation of this belief has been forthcoming especially since Team 6 identities are officially classified.
Chinook helicopter in Afghanistan, a type that was apparently shot down by Taliban militants killing all 38 Special Forces aboard.
Quite apart from the fact this is certainly odd that against military protocol, the crème de la crème of Special forces were all crammed into a Chinook and sent out into a hot zone, it brings us back to the alleged helicopter crash which took place during the bin Laden raid.
As Dr. Paul Craig Roberts stated in his much quoted article:
“In the immediate aftermath of bin Laden’s alleged murder by the SEALs, Pakistani TV interviewed the next door neighbor to bin Laden’s alleged compound. Someone supplied the video with an English translation running at the bottom of the video. According to the translation, the next door neighbor, Mr. Bashir, said that he watched the entire operation from the roof of his house. There were 3 helicopters. Only 1 landed. About a dozen men got out and entered the house. They shortly returned and boarded the helicopter. When the helicopter lifted off it exploded, killing all aboard. Mr. Bashir reports seeing bodies and pieces of bodies all over.
The US government acknowledges that it lost a helicopter, but claims no one was hurt. Obviously, as there were no further landings, if everyone was killed as Mr. Bashir reports, there was no body to be dumped into the ocean. [26]
Assuming of course, there was ever an Osama bin Laden to bring back in the first place.
In July 2013, Navy Vice Admiral William McRaven was given the job of removing secret military files concerning the Navy SEAL raid from the Pentagon’s data banks and placing them in the safe hands of the CIA. Despite President Barack Obama’s now tragically hilarious pledge to make his administration the most transparent in US history, orders were given to ignore rules governing federal records and violate the Freedom of Information Act, such was the urgency to make sure no one knew the truth. Although the Pentagon denied any wrongdoing regarding the removal, these actions simply underscore the continuing attempts by government to keep the public away from any covert activities. The rather lame reasoning given to the MSM was to protect personnel involved in the raid but as most of them have since met their deaths in sometimes suspicious circumstances, it makes little sense. Professor Michel Chossudovsky pointed out the more likely reason: “The files of the bin Laden SEAL operation had to be removed to sustain the Big Lie.”
To round off the Obama Administration’s adherence to the theatre of the unreal and perhaps one of the most blatant pieces of movie propaganda pieces on the scale of Jerry Bruckheimer’s pre-9/11 Pearl Harbour (2001) Seal Team 6: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden graced our screens in 2012. Produced by one of Hollywood’s biggest backers Harvey Weinstein, who rushed the film forward so that it was on TV screens two days before Obama’s election-day, it was universally panned by even the most IQ-challenged entertainment critics. Barack Obama has an “edited-in” role in the film which boasted such one-liners as: “In this world you don’t get to live free without working for it. You gotta earn it every day, and that day we did.”
Obama, pass the pop-corn.
[1] ‘Spec ops raids into Pakistan halted’ Navy Times, September 2008: “The United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (NSWDG), also known as DEVGRU for short, or more commonly by its former name, SEAL Team Six (ST6) is one of the United States’ four secretive counter-terrorism and Special Mission Units (SMUs).” | ‘Osama Bin Laden Operation Ended With Coded Message ‘Geronimo-E KIA’’By Jake Tapper, ABC News, May 2 2011.
[2] ‘Top Government Insider: Bin Laden Died In 2001, 9/11 False Flag Attack’ By Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com 4 May 2011.
[3] ‘Osama bin Laden buried at sea after being killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan’ By Philip Rucker, Scott Wilson and Anne E. Kornblut, The Washington Post, May 2, 2011.
[4] ‘Osama Bin Laden Pronounced Dead…For the Ninth Time’ By James Corbett, The Corbett Report, May 2, 2011.
[5] ‘CIA agent alleged to have met Bin Laden in July’ French report claims terrorist leader stayed in Dubai hospital By Anthony Sampson, The Guardian, November 1st 2001.
[6] ‘Bin Laden ‘probably’ dead’BBC News,18 July, 2002. | ‘Karzai: bin Laden ‘probably’ dead’ CNN.com, October 7, 2002.
[7] ‘Report: Bin Laden Already Dead’ FoxNews.com, December 26, 2001.
[8] ‘Benazir Bhutto – A Warning To Us All’ By Joe Quinn, Sott.net, December 27, 2007.
[9] ‘Pakistan’s Musharraf: Bin Laden probably dead’CNN.com, January 18, 2002.
[12] ‘SKEPTICISM: The Agendas Behind the Bin Laden News Event: When the Lie Becomes the Truth…’ By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, Global Research, May 04, 2011.
[13] ‘The killing of Osama bin Laden: how the White House changed its story’- Bin Laden not armed and did not use woman as human shield, US admits; Barack Obama’s spokesman blames ‘fog of war’By Robert Booth, The Guardian, May 4, 2011.
[14] op. cit Craig Roberts.
[15] ‘Fake out: Senators confused over bin Laden photos’ By Kelly O’Donnell and Libby Leist, MSNBC, May 5, 2011.| ‘Web’s bin Laden ‘death photo’ (just the photo) is fake’ By Stokes Young, nbcnews.com May 3, 2011.
[16] ‘The Osama bin Laden Media Scoop: “No photos or videos will be released.” By Patrick Henningsen, 21st Century Wire 5 May 2011.
[17] ‘Military emails show that NO U.S. sailors witnessed Osama bin Laden’s secret burial at sea,’ Daily Mail, 22 November 2012.
[18] ‘Iranian Intelligence Minister Claims Bin Laden Was Dead Long Before U.S. Raid’ By Alex Alvarez USA Today, May 11, 2011.
[19] ‘Media Scrambles as Bin Laden Story Crumbles’ By Alex Newman, The New American 6 May 2011.
[20] ‘Osama Bin Laden: Pakistan’s scepticism over videos’ BBC News, (video) 8 May 2011. “The release of video footage seized from Osama bin Laden’s compound in northern Pakistan was part of the continuing effort by the US to convince doubters that the al-Qaeda leader was killed in last Monday’s raid.But people in Abbottabad seem sceptical about the authenticity of the films, as Orla Guerin discovered when she took to the streets of the town where bin Laden was said to have been hiding.”
[21] ‘WikiLeaks: Guantanamo Bay terrorist secrets revealed’ By Christopher Hope, Robert Winnett, Holly Watt and Heidi Blake, The Telegraph, April 25, 2011.
[22] Dr. Steve Pieczenik on Alex Jones Show May 3,2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjtNiTm99e8.
[23] ‘Bin Laden book No Easy Day ‘contradicts official account’ BBC News, August 29 2012.
[24] ‘25 Navy SEALs Killed in Afghanistan Chopper Crash: “Taliban is claiming responsibility for U.S. chopper crash, more than 30 dead.”ABC News, (VIDEO) http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/25-navy-seals-killed-afghanistan-chopper-crash-14245388 |‘30 Americans Killed in Afghanistan Helicopter Crash’ By News Desk, PBS, August 6, 2011.
[25] ‘31 US troops, mostly elite Navy SEALs, killed in Afghanistan’ MSNBC msnbc.com staff and news service reports, August 6, 2011.
[26] op. cit Craig Roberts. The crash incident was further confirmed by May 17 article in Navy Times: “Aboard two Black Hawk helicopters were 23 SEALs, an interpreter and a tracking dog named Cairo. Nineteen SEALs would enter the compound, and three of them would find bin Laden, one official said, providing the exact numbers for the first time. Aboard the Chinooks were two dozen more SEALs, as backup. […] The plan unraveled as the first helicopter tried to hover over the compound. The Black Hawk skittered around uncontrollably in the heat-thinned air, forcing the pilot to land. As he did, the tail and rotor got caught on one of the compound’s 12-foot walls. The pilot quickly buried the aircraft’s nose in the dirt to keep it from tipping over, and the SEALs clambered out into an outer courtyard. […] It took approximately 15 minutes to reach bin Laden, one official said. The next 23 or so were spent blowing up the broken chopper, after rounding up nine women and 18 children to get them out of range of the blast.
Posted in 9/11, CoIntelpro, False Flag, Movies-Television, Social Engineering, War and tagged Abbottabad, Al-Qaeda, assassinations, Benazir Bhutto, CIA, Hollywood, Islam, Journalism, Mainstream Media, Muslims, Navy SEALS Team 6, Obama Administration, Operation Neptune Spear, Osama bin Laden, Pakistan, Pakistani Military Intelligence (ISI), propaganda, PSYOPS, September 11th 2001, Taliban, US Military, US Special Forces, USS Carl Vinson, Zero Dark Thirty on April 1, 2015 by M.K. Styllinski. 5 Comments
Osama and Al-Qaeda IV: The Bogeyman
“I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act.”
– Osama bin Laden, October, 2001.
The hunt for Osama Bin Laden cost the US government about the same amount of time and money it took to send men to the moon: ten years and $100 billion. But for some, this is a conservative estimate with more probable figures reaching as high as a trillion dollars. [1] This makes the behaviour of successive US administrations even more inexplicable until that is you accept the high probability that Osama bin Laden – the former CIA asset in 1980s Afghanistan and whose oil-banking family did business with the Bush dynasty – almost certainly died in the latter half of September 2001 from kidney failure. [2] There was even a funeral announcement published in the December 26, 2001 in an edition of the Egyptian newspaper Al Wafdeven.
Though clearly a faithful of supporter of a Holy War against the United States and Zionism he did not take responsibility for the September 11th attacks, and actually expressed contempt toward the actions of whoever did perpetrate the atrocity. As a follower of Qutbism, a violent resistance against what he saw as the moral and spiritual decadence of the United States was unavoidable in order to be true to the tenets of Islam. This did not however extend to civilians, the deaths of which are traditionally a state-sponsored action to gain needed emotional ammunition from its population.
Osama bin Laden: CIA asset that was setup?
In a rare interview, in all probability shortly before his death, bin Laden stated:
I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. Such a practice is forbidden even in the course of a battle. It is the United States, which is perpetrating every maltreatment on women, children and common people of other faiths, particularly the followers of Islam. All that is going on in Palestine for the last 11 months is sufficient to call the wrath of God upon the United States and Israel. There is also a warning for those Muslim countries, which witnessed all these as a silent spectator. What had earlier been done to the innocent people of Iraq, Chechnya and Bosnia? Only one conclusion could be derived from the indifference of the United States and the West to these acts of terror and the patronage of the tyrants by these powers that America is an anti-Islamic power and it is patronizing the anti-Islamic forces. Its friendship with the Muslim countries is just a show, rather deceit. By enticing or intimidating these countries, the United States is forcing them to play a role of its choice. Put a glance all around and you will see that the slaves of the United States are either rulers or enemies of Muslims. […]
… we are not hostile to the United States. We are against the system, which makes other nations slaves of the United States, or forces them to mortgage their political and economic freedom. This system is totally in control of the American-Jews, whose first priority is Israel, not the United States. It is clear that the American people are themselves the slaves of the Jews and are forced to live according to the principles and laws laid by them. So, the punishment should reach Israel. In fact, it is Israel, which is giving a blood bath to innocent Muslims and the U.S. is not uttering a single word. [3]
Al-Wafd, Wednesday, December 26, 2001 Vol 15 No 4633 Translation of article title: “News of Bin Laden’s Death and Funeral 10 days ago” Read more
Though many will not agree with the above sentiments and an argument can be made that bin Laden exhibits the traits of classic religious fanaticism, the above does not fit with the history of what we know of the real bin Laden. Many of his statements are grounded in fact. He knew very well the nature of Anglo-American governments and their business interests believing that “[The American system] sacrifices soldiers and populations to achieve the interests of the major corporations.” He was deeply cognizant of contemporary Western thinkers and praised liberal academics like Noam Chomsky stating: “Chomsky is amongst the greatest [thinkers] of the West.” Bin Laden expressed repugnance at what he saw as American hypocrisy masquerading as a global moral crusade while creating the exact opposite in the world. It was not that Muslims hated them for their freedoms but how a nation pretending to be a democracy was imposed on others. In bin Laden’s eyes the US was indeed “The Great Satan.” He stated: “A man with human feelings in his heart does not distinguish between a child killed in Palestine or in Lebanon, in Iraq or in Bosnia. So how can we believe your claims … while you kill our children in all of those places?” [4]
Contrary to attempts by US media to extract a “confession” from spurious interviews no evidence ever came to light that bin Laden was involved with the attacks on 9/11 which was why, despite being on the FBI’s “Most Wanted” list, no mention of 9/11 is made. There is no “hard evidence.” [5] However misguided and ruthless, bin-Laden was fully aware of the nature of the forces arraigned against him and his beloved Islam: “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, they will naturally want to side with the strong horse. When people of the world look upon the confusion and atheism of the West, they see that Islam is the strong horse.” It was the strength of Islam viewed through his own beliefs which allowed his destiny to become the primary icon of CIA induced “blowback”; to be used as the perfect tool in a major false flag operation.
For a myth to continue to hold its power it must be injected with the requisite emotional ingredients and stirred for maximum effect, which is where PSYOPS comes in.
Everyone knows how easy it is to manipulate images. Whether using Photoshop for your holiday photos or the Computer Generated Images (CGI) of the Hollywood blockbusters which can literally create new worlds, reality can be malleable in ways undreamt of. In the hands of the military-intelligence apparatus with technological applications far in advance of the public market it is not just easy to align multi-media sophistication with public relations, but a necessity. No one can seriously entertain the idea that such possibilities are off limits to those without any scruples and who are willing to use technology to further their own desires.
The myth-making machine has been working over-time in relation to the Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden story with a blend of CIA-MOSSAD inspired PSYOPS. The nature of any kind of genuine fundamentalism – Islamic or otherwise – means that it reaches a crescendo of conflict where it is difficult to know what is fake and what is real. Jihad martyr videos are liberally uploaded to the internet, often after Intel agents have manipulated the content. Sleeper agents or unconscious dupes already integrated into Al-Qaeda cells can then carry out their duties on behalf of their paymasters – or Allah. It has never been easier to pull the wool over our eyes, even when video manipulation is shoddy in the extreme.
Recall the 1999 Washington Post article by William Arkin “When Seeing and Hearing isn’t Believing,” where he described the new technology of ‘voice morphing’ or ‘voice synthesizing’, explaining that, “if audio technicians have a recording of your voice, then they can create a tape in which your authentic voice says anything they wish.” [6] What we can be sure of is that a large proportion of videos circulated on the internet at politically opportune moments have proven to be fake.
In early 2003, Iraq provided another testing ground for not just planting stories in the world’s media but to create fake videos to keep the war on terror narrative alive in the public’s mind and therefore promote the objective of regime change and the toppling of Saddam Hussein. The CIA’s Iraq Operations Group floated ideas to show Hussein as a paedophile molesting a boy and “… to flood Iraq with the videos…” As cultural constraints made this concept unworkable, it was soon dropped. Other ideas included the interruption of Iraqi television programming with a fake special news bulletins and fake inserts or “crawls”—messages at the bottom of the screen—into Iraqi newscasts. The CIA also began playing with the idea of an Osama bin laden impersonator. The Washington Post reports that the CIA abandoned the projects leaving the way open for their revival in military circles. As one military official comments: “The military took them over,” due to the “… assets in psy-war down at Ft. Bragg,” at the Army’s Special Warfare Centre.[7] (One wonders how many paid bin Laden, Hussein and other high profile figures have been paraded for media consumption).
Hot on the heels of September 11th attacks, the CIA embarked on a massive propaganda campaign to fuse Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein in order to justify the invasion of Iraq. With the help of Britain’s Tony Blair, the idea of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) was cooked up as a further PR exercise.
This matches the production quality of subsequent videos which appeared on the scene as the CIA project was taken over by the Pentagon at some point after 2003. This is most evident in the video released just prior to the 2004 election and an obviously digitally manipulated duplicate from 2007, in which bin Laden is sporting a trimmed, dyed beard and a bottled sun-tan. It was not just Intel groups having fun with their video collections. At the level of the mainstream US and British media videos were often edited in line with government policy.
When Osama Bin Laden videos periodically surfaced throughout the Iraq war and up to his alleged Hollywood-esque death it was inevitable that they would be thoroughly cleansed of all references and remarks that might prove problematic to the accepted “Osama-under-the-bed” formula. Obviously doctored and fully fabricated videos would be given unfettered access to the mass media outlets, with the Bush Administration taking media propaganda to new heights. From 2001–2011 more than 30 audio and video recordings were released, most of which found their way to the internet.
In October 2001, bin Laden appeared on Al Jazeera, in a pre-recorded video statement shortly after US-led strikes on Afghanistan begin. It was the first time the Al-Qaeda leader had apparently spoken after the 9/11 attacks. Sitting in a flack-jacket next to his right hand man Ayman al-Zawahiri he proceeds to softly berate the United States. No responsibility for the 9/11 attacks is forthcoming. A common and frustrating characteristic of the video and subsequent offerings was the lack of date or time stamp which meant there was no way to know when and where it was made. Bin Laden states: “What the United States tastes today is a very small thing compared to what we have tasted for tens of years.” He praises those responsible, saying, “I ask God Almighty to elevate their status and grant them paradise.” [8] Zionist and Bush Administration Press Secretary wasted no time in drawing our attention to the obvious fact that bin Laden “virtually took responsibility” for 9/11, despite explicitly denying his involvement. This soon turned bin Laden into designated arch-terrorist No.1 commensurate with Zion-Conservative planning. [9]
Osama bin Laden speech released October 2001. Date of video: unknown (AFP/Getty Images)
On December 13, 2001, a home video was apparently filmed without his knowledge and conveniently found in a house in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. It was reportedly delivered to the CIA; by whom, no one knows. The video shows a conversation between Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda spokesman Suliman abu Ghaith, and Al-Qaeda veteran Khaled al-Harbi. The Pentagon delivered what could be loosely called a “translation” to all major news outlets which was so in line with the official 9/11 story of the day and similarly riven with errors and fallacies as to be wholly unbelievable. The Bush Administration screamed from their Neo-Con pulpit that this was definitive proof, effectively calling for an end to any doubts as to the intent of Al-Qaeda and their culpable Commander-in-Chief. However, it wasn’t long before even some within the MSM began to have serious doubts about its authenticity. So many people began scratching their heads that Bush was forced to comment exclaiming in true reactionary form that it was: “preposterous for anybody to think this tape was doctored. Those who contend it’s a farce or a fake are hoping for the best about an evil man.” [10]
Apart from the obvious fact this video could easily have been faked by anyone, it is also true that previous videos had usually been given their formal consent by bin Laden and passed through to the Arabic Al-Jazeera network. It didn’t happen on that occasion and subsequently many others. More importantly, the person in the video is clearly not bin laden no matter how hard the Bush administration and 9/11 debunkers scream and shout that it is. As 9/11 journalist and Islamic studies historian Dr. Kevin Barrett noted, the person in the video is “at least 40 or 50 pounds heavier, and his facial features [are] obviously different…” all of which led the video to be dubbed the “Fatty Bin-Laden tape” and widely ridiculed. [11]
A still from the “confession” video showing advisor Khaled al-Harbi speaking with “Osama bin Laden”. (historycommons.org)
Dr. David Ray Griffin offered another problem with the video by pointing out that:
“… its stocky bin Laden praised two of the alleged hijackers, Wail M. Al-Shehri and Salem al-Hazmi, by name, and yet both the London Telegraph and the Saudi embassy reported several days after 9/11 that al-Hazmi was still alive and working in Saudi Arabia. Given the fact that the earlier video in which Osama confessed was clearly a fake, we should be suspicious of this latest apparent confession.” [12]
We then come to what this imposter actually said. The latest “bin-Laden” gave a convenient up-date on the technical details of the 9/11 narrative as if to quell any criticism of the official story :
“[W]e calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy, who would be killed based on the position of the tower. We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of them all… (inaudible)… due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. This is what we had hoped for.” He continues: “We had notification since the previous Thursday that the event would take place that day. We had finished our work that day and had the radio on. It was 5:30 p.m. our time.… Immediately, we heard the news that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. We turned the radio station to the news from Washington.… At the end of the newscast, they reported that a plane just hit the World Trade Center … After a little while, they announced that another plane had hit the World Trade Center. The brothers who heard the news were overjoyed by it.” [13] [Emphasis mine]
The above passage is distinctive for its hackneyed attempts at creating a 9/11 script and placing it at the foot of bin Laden. Firstly, sentences in italics referring to the reasons and causes for the WTC destruction, are so closely aligned to the official story that it becomes far too pat. It is especially odd that “bin Laden” refers to the Twin Towers as made of iron rather than steel. For a trained civil engineer as he was, this is nonsensical. [14] The reference to not revealing information to the “brothers” until: “… just before they boarded the planes,” is also curious as all of the alleged hijackers bought their tickets for the 9/11 flights two weeks in advance, not forgetting flight training for the leaders. The pilots and the hijackers all knew each other and had contact with each other prior and during the flights which is the opposite to what is said in the video. [15]
Spot the Bin Laden. Clue: He isn’t on the left. Yet, US authorities would like you to believe that this is the same man captured on video in December 2001. Source: Reuters
A German TV show also confirmed that the translation provided by the Pentagon was seriously flawed. Professor Gernot Rotter, scholar of Islamic and Arabic Studies at the University of Hamburg found that the: “… tape is of such poor quality that many passages are unintelligible. And those that are intelligible have often been taken out of context, so that you can’t use that as evidence. The American translators who listened to the tape and transcribed it obviously added things that they wanted to hear in many places.” [16]
Further incredulity was to arrive in January 2004, as research into several audio recordings allegedly made by bin Laden was carried out. Professor Richard Muller of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) concluded there was evidence of “cut and paste” editing from past recordings, believing that the audio examples are fake and bin Laden either “dead or injured.” He pointed the finger at Al-Qaeda’s difficulties in countering American counter-terrorism rather than CIA fabrication. [17]
In the same year on October 29, immediately prior to the US elections (a curiously common occurrence for Al-Qaeda audio and video messages) an alleged bin Laden video recording was
released which came to be known as the “Towers of Lebanon Speech” in which he explained his vengeful reasons for planning 9/11: “As I looked at those destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me to punish the oppressor in kind by destroying towers in America, so that it would have a taste of its own medicine and would be prevented from killing our women and children.” The individual also heavily criticised Bush by highlighting some of his bizarre actions on that day: “It did not occur to us that the commander in chief of the American armed forces would leave fifty thousand of his citizens in the two towers to face this great horror on their own, just when they needed him most. It seems that a little girl’s story about a goat and its butting was more important than dealing with airplanes and their butting into skyscrapers.” [18] This was referring to Bush’s behaviour when told that America was under attack he continued reading to the class of schoolchildren and sat in the class for another half an hour so as not to “scare them.” The speech also criticised security, corporate control and US–Israel imperialism.
Perhaps the most important question to ask is who benefited from this particular video at pre-election time? It is widely accepted at the time that rather than hurting Bush’s popularity it would actually help to ensure his re-election by stirring the memories of 9/11 and America under attack, thus fuelling the fires of religious nationalism. [19] Bush sailed on to victory with ghost runner and fellow Bonesman John Kerry left in his wake.
An audio recording from May 2006 arrived in the post claiming to be the latest sermon from Osama. It asserts that Guantanamo Bay terrorist Zacharias Moussaoui could not have been involved in 9/11, because he had personally assigned the 19 hijackers involved in those events. The latest bin-Laden therefore contradicts his original and authentic message of December 2001 and suddenly confesses his responsibility for orchestrating the attacks. [20]
Sure, he just forgot…
And what of the identities of the hijackers themselves? It seems that seven of those he ‘personally assigned’ had nothing at all to do with 9/11 and turned out to be alive and well. More coincidences? Or flaws in an extensive cover-up characterised by an ever-present ineptitude?
Previous releases of tapes by Intelcenter the U.S. monitoring group which describes its role as providing: “counterterrorism intelligence when, where & how you need it” extends to manufacturing and fabricating video tapes on behalf of “Al-Qaeda.” The company delivered several videos to the Western media press from 2006–2008, even selling them on their website at intelcenter.org. Most of the videos have been conclusively proven to be culled together from old footage dating from five years previously, yet they continue to be seen as authentic by the MSM. [21]
Intelcenter is an offshoot of IDEFENSE, a web security company that monitors intelligence from the Middle East. It is positively crawling with ex-military intelligence veterans, US Army and Defence Intelligence Agency individuals, many of whom have ties to Zio-Conservatives of the last Bush Administration. IntelCenter has been caught red-handed fabricating video evidence in order to attribute it to Al-Qaeda terrorist networks on a number of occasions.
It was on another anniversary on September 11th 2007 that we saw another video shunted off the Al-Qaeda-CIA home movie production line with a contribution credit to Intelcenter. The “video” consisted of a still picture of Osama “provided” by the controversial US-Based SITE Institute and given to Associated Press on 7 September of that year. Describing itself as an organization “that provides information related to terrorist networks to the government, news media, and general public,” SITE’s non-profit status has earned it more than $500,000 from the government”, with “over $273,000” coming directly from taxpayers in 2004. [22] But “the organization believes such work is consistent with its exempt purposes”, which of course it would, raking in that amount of money. [23]
SITE Executive Director Rita Katz co-founded the intelligence company with her husband and senior analyst Josh Devon, both committed Zionists with links to Israeli intelligence. Having worked with former terrorism Czar Richard Clarke and his staff in the White House, the Department of Justice, Department of the Treasury, and the Department of Homeland Security garnering: “… wide attention by publicizing statements and videos from extremist chat rooms and Web sites, while attracting controversy over the secrecy of SITE’s methodology.” [24] Professor Bruce Hoffman is also listed as a senior advisor and “currently a tenured professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Washington, DC.” Not only has Hoffman residing at the notorious recruiting ground for the Liberal arm of the 3EM, but had a post as Corporate Chair in Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency and a directorship
of the Rockefeller/Rothschild connected RAND Corporation, also conveniently in Washington DC. Recall that RAND has a long association with PSYOPS research. (Indeed, the description of the corporation’s successful PSYOPS implementation can be read in a 2007 178 page document originally prepared for the US Air Force titled: Project Air Force by Stephen T. Hosmer).
Rita Katz co-founder of the SITE Institute doing what she does best: keeping the war on terror narrative flowing by propagating (and possibly creating) numerous Al-Qaeda videos made fresh for the internet. BE AFRAID! Is the message. SITE is likely a PSYOPS front for MOSSAD masquerading as a legitimate intelligence gathering operation for mainstream media. By 2015, we have seen Katz getting behind the new bogeyman meme this time in the guise of ISIS/ISIL, better known as Islamic State, the new kids on the propaganda block designed to up the ante in emotional horror in the mass mind.
Previous to her post as SITE director Katz worked as Research Director of “The Investigative Project on Terrorism” and served as a counsel for the plaintiffs—Families of victims of September 11 terrorist attacks who happen to be suing Saudi princes for $116 trillion of damages from the loss of life in September 11. She was also hired by 1,000 relatives of those who died on September 11th in order to research terrorism. A civil lawsuit was filed in 2002 against those suspected of financing terror plots. No doubt spurred on by the legacy of the Muslim Brotherhood, Katz however continued to earn substantial sums of money from the Homeland Security and intelligence raids on Muslim think tanks and institutions, much of it based on her own research alone.
She is also the author of Terrorist Hunter: The Extraordinary Story of a Woman who Went Undercover to Infiltrate the Radical Islamic Groups Operating in America published 2003 by HarperCollins, owned by ardent Israel supporter Rupert Murdoch. To say that this should be categorised as a work of fiction is an understatement. The breathless title gives you all you need to know as to the plot, and is thus utterly false since gender restriction means that fundamentalist gatherings would allow no woman to be present save Katz taking on some of the false beards and make-up seen in her own videos. Regardless, she has managed to create quite a money spinner. And like so many in the terror industry, the SITE Institute has much to gain financially by keeping the Intel flowing into American and Israeli military-security complex.
Katz and Devon are part of an outsourced unit that is effectively part of the Zio-Conservative and government intelligence apparatus. The website describes itself as a “monitoring service” on the Jihadist threat,” which is severely problematic considering the couple’s obvious lack of impartiality against anything associated with the Arab nationalism, let alone the war on terror. One might even say this is about as obvious an Israeli PSYOPS operation as its possible to be. In other words, Katz’s handlers are MOSSAD.
With a fat new propaganda bogeyman in the guise of ISIL tearing up the Middle East it seems the SITE Institute’s PR role for the terror industry is set to continue. Geo-political analyst Professor James F. Tracey summed the sad state of affairs within the MSM: “Since mid-August 2014 major news organizations have conveyed videos allegedly found online by the SITE Intelligence Group. Unsurprisingly the same media have failed to closely interrogate what the private company actually is and whether the material it promotes should be accepted as genuine.” [25]
From one fake brand to another: Osama to ISIL hatchet man “Jihadi John”
This manufacturing of threats and the subsequent erosion of civil liberties has been going on a long time now. Timothy H. Edgar, National Security Policy Counsel for the ACLU testified in April 2005 before the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security of the House Committee on the Judiciary stating:
“… federal agents seized confidential files, computer hard drives, books, and other materials from some of the most respected Islamic think tanks and organizations in the United States and raided the homes of many of the leaders involved in those organizations. The search warrants targeted two entities whose main purpose involves activities at the core of the First Amendment: the Graduate School of Islamic Thought and Social Sciences (GSITSS), an institute of higher education, and the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), an Islamic research institute and think tank, as well as the private homes of a number of their employees and scholars,”
Apart from the danger of slipping into “witch-hunts” on a whim and therefore breaching civil rights, it seems the evidence against the organisations was less than substantial. Mr. Edgar pressed on to highlight the most important points:
“The complaint in the civil rights action says the affidavit in support of the search warrants contained fabricated material facts regarding non-existent overseas transactions. The complaint also says the search warrant affidavit was drafted with the help of private author and self-styled ‘terrorist hunter’ Rita Katz, who was paid $272,000 for her advice by the federal government and has made much more in a book deal and as a consultant for news organizations. According to federal investigators, Katz ‘lost the trust of some investigators from the FBI and Justice Department’ as a result in part of the ‘reckless conclusions’ she drew in her book, …” [Emphasis mine]
With SITE as the only source for the video and disregarding other influences, surely we could be forgiven for thinking there are not only are there severe conflict of interests but financial and public relation concerns that cast serious doubt on the authenticity of the recording.
What of the video itself? Needless to say, a few “problems” came to light.
It seems the devoutly religious and moral “Osama” has suddenly undergone a midlife crisis and sort refuge in a make-over for his adoring minions. This has resulted in a chocolate brown dyed hair and a beard suitably clipped into a more suburban, Muslim-terrorist-about-town style, topped off with a garish gold ring just to show that his taste in contemporary jewellery and his adherence to Islam do not clash. It appears the rationale of wearing of a ring which is forbidden by Muslim law, and the magical transformation of a left-handed Osama to a right-handed one is all perfectly understandable in the world that some analysts prefer to inhabit.
The SITE Institute happily made up the claim that it is “common practice” amongst Muslim men to dye their hair when in fact, the opposite is the case. According to one BBC report other analysts: “… have suggested that rather than being dyed, it may be actually false, and that to help avoid detection he is clean-shaven these days.” [26] Ah, of course, the old false beard trick. Works well in the caves of Afghanistan or the market streets of Pakistan. If he was a paid Osama look-alike then you have to go with what’s available. Times are hard, after all…
Given the satellite and surveillance technology that is at least sophisticated enough to read the newsprint as you sit on the John, it appears it isn’t up to the job of finding a Muslim terrorist dressed in yellow grab and a false beard. Of course, if a gaggle of Muslim terrorists are intelligent enough to pull off the biggest false flag in history and penetrate the most heavily defended region on Earth then it is probable that they would have thought about the idea of sophisticated surveillance. Yet, we asked to place our trust in the logic of a false beard nonetheless.
Moreover, the tape itself has been so hacked, chopped and generally messed around with, that it represents a frozen CGI image manipulated to give the illusion of a living, speaking human being. In the whole 26-minute recording, two short sections are sandwiched into the 26 minute recording where the man said to be bin Laden is seen talking: one at the beginning and one towards the middle. For the remaining 23 minutes of the tape we are invited to watch a still image of the speaker. (It is all the more extraordinary that no one in the MSM considers this odd. If they did, they weren’t about to say so, for obvious reasons). Apparent to anyone who has been exposed to the usual diet of a TV we can see cuts and edits all over the place, even the introduction of sections which appear to be from different recordings altogether. As noted by computer analyst Dr. Neal Krawetz of the University of Winnipeg: “… the new audio has no accompanying ‘live’ video and consists of multiple audio recordings… and there are so many splices that I cannot help but wonder if someone spliced words and phrases together. I also cannot rule out a vocal imitator during the frozen-frame audio. The only way to prove that the audio is really bin Laden is to see him talking in the video.” [27]
That seems to be a tall order since Osama appears to have long since met his Maker.
(left) “Osama bin Laden” makes his Towers of Lebanon Speech in 2004 Source: Al-Jazeera | (right) A frame from “Osama bin Laden’s” 2007 video. Source: Intelcenter
Krawetz also noticed remarkably similar themes and technical details from bin Laden’s previous video, released in 2004, a few days before the US presidential election:
“[T]his is the same clothing [a white hat, white shirt and yellow sweater] he wore in the 2004-10-29 video. In 2004 he had it unzipped, but in 2007 he zipped up the bottom half. Besides the clothing, it appears to be the same background, same lighting, and same desk. Even the camera angle is almost identical.” Krawetz also comments, “if you overlay the 2007 video with the 2004 video, his face has not changed in three years—only his beard is darker and the contrast on the picture has been adjusted.” [28]
If the Pentagon can concoct fake Al-Zarqawi letters boasting about suicide attacks and then leak them to The New York Times, to be printed on the front page the next day, it is much more than probable that videos would most certainly not be off limits.
Now, take this analysis and apply it to the present chaos that is ISIL. We have had mass civilian carnage on a scale all supported by extremely fake-looking videos, with hostages likely agreeing to stage mock set ups over a year before the televised “beheadings”. The first high profile beheading victim, journalist and anti-Assad James Foley is an example. A UK Times article reported on the findings of forensic analysts’ conclusion that the video of Foley’s beheading” was staged. Several points are made to explain why this is so, including:
The sounds made by Foley are not consistent with beheadings.
There is no blood shed while ‘several cuts’ are made to the neck of Foley.
Foley’s words appear to have been scripted.
The analysis highlights a blip in the imagery that could indicate the journalist had to repeat a line.
Sounds made by Foley do not appear consistent with what might be expected.
The video begins with a clip of President Barack Obama. This footage appears to have been downloaded directly from the White House website. [29]
The propaganda video by ISIL with the victim James Foley 2014. His murder likely took place off camera.
Apart from embedded journalism which was the first red flag, Foley also worked in Iraq for a known CIA front USAID in 2009. By 2011, he had been kidnapped by Gaddafi’s military and then happened to repeat a round of bad luck with his capture in Syria. As a hostage in Libya, then again in Syria and finally beheaded by ISIS. This is a little far-fetched to say the least. As journalist Michael Krieger notes, his resume: “… reads more like a James Bond film script than that of a journalist with a teaching background.” Proof of complicity? Not really. It’s usually a mix of lies and truth with patsies not even knowing they’ve been sacrificed until it is too late.
Regardless of whether individuals were CIA/MOSSAD agents as some have suggested, they had, in truth, been murdered a long time before their few minutes of tragic fame. Once again, agents and patsies are collateral for the greater vision which follows exactly the same formula every time:
create / fuel radicalism through a complex mix of genuine cells and manufactured ones
= embed agents in chosen grouping to incite ideology to fever pitch and making sure to eject moderates
= Make sure a good cluster of psychopaths are present for the bloodletting and ensuing mayhem
= supply with bombs and assorted weaponry
= direct toward geopolitical aims
= ensure propagandized coverage via mainstream media.
Nothing has changed. The same people are in charge as they were during Al-Qaeda’s reign. The revolving door of politics has no effect on shadow government machinations. If these shoddy attempts at video manipulation are the best that outsourced military PSYOPS can come up with and the public still believes that the enemy is “out there” rather than the government and its agencies, then we are surely in for a very dark future. [30]
[1] ‘Apollo 11 Moon landing: ten facts about Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins’ mission’ The Telegraph, July 18, 2009 | See also: http://www.business.time.com/2011/05/03/how-much-has-osama-bin-laden-cost-the-us
[2] Osama Bin Laden: Dead or Alive? By David Ray Griffin, Published by Olive Branch Press July 2009. ISBN-10: 1566567831. Also read a great summary found surprisingly in The Daily Mail, not noted for the finest journalistic standards. This article is however, an exception: ‘Has Osama Bin Laden been dead for seven years – and are the U.S. and Britain covering it up to continue war on terror?’ By Sue Reid
Daily Mail, 11 September 2009.
[3] Bin Laden: Authentic Interview by Carol A. Valentine, Curator, Waco Holocaust Electronic Museum, http://www.Public-Action.com October, 2001.
[4] ‘Transcript of Osama Bin Ladin interview by Peter Arnett’The first-ever television interview with Osama Bin Ladin was conducted by Peter Arnett in eastern Afghanistan in late March 1997. Questions were submitted in advance. Bin Ladin responded to almost all of the questions. CNN was not allowed to ask follow up questions. The interview lasted just over an hour. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7204.htm | ‘CNN Transcript of Osama Bin Laden’s October Interview’ with Taseer Allouni February 5, 2002. Al-Jazeera reporter Allouni was sent to jail for having links to Al-Qaeda and financial irregularities. The interview in question is used by US authorities as proof that 9/11 was carried out by Bin Laden but no such proof is in evidence and allusions of which go counter to bin laden’s previous claims.
[5] ‘Osama bin Laden, among the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives”: Why was he never indicted for his alleged role in 9/11?’ By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, September 17, 2006.
[6] ‘When Seeing and Hearing Isn’t Believing’ By William M. Arkin, The Washington Post, Feb. 1, 1999.
[7] ‘CIA unit’s wacky idea: Depict Saddam as gay’ By Jeff Stein, The Washington Post, May 25 2010.
[8] ‘Bin Laden Taunts US and Praises Hijackers’ By John F.Burns, The New York Times, October 8, 2001. | ‘Bin Laden’s warning: full text’ BBC News, 7 October, 2001.
[9] ‘Bush: Bin Laden “virtually took responsibility” CNN.com October 8, 2001.
[10] ‘US urged to detail origin of tape’ By Steven Morris, The Guardian, December 15, 2001.
[11] p.179; Truth Jihad: My Epic Struggle Against the 9/11 Big Lie By Kevin Barrett Published by Progressive Press, 2007.
[12] ‘Osama Tape Appears Fake, Experts Conclude’June 1st, 2006, PRWeb.com
[13] TRANSCRIPT OF USAMA BIN LADEN VIDEO TAPE (“Transcript and annotations independently prepared by George Michael, translator, Diplomatic Language Services; and Dr. Kassem M. Wahba, Arabic language program coordinator, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. They collaborated on their translation and compared it with translations done by the U.S. government for consistency. There were no inconsistencies in the translations). http://www.defense.gov/news/Dec2001/d20011213ubl.pdf.
[14] National Institute of Standards and Technology, 9/2005,( p. 6 ) | op.cit US Department of Defense, December 13, 2001.
[15] op.cit US Department of Defense, December 13, 2001. | Flight tickets booked: http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov/notablecases/moussaoui/exhibits/prosecution/ST00001A.pdf |, ‘The British Breeding Ground’ By Neil Mackay, The Sunday Herald September 30, 2001.
[16] ‘Bin Laden Video: Faulty Translation as evidence?’By George Restle and Ekkehard Seiker, Monitor TV December 20, 2001.
[17] ‘The Voice of Osama bin Laden: Osama’s voice on tape proves that the leader of al Qaeda is still alive. Or does it?’ By Richard A. Muller, MIT Technology Review, Communications News, January 23, 2004.
[18] p.237; Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden, By Osama bin Laden (Author), Bruce Lawrence (Editor), James Howarth (Translator) Published by Verso, 2005. | ISBN-10: 1844670457.
[19] ‘Lou Dobbs Tonight’ -Recent Video of Bin Laden Airs; Iraq Missing Explosives Still an Issue Aired CNN.com October 29, 2004. Transcript: www. transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0410/29/ldt.01.html
[20] ‘Osama Tape Appears Fake, Experts Conclude ’US government fabricating evidence to manipulate American public, scholars say. Duluth, MN (PRWEB) May 30, 2006.
[21] ‘CIA-Linked Intel Center Releases Highly Suspicious Bin Laden Tape’ By Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet.com, September 14, 2009.
[23] http://www.SITEinstitute.org/
[24] ‘SO, A ‘Charitable Organization’ (The SITE Institute) Released the Bin Laden Video…,’ By Berni McCoy, Berni McCoy’s Journal/Democratic Underground, September 10, 2007 | ‘Leak Severed a Link to Al-Qaeda’s Secrets. Firm Says Administration’s Handling of Video Ruined Its Spying Efforts,’ By Joby Warrick, Washington Post, October 9, 2007.
[25] ‘Who is Behind the Islamic State (ISIL) Beheadings? Probing the SITE Intelligence Group’ By Prof. James F. Tracy, Global Research, September 15, 2014
[26] ‘Trimmed Bin Laden in media-savvy war’ By Frank Gardner, BBC News, September 8, 2007.
[27] ‘Bin Laden’s beard is real, video is not’ Digital evidence supports the theory that Al-Qaida is recycling old footage to create new messages. – by Robert Vamosi, http://www.news.cnet.com, September 12, 2007. | op.cit BBC News, (Gardener.)
[29] ‘Foley video with Briton was staged, experts say’ By Deborah Haynes, The Times, August 25 2014.
[30] For further analysis of the video fakery see this article from 2011: ‘Exclusive: Osama bin Laden’s Nose and Left Ear’ By Joe Quinn Sott.net. 08 May 2011.
Posted in 9/11, Corporatism, False Flag, Movies-Television, Technology, War and tagged 9/11 hijackers, Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, Al-Zarqawi, beheadings, Bush Administration, CIA, George W. Bush, Homeland Security, IDEFENSE, Intelcenter, international banking, ISIS/ISIL, Islamic Caliphate, Islamic Fundamentalism, Islamism, Israel, Mossad, Obama Administration, Osama bin Laden, pentagon, PSYOPS, Saddam Hussein, Saudi Arabia, September 11th 2001, SITE Institute, terrorism, Twin Towers, United Nations, US Military, War on Terror, witch-hunts, World Trade Centre, Zio-Conservatism on March 31, 2015 by M.K. Styllinski. 4 Comments
WTC Building 7
“This is a controlled demolition which was carried out by a team of experts.”
– the late Danny Jowenko, demolition expert, making the comment before he was told he was watching a video of the destruction of WTC building 7.
One of the most outrageous events of September 11th and even harder to explain using the official story is the destruction of one of New York City’s larger sky-scrapers, the 47 story Building 7, part of the WTC complex and which occupied an entire city block, it’s height reaching 600ft above street level. Whereas the Twin Towers exhibited an array of strange anomalies, Building 7 imploded in a manner wholly indistinguishable from a conventional building demolition.
According to a Zogby poll in 2006, 43 percent of Americans didn’t even know Building 7 existed, let alone that it was destroyed. What the public also may not know is that no plane hit the building, suffering only minimal damage after the destruction of the Twin Towers. By 2011, Siena Research Institute Poll commissioned by “Remember Building 7” Campaign showed that there was substantial skeptism about the official story. Almost half of the 643 New Yorkers polled were in favour of a new investigation into WTC 7’s collapse. Amidst the constant stream of propaganda-saturated media pumped into American living-rooms every day this is a significant rise in awareness.
The World Trade Centre complex buildings 3, 4, 5, and 6 were damaged more severely than Building 7; firstly, by falling rubble from the tower collapses, and then from fires which burned for hours on various floors. None of these buildings decided to implode. WTC 7 fell into its own footprint at 5.20pm on September 11th with a precision even more characteristic of a controlled demolition than the Twin Towers. No other explanation can account for this scenario unless it was simply the most mysterious, catastrophic structural failure in history. In which case, the laws of physics will have to be quickly re-written. Persistent attempts by the MSM to paint this destruction due to intense fires the evidence simply doesn’t add up.
Sequential stills from the collapse of WTC 7 from video footage: ttps://www.youtube.com/
Watch a 9.6 sec. quick-time video from CBS News: (click on the image)
The official line is that these fires continued to burn throughout the afternoon on the lower floors due to the building’s suppression system lacking water pressure to fight the fires, causing a collapse at 5:21 pm. This is said to have combined with the failure of a major internal column which buckled triggering a structural failure throughout, the visible signs of which can be seen in video footage of a rooftop penthouse structure crumbling at 5:20 pm. [1]
On the morning of September 11, 2001, the late Barry Jennings, a City Housing Authority worker and Michael Hess, New York̵ corporation counsel, became trapped inside Building 7. After trying to find their way down from the 23rd floor during a power outage they both heard what sounded like loud explosions below them when they reached the eight and then the sixth floors of the building. These were heard before 9:59am when the Twin Towers were still standing. Hess and Jennings were rescued by fire-fighters later that day. [2]
Confirming the story of Jennings and Hess, another eyewitness Craig Bartmer, Former NYPD, and 9/11 First Responder gave a vivid account of the WTC 7 as it fell into its own footprint:
“All of a sudden, the radios exploded and everybody started screaming, ‘Get away, get away, get away from it!’ And, I was like a deer in the headlights. And I looked up, and…Two guys that I knew were on the transit radio. I don’t know if those tapes are out there… And I looked up, and it was nothing I would ever imagine seeing in my life. You know the thing started peeling in on itself and, I mean there was an umbrella of crap seven feet over my head that I just stared at. Somebody grabbed my shoulder and I started running, and the shit’s hitting the ground behind me. And the whole time you’re hearing, ‘THOOM! THOOM! THOOM! THOOM! THOOM!’ So, I, I think I know an explosion when I hear it, you know? So yeah, I wanna know what took that building down. I don’t think it was a fire and it certainly wasn’t a plane…It had some damage to it but nothing like what they’re saying…I am shocked at the[official] story we’ve heard about it, to be quite honest.” [3]
Eyewitness Kevin McPadden, Emergency Medical Technician, and 9/11 First Responder had a similar story to tell:
“And, at the last few seconds, he took his hand off [the radio] and you heard “3-2-1”, and he was just saying, ‘Just run for your life, just run for your life.’ And then it was like another two, three seconds, you heard explosions. Like BA-BOOOOOM! And it’s like a distinct sound…BA-BOOOOOM! And you felt a rumble in the ground, like, almost like you wanted to grab onto something. That, to me, I knew that was an explosion. There was no doubt in my mind.” [4]
Just as it was in the case of the Twin Towers, the matter of a 100 steel-framed, high-rise fires which have occurred in the past not one building has ever collapsed. The conundrum also applies to Building 7. How the sky-scraper instantly went from full support to zero support was a matter that the NIST didn’t want to explore, despite its remit to do so. While initially claiming that WTC 7 collapsed slower than free-fall acceleration, it later confirmed the obvious due to pressure from certain members of the public. In the final report in November 2008, the “… free fall drop continued for approximately 8 stories, or 32.0 meters (105 ft.), the distance traveled between times t = 1.75 s and t = 4.0 s [a period of 2.25 seconds]” with the final duration at 6.5 seconds. Tellingly however, the NIST did not include why Building 7’s 2.25 second collapse could have occurred. To do so, would have meant deviating from the official conspiracy theory. [5]
Plan of the World Trade Centre | Source: University of Maryland at www.terpconnect.umd.edu/
The interested member of the public who took NIST to task was a Mr. Chandler who explained what the free-fall really meant: “The collapse we see cannot be due to a column failure, or a few column failures, or a sequence of column failures. All 24 interior columns and 58 perimeter columns had to have been removed over the span of 8 floors low in the building simultaneously to within a small fraction of a second, and in such a way that the top half of the building remains intact and uncrumpled.” [6] A steel-cored, 47- story sky-scraper untouched by aeroplane impact and with minimal damage and limited fires decided to collapse in a uniform, symmetrical fashion through the path of greatest resistance – with 40,000 tons of steel designed to resist this load – straight down into its own footprint in just 6.5 seconds and still people have a hard time considering that only explosives could achieve such a result.
Photo taken 9/12 – Image source: FOIA documents release 41
Head of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Richard Gage is in no doubt that the fires and the temperatures achieved in Building 7 fell far short of the required heat to melt steel: “Such temperatures cannot be achieved by oxygen-starved hydrocarbon fires. Such fires burn at only 600 to 800° F”. [7] Gage also draws our attention to the evidence of: “… mistimed explosions (squibs?) at the upper seven floors on the network video recordings of the collapse. And we have expert testimony from a European demolitions expert, Danny Jowenko, who said ‘This is controlled demolition… a team of experts did this… This is professional work, without any doubt.’ ” [8] (More from Jowenko later).
Parallel to this conclusion and similar to the Twin Towers, evidence recorded on video at the base of WTC 7 confirm reports from fire department personnel who saw: “molten steel running down the channel rails … like you’re in a foundry – like lava from a volcano.” [9] Gage continues: “Appendix C of FEMA’s BPAT Report … documents steel samples showing rapid oxidation, sulfidation, and intergranular melting. A liquid eutectic mixture, including sulfur from an unknown source, caused intense corrosion of the steel, gaping holes in wide flange beams, and the thinning of half-inch-thick flanges to almost razor-sharpness in the World Trade Center 7 steel. The New York Times called this ‘ the deepest mystery uncovered in the investigation.’ ” [10]
None of this was addressed in any of the NIST reports. International experts weren’t consulted either, despite their reservations about NIST conclusions. Even their very own former head of the Fire Science Division of NIST and one of the world’s leading fire science researchers and safety engineers, Dr. James Quintiere Ph.D., called for an independent review of the World Trade Centre Twin Tower collapse investigation and referring to the NIST investigation: “I wish that there would be a peer review of this, I think all the records that NIST has assembled should be archived. I would really like to see someone else take a look at what they’ve done; both structurally and from a fire point of view … I think the official conclusion that NIST arrived at is questionable.”
Image source: FOIA documents release 16
Kamal S. Obeid, a structural engineer, with a master’s degree in Engineering from UC Berkeley, of Fremont, California, stated: “Photos of the steel, evidence about how the buildings collapsed, the unexplainable collapse of WTC 7, evidence of thermite in the debris as well as several other red flags, are quite troubling indications of well-planned and controlled demolition.” [11]
One of Europe’s top demolition experts was Dutch-born Danny Jowenko. His reaction to seeing WTC7 collapse was shown in a widely seen video. Before being told that it was the WTC 7 building that he was seeing, Jowenko was in no doubt whatsoever that what he was watching “…was a controlled demolition carried out by a team of experts.” [12] When he is informed that the collapse happened on September 11th later that very same day, his shock is palpable. The demolition expert asked repeatedly “De zelfde dag??” (The same day?) As the video of the collapse plays out Jowenko searched for an explanation and told his interviewer that someone must have wired the whole WTC towers for demolition in a few hours though it is clear his facial expression and body language shows that he doesn’t really believe it himself. When the interviewer informed him that FEMA excluded the possibility of a controlled demolition as an explanation for WTC7’s collapse it is then that Jowenko begins to process what this means. [13]
In a later 2006, telephone interview with journalist Jeff Hill, Jowenko was convinced that there was a cover up and that a highly sophisticated controlled demolition did in fact, take place. The fear and self-censorship related to the issue is the deciding factor. Here is a small snippet of the entire interview:
Jeff Hill: Are you still sticking by your comments where you say it must have been a controlled demolition?
Danny Jowenko: Absolutely.
Jeff Hill: Yes? So, you as being a controlled demolitions expert, you’ve looked at the building, you’ve looked at the video and you’ve determined with your expertise that —
Danny Jowenko: I looked at the drawings, the construction and it couldn’t be done by fire. So, no, absolutely not.
Jeff Hill: OK, ’cause I was reading on the Internet, people were asking about you and they said, I wonder — I heard something that Danny Jowenko retracted his statement of what he said earlier about World Trade Center 7 now saying that it came down by fire. I said, “There’s no way that’s true.”
Danny Jowenko: No, no, no, absolutely not.
Jeff Hill: ‘Cause if anybody was — Like when I called Controlled Demolition here in North America, they tell me that , “Oh, it’s possible it came down from fire” and this and that and stuff like that –.
Danny Jowenko: When the FEMA makes a report that it came down by fire, and you have to earn your money in the States as a controlled demolition company and you say, “No, it was a controlled demolition”, you’re gone. You know?
“Jowenko gained further notoriety when former Director of Studies at the US Army War College, Dr. Alan Sabrosky, said in a radio interview in 2010, that his skepticism of the official 911 story was prompted by Jowenko’s testimony. Jowenko’s death comes three days after Sabrosky gave an exclusive interview to PressTV (Danny Jowenko 1955-2011)
Jeff Hill: Yeah, exactly, you’ll be in a lot of trouble if you say that, right?
Danny Jowenko: Of course, of course. That’s the end of your — the end of the story.
Jeff Hill: Yeah, ’cause I was calling demolitions companies just to ask them if they used the term, “Pull it” in demolition terms and even Controlled Demolitions, Incorporated said they did. But the other people wouldn’t — didn’t want to talk to me about Building 7 really because obviously ’cause they knew what happened and they didn’t want to say it.
Danny Jowenko: Exactly. [14]
Danny Jowenko died in a car accident in July 2011.
When the Twin Towers remains were rapidly sold off to scrap merchants the exact same thing happened to the rubble of Building 7 with safety protocol and crime scene forensics ignored. Building 7 was destined for the blast furnaces by high level directives. All the clues as to why such as powerful building would just decide to collapse vanished with the scrap merchants, to be melted down so that nothing would ever be traceable. Unlike the Twin Towers, everyone had been evacuated so there was no reason not to document and catalogue each piece for further study. And since the collapse neatly conformed to a text book demolition other streets were relatively untouched providing easy access and a reduced possibility of disruption to the immediate area.
Along with family members, safety officials and just about anyone paying attention, Dr. Frederick W. Mowrer, an associate professor in the Fire Protection Engineering Department at the University of Maryland, added his voice to the actions of FEMA claiming: “I find the speed with which potentially important evidence has been removed and recycled to be appalling.” [15] Which brings us to WTC owner Mr. Larry Silverstein, who must have been positively jumping for joy at the supernatural “luck” he enjoyed on September 11.
“Of course, we all wish we could have gotten it done a lot faster.”
– Larry Silverstein on Sep 09, 2014 after the completion of the lower Manhattan revival
On July 24, 2001, just seven weeks before the attacks, Larry and his Silverstein Properties signed a $3.2 billion deal to purchase a 99-year lease on the WTC complex including the Twin Towers, World Trade Centre Buildings 4 and 5 (two nine-story office buildings), and about 425,000 square feet of retail space. It was the first time that the WTC was placed under private control in its 33 year history. Silverstein made a down-payment of $124 million and quickly insured it for $3.6 billion. In this insurance contract he was conveniently covered against “terrorist attacks” and specifically given the right to rebuild the structures if they were destroyed. What makes this move doubly suspicious is that the building itself was worth considerably less than the amount he had it insured for. In fact, the World Trade Centre towers were “filled with asbestos” and deemed “nearly worthless” at the time. [16]
Very soon after the attacks Silverstein, now 83, declared his intent to re-build but not before he filed for damages of over $7 billion from his insurers. He claimed the attacks on the World Trade Centre constituted two separate events and thus entitling him to double the pay-out. [17] (After years of financial wrangling with the insurance company, Swiss Re, he was paid $4.6 Billion)
Larry Silverstein
Not being one to ignore safety and security (especially when his own skin is involved) Mr. Silverstein changed the security company for Securacom (now Stratosec). The board of directors included George W. Bush’s brother, Marvin Bush and the CEO was none other than Marvin’s cousin, Wirt Walker III. (Securacom’s job was to provide electronic security for the WTC and also Dulles International Airport and United Airlines, both of which had a key part to play in the 911 attacks). [18]
Members of the Silverstein family and associated high level business colleagues survived the WTC tragedy. Instead of the usual, scheduled breakfast meeting to take place at the WTC, Larry had a doctor’s appointment on September 11th.
One year after the September 11th attacks Silverstein gave an interview for the 2002, PBS documentary America Rebuilds. He then makes a serious gaff by telling the PBS reporters: “I remember getting a call from the, er, fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, ‘We’ve had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it. And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse.”
It seems to me – and one would imagine anyone hearing words like “pull” and “collapse” in the same sentence – that this would be referring to demolition of a building. Journalist Joël van der Reijden, writing in a 2005 article on 9/11 contacted implosionworld who told him the following:
“There is no such phrase in explo-demo. Most likely he meant “pull out” as in have people evacuate. Conventionally, “pull a building” can mean to pre-burn holes in steel beams near the top floor and affix long cables to heavy machinery, which then backs up and causes the structure to lean off its center of gravity and eventually collapse. But this is only possible with buildings about 6-7 stories or smaller. This activity was performed to bring down WTC 6 (Customs) after 9/11 because of the danger in demolishing conventionally.” [19]
It is also worth remembering that he said “pull it” Not “pull them”. The word “it” was referring to the building as anyone can logically deduce. Later attempts by Silverstein to claim that he was talking about pulling the fire-fighters from WTC 7 is implausible in the extreme considering there was no one left inside at the time of the statement. This is verified by the fact that Silverstein has admitted that he made his “pull it” statements “at about 3:30 or 4:00pm,” [20] with the official NIST report indicating that Building 7 had already been fully evacuate between 12:30pm and 2:00pm. [21] So, when Silverstein and the fire commander were apparently having this conversation to “pull it” everyone was long gone.
However, there is something odd about the whole thing. Would Silverstein really have let slip such a thing if he did indeed have insider knowledge? We hardly need such an obvious statement to deduce that building 7 was demolished. Reijden believes it is a red herring, which may be the case. As to Silverstein’s “need-to-know” role in the events of 9/11 is obviously vague. Financially however, he was set to gain by this tragedy and gain substantially.
A 2010 Fox News report by Jeffrey Scott Shapiro reported on an alleged discussion Silverstein had had with his insurance carrier about demolishing Building 7:
“Shortly before the building [Building 7] collapsed, several NYPD officers and Con-Edison workers told me that Larry Silverstein … was on the phone with his insurance carrier to see if they would authorize the controlled demolition of the building – since its foundation was already unstable and expected to fall. A controlled demolition would have minimized the damage caused by the building’s imminent collapse and potentially save lives. Many law enforcement personnel, firefighters and other journalists were aware of this possible option.” [22]
Shapiro ended up shooting himself in the foot with this admission because the report was designed to be a hit piece against Governor Jesse Ventura who is highly sceptical of the official story. Finally, if true, Shapiro’s statements not only suggest foreknowledge and criminal culpability on the part of Silverstein, but confirm the reality of a controlled demolition.
Fourteen years later After Mr. Silverstein used the insurance proceeds from the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to help fund the construction of 4 World Trade Center and 7 World Trade Center, Silverstein Properties is still busily raking over the mythos of Ground Zero and making considerable profits to boot. His latest building project is World Trade Center Tower 3 a planned 80-story, 2.5 million-square-foot, $2.3 billion office tower in the financial district of WTC. [23]
Unfortunately, for Larry, the construction loans amount to $1.1 billion, a sum that the Port Authority refused to guarantee, much to his apparent “surprise”, citing doubts about profitability amid a depressed market. According to Crain’s New York Business:
“Mr. Silverstein has burned through more than $460 million that was available for 3 World Trade Center building the property’s below-grade infrastructure and first eight stories, where it is currently capped. That space will be used for retail and the mechanical systems for the neighboring PATH hub—areas of the building that Silverstein Properties does not control.” [24]
Since he and his private sector cartels are used to profiting from tragedy if need be, this must indeed be a blow. As Chris Ward, the former executive director of the Port Authority mentioned, no doubt with a wry smile: “Larry was used to getting everything he wanted at the site,” … “To lose the support he was hoping to get, I think must be a shock and a blow.”
Poor Larry.
This set back didn’t stop him in his decade-old bid to recover billions of dollars from two airlines whose planes were used in the 9/11 attacks in order to rebuild the World Trade Centre. Having already collected the tidy sum of $4.1 Billion from insurers over the WTC destruction U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein thankfully rejected his bid on July 19th 2013.
Perhaps he should hold out for another “terrorist” attack on his latest rebuild?
The Old WTC 7 (left) and the New WTC 7 started in 2002 and completed in 2006 | Source: Wikipedia and www.911review.com/
There are other reasons why WTC 7 may have needed to be “pulled “on 911. The sky-scraper wasn’t just another office building but housed financial institutions and government agencies including the offices of the IRS, Secret Service, SEC and the CIA (though the latter was not listed). The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) had their work cut out after the financial terrorism of 2008. But SEC had been working hard on many case files for 3000 – 4000 of its cases, a “substantial” number of which were stored in building 7 and reportedly destroyed during the implosion. The EEOC reported that documents for 45 active cases were also destroyed. [25] SEC was still covering investigations of corporate fraud by companies such as Enron and Worldcom before the 911 attacks though nothing more has been heard of these and similar investigations. (See Table below).
This is not the only whiff of opportunism in the air. According to a New York Times report from November 2001, the CIA’s clandestine New York station “… believed to have been the largest and most important C.I.A. domestic station outside the Washington area,” was also destroyed. The Times continued: “The agency’s New York station was behind the false front of another federal organization, which intelligence officials requested that The Times not identify. The station was, among other things, a base of operations to spy on and recruit foreign diplomats stationed at the United Nations, while debriefing selected American business executives and others willing to talk to the C.I.A. after returning from overseas.” The agency’s officers in New York often work undercover, posing as diplomats and business executives, among other things, depending on the nature of their intelligence operations. [26]
The reporter gives us the background about the stalwart defenders of US freedom had sharpened up their act since the Iranian embassy hostage crisis of 1980. Since then, no classified documents would see the light of day even under such dire circumstances as the 911 attacks. One could also speculate that there would have been even less of a paper trail if this CIA front wasn’t solely an intelligence hub at all but served as the central command centre for the demolition(s) themselves. The report goes on to say that: “… the C.I.A. seems poised to begin focusing its resources on terrorism in much the same way it once focused on the Soviet Union in the cold war.” [27]
Which is exactly what may have been required: a new reason for those tax dollars and the introduction of a whole new episode in Cold War propaganda to fuel that insatiable military-corporate-intelligence machine. After all, this is standard Zio-Conservative ideology: perpetual war serviced by the a global financial shock doctrine.
Salomon Smith Barney
GRND, 1-6,13,18- 46
IRS Regional Council
American Express Bank International
Provident Financial Management
ITT Hartford Insurance Group
First State Management Group, Inc.
NAIC Securities
Securities & Exchange Commission
Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management
Organisations, agencies and companies in Building 7 on September 11th 2001. (And the CIA). [Courtesy of Jim Hoffman http://www.WTC7.net.]
If the above love-in between intelligence and financial sharks all under one roof doesn’t cause concern then I’m not sure what does. Right at the bottom we find our super-hero Mayor once again.
Rudy Giuliani received an honorary knighthood by the Queen and managed to have his mug plastered across Time magazine as person of the year 2001, despite the Fire and Police department offering a very different view of Rudy’s contribution. [28] As we know, Mayor Giuliani vacated WTC 7 just a few hours before it was “pulled.”
His Office of Emergency Management, and its emergency command centre was on the 23rd floor, and against considerable public protest had already received 13 million dollars’ worth of renovations, “… reinforced, bulletproof, and bomb-resistant walls, its own air supply and water tank, beds, showers to accommodate 30 people, and three backup generators.” It also had: “… rooms full of video monitors from where the mayor can oversee police and fire department responses and where it was: “… staffed around the clock and … intended as a meeting place for city leaders in the event of an act of terrorism.” [29]
The centre was ridiculed as “Rudy’s bunker,” and according to author Philip Shenon it: “… seemed the supreme example of how Giuliani’s ego and arrogance knew no bounds after four years in office.” [30] In Giuliani’s modestly named biography Leadership (2002) he states: “As shocking as [the first] crash was, we had actually planned for just such a catastrophe.” [31] All of that being so, as 9/11 journalist Jim Hoffman at WTC7.net mentions: “How curious that on the day of the attack, Giuliani and his entourage set up shop in a different headquarters, abandoning the special bunker designed precisely for such an event.” [32]
It is commonly known that various officials on the day relayed warnings that something was afoot with Building 7 – namely, that it was in danger of coming down. The rumour that the building was falling was in the air. The ubiquity of foreknowledge seemed to extend to the TV networks in what can only be described as a major glitch in communications. Yet, two TV networks announced the collapse of WTC 7 before it had actually happened.
Discovered in a vast archive of broadcast footage publicized in late February of 2007, a video clip of CNN anchor Aaron Brown was seen announcing live, that: “We are getting information now that one of other buildings, building 7, in the world trade centre complex is on fire and has either collapsed or is collapsing.” Allowing for confusion, who was it that told him that a collapse was even a possibility? [33]
BBC journalist Jane Standley on end of a confusing cock-up in timing. Someone let the script out of the bag at the wrong time. | Source: The Goddard Report archives
Similarly, archived footage of television broadcasts from 9/11/2001 shows the BBC’s Jane Standley reporting the collapse of WTC 7 about 23 minutes before it actually occurred. She is unaware that the building is still standing behind her. At 4:57pm the BBC News anchor Philip Haton announced: “…We’ve got some news just coming in actually, that the Salomon Brothers’ [WTC 7] Building in New York, right in the heart of Manhattan, has also collapsed.” At 5:07 pm he continues:
“Now more on the latest building collapse in New York … you may have heard a few moments ago we were talking about the Salomon Brothers Building collapsing and indeed it has, and apparently it’s only a few hundred yards away from where the World Trade Center Towers were. And it seems that this was not the result of a new attack; it was because the building had been weakened during this morning’s attacks. We’ll probably find out more about that from our correspondent Jane Standley. Jane, what more can you tell us about the Salomon Brothers’ Building and its collapse?” [34]
Standley explained in a later interview: “It’s very unfortunate that this whole conspiracy – kind of – ridiculous situation has grown out of what’s really a very small and very honest mistake.” [35] Actually, it was a rather enormous mistake, the import of which seems to have been lost on her. Reporting that the Solomon building had collapsed, while it actually remained standing in the live shot behind her head until the BBC promptly cut the feed seems more than a little odd. Just 23 minutes later when WTC 7 did collapse suggests scripted foreknowledge on the part of someone, though not necessarily the reporters in question.
The BBC’s Richard Porter defended the organisation from accusations of foreknowledge stating:
“We no longer have the original tapes of our 9/11 coverage (for reasons of cock-up, not conspiracy). So if someone has got a recording of our output, I’d love to get hold of it. We do have the tapes for our sister channel News 24, but they don’t help clear up the issue one way or another. If we reported the building had collapsed before it had done so, it would have been an error – no more than that. As one of the comments on You Tube says today ‘so the guy in the studio didn’t quite know what was going on? Woah, that totally proves conspiracy…’” [36]
Porter’s protestations are correct in that foreknowledge does not necessarily imply complicity on the part of the BBC reporter and staff. What he fails to acknowledge is why such a precise “cock-up” regarding the collapse of WTC 7 was even on the table. Who was it that communicated the information to create such a scenario? Who planted the seed?
[1] Gilsanz, Ramon, Edward M. DePaola, Christopher Marrion, and Harold ‘Bud’ Nelson (May 2002). ‘WTC7 (Chapter 5)’ (PDF). World Trade Center Building Performance Study. FEMA.
[2] BBC Conspiracy Files: “9/11 – The Third Tower.” June 7 2008. | ‘The Survivors inside the Towers “they scrambled”’ By paul Vallely, The Independent, September 13, 2001.
[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uso9sCOakEQ. Starts at 2:05 into the video; ends at the 3:40.
[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STbD9XMCOho
[5] This is excluding the Penthouse residing on the top floor of WTC 7 which began to collapse before the primary structure and should be taken as a separate entity in itself as Mechanical engineer Tony Szamboti describes: “The WTC 7 East penthouse had columns on its perimeter and none in its interior. On three sides these columns mounted near the edge of the roof of WTC 7. It is unlikely that a collapse of any core columns of the main building could have pulled them completely down without the roof beams breaking completely loose from the exterior columns and moving down completely also. It is unlikely that the roof beams were severed from the exterior columns, which is what would be necessary for a core collapse to cause the penthouse to collapse.”
[6] NIST WTC 7 Technical Briefing, August 26, 2008. http://www.911speakout.org/NIST_Tech_Briefing_Transcript.pdf Transcript p.16
[7] ‘Undisputed Facts Point to the Controlled Demolition of WTC 7’ By Richard Gage, Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth March 28, 2008.
[11] op. cit Roberts
[12] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3DRhwRN06I
[14] Danny Jowenko: – Proprietor, Jowenko Explosieve Demolitie B.V., a European demolition and construction company, with offices in the Netherlands. Founded 1980, Jowenko Explosive Demolition is certified and holds permits to comply with the Dutch Explosives for Civil Use Act and the German Explosives Act. Jowenko’s explosives engineers also hold the German Certificate of Qualifications and the European Certificate for Shotfiring issued by The European Federation of Explosive Engineers. | Telephone interview with Jeff Hill 2/22/07 http://www.patriotsquestion911.com /engineers.html | For mp3 recording of telephone conversation go to: http://www.pumpitout.com/audio/danny_jowenko_022207.mp3.
[15] ‘Experts Urging Broader Inquiry in Towers’ Fall,’ New York Times, December 25, 2001.
[16] ‘Asbestos in the WTC’ Towers’ Destruction ‘Solved’ Asbestos Problem’ www 911research.wtc7.net/ | “The Twin Towers had large amounts of asbestos fireproofing which would have necessitated costly removal had they remained standing. The exact amount and distribution of the asbestos in the Towers remains unclear, like other details of the buildings’ construction and history, but the evidence suggests that the cost of its removal may have rivaled the value of the buildings themselves.”
[17] ‘Magnate’s Tower Plan Under Threat’, By Simon English, Daily Telegraph, October 10, 2001.
[18] ‘Larry “Lucky Larry” Silverstein’ September 7 2006. http://www.informationliberation.com
[19] ‘9/11 – My own review of the entire event’ By Joel van der Reijden, March 19, 2005. | http://web.archive.org/web/20050327052408/http://home.planet.nl/~reijd050/911_my_own_review.htm#222
[20] See “WeAreCHANGE confronts Larry Silverstein 3/13/08,” http://911blogger.com/node/14361,(1:45)
[21] NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Structural Fire Response and Probable Collapse Sequence of World Trade Center Building 7, Draft for Public Comment, August 2008, pages 301-302. See http://www.wtc.nist.gov/media/nist_ncstar_1-9_vol1_for_public_comment.pdf
[22] ‘Shame On Jesse Ventura!’By Jeffrey Scott Shapiro, FoxNews.com, April 22, 2010.
[23] ‘Silverstein: Build it and they will come’ By By Konrad Putzier, Real Estate Weekly, April 2, 2014.
[24] ‘The toughest test of Silverstein’s nine lives’ By Daniel Gieger, Crain’s New York Business, June 1, 2014.
[25] ‘SEC & EEOC: Attack Delays Investigations’, National Law Journal, September 17, 2001.
[26] ‘Secretive CIA Site in New York Was Destroyed on Sept. 11’ by James Risen, New York Times, November 4, 2001.
[28] Rudy seemed to revel in the attention. In August 2007, Giuliani claimed that “I was at Ground Zero as often, if not more, than most workers…. I was there working with them. I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I’m one of them.” This understandably caused anger amongst New York’s Fire and Police personnel 911 workers. In actual fact, Rudy was had also been telling porkies it seems. “He had spend a total of 29 hours over three months at the site; with his appointment logs unavailable for the six days immediately following the attacks. This contrasted with recovery workers at the site who spent this much time at the site in two to three days. The recovery workers often spent hundreds of hours working 8 to 12 hour shifts.” (Wikipedia: http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Giuliani_during_the_September_11_attacks#During_the_attack
[29] ‘New York City’s Anti-Terrorism Efforts go Hi-Tec’ CNN.com, June 7, 1999.
[30] ‘Mayor of the World’ by Eric Pooley, Time, December 22, 2001.| The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation by Philip Shenon. Published by Twelve, 2008. | ISBN-10: 0446580759 (pp.346 – 347)
[31] p.3-6; Leadership by Rudolph W. Giuliani Published by Miramax Books, 2002.
[32] Jim Hoffman, http://www.wtc7.net/background.html
[33] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1LetB0z8_o
[34] www.http://ia311517.us.archive.org/2/items/bbc200109111654-1736/V08591-16.mpg
[35]’9/11: “Honest Mistake” or BBC Foreknowledge of Collapse of WTC 7? Jane Standley Breaks Her Silence’ James Higham
Global Research, August 18, 2011-nourishingobscurity.com 18 August 2011.
[36] ‘Inside the BBC: Mission and values’ Richard Porter, February 2007 http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/insidethebbc/whoweare/mission_and_values/
Posted in 9/11, Establishment / Elite, False Flag, Technology, Zionism and tagged 9/11 controlled demolition, 9/11 first responder, Architects and Engineers for 9/11, BBC, CIA, Federal Emergency Management Authority (FEMA), fire-fighters, Ground Zero, IRS, Mainstream Media, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Office of Emergency Management, Salomon Brothers Building, September 11th 2001, Siena Research Institute, Silverstein Properties, Stratosec, thermite, Twin Towers, US Military, World Trade Centre, World Trade Centre Tower 3, WTC 7, WTC Port Authority on March 24, 2015 by M.K. Styllinski. 1 Comment
The Destruction of the Twin Towers
“I was on the ground floor of the building …. (the foyer of WTC) … “There was a huge bang ….”But seconds later, there were two or three similar huge explosions and the building literally shook.”
– Stephen Evans WTC survivor, BBC North American Business Correspondent (http://media.guardian.co.uk 9/11/01)
The official account would have us believe that the North and South Towers collapsed due to the impact of the airliners and the resulting heat produced by numerous fires within the buildings. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) completed a performance study of the buildings in May 2002, declaring that “… the sequence of events leading to the collapse of each tower could not be definitely determined.” Though it said that the WTC design was not to blame and that certain extraordinary factors were responsible which had been beyond the control of the builders. One of those factors was the apparent weakening of the floor joists by the internal fires caused by the initial impact which precipitated a progressive “pancake” collapse of all the floors as they detached from the main structure falling one by one onto each other. [1]
September 2005 saw the completion of another investigation conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Following FEMA’s lead the NIST also gave a clean bill of health for the WTC design, choosing the sheer scale of the destruction from two jet airliners had not been envisaged by the builders or architects. The NIST deviated slightly from FEMA and pronounced sagging floors themselves as the culprits which caused “… the inward bowing of the perimeter columns and failure of the south face of WTC 1 and the east face of WTC 2, initiating the collapse of each of the towers.” [2]
Although the report was riven with assumptions, conflicts of interest, and attempts to re-write the laws of physics which bordered on farce, this remained the primary source of refutation for official theory adherents, (a tradition for which the IPCC would have been proud). Indeed, FEMA and the NIST (whose subsequent reports continue to astound) are not the only ones to promote the official theory. The BBC, the History Channel and government agencies have firmly stuck to what amounts to propaganda in the face of objective evidence, marginalising and ridiculing those who come forward.
Numerous architects and engineers had quickly discovered that the temperature of the fires required to collapse the North and South Towers would have to have been enough to melt the steel, namely temperatures of 2,770°F (1,500°C). The burning of jet fuel or kerosene doesn’t even come close to these temperatures as it burns off extremely fast. Remember the impact of the planes repeated endlessly on our televisions? All that thick black smoke was a product of hydro-carbon fires and not very hot ones at that. The official theory clings to the idea that the fires were responsible for steel-reinforced buildings to fall into their own footprints in around ten seconds. For such a thing to happen the fires would have to have spread throughout the North and South towers with the evenly distributed heat of a furnace burning for a very long time indeed – none of which is the case, since the jet fuel that spilled from Flight 11 when it hit the North Tower had mostly burned up by this time. The NIST commented in its report that: “The initial jet fuel fires themselves lasted at most a few minutes” further confirmed by many independent observers including engineering Professor Forman Williams who stated the jet fuel: “burned for maybe 10 minutes.” [3]
South Tower fireball on impact (left) North Tower impact damage (right) (wikipedia)
There is no evidence of fires in the North Tower that could constitute the kind of intense heat needed to bring down a steel-framed building. Only a jagged hole with dark smoke pouring out of it can be seen with hardly any flames visible, indicating the cooling of fires consistent with kerosene burn off, rather than increasing heat. This is also true of the South Tower which had only a few cursory fires on floors above the impact point. After 16 minutes had passed the idea that a raging inferno was already present is patently false. As Dr. David Ray Griffin points out, the evidence shows from the copious amounts of photos that: “… the fires were not even that hot. … the fires did not break windows or even spread much beyond their points of origin … This photographic evidence is supported by scientific studies carried out by NIST, which found that of the 16 perimeter columns examined, ‘only three columns had evidence that the steel reached temperatures above 250°C [482°F],’ and no evidence that any of the core columns had reached even those temperatures.” [4]
Even if the building had been engulfed in flames it would not have collapsed, just as the 32-story steel framed Windsor building in Madrid, burned for more than 24 hours in 2005 and did not collapse. Or the fire in October 2004 in Caracas, Venezuela, where a 56-story office tower burned for more 17 hours and spread over 26 floors. Two floors collapsed, but the underlying floors did not, and the building remained standing. There is also the 1991 fire which gutted eight floors of the 38-story One Meridian Plaza building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, burning for 18 hours. This building also, did not collapse. [5] Nevertheless, we are still told the huge Twin Towers collapsed the South in just under an hour and the North in an hour and a half. If the official theory is true, it would be the first time in history a steel-structured building has ever collapsed due to fire.
Hundreds of architects and engineers have begun to question the official story providing their testimony and professional evaluations. To that end, Architects and Engineers for Truth at www.ae911Truth.org provides a forum for gathering peer-reviewed evidence and testimony from over 2,337 professionals and another 20,117 supporters who cannot accept the science in the official story and seek an independent investigation. In a recent, comprehensive ae911 Truth report, 29 civil engineers voiced their concern over the collapse theory. Consulting civil/structural engineer Nathan S. Lomba with 39 years of professional experience asked: “How did the structures collapse in near-symmetrical fashion when the damage was clearly not symmetrical?” Whereas Dennis Kollar, P.E. a licensed professional engineer “was troubled by the collapses’ ‘totality and uniformity’ and the fact that the mass of debris remained centered on the building core all the way down.”
Frank Cullinan, P.E., explained that “…These systematic collapses required that many structural connections not only fail ‘nearly simultaneously,’ but also ‘in sequential order,’ …That’s “impossible from asymmetrical impact loading and … small, short-duration fires.” [6] Charles Pegelow who has performed design work on offshore oil rigs and tall buildings also raised concerns about the action of symmetrical collapse which would “… require simultaneous failure of all supporting columns. How could all 47 core columns fail at the same instant? … Fires could not do that.” [7]
Richard F. Humenn, PE, Senior Project Design Engineer for electrical systems at the entire World Trade Centre, had over 60 people working under him. Humenn stated: “On September 11, I watched the live TV broadcast of the progressive collapse of the World Trade Towers with disbelief, as the mass and strength of the structure should have survived the localized damage caused by the planes and burning jet fuel. After viewing material presented by Architects and Engineers for 911 truth Humenn “… supported the proposal to form an international group of professionals to investigate all plausible causes for the virtual free-fall and the almost total destruction of the WTC structures.” [8]
Another architect the late Frank De Martini, who worked as the World Trade Centre’s construction manager gave an interview for the History Channel who were making a documentary about the WTC towers prior to September 11th. He stated: “I believe the building probably could sustain multiple impacts of jetliners because this structure is like the mosquito netting on your screen door, this intense grid, and the jet plane is just a pencil puncturing the screen netting. It really does nothing to the screen netting.” De Martini died in his office on the 88th floor of the North Tower when it is was hit on 9/11. According to an associated press report he died when the tower collapsed after helping people escape. [9] This is given further credibility by one of the original structural engineers of the Twin Towers Leslie Robertson, who believed there was: “… little likelihood of a collapse no matter how the building was attacked.” [10] At a later conference in Frankfurt, Germany in 2001 he said: “The twin towers were in fact the first structures outside the military and nuclear industries designed to resist the impact of a jet airplane.” [11] Robertson would later recant these statements and change his story a few days after 9/11 which led to many suspecting he had been unduly pressured to do so. [12]
In early February of 1964, during the design phase of the towers, a three-page white paper, offered these findings: “The buildings have been investigated and found to be safe in an assumed collision with a large jet airliner [Boeing 707-DC 8] traveling at 600 miles per hour. Analysis indicates that such collision would result in only local damage which could not cause collapse or substantial damage to the building and would not endanger the lives and safety of occupants not in the immediate area of impact.” [13]
Building designer John Skilling, among the world’s top structural engineers who worked on that particular 1964 paper and the structural design of the WTC, carried out an analysis on the impact of a Jet airliner impact on the Twin Towers which: “… indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel [from the airplane] would dump into the building. There would be a horrendous fire. A lot of people would be killed.” But, he says: “The building structure would still be there.” Skilling also added: “I’m not saying that properly applied explosives – shaped explosives – of that magnitude could not do a tremendous amount of damage.” [14]
Just before the North and South Towers collapsed many eyewitnesses including firemen, reported hearing, feeling and seeing the effects of what appeared to be explosions, in the immediate floors and in the sub-basements of the Towers.
Griffin and thousands of others think that is precisely what may have occurred:
[An] alternative explanation is that the collapse was an example of a controlled demolition based on explosives that had been placed throughout the building…With regard to why the collapse was so total and rapid, [Peter] Meyer says that ‘this is understandable if the bases of the steel columns were destroyed by explosions at the level of bedrock. With those bases obliterated, and the supporting steel columns shattered by explosions at various levels in the Twin Towers, the upper floors lost all support and collapsed to ground level in about ten seconds […] Since the fire in the South Tower resulted from the combustion of less fuel than the fire in the North Tower, the fire in the South Tower began to go out earlier than the fire in the North Tower. Those controlling the demolition thus has to collapse the South Tower before they collapsed the North Tower.’ [15]
A common myth promoted by 9/11 truth debunkers and government officials is the idea that the weight of the top sections of the buildings somehow progressively crushed those below, gaining velocity as they did so. To suggest that the upper structure of the Twin Towers could fall through 90-100 floors of an undamaged, full-strength steel core structure at free-fall speed is not only silly, but against the very laws of physics. Any secondary school-boy with a modicum of scientific knowledge knows that this is impossible but the theory remains popular with debunkers, turning themselves inside out to explain its validity.
Both the North Tower and the South Tower collapsed just as their respective fires were dying down, even though this meant that the South Tower, which had been hit second, collapsed first.”
― David Ray Griffin, author of The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration & 9/11
Engineer Gordon Ross who holds degrees in both mechanical and manufacturing engineering calculated the weight of the floors from the upper sections in a theoretical collapse down onto the lower portions of the two structures. Ross had to simulate a theoretical collapse but first had to veer away from reality in order to stay true to the official story. He had to imagine that there had indeed been extremely hot fires and melting steel structures so that the upper section was able to collapse without any resistance into free-fall scenario. The energy needed for this to happen was also calculated including the amount of resistance needed from the lower sections and how much of the energy would be absorbed by resistance from the initial impact of the upper structure descending downwards. On the first impact alone, he found that the upper sections would have lost 66 percent of their kinetic energy showing that no more energy would have been left to continue even one more story. There was no downward pressure of the kind government officials suggest. [16]
The simple fact of the matter is that the tops of the buildings disintegrated into fine dust within seconds of the “collapse”. If the reader looks carefully at video shots of the WTC collapse you will see that no upper sections existed for this theory to be tenable. The buildings simply vaporised. Once you see it – it remains with you. But you have to disengage from the mind-programming telling you otherwise. Only carefully designed and placed explosives – possibly with advanced technology – could have allowed such a scenario to be fulfilled, otherwise known as a controlled demolition.
Adding to these suspicions were “hot spots” of molten steel found in the sub-basements, in particular at the bottoms of elevator shafts of the main towers, down seven basement levels which were smouldering for weeks. For example, Ron Burger, a public health adviser who arrived at Ground Zero on September 12, said that “feeling the heat” and “seeing the molten steel” there reminded him of a volcano. Paramedic Lee Turner was also at the WTC site on September 12 as a member of a federal urban search and rescue squad. He described his journey: “down crumpled stairwells to the subway, five levels below ground,” where he saw: “… in the darkness a distant, pinkish glow—molten metal dripping from a beam.” [17] In fact, scores of witnesses in the immediate aftermath of 911 and following weeks and months reported seeing molten metal in the remains of the World Trade Centre. [18]
Metal crane at Ground Zero extracting molten metal (left) Molten metal pouring from the 81st floor. Fires were still burning beneath the the World Trade Centre and WTC building 7 and were not extinguished until December 2001.
As each tower collapsed, Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York, just 21 miles north of the WTC, picked up a 2.1 magnitude earthquake at 9:59:04, then a 2.3 quake beginning at 10:28:31. [19] According to a report by the Mineta Transportation Institute: “People inside the South Tower felt the floor vibrate as if a small earthquake were occurring … The vibration lasted for about 30 seconds. The doors were knocked out, and a huge ball of flame created by the exploding diesel fuel from the building’s own supply tank shot from the elevator shaft and out the doors of the South Tower, consuming everything in its path. Minutes later, at 9:59 a.m., the tower collapsed.” [20]
If it was a controlled demolition then it was of a type so powerful it literally pulverised the towers so that very little remained.
Dr.Griffin explains:
“… each collapse produced a lot of fine dust or powder, which upon analysis proved to consist primarily of gypsum and concrete […] ‘ Where does the energy come from to turn all this reinforced concrete into dust?’ […] ‘virtually every piece of concrete in each tower was pulverized to a powder. This required a lot of energy.’ […] “…things would actually be moving quite slowly at first…It is very hard to imagine a physical mechanism to generate that much dust with concrete slabs bumping into each other at 20 0r 30 mph…In order to pulverize concrete into powder, explosives must be used.” […] “…when the towers started to collapse, they did not fall straight down, as the pancake theory holds. They exploded. The powder was ejected horizontally from the buildings with such force that the buildings were surrounded by enormous dust clouds that were perhaps three times the width of the buildings themselves…What other than explosives could turn concrete into powder and then eject it 150 feet or more?” [21] [Emphasis mine]
There were many physical anomalies associated with the destruction that cannot be explained using the official story.
The 9/11 Commission Report said that the “South Tower collapsed in 10 seconds” and the NIST said that the tops of the buildings came down “essentially in free fall.” [22] This conflicts with the official “pancake” theory whereby the floors weakened by the impact of the airliner falling on the floor below starting the so-called chain reaction. This is clearly not what happened because there was literally no resistance from a reinforced steel and concrete structure. But the rubble falling internally compared with externally fell at the same speed. Architect and physicist Dave Heller tells us that the pancake theory is untenable because: “The buildings fell too quickly. The floors must all have been falling simultaneously to reach the ground in such a short amount of time. But how? … In [the method known as controlled demolition], each floor of a building is destroyed at just the moment the floor above is about to strike it. Thus, the floors fall simultaneously, and in virtual free-fall.” [23]
What was left of the first ever steel reinforced building to collapse. The WTC Twin Towers were built to withstand jet airliner impacts through a “mosquito net” design. Jet fuel? Really?
This leads us to the total collapse of 110-story buildings with an inexplicably small amount of debris. Where did the 47 massive steel box columns go? According to the pancake theory they should have been still standing. Tons of concrete was simply vapourised. Massive steel girders were found twisted in strange shapes. If it was a controlled demolition then something other than normal explosives seemed to have been used. The anomalies experienced at ground zero offer no other explanation.
NIST hasn’t been much help in offering scientific and impartial analysis either. Its $20 million 2005 report at 10,000 pages (yes, that’s right) is taken as a definite account to explain how fires and plane impacts destroyed the WTC. Unfortunately, as Ronald Brookman, S.E., a licensed structural engineer from Novato, California tells us: “The report not only fails to explain why and how the towers completely collapsed,” … “it states that the collapse became inevitable without any further explanation,” and where the report considered: “conservation of energy and momentum principles only up to the moment prior to collapse.” [24] And since the NIST stopped its computerized models before the onset of collapse, no work was carried out to calculate what happened during the failure. [25]
Significant quantities of thermetic material were found in dust samples from the WTC site yet showing clear evidence of advanced engineered pyrotechnic material. NIST officials deemed this inadmissible as evidence, despite researchers showing that the material could not have been found from a natural process before or during the destruction of the Twin Towers. Pyroclastic flow was observed in the concrete-based clouds which are only found with volcanic eruptions and nuclear detonations. Pyroclastic flow will not mix with other clouds meaning very serious health issues not possible with the conventional demolition or explosive charges. The presence of such a pyroclastic material would offer partial explanation as to the formation of pyroclastic clouds observed during the destruction of the WTC given that many thousands of tiny blasts would be required:
“Aluminothermic reactions are a class of energy-releasing oxidation-reduction chemical reactions in which elemental aluminum reduces a compound, typically by stealing the oxygen from a metal oxide. Aluminothermics range from low-tech preparations that take seconds to react and therefore release nearly all their energy as heat and light, to advanced engineered materials with accelerated reaction rates that yield explosive powers similar to conventional high explosives. […] The red layers contain abundant aluminum, iron, and oxygen, where the iron is associated with oxygen, and the aluminum is mostly in a pure, elemental, form. The relative quantities of aluminum, iron, and oxygen match those of the most common thermite formulation: Fe2O3 + 2 Al .
Although these elements — aluminum, iron, oxygen, and silicon — were all abundant in building materials used in the Twin Towers, it is not possible that such materials milled themselves into fine powder and assembled themselves into a chemically optimized aluminothermic composite as a by-product of the destruction of the Twin Towers.
The iron-rich spheroids formed by heating the chips in this manner match those found in abundance in all of the samples of WTC dust studied, and those produced by the reaction of commercial thermite, both in appearance and in chemical composition revealed by XEDS analysis.” [26]
However, even thermite does not explain the sheer destruction which was visited on the WTC in such a rapid space of time. Some researchers have rightly stated that claims for thermite have thus been exaggerated. [27] Other researchers suggest the presence advanced experimental technology not currently recognised in military circles. Not only did concrete disappear but other construction materials such as glass and alloys, along with office furniture and tens of thousands of computers. [28] The pulverisation of 99 percent of concrete into ultra-fine dust and recorded by official studies was not the only example of effects outside the norms of a controlled demolition.
http://www.911research.wtc7.net/
A Finish military expert who wished to remain anonymous due to fears for his safety wrote a summary of why there may be more unconventional reasons for the WTC destruction, some of which are included here:
Superheated steels ablating (vaporizing continuously as they fall) as seen in video clips of the towers collapsing. This requires uniform temperatures roughly twice that of thermite. Conventional demolition or explosive charges (thermate, rdx, hdx etc.) cannot transfer heat so rapidly that the steel goes above its boiling temperature.
22 ton outer wall steel sections ejected 200 meters into the winter garden. Cutting charges cannot eject heavy steels and throwing charges cannot provide the energy required without heavy, solid surface mounts.
330 ton section of outer wall columns ripping off side of tower. Cutting charges cannot eject heavy steels linked together and throwing charges cannot provide the energy required without very heavy, solid surfaces to mount those charges.
The spire behaviour (stands for 20-30 seconds, evaporates and goes down, steel dust remains in the air where the spire was). The spire did not stand because it lost its durability when the joints vaporized.
A press weighting 50 tons disappeared from a basement floor of Twin Towers and was never recovered from debris. Not possible with collapses or controlled demolitions. The press was vaporized or melted totally.
Bone dust cloud around the WTC. This was found not until spring 2006 from the Deutsche Bank building. [In excess of 700 human remains found on the roof and from air vents]. [29]
Rubble height was some 10percent of the original instead of 33percent expected in a traditional demolition. Fusion device removal of underground central steel framework allowed upper framework to fall into this empty space and reduce the rubble height.
14 rescue dogs and some rescue workers died far too soon afterward to be attributed to asbestos or dust toxins (respiratory problems due to alpha and tritium particles created by fusion are far more toxic)
Record concentrations of near-atomic size metal particles found in dust studies due to ablated steel. Only possible with vaporized (boiling) steels.
No bodies, furniture or computers found in the rubble, but intact sheets of paper covered the streets with fine dust. Items with significant mass absorbed fusion energy (neutrons, x-rays) and were vaporized while paper did not. Paper and powder theory.
200 000 gallon sprinkler water tanks on the roofs of WTC1 and WTC2, but no water in the ruins. Heat of fusion devices vaporized large reservoirs of water.
Reports of cars exploding around the WTC and many burned out wrecks could be seen that had not been hit by debris. Fusion energy (heath radiation and the neutrons) caused cars to ignite and burn far from WTC site.
Wide area electrical outage, repairs took over 3 months. Fusion devices cause EM pulse with Compton scattering. (See German engineers help the USA plate 5. http://home.debitel.net/user/andreas.bunkahle/defaulte.htm)
EM pulse was recorded by broadcast cameras with high quality electronic circuitry. This occurred at the same time as the seismic peaks recorded by Lamont Doherty during the beginning of the collapse. This is due to the Compton Effect and resulted in a large area power outage at the WTC. [30]
Rather than purely a nuclear device or conventional explosives former Virginia Tech professor of mechanical engineering Dr. Judy Wood is convinced the only explanation is derived from the use of Directed Energy Weapons (DEW) having “… ruled out a Kinetic Energy Device (bombs, missiles, etc.) as the method of destruction as well as a gravity-driven ‘collapse.’” Somewhat understandably, she has been marginalised by both the 9/11 Truth movement and less surprisingly, the MSM. This is probably due to aspects of her research which tend to push the boundaries of what can be considered rational, which is problematic for the 9/11 Truth movement which is still struggling to get people to accept that an “inside job” is even possible. Nevertheless, Dr. Wood contends that: “…the evidence is consistent with the use of energy weapons that go well beyond the capabilities of conventional explosives and can be directed” and that a: “satellite-mounted military weapon” may have been used to destroy the WTC. [31]
The foundation of Wood’s theory is not only from the evidence at the WTC itself but the existence of DEW’s sourced firstly from the Star Wars Program, also known as the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI). “Since the invention of the microwave for cooking in 1945 and laser beam in 1955, commercial and military development of beam technology has proceeded apace, so use of high-energy beams are likely.” Having been secretly developed over 100 years and one of the most classified of military weapons it surely a case of near certainty. [32]
The reasons Woods gives for concluding that DEWs were responsible for the type of destruction wrought on WTC is vast in scope. A very brief selection of the main points of contention is included from Dr. Wood’s website:
The Twin Towers were destroyed faster than physics can explain (at free fall speed ‘collapse’).
They underwent mid-air pulverization and were turned to dust before they hit the ground.
The protective bathtub was not significantly damaged by the destruction of the Twin Towers.
The rail lines, the tunnels and most of the rail cars had only light damage.
The WTC mall survived well.
The Twin Towers were destroyed from the top down, not bottom up.
The demolition of WTC7 was whisper quiet…seismic signal was no greater than background noise.
The upper 80 percent, approximately, of each tower was turned into fine dust and did not crash to the earth.
The upper 90 percent, approximately, of WTC7 was turned into fine dust and did not crash to the earth.
File cabinet with folder dividers survived.
Office paper was densely spread throughout lower Manhattan, unburned, often alongside burning cars.
Vertical round holes were cut into buildings 4, 5 and 6, plus a cylindrical arc into Bankers Trust and into Liberty Street in front of Bankers Trust.
All planes except top secret missions were ordered down until 10:31 a.m. (when only military flights were allowed to resume), after both towers were destroyed, and only two minutes after WTC 1 had been destroyed.
Approximately 1,400 motor vehicles were towed away, toasted in strange ways, during the destruction of the Twin Towers.
The order and method of destruction of each tower minimized damage to the bathtub and adjacent buildings.
The north wing of WTC 4 was left standing, neatly sliced from the main body which virtually disappeared.
The WTC1 and WTC2 rubble pile was far too small to account for the mass.
The WTC7 rubble pile was too small and contained a lot of mud.
Eyewitness testimony about toasted cars, instant disappearance of people by “unexplained” waves, a plane turning into a mid-air fireball, electrical power cut off moments before WTC 2 destruction, and the sound of explosions.
There were many flipped cars in the neighborhood of the WTC complex near trees with full foliage.
Various shots of the North Tower turning to dust? | Source: http://www.drjudywood.co.uk
Dr. Woods is a very controversial figure in the 9/11 Truth Movement. Whether we find the above evidence too outrageous to contemplate should not necessarily preclude its validity. However, there is no doubt that the WTC was effectively turned to dust. Something other than conventional weaponry was used, perhaps unknown to the military. The problem appears to be that Wood assumes she know what it is, which is clearly not the case. In amongst the valuable information there are persistent assumptions with no evidence to back it up. Overall, Wood maybe onto something, and her work has highlighted important anomalies which as yet, cannot be explained. The question mark appears to be over Dr. Wood herself and her associations with known disinformation agents. [33]As with most unconscious CoIntelpro operatives and their handlers, their information is valuable and designed to be derailed through the protagonist’s erratic behaviour and supposition theories which don’t necessarily stand up to scrutiny (Hutchison effect). It is in that way that the glimmers of truth lying behind the information is discarded while people who could provide collaboration and possible answers steer well clear. For now, Wood must be treated with extreme caution whilst acknowledging the central thrust of her work. Perhaps in the future, as 9/11 justice gains further momentum information may safely come to light and in the right hands.
(Note: For an interesting discussion on Dr. Judy Woods’ work please visit: https://truthandshadows.wordpress.com/)
All good quality reseearch contributions must be included whilst maintaining the momentum of pressure for an independent investigation – an admittedly slim chance when criminal elements are still in control. This fact became abundantly clear when a federal offence was committed (actually aided and abetted by federal officials) who allowed the crime scene itself to be carted off and sold to scrap dealers who put it on ships to Asia. Vital evidence was forever lost to forensic science, a decision which was roundly condemned by many within the engineering and fire-fighting communities, culminating in a virtual riot by fire-fighters at Ground Zero, who were: “… protesting the desecration of the dead in a hasty ‘scoop and dump’ clean-up of the structural steel debris.” [34]
One senior level fire-fighter Bill Manning called the WTC investigation a “half-baked farce,” adding: “The destruction and removal of evidence must stop immediately.” Manning also concluded that many of his colleagues and other fire-fighters are of the opinion that: “… the structural damage from the planes and the explosive ignition of jet fuel in themselves were not enough to bring down the towers. Yet, “[a]s things now stand and if they continue in such fashion, the investigation into the World Trade Center fire and collapse will amount to paper-and computer-generated hypotheticals.” [35] This is something that has been quite useful for obfuscation and pseudo-science as we have seen in previous posts.
WTC debris Source: http://www.911research.wtc7.net/
The decision to recycle the steel columns, beams, and trusses from the WTC in the few days after the destruction was also protested by some of the nation’s leading structural engineers and fire-safety experts. The 20 engineer team at Ground Zero leading the investigation also found constant obstruction by FEMA officials when attempting to interview witnesses and examining the site itself. Requests to see videos and detailed blueprints of the buildings were also denied. [36] Despite steel components being stamped with identification numbers for reassembly and study at a later date, this proved impossible.
Another spectre that plagued the ground zero responders and New York Residents is the issue of poor health arising from the smoke inhalation from the pulverized WTC material. On September 18, 2001, then chief of the Environmental protection Agency (EPA) Christine Todd Whitman told reporters through a press release: “We are very encouraged that the results from our monitoring of air-quality and drinking-water conditions in both New York and near the Pentagon show that the public in these areas is not being exposed to excessive levels of asbestos or other harmful substances,” and that “given the scope of the tragedy from last week, I am glad to reassure the people of New York … that their air is safe to breathe and the water is safe to drink.” [37] Rudy Giuliani (below) agreed with her assessment, cheerily stating that: “the problems created … are not health-threatening” and that “the air quality is safe and acceptable.” [38]
Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani: Ground Zero Hero?
In a 2006 CBS News Interview EPA scientist Dr. Cate Jenkins described some of the dust at Ground Zero “As caustic and alkaline as Drano.” She also claimed that EPA officials had been aware of air toxicity and had chosen to lie about at the behest of the Bush Administration. In fact, before the publication of a 2003 report by the Office of the Inspector General of the EPA pressure was brought to bear to remove and alter information which urged caution regarding the dangers surrounding the air quality at Ground Zero. The fact that the air was described by one air pollution expert as “wildly toxic,” due to contaminants and carcinogens saturating the atmosphere at the time, it should not come as a shock that getting Wall St. back into business rather than saving lives was by far the most important order of the day – Bush family crimes have been part of its sordid history for quite some time. [39] Exposure to Ground Zero toxins has meant increasing numbers of residents reporting symptoms of respiratory illnesses with over 75 ground zero recovery workers having been “… diagnosed with blood cell cancers that a half-dozen top doctors and epidemiologists have confirmed as having been likely caused by that exposure.” [40] [41]
After trying to play the hero at Ground Zero further evidence of Giuliani’s actions contradicting his own words were shown in November 2001 when he: “…wrote to members of the city’s Congressional delegation urging passage of a bill that capped the city’s liability at $350 million. And two years after Mr. Giuliani left office, FEMA appropriated $1 billion for a special insurance company to defend the city against 9/11 lawsuits.” [42]
Described as a “benevolent dictator” by one Ground Zero official, Giuiliani and his City team: “seized control” and largely limited the influence of federal authorities in the clean-up operation. The use of respirators and basic health procedures were discarded in favour getting Wall St. operational under the instruction of the Bush Administration. New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health industrial hygienist David Newman said, “I was down there watching people working without respirators.” He continued: “Others took off their respirators to eat. It was a surreal, ridiculous, unacceptable situation.” [43]
Judging by Giuliani’s legacy of corruption and racism [29] after leaving the mayor’s office, the mythology of a Ground Zero hero continues to feel the strain. Furthermore, it seems foreknowledge of some kind was in evidence. Giuliani, one of many officials at the time, told ABC News that he received a warning that the WTC was “gonna’ collapse” about ten minutes before it did.
“I went down to the scene and we set up a headquarters at 75 Barkley Street, which was right there with the Police Commissioner, the Fire Commissioner, the Head of Emergency Management, and we were operating out of there when we were told that the World Trade Center was gonna’ to collapse. And it did collapse before we could actually get out of the building, so we were trapped in the building for 10, 15 minutes, and finally found an exit, got out, walked north, and took a lot of people with us. ” [44]
Quite apart from there being no historical basis for such a prediction – no steel girded building had fallen in such a way – and with only isolated fires reported just before the collapse, why was it that no one but select officials were warned? What about Port Authority police?
Most importantly, why were fire-fighters still in the impact zone wholly unaware of an imminent collapse of WTC 2?
[1] Hamburger, Ronald, et al.. “World Trade Center Building Performance Study” (PDF). Federal Emergency Management Agency.
[2] ‘NIST Response to the World Trade Center Disaster’ (PDF) ‘World Trade Center Disaster Study’ – “On August 21, 2002, with funding from the U.S. Congress through FEMA, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced its building and fire safety investigation of the World Trade Center (WTC) disaster that occured on September 11, 2001. The NIST WTC Investigation was conducted under the authority of the National Construction Safety Team Act.” | http://www.nist.gov/el/disasterstudies/wtc/
[3] National Institute of Standards and Technology, 9/2005 (pp. 183) | Popular Mechanics| http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/news/1227842?page=1
[4] ‘The Destruction of the World Trade Center: Why the Official Account Cannot Be True’ by Dr. David Ray Griffin Global Research, via 911truth.com January 29, 2006.
[5] ‘Towering Inferno In Caracas’ February 11, 2009 | ‘One Meridien Plaza’ Philadelphia, Pennsylvania http://web.archive.org/web/20040216014121/http://www.sgh.com/expertise/hazardsconsulting/meridian/meridia| ‘Commuter chaos after Madrid blaze’ BBC News, 14 February, 2005. | See also Christopher Bollyn’s ‘9/11 and the Windsor Tower Fire.’
[6] ‘29 Structural/Civil Engineers Cite Evidence for Controlled Explosive Demolition in Destruction of All 3 WTC High-Rises on 9/11’ – More than 700 architects and engineers have joined call for new investigation, faulting official reports Gregg Roberts and Staff June 17, 2009.
[9] 102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers by Jim Dwyer. Published by Times Books, 2005. (p.149)
[10] Robertson, 3/2002; Federal Emergency Management Agency, 5/1/2002, (pp. 1-17)
[11] ‘Towers built to withstand jet impact’ Chicago Tribune, September 12, 2001.
[12] ‘What the World Trade Center Building Designers Said: Before and After 9/11’ http://www.911Blogger, February 21, 2007.
[13] City in the Sky: The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center by James Glanz Glanz and Lipton, 2004, pp. 131-132; Lew, Bukowski, and Carino, 10/2005, (pp. 70-71)
[14] ‘Twin Towers Engineered To Withstand Jet Collision’By Eric Nalder, Seattle Times, February 27, 1993.
[15] op. cit. Griffin; 2004 (p.17)
[16] ‘Momentum Transfer Analysis of the collapse of the Upper Storeys of the WTC1’ By Gordon Ross. Ross was born in Dundee, Scotland. He holds degrees in both Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, graduating from Liverpool John Moores University, in 1984. www. gordonssite.tripod.com/id1.html
[17] ‘Memories’By Marci MacDonald, US New & World Report September 2002.| ‘Messages in the Dust’ by Francseca Lyman, The National Environmental Health Association 2003.www.neha.org/
[18] ‘September 12, 2001-February 2002: Witnesses See Molten Metal in the Remains at Ground Zero’ 911 Timeline – http://www.historycommons.org
[19] ‘Damage to Buildings Near World Trade Center Towers Caused by Falling Debris and Air Pressure Wave, Not by Ground Shaking, Columbia Seismologists Report’ in November 20 issue of Eos – Researchers Call for Seismographic Stations in Urban Areas. Earth Institute Colombia University /11/16/01.
[20] ‘Saving City Lifelines: Lessons Learned in the 9-11 Terrorist Attacks’ MTI REPORT 02-06 by Brian Michael Jenkins & Frances Edwards-Winslow, Ph.D., CEM. September 2003.
[21] The New Pearl Harbor – Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11 by David Ray Griffin (2004) (1st edition)
[22] 9/11 Commission: ‘Final Report on the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States’ (p.305). | Ibid. NIST Final Report on the Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers Washington D.C. Govermment Printing Office; September 2005.
[23] Heller, David, 2005. ‘Taking a Closer Look: Hard Science and the Collapse of the World Trade Center,’ Garlic and Grass, Issue 6, November 24 (www.garlicandgrass.org/issue6/Dave_Heller.cfm).
[24] op. cit. Roberts et al.
[25] ‘29 Structural/Civil Engineers Cite Evidence for Controlled Explosive Demolition in Destruction of All 3 WTC High-Rises on 9/11’ Gregg Roberts and Staff June 17, 2009.
[26] ‘Explosives Found in World Trade Center Dust Scientists Discover Both Residues And Unignited Fragments Of Nano-Engineered Thermitic Pyrotechnic In Debris From the Twin Towers’ by Jim Hoffman.Version 1.00, http://www.911research.wtc.7.net, April 3, 2009. | ‘Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe’ Niels H. Harrit, Jeffrey Farrer, Steven E. Jones Kevin R. Ryan, Frank M. Legge, Daniel Farnsworth, Gregg Roberts, James R. Gourley and Bradley R. Larsen Pp 7-31The Open Chemical Physics Journal ISSN: 1874-4125.2008.
[27] ‘On the Manipulation of the 9/11 Research Community’ by Jim Fetzer – “The Dynamic Duo” radio show of 17 May 2007, Genesis, communications Network, http://www.gcnlive.com, Channel 2. Transcribed by Jeannon Kralj http://67.15.255.19/~c911sch1/media/0517071.mp3 / http://67.15.255.19/~c911sch1/media/0517072.mp3.
[28] 9/11 Deceptions By M. P. Lelong Published by XLibris 2011. (pp.118-119)
[29] See http://www.911citizenswatch.org/print.php?sid=906
[30] ‘Writings of a Finnish Military Expert on 9/11’ 2005; http://www.11syyskuu.net/evidence.htm
[31] ‘The Star Wars Beam Weapons and Star Wars Directed-Energy Weapons’ (DEW) (A focus of the Star Wars Program) by Dr. Judy Wood and Dr. Morgan Reynolds ,October 17, 2006.
[32] Ibid. | See also: ‘US Electromagnetic Weapons and Human Rights’ projectedcensored.org
[33] ‘Pete Santilli / Dr. Judy Wood January 13, 2013 via Before Its News www.americanfreedomradio.com/
[35] $elling Out the Investigation By Bill Manning January 1, 2002 http://www.fireengineering.com
[36] ‘Experts Urging Broader Inquiry in Towers’ Fall’ By James Glantz and Eric Lipton, The New York Times, December 25, 2001.
[37] ‘Death by Dust – The frightening link between the 9-11 toxic cloud and cancer’, by Kristen Lombardi Village Voice, November 28, 2006.
[38] ‘Dishonorable Non-Mention: Juan Gonzalez and the Daily News’ 9/11 Pulitzer’, by Keach Hagey Village Voice, April 24, 2007. | ‘Buildings Rise from Rubble while Health Crumbles’, By Anita Gates, The New York Times, September 11, 2006, reporting on the documentary by Heidi Dehncke-Fisher, Dust to Dust: The Health Effects of 9/11.
[39] EPA’s Response to the World Trade Center Collapse: Challenges, Successes, and Areas for Improvement, Report No. 2003-P-00012, August 21, 2003.
[40] ‘Lost in the Dust of 9/11’ By Ellen Barry, Los Angeles Times, October 14, 2006.
[41] op. cit. Lombardi.
[42] ‘Ground Zero Illness Clouding Giuliani’s Legacy’, By Anthony DePalma, The New York Times, May 14, 2007.
[44] ‘New York’s ex-mayor Giuliani leaves a legacy of corruption and racism’ By Bill Vann WSWS.org, 24 May, 2002.
Posted in 9/11, False Flag, Social Engineering and tagged 9/11 controlled demolition, 9/11 debunking, 9/11 Truth Movement, Directed Energy Weapons (DEW), Federal Emergency Management Authority (FEMA), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), September 11th 2001, thermite, US Military, World Trade Centre, WTC North Tower, WTC South Tower on March 22, 2015 by M.K. Styllinski. Leave a comment
Police State Amerika IV: The New Brutality
“All I kept hearing from him was, ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.'”
– Valencia Griffin, witness to the police assault of Eric Garner who died on the spot.
The 2014 unrest in Ferguson, Missouri led to serious riots and protests as a result of the apparent police execution of unarmed Michael Brown and subsequent acquittal of the police officer. The event highlighted a legion of other crimes committed against civilians including the death of Eric Garner, an asthmatic father who died as a result of a police choke-hold – an unwarranted assault, caused outrage prompting global protests against police brutality. [1]
This was only the latest in hundreds of similar crimes against Americans which continue to take place day after day. For all the cases that do reach the headlines there are many more that do not. SWAT Raids on family homes with no warnings, and sometimes no warrants are justified by the discredited war on drugs and the war on terror. Add to this the unnecessary and excessive use of the taser leading in many cases to death and verbal and physical harassment in the street. What is especially disturbing is in the majority cases it is children, the elderly and mentally ill who suffer these attacks. Police officers seldom receive a reprimand let alone a prosecution, mirroring the lack of accountability of our leaders and their agencies.
Eric Garner begged NYPD police for air 8 times before falling silent. (Source: Ramsey Orta) (Persons within the New York Police Department have even been accused of editing the Wikipedia pages of some of the more infamous recent events to involve extreme police force, including the Eric Garner case). [2]
Hyper-aggression from police departments has risen exponentially since 9/11, with police on the street prone to violence against the American public as never before. A brief description of four cases from the many reports which reached the news in 2013-2014 is followed by a headline collection of the stories from the last few years. Hopefully, this will give readers a taste of the problem facing American society at this time.
We start with a report concerning 25-year-old paraplegic Nicholas Kincade who needs a motorised mobility scooter to get about and had the unfortunate luck to run into police officer Lt. Tom Davidson. Kincade was checked out by a group of Indiana’s Lafayette police officers after reports surfaced that he was carrying a gun (He was not). After the discussion which took place on a suburban sidewalk, the young man accidentally grazed Davidson’s foot as he attempted to pass by. Kincade became the object of an extraordinary display of uncontrolled rage by the officer who, with both hands, pushed the young man out of his scooter and onto the road. A shocked Kincade protested his innocence claiming it was only an accident. The video of the incident can be viewed HERE.
To be fair to the Lafayette Police Department, the Mayor and Police Chief’s determined that Davidson should be fired citing excessive force and behaviour unbecoming of a police officer. Although Davidson’s actions should have resulted in instant dismissal he was demoted, took a cut in pay and was allowed to keep his job due to the Civilian Review Board blocking the move. Ironic? Kincade thought so and decided to file suit alleging First and Fourth Amendment violations as well as violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act. [3]
21-year-old Brenda Hardaway found out the hard way that even if you are pregnant it will not protect you from excessive police force. An unidentified Rochester police officer was seen trying to control Hardway after she came to the assistance of her brother who had been arrested for disorderly conduct. Hardaway did not comply with the officer and apparently resisted arrest. As the video from a bystander clearly shows, after several minutes into the fracas she becomes afraid and voices her concern: “Get off of me, you’re gonna kill my baby.” “I’m pregnant, I’m pregnant …” The response of the officer was to punch the back of the women’s head and not long after and with the weight of his body bearing down on the woman – slams her to the sidewalk, landing on her back. He places his forearm against the back of the woman’s neck and head, forcing her into the ground. Many onlookers were shocked at such an unnecessary display of force.
You can watch the video HERE. [4]
Screen shots from the video: An unidentified Rochester police officer slams pregnant Brenda Hardaway to the ground after punching her in the back of the head
On the evening of May 11th 2014, Ron Hillstrom was experiencing a nervous breakdown. The 44 year-old man from University Place, Washington State was obviously delusional and in need of help. Instead he received quite the opposite. As family attorney Nathan Roberts states: “It appears that this [was] a guy who was reaching out for help, literally requesting help and instead of getting help was given a death sentence.”
Around 9:45 p.m., Pierce County Sheriff’s deputies approached Mr. Hillstrom. According to the many witnesses who were disturbed by the chaos outside, Hillstrom was running around as though panicked, believing that the police were out to “set him up”; or out to get him. Four deputies began to remorselessly taser and beat the victim whilst he pleaded for help. Police defended the murder of a vulnerable man by saying he was a threat and was resisting arrest, despite all the witnesses which came forward offering an entirely different story.
“… then they started beating him. And they just weren’t done until he was dead. Bam, bam, bam. It was horrible. It was absolutely horrific.”
– witness to Ron Hillstrom murder by police
Hillstrom’s neighbour Ashley Patterson was unequivocal: “I knew last night they were gonna kill that man,” … “You beat this man to death last night for no reason and we caught you. Period.” Unfortunately, no action was taken against the sheriff’s deputies in question. [5]
Another old man became the victim of psychopathic police officers out to have some fun.
In Homer, Louisiana on February 20th, 2009, a family was having a “cook-out”. Already harassed by police for suspected drug use, though no evidence suggested this was the case, 38-year-old Shaun Monroe was in attendance along with Bernard Monroe, Sr., and his wife Louise who were hosting the get-together with Shaun’s elderly parents. In fact, it was a pleasant family celebration with about 33 children present.
Shaun’s father, 73 year-old, retired electrical utility worker Bernard Monroe Sr. was no longer able to speak due to surgeries for throat cancer, but was enjoying himself as he sat in the shade watching his relatives. When Homer Police Department Officers Tim Cox and Joseph Henry marched into the family gathering with the intent of harassing Shaun Monroe as an “easy target for arrest,” the atmosphere, unsurprisingly, turned sour. Shaun became spooked and ran through the Monroe’s residence. The presence of the policeman was an unprovoked action without justification escalating the fear and tension. The New York Times describes what happened next:
Shaun Monroe burst out of the front door and was at the front gate when Officer Henry, who was in the yard, hit him with a Taser. Seconds later, Officer Cox reached the front screen door from the inside, witnesses said, as the elder Mr. Monroe was walking up the steps to the porch.
Officer Cox told investigators that the elder Mr. Monroe had picked up a pistol he kept on the porch and was aiming it at Officer Henry. All of the civilian witnesses say Mr. Monroe was carrying only a sports drink bottle.
But this is not in dispute: Mr. Cox shot Mr. Monroe seven times in the chest, side and back. Several witnesses said they saw a police officer later place the pistol next to Mr. Monroe’s body, but the police officers said that was because it had been moved when they were checking his wounds. [6]
And the Los Angeles Times:
The witnesses said the second officer [Joseph Henry] picked up a handgun that [Bernard] Monroe, an avid hunter, always kept in plain sight on the porch for protection. Using a latex glove, the officer grasped the gun by its handle, the witnesses said, and ordered everyone to back away. The next thing they said they saw was the gun next to Monroe’s body.
“I saw him pick up the gun off the porch,” Marcus Frazier said. “I said, ‘What are you doing?’ The cop told me, ‘Shut the hell up, you don’t know what you’re talking about.’”. [7]
Mr. Bernard Monroe Sr. was shot and killed by police officers who then planted “evidence” to cover up their own crimes.
In a deprived neighbourhood where black people are routinely harassed and stopped for no reason, it seems obvious that planting a gun on an old black man was the route Joseph Henry decided to take. Covering your own back by planting or making up the “evidence” on the spot is not uncommon. Along with assault and murder, police are getting away with it as the following summary of cases suggest:
Innocent pedestrian attacked by police, framed with charges, imprisoned for 15 months
“Police attempted to deliberately ruin a man’s life with a concocted story, yet no one faced justice.”
San Diego police raid strip club and take photos for ‘investigative purposes’
“One dancer says police photographed “every single one of my tattoos.”
Five Cops Beat Innocent, Unarmed Father to Death Outside Cinemas
“’Five guys got on top of him, beating him ruthlessly. On the head– just pow, pow, pow.’ “…he was disfigured, you couldn’t recognize him,”.
Police Beat up 84 year-old man for jay-walking
“‘The guy didn’t seem to speak English,’ said a witness.”
Woman’s face shattered after being launched into concrete jail cell bench
“An unprovoked attack left a woman requiring facial reconstructive surgery.”
Atlantic City officers brutally beat man, release an attack dog to gnaw on his neck
“After bludgeoning, attacking, and mauling the man with a dog, officers stood around and laughed and took pictures.”
Distraught family members were pepper-sprayed, chained to a bench while daughter was dying of self-inflicted gunshot wound
“My daughter died at the hospital while my son and I were chained to a bench.”
Woman brutally face-planted into pavement during arrest; charged with battering police
“Don’t you f***ing touch me!” roared the officer, before delivering a crushing blow to the woman’s face.”
Video shows cop choking out child until he goes limp, child left with brain injury
“[Metro Police officer Jonathan Hardin] was also named in a civil suit with two other officers who have been accused of verbally and physically abusing children during a summer program.”
“Christina West after being brutalized by Tallahassee Police.” (Source: Police state USA via Leon County Crt. Records)
“The officers are then seen forcefully slamming the 5′-6″, 130 pound woman face-first to the hard ground, followed by a giving her a gratuitous knee to the back of her head, exacerbating her facial trauma. She can be heard screaming in pain as she is being pressed into the road by two male assailants. Officer Ormerod continued to press her face into the ground with his arm.”
– Police state USA
At the time of writing more and more cases are coming to light reinforcing how out of control US police are becoming. The above shows a still from a video which emerged revealing an execution-style killing. The victim was 50 year-old Walter Scott who was shot eight times as he ran away from police officer Michael Slager who has since been charged with his murder. Originally Slager lied that his gun went off in a struggle over his taser. (photo still from video)
Putting aside the politics of multiculturalism and its strengths and weaknesses, we can say that most crime appears to be committed from the African-American demographic. One only has to look back at the recent history of the civil rights movement and the legacy of black slavery to understand that these seeds of oppression run deep. It is not the fact that ordinary people today must be held morally responsible for the state crimes of the past but we must be prepared to evaluate our institutions and recognise when those ponerological seeds are sprouting again and moreover, how these divisions are used against ALL of us, not just black Americans, Hispanics or Asians. One sector of society suffers, we all suffer because whether we like it or not, regardless of political and religious beliefs, we are all part of the human species connected and interrelated through our DNA, enmeshed in the vital energy of nations and the planet itself. In the end, intense pain of one part of the organism will manifest in another.
Similarly, a cancer in the form of a cluster of minority psychopaths weakening the integrity of a village, town, city, country and finally the biosphere itself, must be addressed. If not, the parasite will kill the host. This is the danger we are facing.
Let’s also not forget that movements such as “Black Lives Matter” (BLM) do not help heal the divisions or assist in seeking accountability for Police actions. In fact, such movements do the opposite because they are often part of government’s CoIntelpro, which is very possibly the case with the BLM movement. Take these salient facts from the Washington Post’s Marshall Project:
American police killed nearly twice as many whites as blacks in 2015.
More whites and Hispanics die from police homicides than blacks.
Black and Hispanic police officers are more likely to fire a gun at blacks than white officers
Blacks are more likely to kill cops than be killed by cops.
In New York City alone, comprising 23 percent of the city’s population blacks “commit 75 percent of all shootings, 70 percent of all robberies, and 66 percent of all violent crime”.
Doesn’t quite square with the Black Lives Matter message does it?
And this is how divide and rule works: it brings out extremism on both sides where the complex nuances of reasoned discourse is shredded in the mainstream media and lost amongst the rising grief and anger of the families. With the current 000.1% holding the lion’s share of the nation’s wealth and with racism and corruption within police, judiciary and federal agencies at an all time high, it is inevitable that social unrest will erupt. It should also be noted from the above that crying “racist!” against police merely trying to do their job also occurs as an easy escape route for those who have no social conscience and are merely seeking to profit from chaos. This is a concurrent adaptive behaviour and another symptom – but it is not remotely the cause.
Yet, let us also remember that the so-called “war on police” is also a nonsense. Crime against police is down to record lows which does tarry with the FACT that minority groups are targeted with more frequency, end up in prison more often and are on the sharp end of severer punishment.
Witness the riots and looting which occurred in both white and black communities across the United Kingdom in 2011 and the rioting in Ferguson in 2014 and other states. This can be explained away as the understandable boiling over of frustration and anger at the clear disparity between those that have and those that have very little, and the power of violent protest to send a message. The riots in the UK also involved so-called middle-class youth who were better off in monetary terms than many. Thus it bespoke of a deeper malaise going well beyond material concerns; a profound loss of meaning which is still not addressed in our current social systems. Unfortunately, the message of this type of violent protest merely reinforced stereotypes of race and class, especially those of colour, quickly diluting the essential message: that there is real change desperately needed.
Fundamental racism is real yet so are dynamics on both sides of the endless binary divide who encourage it. The focus on keeping racism and division alive is the issue here. Our present institutions affect ALL people, regardless of race. Our global Establishment benefits from an excess of social movements and the kind of diversity which promotes cooperation and understanding yet, at the same time, implicitly reinforces separation by claiming exclusive “rights” at the expense of human rights.
The prison population mirrors are own prisoner mind |© infrakshun
In other words, psychopaths don’t discriminate – prey is prey. But they can have a lot of fun cleaving natural cooperation and creating tribal factions to work against each other. In this sense, African-American social movements are seeking to redress the balance but missing the point that this is a problem of pathology which includes discrimination against ethnic groupings or race, but reflects a more hidden source of discrimination against normal majority of the human species from a minority of psychopaths, presently holding the reins of power. This is the core problem, a solution to which will naturally begin to resolve the sub-categories of racialism and so many other equally important “infections” of the human spirit.
If racism disappeared tomorrow, there would remain the problem of institutionalised psychopathy from which ALL entropic patterns originate. Social divides based on class, money and race will only be dissolved through education and cooperative experience, something that is socially-engineered not to occur. When we begin to look at the core problem that gives rise to all these iniquities, the various other rights and demands to be heard, understood and treated with dignity will begin to be addressed. Yet, it may mean some key collective shocks along the way so that humanity begins to recognise where and how it has been duped.
Social fragmentation and the normalisation of divided communities have deep-rooted socio-economic causes. The desperate loss of meaning and lack of a spiritual nourishment is also key. (By “spiritual” this does not mean “religious.”) There is no doubt that in the USA, African-American people bear the brunt of this burden at the present time. No race has a natural crime bell-curve. Such trends stem from a deep-seated malaise. More disturbing still, is the prison-security complex which had grown out of the pain of a society lost in inculcated pathology. The mentally ill and those stricken by poverty and economic hardship are now a profitable commodity for corporatists. Brutalisation of the American people is fertile ground for instigating new Establishment projects, after all.
On the other side of the coin is how different cultural groups and minorities feeling victimised react to the ponerisation process. After all, as a Kenyan friend of mine recently reminded me: “Black folks are some of the most racist people I know.” A sweeping statement for sure, but the concept of taking on the oppressors’ methods for divide and rule is something to acknowledge since we are all prone to hypocrisy on a smaller scale, often unconsciously. The African-American community has to face the danger of relying on the victim mentality and using it as a political tool where every crime is racially motivated. When a state tool like the police is so obviously loaded against people of colour it is tempting to assume that ALL cases can be categorised under this banner. The same dynamic has allowed the Jewish tribe to rule by victim-hood; an adapted cultural Marxism and political correctness which has provided an industry of entitlement out of all proportion; defying constructive criticism as it uses the historic shield of anti-Semitism to protect and elevate tribal privileges and a “cognitive elite” (recently updated in this context by Gilad Atzmon). Tribal divisions and “rights” can also be warped into further isolated units of aggression that lose sight of the core problem: normal humanity subjugated and oppressed by psychopaths. This has to be reiterated again and again.
“Americans are locked up for crimes — from writing bad checks to using drugs — that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. […] The United States … has 751 people in prison or jail for every 100,000 in population. (If you count only adults, one in 100 Americans is locked up.) The median among all nations is about 125, roughly a sixth of the American rate.”
– ‘U.S. prison population dwarfs that of other nations,’ New York Times
Over the last two decades various statistical studies and reports have all come to roughly the same conclusion: there is a serious race disparity regarding crime and incarceration with the prison-security complex booming as a result. One 2012 research study drawn from 58,000 federal criminal cases found that this disparity between sentencing of blacks and whites was so severe that African-American prison time was: “… almost 60% longer” than it is for Caucasians. M. Marit Rehavi of the University of British Columbia and Sonja B. Starr, who teach at criminal law at the University of Michigan Law School describe the reasons for racial disparities in this way: “in a single prosecutorial decision: whether to file a charge carrying a mandatory minimum sentence … Black men were on average more than twice as likely to face a mandatory minimum charge as white men were, holding arrest offense as well as age and location constant.”
The report further concluded that disparities can be explained by three factors:
the original arrest offense,
the defendant’s criminal history,
and the prosecutor’s initial choice of charges. [8]
And these three factors create a feedback loop that is almost unbreakable. And it’s designed that way.
The Centre for American Progress offered these statistical conclusions also from 3 years ago to ponder:
While people of color make up about 30 percent of the United States’ population, they account for 60 percent of those imprisoned.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, one in three black men can expect to go to prison in their lifetime.
Students of color face harsher punishments in school than their white peers, leading to a higher number of youth of color incarcerated.
According to recent data by the Department of Education, African American students are arrested far more often than their white classmates.
African American youth have higher rates of juvenile incarceration and are more likely to be sentenced to adult prison.
As the number of women incarcerated has increased by 800 percent over the last three decades, women of color have been disproportionately represented.
The war on drugs has been waged primarily in communities of color where people of color are more likely to receive higher offenses.
Once convicted, black offenders receive longer sentences compared to white offenders.
Voter laws that prohibit people with felony convictions to vote disproportionately impact men of color.
Studies have shown that people of color face disparities in wage trajectory following release from prison. [9]
(This is an edited summary for brevity. Go here for the full version)
When we understand that the prison-security complex demands a steady stream of “criminals” to support a private industry worth billions, it begins to make horrible sense. With the help of expensive lobbying groups and corrupt politicians the prison-security sector is set to explode. The largest for-profit prison and immigration detention facilities in the US is Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). It made $300 million in 2013 with an overall revenue at $1.7 billion. Do you know how those profits were paid for? By the American tax payer through government contracts. [10] And Europe is set to follow America’s lead.
If that sends you reeling, the latest report encompassing a wide constellation of studies is provided by the ACLU. They have distilled a high volume of information into a digestible infographic which certainly makes interesting reading. In summary: Incarceration can actually cause more crime. (oh, the shock).
Probation recidivism rates fell by 12% as opposed to an increase of 21% from time in prison. Longer prison sentences also increased recidivism by 3% and many US states after cutting incarceration have seen a significant decrease in crime. For example, New Hampshire, which favours private prisons came in at a 10% increase with a parallel rise in violent crime at 17%. Property crime reached a 13% increase.In comparison, Massachusetts lowered its incarceration rate by 15% and achieved a 16% reduction in violent crime and an 18% drop in property crime. The patterns are the same for other states showing even more dramatic differences.
“As more and more government functions get privatized, states become pay-to-play paradises, in which both political contributions and contracts for friends and relatives become a quid pro quo for getting government business. Are the corporations capturing the politicians, or the politicians capturing the corporations?”
– Prisons, Privatization, Patronage’ New York Times
This is yet another fleecing of the taxpayer who is helping government and their out-sourced cartels make massive profits by increasing the perpetrators and the victims of crime in an endless cycle. But what do you know? Crime has actually been decreasing steadily for decades, as many studies have highlighted. Much as the FBI and law enforcement in general would like us to forget this fact, the ACLU puts the figures at a 50% decline nationwide since 1990. So, here we have a natural expression of human equilibrium trying to find its way out of all the conflict, and psychopaths are trying to turn it around in virtually every sector in society. The time is approaching when it will not be just black or Hispanic peoples getting it the neck.
There is a collective time-bomb that will have repercussions for us all.
Democracy in Retreat: US ranks 46th in the world for civil liberties |Courtesy of Mark Rice from rankingamerica.wordpress.com
On October 21st 2011, Keith Timmerman reported in the online magazine The Daily Caller the Obama administration’s policy of removing references to Islam in terror training manuals and expanding the definition to encompass a large proportion of the American population. If we have learned anything from history it is that demonisation precedes persecution. Official US government documents obtained by Judicial Watch through Freedom of Information requests detail what the US government considers to be “extremist” or “potential terrorist” beliefs and which therefore, require special attention. Under the current auspices of the Surveillance State, this does not bode well for civil liberties.
Based on these documents, Economist and blogger Michael Snyder lists 72 main targets for inclusion in the New Order, all of which are culled from mainstream media and government websites:
1. Those that talk about “individual liberties”
2. Those that advocate for states’ rights
3. Those that want “to make the world a better place”
4. “The colonists who sought to free themselves from British rule”
5. Those that are interested in “defeating the Communists”
6. Those that believe “that the interests of one’s own nation are separate from the interests of other nations or the common interest of all nations”
7. Anyone that holds a “political ideology that considers the state to be unnecessary, harmful or undesirable.”
8. Anyone that possesses an “intolerance toward other religions”
9. Those that “take action to fight against the exploitation of the environment and/or animals”
11. “Anti-Immigrant”
12. “Anti-Muslim”
13. “The Patriot Movement”
14. “Opposition to equal rights for gays and lesbians”
15. Members of the Family Research Council
16. Members of the American Family Association
17. Those that believe that Mexico, Canada and the United States “are secretly planning to merge into a European Union-like entity that will be known as the ‘North American Union’”
18. Members of the American Border Patrol/American Patrol
19. Members of the Federation for American Immigration Reform
20. Members of the Tennessee Freedom Coalition
21. Members of the Christian Action Network ©
22. Anyone that is “opposed to the New World Order”
23. Anyone that is engaged in “conspiracy theorizing”
24. Anyone that is opposed to Agenda 21
25. Anyone that is concerned about FEMA camps
26. Anyone that “fears impending gun control or weapons confiscations”
27. The militia movement
28. The sovereign citizen movement
29. Those that “don’t think they should have to pay taxes”
30. Anyone that “complains about bias”
31. Anyone that “believes in government conspiracies to the point of paranoia”
32. Anyone that “is frustrated with mainstream ideologies”
33. Anyone that “visits extremist websites/blogs”
34. Anyone that “establishes website/blog to display extremist views”
35. Anyone that “attends rallies for extremist causes”
36. Anyone that “exhibits extreme religious intolerance”
37. Anyone that “is personally connected with a grievance”
38. Anyone that “suddenly acquires weapons”
39. Anyone that “organizes protests inspired by extremist ideology”
40. “Militia or unorganized militia”
41. “General right-wing extremist”
42. Citizens that have “bumper stickers” that are patriotic or anti-U.N.
43. Those that refer to an “Army of God”
44. Those that are “fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation)”
45. Those that are “anti-global”
46. Those that are “suspicious of centralized federal authority”
47. Those that are “reverent of individual liberty”
48. Those that “believe in conspiracy theories”
49. Those that have “a belief that one’s personal and/or national ‘way of life’ is under attack”
50. Those that possess “a belief in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism”
51. Those that would “impose strict religious tenets or laws on society (fundamentalists)”
52. Those that would “insert religion into the political sphere”
53. Anyone that would “seek to politicize religion”
54. Those that have “supported political movements for autonomy”
55. Anyone that is “anti-abortion”
56. Anyone that is “anti-Catholic”
57. Anyone that is “anti-nuclear”
58. “Rightwing extremists”
59. “Returning veterans”
60. Those concerned about “illegal immigration”
61. Those that “believe in the right to bear arms”
62. Anyone that is engaged in “ammunition stockpiling”
63. Anyone that exhibits “fear of Communist regimes”
64. “Anti-abortion activists”
65. Those that are against illegal immigration
66. Those that talk about “the New World Order” in a “derogatory” manner
67. Those that have a negative view of the United Nations
68. Those that are opposed “to the collection of federal income taxes”
69. Those that supported former presidential candidates Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin and Bob Barr
70. Those that display the Gadsden Flag (“Don’t Tread On Me”)
71. Those that believe in “end times” prophecies
72. Evangelical Christians. [11]
In other words, pretty much everyone who isn’t waving an American flag and praising the government.
We can see that the list is very broad indeed, redefining the terrorist towards the dissident, activist and indeed, anyone exercising their right to free speech. Notice too, that these government alerts are bi-partisan – left and right is meaningless when it comes to profiling the population. In true Orwellian style, anything that lies outside what the government considers “normal” is characterised as a threat.
Such a blanket paranoia and authoritarianism means that many federal agencies and Justice departments willingly apply these strictures. This says something about the nature of those employed and those who decide they cannot work in the job they used to love. People work within the system under the illusion that they can change it or decide to turn a blind eye in favour of financial security or just give up and acquiesce to peer pressure. Alternatively, those lawyers, advocates, police-officers and soldiers who cannot stand it anymore vacate their posts and individuals aligned to various degrees of pathology gradually fill their places, thus contributing further to a psychologically compromised State. These are the familiar patterns of pathocracies using the cover of the war on drugs, war on terror, constant surveillance and the prison-security complex.
Nonetheless, there are surely many cops and military men and women out there with conscience. Since the level of corruption and instinctive deference to authority is so strong it is going to be more difficult for these individuals to speak out. It will take great courage. They need to be given the support from activist groups and whistleblowing organisations so that they can do so, or else there will be little chance to take action in the future.
A Police State has arrived and it is going to get worse very soon. This isn’t pessimism – it is simply reading the writing on the wall, and interpreting the numerous other warnings from those who have tried to warn us. Such writing fades all too easily in our ever so distracted consciousness. Recall the last words of Eric Garner before he was choked to death by a policeman: ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.'” It was also a metaphor for the human race – above colour, race or creed – that is being slowly crushed by the jackboot of psychopaths whom we have allowed to create the mechanisms through which they may gain positions of power. It doesn’t matter if it is the President of the United States or the President of your local Neighbourhood Council – the infection is the same. We literally cannot breathe, mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. Poor Eric Garner’s death can be likened to a collective symbolism – a potent archetype of sacrifice – whether the victims of the American police state, the Palestinians in Gaza or the victims of ISIL in Iraq – they serve to alert us to the nature of our world, acting as as a profound wake-up call to resist in the name of conscience.
Let’s hope we can heed their sacrifice and lend our voice in whatever way we can.
Which brings us back to the events of 9/11 – the day the world changed.
Now that we have touched on the extent to which the US State is gradually declaring war on its inhabitants, we will return to how the coup d’etat of 9/11 which enabled such a rapid descent to take place. The more people can begin to make the step towards understanding what really took place on that day the more all the denials, repressions and lies can be exorcised and driven into the light.
First of Its Kind Study Shows 55,400 People Hospitalized or Killed by US Cops in a Single Year
America in 2017: Almost 100 times more people were killed by police than terrorists
[1] ‘Grand Jury: No Charges In New York Police Chokehold Death Of Eric Garner’ Police State Daily, December 2014.
[2 ] ‘NYPD accused of editing Wikipedia pages for Eric Garner death, other scandals’ RT | March 13, 2015.
[3] ‘Lafayette man files lawsuit after officer pushes him from wheelchair’ WTHR News, Jul 10, 2014.
[4] ‘Rochester cop punches pregnant woman in back of head, body-slams her to sidewalk’ http://www.policestateusa.com August 28, 2013
[5] ‘University Place man dies after being tased by deputies’ By Russ Bowen, KOMO News, May 12, 2014.
[6] ‘An Officer Shoots, a 73-Year-Old Dies, and Schisms Return’ By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON February 14, 2010.
[7] ‘Louisiana shooting puzzles witnesses’ Family and friends watched as an elderly man was shot by police at a cookout. They say he was killed without justification. State and federal officials are on the case | Los Angeles Times, Howard Witt, March 17, 2009.
[8] ‘Black Americans Given Longer Sentences than White Americans for Same Crimes’ February 04, 2012. http://www.allgov.com/
[9] ‘ The Top 10 Most Startling Facts About People of Color and Criminal Justice in the United States’ By Sophia Kerby, Center for American Progress, | March 13, 2012.
[10] Corrections Corporation of America, Form 10-K, SEC filing, fiscal year ended December 31, 2013.
[11] ‘72 Types Of Americans That Are Considered “Potential Terrorists” In Official Government Documents’ By Michael Snyder, Economic Collapse Blog, August 26th, 2013.
Posted in 9/11, Corporatism, Establishment / Elite, Police State, Psychology, Psychopathy, Social Engineering, Surveillance Society, Technology and tagged American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Authoritarianism, civil liberties, crime, homicide, justice, law, murder, pathocracy, Pathology, police brutality, prison-security complex, Prisons, psychopaths, racism, tasers, US Military, war on drugs, War on Terror on March 20, 2015 by M.K. Styllinski. Leave a comment
Police State Amerika I: Facebook Thought Police and CPS Blues
“The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the State.”
– Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels
As a direct result of the Global War on Terror we are seeing the militarisation of law enforcement, the shocking rise of police brutality and an out of control US Army. The inevitable result is not merely the erosion of civil liberties but the very real danger of no civil liberties at all. America is at a crossroads with numerous symptoms of soft totalitarianism converging to meet its overt, classical form. In other words, A Brave New World of social engineering and transhumanist-led SMART society converging with an Orwellian rule of martial law. This is getting more likely by the day and in Europe life is changing in more gradualist terms, but changing nonetheless.
Perhaps one of the clearest signs of psycho-pathogenic infection of the US government can be seen in who is deemed terrorist material. If entrapment doesn’t get you then considering yourself a “normal” citizen seems to be no protection either. The definition of the word “terrorist” has been stretched so far that anyone who doesn’t conform to the Establishment perception of reality is effectively a potential threat. As we know, Pre-Crime and mass surveillance is a much loved principle. The events of 9/11 seemed to open a a door to psychopathy and authoritarianism in a way that harks back to the both the building and collapse phases of historical Empires with each transition exhibiting a huge increase in pathology. It is my contention that we are transforming to toward a global consolidation arising from manipulated chaos, or we are going to see this attempt swing to the other polarity where the Pathocrats will lose control of their Grand Project and fall into their own entropic footprint.
Either way, big Change is ‘a comin.
Since America is the primary source of Pathocracy at this time, the disintegration of which is required for the Establishment to extend its reach globally, it is little wonder that clear signs of a police state are not being reported in the MSM and if they are, it is with a broad strokes that exclude any historical perspective and analyses that could counter the official line. Only the most outrageous events are reported to give the impression that they are the exception to the rule when the opposite is the case. To that end, let’s explore thematically some of the police crimes taken at random from a variety of newspapers and online journals to illustrate the audacity of this emerging war against the people.
In early 2014, Pentagon directives advanced greater contingency powers for the war on terror on domestic soil. A particular focus of these new powers is the targeting of the civilian population and the enforcement of martial law through convenient loop-holes through the updating of the Insurrection Act of 1807 and the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. In the new DoD Directive 3025.18: Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA) the ill-defined, nebulous language allows “federal military commanders” these new powers, namely, anyone who happens to be in command can enforce military law against civilians according to their say so and without presidential authorisation. One section reads: “In these circumstances, those Federal military commanders have the authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the President is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances.” Naturally, the severity of that scenario is not discussed nor why it is that presidential authority is suddenly “impossible.” Vague wording without legal meaning is a back door for emergency powers to arrive in favour of the military to do as they please, when and where they like.
Oddly enough, while the American public’s trust in the government and media is at record lows, the military fairs better. [1] This maybe due to the lack of psychological and financial support given to Iraq and Afghanistan veterans upon returning home and the sense of nationalistic pride that tends to surround them in the community. What this means when the military is not only employed on the streets but when they are an everyday presence, may change this perception.
Meanwhile, not content with performing invasive criminal background checks on passengers exercising their right to travel, the Transport and Security Administration (TSA) has expanded its duties beyond airports and is now armed and allowed to roam in public to conduct “suspicionless searches” on demand. They even carry out searches of cars at airport car-parks – without a warrant. (Oh, and make sure you have your papers i.e your biometric identity card otherwise you won’t be travelling anyway). Parallel with these inspection powers checkpoints have been popping up in various states used to “Dominate, Intimidate, & Control”. ‘Sneak & peek’ warrants allow police and FBI to secretly enter homes without notice; the IRS can seize entire bank accounts of unsuspecting citizens if there is sufficient reason for suspicion. There is no sign that these patterns of surveillance and intimidation have any intention of slowing. Indeed, it is getting worse very quickly. [2] [3] [4]
Internet emoji used in social network messaging. Even this harmless symbol may get you into trouble with the thought police.
As we know, this trend has been allowed to target the internet, with federal and intelligence agencies monitoring and commandeering the freedom of expression on social networks in order to fine those – mostly young people – critical of the government.
A 19 year old was jailed for leaving a sarcastic comment on Facebook regarding “shooting up a kindergarten”. He did so after being embroiled in a spat between other gamers who questioned his mental state. He responded: “I think Ima shoot up a kindergarten / And watch the blood of the innocent rain down/ And eat the beating heart of one of them.” He received 9 months in prison for the trouble. [5]
The ability to understand irony appears to be missing in the minds of police and judiciary.
Even posting rap lyrics on Facebook can get you branded as a “terrorist threat” it seems. When high school student Cameron D’Ambrosio, 18, posted this little missive on his account: “F— a boston bombinb [sic] wait til u see the sh– I do, I’ma be famous for rapping, and beat every murder charge that comes across me…” It was enough to land him front of a grand jury, though he was thankfully acquitted after members had the wit to reflect on the First amendment. [6]
Over in the United Kingdom the same level of insanity has also gripped the authorities. 19 year-old Matt Woods was sentenced to three months in jail for making sick jokes about missing children on Facebook. His comments focused on missing children April Jones and Madeline McCann including the following: “I woke up this morning in the back of a transit van with two beautiful little girls, I found April in a hopeless place.” and “Who in their right mind would abduct a ginger kid?” [7] He was apparently inspired to do so by a website called Sickipedia, where tasteless jokes are the norm. It seems his comments were enough to have a lynch mob at his door baying for blood which ultimately led to his arrest after the comments received a wider circulation. The judge called it: “ a disgusting and despicable crime,” sentencing him to 3 months in jail. [8]
Tasteless and silly, but a “despicable crime”? Hardly. What are becoming when we begin to send young people to jail for doing nothing more than exercising their right to free speech?
Then we mustn’t forget one of the most ridiculous attempts to drum up more cash for the Terror Industry when even using words – sick or otherwise – isn’t necessary for you to be handcuffed and led away.
After NYPD police were conducting a “routine Facebook monitoring” – and oxymoron in itself – Osiris Aristy, 17, was arrested at his home and charged: “with making ‘terrorist threats’ due to his use of emojis, posting photos of himself with a gun and therefore a criminal possession of a weapon, criminal use of drugs and criminal possession of marijuana” – all from the catalyst of using … emojis. The criminal complaint stated: “As a result of this conduct, the defendant has caused informant and other New York City police officers to fear for their safety, for public safety, and to suffer alarm and annoyance…” [9]
The FBI also likes to flex their muscles by tracking down Facebook users. Within 24 hours of posting a comment about the “American Police State” Blaine Cooper, 33, was interviewed for 45 minutes by Prescott Valley Police Department based in Arizona with the FBI sitting in. Satisfied that he wasn’t a threat Cooper was Released. after Cooper contacted the website policestateusa.com and revealed further details:
“They had every Facebook post I had ever made in a huge file, along with all my wife’s information, and parent’s information…” Cooper said that he was told that without “defusing the situation” by complying with the interview, his house might have been raided. “The FBI made mention they came to question me so they didn’t have to kick in my door,” [10]
As legalisation of marijuana laws gains momentum, this hasn’t slowed down the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in matching the FBI’s penchant for snooping, this time to support the tangential nonsense of the “War on Drugs.” Setting up fake Facebook accounts to impersonate and spy ona victim’s friends was a normal part of DEA work load it seems.
It was back in 2010, when Sondra Arquiett was arrested by the DEA and along with her boyfriend, charged for distributing drugs. Special Agent DEA Special Agent Timothy Sinnigen took it upon himself to purloin her cell phone (apparently with consent) in order to access the wealth of personal information. The phone was returned only after all her private photos, addresses, emails and records had been copied, a fact about which Arquiett was entirely unaware. The agent then created the online Facebook account and pretended to be Arquiett by contacting her friends, posting photos, sending messages and making friend requests. A high level of personal information was used to create the illusion that this was Sondra Arquiett – AKA Sondra Prince.
Arquiett only became aware of the false account when one of her friends alerted her to the fact. Since she had not even registered for a Facebook account this was doubly shocking. After the drug case had been concluded and she had served weekend jail terms for several months, she filed a lawsuit at a New York, Syracuse District Court in June 2013. Arquiett, now 28, cited emotional distress and the perceived cooperation with the DEA that might endanger her life and that of her child.
What is perhaps more troubling is the clear breech of ethical guidelines where law enforcement not only mimics crime but once again sees no problem in actively creating it. The government, using the same para-logistical arguments to which we should now be well accustomed, defended the DEA and their methods by claiming that Arquiett “implicitly consented” by allowing agents and police access to her phone reinforcing their belief that these actions were carried out “for a legitimate law enforcement purpose.” If such implicit consent and standardised legitimacy is now seen as normal, then American law has set the bar extremely low indeed. Many privacy experts agree. Anita L. Allen, a professor at University of Pennsylvania Law School commenting on the case said: “It reeks of misrepresentation, fraud, and invasion of privacy.” [11]
The Facebook page set up by the DEA impersonating Sondra Arquiett AKA Sondra Prince. (Source: Associated Press)
Despite the obvious trashing of the principle of free speech anyone with a normal ability to discriminate between a terrorist threat, taking advantage of potential petty criminals and the ever-present noise of teenagers and their hormonal spats would have swiftly moved on, bored out of their minds. Such is the extreme paranoia coupled with profit margins the government prefers to waste billions of tax dollars on creating a climate of fear in the younger members of society. When the right to be silly and say inane and even controversial comments on the “privacy” of one’s social networking page is restricted and monitored then it is no distance at all to censorship, control of information and using the internet as a cynical opportunity to blur the lines between crime and prevention. Free speech then becomes a quaint afterthought.
Compliance becomes the norm.
CPS and DHS
The corruption of Law and the family Courts is now common place. It seems the Child Protection Services (CPS) and the Department of Human Services (DHS) appear to be working in tandem to make the lives of ordinary children, new born babies and their families an utter misery. That is not to say that these services do not offer protection and care for the young in many, perhaps still the majority of cases. However, there is a large body of evidence to suggest that this is changing – and changing fast. This is unsurprising given the fact that the CPS and DHS are tied to the hip with Big Pharma and the Medical Establishment which routinely enforce mandatory vaccination, orthodox medical procedures and the growing seizure of children, despite and often due to the fact that parents have the temerity to call them out on their failures. The CPS in particular, shows itself to be a cartel with profits as the primary mover. It has come under the intense scrutiny of concerned citizens across America who have suffered a severe abuse of their human and civil rights. The reports are so alarming that it you’d be forgiven for harbouring doubts. Unless that is, you talk to those who have been on the sharp end of totalitarianism camouflaging itself as social care. A few examples follow.
Erica May Carey “escorted” away from her child by police
“The police literally ripped 14 month old Levi from his mother’s breast, reports Erica May Carey, as she was nursing him in the car at a California gas station. Her baby was screaming, and she says her breast was exposed as the officers dragged her from the car. As she recounted the events of last Thursday, Erica began weeping, saying that she was “hogtied like an animal, when moments before I was nursing my infant.” She was arrested and jailed for fighting to keep her children with her.
Erica and Cleave Rengo were the subject of national interest as reports of them fleeing Washington CPS [Child Protection Services] made the headlines. Last November, the holistic, devoutly Christian couple’s three breastfed babies were taken amidst accusations of neglect for choosing alternative remedies such as calendula and coconut oil for their older baby’s eczema and preferring not to take their newborn twins to the hospital after an unassisted homebirth, even though they were reportedly healthy.” (Source: Epic Times)
You might think you would have the freedom of choice to forgo vaccines for your new born baby but this wasn’t the case for Aliea Bidwell and Ben Gray, who became parents on March 14th, 2014. Unfortunately, the parents had the bad luck to come up against a doctor who took exception to the fact that they did not wish to inject drugs into their son. Despite this vaccine not even required by law in Alabama state, Dr. Terry M. Bierd, MD, staff pediatrician at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Birmingham, gave them an ultimatum: take the Hepatitis B vaccine or lose your baby to the Child Protection Services (CPS). The family is filing suit against the doctor and also set up a Web site to raise awareness of this medical blackmail and aggression. Donations are accepted to assist with legal costs. [12] (A detailed account of their experience can be found at The INQUISITR).
It is completely understandable that parents do occasionally opt to refuse the Hepatitis B injection for their sons and daughters given the evidence of its toxicity and record of related deaths. In June 2014, Lorie Blalock’s baby suffered an adverse reaction after being vaccinated with the drug against the mother’s wishes whereupon the infant was abruptly taken into medical foster care. They are still waiting to have their baby back. [13] [14] [15]
Then we must also mention Rebekah McClain was made a victim of the medical establishment after having her baby removed by the CPS despite demonstrable evidence that vaccinations were having adverse reactions. McClain was later accused of abuse. Her tale is an horrific one, detailing medical malpractice and vindictive behaviour that you would expect to find in a bizarre horror film. [16]
In a similar case which beggars belief, the Washington Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) subjected a Tacoma foster mother and her baby to a bureaucratic attack on her civil rights to refuse influenza vaccinations. They gave her the same ultimatum so common in these cases by insisting that the entire family have the shots and if they refused, the baby would be seized by the state. In the end, Jamie Smith the boy’s foster mother, reluctantly complied stating: “I’ve done a lot of research on it and I don’t like some of the side effects that it has,” …. “I’ve thought about that a lot. Unfortunately, I have to think about our kids who are in the house first and to me they’re more important, their safety, than trying to fight to keep this little guy.” [17]
She is not the first mother to be threatened with kidnap if the vaccinations are not accepted nor will she be the last. Not only babies are being snatched from their mothers to cover up malpractice and to fall in line with mandatory vaccinations, refusal to have chemotherapy treatment can also be considered abnormal, where the strong arm of the law must force you to comply.
An Amish family and their daughter suffering from leukaemia were initially forced to flee the United States, despite the ruling from an Ohio Judge supporting their right to halt all chemotherapy treatment. The parents of Sarah Hershberger believed that drug treatment would have produced more suffering and likely killed her rather than cure the disease.
According to one report:
“An appeals court issued a ruling granting an attorney for Akron Children’s Hospital, Maria Schimer, temporary guardianship over 11-year-old Sarah Hershberger after she begged her parents to discontinue the toxic drugs being administered to fight cancer. ‘Parental rights, even if based upon firm belief and honest convictions can be limited in order to protect the ‘best interests’ of the child,’ the court ruled.” [18]
When sheriffs and CPS representatives came to take the child, the family had already left the country. Maurice Thompson the Hershberger’s attorney claimed: “It’s the constitutional right, but [there’s a] moral right to refuse conventional medical treatment,”. Thankfully, the family was able to return to the United States after grassroots protests and a successful legal battle. Sarah is now cancer-free. However, many are still not able to express their right to have a say in what happens to their own bodies in the event of a serious illness. Especially, it seems, where money is to be made.
Another instance of State coercion was visited upon 17 year old Cassandra from Connecticut State who was taken away from her mother and forced to receive chemotherapy that she vehemently opposed.
Diagnosed with Stage 3/4 Hodgkin’s lymphoma by Connecticut Children’s Medical Centre (CCMC) doctors opted to remove some of Cassandra’s lymph node. This is where the chemotherapy drugs came in. Cassandra was opposed to this form of treatment, viewing the side effects as too dangerous, an opinion she had had for several years, according to her mother. As pressure from doctors mounted the family decided to seek a second opinion elsewhere. Meanwhile, the CCMC contacted Connecticut Department of Children and Families (DCF) alleging “parental medical neglect.” A Superior Court ruling swiftly followed, forcing Cassandra’s mother to return her daughter for chemotherapy treatment she had no wish to have.
After two chemotherapy treatments at the end of 2014, Cassandra was desperate and ran away from home to avoid any more interference. Upon her return she still refused treatment. Yet, at the conclusion of a CPS session and the CCMC doctors testimonies, the trial court subsequently ordered her “removed from her home and that she remain in DCF’s care and custody.” Which meant that Cassandra was hospitalised as a ward of the state with “all medical decisions made on her behalf.” She was then forced to endure further unwanted surgery and chemotherapy treatment. [19]
To any normal person, having the choice as to whether or not you wish your kids to be vaccinated with toxic drugs, the chance to exercise your right to take care of your own children when it is self-evident that you are a responsible parent, or if your right to reject potentially dangerous treatment, is of supreme ethical and moral importance. Apparently, the CPS and similar social services and members of the medical Establishment disagree. What is more, should you have the audacity to question their Orwellian procedures you better make sure you have a lot of money and a suitable support system.
Cassandra and her mother committed the cardinal sin of seeking a second opinion which meant that the CPS/medical cartel went into overdrive. Since they have unlimited resources the sheer tripartite power of medical, judicial and law enforcement tag team is frightening to the ordinary family who ends up the object of their ire. For all the high profile cases that gain momentum on the internet or in local newspapers there are thousands of other cases that do not receive the headlines they sorely need.
The Connecticut Children’s Medical Centre was in the news again in March 2015, this time for separating a 3 year-old cancer patient from his mother and accusing her of child abuse when it was nothing more than a diaper rash. Known to be a dedicated and loving mother by her friends and family, no charges were filed but Wendy Lamarre is still fighting to get her child back. [20]
Here is a very brief round up of just some of the cases where people exercised their rights and dared to take a second opinion:
Teenager Isaiah Rider Speaks Out After Being Taken From His Mom In Medical Kidnapping Case
“Dissatisfied with her 16-year-old son’s medical care, Michelle Rider was preparing to transfer him from Lurie Children’s Hospital when a doctor delivered staggering news: The teen had been placed in temporary protective custody.
“They accused me of medical (child) abuse,” Rider said of that morning last month. “I said, ‘What is that?’ They told me to Google it. I was not allowed to have contact with my
Eight year old Jaxon Taken By Hospital When Parents Ask For Second Opinion
A Missouri doctor recently told a little boy that, if she had it her way, he would never see his mommy and daddy again. This was after 8 year old Jaxon was seized from his parents’ custody based solely on a statement from this single doctor. His parents, Tiffany and Jason Adams, are desperately trying to bring him home after what appears to be his doctor’s retaliation because they “dared to seek a second opinion.”
Teen indefinitely detained in psych ward after parents seek 2nd medical opinion
A judge has ruled that a Boston teen may continue to be held captive in a hospital and forcibly drugged… indefinitely. The tragic series of events began when a doctor discarded an earlier medical diagnosis and declared another, prompting objections from her parents and threats to discharge her from Boston Children’s Hospital to take her to get a second opinion. An epic battle of egos ensued, and the hospital decided that the parents’ insolence in challenging the doctor was tantamount to child abuse. Without a trial or having broken a specific law, the girl was stripped from her parents’ custody and the state of Massachusetts has kept her indefinitely detained in a hospital since February 2013. Based on the latest ruling, the girl may very well be locked in a psychiatric ward until she turns 18 years old.
The above case of 15 year-old Justin Pelletier is a tragic summary of the authoritarian crimes of the CPS and Medical Establishment. Please visit the website http://justiceforjustina.com/ and donate to their cause.
Not only do we have these cartels gnashing their teeth at families who seek a second opinion in the face of their extreme behaviour but it seems smoking pot, drinking raw milk, perceived mental disability, hanging around with black kids, swearing on camera and even giving birth at home can land you in jail or facing the seizure of your children:
CPS snatched infant because of legal medical marijuana prescription
A man was placed into handcuffs, a woman sobbed uncontrollably, and their 11-month-old boy was seized by social workers and put into foster care — all because of legally prescribed medical marijuana. It didn’t matter that no law had been broken; Child Protective Services has the power to split apart families in an instant without a trial, and regularly does across the country.
This heartbreaking situation happened to California couple Shawnee Anderson, 27, and Aaron Hillyer, 34. After a nosy neighbor called the police because of a loud argument, cops arrived and found doctor-prescribed cannabis — legal for medicinal use in a total of 20 states. […]
The commonly-used cannabis plant is an easy target for child-snatching agencies — even if it is legal. The agency can deem virtually anything “abusive” or “neglectful” at their discretion. The targets of CPS are punished first, then attempt to prove their innocence later. The American tradition of treating people as if they are “innocent until proven guilty” is lost on CPS.
“There are families out there … destroyed over a medicinal plant,” said Hillyer to CNN. “It’s baffling.”
Mom gets investigated by social workers after advocating marijuana reform and for in-depth: Fighting FIRES: Branden the Brave’s Battle for Medical Cannabis Access
“I feel like our family was targeted, just because I’m doing what our beautiful country is built on: Freedom of Speech.” […]
A child-abuse investigation has been launched on a Florida mom after she made some public statements in support of medical freedom. Social workers intruded into her life in order to look for excuses to seize her children.
This is the situation that Renee Petro is facing. She is the mother of a boy with a terrible illness. Branden, age 12, has been diagnosed with a rare form of epilepsy which results in uncontrolled seizures and can be fatal. Her desperate quest to save him is also what has drawn the scornful eye of the state.
Healthy girl confiscated from parents who smoked pot, given to murderous foster mother
A little girl was confiscated from her loving parents because they smoked marijuana, and given away to a foster mother who put her into a coma and killed her. Alexandria “Alex” Hill, age 2, succumbed to her injuries after being “thrown to the ground.”
“We never hurt our daughter. She was never sick, she was never in the hospital, and she never had any issues until she went into state care,” said the girl’s father, Joshua Hill, to KVUE.
Alex was seized by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Service (TDFPS) after her parents were accused of smoking marijuana while the girl slept. She was taken into state custody in November 2012.
Mr. Hill said that she was put into more than one dangerous foster home.
Breastfeeding 2-day Old Newborn Seized From Parents Because Mother Has Disability :
“A Florida couple is devastated. Child Protective Services just took their breastfeeding newborn from her mother’s arms at the hospital. She was is not even two days old, but parents Tracey and Freddie Verzosa of Kissimmee, Florida will now only be able to visit their baby for feedings, under supervision. The accusations against them, according to the parents’ story, boil down to the facts that Tracey is a slow learner, they are poor, and the baby was born too quickly for them to make it to the hospital.”
DHHS accused of abusing authority with Brooklin teen who feeds baby goat milk formula
A young Brooklin mother who feeds her baby a goat milk-based formula, missed doctor appointments and refuses to have her child vaccinated is accusing the Maine Department of Health and Human Services of overreaching its authority by investigating her son’s well-being.
Family and supporters of Alorah Gellerson, 17, and her 4-month-old son, Carson, held a rally Thursday at Cascade Park in Bangor to make a statement against DHHS, which the young mother says has completed its investigation and given the baby a clean bill of health.
“We must send Maine DHHS a message that this overreach of authority is not acceptable,” the family wrote of the event on their farm’s Facebook page.
Many in the group who gathered at the park wore pins that read, “Goat milk formula is not a crime.”
CPS seizes toddler for saying naughty words on video
“A 2-year-old toddler has been seized by Child Protective Services when a clip surfaced of him using “inappropriate” language in a video posted on the internet. The standard for breaking apart families has become so broad that it now covers politically incorrect speech.
The events began when the Omaha Police Department discovered a YouTube video of a diaper-wearing child using profanity at the encouragement of two adults. OPD posted the video to its website, saying it was an example of the “cycle of violence and thuggery” in the community.”
CPS nabs teenager because she was hanging out with black people
A teenage dance student took a trip out of state with two fellow dancers to spend a weekend taking classes with some of the top professionals in the industry. The weekend came to an abrupt end when she was seized by police and put into the hands of Child Protective Services because of the way her companions looked.
Young dancer Landry Thompson, 13, and her two companions departed from Tulsa, OK, and headed down to Houston for a weekend of professional dance instruction. Her mother trusted Emmanuel Hurd, 29, and Josiah Kelly, 22, and had given her full consent to the trip.
The group spent all day Saturday in dance class. Exhausted, they departed for their hotel. But they struggled to find their destination. “We were on the GPS trying to figure out where the hotel was. And we sat there and we dozed off,” said Hurd, her instructor.
The next thing the group knew, there were police surrounding the vehicle. They apparently didn’t think Thompson had any business in a car with her companions, based on nothing but the way they looked.
[…] “‘Are you aware your daughter is with two Black men?’ When I said, Yes, I’m aware of that, he called into questioning [my] parenting,” the mother said. […]
A woman who wished to remain anonymous recounted her story of authoritarian abuse on a blog (now defunct) subsequently reported by Police State USA. After delivering her baby naturally at home she and her partner were surprised to find themselves putting up with a flood of visits from social workers checking to see that the baby was “healthy and “under government-approved medical supervision.” The mother was happy with the birth and both she and her husband were keen to avoid “unnecessary medical interventions”, hence the reason for a natural home birth. They had the baby checked out on the 6th day. It was then that things began to get disturbing:
Police State USA takes up the story:
The hospital experience, according to the mother, was infuriating. When doctors found out they had performed a home-birth, she and her husband were allegedly treated as if they were “crazy” and “incompetent fools.”
While at St. Joseph’s Hospital ER in Philadelphia, after some brief checks, the mother said that doctors rudely told her that her baby would be transferred — without permission — to another hospital. The supposed reasoning was that St. Joseph’s did not have a dedicated pediatric center. The mom says the decision was made behind their backs and an ambulance was already dispatched by the time she was informed.
Even though nothing was found wrong with her baby, the mother said that rejecting the transfer was not an option. A staff member named Dr. Elisa Evans allegedly “came in the room with a stern look and said, ‘If you refuse to transfer her, we WILL CONTACT DHS AND THE POLICE,’” she recalled.
The mom says that cops appeared and blocked the exit. “The officers stood in front of the emergency room doors — arms crossed and said you cannot leave with your child”.
The baby was involuntarily transported by ambulance to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (costing the parents $3,320.00). The mother said that doctors performed “test after test, hoping to find something.” For four hours this process went on, without the parents’ consent and under the threat of government compulsion. The parents had walked into St. Joseph’s at 10:00 a.m. and were not allowed to leave Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia until 9:30 p.m.
This is the same political correctness and paranoia gone mad that we explored in The Rule of Law , Sex, Lies and Society and The Politics of Entrapment. The confusion and mixed messages within such state departments and institutions is breath-taking. Real child abuse is covered up while the innocent are persecuted through a convergence of ineptitude, ignorance, bureaucracy and deception. They may even use these labels to cover their own tracks and maintain authority. Higher up the chain of command there are no doubt reasons to suspect elements of social engineering and ideology steering the DHS and CPS ships.
Now keep in mind Surveillance Society and All the Way Down to our DNA... and you may now have a better idea as to how ordinary people are being made to conform to Official Culture. Can you see how this plays an important part in a new form of technocratic centralisation? The Medical Establishment is no exception to this ideology.
Which brings us to this little item:
Secret list: Having your name on this secret Michigan list of 275,000 people could cost you your job (video included at source)
It’s a secret list that can cost you your family or your job. Once you’re on it, it can be very hard to get off. While some changes are being made to the law, many experts say it doesn’t go far enough.
The state maintains something called the Michigan Child Abuse and Neglect Central Registry and the sole power to label you an abuser lies not with a judge or a jury, but with child protective services workers.
And you may be surprised at how the state can define “abuse.”
Anita Belle says she’s never been convicted of a crime. But Belle’s name has been put on the Central Registry as a child abuser.
“Where is the due process,” asked Belle.
The Central Registry is maintained by Child Protective Services workers inside Michigan’s Department of Human Services, or DHS.
Something to remember next time you consider placing efficiency before freedom – such as it is. Making false diagnoses, suppressing evidence, refusing to hear medical testimony and harassing families and their children appears to be business as usual for many members of the CPS and DHS departments fully mandated by the government. Independence and self-sufficiency covers all avenues. The more outside society you can be whilst cultivating a large network of like-minded friends, the better the potential for your future.
In the next post we’ll look further at the rise of the police state after 9/11, with stories from those who have come under the baton and jackboot of the police and SWAT teams.
See also: Public School System Exposed for Reporting Parents to CPS for Homeschooling
[1] ‘I Can’t Breathe’: Eric Garner’s Last Words Symbolize Our Predicament’ By Rev. Jesse Jackson and Grace Ji-Sun Kim, Huffington Post, 12/18/2014| Updated: 02/17/2015.
[2] ‘Security Check Now Starts Long Before You Fly’ By SUSAN STELLIN, New York Times, OCT. 21, 2013.
[3] ‘T.S.A. Expands Duties Beyond Airport Security’ By RON NIXON, New York Times, AUG. 5, 2013.
[4] ‘Sneak & peek’ warrants allow police to secretly enter homes without notice -Covert tactics have become legally accepted and increasingly popular. Police State USA, June 27, 2014.
[5] ’When A Teen’s ‘Sarcastic’ Facebook Message Goes Terribly Wrong’ Daily Mail, Jul. 8, 2013.
[6] ‘Grand Jury Rejects Indictment of Teen Arrested for Rap Lyrics’ Massachusetts student’s arrest for alleged ‘terroristic threats’ raised First Amendment concerns, By John Knefel, Rolling Stone, June 6, 2013.
[7] ‘Teenager jailed over offensive April Jones Facebook posts’ By Kim Pilling, The Independent, 08 October 2012.
[8 ]‘Unemployed teenager sent to prison for three months for vile Facebook posts about missing children April Jones and Maddie Mccann’ Daily Mail, By Emily Allen, 8 October 2012.
[9] ‘Teen Arrested for His Choice of Emojis in a Facebook Post, By Cassandra Rules, January 23, 2015. The Free Thought Project at www.freethoughtproject.com.
[10] ‘FBI interrogated man after comment about American ‘Police State’ on Facebook’ -Man’s fears are confirmed when the FBI wanted to interrogate him within hours of making an impassioned comment, www.policestateusa.com August 27, 2013.
[11] ‘Government Set Up A Fake Facebook Page In This Woman’s Name’ By Chris Hamby, http://www.buzzfeed.com/ October 7, 2014.
[12] ‘Parents Blackmailed By Doctor: Consent To Vaccine Or We Take Your Newborn’ The Inquistr, May 23 2014.
[13] ‘Grassroots Effort To Fight Medical Kidnapping Of Baby Kathryn By UMC Children’s Hospital And CPS In Texas’ The Inquitr, October 26, 2014.
[14] ‘Social Services To Family: ‘Get Flu Shots Or We’re Taking Your Baby’ By Mac Slavo, January 18th, 2015 | SHTFplan.com.
[15] ‘Vaccine-Injured Child Kidnapped from Family by Child Protective Services’ by Augustina Ursino,www.vactruth.com, November 15 2014.
[16] ‘4 Month Old Texas Baby Seized from Parents in Medical Dispute’ By Terri LaPoint
Health Impact News, December 2014.
[17] ‘Amish family forced into hiding to avoid court-ordered chemotherapy treatment’ December 1, 2013. www.policestateusa.com
[18] ‘Connecticut Supreme Court Upholds Ruling That State Can Force Chemotherapy On Teen’ By Josh Kovner, www.courant.com/
[19] ‘No Charges Filed, But 3-year Old Cancer Child Taken from Mother over “Diaper Rash” by Terri LaPoint, March 14, 2015, healthimpactnews.com/
[20] ‘Medical Kidnap: CPS Worker Makes False Medical Diagnosis to Seize 4 Year-old Child from Family’ Terri LaPoint, March 14, 2015.
Posted in 9/11, Activism, CoIntelpro, Police State, Psychology, Social Engineering and tagged Afghanistan, Big Pharma, biometrics, cancer, Chemotherapy, Child abuse, Child Care Services (CPS), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Facebook, FBI, Iraq, IRS, law courts, medical establishment, medical kidnapping, Police, political correctness, social networks, SWAT, Transport and Security Administration (TSA), US Military on March 16, 2015 by M.K. Styllinski. 1 Comment
Technocracy VIII: DARPA’s Technophilia (2)
“Twenty-five years from now, we may be to the point where the sensors are embedded in the skin and the person becomes the processor …“
– Tod Lovell, a technology director at Raytheon
It is no secret that DARPA was at the forefront of electronically tagging US combat soldiers parallel to the initiative of tagging criminals in the prison industry currently making huge profits. The chipping project is called “Individual Force Protection System”, the manufacture of which was gleefully taken on by US defence contractor Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). In January 2007, a presentation was delivered outlining IFPS details later found in a PDF document freely available on the internet. It described a 3-inch tag “without GPS” attached to a soldiers uniform with a “LOS range = 113 miles.” The wholesale cost is “$100 per tag.” [1]
As we have seen, Verichip and RIFD technology has its physical drawbacks aside from its ethical and civil liberty implications. From creating a “sixth sense” brain implant through which infrared light can be detected to implanting a chip that controls the brain; allowing thoughts, memory and behaviour to be transferred from one brain to another, these DARPA teamsters are riding high with possibilities. However, in the latter case it was scientists working at the University of Southern California, home of the Department of Homeland Security’s National Centre for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events which came up with that little gem. Working in the fields of “neural engineering” and “Biomimetic MicroElectronic Systems,” chips which have been implanted into rats’ brains can be used as a storage device for long-term memories. Attempts to record, download and transfer memories into other rats with the same chip implanted.
A microchip implanted into a rat’s brain can take on the role of the hippocampus—the area responsible for long-term memories—encoding memory brain wave patterns and then sending that same electrical pattern of signals through the brain. Back in 2008, Berger told Scientific American, that if the brain patterns for the sentence, “See Spot Run,” or even an entire book could be deciphered, then we might make uploading instructions to the brain a reality.
In one study the scientists had rats learn a task, pressing one of two levers to receive a sip of water. Scientists inserted a microchip into the rat’s brain, with wires threaded into their hippocampus. The chip recorded electrical patterns from two specific areas labeled CA1 and CA3 that work together to learn and store the new information regarding which lever to press to obtain water. Scientists then shut down CA1 with a drug and built an artificial hippocampal part that could duplicate such electrical patterns between CA1 and CA3, and wihch was inserted it into the rat’s brain. With this artificial part, rats whose CA1 had been pharmacologically blocked, could still encode long-term memories. And in those rats who had normally functioning CA1, the new implant extended the length of time a memory could be held.
In terms of the new cyborg, it opens up huge potentials for brains training and entrainment. It also gives an extremely updated version of an Orwellian “thought Police” as an adjunct Pre-Crime technology, the fine tuning and enhancements of which are in parallel development.
According to a Los Angeles Times report in 2002, when Donald Rumsfeld was Secretary for Defence in the Bush-Cheney Administration he made it his priority to “… redesign the U.S. military to make ‘information warfare’ central to its functions.” [2] The strategy of “information dominance,” according to American military experts, consists of 1) Building up and protecting friendly information and degrading information received by your adversary. 2) The ability to deny, degrade, destroy and/or effectively blind enemy capabilities. [3]
” ‘DARPA’s Squad X initiative seeks ‘innovative’ tech to enhance troops’ real-time situational awareness’ – DARPA’s Squad X initiative is inviting bright minds to submit their ideas for an integrated digital system to enhance situational awareness on the squad level. Squad X hopes to combine the cornucopia of different technologies into one grand “system of systems” to “organically extend squad awareness and influence” on the battlefield.”
PSYOPS and Information Dominance was ex-U.S. Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld’s favourite playground. His enthusiasm gave rise to Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) which encompasses everything from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), to nanotechnology, robotics, and biotechnology. RMA is full of wild beliefs about the future of warfare, modern information, communications, and space technology. “Transformation” and “total systems integration” are keywords that make the military technophiles shudder with delight. The defeat of US foreign or domestic adversaries through surveillance technologies, advanced weaponry and the suppression and degradation of communications networks is all part of the RMA and DARPA vision of technological supremacy.
The project which has caught RMA and DARPA’s attention is the “network-centric warfare” designed to turn cities, any city, into a limitless “battlespace.” And the evolution of ID alongside information warfare:
As urbanization has changed the demographic landscape, potential enemies recognize the inherent danger and complexity of this environment to the attacker, and may view it as their best chance to negate the technological and firepower advantages of modernized opponents. Given the global population trends and the likely strategies and tactics of future threats, Army forces will likely conduct operations in, around, and over urban areas–not as a matter of fate, but as a deliberate choice linked to national security objectives and strategy, and at a time, place, and method of the commander’s choosing. [4]
From DARPA’s own website at http://www.darpa.gov these include various programs and projects supported by millions of dollars of tax-payers money. We have the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO); Cognitive Systems Office working on a project called “Learning Applied to Ground Robots” and the Command & Control brief described as “the exercise of authority and direction by a properly designated commander over assigned and attached forces in the accomplishment of a mission.” This comprises of “Deep Green” an “innovative approach to using simulation to support on-going military operations while they are being conducted.”
Promotional still from Elysium (2013) in which the film’s protagonist is fused with cybernetic “enhancements” to carry out an important mission. DARPA’s dream on celluloid.
Then there is the Heterogeneous Airborne Reconnaissance Team (HART) which is due to:
“… the complexity of counter-insurgency operations especially in the urban combat environment demands multiple sensing modes for agility and for persistent, ubiquitous coverage. The HART system implements collaborative control of reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition (RSTA) assets, so that the information can be made available to warfighters at every echelon.”
Alongside this program are Persistent Operational Surface Surveillance and Engagement (POSSE), which involves:
“… building a real-time, all-source exploitation system to provide Indications and warnings of insurgent activity derived from airborne and ground-based sensors. Envisioning a day when our sensors can be integrated into a cohesive ‘ISR Force’, it’s building an integrated suite of signal processing, pattern analysis, and collection management software that will increase reliability, reduces manpower, and speed up responses.”
Ready to track those pesky dissidents fully integrated into SMART society?
UrbanScape offers the capability to “provide the warfighters patrolling an urban environment with an up-to-date, high resolution model of the urban terrain that can be viewed, manipulated and analyzed.” Whereas the Strategic Technology Office (STO) will “… focus on technologies that have a global or theater-wide impact and that involve multiple Services.”
Other programs well underway with funding from Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman include: Integrated Sensor Is Structure (ISIS) whose goal is to develop and deploy a “stratospheric airship based autonomous unmanned sensor with years of persistence in surveillance and tracking of air and ground targets;” and VisiBuilding, which will cater for “a pressing need in urban warfare [by] seeing inside buildings.” [5]
One of the main programs which DARPA provided for the TIAO was called “Combat Zones That See” (CTS). Journalist and author on police state surveillance Tom Burghardt reveals the details:
The plan was to install thousands of digital CCTV networks across occupied cities in the belief that once the system was deployed they would provide ‘warfighters’ with ‘motion-pattern analysis across whole city scales.’ CTS would create a nexus for mass tracking of individual cars and people through algorithms linked to the numeric recognition of license plate numbers and scanned-in human profiles.
The program was denounced by privacy and civil liberties advocates’ for its potential use as a mass surveillance system that could just as easily be deployed on the streets of American cities. In theory CTS, or a similar program could be further ‘enhanced’ by Scaleable Network Social Analysis (SSNA)… SSNA’s aim is ‘to model networks of connections like social interactions, financial transactions, telephone calls, and organizational memberships,’ according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s 2003 analysis. Once license plate numbers are ‘mined’ from raw CCTV footage, investigators could: a) identify a car’s owner; b) examine her/his web-surfing habits; c) scan e-mail accounts for traces of ‘inflammatory rhetoric;’ d) monitor recent purchases for ‘suspicious’ items. [6]
A check-point police state is hardly something that comes to the ordinary person’s mind as they go about their daily life but the end of privacy is fast approaching if governments continue to have their way. Location analysis, DNA, retinal scans, fingerprints and tagging and now chemical profiling of subject.
A laser-based “molecular strip-search” was the latest bright idea to be rolled out by the US government’s Homeland Security Agency and implemented across airports, check-points, large-scale venues and anyway that government sought an opportunity for surveillance. The technology has the capacity to instantly scan the bio-molecular structure of your body which includes the prescription drugs in your bag; cocaine residue on your dollar bills and any trace substance that we have come into contact with such as marijuana or gun powder. Ten million times faster and one million times more sensitive than any other system currently available, it can do all this invisibly and from a range of up to 50 metres.
The technology is a “scanner … called the Picosecond Programmable Laser. The device works by blasting its target with lasers which vibrate molecules that are then read by the machine that determine what substances a person has been exposed to. This could be Semtex explosives to the bacon and egg sandwich they had for breakfast that morning.” [7]
So, what will happen if you’ve been smoking pot that day or been down at the firing range? You will be tagged and “detained.” And in a climate of social unrest and false flag terrorism it is likely to be promoted as an unfortunate but necessary part of the world in which we live. We will have to be willing to give up some of our freedoms if the government is to protect us and retain the integrity of the greater good… And so the media will sell it …
By 2015 however there had been such a backlash against the privacy and health concerns that many of the x-ray scanners were taken out of airports and the hands of the The Transportation Security Administration (TSA). This is likely to be only a minor setback before the re-introduction of scanners which have been suitably modified.
As the government document: ‘Strengthening Federal Capacity for Behavioral Insights’ attests, the technocrats are losing no time in finding ways to merge technology and social engineering. Looking to make society much more “efficient,” we can add the latest bright idea by the federal government to hire a “Behavioural Insights Team” (BIT) to change US behaviour, taking its lead from the UK who spearheaded the initiative. Its own Behavioural Insight Team has been up and running for several years.
Commensurate with Common Core education the Obama administration took the opportunity to implement a new executive order in October 2011, after the Bradley/Chelsea Manning whistleblowing scandal. This Orwellian initiative aims to target future whistle-blowers, leaks and security violations by ordering federal employees to report suspicious actions of their colleagues, all of which is based on the very shaky science of BIT. It is part of what is called the “Insider Threat Program”, which covers every federal department and agency and where: “millions of federal officials, bureaucrats and contractors must keep their eyes peeled for watch “high-risk persons or behaviors” among co-workers. Failure to report could result in “penalties” or “criminal charges.” Such reports are bolstered by an integrated computer network monitoring system which detects “suspicious user behaviour” linked to Insider Threat personnel.
Seeing people as numbers in a Game Theory algorithm is bound to cause problems, not least the obvious flaws in trying to predict the future with unproven psychological techniques. Wide open to the usual privacy and civil liberty violations a National Research Council Report highlighted by McClatchy News on July 9 20013, was just one of many science bodies which saw no value in such initiatives stating in 2008: “There is no consensus in the relevant scientific community nor on the committee regarding whether any behavioral surveillance or physiological monitoring techniques are ready for use at all.” Quite apart from the fact that this executive order is on top of some of the most draconian legislation ever enacted in law and which continues to be rolled out in the face of continuing State violations against civil rights.
The marketing of the Obama myth has permitted the enactment of the National Defence Authorization Act (NDAA) which destroys due process and the Bill of Rights. Since your profile indicates dissension and disagreement with government policy then you will be labelled a “terrorist-sympathiser,” “terrorist enabler,” or prone to “incitement” or any other nonsense deemed subversive in order to detain you much longer, without any rights to a phone-call or access to a lawyer. Even if you are not a drug-user the laser will reveal what prescription drugs you are currently using to what stage you at in your ovulation cycle to the presence of cancer. A comprehensive bio-psychological profile will be created ready to be used against you should you become a non-compliant citizen able to think for him or herself. Used cocaine in the past? Then your civil action against the government for abuse of civil liberties is dead in the water. Since traces of cocaine exist on all forms of paper currency so theoretically anybody can be detained and charged with possession should it deemed expedient to do so. This technology will become a useful political tool with almost endless “Big Brother” applications.
As Noel Sharkey, professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at the University of Sheffield said of the new military “Cheetah” robot which can run faster than a human: “an incredible technical achievement, but it’s unfortunate that it’s going to be used to kill people”. [8] The same could be said for the intention behind all the above technology. Put it all together with a rising Police State, social engineering and a SMART growth society, the outlook doesn’t look good for the ordinary citizen. It is however, a perfect direction for the technocratic psychopath to take and his intent to centralise and consolidate power through technology.
See also: Cyborgs 2030: The Military’s Vision of Remote Controlled Soldiers
[1] Individual Force Protection System (IFPS)Overview2007 Worldwide Personnel Recovery Conference. | http://proceedings.ndia.org/7040/11percent20IFPSpercent20bypercent20Marshall.pdf
[2] ‘The Office of Strategic Influence Is Gone, But Are Its Programs In Place?’ fair.org, November 27 2002.
[3] ‘Information dominance,’ by David Miller, The Guardian, January 8, 2004
[4] Urban Operations, Field Manual No. 3-06, Headquarters, Department of the Army, Washington, D.C.,October 26, 2006.
[5] http://www.darpra.gov
[6] ‘America’s Cyborg Warriors’ by Tom Burghardt, Global Research, July 23, 2008.
[7] ‘New Homeland Security Laser Scanner “Reads People At Molecular Level” declares a CBS News headline’ CBS local, via GIZMODO July 11, 2012.
[8] ‘Cheetah robot “’runs faster than Usain Bolt”’BBC News, September 6 2012.
Posted in Corporatism, Genetic Engineering, Health, Mind Control, Movies-Television, Police State, Psychology, Social Engineering, Surveillance Society, Technocracy, Technology, War and tagged Behavioural Insights Team (BIT), Big Brother, biometrics, Biomimetic MicroElectronic Systems, biotechnology, civil liberties, Cognitive Systems Office, combat, crime, cybernetics, cyborgs, Defence Advanced Research Projects Area (DARPA), Dick Cheney, DNA, Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, Homeland Security, Individual Force Protection System, Information Dominance, Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO), information warfare, Integrated Sensor Is Structure (ISIS), Lockheed Martin, National Defence Authorization Act (NDAA), neurology, neuroscience, Northrop-Grumman, Obama Administration, Orwellian, pre-crime, Raytheon, Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), robotics, Scaleable Network Social Analysis (SSNA), Science Applications International Corporation, SMART growth, SMART Society, space technology, Squad X initiative, UN Agenda 21, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), urban warfare, US defence, US Military, Whistleblower on February 24, 2015 by M.K. Styllinski. Leave a comment
Satan’s Little Helpers IV: The Manchurian Reality (1)
“I never thought about laying down my life, but maybe I laid down a lot more than my life in service to my country. My soul?”
US Air-force Service man and mind control victim
“The key to creating an effective spy or assassin rests in splitting a man’s personality, or creating multi-personality, with the aid of hypnotism. This is not science fiction. I have done it.”
– George Estabrooks, Harvard University graduate, Rhodes Scholar, and chairman of the Department of Psychology at Colgate University who hypnoprogrammed U.S. government agents during World War II.
Mind control is very much in the public consciousness, largely as a product of Hollywood. Films such as Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971) or The Bourne Identity (2004) paint a specific picture of secret government mind control operations all of which fascinate us, not just for their brutality but because they are drawn from easily verifiable, historical facts. Though disinformation and distortion surround the issue of mind control in the past, the questions regarding how much investment has been devoted to the development of technology for individual and mass mind control applications remain as relevant as ever. Since the private sector and outsourcing has taken over a multitude of US government departments it is only logical that experimental data which was accrued over the cold war years was simply continued within deep black projects in known and unknown R & D companies. Taking a cursory look at marketing and advertising innovations it is clear that military technology is continuing to seep into the public domain. Once the province of conspiracy mythology, mind control and behaviour modification is as powerful as it ever was. But just how far has military-intelligence come with their dreams of automated assassins?
Organised religion, cults and self-help gurus have all used various psychological techniques to assist or control the devotee’s mind for the good of the group or attached belief system. Assimilation to a cause and strength in numbers is as old as the hills. But mind control for political ends using cutting edge experimentation of behaviour modification, neuro-psychopharmacology and even the occult, is something relatively new. And for it to be part of government black operations perhaps reaching a state of unimaginable sophistication is something profoundly disturbing. But it must be addressed if we are to have a chance to counter it.
Written by Richard Condon and published in 1958, The Manchurian Candidate is the definitive book about mind control and brainwashing. It was made into a film of the same name a few years later. The movie resonated with the public already immersed in Cold War fears and the US propaganda of brainwashing techniques by the Russian and Chinese communists.
It told the story of a US Army sergeant on active service during the Korean War, captured by the enemy and subjected to deep hypnosis. The idea was to ensure that the solider had no recollection of his actions which were buried deep behind a wall of amnesia. He is programmed to murder through carefully designed cues. On his return to the United States he kills a candidate for the Presidency and several other people who were threats to his secret mission.
Condon’s book was a work of fiction though extraordinarily accurate in all but the true pioneers of specific techniques of manipulating the human mind. Rather than the pesky “reds” who were out to brainwash the brave men and women of Uncle Sam, something more sinister was lying in wait much closer to home.
Out of print and hard to come by, Operation Mind Control (1978) by Walter Bowart exemplified the kind of investigative journalism which is so desperately needed in the mainstream media today. It remains a classic in mind control research. Using the Freedom of Information Act, a good measure of patience, tenacity and expensive payments to several researchers he managed to unearth many declassified documents and obscure government reports. He interviewed long forgotten victims for case studies drawn from mostly from Vietnam and Korean War veterans to US Army and Air-force military personnel. Bowart painstakingly cross-checked testimony of what remained in the federal archives, recording their stories in order to weave it into a polished narrative of non-fiction. After two years of research studying science reports and government documents from libraries he was able to piece together not only why it was that so many victims had amnesia but what type of behaviour had been controlled and to what end. Bowart’s research has been built upon by other researchers and victims and his findings remain just as pertinent and shocking as they did in the tumultuous 70’s.
Mind control had already been perfected by the late 1940s and early 1950s by the use of drugs, knowledge of Pavlovian conditioning and the behavioural science of B.F. Skinner. The latter was to be one of the pillars of an extreme materialistic social biology used to experiment on the US population in order to “psycho-civillise” it to specific objectives. The brainwashing imagery was a useful mythology held to be almost a kind of magic that would control the victim’s mind. In fact, as Bowart states: “It was … none of these things. Techniques which seemed to change the beliefs of American POWs and others behind the Iron Curtain employed no hypnosis, no drugs, no new methods for the control of the mind and certainly nothing magical.” It was a supremely effective method of “fueling a home-grown fear of the Communists upon which the Cold War so greatly depended.” [1]
The author informs us:
The US used classic projection to take the potential heat from themselves by inventing the idea of brainwashing which was in fact practised by America vare of nazi techniques more than any other country. “They did not use drugs or hypnosis, nor did they invent any mysterious new devices for breaking the mind and will of a man.”
“The United States government did not have to stoop to the slow and exhausting process the Chinese and Russians used. In the age of electronic brain stimulation, neuro-psychopharmacology, and advanced methods of behavior modification and hypnosis, the government certainly didn’t have to resort to methods as unsophisticated as brainwashing. The techniques of mind control developed, even by 1967, were making brainwashing seem like the metaphor it was: a washboard and scrub-bucket technique which had little use in a world where the sonic cleaner, with high” frequency sound, higher than the human ear can hear, vibrates the dirt from the very molecules of matter—or the mind. [2]
Brainwashing was psychological indoctrination which can be said to take place in our religious and pop-cultures on a daily basis and as an adjunct to something quite different. It was the USA who had perfected not a system of brainwashing but a comprehensive system of mind control where a person was not only broken but a new personality installed and programmed. This was much more than torture and indoctrination this was mind rape; an emptying of the essence of the individual.
At the time and for many today, the idea of hypno-programmed political assassins is still the province of pulp fiction and conspiracy lore. Yet, it is beyond question that millions of dollars were spent on breaking persons within the military and civilian life so that they might create “zombies” who were designed to be conscienceless with dual or multiple personas in order to carry the bequests of their programmers. Essentially, sociopaths – made to order.
Perhaps one of the most important points to remember from Bowart’s research is the realisation that mind control covers a multitude of domains and multidisciplinary branches operating under cover or within the public domain and with suitable fronts which accelerate the momentum of behaviour modification for the State. In much the same way as the defence or weapons industry, various levels of work take place which could be termed as benign right up to the morally dubious and criminal experimentation well beyond democratic purview. Each researcher, foundation and outsourced agency is allowed to know only what is necessary to know to accomplish the segment of research or testing which ultimately complements the whole. This now applies to technology in a way that did not during post-war America and Europe. As Bowart discovered mind control programs did not have a “single originating source, but several.” He further states:
“The operation is too widespread and complex for it to be created by a ‘cult.’ If a cult there must be, then it is a cult within a cult, in an interlocking chain of invisible minigovernments with unwritten rules, unwritten plans, and unwritten loyalties. It is the plan of a secret bureaucracy—what I call a cryptocracy—which conspires against our laws and our freedoms.
‘Cryptocracy’ is a compound of crypto, meaning ‘secret,’ and -cracy, meaning “rule, government, governing body. The cryptocracy, then, is the secret government whose identity and whereabouts have slowly and reluctantly been hinted at by the Congress through its investigations into Watergate, the CIA, and the rest of the intelligence community.” [3]
In other words, Cryptocracy is an outgrowth of Pathocracy.
As present events have revealed so clearly with the whistle-blower and former CIA intelligence analyst Edward Snowden the National Security Agency is far more likely to be the source of the financing and promotion of mind control operations large and small than the CIA which has traditionally been labelled the “baddie” of the intelligence underworld. Given the extraordinary depth of surveillance and snooping by the NSA and its feelers into future technology and Pentagon’s DARPA it is safe to say that only the very tip of a very cold iceberg has been revealed so far. (To that end, some may say Edward Snowden may yet prove to be a patsy in a turf war between the CIA and NSA. But that’s another story).
Whatever the case, an alliance still exists not just between factions within the NSA, CIA and Defence Intelligence Agency, the Office of Naval Intelligence and subsidiaries in military intelligence, but also within the civil service, private contractors, academic institutions and corporations. Psychopaths operate by clustering together and allowing a pathogenic infection to spread. There are no borders to ponerological ascendance once it has taken hold and mind control techniques are fully embedded in the emerging Pathocracy.
The creation of Manchurian candidates or “zombies” who serve to oil the wheels of geo-political strategy or contour the mass mind to accept new laws have a particular type of personality which is best suited to such endeavours. They are usually highly suggestible, sensitive, from abusive backgrounds, with low-self-esteem and even naïve. Other types may have sociopathic or psychopathic tendencies offering further possibilities. 99 percent of these testimonies had some form of amnesia in common. Memory from early childhood was mostly if not entirely absent and recollection as to their specific “secret” work alongside their standard posting was fragmentary or missing. In the US chosen guinea pigs of the pre-and post-war era were usually drawn from the US Army and US Air-force. Special barracks and locations for training and experimentation were set up with suitable cover such as supply men or nondescript administration jobs.
Walter Bowart related numerous cases of military men following a pattern of highly disturbing dreams in which they kill a friend, family member or unknown person in a variety of ways: “In their sleep, the memories of atrocities surface to vivid awareness among the victims of mind control. Night after night terrible images, suppressed by deeply conditioned responses, emerge as terrifying nightmares. Are they mythological? The stuff of dreams? Or are they recovered memories?” [4]
Back in the 1940s Dr. George Estabrooks chairman of the Department of Psychology at Colgate University helped set the hypno-programming snowball in motion. The foremost expert on hypnosis he was brought to Washington immediately after the Pearl Harbour attack as an advisor in Washington. Estabrooks was obviously in his element telling his masters that he “… could develop a uniquely dangerous army of hypnotically controlled Sixth Columnists,” if they so wished which evidently got them salivating at the prospect. [5] The creation of programmed assassins was about to commence and communist paranoia fed into the urgency for unquestioning mind control research and experimentation in the minds of the civil service and lower level contractors who had been taken in by the propaganda of highly advanced brainwashing techniques of the Soviets and Chinese.
Estabrooks was the first to suggest mass hypnosis experimentation on an easily accessible resource: the US Army. Numerous presentations of the power and efficacy of hypnosis were given by the Doctor as declassified and public documents attest. In one such demonstration he describes the possibility of mind controlled saboteurs already ensconced in the heart of America primed and ready to carry out their missions. In one demonstration he stated:
“Let us suppose that in a certain city there lives a group of a given foreign extraction. They are loyal Americans but still have cultural and sentimental ties to the old country. A neighborhood doctor, working secretly for a foreign power, hypnotizes those of his patients who have ties favorable to his plans. Having done this he would, of course, remove from them all knowledge of their ever having been hypnotized.
“Next comes a one-month period of indoctrination under hypnosis. By various means, including the offer of substantial rewards and educational processes designed to strengthen their ancestral loyalties, their cooperation is obtained.” […]
“All right, you say. This sounds beautiful on paper. But what about the well-known ‘psychological principle’ that no one will do anything under hypnosis that he wouldn’t do when he’s awake?” … “My experiments have shown this assumption is poppycock. It depends not so much on the attitude of the subject as on that of the operator himself … In wartime, the motivation for murder under hypnosis doesn’t have to be very strong,”… I am convinced that hypnosis is a bristling, dangerous armament which makes it doubly imperative to avoid the war of tomorrow.” [6] [Emphasis mine]
This was akin to saying to a bunch of waiting wolves please don’t eat these lambs they are far too delicious to ensure a sound digestion. The direction of mind control research was set.
Dr. George Estabrooks
Eastabrooks continued to feed all kinds of nightmarish scenarios which could befall America. The ultimate irony is that he assisted in making these worst case scenarios real with the emergence of the OSS, then the CIA and the National Security State several years later. In effect, mind control was institutionalised at the start. And since the intelligence and shadow government apparatus had been infected with the psychopathy of Nazi influence – the pioneers of mind control experimentation – this was like pouring kerosene on growing embers.
By the early 1950s, electro-shock treatment and drugs as an aid to hypnotic induction caused the research to take on an unstoppable momentum. Eastabrookes had suggested: “… that new drugs would be discovered which would be capable of inducing deep hypnosis in virtually any individual regardless of his degree of cooperativeness.” [7]
By 1953, after Dr. Albert Hoffman had discovered the hallucinogenic and mind expanding properties of LSD the CIA had invested in the drug in order to corner the market and to use it in drug experiments with animals and human beings. With the eventual rise of LSD, cocaine and other designer chemicals as the drugs of choice for the Revolution it seems that this particular experiment had fast run away from them. After all, if LSD – despite its toxic effects – proved to expand the mind and thus allow the ability to see the folly of authority in all its guises this would eventually prove to be a major problem, as indeed it did. )The massive protest movement against the Vietnam War and the corollary of social reforms was one such unforeseen effect). This is why, in part at least, the New Age and the “psychedelia” or counter-culture movement was embedded with government informants and disinformation agents in order to defang and discredit their often genuine wish to expand the awareness and freedoms of the mass population. It became not a bastion of true spiritual freedom but a quagmire of dangers for the spiritually naive.
Albert Hoffman
Now that LSD and its associations were becoming emancipatory impure heroine certainly helped reverse the trend. Once the CIA controlled the distribution and availability of drugs it was free to use it as a resource and a tool of targeted social change. LSD began to dry up and became illegal by 1966. Heroine fresh from the CIA controlled Golden Triangle in Asia took over and was pushed particularly hard in ethnic minority towns and cities across the US. The youth caught between the utopian promise of drug-based counter-culture assumed heroine would do the same. A generation of addicts were created and awareness derailed once again. Even towards the end of the 1950s think-tanks had already been suggesting that addiction was a potent way to keep societies passive and malleable. (This was already well known to PR guru Edward Bernays with his perception management techniques for encouraging acceptance for commercial cigarette use). And since heroine did not “expand consciousness” it was a doubly effective on top of the daily inducements of alcohol and consumerism.
It was only by June, 1975, that the public was able to officially confirm in the mainstream media that government that the CIA had been using the US population as a drugs laboratory and feeding behaviour-influencing drugs to ordinary citizens for more than twenty years. The Rockefeller Report of 1975 revealed at least some of the details. The report stated that the drug research: “… was part of a much larger CIA program to study possible means for controlling human behavior. Other studies explored the effects of radiation, electric shock, ultra-sound, psychology, psychiatry, sociology, and harassment substances.” [8]
The fact that Rockefeller is headlining such a report should indicate the nature of the accountability. Nothing has changed with so called reports, commissions and suitably skewed media appraisals which are largely exercises in damage control so that the public is given a bone to chew and business returns to normal. Subsequent FOI requests from journalists for documentation on the Rockefeller report certainly revealed more information which was nonetheless, heavily redacted. This was closely followed by CIA director Richard Helms departure and not before he ordered the shredding of a huge quantity of files pertaining to mind control experiments. Nevertheless, what information did remain was disturbing enough.
“In 1949 the Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) undertook the analysis of foreign work on certain unconventional warfare techniques, including behavioural drugs, with an initial objective of developing a capability to resist or offset the effect of such drugs. Preliminary phases included the review of drug-related work at
institutions such as Mount Sinai Hospital, Boston Psychopathic Hospital, University of Illinois, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, Valley Forge General Hospital, Detroit Psychopathic Clinic, Mayo Clinic, and the National Institute of Health.
“This first project, code-named Project BLUEBIRD, was assigned the function of discovering means of conditioning personnel to prevent unauthorized extraction of information from them by known means. It was further assigned to investigate the possibility of control of an individual by application of special interrogation techniques, memory enhancement, and establishing defensive means for preventing interrogation of agency personnel.” [9]
Project Bluebird became Project ARTICHOKE which would handle most of the developments of hypno-programming and drug-enhanced behaviour modification. According to CIA documents by 1953 a cryptonym was in circulation named MKDELTA which evolved to become Project MKULTRA: “… an umbrella project for funding sensitive projects … approved by Allen Dulles on April 3, 1953. It’s remit covered: … policy and procedure for use of biochemicals in clandestine operations …” with experimentation in: “… radiation, electroshock, psychology, psychiatry, sociology, anthropology, harassment substances” along with “paramilitary devices and materials.” [10]
The compartmentalised intelligence imperative has remained the same since the 1940s to the present day. Bowart reminds us of this fact by distilling the intent behind the experimentation into three key questions which they have been asking in order to direct their research:
Can accurate information be obtained from willing or unwilling individuals?
Can agency personnel (or persons of interest to this agency) be conditioned to prevent any unauthorized source or enemy from obtaining information from them by any known means?
Can we obtain control of the future activities (physical and mental) of any individual, willing or unwilling, by application of [mind-control] techniques?
If it sounds too Hollywood, this is entirely due to the diet of movies and pulp fiction we have grown up with since the late 1950s onwards. The fascination with something so insidious has always captured the public attention but only as a means of cathartic entertainment rather than an acceptance that such fictionalised accounts were based on real events, sometimes far more horrific than authors and film-makers could imagine. Yet, this is the inheritance of the Anglo-American and Conservative Establishments who welcomed the Nazi exodus and its development of the National Security State.
The military, mental institutions, hospitals, government agencies and civilians had become a vast resource of men and women who would become career-zombies for the state, often unaware of their double lives and clueless about the missions they undertook. The 1960s was positively awash with drugs and behaviour modification. Case studies in FOI requests documents reviewed in both Operation Mind Control and many other more recent literature on the subject have sourced official declassified documents. Though many of these are in the public domain still more documents were heavily redacted suggesting the advances and those responsible go much deeper.
Since many of the most sensational murders are perpetrated by psychopaths who have “broken down” and exhibit an inability to control their primitive desires, it seems the essential psychopath not only has a high degree of control in maintaining his “mask of sanity” but must remain attentive to his camouflage in all other endeavours. This includes those employed at high level posts and those undertaking missions of a highly sensitive nature.
Since the world operates like a machine for the pathocrats, then its cogs and wheels must be finely tuned. Which is why the US Army and prisons are an ideal recruiting ground for those with a predisposition to violence and even accustomed to killing, but not necessarily psychopathic. An unpredictable, criminal psychopath was not an asset for mind control. Anti-social personality disorders and authoritarian followers with a high degree of emotional suppression are ideal since they are more likely to follow commands rather than act on impulse.
Once training is completed the individuals are selected for their particular talents, be it for assassination team-based black operations and sexpionage. Agents are often teamed together as male and female so that should the sexual urge raise its head, then each could service the other so that the mission had less chance of being compromised by the “primitive mind.”
Since the Anglo-American-Israeli nexus is the leader in such operations it brings into relief how darkly amusing International laws and treaties truly are. They are routinely flouted on a daily basis, whether it is engineering a coup, deploying PSYOPS units or engineering false-flag events in domestic or foreign settings. As is so often the case with the global state and its institutions, they serve to offer the illusion of civilisation while offering leverage to their psychopathic designers to corral the public and fatten it for the kill.
[1] (p.45) Bowart, Walter; Operation Mind Control (1978)
Posted in Abuse, Mind Control, Occult, Psychology, Psychopathy, Technology and tagged American POWs, Andrew Łobaczewski, assassins, B.F. Skinner, behaviour modification, behavioural science, Black Magick, brain stimulation, brainwashing, Child abuse, Children, CIA, conspiracy, cryptocracy, deep black projects, dissociation, drugs, Edward Bernays, electro-shock, electronic brain manipulation, Freedom of Information Act, Golden Triangle, Hollywood, hypno-programming, hypnosis, Korean War, LSD, Manchurian Candidate, mental hospitals, Military-Corporate complex, mind control experiments, mind programming, MK-DELTA, movies, National Security State, Nazi brain-drain, Nazi intelligence network, Nazis, Nazism, neuro-psychopharmacology, neurology, NSA, occultism, Operation Overcast, pathocracy, Political Ponerology, Prisons, Project Bluebird, Psychedelia, PSYOPS, radiation experiments, RItual abuse, Rockefeller Report of 1975, sex research, sexpionage, sexual abuse, torture, trauma, US Military, Vietnam War, World War II on April 17, 2014 by M.K. Styllinski. 1 Comment
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Van Halen Jumpstarts Steven Spielberg’s New ‘Ready Player One’ Trailer
Debra Filcman
Van Halen's "Jump" spikes the adrenaline in the new trailer for Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One. Watch the clip, which also features Depeche Mode's "World in My Eyes," above.
The film is based on the 2011 science fiction novel by Ernest Cline. Set in a dystopian 2045, the population has largely retreated into a virtual reality known as the Oasis. Our orphaned narrator Wade Watts sets the stage, saying "people come to the Oasis for all the things that they can do, but they stay because of all the things they can be." We soon learn that the creator of Oasis has died, leaving behind an Easter egg in the game. Whomever reaches it first gains control of the Oasis, and as a result, the world's new economy.
The race for the egg is on, and so is "Jump." The chart-topping lead single from Van Halen's 1984, it has often been used as a theme song in the world of sports and remains their best-charting Top 100 single. That big success belies the long road taken by this track, which grew from a number of smaller creative moments.
"'Jump' is a song that we wrote for several different reasons, primarily because it is leap year and secondly, because I was watching television one night and it was the 5 o'clock news, and there was a fellow standing on top of the Arco Towers in Los Angeles and he was about to check out early, he was going to do the 33-story drop — and there was a whole crowd of people in the parking lot downstairs yelling 'Don't jump, don't jump' and I thought to myself, 'Jump,'" David Lee Roth said at the time. "So, I wrote it down and ultimately it made in onto the record, although in a much more positive vein. It's easy to translate it the way you hear it on the record as a 'go for it' attitude, positive sort of affair — an I-jog-therefore-I-am approach."
Eddie Van Halen's synth line, meanwhile, dates all the way back to 1981. It languished in the vaults for years, he's said, after being rejected by his bandmates.
This action-packed new clip from Ready Player One comes five months after the previous trailer, which featured Rush's "Tom Sawyer," from 1981's Moving Pictures. Speilberg's film will hit theaters on March 30, 2018.
Next: Ranking Every Van Halen Album
Source: Van Halen Jumpstarts Steven Spielberg’s New ‘Ready Player One’ Trailer
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How the fruit fly got its stripes: Researchers explore the precision of embryonic development
The first moments of life unfold with incredible precision. Now, using mathematical tools and the help of fruit flies, researchers at Princeton have uncovered new findings about the mechanisms behind this precision.
In a new study published in the journal Cell, the team showed that cells determine exactly where they need to be and therefore what body parts they will become by optimizing the use of all information available from the genetic code. This optimization allows each cell to position itself within one cell’s width of where it should be, rather than making errors that later are corrected.
The study also demonstrates that a complex biological system can operate according to a mathematically optimal process. The team was able to predict the placement of cells to within 1 percent of their actual locations along the length of the embryo, showing that biological behaviors can be computed and predicted from theoretical principles.
“The information required to specify precise cell locations — and therefore what body parts they will become — is present and utilized at the earliest stages of development in fruit flies,” said Thomas Gregor, associate professor of physics and the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics. “This contrasts with the prevailing view that the position of the cells is refined slowly over time.”
“The theoretical idea is very simple, which is that every cell is using all the information that it can squeeze out of the relevant genes,” said William Bialek, the John Archibald Wheeler/Battelle Professor in Physics and the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics. “Something we’ve known for a while, but never stop being amazed by, is that the whole system is incredibly precise, and this fact is what spurred us to believe that the cells are using all the information that they can.”
Cells take cues from genes, or more specifically, from the protein molecules that those genes produce. But do the cells use all of the information to get everything right the first time? Or is the system messy, with mistakes that are repaired before irreparable harm is done to the embryo?
The question was exactly the type of big-picture problem that the team of biologists and physicists, who have been working together since the early 2000s, likes to tackle.
Thanks to previous work by team member Eric Wieschaus, the Squibb Professor in Molecular Biology and professor of molecular biology and the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, scientists know exactly which genes and molecules are involved in creating stripes across the embryo that mark the segments of the fly larva. If anything goes wrong, the stripes form in the wrong places or not at all.
Story by Catherine Zandonella, Office of the Dean for Research
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Cork Opera House
The original house was built over 150 years ago but destroyed by fire a century later to the horror of Cork city’s inhabitants but rebuilt and remodeled in the following decades. Among the best known to have tread its boards, Charles Dickens made an appearance as did Parnell, delivering some of his most memorable lines there. Over the years the local populace has been entertained by music of all sorts include touring opera companies.
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David Aspden
(Australia, England 01 May 1935 – 26 Jun 2005)
Meditations on landscape no. 3
David Aspden was born in 1935 in England and migrated to Australia in 1950. He worked as an apprentice painter/sign writer in Port Kembla for twelve years, before pursuing his intention to be an artist, in which he was largely self-taught. He moved to Sydney in 1964, where he remained for the rest of his life. His first solo exhibition was in 1965 at Watters Gallery, with two works shown in the landmark 1968 NGV exhibition on abstraction, 'The field'. In 1971 he was awarded a gold meal at the 'XI Bienal de Sao Paulo in Brazil', and was represented in the exhibition 'Ten Australians' which toured Europe in 1974. In 1980 he spent time in New York at the Australia Council Canal Street studio. In 1995 he won the Wynne Prize, having exhibited in 16 Wynne prizes between 1977-98, plus on Sulman Prize and one Archibald Prize. He died in Sydney in 2005.
For Aspden, painting was as much an act/process as well as the creation of an all-encompassing colour environment. His early interests lay in international formalist/ hard edge painting, which gave way to a more nuanced and lyrical abstraction influenced by music, landscape and nature. Above all, his work emphasised colour and expressed his remarkable facility for tone, and interest in balancing interlocking shapes, colours, tones and light.
synthetic polymer paint on white wove paper
Signed and dated upper c. verso, black fibre-tipped pen ".../ Aspden '98/ .../ .../ ...".
Signed l.r. corner, black fibre-tipped pen "Δ [artist's monogram]".
Gift of Karen Aspden 2008
© Karen Aspden
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SPEAKING OUT: Folau says he was ‘backed into a corner’
by Ben Graham
27th Jun 2019 8:58 PM
Israel Folau said he felt "backed into a corner" by Rugby Australia when the organisation tried to pay him to take his controversial social media post down.
Speaking to Alan Jones and Peta Credlin on Sky News on Thursday night he said he's looking for an apology, so he can get on with his sports career
"It's been a very, very tough time for myself, Maria and our families over the past couple of weeks," he said. "But, we're holding up really strong and the support from the general public and those who are close to us has been amazing."
He said his faith is the most important thing to him and it shapes every aspect of his life.
"The Bible and what I believe comes out of that is very important to me and I believe it's my duty to share that," he said.
He also claimed his social media message was one of love.
"I can see it from both sides, if I had a child who was a drug addict I would still love them," he said.
Israel Folau told Alan Jones his faith meant everything to him. Picture: Sky News
He said Rugby Australia offered him money to take the post down, but he said he couldn't do that because of the strength of his faith.
Folau was told if he took down his controversial Instagram post which claimed "hell" awaited "drunks, homosexuals, adulterers" and others unless they repent, it would be deemed as remorseful and would have potentially downgraded his code of conduct breach from "high level" to a low or mid-level breach.
"I felt I was backed into a corner, but in the end I couldn't do it because my faith is most important," he said.
He also said he's not surprised by the backlash, because it states in the Bible that believers would be met with resistance for expressing their views.
Introducing his guest, Jones said, "I know this man, he's a gentle Polynesian Christian soul".
He warned that "you or I could be next.
"In court, you swear on the Bible to tell the truth, but don't quote from the Bible or you'll be sacked," he said.
"We are in dangerous territory and thousands and thousands of Australians understand that, that's why they're giving money."
He said Rugby Australia is spending money it should spend on grassroots sports to hire "the best lawyers in the country" to "humiliate" Folau.
Jones said our politicians are running scared from the issue of religious freedom and, this morning, he urged listeners to support Folau - saying his anticipated legal dispute with Rugby Australia is "one of the defining cases of our time".
Speaking on his 2GB show, Jones said: "We should all be doing our little bit because Israel Folau is fighting the battle for all of us.
"These are essential freedoms... it's a bit like the Mabo case, these are significant changes that must be made to the way we run our society if we are free and democratic."
RELATED: Australia delivers verdict on Israel Folau debate in news.com.au poll
Today, for first time since Folau's code of conduct hearing, RA's chief executive Raelene Castle has spoken out on the ongoing issue.
In a statement released on Thursday, Castle reiterated the organisation's stance as having "acted with complete professionalism".
"Rugby Australia has acted with complete professionalism and integrity at all times through the process by which Israel was found, by an independent three-member tribunal panel, to have made multiple, serious breaches of the Professional Players Code of Conduct," Castle's statement read.
"The panel found the breaches constituted a high level and directed Rugby Australia to terminate Israel's contract."
It comes as a campaign to raise funds to support the ex-Wallaby's legal stoush with Rugby Australia has been "paused" after donations topped $2 million.
The Australian Christian Lobby (ACL), which set up the fundraiser on its website, said the flow of donations since it was opened on Tuesday had been "overwhelming".
More than 20,000 people had donated more than $2.2 million by Thursday morning (AEST).
The campaign has been labelled "GodFundMe" by some, after the ACL swooped in to replace an earlier campaign on GoFundMe that was also taken down by the platform for breaching its service guidelines.
"Your overwhelming support means that Israel Folau has raised enough money for now," the ACL said in a statement on its website.
"ACL, Izzy and everyone involved is humbled and grateful. We are hitting the pause button. But if the case drags on and Israel needs more support, we will re-open this campaign."
The ACL said the fundraiser not only showed there was support for Folau but a "great movement of quiet Australians have found their voice.
"This cannot be ignored."
The same statement asked for Folau supporters to pledge their financial support to Folau in the future, should the former rugby star's legal costs rise above the war chest already raised. "If you would like to pledge your support below please do and we will be in touch when the need arises," the statement said.
Folau said last week Rugby Australia has already made it clear the governing body "will divert significant resources to fight me in court".
ACL managing director Martyn Iles on Wednesday night assured supporters the money raised will solely be used to meet Folau's legal costs.
It comes as a poll of more than 120,000 readers on news.com.au found 53 per cent of people believe Folau should be funding his legal battle out of his own pocket, having received salary payments in excess of $10 million throughout his sporting career.
Israel Folau speaks at The Truth of Jesus Christ Church in Sydney.
"Israel's case is every Australian's case," Iles told The Australian. .
"Thousands and thousands of quiet Australians have donated generously to Folau's legal defence fund and many of them are the same quiet Australians who stood up for the religious freedom at the federal election only a month ago.
Folau wanted to raise $3 million for his unfair dismissal case, which he believes amounts to discrimination on religious grounds.
Israel Folau with Australian Christian Lobby managing director Martyn Iles. Picture: Facebook
Folau is seeking $10 million in damages from RA and wants his multimillion-dollar contract reinstated after it was pulled by the association.
RA took issue with a social media post by the committed Christian in April that was condemned as homophobic.
Folau had paraphrased a Bible passage saying "drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists and idolaters" would go to hell unless they repented.
Folau on Wednesday said he was humbled by the strength of the public support for his cause.
I am humbled by the support I have received from so many of you since Rugby Australia terminated my employment contract after I shared a religious message on social media. To those who have criticised me, I bear no ill will towards you. You have every right to express your own beliefs and opinions. To the thousands of you who donated to my GoFundMe campaign, I am forever grateful. GoFundMe’s decision to shut down my campaign proves the importance of my case; whether you share my faith or believe in my right to express it, attempts to sanction what we believe is a threat to all Australians. I am incredibly thankful for the Australian Christian Lobby, which has not only come to my defence in the media, but generously established a website to receive donations on my behalf. For those not in a position to donate, your support and prayers will make more of a difference than anything else. God bless!
A post shared by Israel Folau (@izzyfolau) on Jun 25, 2019 at 4:32pm PDT
"To those who have criticised me, I bear no ill will towards you. You have every right to express your own beliefs and opinions," he posted on Instagram.
- with AAP
'Targeting his wife': Folau move slammed
Folau, Rugby Australia talks collapse
‘Suicide mission’: Folau team’s bold idea
Millions march for Pride
christianity editors picks freedom of religion freedom of speech gay rights israel folau
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Facebook says first-person Christchurch video foiled AI system
13:23 24/04/2019 Nate Lanxon, Bloomberg
Facebook said it struggled to identify the video of the New Zealand mosque shootings because of the use of a head-mounted camera by the gunman, which made it harder for its systems to automatically detect the nature of the video.
“This was a first-person shooter video, one where we have someone using a GoPro helmet with a camera focused from their perspective of shooting,” Neil Potts, Facebook’s public policy director, told British lawmakers Wednesday.
Terror footage from a first-person perspective "was a type of video we had not seen before,” he added. Because of the nature of the video, Facebook’s artificial intelligence - used to detect and prioritise videos that are likely to contain suicidal or harmful acts - did not work.
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Potts was giving evidence Wednesday to a committee of senior lawmakers in the UK as part of a parliamentary inquiry into hate crime. Representatives for Twitter and Alphabet’s Google and YouTube also gave evidence.
Social media platforms, such as Facebook, have been facing scrutiny after the shooter accused of killing dozens of people in two mosques in New Zealand live-streamed the murders over the internet. The social media company came under sharp criticism for not taking the video down fast enough and for letting it be circulated and uploaded to other platforms like YouTube.
At congressional hearings in the US over the past two years, executives from Facebook and YouTube said they were investing heavily in artificial intelligence that would be able to find and block violent and graphic videos before anyone saw them. In a blog post following the attack, Facebook said that its AI systems are based on using many thousands of examples of content to train a system to detect certain types of text, imagery or video.
Potts was also chastised by the committee’s chair, the Labour party’s Yvette Cooper, for not knowing the senior officer in charge of counter terrorism policing in the UK, Neil Basu.
“We’ve been told by the counter terrorism chief that social companies don’t report to the police incidents that clearly are breaking the law,” Cooper told Potts. “You may remove it, but you don’t report it.”
Potts responded that he was “not familiar with the person you mentioned, or his statement,” and later apologised for not knowing him. He said, however, that Facebook doesn’t report all crimes to police but does report "imminent threats."
"These are places where government could be giving us more guidance," Potts said.
READ: Australia passes 'world first' legislation banning Facebook-streamed violence
The committee investigating hate crime is separate to the one that recently recommended the British government take tougher measures to keep technology companies like Facebook in check, following a year-long inquiry into fake news and its impact on elections.
Stephen Doughty, a Labour party lawmaker, directed broad and strongly-worded criticism at all three witnesses.
“Your systems are simply not working and quite frankly it’s a cesspit,” he said, referring to the collective platforms’ content. “It feels like your companies don’t give a damn. You give a lot of rhetoric but you don’t take action.”
Marco Pancini, director of public policy for YouTube, responded that “we need to do a better job and we are doing a better job,” adding that since an earlier hearing “we introduced a team that helps us better understand trends of violations of our policies by far-right organisations.”
“That’s all wonderful but they’re clearly not doing a very good job,” Doughty replied.
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Lastronaut: A Love Letter
Why I’m Giving Away the Game I Spent Two Years Making
Darrin Henein
Mar 5, 2015 · 7 min read
Today, my friend Stephan Leroux and I are releasing our first game, Lastronaut.
It is available now, 100% for free, in the App Store.
This game is my love-letter to an industry, my way of saying “thanks” to the makers and players of games that have continually entertained and inspired me. I want nothing to stand between it and the kids (and adults!) who may want to play it. There are no ads and no in-app purchases. It is not a blockbuster 3D adventure with a huge budget and large team behind it; but it is a hand-crafted experience built with passion by myself and a good friend. Every pixel, animation, and note of music you hear is the result of 2 years of hard work.
The most time-consuming thing about pixel art is you have to draw them all. Individually, one-by-one.
I still remember the amazement I had as a child, witnessing Super Mario Bros. for the first time. The fluidity of the animation, the infectious 8-bit soundtrack, all supported by such dynamic level design and a loveable cast of characters made for something truly inspiring. To me, as a kid (and still!), it was nothing short of magic. I envisioned these artists, musicians and crazy computer scientists in these huge dark labs surrounded by these massive machines and monitors, all working effortlessly towards this incredibly concerted artistic endeavour. It was a romantic notion, but how else could such things be made? It was the ultimate artistic expression, combining animation with matte painting, sound effects and special effects, all combined into a highly interactive piece — all set to a timeless score. I was hooked, and have continued to be inspired and awed by the art to be found in the video game medium.
More importantly, I was hooked. I dreamed of my own games, how they would play out, who the characters would be, and how the theme song would sound. But it was always just a dream — I did not know how to write code until later in high school, and besides, these games were made by professionals, right? I couldn’t have been more wrong.
The Release Trailer for Lastronaut.
I recently finished Lastronaut, and it is easily the biggest project I have ever completed. This is not a post about how games are made, or what technology I used (those posts will come later). It began as a small side-project, a way for me to learn how games were made while simultaneously forcing me to learn a new programming language (or two, as it would turn out). I started piecing things together from various tutorials. I spent an hour on the train here, and a late weeknight there as I hacked my way towards something that achieved what I had set out to do — I had a playable, moderately enjoyable game.
Now, if you don’t already know me, it is important to understand that I do not like to leave things half-baked. It was evidently impossible for me to abandon that work-in-progress prototype, leaving it to wither and disappear on my vast hard drive. I just couldn’t do it. This game needed to grow up and leave the house on it’s own two feet. So, I continued to nurture it, adding new gameplay mechanics, refining animation loops, and drawing more artwork.
The 5 frames of player animation when you get hit were a last minute addition, but it’s details like that that keep me up at night.
Around that time I began thinking: what good is a game without someone playing it? I began beta-testing Lastronaut with friends and family, if only for my own curiosity — would people actually like it? Comments of “it’s too hard” or “I don’t know what the controls are” lead to more development. A gameplay-specific analytics implementation was built so I could quantify “too hard” from release to release, watching to see if my tweaks and changes were helping people progress further. A full user-interface, with menus, gameplay tips, and accompanying sounds was added. I drew up a logo. The feedback continued to come in, and it was encouraging.
Pretty soon I had a game that was no longer a side-project, but had before my eyes grown and matured into something I was proud of. We decided that we would submit it to the App Store, for the world to see. We were proud of what we had accomplished. Music was written for the 3 main scenes, and all the rough edges were smoothed out and polished. The challenge was not making a playable game; that turned out to be relatively straightforward. The hardest part, by far, was finishing it. Balancing the difficulty, fixing all the edge cases, and refining the user flows through the app. Making sure our achievements were working in various combinations, and being reported correctly. Maintaining the motivation to push through the nitty-gritty stuff. Our playable prototype was a far cry from the finished product that proudly bears our names.
During the time we spent building Lastronaut, I had a beautiful daughter and Stephan got married. We were both employed full-time. The first weeks of development were full of excitement and new things, as was the final month when the end was in sight. Aside from that though, it took an extraordinary level of dedication and perseverance to even finish this game. There is a lot we left on the cutting room floor. There were months where I didn’t even open the project once. I’ve truly gained a tremendous level of respect for anyone who has shipped a piece of software, however small.
You have to be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right. If you’re not passionate enough from the start, you’ll never stick it out.
There is a certain extraordinary and indescribable sensation that comes with making things. In many ways this journey of crafting something from nothing, and then in the end releasing it, can be likened to the experience of owning a pair of shoes. At first, there is a guarded hesitation — you take your time, you feel things out. When you try on a new pair of shoes, you do your best to gauge the promise they hold with what initially may not be a perfect fit. There is hesitation to commit, reasoning that its easier to give up now before you have much invested — your old shoes are fine, right? You hope, and trust, that things will become more comfortable with time, and little by little you embrace their hold on you, and each step becomes a little bit easier. You start to give a little back, see where they will take you. The further you go, the more comfortable it gets, and you start to form a genuine attachment to these pieces of leather and rubber. You can’t imagine how you ever survived without them.
Eventually though, an impending sense of finality begins to loom. One of the seams on the left heel begins to split. These shoes that have given you so much are starting to become a burden. As unfortunate as it may be, the only strategy is to stall, all in a vain effort to delay the inevitable. We must move on though, and as much as we’d love to hold on to them forever, we must cast those shoes aside. We are abruptly left barefoot again, with a cold draft where there once existed only warmth and comfort. The difference is that now we are able to glance backward, over our shoulder, and see how far we’ve come on those worn soles. And of course, we are left with a new direction and an outlook on how to go forward. It can truly be a life-changing experience.
Today I let go of this project that has kept me company through many late nights, occupied my mind through hours and days, at times frustrated me beyond reason, and ultimately taught me so much about not only programming, but about myself and the challenge of following things through to completion. I fully expect there to be a small, astronaut-shaped hole in my life tomorrow morning, and until I find the energy to start something new. I will miss the comfort I now find in Lastronaut’s 7,000+ lines of code and millions of pixels. But I will, and must, move on. I never would have imagined the exhilaration of casting something I’ve created entirely from my own ideas out into the world. It’s nerve-wracking and exciting. Finishing things is hard. But it’s always, always worth it.
I sincerely hope you enjoy Lastronaut (get it here!), and I would love to hear your comments! Find me on Twitter at @darrinhenein.
A lot of heart went into this game and this article. If you enjoyed it, feel free to recommend it (below) and share it with others. Thanks! ☺
Darrin Henein is a designer and developer from Toronto. He is currently the Lead Designer for Firefox Mobile at Mozilla, and spends his spare time teaching, hacking side-projects together and making games. Find him at darrinhenein.com.
Thanks to Robleh Jama.
Senior UX Lead, Shopify
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The exposures of fraudulent activity led to a rapid decline in ectoplasm and materialization séances.[199] Investigator Joe Nickell has written that modern self-proclaimed mediums like John Edward, Sylvia Browne, Rosemary Altea and James Van Praagh are avoiding the Victorian tradition of dark rooms, spirit handwriting and flying tambourines as these methods risk exposure. They instead use "mental mediumship" tactics like cold reading or gleaning information from sitters before hand (hot reading). Group readings also improve hits by making general statements with conviction, which will fit at least one person in the audience. Shows are carefully edited before airing to show only what appears to be hits and removing anything that does not reflect well on the medium.[200]
When you ask the Tarot cards a question on behalf of someone else (who has given permission for the reading and whose energy is invested in the reading), you are tapping into this collective wisdom. You are picking up all sorts of intuitive messages through the Tarot cards and through your connection with the collective wisdom. And those insights are channeled through you to the person you’re reading for, often in a very powerful way.
In September 1878 the British medium Charles Williams and his fellow-medium at the time, A. Rita, were detected in trickery at Amsterdam. During the séance a materialized spirit was seized and found to be Rita and a bottle of phosphorus oil, muslin and a false beard were found amongst the two mediums.[82] In 1882 C. E. Wood was exposed in a séance in Peterborough. Her Indian spirit control "Pocka" was found to be the medium on her knees, covered in muslin.[83]
“Quite recently, it was discovered by Mary Greer that there was a prior source to the Lenormand cards,” she continues. “There’s a deck in the British Museum called ‘Les Amusements des Allemands’ (‘The German Entertainment’). Basically, a British firm put together a pack of cards that has images and little epigrams on the bottom, which say things like, ‘Be aware, don’t spend your money unwisely,’ and that sort of thing. It’s quite trite. But it came with a book of text that’s almost identical to the instructions for later packs of Lenormand cards.”
The medium Henry Slade was caught in fraud many times throughout his career. In a séance in 1876 in London Ray Lankester and Bryan Donkin snatched his slate before the "spirit" message was supposed to be written, and found the writing already there.[75] Slade also played an accordion with one hand under the table and claimed spirits would play it. The magician Chung Ling Soo revealed how Slade had performed the trick.[76]
Using Your Tarot Deck Look at the cards one by one, take time to immerse yourself, and try to acknowledge the symbolism. Draw cards only when you feel inspired to do so. Full moon days and Mondays are auspicious for drawing. It is best consult Tarot when you are neither preoccupied or stressed. Your surroundings should be quiet and softly lit, possible. It is also helpful to light candles or incense. Set the cards on a neutral-colored cloth (black or white), and then begin your reading. Questions must be precise and clear. Then the cards have to be well-shuffled, cut, displayed and chosen with your l hand. If you shuffle the cards and one accidentally falls out of the deck, look at it; as it often indicates something important.
A widely known channeler of this variety is J. Z. Knight, who claims to channel the spirit of Ramtha, a 30 thousand-year-old man. Others purport to channel spirits from "future dimensions", ascended masters,[32] or, in the case of the trance mediums of the Brahma Kumaris, God.[33] Other notable channels are Jane Roberts for Seth, Esther Hicks for Abraham,[34] and Carla L. Rueckert for Ra.[35][36]
The Minor Arcana (lesser secrets) consists of 56 cards, divided into four suits of 14 cards each; ten numbered cards and four court cards. The court cards are the King, Queen, Knight and Page/Jack, in each of the four tarot suits. The traditional Italian tarot suits are swords, batons, coins and cups; in modern occult tarot decks, however, the batons suit is often called wands, rods or staves, while the coins suit is often called pentacles or disks.
Let’s say you want to find a new romantic relationship. Instead of pulling a card to predict whether Prince Charming is just around the corner and either being blissfully excited or bitterly disappointed, you consult the cards to discover how you can attract love (and keep it!). You draw the Ten of Cups, and upon seeing the happy family dancing under the rainbow in the card, you are reminded that to attract love, you need to set a clear vision of what it is you want to attract.
Matthews’ favorite decks are those with straightforward illustrations, like the Tarocchino Bolognese by Giuseppe Maria Mitelli, an Italian deck created sometime around the 1660s. Matthews owns a facsimile of the Mitelli deck, rather than an original, which means she can use them without fear of damaging a priceless antique. “The deck that I enjoy most is the Mertz Lenormand deck because of its clarity,” she says. “The background on each card is a creamy, vellum color, so when you lay them out in tableau, you can see the illustrations very clearly. I frankly get so tired of all the new Photoshopped tarots and the slick art, with their complete lack of any framework or substance.
Another important distinction is that while psychic readings often focus on predicting future events, mediums primarily tune into past and present issues. It's my opinion that predicting the future, while sometimes helpful, runs the risk of disempowering people. Always remember that you do have a say in how your future unfolds. Despite what any psychic or medium may "see" in your future, it is important to remember you were given the gift of free will when you came into this world, and at any moment in time you can absolutely redirect your course and create the life you want by changing your thoughts and actions. Psychic information is often just insight into what potentially could happen based on the road you are currently traveling—and it should be used only as a guideline to help you make the best choices for yourself.
Most card readers recognize that the associations and preconceptions of the person being read for are just as important as the actual drawings on the cards: Divination cards offer a way to project certain ideas, whether subconscious or not, and to toy with potential outcomes for important decisions. Thus, like scenes from a picture book, the best illustrations typically offer clear visions of their subjects with an open-ended quality, as though the action is unfolding before you.
In our modern day, just like King Saul of old, people seek counsel from psychic mediums. Several fortune-telling channelers have become wealthy celebrities as a result of predictions published in supermarket tabloids and through counseling well-paying clientele such as Hollywood movie stars, politicians and industrialists. The psychics sometimes claim to be channeling 'Jesus Christ', 'Jehovah God', and 'the Virgin Mary'. But what is the real source of the messages uttered by these spiritists?
My experience and personal belief is that a spirit guide has lived at some time or another on Earth in a physical body, while an angel has never had a physical incarnation. Every medium I know has one or more guides who work with them — some are constant, and some change during the medium’s life, but each has their own unique influence over the development of the medium’s gifts.
Colin Fry was exposed in 1992 when during a séance the lights were unexpectedly turned on and he was seen holding a spirit trumpet in the air, which the audience had been led to believe was being levitated by spiritual energy.[183] In 1997, Massimo Polidoro and Luigi Garlaschelli produced wax-moulds directly from one's hand which were exactly the same copies as Gustav Geley obtained from Franek Kluski, which are kept at the Institute Metapsychique International.[184]
Senses used by mental mediums are sometimes defined differently from in other paranormal fields. A medium is said to have psychic abilities but not all psychics function as mediums. The term clairvoyance, for instance, may include seeing spirit and visions instilled by the spirit world. The Parapsychological Association defines "clairvoyance" as information derived directly from an external physical source.[37]
But here's the interesting part: the writing samples produced were analyzed and it was found that the complexity scores for the psychographed content were higher than those for the control writing across the board. In particular, the more experienced mediums showed higher complexity scores, which typically would require more activity in the frontal and temporal lobes--but that's precisely the opposite of what was observed.
I got a psychic slap the morning of/before the Dallas police shooting. “El Centro” , the words, came into my head. No sound, no vision, etc. I knew of the school 30+ years ago when my boyfriend, who passed, attended a few seminars. I ran through my head a series questions but nothing made sense. Later that night on tv i heard the gunman was holed up there. I couldn’t breathe. This was my wake up.
According to James Randi, a skeptic who has debunked many claims of psychic ability and uncovered fraudulent practices,[202] mediums who do cold readings "fish, suggest possibilities, make educated guesses and give options." Randi has a standing offer of $1 million US dollars for anyone who can demonstrate psychic ability under controlled conditions. Most prominent psychics and mediums have not taken up his offer.[203]
DISCLAIMER: (for obvious reasons) The information offered on this site should be considered spiritual in nature and not based in scientific fact. This type of guidance is not recognized to be truth by current medical models and should not replace your doctors opinions. It should be used to compliment any other treatments or therapies you are currently engaged with. You are ultimately responsible for the reality you experience and therefore create. It is intended for spiritual explorers on the leading edge of consciousness explorations.
No, there is no set time limit. I’ve had spirit people come through many years after they’ve passed away — sometimes 30, 40, or even 50 years — or it could be as soon as one day. A friend of mine, Michael, passed away sadly due to complications from AIDS some years ago, and I remember being in his and his partner’s home for the memorial service. His partner had spent some time setting up a room upstairs beautifully, with a handsome picture of Michael with some of the amazing artworks that he had drawn during his lifetime. While I was saying my goodbyes, I heard his voice speak softly in my ear: “John, please tell Amanda that I will do what I can from here to help her with money.”
Channeling is a method of trying to communicate with the spirit world that has existed since antiquity. Most modern channelers learn the art through the practice of Eastern meditation. This mildly altered state of consciousness enables the channeler to psychically perceive spirit messages. These manifest themselves as a “thought voice,” which is perceived in the stillness of the medium’s mind. Experienced mediums can enter into a trance state whereby the spirit entity takes direct control over the medium's voice, speaking through it in an accent quite distinct from the medium's normal mode of speech.
We have the original NewAgeStore tarot interpretations and the extremely popular tarot cards from Aquatic Tarot by the lovely Andres Schroeter, the same cards that have been on NewAgeStore for over a decade. In addition, the lovely and very talented Ciro Marchetti has graciously agreed to allow us to use his divine works of tarot art to add to our readings page. And yes! These cards are available for purchase directly through Ciro’s website
Spiritists and mediums were common among the pagan peoples of the Bible lands. God warned the children of Israel against becoming involved in these practices just prior to their entry into the Promised Land of Canaan. "When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord." (Deuteronomy 18:9-12 NIV)
The swords is the suit of intelligence, logic, truth, ambition, conflict and communication. It is associated with the element of air. In readings, these cards focus on the faculty and power of intellect, which like the swords themselves, are double-edged. This can be used for both good or evil, to help and to harm, and our greatest conflicts usually come from this delicate balance. At their worst, the swords can be abusive, harsh, and lack empathy.
Mediums are souls in the world who still have their physical bodies, yet they can attune to souls who don’t (and communicate with them). In other words, we tune-in to those who have moved over to the Other-Side. I am the type of Medium who uses her mind to connect mentally with energies on the Other-Side. There are other Mediums who use their bodies to channel spirit.
The trance medium Leonora Piper was investigated by psychical researchers and psychologists in the late 19th and early 20th century. In an experiment to test if Piper's "spirit" controls were purely fictitious the psychologist G. Stanley Hall invented a niece called Bessie Beals and asked Piper's 'control' to get in touch with it. Bessie appeared, answered questions and accepted Hall as her uncle.[98] The psychologist Joseph Jastrow wrote that Piper pretended to be controlled by spirits and fell into simple and logical traps from her comments.[99] Science writer Martin Gardner concluded Piper was a cold reader that would "fish" for information from her séance sitters.[100] The physiologist Ivor Lloyd Tuckett who examined Piper's mediumship in detail wrote it could be explained by "muscle-reading, fishing, guessing, hints obtained in the sitting, knowledge surreptitiously obtained, knowledge acquired in the interval between sittings and lastly, facts already within Mrs. Piper's knowledge."[101]
Since the psychic industry is unregulated, it is difficult to report scams and get your money back. It’s really up to the client (you) to determine the validity of a particular medium before plunking down your cash. In addition to visiting the website and screening by telephone, you can ask for referrals (keep in mind these could be the so-called psychic’s friends and relatives) or request the answer to a test question, such as the city where you were born or your maiden name. If the answer doesn’t satisfy you, don’t bother to schedule a reading. There are plenty of other psychics to check out.
King Saul of Israel sought counsel from a medium called the Witch of Endor. The armies of Israel were about to be attacked by the Philistines. Saul was in rebellion against God and in desperation sought the services of the spiritist. "So Saul disguised himself and put on other clothes, and he went, and two men with him; and they came to the woman by night. And he said, “Please conduct a séance for me, and bring up for me the one I shall name to you.” (1 Samuel 28:8 NKJV). Saul then asked the medium to conjure up the spirit of the deceased prophet Samuel, to ask his counsel regarding the pending Philistine attack. "And the king said to her, 'Do not be afraid. What did you see?' And the woman said to Saul, 'I saw a spirit ascending out of the earth.' So he said to her, 'What is his form?' And she said, 'An old man is coming up, and he is covered with a mantle.' And Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he stooped with his face to the ground and bowed down.'" (1 Samuel 28:13-14. NKJV)
In 2013 Rose Marks and members of her family were convicted of fraud for a series of crimes spanning 20 years entailing between $20 and $45 million. They told vulnerable clients that to solve their problems they had to give the purported psychics money and valuables. Marks and family promised to return the cash and goods after "cleansing" them. Prosecutors established they had no intent to return the property.[196][197][198]
Some scientists of the period who investigated spiritualism also became converts. They included chemist Robert Hare, physicist William Crookes (1832–1919) and evolutionary biologist Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913).[13][14] Nobel laureate Pierre Curie took a very serious scientific interest in the work of medium Eusapia Palladino.[15] Other prominent adherents included journalist and pacifist William T. Stead (1849–1912)[16] and physician and author Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930).[17]
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Kamala Harris Goes to Washington
June 27, 2017 by Mark Pulliam
California’s vaunted “next Obama” debuts to mixed reviews in the national spotlight.
Prior to arriving in Washington earlier this year, Senator Kamala Harris was known, mostly just among her fellow Californians, as the two-term district attorney in San Francisco and two-term state attorney general, heralded for her stylish wardrobe and reliably progressive—if low-key—policy positions. Harris has now represented the Golden State for only a few months, but the glamorous 52-year-old is already among the top tier of potential Democratic nominees for the 2020 presidential race. The field of presidential prospects includes fellow senators Cory Booker (NJ), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Amy Klobuchar (MN), Tim Kaine (VA), and of course progressive mainstay Elizabeth Warren (MA). Given her scant national experience and rookie status in the Senate, does the ambitious Harris have a chance?
Harris came to the Senate with certain undeniable advantages. California’s 55 electoral votes—nearly one-fifth the number necessary to be elected president—give Harris a boost over politicians from less populous states. She was elected in a landslide, with over 7.5 million votes—a staggering number, exceeding the population of many states. In the general election in November, Harris defeated her Democratic opponent (because of California’s unusual “top-two” primary rule) by more than 23 percentage points.
So Harris is very popular, at least in California. Due to her multiracial background and confident self-presentation, Harris has been called “the next Obama,” an appellation that may reflect no more than shallow stereotypes or wishful thinking by her supporters. In a Senate full of “rising stars,” including six other newly arrived freshmen, she will have to work hard and avoid mistakes to meet the high expectations set for presidential aspirants.
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Sydney Asselstine's Portfolio
General Advising Information
First Year Seminar Work
Freedom Writers Scene Presentation
Freedom Writers Analysis
PopCulture Blog
OTH S4E1
OTH S4E11
Higher Learning
The Modern Racist Paradigm
First Year Writing Work
First Essay (Analytical)
Second Essay (Compare and Contrast)
Inital Draft
Third Essay (Persuasive)
Freshman Essay
Initial Drafts
Final Freshman Essay
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Collecting My Work
Freshman Essay Draft #1
Sydney Asselstine
As of last December there were 435,767 student athletes enrolled in United States colleges (Division III Facts and Figures 2011). Every single one of them, whether they are at the Division I or Division III level, must meet a set of academic standards in order to maintain their eligibility. First they must pass various entry level requirements, such as completing certain courses in high school, and having an appropriate SAT or ACT score. Then, for the duration of their college career, they must continue to meet several regulations. For example, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Eligibility Center requires that Division I athletes complete a minimum of forty percent of their degree by year two, sixty percent by year three, and eighty percent by year four (they have five years to complete the degree) (Remaining Eligible). Yet, despite the rules set by the Eligibility Center to ensure that college athletes work towards a degree, the media often represents them as being unintellectual. This portrayal influences society to believe that athletes are expected to have a lower academic standing (White). Texts such as “The Blind Side”, “Coach Carter” and “One Tree Hill” all reinforce this view. Through examining various sources of media, and by comparing their depictions to actual statistics regarding college athletes, the reality that student athletes typically meet or surpass academic expectations in college can be explored.
In the media, male athletes are portrayed as having little intelligence, their only concern being partying and enticing females. While women are placed under this ‘dumb jock’ stereotype, it is “more frequently associated with males” (Cole). “Blue Mountain State” is a television series which has ran since 2010 on Spike TV. The first season follows two freshman football players – Alex and Craig - as they make their way through college life. They are enthralled by the freedom, and take advantage of it instantaneously. The boys spend their days at practice and their nights at parties. Alex is particularly interested in exploring the female population of the college. Craig is more disciplined, and is portrayed as an average B-level student. He studies, attends class, and is prepared for tests. On the other hand, Alex and several other teammates are not so studious. Once midterms arrive, Alex does not see them as a priority. He explains to Craig that they “are football players, [they] don’t take midterms. That’s what the homework helpers are for” (“Midterms”). That is, until their coach informs him and four other players that they are failing, and tells Craig to tutor them. The coach explains that, if the players do not receive at least a C on their midterm, they will be ineligible to play. At their first tutoring session, Alex claims that “[he] didn’t come to college to study” (“Midterms”), promptly leaving the library, followed by his other failing accomplices. This is an excellent example of how the media makes it seem like male student-athletes do not care about the ‘student’ label. Instead of putting effort into studying, Alex chooses to create a scheme involving his teacher that will allow him to pass. Eventually Alex blackmails his teacher (who has been having inappropriate relations with his female students) into giving the team passing grades. In one episode alone this television show has managed to influence the minds of the viewers into believing the moronic athlete ideology. It exhibits that male athletes are too lazy to do academic work, and would rather find ways to get into trouble when they are not practicing.
Another prime exemplar of male athletes’ supposedly low intelligence quotas is the television show “One Tree Hill”. This series is a teenage drama that revolves around a small town basketball team and two star half-brothers. Nathan and Lucas Scott do not begin the series on friendly terms, and there is a lot of inner-squad tension between them. This is mainly due to the manipulating tactics of the brothers’ father (who refused to take responsibility for Lucas and who has taught Nathan to let no one stand in his way of athletic fame). Nathan views Lucas as a threat, as Lucas is stealing the spotlight from him on the court. In an attempt to make Lucas quit the team, Nathan begins to haze him profusely to no avail. Eventually he tries to attack the problem in a more indirect manner. Nathan approaches Lucas’ best friend, Hayley, and asks her to tutor him (knowing that it will upset Lucas). Hayley reluctantly agrees, stipulating that her compliance means that Lucas will no longer be harassed, and that Lucas must not find out. Nathan’s actions send the message that male athletes are intent on creating mischief. Later the audience learns that Nathan is in fact in need of a tutor. When an English test is being returned, a camera shot of Nathan’s paper reveals that he received an ‘F’ (“Are You True?”). After several tutoring sessions, Nathan achieves a grade in the eighties, which is an average score. However, this is positioned as such an ‘amazing’ feat, and is worthy of a hug from Hayley – who still does not like Nathan (“All That You Can’t Leave Behind”). Eventually, Lucas and Nathan become friends, and their social circles combine to form one group. This gang includes Antoine ‘Skills’ Taylor, who in his final year at Tree Hill High becomes a member of the basketball team alongside his friends. When Skills and Hayley go on top of the school’s roof to do an assignment (providing them with a view that Skills refers to as the “shiznit” – another line depicting the dumb jock), he points out a factory. Skills tells Hayley that “there’s a job waiting on me in that place if I don’t get a [basketball] scholarship to college.” (“Pictures of You”). Skills is depending entirely on his athletic ability to get him a higher education, neglecting to remember that one must be admitted to the school in order to play for the varsity team.
The NCAA defines the term ‘Graduation Success Rate’ as the percentage of full-time student athletes to graduate as part of that year’s cohort, including transfer students and mid-year enrollees. A research study performed in 2011 displayed that the graduation success rate for Division 1 male student athletes in 2004 was seventy-three percent. The rate for white males was eighty-three percent, up seven percent from 1995. (NCAA Research Staff 4). At Manhattanville College, the male sports teams accumulated a mean grade point average of 3.? (source). The NCAA also considers the Federal Graduation Rates, which does not assess transfer students. The data collected from 2004 showed that male student athletes had a success rate of sixty-two percent based on this definition. This deviates from the general student body’s rate by a mere percent. (NCAA Research Staff 6). A recent article published in The Washington Post reiterates the improving success of male student-athletes. The article explains that the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports collects data regarding NCAA academics. A survey of the sixty-eight men’s basketball teams that made it to March Madness determined that the most recent cohort of student-athletes had a sixty-seven percent graduation rate (Johnson). Of the sixty-eight teams, eight were successful in graduation all of their players on time, and twenty-seven of the teams had a graduation rate that was above seventy percent (Lapchick 2). To further improve the academic statistics of college athletes, the NCAA ensures that proper punishment is received by individuals or teams that fail to meet scholarly requirements. For example, next season teams will have to achieve an academic progress rate (APR) of at least 930 to be eligible for postseason participation. If this score is not met or surpassed, then the team’s hopes of a championship are terminated. Last year’s men’s basketball champions at the University of Connecticut would not be eligible to defend their title if this new regulation was implemented this season. (Lapchick 2). It can be inferred that college athletes would attempt to do well in school so that they have the opportunity to turn all of their training into winning. These regulations dispel the media’s idea that male student-athletes do not care about academics.
The media often presents female student athletes in one of two ways. If they are a cheerleader, they are often presented as being dimwitted. If they participate in another sport, they are usually represented as being an average student. The movie “Bring It On Again” is film about two college freshmen who excel at cheerleading. Whittier and Monica both secure spots on the prestigious varsity team, and at first it is a remarkable experience. The girls are exposed to top level cheerleading and receive automatic social popularity. The team’s head cheerleader, Tina, feels that Whittier has the skill to be her successor. She then takes it upon herself to mold Whittier into the ‘perfect’ leader. However, this involves Whittier leaving Monica and newfound boyfriend Derek behind. After the glory has worn off, Whittier realizes that this atmosphere is not right for her. She and Monica form their own team out of the school’s extracurricular castoffs. At the end of the film this new team defeats the varsity squad in a student-judged competition, allowing them to go to the national tournament. Throughout the course of this film there are various moments of obvious stupidity on the cheerleaders’ parts. One repeating sign of their lack of intellect is that the varsity squad refers to themselves as the “bomb diggity” on several occasions. For example, when Tina is distributing the cheerleader bible, she informs the freshmen that they must follow every rule in the book in order to become the bomb diggity. At the beginning of the film, Tina’s right hand – Marni – is attempting to insult Whittier by commenting on her blonde hair. When a teammate points out that Marni’s hair is obviously dyed blonde, she rebuts by exclaiming, “I was born with naturally dark roots.” Another instance of Marni’s incompetence is when she is telling Whittier to refer to section eight of the rule book, simultaneously holding up seven fingers. Whittier also exhibits faulty intelligence. A prime example of this is when Tina asks her to meet in the office at 0-800, and Whittier asks, “Is that the address?” This movie reinforces the idea of ditsy cheerleaders by refraining from having any scenes of the squads in class – as if schooling was irrelevant at college. Tina reiterates this idea by telling Whittier that, “foreign exchange students practically beg to do [her] homework. Straight A’s.” The only time that textbooks are ever seen in this film is for a brief moment when Whittier and Monica do not have a team to compete on. (Bring It On Again).
Females who are athletically talented in an area outside of cheerleading are typically given more credit by the media in terms of their scholarly standard. In the movie “Bend It Like Beckham,” two elite female soccer players from England have the dream of playing for an American varsity team. Jess (a girl from a very traditional Indian family) and Jules (a sporty English girl) play for their local soccer club. Jules convinces Jess to play for this team, even though it is against her family’s wishes and therefore requires some crafty management on Jess’s part. The two girls immediately synchronize with one another, both on and off of the field. Soon Jess learns of the opportunities in the United States to play collegiate and professional soccer. Even though she realizes that her parents would most likely disallow studying overseas, she still fosters some hope – until her sister’s wedding is dated for the same day as the soccer finals. To make matters worse, an American scout is due to attend the championship game, his eyes set on Jules and Jess. On the day of the wedding, Jess’s father shows compassion towards her and allows her to sneak away from the festivities to compete. After a brilliant performance, both girls are offered scholarships to Santa Clara University. With the help of her father, Jess persuades her mother to allow her to attend the institution and carry on with her dream. Throughout the film there are several indications that Jess works hard academically. Firstly, her family is very traditional, and they care very much about the way they are viewed. Academic standing is important to them; when Jess receives a package containing her grades, her mother sputters prayers profusely before letting her open the envelope. Jess is also concerned about keeping her marks acceptable. When she runs into her friend on the street one day, she asks him how his exams went. They briefly discuss a genetics question, which Jess seems very confident about, before she tells him, “I hope I get my two As and a B for uni” (Bend It Like Beckham). Jess wants to attend a post-secondary institute, and she is reaching for above average grade levels, portraying a future college student athlete that is competent. When her father views her grades, he remarks to Jess, “Good, you can become a fine, top class solicitor now” (Bend It Like Beckham). Not only are her rarely pleased parents satisfied, Jess has acquired the marks that will lead her to become a lawyer, once again exhibiting intelligence.
The NCAA’s research has provided various statistics which demonstrate that the typical media portrayal of female student athletes (excluding cheerleaders) is correct. The average graduation success rate of females attending United States colleges was eighty-eight percent in 2004, and women were able to graduate fifteen percent more players than men (NCAA Research Staff 8).
“All That You Can’t Leave Behind.” One Tree Hill: The Complete First Season. Warner
Brothers, 2004. DVD.
“Are You True?” One Tree Hill: The Complete First Season. Warner Brothers, 2004.
DVD.
“Pictures of You.” One Tree Hill: The Complete Fourth Season. Warner Brothers, 2007.
“Midterms.” Blue Mountain State. Spike. 2 Mar. 2010. Television.
“Division III Facts and Figures.” National Collegiate Athletic Association, 5 Mar. 2012.
NCAA Research Staff. “Trends in Graduation-Success Rates and Federal Graduation
Rates at NCAA Division I Institutions.” National Collegiate Scouting Association.
(2011) : 2 - 27. PDF.
Lapchick, R. “Keeping Score When It Counts.” The Institute for Diversity and Ethics In
Sports. (2012) : 2. PDF.
Johnson, J. “March Madness of graduation rates: U-Conn. Loses, Notre Dame wins.”
Washington Post 13 Mar. 2012. Web.
White, T. “The Dumb Jock Stereotype: To What Extent Do Student-Athletes Feel the
Stereotype?” Journal for the Study of Sports and Athletes in Education. 2.2 (2008) :
227-237. PDF.
Cole, K. An examination of school counselors’ knowledge and perceptions of recruited
Student-athletes. Ann Arbor: Proquest Information and Learning Company, 2006.
“Remaining Eligible: Academics.” National Collegiate Athletic Association, 1 Sept.
2011. Web.
Bend It Like Beckham. Dir. Gurinder Chadha. Twentieth Century Fox, 2003. DVD.
Bring It On Again. Dir. Damon Santostefano. Universal Pictures, 2004. DVD.
Representations of Student-Athletes in the Media
As of last December there were 435,767 student-athletes enrolled in United States colleges (Division III Facts and Figures 2011). Every single one of them, whether they are at the Division I or Division III level, must meet a set of academic standards in order to maintain their eligibility. First they must pass various entry level requirements, such as completing certain courses in high school, and having an appropriate SAT or ACT score. Then, for the duration of their college career, they must continue to meet several regulations. For example, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Eligibility Center requires that Division I athletes complete a minimum of forty percent of their degree by year two, sixty percent by year three, and eighty percent by year four (they have five years to complete the degree) (Remaining Eligible). Yet, despite the rules set by the Eligibility Center to ensure that college athletes work towards a degree, the media often represents them as being unintellectual. This portrayal influences society to believe that athletes are expected to have a lower academic standing (White). Texts such as “The Blind Side”, “Coach Carter” and “One Tree Hill” all reinforce this view. Through examining various sources of media, and by comparing their depictions to actual statistics regarding college athletes, the reality that student-athletes typically meet or surpass academic expectations in college can be explored.
In popular media, male athletes are portrayed as having little intelligence, their only concern being partying and enticing females. While women are also sometimes placed under this ‘dumb jock’ stereotype, it is “more frequently associated with males” (Cole). Blue Mountain State is a television series which has ran since 2010 on Spike TV. The first season follows two freshman football players – Alex and Craig - as they make their way through college life. They are enthralled by the freedom, and take advantage of it instantaneously. The boys spend their days at practice and their nights at parties. Alex is particularly interested in exploring the female population of the college. Craig is more disciplined, and is portrayed as an average B-level student. He studies, attends class, and is prepared for tests. On the other hand, Alex and several other teammates are not so studious. Once midterms arrive, Alex does not see them as a priority. He explains to Craig that they “are football players, [they] don’t take midterms. That’s what the homework helpers are for” (“Midterms”). That is, until their coach informs him and four other players that they are failing, and tells Craig to tutor them. The coach explains that, if the players do not receive at least a C on their midterm, they will be ineligible to play.
At their first tutoring session, Alex claims that “[he] didn’t come to college to study” (“Midterms”), promptly leaving the library, followed by his other failing accomplices. This is an excellent example of how the media makes it seem like male student-athletes do not care about the student portion of their identity. Instead of putting effort into studying, Alex chooses to create a scheme involving his teacher that will allow him to pass. Eventually Alex blackmails his teacher (who has been having inappropriate relations with his female students) into giving the team passing grades. The producers of this show depict this situation as an acceptable action. The coach of the football team is not concerned with how the players received the necessary grades, so long as they receive them. In one episode alone this television show has managed to influence the minds of the viewers into believing the moronic athlete ideology. It exhibits that male athletes are too lazy to do academic work, and would rather find ways to get into trouble when they are not practicing.
Another prime exemplar of male athletes’ supposedly low intelligence is the television show One Tree Hill. This series is a teenage drama that revolves around a small town basketball team and two star half-brothers. Nathan and Lucas Scott do not begin the series on friendly terms, and there is a lot of inner-squad tension between them. This is mainly due to the manipulating tactics of the brothers’ father (who refused to take responsibility for Lucas and who has taught Nathan to let no one stand in his way of athletic fame). Nathan views Lucas as a threat, as Lucas is stealing the spotlight from him on the court. In an attempt to make Lucas quit the team, Nathan begins to haze him profusely, to no avail.
Eventually Nathan tries to attack the problem in a more indirect manner. Nathan approaches Lucas’ best friend, Hayley, and asks her to tutor him (knowing that it will upset Lucas). Hayley reluctantly agrees, stipulating that her compliance means that Lucas will no longer be harassed, and that Lucas must not find out. Nathan’s actions send the message that male athletes are intent on creating mischief. Later the audience learns that Nathan is in fact in need of a tutor. When an English test is being returned, a camera shot of Nathan’s paper reveals that he received an ‘F’ (“Are You True?”). After several tutoring sessions, Nathan achieves a grade in the eighties, which is an average, ‘B minus’ score. However, this is positioned as such an ‘amazing’ feat, and is worthy of a hug from Hayley – who still does not like Nathan (“All That You Can’t Leave Behind”).
Eventually, Lucas and Nathan become friends, and their social circles combine to form one group. This gang includes Antoine ‘Skills’ Taylor, who in his final year at Tree Hill High becomes a member of the basketball team alongside his friends. When Skills and Hayley go on top of the school’s roof to do an assignment (providing them with a view that Skills refers to as the “shiznit” – a slang word used by the producers to create the dumb jock illusion), he points out a factory. Skills tells Hayley that “there’s a job waiting on me in that place if I don’t get a [basketball] scholarship to college.” (“Pictures of You”). Skills is depending entirely on his athletic ability to get him a higher education, neglecting to remember that one must be admitted to the school academically in order to play for the varsity team.
The NCAA defines the term ‘Graduation Success Rate’ as the percentage of full-time student-athletes to graduate as part of that year’s cohort, including transfer students and mid-year enrollees. A research study performed in 2011 displayed that the graduation success rate for Division 1 male student-athletes in 2004 was seventy-three percent. The rate for white males was eighty-three percent, up seven percent from 1995. (NCAA Research Staff 4). At Manhattanville College, the male sports teams accumulated a mean grade point average of 3.24 (Manhattanville Athletics Department) in the fall of 2011, which is typically considered to be around a ‘B-plus’ grade. This example exhibits that male athletes are perfectly capable of meeting the requirements in the classroom. The NCAA also considers the Federal Graduation Rates, which does not assess transfer students. The data collected from 2004 showed that male student-athletes had a success rate of sixty-two percent based on this definition. This deviates from the general student body’s rate by a mere percent. (NCAA Research Staff 6). These statistics counteract the image of a lazy student-athlete. According to a Long Island University alumni, who was both the class valedictorian and member of the varsity soccer team, “Having a strict schedule forces you to study” (Vecsey).
A recent article published in The Washington Post reiterates the improving success of male student-athletes. The article explains that the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports collects data regarding NCAA academics. A survey of the sixty-eight men’s basketball teams that made it to March Madness determined that the most recent cohort of student-athletes had a sixty-seven percent graduation rate (Johnson). Of the sixty-eight teams, eight were successful in graduating all of their players on time, and twenty-seven of the teams had a graduation rate that was above seventy percent (Lapchick 2). To further improve the academic statistics of college athletes, the NCAA ensures that proper punishment is received by individuals or teams that fail to meet scholarly requirements. For example, next season’s teams will have to achieve an academic progress rate (APR) of at least 930 to be eligible for postseason participation. If this score is not met or surpassed, then the team’s hopes of a championship are terminated. Last year’s men’s basketball champions at the University of Connecticut would not be eligible to defend their title if this new regulation was implemented this season. It can be inferred that college athletes would attempt to do well in school so that they have the opportunity to turn all of their training into winning. These regulations dispel the media’s idea that male student-athletes do not care about academics.
The media often presents female student-athletes in one of two ways. If they are a cheerleader, they are often presented as being dimwitted. This could be related to the stereotypical, media-fueled view that cheerleading is not a true sport (which of course is not true). If they participate in another sport, they are usually represented as being an average student. The movie Bring It On Again is film about two college freshmen who excel at cheerleading. Whittier and Monica both secure spots on the prestigious varsity team, and at first it is a remarkable experience. The girls are exposed to top level cheerleading and receive automatic social popularity. The team’s head cheerleader, Tina, feels that Whittier has the skill to be her successor. She then takes it upon herself to mold Whittier into the ‘perfect’ leader. However, this involves Whittier leaving Monica and newfound boyfriend Derek behind. After the glory has worn off, Whittier realizes that this atmosphere is not right for her. She and Monica form their own team out of the school’s extracurricular castoffs. At the end of the film this new team defeats the varsity squad in a student-judged competition, allowing them to go to the national tournament.
Throughout the course of this film there are various moments of obvious stupidity on the cheerleaders’ parts. One repeating sign of their lack of intellect is that the varsity squad refers to themselves as the “bomb diggity” on several occasions (Bring It On Again). For example, when Tina is distributing the cheerleader bible, she informs the freshmen that they must follow every rule in the book in order to become the bomb diggity. This is another example of producers attempting to make characters appear dumber by making them say phrases that are not considered academically appropriate. At the beginning of the film, Tina’s right hand – Marni – is attempting to insult Whittier by commenting on her blonde hair. When a teammate points out that Marni’s hair is obviously dyed blonde, she rebuts by exclaiming, “I was born with naturally dark roots.” Marni utilizes this claim at other points throughout the movie, and it is clear that she firmly believes it to be a convincing argument. Another instance of Marni’s incompetence is when she is telling Whittier to refer to section eight of the rule book, simultaneously holding up seven fingers. Whittier also exhibits faulty intelligence. A prime example of this is when Tina asks her to meet in the office at 0-800, and Whittier asks, “Is that the address?” This movie reinforces the idea of ditsy cheerleaders by refraining from having any scenes of the squads in class – as if schooling is irrelevant at college. Tina reiterates this idea by telling Whittier that, “foreign exchange students practically beg to do [her] homework. Straight A’s.” The only time that textbooks are ever seen in this film is for a brief moment when Whittier and Monica do not have a team to compete on.
Females who are athletically talented in an area outside of cheerleading are typically given more credit by the media in terms of their scholarly standard. In the movie Bend It Like Beckham, two elite female soccer players from England have the dream of playing for an American varsity team. Jess (a girl from a very traditional Indian family) and Jules (a sporty English girl) play for their local soccer club. Jules convinces Jess to play for this team, even though it is against her family’s wishes and therefore requires some crafty management on Jess’s part. The two girls immediately synchronize with one another, both on and off of the field. Soon Jess learns of the opportunities in the United States to play collegiate and professional soccer. Even though she realizes that her parents would most likely disallow studying overseas, she still fosters some hope – until her sister’s wedding is dated for the same day as the soccer finals. To make matters worse, an American scout is due to attend the championship game, his eyes set on Jules and Jess. On the day of the wedding, Jess’s father shows compassion towards her and allows her to sneak away from the festivities to compete. After a brilliant performance, both girls are offered scholarships to Santa Clara University. With the help of her father, Jess persuades her mother to allow her to attend the institution and carry on with her dream.
Throughout the film there are several indications that Jess works hard academically. Firstly, her family is very traditional, and they care very much about the way they are viewed. Academic standing is important to them; when Jess receives a package containing her grades, her mother sputters prayers profusely before letting her open the envelope (Bend It Like Beckham). Jess is also concerned about keeping her marks acceptable. When she runs into her friend on the street one day, she asks him how his exams went. They briefly discuss a genetics question, which Jess seems very confident about, before she tells him, “I hope I get my two As and a B for [university].” Jess wants to attend a post-secondary institute, and she is reaching for above average grade levels, portraying a future college student-athlete that is competent. When her father views her grades, he remarks to Jess, “Good, you can become a fine, top class solicitor now.” Not only are her rarely pleased parents satisfied, Jess has acquired the marks that will lead her to become a lawyer, once again exhibiting intelligence. It should be noted that Bend It Like Beckham is a film produced in England, and so the ideologies represented may be different from those in America. The popular media in Europe may feel athletes are able to hold a higher academic standing, and so this view is diffused into the film.
The NCAA’s research has provided various statistics which demonstrate that the typical media portrayal of female student-athletes (excluding cheerleaders) is correct. The average graduation success rate of females attending United States colleges was eighty-eight percent in 2004, and women were able to graduate fifteen percent more players than men (NCAA Research Staff 8). Studies have revealed that female involvement in sports has a positive correlation with their success in science, but that cheerleading has a negative correlation with this (Hanson et. al). While the media seems to give female athletes more praise in terms of academics, some women still find that society still generalizes the stereotypes to both genders. Dallas, and alumni of the University of Illinois, is a strong, athletically built female. According to her, “A lot of people talk to [her] and just assume [she is] dumb just because of the way [she] looks . . . [they think] that [she] can’t string a coherent sentence together just because [she] played sports” (Porter).
At Manhattanville College, despite a mean grade point average of 3.23 for female teams (Manhattanville College Athletics), some players feel that they are still considered academically inadequate by professors and peers. When asked if she had ever personally felt belittled in the classroom because she was an athlete, Amanda Dechent of the Manhattanville field hockey team stated that she feels “most teachers have little respect for student-athletes” (Dechent). Another member, Carly Brunco, who was named to the National Field Hockey Coaches Association Academic Squad (Engel), also shared her opinions on the matter. She believes that “athletes are intelligent; they just have a different skill set than the average student” (Brunco). When asked what skills she thought carried over into the school environment, she divulged that “they learn the importance of teamwork, persistence, and urgency.” The opinions of real student-athletes on this matter should be viewed by society as far more valid than those of media producers.
African American athletes are also thought of as being less capable in the classroom, often more than whites. While this presents a racial ideology issue, it is also related to the ‘dumb jock’ stereotype. The film Higher Learning is centered around three main characters; Malik, a coloured male track star, Kristin, a naïve peace-seeking girl, and Remy, a male white supremacist. Malik is at Columbus University on a partial athletic scholarship and is a character that feels quite aware of the on-campus racial tension. According to him, “it’s not what [people] say, it’s what they’re [thinking]” (Higher Learning). He and Remy, along with their respective social groups (divided based on skin colour) are involved in several altercations throughout the movie. Kristin is a fairly innocent girl who is raped at the beginning of the film. This leads her to get involved in an anti-sexism group at the school, and helps her become closer to her coloured roommate. She also picks up on the high degree of cultural conflict, and decides to organize a ‘peace fest’ to celebrate the campus’ diversity and bring students together. Ironically, at this peace conference Remy decides to shoot at the crowd in the hopes of hitting anyone that is not of the ‘Arian race’. He kills two people, one of them being Malik’s girlfriend. This provokes him to engage in a fight with Remy, however, this is broken up by the highly prejudiced security guards, who assume that Malik is to blame. Once the guards see that Remy is the one with the gun they try and persuade him to lower his weapon. Remy opts to take his own life in this moment.
Throughout the duration of this movie, Malik is often presented as unintelligent and lazy. His teacher, Professor Phibs, assumes him to be lowly in the classroom. Malik makes a poor attempt to defend himself, stating that “[He] ain’t no dumb athlete” (Higher Learning). Professor Phibs, on the other hand, believes that “that remains to be seen.” On his first paper in Professor Phibs’ class, Malik received a ‘C’, a problem considering his track coach has asked him to improve his grades. Professor Phibs’ shows little sympathy, commenting, “Perhaps if you could spell better than you could run,” you would not be in this situation. In the meantime, some people try to assist Malik with his assignments. His friend, Fudge, offers to let him borrow some books. When Fudge asks Malik if the only reason he is reading is for class, Malik responds, “Yeah, why else?” This is yet another portrayal by the media of athletes being indolent and not putting in any additional effort to improve their intelligence. Deja, Malik’s girlfriend, also ameliorates his assignment load by working with him on a paper. When she is reviewing what Malik had accomplished so far, she is continuously pointing out basic errors like run-on sentences. She exclaims that he still has a long way to go before the paper is acceptable at a college level. With her guidance, Malik improves the report, so much so that Professor Phibs questions whether he actually wrote it. This shows how little faith in athletes educators are seen, by the media, to have. They are depicted as expecting little of jocks and assuming them to be incapable of improvement.
Another text that negatively characterizes African American student-athletes is The Blind Side. This film is about a young, black male – Mike - who grew up with rough circumstances. He was in and out of the foster care system (as his mother was a drug addict). Mike’s immense size and untapped athletic potential catch the eye of a private school coach. This coach convinces the admissions board to admit Mike, professing that it is their “Christian duty,” though it was obvious that the real motive was to win a few games. The problem was that Mike’s grades were too low for him to participate in extra-curricular activities. When the Tuohy family takes Mike under their wing, he finds comfort and a sense of family. Eventually he is able to play football, and everyone has high expectations for him on the field. Despite difficulties in exerting violence on his peers, Mike comes to realize his duty as the protector of the team. With the help of his family he becomes especially good at the game, peaking the interest of college scouts. The Tuohy’s dedicate time and effort to assisting Mike in achieving the requirements for a Division I scholarship, and in the end Mike is rewarded. He opts to attend the University of Mississippi, the Tuohy’s alma mater.
During this movie there are multifarious ‘dumb jock’ references. While Mike’s case is being reviewed by the admissions board, his grades are an immediate issue. His record shows that he is in the sixth percentile in terms of IQ level, and he has a grade point average of zero-point-six (The Blind Side). According to the teachers, “everyone passed him along.” The English teacher is especially tough on Mike, saying that the only thing he can write is “his name. Barely.” Some teachers even give him the test verbally because it is easier for him to say the answer than to write it. Once college coaches start showing interest in Mike, the Tuohy’s begin looking at the NCAA requirements. The pamphlet on Division I scholarships explain that “Michael’s gonna need to make a 2.5 GPA,” and his current grade point average is 1.76. This is a typical scene where the athlete is not able to meet the eligibility requirements, and so a tutor is hired. Though Mike makes progress with the extra help, he is obviously frustrated during his tutoring sessions, often shaking his head or throwing his pencil down. His English teacher is still not ‘on board’ with helping Mike make it to college. He says that Mike is still doing “C minus, D plus work,” and that Mike must do well on the final essay to achieve the necessary grade. With his tutor, Mike just makes the cut and finishes with a 2.52 average. Yet another male athlete, barely achieving the minimum.
Based on the NCAA’s research, the success rates of African American student-athletes in the classroom are improving. While they are still below the levels of white athletes, recent eligibility reforms have had a significant positive affect on the situation. These changes, which accommodate minority groups, lead to a five percent increase in graduation success rate from 2002 to 2004 (NCAA Research Staff 4). The data showed that the graduation rate was at sixty-eight percent for the 2004 cohort, and this is with approximately four hundred more African American student-athletes than before the modifications. The federal graduation rate of African American college athletes was fifty-five percent during this same year – considerably higher than the forty-four percent of the general African American student body (6). According to sports sociologist and author Ben Carrington, white sports commentators “tend to over-emphasize black players’ physical attributes . . . and conversely tend to highlight the ‘intelligence’ and abiity to ‘read the game’ of white athletes.” In his interview he strongly conveyed that student-athletes of colour are viewed as be innately athletic but intellectually stunted. While their statistics may not be at par with those of white athletes, they are on the rise. With continued assistance for minority groups at post-secondary institutions, their success will progress even further.
According to the public service announcement released by the NCAA regarding the ‘dumb jock’ stereotype, “there are over 400,000 student-athletes, and just about all of [them] will be going pro in something other than sports” (Dumb Jock PSA). The media, however, utilizes Jones’ three principles of power, perspective, and positioning to create a negative image of student-athletes (74). Popular media often neglects to commemorate the student portion of college athletes’ identities, portraying them as imps – not scholars. Males are especially targeted by this stereotype; however, females do feel the effects of it as well. Statistics disprove this ideology, as many studies have exhibited that student-athletes meet, if not surpass, academic standards. In fact, varsity athletes are required by the NCAA eligibility center to do so. A more critical view should be established by the media and its spectators in order to truly evaluate the abilities of student-athletes.
Brunco, Carly. Personal Interview. 20 March 2012.
Carrington, Ben. Interview by Jessica Sinn. The University of Texas at Austin. 25 Aug, 2010. Web.
Dechent, Amanda. Personal Interview. 20 March 2012.
“Dumb Jock PSA.” National Collegiate Athletic Association. 25 March 2011. Web.
Engel, S. “Seven Field Hockey Players Named to NFHCA Academic Squad.” GoValiants.com, 6 March 2012. Web.
Hanson, S., Krauss, R. “Women, Sports, and Science: Do Female Athletes Have an Advantage?” Sociology of Education.71.2 (1998): Web.
Higher Learning. Dir. John Singleton. Columbia Pictures, 1995. DVD.
Jones, S. “Critical Literacy.” Heinemann. 2006. Print.
Manhattanville College Athletics. “Fall 2011 GPA.” Manhattanville College, 2012. Print.
Porter, K. “NCAA Pushes Back on Dumb Jock Myth.” National Collegiate Athletic Association, 18 March 2011. Web.
The Blind Side. John Lee Hancock. Warner Brothers, 2009. DVD.
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Jorge Posada not officially retired yet, but not planning to play
By Aaron GleemanJan 19, 2012, 10:47 AM EDT
Despite previous reports about his impending retirement Jorge Posada has not made an official announcement that he’s calling it quits, but the longtime Yankees catcher told Adam Berry of MLB.com that he’s “not getting prepared for another season, that’s for sure.”
Posada added that he “tried” to get ready to play in 2012 but “it’s not in me … more and more days started going by, and nothing’s going in the right direction.”
So why hasn’t he made things official yet? Posada said that he plans to talk things over with his family in order to be certain he’s making the right decision and will likely have an announcement in a couple weeks.
Posada struggled last season, hitting just .235 with a .714 OPS in 115 games while transitioning from catcher to designated hitter, but it’s worth noting that the 39-year-old switch-hitter batted .269 with an .814 OPS versus right-handed pitching. His brutal 6-for-65 (.069) mark versus lefties dragged his overall numbers down, but Posada remained plenty effective against righties.
Five years from now he’ll be an interesting Hall of Fame case, because voters tend to underrate catchers and Posada’s counting stats were likely hurt by getting a late start in the majors. Among all catchers with at least 5,000 plate appearances his .848 OPS ranks fifth in baseball history, sandwiched between Hall of Famers Gabby Hartnett and Yogi Berra, and even with his poor defense factored in he also ranks 12th all-time in Wins Above Replacement among catchers.
Tags: Jorge Posada, New York Yankees
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Britain: National Union of Journalists World Press Freedom Day event ignores Julian Assange
By Paul Mitchell
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) held a meeting last Friday at the Free Word centre in London to mark World Press Freedom Day.
The event was billed as “an opportunity to celebrate the fundamental principles of press freedom, assess the state of press freedom throughout the world and pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in the line of duty.”
Despite the NUJ having a membership of 35,000, just 50 people turned up.
Outside the meeting, around 30 supporters of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange called for his freedom. The protest came just days after Assange was given a vindictive 50-week prison sentence for breaking bail, following his illegal expulsion from the Ecuadorian embassy.
Assange supporters outside the NUJ meeting
Proceedings for extradition to the United States began at Westminster Magistrates Court last Thursday. Those picketing the NUJ event on Friday night held banners including “No to Extradition,” “Free Press, Free Assange” and “There is no free press until Julian Assange is a free man.”
Protesters demanded the NUJ give practical backing to its formal statement opposing Assange’s extradition to the United States. In vain. Not a single mention of Assange was made by any of the speakers, all of whom claimed to be champions of press freedom. Leading figures on the platform responded with undisguised hostility to those in the audience who challenged their silence.
NUJ General Secretary Michelle Stanistreet said the meeting was dedicated to Lyra McKee, the Northern Ireland journalist shot dead by the New IRA while reporting on disturbances in Derry last month. Stanistreet declared that all the NUJ’s resources would be used to “ensure that Lyra’s vision of journalism will not be silenced.”
Dawson, Naji, Draghici, Stanistreet and Kohon
“We will not be silenced,” Kasra Naji, the senior correspondent with the BBC’s World Service Persian channel also declared, speaking about the Iranian government’s campaign of harassment and intimidation of journalists.
Chairperson Mariela Kohon, the Trade Union Congress’s senior international officer said, “The TUC stands in solidarity” with any journalist labelled an “enemy of the people” and that proceeds from the event would be donated to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) fund, which supports persecuted journalists and their families.
The video of Jeremy Corbyn played at the meeting
Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, a former NUJ chair and secretary of its cross-party Parliamentary Group was billed as a speaker but sent a pre-recorded video in which he declared, “Today, let’s remember the importance of a free press and all those journalists who go the extra mile to find out the truth.”
Corbyn uttered not a single word in defence of Julian Assange or WikiLeaks.
When the floor was opened to questions, Assange supporter Cristina Navarrete thanked the speakers for their information about the dangers facing journalists but said there was a clear omission. “On World Press Freedom Day, we have a journalist here in the UK that is in the high security prison in Belmarsh,” she reminded them.
“As you know, Julian Assange was taken away from the Ecuadorian Embassy on 11th April. With that, the Ecuadorian president Lenin Moreno broke all the asylum laws.
“Yesterday, more importantly, Julian was informed about his extradition to the United States and he replied, ‘I do not wish to surrender myself for extradition for doing journalism that has won many, many awards and protected many, many people.’
“I just want to ask the NUJ and journalists in this room to help us step up the campaign in support of Julian Assange and hope you will help us as you have journalists in Iran and elsewhere.”
Cristina Navarrete addressing the meeting
“Will you issue a statement of support?” she asked.
World Socialist Web Site reporter Paul Mitchell challenged the platform: “I find it incredible that nothing has been said about Julian Assange. This should be Julian Assange Freedom Day.
“Why has the NUJ not carried out a campaign? The NUJ had a mealy-mouthed two-paragraph statement on Wednesday to cover themselves. The IFJ statement was even less—just two sentences.
“The last mention of Julian Assange on the NUJ website was in 2014 inviting him to a seminar with the New York Times and Washington Post. Two years before, at a delegates’ conference, a motion was passed in which they said he was the greatest asset to press freedom. The IFJ hasn’t mentioned him for years.
“You owe a duty to the people demonstrating outside, to the millions of people around the world who see him as the most heroic figure of the 21st century, to say where you are and what you are going to do about it.”
Much more could have been said. In 2014 Assange was a guest speaker at the NUJ’s Investigative Journalism: A New Stage summer school, alongside Dana Priest of the Washington Post and Aron Pilhoffer, formerly of the New York Times and the Guardian’s Executive Editor of Digital.
At a 2012 NUJ Delegate Meeting in Newcastle, a motion was passed which “applauded” WikiLeaks for “exposing the culture of secrecy and lies that characterises the international operations of many governments of all political persuasions.”
It acknowledged the “important contribution made by Julian Assange himself in the development of Wikileaks as a major resource for journalism and political analysis” and stated that “the type of journalism to which Wikileaks has made a significant contribution represents a real challenge to those governments, wherever they are, which rely on propaganda, torture, warfare and subversion to accomplish their political and economic aims.”
The last mention of Assange on the IFJ’s website before its May 1 statement was a 2010 article, “IFJ Condemns United States ‘Desperate and Dangerous’ Backlash over WikiLeaks.”
“It is unacceptable to try to deny people the right to know,” IFJ General Secretary Aidan White had written. “These revelations may be embarrassing in their detail, but they also expose corruption and double-dealing in public life that is worthy of public scrutiny. The response of the United States is desperate and dangerous because it goes against fundamental principles of free speech and democracy.”
“The IFJ and its members support the rights of whistle-blowers and the responsible reporting of information in the public interest,” said White.
All of this has been forgotten. On Friday, IFJ and NUJ speakers attacked WikiLeaks supporters in the audience who challenged their refusal to mount a campaign in Assange’s defence. “To focus on Assange would be offensive to the memory of those who have been killed all over the world,” Stanistreet declared. NUJ President Tim Dawson claimed the union was “a membership-led organisation” and no one had raised the Assange case.
As Socialist Equality Party (UK) national secretary Chris Marsden stated in his remarks to the International Online May Day rally on May 4, Stanistreet “should explain to all of us how it is offensive to anyone’s memory to demand action to prevent Assange himself possibly being executed.”
Dawson told those assembled on Friday that “some journalists” have “issues” with Julian Assange. There are indeed “many such despicable journalists,” noted Marsden.
In keeping with the NUJ’s Orwellian celebration of World Press Freedom Day, its report of the event, published on the NUJ website the next day, made no mention of the hour-long Q&A session featuring questions from Assange supporters.
France: Delevoye report prepares the slashing of pensions by Macron
Police launch mass arrests on Bastille Day in Paris
Police crack down on undocumented workers occupying Paris Pantheon
Riot police attack Athens protest against Airbnb as housing costs soar
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UN chief condemns killing of ‘blue helmets’ in DR Congo, as violence erupts prior to elections
United Nations Secretary-General António Gutteres condemned the killing of seven peacekeepers on Wednesday serving in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which is also confronting a lethal Ebola outbreak.
His spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, said on Thursday that one Tanzanian and six Malawian ‘blue helmets’ were killed during joint operations carried out by the UN stabilization mission and the Government’s forces, known by the French acronym FARDC, against the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) armed group in the east of the country, North Kivu’s Beni territory.
“Initial reports indicate that ten additional peacekeepers were wounded and another one is missing,” said Mr. Dujarric.
The Secretary-General expressed his deepest sympathy and heartfelt condolences to the peacekeepers’ families and the Malawian and Tanzanian Governments and their people.
He also wished a prompt recovery to the wounded and conveyed his strong support to the Malawian and Tanzanian contingents, which continue to protect local populations against attacks of the ADF and other armed groups.
According to news reports, MONUSCO, as the UN Mission in the country is known, and FARDC have been conducting a joint military operation as the ADF is spreading terror in the country’s east, threatening hopes for trouble-free elections on 23 December.
The Secretary-General called on all armed groups to stop their destabilizing activities that continue to add to the population’s suffering and further complicate the Ebola response.
“He calls on them to disarm immediately,” stressed his spokesperson.
“The Secretary-General encourages the Congolese authorities to continue taking the necessary measures to apprehend and bring to justice the perpetrators of attacks against civilians, national security forces and peacekeepers in the DRC,” concluded Mr. Dujarric.
Statement attributable to the Spokesman for the Secretary-General on the killing of peacekeepers in the DRC
New measures and strong partnership having positive impact on Ebola response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
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NBAPC membership is open to all off-reserve aboriginal individuals who value the efforts undertaken to enhance the livelihood of
off-reserve aboriginals. Our members share our vision of a prosperous future for off-reserve aboriginal people.
Types of membership with NBAPC
A. FULL MEMBERSHIP
In the Council shall be open to persons of Aboriginal Ancestry 16 years of age and older and who ordinarily reside in New Brunswick and not on a Reserve. Only a Full Member shall be eligible to vote at Assemblies or Special Meetings or to hold elective office at the Executive or Board of Director level of the Council. To be eligible for Full Membership, the Aboriginal person must:
i) Application for Full Membership must be made at the community local level and forwarded to the Membership Clerk at Head Office with recommendation for approval.
ii) Be ordinarily resident in New Brunswick, off a Reserve, for six (6) months prior to applying for Membership;
iii) Meet the requirements of Membership and must fill out and have approved a Membership form prescribed for such purposes;
iv) Be a descendant of a verified and known Aboriginal person since July 1st,1867.
v) Documents to support Aboriginal Ancestry must be certified. Photocopies of the certified documents shall be made by the Membership Committee and certified documents returned thereafter to the applicants.
vi) Requests for new membership to be acted within a 90-day period.
Withdrawing memberships to be processed within a 90-day period.
B. SPOUSAL MEMBERSHIP
Shall be open to the spouse of a Full Member. No formal Membership Application is required for Spousal Membership but Spouse`s name shall be included in the Annual Charter list from Community Locals. Spousal members shall not be eligible to vote at Assemblies or Special Meetings or to hold elective office at the Executive or Board of Director level of the Council.
C. MEMBERSHIP IN GOOD STANDING
A Member in Good Standing is any Aboriginal person eligible for Full Membership in the Council and who subscribes to the aims, goals and objectives of the Council. A Member in Good Standing is also required to pay their annual membership fees as provided for in section 1.K. of Council’s Constitution and By-Laws. The annual membership fee for each membership category must be submitted on or before April 1st of each year. Members in Good Standing include Full members, Non-Resident Members and Lifetime Members which all carry the full range of participatory and voting rights allowed under this Constitution and By-Laws for Members in Good Standing.
D. MEMBERSHIP LIST
Each member in good standing shall have their name added to an annual membership list that shall be maintained and prepared by the Council by the 15th day of April each year. Such lists shall be sent to all Chartered Locals by the 30th day of April of each year.
E. ASSOCIATE MEMBERSHIP
Shall be open to those persons who wish to support the Council but who are not eligible for full membership. Associate Members shall not be entitled to vote and hold elective office at the Executive
Committee or Local Level of the Council or on the Board of Directors. Associate Members shall not be entitled to vote at the Annual Assembly.
F. YOUTH MEMBERSHIP
Shall be open to those persons who are the children of the Full Members but cannot apply because of the age limit. Youth members will be entitled to membership cards and shall not be entitled to vote or hold office at the community local level, zone level or at the provincial level of NBAPC.
G. NON-RESIDENT MEMBERS
Shall be open to those who were Full Members of the Council, but have since moved out of the Province of New Brunswick. Non-Resident Members will be required to pay an annual membership fee of $5.00 directly to their Locals on or before April 1st of each year. Non-Resident Members will be considered members in good standing and entitled to the same constitutional rights as regular members, except where specifically provided in this section. Non-Resident Members shall be entitled to vote and run for elected office at the provincial level (President and Chief and Vice-Chief), vote at AGM’s, vote in the universal suffrage process and any special meetings or referendums. For Clarification, Non-Resident Members may also put forward Notices of Motion and Resolutions for the AGMs as well as attend AGMs as delegates. Each year, the Board of Directors shall determine whether and to what extent any financial assistance can be provided to Non-Resident Members in order to attend the AGM, referendums or special meetings of the Council. Should limited or no funding be available for Non-Resident Members to attend these meetings, they will still hold their constitutional rights to attend, vote, bring forward resolutions, etc., but will be responsible for their own travel and other-related expenses. In the event that a Non-resident member runs for and is elected as President and Chief or Vice Chief, they will be required to relocate to the general locality of the Head Office of the NBAPC (for the position of President and Chief) or to the province of New Brunswick (for the position of Vice-Chief) and will be responsible for their own relocation expenses.
H. LIFETIME MEMBERSHIP
May, at the discretion of an Annual General Meeting by way of a motion, be granted to Full Members whose efforts on behalf of the People of Aboriginal Ancestry warrant such recognition. Lifetime members shall be voting delegates at each special or Annual General Meeting of the Membership or in the Universal Suffrage process or referendums. Lifetime Membership can only be removed by way of a motion at an Annual General Meeting.
I. HONORARY MEMBERSHIP
May, at the discretion of the Council, be granted to any persons whose efforts on behalf of the People of Aboriginal Ancestry warrant such recognition.
J. SUPPORTING MEMBERSHIP
Individual people, churches, businesses and other organizations who wish to support our work may obtain a Supporting Membership upon payment of an Annual Fee of $25.00, but such members will have no voting rights. It is a direct membership in the Council rather than in our Locals.
Each Community local must pay an annual charter fee to the Head Office of the Council. Each individual member of a community local, as well as youth members, must also submit an annual membership to their local executive for submission to the Council. Each Non-Resident member must submit their annual membership fee directly to their Locals. Supporting members must pay an annual membership fee directly to the Head Office of the Council. Lifetime members are not required to pay annual membership fees, nor are Spousal, Associate or Honorary members. All fees must be submitted on or before April 1st of each year.
All Full Members of the Council shall be entitled to a free membership card upon approval.
Replacement cards, with the exception of minors, has a fee payable to Head Office. Please contact the Membership Officer for payment options.
Please contact your local membership clerk to obtain the form
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The Nonprofit Ethicist | Summer 2011
Woods Bowman
Dear Nonprofit Ethicist,
One of our state’s greatest authorities on nonprofits told me that the board of directors is collectively responsible for any misfortunes that may occur at our facility. Our executive director and the board’s own executive committee keep the full board at arm’s length, and many decisions are made “behind closed doors.” So I passed along this expert’s assessment to the full board, but they dismissed it. This is very frustrating. How should I proceed?
Dear Frustrated,
Your board is a disengaged rubber stamp. And, like a driver who disdains wearing a seat belt, all is well until it isn’t.
You need a teachable moment to get your point across. How’s this: The board of a small California organization did not realize it was paying the fundraiser by a formula that included a healthy commission. His compensation for the year was an astounding $646,000—a nice boost to the household income of the executive director, who was married to him. When such stuff hits the press, the board cannot absolve itself by saying, “Wha’? I didn’t know!” It is the board members’ responsibility to keep track of such goings-on.
Take a look at Simone Joyaux’s article in this issue; she recommends getting rid of the executive committee altogether. In fact, why not send the article along to the board, while you’re at it.
Some of our board members receive compensation from our organization. Our interim CFO is the board treasurer, and also president of the development company that we have under contract for an expansion of our campus. He is compensated both ways. Another board member is our real-estate agent, and he is handling the sale of an apartment building we own. He’ll be getting a big commission. In the meantime, another board member is the property manager of the [above mentioned] apartment building, for which he [too] receives compensation. The board signs conflict-of-interest policy, but I’m not sure everyone is above reproach. What do you think?
Dear Disturbed,
If this column sponsored a contest for Worst Conflicts of Interest, your board would be a strong contender for the 2011 prize; the opportunities for a media train wreck are all there. According to the Ethics Resource Center, conflicts of interest head the list of behaviors that pose severe risk to nonprofits.
Your CFO-cum-treasurer-cum-vendor may be at risk of being sanctioned by the Internal Revenue Service, under section 4958 of the Internal Revenue Code, for receiving “excess benefits,” and, unless the board followed the “safe harbor” provisions of the law, he will have the burden of proving that his total compensation (in all forms) was not excessive.
I have said it before, but I repeat it here: it is best not to do any business with a board member. Furthermore, the board should understand that being both vendor and decision maker puts the organization at risk on any number of levels.
Even if people observe the “letter of the law,” there is too much room for ethical slippage, and good board members with the right instincts should not have to have this pointed out to them.
There are really no good reasons to violate this commonsensical guideline. If you feel that a board member may get your organization the best possible business deal, ask him or her to resign before the decision to hire is made. And, even then, bid the job properly. Remember, it is not just reality you are dealing with here. In such situations, perception is as important as fact, and negative perceptions about an organization’s business affairs can cause irreparable harm.
The media and lawmakers are becoming ever more sensitive to such matters. There is a Massachusetts state bill on the fast track that will make it illegal to compensate nonprofit board members for their service, on the basis that compensation, per se, creates a conflict of interest, since trustees should not be mixing their own interests with the overriding interest of the public. The spark for that piece of legislation was the discovery that the board members of a local nonprofit health insurer that was being scrutinized for having given a departing executive a more-than-generous severance package had been similarly handsomely compensated.
Meanwhile, premiums had been rising quickly, and the question, “Who is watching out for the interests of the insurer’s customers and the public?” was raised. In this case, as it turns out, it was the Massachusetts attorney general.
That said, there is currently no law on the subject, but the IRS has strong opinions. The new 990 form asks whether an organization has a conflict-of-interest policy. Assuming that your board is not ready to fire its “helpful” members, it may benefit from reading and following the procedures outlined in Appendix A to the Instructions for Form 1023: Application for Recognition of Exemption Under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
According to this document, a conflict of interest exists only after the board or one of its committees—after exercising due diligence and discussion in the absence of the interested person—determines that a financial interest rises to the level of a conflict by a majority vote of its “disinterested members”—that is, members without a stake in the outcome. If a conflict exists, the board may nevertheless approve the transaction if upon further investigation it determines that no better terms are available from a disinterested party, and that the arrangement is fair and reasonable and is in the organization’s best interest.
The minutes of the governing board and relevant committees should contain the particulars of the matter, and should include “the names of the persons who were present for discussions and votes relating to the transaction or arrangement, the content of the discussion, including any alternatives to the proposed transaction or arrangement, and a record of any votes taken in connection with the proceedings.”
By the way, your conflict-of-interest statement should include an attestation signed by the board members verifying that they have received a written copy of the statement and that they have read, understood, and agreed to abide by it. The attestation should also note that the signers recognize that the tax-exempt entity is charitable, and that federal tax exemption requires that it engage primarily in activities that accomplish its tax-exempt purposes.
If your board followed all of the above procedures, the IRS would probably not find fault; but it still smells fishy to this bystander, and would make great scandalous copy for your local rag.
The president of the board and the executive director are having an affair. How will this affect the organization and those associated with it? How messy is this? How common is it?
Appalled
Dear Appalled,
Intraoffice affairs are quite common and always messy, and the largest messes occur between supervisor and supervisee . . . and at the top of the corporate ladder. This case is about as bad as it gets. The most basic job of a board is to hire, monitor, and, if necessary, fire a chief executive. An affair between the president and executive director compromises these functions.
Conversely, if the lovebirds should have a falling out, even a top-notch executive director may suddenly become unemployed. Other board members—the ones with integrity—will flee, leaving the organization to those who are too cowardly to confront the situation or who don’t mind an undercurrent of secrecy and half-truths. At the very least, the independence of the oversight function will have become compromised.
People never seem to think of these things when they start an affair, but that shouldn’t be surprising: it is well known that hormones are toxic to brain cells. This is a disaster waiting to happen, and one or the other (or both) should step down—voluntarily or otherwise.
The esteemed and beloved Woods Bowman, professor emeritus of public service management at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois, passed away in July 2015.
Oppressed Nonprofit Executives & References for the Unworthy: The Ethicist Weighs In
By Woods Bowman
Nonprofit Workplace Culture: Why It Matters So Much to Us
By Jinna Halperin
The Nonprofit Ethicist | Conflicts of Interest and the Board
Mommie Dearest, Nonprofit Style
One Nonprofit CEO is Cruelly Refused a Raise While Another Whistles
By Mark Light
CEO as Board Chair: The Nonprofit Ethicist Just Doesn’t Like It
Oppressed Nonprofit Executives & References for the...
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Movie Review: Captain Marvel (2019)
Title: Captain Marvel
Release Date: March 8, 2019
Director: Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck
Production Company: Marvel Studios
The latest Marvel superhero debut movie is kind of origin story in reverse where we meet a superhero in action and unravel her past along the way. Vers (Brie Larson) is a member of the alien people known as Kree, has superstrength, and serves on the Starforce, fighting a generational war against their shapeshifting enemies, the Skrull. Vers cannot remember her past, but has a recurring nightmare about being in a battle with an older woman. On a mission, Vers is captured by the Skrull, and making her escape, crash lands on Earth in 1995.
Defying orders from her commander and mentor Yon-Rogg (Jude Law), Vers begins to investigate a link between her dreams and this strange planet she’s landed upon. She also attracts the attention of the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg). With Skrull on their heels, Vers befriends Fury (younger and more cheerful and naive than we’ve seen him in other films) and they head on a buddy road trip. Along the way they pick up a clever, orange tabby cat named Goose (the MVP of this movie who deserves a spinoff), and former Air Force pilot Maria Lambeau (Lashana Lynch), with her adorable and scene-stealing daughter Monica (Akira Akbar).
There are some big twists in this plot line, of course, which I’ll go into in the spoiler section below. This is the first MCU film with a woman as the lead character which is a little bit surprising partly because Wonder Woman felt like it belongs in the Marvel universe and partly because there are a number of prominent women characters in the Marvel universe. Nevertheless, this is an about time moment for Marvel, and the plot hinges on the fact that in patriarchical societies women with great talent, intelligence, and power are held back from reaching their full potential by men (and sometimes even by other women). Apparently there are members of my gender out there who were too dim to see this plot, though.
The movie is set in the 1990s, so the soundtrack is scored well to some alternative rock hits of the era. There are a few jokes based on being in that era (Vers falling into a Blockbuster video, Vers disguising herself in a grunge outfit, the great impatience of waiting for a computer to open a file), but they don’t everdue the nostalgic memory of an era in place of the reality that some movies do. I’m particurlarly fond of how well Larson and Jackson work together, as they have a lot of chemistry, which is nice since they are basically the new kid and the veteran of 8 MCU films thus far. Lynch is also a character who works well with both Larson and Jackson, and I hope we’ll be seeing more of her in the MCU.
There are a lot of action sequeneces as you would expect from a superhero epic, although I think they’re secondary to Vers journey to becoming Captain Marvel. Although, as an archivist I do appreciate that there’s a fight scene set among compact library shelving. This is an entertaining, humorous, and inspiring film, and among Marvel’s best work.
SPOILER SECTION
Okay, if you’ve scrolled down this part, you’re ready for my thoughts on some of the film’s plot twists. First of all, I totally misled myself on where the story was going even though the clues were there. I was convinced that Vers was actually a Kree and would take on an Earth identity as Carol Danvers as opposed to her being born on Earth. Very dumb of me, I know.
I also felt that the transition from the Skrull being villainous and hunting down Vers to actually being refugees attempting to escape the Kree happened very suddenly. Maybe there were clues and I just missed them, but it seemed abrubt when Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) wandered in wearing a turtleneck and sipping a soda, and suddenly everyone believed him. They also laid it on thick with the cute Skrull kids in the refugee camp on the space station, which is just a cheezy the way to build sympathy. I’m not saying I don’t like the way the story went though, just got a little whiplash.
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Virginia Dream Homes: The Glenfiddich House, an Elegant $3.5M Piece of History in Leesburg
Courtesy of Long and Foster
The Glenfiddich House in Leesburg dates back to the mid-19th century and features a manor house, a log cabin, a carriage house, and a stable building.
All in all, you've got three houses and two outbuildings on the property located at 205 North King Street in Leesburg, Virginia. Formerly known as Harrison Hall, the main house is an elegant four-story Colonial. Over half an acre of landscaped yard and formal gardens surround it.
The claim to fame for this historic home is that General Lee and his staff planned the Battle of Antietam in this very dining room. Imagine that!
The rest of the house retains its charming touches, like the 12 fireplaces, blown glass windows, and pine floors. The open floor plan of the main level is very conducive to large parties and family gatherings.
Upstairs, the spacious bedrooms look out onto the verdant lawn's lovely view of old town Leesburg. You've got plenty of space for your antique furniture, too, so shop away for those special pieces.
Just behind the main house is the original log cabin built on the land in 1767. This has also been honored as a national historic landmark building.
Added in 2000, the carriage house is ideal for your guests. Built in the style of the main house, it blends seamlessly with its surroundings.
Inside, the carriage house is spacious and thoroughly modern in its amenities, including a state-of-the-art gourmet kitchen. It has two decks that overlook the spacious yard and gardens.
The nearby stable building is actually an extended-length garage with additional workspace, bathroom, and kitchenette above. How's that for a home office?
With all of the buildings in mind, you end up with 10 bedrooms, five bathrooms, and two powder rooms. That's a bargain at the current list price of $3,499,999.
For more information, visit the original listing by Long and Foster Real Estate.
**All photos in this article are courtesy of Long and Foster Real Estate.
What would you do with this much space in the heart of historic Leesburg? Host epic garden parties? Add a water lily pond? Let us know in the comments!
Virginia Dream Homes: A James River Home for $2.95M
Virginia Dream Homes: An Oceanfront Estate in Virginia Beach for $4.25M
Virginia Dream Homes: A $5.45M Riverfront Mansion in Alexandria
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Quebec ferry service interrupted again after crash opens hole in ship's bow
Ferry service between Quebec's Gaspe region and the north shore of the St. Lawrence River is once again paralyzed, this time following an accident. The MV Apollo, purchased as a temporary replacement after another ferry was sent to dry dock in December, struck the wharf in Godbout, Que., Monday, Feb.25, 2019, leaving a gaping hole in its bow.THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO, Michael Bacon *MANDATORY CREDIT* Michael Bacon / THE CANADIAN PRESS
Ferry service between Quebec’s Gaspe region and the north shore of the St. Lawrence River is once again paralyzed, this time following an accident.
The MV Apollo, purchased as a temporary replacement after another ferry was sent to dry dock in December, struck the wharf in Godbout, Que., Monday, leaving a gaping hole in its bow.
The Crown corporation that oversees ferry service in Quebec immediately sent investigators to the scene.
Alexandre Lavoie, spokesman for the Societe des traversiers du Quebec, said the cause of the crash and the extent of the damage had not yet been determined. Investigators will interview the ferry’s captain and crew, he said.
No one was injured during the incident. Service on the route that links Matane in Gaspe and Baie-Comeau and Godbout on the north shore has been indefinitely suspended.
Investigators must assess the damage to the ship to establish if it can be repaired on site or needs to be sent to a shipyard.
“The first thing will be to see the extent of the damage, to see how much time will be needed for a repair before the ship can go back to sea,” Lavoie said.
He added that “the weather conditions were not perfect this morning, but if the captain decided to go to sea, it was because he thought the conditions were not dangerous.”
The provincial Crown corporation is evaluating other options to provide passenger service. The ferry that normally serves the route, the MV F.-A.-Gauthier, is still undergoing repair at the Davie shipyard in Levis, Que.
Virgin gets into cruise game with unique megaliner Books for Kids: Climbing Shadows by Shannon Bramer
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Old Ven Kenobi
Category: feminism
“You’re My Fantasy”: Postcards from the Edge and the Subversion of the Male Gaze
May 8, 2019 Laura VenningLeave a comment
On 27 December 2016, Carrie Fisher died. It seemed impossible that such a wickedly funny and resilient personality could be extinguished. Like her life, Fisher’s death was bound up in her fictional image. Across countless obituaries the dominant image of Fisher was of her as Princess Leia. “Her portrayal of the sardonic and self-rescuing princess redefined the archetype,” claims the book Star Wars: Women of the Galaxy. Her return to the public eye via the Star Wars sequel trilogy coinciding with the emergence of fourth-wave feminism meant she was heralded as a feminist icon for a new generation. Uproariously outspoken on misogyny in Hollywood and the stigmatisation of mental health issues, Fisher held her trademark middle finger up to those determined to dismiss her. Images of Leia could be seen on protest signs at 2017 Women’s Marches all over the world.
My essay on Postcards from the Edge is available to read on Girls on Tops: “You’re My Fantasy”: Postcards from the Edge and the Subversion of the Male Gaze
The OA Part II Review: Beautiful and baffling, The OA Part II asks you to take another leap of faith
April 25, 2019 Laura VenningLeave a comment
It’s been over two years since the first season arrived on Netflix and now, Brit Marling’s mind-bending The OA returns. You’d be forgiven for forgetting what on earth happened. And Marling, who is co-creator, executive producer and plays the title role, isn’t going to take your hand and guide you through it. Part II is bolder, grander, and far weirder than its predecessor. If you weren’t on board with a bizarre interpretive dance with the power to raise the dead you might struggle with parallel dimensions, magic mirrors and animal telepathy. But for those willing to embrace the oddness it’s as beautiful as it is baffling.
My essay review is available to read on Screen Queens: TV REVIEW- The OA Part II: Beautiful and baffling, The OA Part II asks you to take another leap of faith
“So Little Time Left”: Time in Cléo from 5 to 7 and Let the Sunshine In
April 22, 2019 April 22, 2019 Laura VenningLeave a comment
The protagonists of Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962) and Let the Sunshine In (2017) could almost be mother and daughter. Although separated by over fifty years, Agnès Varda’s Cléo (Corrine Marchand) and Claire Denis’s Isabelle (Juliette Binoche) both traverse the streets of Paris, searching for solace against the ceaseless passage of time. Cléo is an ingénue pop singer while Isabelle is a recently-divorced and middle-aged woman, but both experience time as a malignant force. Both films are about 90 minutes long, but while Varda tells Cléo’s story in near real time, time in Denis’s film is vague and slippery.
My essay on time in Cléo from 5 to 7 and Let the Sunshine In is available to read on Reel Honey: “So Little Time Left”: Time in Cléo from 5 to 7 and Let the Sunshine In.
Illustration by Jenni Holtz.
Laura Venning, 25 year old feminist film and television writer.
You’re Not that Much Like Me: Brotherly Love and Brotherly Guilt in Mistaken for Strangers
Butterflies in the Bedroom: Space, Place and Poetry in Jane Campion’s Bright Star
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Is Full House on Netflix?
Netflix TV Series By Irene Doyack
Full House is a heartwarming comedy series that appeals to the entire family. The story revolves around Danny Tanner, a father who is trying to raise his three daughters after the death of his wife. Those who have grown up watching the series enjoyed it so much that it returned with a continuation series in 2016! Whether you are looking for a trip down memory lane or watching for the first time, you might ask yourself: “Is Full House on Netflix?” Here are the things you need to know about the show and its availability.
Release Date on Netflix: Seasons 1-3, October 21, 2014
Director: Jeff Franklin
Danny Tanner (Bob Saget) has three daughters, the oldest, D.J. (Candace Cameron Bure), the middle child, Stephanie (Jodie Sweetin), and the youngest, Michelle (Mary-Kate Olsen). Tanner gets help from Uncle Joey and Uncle Jessie, as well as many other characters while dealing with the difficulties that come with raising children alone.
The house becomes even fuller with frequent visits from friends and the addition of more family members over time. The home used for exterior shots in Full House was located at 1709 Broderick Street in San Francisco. However, the set was actually located at the Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank, California.
Michelle Tanner proved to be a fan favorite on the show. Michelle was actually played by twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. They were chosen for the role because they were the only babies who did not cry at the audition. Michelle can be seen writing with different hands throughout the series, because the actresses had different dominant hands.
The Full House website revealed that Dave Coulier, John Stamos, and Jodie Sweetin are the only cast members to appear in all 193 episodes. Every character has a catchphrase on the show. except Danny, Steve, and Rebecca. Bob Saget, Mary-Kate Olsen, and Ashley Olsen all considered leaving the show at some point.
The show ended in 1995 after the eighth season. Many of the cast members were moving on to other things in life, which may have caused conflict about creating additional seasons. Candace Cameron Bure, who played D.J. Tanner, was planning on going to college following the show’s eighth season. Her character would have also been going to college around that time, allowing the show to wrap up nicely.
Many expected Full House to become available in the United States for streaming when the continuation series Fuller House began. If you’re interested in knowing more about the show, watch the trainer for season one right here:
Currently, Full House can be streamed in wide number of countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Thailand. Canadian users can also rent some of the later seasons on DVD.
The Full House series is not available on Netflix in the United States. There has not been any information released, beyond speculation, suggesting when the series will be made available in the future. However, U.S. users can view the series through Netflix’s DVD service.
Luckily for fans of the series, the story of the Tanners is not over. You may still find reruns on television from time to time that will fill you up with nostalgia. Meanwhile, you can stream Full House on Netflix in various countries of the world, but not in the United States. If you have not already seen the series, it is definitely worth watching!
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Articles Posted in Constitutional Law
Henry v. Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline
February 28, 2019 by Justia Inc
The Supreme Court denied Jennifer Henry’s petition for a writ of prohibition challenging the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline’s authority to discipline her, holding that Nev. Rev. Stat. 1.428, the statute giving the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline its purported jurisdiction over Jennifer Henry as a hearing master, is constitutional. Henry presided over a hearing in the juvenile court, wherein she acted inappropriately. The Commission later filed a formal statement of charges for Henry’s conduct. Henry filed this petition for a writ of prohibition challenging the Commission’s jurisdiction. The Supreme Court denied the writ, holding that section 1.428 is constitutional and that Henry falls under the purview of the Commission’s jurisdiction. View "Henry v. Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline" on Justia Law
Posted in: Constitutional Law, Government & Administrative Law
Cooper v. State
December 27, 2018 by Justia Inc
The Supreme Court reversed and remanded this criminal case for a new trial, holding that the district court clearly erred when it found that Defendant had not made out a prima facie case of discrimination in challenging the State’s use of peremptory challenges to remove two African-American women during jury selection. Defendant was charged with child abuse, neglect, or endangerment and other offenses. Defendant objected to the State’s exercise of two of its peremptory challenges to remove two African-Americans from the jury. The district court denied Defendant’s Batson challenge. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the district court clearly erred when it terminated the Batson analysis at step one of the three-step analysis and that the record did not clearly support the denial of Defendant’s objection. View "Cooper v. State" on Justia Law
Posted in: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law
Capanna v. Orth
In this medical malpractice suit, the Supreme Court affirmed the final judgment of the district court entering judgment on the jury verdict and the district court’s orders awarding fees and costs and dismissed the cross-appeal challenging the constitutionality of Nev. Rev. Stat. 42.021, holding that the district court did not err or abuse its discretion. The jury in this case found that Defendant-doctor’s negligence caused Plaintiff harm and awarded Plaintiff damages. On appeal, Defendant challenged several rulings by the district court, alleged that Plaintiff’s attorney committed misconduct in closing argument, and that the award of attorney fees and costs was an abuse of discretion. Plaintiff cross-appealed, challenging the constitutionality of section 42.021. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the district court did not err or abuse its discretion in the proceedings below; and (2) Plaintiff lacked standing to appeal from the final judgment because he was not an aggrieved party. View "Capanna v. Orth" on Justia Law
Posted in: Constitutional Law, Medical Malpractice
State v. Brown
The Supreme Court dismissed the State’s interlocutory appeal from a district court order granting a motion to suppress evidence, holding that the State failed to demonstrate “good cause” as contemplated by Nev. Rev. Stat. 177.015(2). At issue was the district court’s suppression order suppressing Defendant’s incriminating statements made during a recorded interrogation on the ground that the statements were involuntary. The State appealed. The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, holding that the State failed to establish that a miscarriage of justice would result if the Court did not entertain its appeal. View "State v. Brown" on Justia Law
Branham v. Baca
The Supreme Court affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Defendant’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus as procedurally barred, holding that the district court did not err by finding that Defendant failed to overcome the procedural bars. Plaintiff, who was convicted of first-degree murder, filed the instant postconviction petition for a writ of habeas corpus more than twenty years after the remittitur was issued from his direct appeal. Plaintiff argued that he was entitled to the retroactive benefit of the narrowed definition of “willful, deliberate and premeditated” murder announced in Byford v. State, 994 P.2d 700 (Nev. 2000) and thus was entitled to a new trial. The district court dismissed the petition as procedurally time-barred, concluding that Defendant failed to demonstrate good cause or a fundamental miscarriage of justice to overcome the procedural bars. See Nev. Rev. Stat. 34.726(1) and Nev. Rev. Stat. 34.810(1)(b),(2). The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the United States Supreme Court decisions in Welch v. United States, 578 U.S. __ (2016), and Montgomery v. Louisiana, 577 U.S. __ (2016), do not constitute good cause to raise a procedurally barred claim arguing that a nonconstitutional rule should be applied retroactively. View "Branham v. Baca" on Justia Law
Posted in: Constitutional Law, Criminal Law
State v. Second Judicial District Court
December 6, 2018 by Justia Inc
The Supreme Court denied the State’s petition for a writ of mandamus or prohibition challenging the district court’s decision finding Nev. Rev. Stat. 176A.290(2) unconstitutional and striking the unconstitutional language from the statute, holding that the statute, which grants the prosecutor veto power over a district court’s sentencing decision, violates Nevada’s separation of powers doctrine. Matthew Green Hearn pleaded guilty to battery by a prisoner. A specialty courts officer deemed Hearn eligible for the veterans court, but at sentencing, the State refused to stipulate to Hearn’s assignment to veterans court pursuant to section 176A.290(2). The district court concluded that the statute violates the separation of powers doctrine by conditioning the judicial department’s discretion to place certain offenders into a treatment program on the prosecutor’s stipulation. The Supreme Court agreed with the district court, holding (1) because section 176A.290(2) grants a prosecutor veto power over a district court’s sentencing decision, the district court correctly deemed the statute unconstitutional; and (2) the district court correctly determined that the unconstitutional language was severable. View "State v. Second Judicial District Court" on Justia Law
Sarfo v. State Board of Medical Examiners
November 1, 2018 by Justia Inc
The Supreme Court held that a physician’s due process rights do not attach at the investigative stage of a complaint made to the Nevada State Board of Medical Examiners (Board), thereby extending the holding in Hernandez v. Bennett-Haron, 287 P.3d 305 (Nev. 2012). Appellant, a physician, filed a writ petition and a motion for injunctive relief in the district court, arguing that the Board violated his due process rights by keeping a complaint filed against him and identity of the complainant confidential during its investigation. The district court denied relief. On appeal, Appellant argued that the Board’s investigative procedures violated his due process rights. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the district court appropriately applied Hernandez to find that the investigation did not require due process protection because it did not also adjudicate the complaint, and therefore, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Appellant’s motion for a preliminary injunction; and (2) the Board reasonably interpreted Nev. Rev. Stat. 630.336 to mean that the complaint and complainant may be kept confidential from the licensee. View "Sarfo v. State Board of Medical Examiners" on Justia Law
Posted in: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law, Government & Administrative Law, Professional Malpractice & Ethics
Mooney v. State
August 30, 2018 by Justia Inc
The Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the district court to deny Defendant’s motion to suppress evidence discovered during a search of his bedroom after Defendant’s mother opened his locked bedroom door while a law enforcement officer stood nearby, holding that the mother’s decision to open Defendant’s locked bedroom door was private conduct to which the Fourth Amendment’s protections were inapplicable. In the presence of a sheriff’s deputy but without the deputy’s request that she open the door or suggestion that he wanted to see inside the bedroom, Defendant’s mother opened Defendant’s locked bedroom door. The deputy saw firearms and bomb-making materials inside the room once the door was open. The district court denied Defendant’s motion to suppress. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that Defendant’s mother’s actions were insufficiently connected or related to governmental action to implicate the protections of the Fourth Amendment. View "Mooney v. State" on Justia Law
Lastine v. State
The Supreme Court held that law enforcement officers cannot justify a warrantless search of a bedroom inside a home by relying on the consent of a third party when the third party did not have authority to consent and the officers have little to no information about that third party’s authority over the bedroom. At issue in this appeal was whether law enforcement officers cannot rely on the consent of a third party to search a room within a residence without making sufficient inquiries about the parties’ living arrangements within that residence before conducting a warrantless search. The Supreme Court answered in the negative, holding that the district court erred in denying part Defendant’s motion to suppress the evidence obtained as a result of the illegal entry in this case and that the error was not harmless. The Court further directed law enforcement to gather sufficient information about the living arrangements inside the home to establish an objectively reasonable belief that the third party has authority to consent to a search before proceeding with that search without a warrant. View "Lastine v. State" on Justia Law
Rippo v. State
August 2, 2018 by Justia Inc
The Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed and remanded in part the district court’s denial of Appellant’s second postconviction petition for a writ of habeas corpus in a death penalty case, holding that an evidentiary hearing was required as to Appellant’s judicial bias claim. Appellant’s petition challenging his conviction for two first-degree murders and death sentences was both untimely and successive. The Supreme Court affirmed the district court’s denial of the petition as procedurally barred, concluding that Appellant did not show good cause and prejudice to excuse the procedural bars to his petition. The United States Supreme Court vacated the Supreme Court’s opinion and remanded for further proceedings, concluding that the Court applied the wrong legal standard as to Appellant’s judicial bias claim. On reconsideration of the judicial bias claim, the Supreme Court held that an evidentiary hearing was required with respect to several issues related to the claim. The Court remanded for an evidentiary hearing on the judicial bias claim and affirmed the remainder of the district court’s order. View "Rippo v. State" on Justia Law
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Emotional Moment: Robert De Niro Just Saw Himself In The Memoriam Reel, And Now He Can’t Get The Attention Of Anyone In The Oscars Audience
The in memoriam reel is always a somber occasion during every Oscars, and this year it’s hitting no one harder than Robert De Niro. The actor was surprised to see himself included in the montage of recently deceased Hollywood legends, and now he’s realizing he can’t get anyone in the Dolby Theatre to notice him.
De Niro was initially confused when a black-and-white photo of his face appeared in the reel, followed by a clip of him saying, “You talkin’ to me?” from Taxi Driver. The screen legend laughed his inclusion off as a mistake and jokingly waved to show everyone that he was still alive and well. When nobody looked at him, the Goodfellas star began to grow concerned.
He then turned and noticed his wife and children were seated together across the theater, openly weeping. This caused the Raging Bull actor to stand up and begin screaming, “Is this some kind of joke? I’m right here! What’s wrong with you people?” When this also failed to attract anyone’s attention, he turned to Edward Norton, who was sitting next to him, and tugged on his jacket. But this had no effect other than to make Norton shiver, as if a cold breeze had swept through the theater.
De Niro then left the theater in a daze, in order to get some fresh air. In the lobby, he ran into Alan Rickman, who greeted the Analyze This star warmly, causing the frazzled De Niro to breathe a huge sigh of relief that someone had finally recognized him. That relief turned to more anguish when De Niro began to remember details of Rickman’s passing back in 2016.
“I must be going crazy,” De Niro reportedly said to Rickman as he slowly backed away toward the doors of the Dolby Theatre. Rickman simply took a drink of the whiskey he had been swirling and said, “You’re not crazy, Robert. You’re just like me.”
Wow, there wasn’t a dry eye in the audience after that moving in memoriam reel. This is definitely an Oscars moment that Robert De Niro will always remember!
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Office Of The Future: Researchers Predict That Over 50 Percent Of Workplace Discrimination Will Be Automated By 2040
Automation in the workplace can bring new levels of efficiency and employee happiness, but it can also mean that human workers lose their jobs in favor of robotic replacements. No matter your stance on cutting-edge technology in the office, there is no doubt that it’s a swiftly approaching reality. According to a new study released by Stanford University, Americans can expect over 50 percent of all workplace discrimination to be fully automated by 2040.
The future is coming, and it’s coming fast.
Thanks to recent advancements in computer intelligence and predictive analytics, it may not be long before you see an automated machine in your office demoting female employees for becoming pregnant. Whether humiliating subordinates with unwanted sexual comments or automatically filtering out résumés from people with Middle Eastern last names, trends in technological development suggest that an increasingly computerized workforce will soon be enforcing inequality in office environments with far greater proficiency and cost-effectiveness than human labor.
“People think that automated workplace discrimination is still far off in the future, when truthfully it’s right around the corner,” said Stanford computer scientist Dr. Oliver Thorpe, who spearheaded the new study. “We’re already at the point with facial recognition software where it can identify which genders and races should be passed up for leadership roles with far greater accuracy than humans, and technologies like this are only getting better and cheaper by the day.”
With intelligent algorithms becoming rapidly more sophisticated and capable, virtually every industry can soon expect to begin replacing humans with machines that can oppress minorities, senior citizens, and other subjugated people groups with unprecedented efficiency and accuracy. Within 10 years, market-available computers will have the ability to grossly neglect the needs of disabled workers and make them feel like burdens. Within 15 years, roving automatons will travel about open-plan offices smacking female subordinates’ buttocks with their carbon-fiber paddle attachments, adeptly wielding their power in such a way as to avoid consequences.
Some believe that machines will never be able to fully replicate the complexity and intuitiveness of human on-the-job prejudice, but employers will likely be willing to sacrifice that human touch for the sake of their bottom line. Thorpe notes that maintaining a fucked-up culture of occupational disparity is expensive, and as soon as companies realize that they can enlist semi-autonomous robots to mistreat their employees at a fraction of the cost, they’ll be lining up to install them in offices nationwide.
Only time will tell whether or not the human workers who have so dutifully carried out discriminatory business practices for decades get laid off or reassigned, but one thing is for sure: The American office is about to look way different.
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Medicine Alumni NewsMedicine and ResearchMedicine: Alumni ProfilesStony Brook Matters
Andrew Matragrano, MD ’74
2004 Distinguished Alumni Award Recipient
Andrew Matragrano, MD graduated from Stony Brook’s School of Medicine in 1974. He serves as an associate in the Department of Thoracic Medicine at Geisinger Medical Center, a tertiary care center and teaching hospital in Danville, Pennsylvania, where he also directs the Pulmonary Lab and Sleep Lab. He completed his residency and fellowship training at Harlem Hospital in New York and holds certificates in Internal Medicine, Pulmonary Disease, and Sleep Disorders.
Twelve years ago Dr. Matragrano began participating in medical mission trips to Latin America. For the past six years has worked with Helping Hand for Honduras (HHH), a non-profit, charitable organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for the people and communities of Honduras.
The ‘medical brigade’ usually treats about 2,000 patients suffering from musculoskeletal problems, hypertension, diabetes, asthma, skin infections, dental abscesses, parasitic infestation, anemia, and malnutrition. Thanks to donations from non-profit organizations, pharmaceutical companies, as well as individuals, they are able to provide medication to the patients who have no access to pharmacies.
Most recently the team has worked out of the Catarino Gomez Medical Clinic in La Paz, an area with no electricity or running water. The clinic was built by the local people with the assistance of HHH. Using this clinic as a base, the team also travels to the surrounding mountain villages, remote from any medical center.
It is with pride that we recognize Andrew Matragrano as a graduate of this School of Medicine. It is an honor to present him with a 2004 Distinguished Alumni Award for his accomplished career for his commitment and service to the people and communities of Honduras.
School of Medicine Launches Three-Year MD Program
Medicine Alumni Stethoscope Drive - Give by July 15
Alumni Spotlight: David Bernstein '88 MD, FAASLD, FACG, FACP, FAGA
Nilsa S. Gutierrez, MD ’80
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Miranda Lambert Shares Video of Shirtless ‘House Husband’ Doing Laundry Before Dropping Two New Songs
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Lisa Taddeo Spent Years Immersed in the Sex Lives of Women. Then She Wrote One of the Year’s Most Important Books.
Once in awhile, a book comes along that redefines what a genre can do and be. Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women is that book—a singular work of narrative journalism that reads like fiction, owing to its intimate access to the emotional and erotic lives of its subjects. In these thorny stories of secrecy, rejection, and missed connections, Taddeo seeks a richer understanding of female sexuality and desire, and the joy and grief they often bring.
Almost a decade of immersive reporting on the front lines of female desire gave Taddeo exhaustive access to three complicated women, two of whom are given pseudonyms. Those women are “Lina,” an Indiana homemaker exploring a transformational affair outside her loveless marriage; “Sloane,” a New England restaurateur experiencing consequences for her husband’s desire to watch her sleep with other men; and Maggie, a North Dakota woman coming forward with the story about her relationship with a high school teacher. A heartbreaking masterpiece that grips you from page one and never lets go, Three Women is destined to join the canon both of journalistic excellence and feminist literature. I spoke with Taddeo, a former Esquire contributor, to discuss the book’s path to fruition, Taddeo’s reporting methodology, and the ways in which these stories of intimacy and unspeakable despair still keep her up at night.
Esquire: You’ve mentioned that Three Women began as a companion to Gay Talese’s Thy Neighbor’s Wife. What about Thy Neighbor’s Wife resonated with you, and in what ways did you want to depart from it or expand on it?
Lisa Taddeo: I read Thy Neighbor’s Wife a few times. The first time I read it, I was really impressed, and, the second or the third time I read it, I started to feel a little bit like it was almost exceedingly male. There’s obviously nothing wrong with that; I just noticed there was a lack of female voice. Of course, that book was written in 1980, a time when we were even less willing to listen to women. But I saw the male perspective of it. What I was still impressed with on the second and third read was the immersion that Mr. Talese undertook. I wanted to do something immersive in the same manner, but the thing that I wanted to do most to depart from his book, in the biggest way, was to keep myself out of it. I wanted to tell these women’s stories without being a part of their lives, in a certain way.
ESQ: Did you contact Talese at any point? Did he have suggestions or guidance about this undertaking?
LT: I contacted him pretty much as soon as I got the contract for the book. I sent him a bottle of some Italian liqueur with a note that said, “I’d love to meet you, I have this book that I’m writing,” et-cetera. He invited me to his home, and we had tea or coffee. It was very cool to talk to him because, beyond Thy Neighbor’s Wife, I was, as all people who read magazine stories are, obsessed with, Frank Sinatra Has A Cold. I was very excited to meet him and talk to him. He did say something that I’m not going to repeat, but it was very interesting, and it made me think about what I should be doing. Ultimately, I didn’t take his advice in that regard, but the main thing that I took from him is the hard work, persistence, and immersion into another world.
ESQ: As for immersing yourself in these women’s stories while also keeping out of their lives, how did you go about that in a practical sense? How do you stay out of their lives and avoid becoming too friendly?
LT: I wouldn’t say that we did not become friends. I still talk to all three of them on a fairly regular basis. The main thing I wanted to do was to not factor into any of their decision-making. I think that was the hardest with Lina because she was very open with me, and she didn’t have many other people to speak to, so I was her biggest confidante. She was telling me all the things that were happening almost as they were happening—or it was as close to that as possible—and often she would ask me for advice the way you would with any friend about any kind of situation with someone that you’re interested in. I was very careful to not give her any advice. I would often say, “Well, what do you think you should do?” And she would tell me, and I would just listen, because I did not want to have any bearing on her decision-making. I would often just tell her about my own experiences, and we would talk about those. I didn’t do it with any sort of strategy in mind; it was just the natural progression of having a close relationship with someone, even though I was doing 80 percent of the listening. It’s interesting, because I would say that, looking back on it, everyone was aware that I was talking to them for this book. At the same time, my interest was so high in all of their stories and their thoughts and feelings that it exceeded the needs for the book, which I think helped serve the book. But, at the same time, I continued to ask some questions. I wish I could write about them forever, or, at least, hear about them forever—which I hope I’ll be able to do.
ESQ: How did you seek out potential subjects, and how did you come to settle on these three women?
LT: Well, it was an exhaustive process. I started by going to places like the so-called porn capital in the Mission District of San Francisco, which I’m pretty sure is not there anymore. I was going to places that I thought were the mouth of sex. At first, it was more about sex than about desire. I didn’t know what the book was going to be. And, often, when you’re looking at those sorts of sex, it’s raw sex. The people who are the most open to talking about that are people who work in some sort of sex industry, whether it’s pornography or prostitution. It’s sex-positive, but also, people are open about it because it’s what they do. While I was there, I met this really interesting young women who was homosexual, and her partner, who was also homosexual. The partner was a director, and the other woman was an actress in pornography, and the director would direct her partner having sex with men, which I thought was really interesting. I really wanted to get at how that felt, and what I found with those two and several other people in those professions is that they really just turned off, the way that I hear that actors do in love scenes in movies. But I wasn’t interested in people who just turned off. I didn’t 100 percent believe that you could possibly turn off. That doesn’t mean I think they were lying; I just think there was some element of burying some stuff so that you can get on with your job and your life. I realized then that I was looking for stories that were behind the act, and I needed to find that, but I realized very quickly how difficult it was going to be. I didn’t want people who were wanting to talk, in a sense.
Lisa Taddeo speaks onstage at In goop Health Summit Los Angeles 2019 at Rolling Greens Nursery on May 18, 2019 in Los Angeles, California.
From that point on, I drove across the country. I think I drove across the country a total of six times, but I did it two times before I found my first person. I posted signs at gas stations and casinos and restaurants hoping I’d find someone in a sort of analog matter. But I also emailed people that I knew. I posted on message boards at universities. I found several people who emailed me after seeing my signs, and I kept in touch with them, and I called them. I moved to be near some of the people because I thought they were interesting, but I needed to be close to them in order to see what their stories would be. The first thing I did was move to Indiana. One, because the Kinsey Institute was there, and I thought, “This is sort of the beginning of sex in a different place—the way that the porn capital was.” While I was in Indiana, I started this discussion group, and this woman named Lina, who is the first person I found who would remain in the book, was in the middle of asking her husband for a separation. She had not made the actual decision. She was going to ask him for a separation, and the reason was because he had not kissed her on the mouth; he said that the sensation offended him. I was so impressed with her coming into the room and having this really sad story. At the same time, she was embarking on this affair with her high school lover, who she had just reconnected with on Facebook. That was really poignant for me, so I lived in Indiana for several years, just profiling her and following her.
The second woman I found was Maggie, who I found by reading a newspaper article about the trial [during which the teacher was acquitted of all charges], which had just ended while I was researching a group of women in a coffee shop in North Dakota. I heard that these women were prostitutes by night for the men in the local oil fields. I went to Fargo the next day because I was so taken with Maggie’s story. The third woman, Simone, I found by moving into her town because I was talking to other people, among them a homosexual young man who was a life coach with a very interesting story. I moved to Los Angeles, Boston, Indiana, Sloane’s town in the northeast… so, I moved to many places. After Maggie and Lina, I was looking for someone who was in a more slightly upbeat situation, because there was a lot of pain to their stories. By the time I found Sloane, it was the perfect thing.
A woman looks at one of the slides in a presentation of images from the the Kinsey Institute, an organization that promotes interdisciplinary research and scholarship in the field of human sexuality.
ESQ: All these years of driving and moving—how did that affect you personally? What were the costs of that nomadic lifestyle, and how did your life change as a result of giving your time so fully to other people?
LT: It was really difficult. I got married and had a child basically in the middle of all of the research, so, for the latter part of it, my husband and baby went with me to all of these places. I uprooted my family multiple times, and I spent many, many hours writing and researching the book, but I also wanted to not forget my daughter. I wanted to be there every day and sleep there every night. That was the rule that I made. I remember at night, I would be nursing her and texting with Maggie. I remember doing that for hours, because Maggie would be awake late at night like a young woman would be, and I was breast-feeding my daughter. It was incredibly difficult. It remains difficult, because now there’s all of this book tour stuff going on. It’s been a whirlwind of not feeling emotionally present in my home life, and I hope that will change soon. I’ve done it to myself, of course. But, in a way, it’s like the ball keeps rolling and you don’t know how to stop it.
I was kind of like a therapist that you didn’t have to pay.
ESQ: What motivated these women to share their stories with you?
LT: Lina did not want to talk for a book. Lina wanted to talk because she had no one else to talk to. Also, I was outside of her community and wasn’t somebody who would judge her. I wasn’t a friend or a family member at the time that we started talking. I was kind of like a therapist that you didn’t have to pay. So, that was a perfect storm. Maggie wanted her story told. Her story, not his story. The teacher’s story has been told definitively in the press, and even in the community. When I was there, it was just so shocking. I talked to supermarket cashiers and people everywhere, and they just didn’t know her story, so I think Maggie was interested in telling her story and telling her truth. As far as Sloane was concerned, she was the one who really didn’t want to talk the most, which was difficult, because I was so sure that her story was so interesting and vital and had so much complexity to it. But she didn’t need to talk to someone, necessarily. I think it was enjoyable on some level to her and cathartic on some others, but Sloane was definitely the hardest. I still remain intrigued with all of the stories, but Sloane was the most outside of my own experience, so I was really drawn to understanding it.
ESQ: How did you gain the trust of these women?
LT: I guess I’m a pretty genuine person, and I genuinely do not like to be emotionally or physically invasive in someone’s life. Yet at the same time, there I was trying to immerse myself in their lives. I had this real inner conflict about that, and I really stood at a distance to make sure that they were okay with me doing that before I did it. I was very honest. I would say, “Look, I’m writing this book about desire. I don’t know what it’s going to look like. I don’t know how many people are going to be in it. I don’t know if you will be one chapter or 100 pages. I have no idea. All I know is that I want to be with you as much as you’ll allow me to be, and I’ll keep you updated about what I’m doing at any point. If at any point you want to drop out, you can.” That happened to me with multiple people. In fact, it happened with about 20 people. I hadn’t moved for all 20 of them, but I had moved for some of them. I had spent at least six months with seven of them. It was devastating on a work level and an energy level to have six months or more of your life washed down the drain.
ESQ: What did the immersion process look like logistically? Would you go over to their houses and spend time with them? Did you follow them to work? What was the day-to-day like?
LT: It was everything. Lina is probably the best example because it was so different day to day. It was just so multi-faceted. Some days we would work out together; some days we would go shopping together. Many times, we went to the river where she most often met with Aidan, and she was taking selfies of herself for Facebook. I would be there and watch her. She would change into multiple sets of clothes in the back of the car, and I would sit and look at the river. Then, when I saw the selfies, I would say, “Oh that’s a good one.” There was a lot of going to restaurants and bars with her, watching her interact with the bartender and other people. One time I followed her when she went to go meet Aiden. I didn’t watch, but I wanted to be present, and as close as possible. I went to all the places that she was at. I went to her house. With Maggie, I went to her feminist talk. I went to the places that she had allegedly went to with the teacher, the place where she picked him up, the Barnes & Noble where she met him for their first quote-unquote, “date.” Mostly with Sloane it was coffee shops and driving around the whole town where I’d moved to. I thought I was going to write about the whole town, because I was talking to ten people, but I didn’t know how to work that in with these other two women. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I was confused, but trying to figure it out.
Lisa Taddeo spent nearly a decade immersed in the sex lives of women for her new, brilliant non-fiction book, Three Women.
Courtesy of J. Waite
ESQ: How much responsibility did you feel to protect these people, and did that weigh on the reporting process?
LT: It weighed on the process monumentally, but it’s weighing even more so now. I’m worried about how people will react to their stories, and I’m worried that people will call Maggie the same names they called her before. I don’t want the other two women to be discovered, and I did a lot to ensure that hopefully that wouldn’t happen, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t. I think about that every day. I think about it all the time. Literally, it keeps me up at night, every night.
ESQ: Unlike with Sloane and Lina, you don’t obscure Maggie’s identity—Maggie Wilken is her real name. Walk me through that choice.
LT: It was a choice, and it was a choice that all of us at Simon & Schuster talked about a lot. For me, the main reason I wanted to keep her name was because not saying her name would be denying her truth. The other two women were not the subjects of public ridicule. To not name Maggie would be to keep the public ridicule where it was without trying to give her the voice that she so desperately deserved, in my opinion.
I think about it all the time. Literally, it keeps me up at night, every night.
ESQ: Did reporting her story without that anonymity change the day-to-day logistics of the reporting or the sense of pressure you felt?
LT: It didn’t change the logistics of the reporting. It just changed the feeling of the aftermath. The other thing that I’m very careful about is that it’s not my job to comment on the teacher’s guilt or innocence. That is what it is in the world, and it’s not my job. My only desire in this was to tell the story that Maggie told me, and to tell it with the fullness of everything she felt and thought during the time that this alleged relationship was happening. It wasn’t that I wanted to tell what really happened. It was that I wanted to tell Maggie’s story. But to tell Maggie’s story and leave out Maggie’s name further hides a woman’s desire and denies the way in which she had not been heard prior. Whereas with the other two women, there wasn’t any of that. With them, I think their stories are more about illuminating other people who have had similar feelings and relate to them. Whereas with Maggie, it’s about relatability, but it’s also about giving her story a voice.
ESQ: Did you feel any differently toward the people in her orbit—her parents, her friends, her coworkers—in the sense that you’re also telling their unmasked truth, not just Maggie’s?
LT: Yes, I do, and I did. I contacted everyone that I mentioned. I did change the names of the people who were minors at the time of the trial. I thought about that often. I have tried to contact [the teacher] multiple times, including sending a fax to his lawyer. There were many attempts to make sure everything was correct, but on top of that, I also spoke to the people who were involved in the trial: the lawyers, the investigator, and the judge. I wanted to make sure that I had all the court documents. I had a fact checker really exhaustively check the case. Yes, of course I care, but I also think I did everything in my power as a journalist to make sure that everything was taken care of.
ESQ: In what way was the insight you gained through the reporting not what you expected? How did this project surprise you?
LT: I don’t know that I was surprised. Obviously, I was surprised in many little ways, but there was no grand way in which I was surprised. The reason I set out to write the book that I ended up writing was because I knew going into it that women were terrifically, violently organized about the way they hid their desire. The reason I found Sloane, for example, was because there were rumors about her and what she did with her husband. But the first “rumor”—which was shocking to me that it was a rumor at all—was that her husband wanted to have sex with her every day, and not only did she allow it, but she wanted to do it too. The way that this was imparted to me by multiple people was shockingly negative in their minds. It was so indicative to me of the larger response of other people—women and men—to a woman’s desire and its place in the world, and the fact that sometimes it has no place at all.
Women were terrifically, violently organized about the way they hid their desire.
ESQ: I love that expression, that they’re “violently organized” about hiding their desire. It brings to mind a moment in the book when Lina goes to a support group for women, where the other women almost punish her for her desires, and for her ability to plainly express them. They say things to the effect of, “She has the husband, the house, the kid. How dare she want more?” That was just staggering.
LT: I think that happens all the time. Before I started writing the book, I saw that happen. But it’s very rare that somebody will question a man’s desire. That’s what I talk about in the prologue. As a child, I was very aware of my father’s desire for my mother, which was very kind, and it made me feel happy that my parents loved each other in this fashion. But it was also my father’s desire that seemed to drive it, and my mother’s desire was kind of unknown to me. I almost didn’t think she had one. Women talk about their crushes, but they can be staggeringly afraid of admitting their desire to other women. This reminds me of a woman I write about in the epilogue, who I called Mallory. She was this beautiful woman from Dominica, and she had grown up with this very traditional mindset, which she had completely left in every way. But she was very afraid of anyone from her past or her present knowing that. The people from her present, she didn’t want to know about her past, and the people from her past, she didn’t want to know about her present. She was like two people, and she was split in that way. The fact that she couldn’t talk about either her desire or the history of why her desire was stifled because she would be mocked in either direction was so interesting to me.
I would spend multiple hours across months on each moment.
ESQ: The level of detail in this book is just tremendous. You give us such a wealth of information not only about the facts of the day-to-day environments of these women, but also the facts of their interior lives. In that sense, it reads like fiction, which was enthralling, but at the same time, it’s disarming when you know that everything is fact. How did you cultivate that sense of intimacy and vulnerability?
LT: I would say the main thing is that I asked the same question multiple times. I also asked the deeper question, and it took me awhile to get to the deeper one. For example, the way that [the teacher] allegedly texted Maggie—that brought to mind how I’m so interested in the point at which a relationship begins. Or, if you’re talking about infidelity, the point at which someone is unfaithful to someone else. When is the actual starting point for that? Is it a kiss? For some people, infidelity is the first kiss. For some people, it’s not unfaithful until they have sex with someone else. And, for some people, if you send a weird email to someone, that’s the beginning. What if it’s just the desire in your brain, and that is the beginning? At what point does it start? With Maggie, for example, I wanted to know exactly how the texting began, and how many minutes were left between the texts, and who was responding first. These are the things you think about a lot when you’re in a relationship. I wanted to really isolate every moment, and I would spend multiple hours across months on each moment.
I really wanted each of their voices to be their own.
ESQ: One of the revelatory things about the book is how luscious the prose is. I found it very sensuous, yet at the same time, there’s this undercurrent of melancholy and yearning. To what degree were you stylizing each woman’s perspective or trying to create a distinct narrative voice?
LT: I was trying to a large extent, but in a way, it came naturally, because I really wanted each of their voices to be their own. Even though I was writing it and I was the conduit, I wanted them to be the voices of themselves. At the same time, I wanted there to be a cohesion to the prose that wouldn’t feel stilted when you went from one to the other. I thought about it a lot, and I wanted Maggie’s story to be told in a more youthful manner that would lend a genuine tone to when she was talking about texting. I wanted it to be younger, in a way. With Lina, Lina’s is the most sexually explicit of the group, because I think that she was finding herself in those moments more than any of the other women were in the actual intimate act. I really wanted to explore that with her. She also gave me great detail, often right after it had happened, so I felt very close to that aspect of her story. I probably told her story the most sensually because I think that’s what it was. With Sloane, she’s very graceful, and her manner of speaking is elegant, so I wanted hers to be the most detached, because that’s who she is. It’s not that she’s not a warm, kind person, because she is, but she compartmentalizes, in a way, like a man, and so I wanted it to read that way.
ESQ: In parts of Maggie’s story, you dip into second person perspective. The very nature of that technique invites the reader to impose his or her own experiences and perceptions onto the narrative. What was the appeal of shifting into that mode?
LT: This is what I did with Maggie. I imagined the most non-believing person, the person who would be the most likely to disbelieve her and to call her the names that she was called. I wanted that person to get inside of her head in a way that would make it impossible for them not to at least try to comprehend what she went through.
ESQ: How has this project changed you?
LT: It’s been a decade, so I’ve obviously changed as a human being. I’ve had a child. I’ve moved multiple times. I’ve talked to multiple people. I’ve gone and gotten an MFA in fiction. I’ve done a lot of things, but there’s also not been one day in those eight to ten years that I haven’t worked on the book. I’ve changed as a person, so it’s hard to say how the book has changed me, but talking to as many people as I’ve talked to, I think I’ve learned a great deal about why we do the things we do. The main thing I learned, which, I kind of learned before but the book hammered home, was that we most project our fears onto other people. That’s what causes the judgment. That’s what causes the pain.
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Accenture and BioCelerate Collaborate to Advance Biopharmaceutical Innovation Through Increased Insights in Research & Development
NEW YORK; Apr. 10, 2017 – Accenture (NYSE:ACN) today announced it will work with BioCelerate, a subsidiary of TransCelerate BioPharma Inc., a nonprofit focused on improving efficiencies in research and development, to develop a platform enabling its member companies to aggregate and analyze preclinical and clinical information to improve drug development efficiency and bring new medicines to patients faster.
“The ability to collect and leverage large amounts of precompetitive information to create new insights in the R&D process is an important development in the preclinical research space, said Kevin Julian, senior managing director, Accenture Life Sciences North America and Accelerated R&D Services. “We are eager to collaborate with BioCelerate on this critical initiative to further enable the sharing of data to maximize the value of preclinical and clinical research and deliver better patient outcomes.”
The R&D data sharing platform will be built on the Accenture Insights Platform. The Accenture Insights Platform provides a portfolio of advanced analytics capabilities, and an integrated design, build, run environment, to enable the development of industry and function-specific analytics solutions.
The platform will provide participating member companies the ability to assimilate, aggregate, and analyze de-identified preclinical and clinical information, enabling them to draw their respective conclusions from a large data set. The platform will be used initially to support BioCelerate’s first collaborative project, Toxicology & Background Control Data Sharing, to enhance product safety.
”Sharing preclinical data among the BioCelerate member companies can be a powerful tool for improving drug discovery and development. With this initiative, BioCelerate members will be able to make more informed decisions on compound progression based on a better understanding of preclinical safety data,” said Mike Graziano Ph.D., DABT, Vice President of Drug Safety Evaluation at BMS and lead for the BioCelerate initiative.
Dalvir Gill, Ph.D. CEO of TransCelerate BioPharma, Inc. said: “Accenture’s deep expertise in life sciences, digital, analytics, and clinical data-related services will be instrumental in delivering this new platform and builds on the multi-year relationship between Accenture and TransCelerate. All BioCelerate member companies recently signed a collaborative Data Sharing Agreement outlining the guidelines of the data that will be shared across companies. This, along with selecting Accenture to build and host the global data sharing platform, marks another significant milestone in advancing the industry. We are truly excited for the long-term strategic vision of this platform and envisage a future whereby drug developers can connect preclinical, clinical and other data types within the same data sharing platform.”
Following launch of the platform, data from TransCelerate’s Placebo Standard of Care Data Sharing (PSoC) initiative will be migrated, creating the foundation for additional preclinical and clinical data sharing across member companies. The PSoC initiative was established to maximize the value of historic clinical data collected during clinical trials, and was the first cross-therapeutic, multi-sponsor clinical data sharing initiative of its kind designed to improve trial design and safety surveillance.
In October 2015, Accenture was selected by TransCelerate to support its PSoC initiative which has converted data for over 80 trials and more than 67,000 patients across seven therapeutic areas such as Alzheimer’s, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes.
Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries and all business functions – underpinned by the world’s largest delivery network – Accenture works at the intersection of business and technology to help clients improve their performance and create sustainable value for their stakeholders. With approximately 401,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture drives innovation to improve the way the world works and lives. Visit us at www.accenture.com.
About BioCelerate
BioCelerate, a subsidiary of TransCelerate BioPharma Inc., focuses on the identification and development of pragmatic and tangible solutions to improve efficiencies in preclinical research, with the end goal of improving overall drug development efficiency to bring new medicines to patients faster. By actively collaborating with participating TransCelerate Member Companies and other industry stakeholders, BioCelerate leverages collective knowledge to tackle areas of common challenge and unmet need in the preclinical research space. The founding Member Companies are Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and Company, GlaxoSmithKline, Novo Nordisk and Shionogi & Co., Ltd.
About TransCelerate BioPharma, Inc.
TransCelerate BioPharma Inc. is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the health of people around the world by simplifying and accelerating the research and development (R&D) of innovative new therapies. The organizations’ mission is to collaborate across the global biopharmaceutical R&D community to identify, prioritize, design and facilitate implementation of solutions designed to drive the efficient, effective and high quality delivery of new medicines. TransCelerate evolved from conversations at various forums for executive R&D leadership to discuss current issues facing the industry, and examine solutions for addressing common challenges. The founding member companies are AbbVie, AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and Company, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, the Roche Group, and Sanofi. Additional members that have joined since the inception of TransCelerate include Allergan, Inc., Amgen, Astellas Pharma Inc., EMD Serono, Inc. (a subsidiary of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany), Merck & Co., Inc., Novo Nordisk, Shionogi & Co., Ltd. and UCB.
Membership in TransCelerate is open to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies with Research & Development operations. Executive offices are located in Philadelphia, PA. For more information, please visit http://www.transceleratebiopharmainc.com.
Cam Granstra
cameria.l.granstra@accenture.com
Vicky Aguiar
Bliss Integrated Communication
vicky@blissintegrated.com
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Accenture Security Introduces Identity Management Capability Powered by Artificial Intelligence to Transform the Way User Access Privileges Are Managed, Monitored and Controlled
Next-generation intelligent solution improves accuracy and speed of near real-time digital identity access privileges
NEW YORK; March 7, 2019 – With the growing volume of access rights to administer across thousands of employees and applications, many large organizations are struggling to manage and secure the fluid nature of user privileges. In response, Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has introduced a next-generation digital identity and access management (IAM) capability to help organizations reduce the risk and costs associated with the over-provisioning of accounts tied to a user’s identity.
Aggregating data from multiple systems and sources, the patent-pending IAM capability simplifies the complexity of managing and monitoring who has access to what. It improves and increases the accuracy and speed of near real-time updates to user privileges using artificial intelligence and machine learning to contextualize identity decisions and continuously keep up with ever-shifting changes to user access rights. This will help organizations to proactively identify higher-risk areas that may require more governance, reducing the need for error-prone manual provisioning methods of today’s IAM systems.
“When it comes to managing user privileges, the provisioning of access should be based on precise knowledge of who a person is and why they need it,” said Kelly Bissell, a senior managing director at Accenture who leads its global Security practice. “The challenge is that existing approaches to access management are built on guesswork instead of a complete level of information. With our IAM capability we’ve created a proactive approach to identity management that help reduce human error and cost and helps improve risk awareness and make outliers easier to identify.”
To help determine efficient and secure access, the IAM capability generates a confidence score for each user, continually monitoring access data to ensure that the scores are frequently updated. Low confidence scores indicate potentially risky access, and high confidence scores can be considered for automated approvals, freeing those who conduct manual approvals to focus on unusual patterns and risky outliers. It can also predict and recommend access needs for new joiners in a company, saving time, money and effort in the onboarding process.
In an environment where the average cost to companies from “malicious insider”-related cyberattacks jumped 15 percent in 2018 to US$1.6 million per organization, it has never been more critical to ensure that the right people have access to the right resources at the right time.
NEWS: Accenture Security introduces new #digitalidentity management capability #IAM
“Security breaches that hit the headlines are often due to errors and oversights with access rights,” said Rex Thexton, a managing director at Accenture who leads its Digital Identity practice. “Our new IAM capability gives full visibility and smarter management of access rights throughout the entire enterprise landscape. With just one click it streamlines, simplifies and accelerates permission decisions through an easy-to-use interface. Until now, nothing this advanced has been available in the market that can provide the next level of transparency needed to deliver better management of permission requests.”
“We see enormous potential to transform our current identity access model from a static interface to a dynamic, intelligent and scalable resource that can increase efficiency and reduce costs,” said Kurt Lieber, chief information security officer of Aetna. “This type of transformation gives us the ability to make better decisions faster, so the right people get access to the right business resources at the right time.”
For more information about Accenture’s new IAM capability visit http://www.accenture.com/us-en/services/security/iam-digital-identity.
Accenture Security helps organizations build resilience from the inside out, so they can confidently focus on innovation and growth. Leveraging its global network of cybersecurity labs, deep industry understanding across client value chains and services that span the security lifecycle, Accenture protects organizations’ valuable assets, end-to-end. With services that include strategy and risk management, cyber defense, digital identity, application security and managed security, Accenture enables businesses around the world to defend against known sophisticated threats, and the unknown. Follow us @AccentureSecure on Twitter or visit us at www.accenture.com/security.
This document makes descriptive reference to trademarks that may be owned by others. The use of such trademarks herein is not an assertion of ownership of such trademarks by Accenture and is not intended to represent or imply the existence of an association between Accenture and the lawful owners of such trademarks.
Alison Geib
alison.geib@accenture.com
Copyright © 2019 Accenture. All rights reserved. Accenture and its logo are trademarks of Accenture. The information in this press release is general in nature and does not consider the specific needs of your IT ecosystem and network, which may vary and require unique action. As such, all information is provided on an “as-is” basis without representation or warranty, and the reader is responsible for determining whether to follow any of the suggestions, recommendations or potential mitigations at their own discretion. Accenture accepts no liability for any action or failure to act in response to the information contained or referenced in this press release or the mentioned report.
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Corporate Portfolio Analysis Techniques
By: Michael Dreiser
How to Calculate Beta From Volatility & Correlation
Modern corporate portfolio analysis theory centers around the reduction of the risk associated with a basket of investment securities while simultaneously maximizing the return from the same basket of securities. Corporate portfolio analysts are primarily concerned with downside risk, or the risk that the portfolio will decline in value, either in nominal terms or relative to a market index.
The basis of modern corporate portfolio analysis is found in diversification. Portfolio diversification theory states that when investments are randomly added to a portfolio, the average expected return of a portfolio remains the same no matter how many investments are added, but that the risk in the portfolio decreases.
As an example, assume that the average return for all stocks in the S&P 500 was known to be 10 percent; an investor randomly picking a stock from the index would expect, on average, a 10 percent return. That investor, however, would have a high level of risk that the actual return on that single stock may deviate from the 10 percent average. An investor, however, that owned all 500 stocks in the S&P 500 would be guaranteed that 10 percent return. There would be no risk that return (as we're assuming it's already known) would deviate from the 10 percent average.
Modern corporate portfolio analysis works through the statistical concept of correlation. In finance, correlation is a measure of how closely the returns of two or more investment securities respond to each other. Most stocks are positively correlated to each other, as they tend to increase and decrease together. When the market increases as a whole, most (but not all) individual stocks will also increase. When the market declines as a whole, most (but not all) individual stocks will also decrease. Many stocks and bonds tend to be somewhat negatively correlated — when stocks increase in value, bonds are more likely than not to decline in value.
Because of the effects of correlation, portfolio managers attempt to hold as many negatively correlated instruments as they can. In practice, this is often difficult to do while maintaining the portfolio's investment objectives. As a result, managers tend to settle for instruments that are imperfectly correlated. Imperfect correlation means that even though there's a relationship between the price movements of two securities, the price movements of the two securities won't always move in tandem. It is through these imperfectly correlated securities not moving in tandem that the effects of diversification are explained.
Portfolio managers, in their search to reduce risk while maintaining returns, often utilize hedging within their portfolios. Hedging typically involves the use of financial derivatives, which may be perfectly negatively correlated to positions held within a portfolio. For example, if a portfolio holds a large ownership interest in Stock XYZ, and the portfolio manager wishes to reduce the risk of the holding without selling any portion of it, the portfolio manager may purchase a negatively correlated derivative instrument, such as a put option on Stock XYZ. When the price of Stock XYZ decreases, the value of the put option would increase, thereby reducing risk within the portfolio.
"Financial Institutions Management"; Anthony Saunders, Marcia Millon Cornett; 2008
"Options, Futures and Other Derivatives"; John C. Hull; 2009
Michael Dreiser started writing professionally in 2010. He is a certified public accountant with experience working for a large New York City accountancy and expertise in areas ranging from private equity taxation to investment management. He holds a Master of Business Administration in international finance from l’École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris.
The Average Stock Market Appreciation Per Year
Is a Negative Beta Coefficient More Risky Than a Positive in the ...
What Are Some Problems With Portfolio Diversification?
How to Calculate Risk & Return
What Does Alpha Mean in Stocks?
How to Calculate Value At Risk
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PodBox.me Audio made easy!
Hot Radio
earehotradio.com
Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole, United Kingdom
Top 40, Dance, Soul and R&B
Hot Radio is the Local Radio Station (community) for the Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole conurbation.
Hot radio plays rhythmic music from the 90’s to todays current chart hits and comprises of the best in dance, soul, funk and RnB.
Hot Radio also broadcasts specialist music programmes evenings & weekends by established local & well known international DJ’s, specialising in playing house, garage, funk, soul, rock, reggae and more.
Follow Hot Radio
Big Love with Seamus Haji
Friday, 7:00pm till 8:00pm (Weekly) - Europe/London
Seamus Haji’s Big Love show features the biggest tunes around, exclusive cuts and hot new tracks that he’s spinning in clubs around the World.
International DJ/Producer, record label owner and remixer to stars; you may be familiar with Seamus' chart hits "Last Night A DJ Saved My Life" and Bootyluv's "Boogie 2Nite" or perhaps his massive remixes for the likes of Rihanna, Mariah Carey, Calvin Harris, Moby to name a few, or maybe you've danced your ass off to one of his many club hits.
Showcasing the best in House, Nu-Disco & Electro to Tech & Progressive with plenty of features to get you in the mood for a Saturday night such as The Big Tune, The Original Cut, The Eclectic Selection and The Big Mix.
12th July 2019 at 7:00pm BST
Sorry, your browser doesn't support the HTML audio tag. Please update your browser to Internet Explorer 11, or Google Chrome.
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PodBox.me empowers broadcasters with awesome tools and statistics for radio and podcasting. Automated Listen Again & Podcasting, Real-time Shoutcast & Podcast Analytics, Managed Dedicated Shoutcast servers, and much more.
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Ayinde Jean- Baptiste Son of the African Diaspora: Reclaiming Revolutionary Black Pasts Toward Revolutionary Human Futures
Ayinde Jean Baptiste is neither an entertainer nor the next ‘great black leader’. He is a Sanba, a Kreyol appellation which encompasses poet/ griot/ keeper of memory/ servant of truth. Born in Brooklyn, on Umoja, the youngest child of a hard, demanding love, he was raised in Chicago and Evanston, IL as a member of a large extended family ...
Social Change & Human Rights
Ayinde Jean Baptiste is neither an entertainer nor the next ‘great black leader’. He is a Sanba, a Kreyol appellation which encompasses poet/ griot/ keeper of memory/ servant of truth. Born in Brooklyn, on Umoja, the youngest child of a hard, demanding love, he was raised in Chicago and Evanston, IL as a member of a large extended family of blood and political relations, and as a master of ceremonies. He has shared his truth in hundreds of settings, including churches, schools, community centers, group homes, youth prisons, universities, conventions, conferences, the halls of government and the street.
Across the media of radio, television, print, and magazine, Ayinde has engaged with journalists and personalities including Dr. Boyce Watkins, Scoop Jackson, Bryant Gumbel, Tom Joyner, Doug Banks, Cliff Kelley, and Les Brown, and featured on outlets from NBC to BET, from WLIB to WVON to BBC to Hard Knock Radio, from The New York Times to Working People’s News to The Trinidad Express, from Life to U.S. News & World Report to Ebony, among others. He has received numerous awards and honors for his work in the community, been recognized as a contributor to African restorative psychology by Dr. John Egbeazien Oshodi, and profiled in the book Live Life!: Be Young, Black and Successful.
Most famously, his speech and presence at the 1995 Million Man March resonated across the globe, and helped inspire personal re-commitments, re-evaluation of the possibility of Black youth, and days of action, including National African American Parent Involvement Day, observed on the second Monday in February in African American communities across the U.S. since 1996. It was recorded and remarked upon in histories and dramatizations of the event, including Spike Lee’s feature film Get On The Bus, and the books Brotherman: The Odyssey of Black Men in America, Tell All the Children Our Story: Memories and Mementos of Being Young and Black in America, Strong Men Keep Coming: The Book of African American Men, and The Darkside: Chronicling the Young Black Experience. It has been taught in classrooms around the world, sampled by hip-hop artists, and choreographed for the stage.
Ayinde has shared the podium with Barack Obama, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti, Prime Minister Basdeo Panday of Trinidad & Tobago, President Bill Clinton, the Shabazz family, the King family, Ethel Kennedy, Rosa Parks, Ossie Davis, Dr. Jacob Carruthers, Min. Louis Farrakhan, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Kwiesi Mfume, Rev. Joseph Lowery, Sec. Larry Holmes, Dr. Asa Hilliard, Baba Hannibal Afrik, Julian Bond, Dick Gregory, Jim Brown, Tavis Smiley, Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, Dr. Pedro Noguera, Fred Hampton Jr., Jessica Care Moore, and mentors Marva N. Collins, Dr. Conrad Worrill, Dr. Cornel West & Kamau Brathwaite.
But he doesn’t need a microphone to make change. He managed his father’s earliest campaign for city councilman in Evanston, IL. He has organized locally and nationally against the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the occupation of Haiti, and in the fight for reparations for slavery, the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and colonialism. In Chicago he worked with the Industrial Areas Foundation to launch PACT, their first broad-based organization by and for young adults. He was also involved in b.b.l.a.c., a Black men/Black boys initiative funded by the 21st Century Foundation, and served on the founding boards of the Haitian Congress to Fortify Haiti, a Chicago-area community organization, and ThickRoutes Performance Collage, a women’s collective which combined art, social activism, and education.
Ayinde Jean Baptiste MILLION MAN MARCH 1995
Politics & Justice
Negritude & Haitian Radical Traditions
African Diasporic Philosophy
Black Solidarity
Check Availability For Ayinde Jean- Baptiste
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The new 718 Cayman lets its actions do the talking. Sporty actions, of course. As a corner-devouring coupe, it follows a line of its own far removed from fashion trends and four-lane arterials. In the town certainly. On the racetrack definitely. But always for the sport of it.
It's no wonder that the new 718 Cayman doesn't simply carry on from where the 718 GTR Coupe in 1963 left off, but seeks instead to piece together a legend of its own. With its own mind. With sporty fighting spirit. And with every twist and turn.
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About the Poudre Trail
Habitat and Wildlife
Story Posts & Trail Sections
River Bluffs
Bison Arroyo
Oxbow / Overland Trail
Great Western Farm
Sharkstooth
Signature Bluffs
Sheep Draw Junction
Cottonwood Bend
Sandpiper Ponds
Spanish Colony
Island Grove
Island Grove Park
Poudre Ponds
Rover Run Dog Park
Signature Bluffs Natural Area
Poudre River Learning Center
Kodak Watchable Wildlfie Area
Eastman Park
Frank State Wildlife Area
River Bluffs Open Space
General Trail Conditions
Trail Alerts
Trail Ettiquite
Trail Locator System
Friends of the Trail
The History of the Cache La Poudre River
The headwaters for the Cache la Poudre River originate from three different forks high up along the Continental Divide before descending to become the river that empties out of the Poudre Canyon on to the Front Range of Northern Colorado. The Main and South Forks of the Poudre River each begin their journey in Rocky Mountain National Park before joining high in the Poudre Canyon, while the headwaters of the North Fork can be found in the Roosevelt National Forest, north of the Poudre Canyon. The North Fork travels east before turning south and joining the other two forks after passing through the Milton Seaman Reservoir. Many mountain streams combine to make the Poudre River one of the largest rivers in Northern Colorado.
The Name: “Cache la Poudre”
According to legend a group of French trappers were traveling north and camped along the banks of the river. During the night a storm brought a substantial amount of snow and continued for several days. When the storm finally passed the trappers decided to lighten their wagons in order to cross the river and continue their journey. Supplies were hidden in a pit, a large percentage of which was gun powder. Hence the name Cache La Poudre (hiding place of the powder). The dates (1820’s or 1836) and the original party (William Ashley party or a fur trading company) are up for debate, but the story behind the name remains the same.
The Importance of the River
Since the early days of settlement of Northern Colorado in the 1800’s, the Poudre River has become the lifeblood of this region and is one of our most important natural resources. The river provides a source of water for agriculture and to residents of the area. It also acts as a source for wildlife refuge, gravel mining, and for recreation.
Demands on the water resources have greatly increased as the population of Colorado has grown. The Poudre River is of vital importance to the thousands of citizens that depend on it for water. From irrigation for crops, golf courses, lawns and parks, to uses for industry, as well as drinking and bathing water for the residents, the resources of the Poudre River are in great demand. Precipitation in the Front Range of Colorado averages only 15 inches per year, yet the typical bluegrass lawn requires twice that amount at about 30 to 40 inches of moisture per year to stay alive.
The River Today
Today, the Poudre River looks substantially different than it was 100 years ago. Due to the multiple reservoirs that are fed from it and the demands of a growing populace, the once rushing river resembles only a stream in some locations during the winter months.
However, the Poudre River still holds a majesty of its own. The trail allows people to experience the beauty of the river and its surroundings. It also acts to preserve the river’s edge and to help maintain the habitat for the wildlife that lives along the river.
The Cache la Poudre River National Heritage Area
The Poudre River Trail Corridor is one portion of the Cache la Poudre River National Heritage Area. This area includes forty-five miles of the Cache la Poudre River, starting from where it flows out of the Roosevelt National Forest, northwest of Fort Collins. The Heritage Area extends to the confluence with the South Platte River, east of Greeley.
This National Heritage Area commemorates the significant contribution of the Poudre River to the development of water law in the Western United States and to the evolution of highly complex water delivery systems which are an important part of the economy of the Northern Colorado region.
CONNECT TO THE TRAIL
TRAIL COND.
TRAIL TOUR
clear sky 90 °F
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Understanding Newton's Laws of Motion
I'm having difficulty understand Newton's laws of motion in practice, and how to model true dynamic systems. There are two examples below, where I cannot quite figure out what the true forces and motion would be.
In my first example, a rotating actuator (blue) is causing a "finger" (yellow) to move an object (red) along a flat surface. There is a Torque applied to the actuator, which cause the finger to apply an Impact force on the object. The object also experiences Friction and an upwards contact force equal to its Weight. Now, let's say that the finger is of length 1 m, and the Torque is 1 Nm. This means that the force at the end of the finger is equal to 1 N. This force is then applied to the object, causing an Impact force of 1 Nm. Now, let's also say that the object's weight is 1 N, and it's dynamic coefficient of friction is 0.5. This means that the resultant right-to-left force on the object is 0.5 N (= 1 - 0.5). Due to Newton's second law, this means that there is an acceleration of the object in the left direction. However, the actuator is only rotating at a constant angular velocity, so the object cannot be moving with any acceleration. What am I negelecting to model?
First example:
In my second example, there are now two rotating actuators, causing two fingers to grip onto the object, which is in free space. The actuators have equal and opposite torque (Torque1 and Torque2). There are two friction forces keeping the object within the fingers (Force1 and Force2). Each finger also causes an impact force upon the object (Impact1 and Impact2). So, the resulting left-to-right force on the object is 0, because the forces from the two fingers cancel each other out. This makes sense to me in theory, but in practice, Torque1 will never be exactly equal to Torque2. If either of these two torques is even slightly different to the other, then this will cause a resulting force to be applied to the object. However, with a robot gripper for example, the fingers would close upon the object, and then maintain the position at the point of contact, even if the torques are slightly different. The object would not slowly start to accelerate in one direction. What am I neglecting to model?
Second example:
newtonian-mechanics classical-mechanics forces friction torque
Karnivaurus
KarnivaurusKarnivaurus
For the first figure:
You are misinterpreting the second law, it only says what happens to an object that is subject to a net force. In this case, if the impact force is larger than the friction, the object will accelerate. The second law doesn't say what happens to the object that produces the force.
Now, the third law does, which means that the actuator will feel a reaction force equal and opposite to the one it makes on the object. If the net forces are zero it will keep moving at constant speed (for instance, if the torque gets increased during the collision to prevent the actuator from decelerating due to the reaction force). This is all in the ideal limit when the collisions can happen instantaneously.
In real life though, the object cannot accelerate instantaneously from zero to the actuator's speed, so either one or the two objects will suffer a momentary deformation or the actuator will slow down for a moment.
In the second example, it depends on the details of the gripper. But again, if the two torques are different, at least one of the grips will slow down or deform as the object moves, until a feedback mechanism makes the two forces equal enough to make the vibration due to slightly unequal torques negligible.
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged newtonian-mechanics classical-mechanics forces friction torque or ask your own question.
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Global warming can in simple terms be termed as the intensification in earth’s normal surface temperature as a result of uprising intensities of greenhouse gases
Global warming can in simple terms be termed as the intensification in earth’s normal surface temperature as a result of uprising intensities of greenhouse gases. Fifty years down the line, there has been an increase in the average global temperature at an alarming rate. The result can be seen through a set of climatic changes and persistent whether patterns that differ from place to place. For instance, due to the revolution of the earth each and every day, moisture is picked over the oceans, swirls around and in the process settles anywhere resulting to changes in the climatic rhythms relied upon by all living things. However, natural causes have in the past been seen as the main cause of global warming but recently human activities have emerged to be the leading causes in global warming which needs to be curbed to save the earth from extinction.
Other Causes of Global Warming
Due to the accumulation of carbon dioxide and air pollutants from greenhouses in the atmosphere, solar radiations and sunlight are absorbed by these gases hence making the planet to start getting hotter (greenhouse effect). On the other hand, the act of burning fossil fuel in the process of generating electricity has been classified as the largest air pollution industry where by it is estimated to be accompanied by unbelievable tons of CO2 being produced (NT, 2017). Chlorofluorocarbons are also known to destroy the Ozone Layer due to their heat-trapping capabilities despite having lower concentrations compared to CO2.
When mankind forgot the role of plants as far as regulating the climate is concerned, this is where deforestation started having a lot of effects on earth. Plants are known to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere and as a result release oxygen into the air. Therefore, by maintaining bushlands and forests, there is a surety of keeping the temperatures at 1.5oC. This is to mean that plants when taken care of, they act as carbon sinks on earth. Infrastructure development, urbanization, and farming are currently causing humans to engage in clearing vast vegetation areas all over the world apart from the business of vending tree products. As a result of deforestation, that carbon that is absorbed and stored by trees is at the end unconstrained back into the air in the form of CO2 hence adding up to global warming (Zhong, 2016).
How to Curb Global Warming
Just by watching human activities will play a great role as much as regulating the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere in one way or the other. Nations can stand together and adopt a form of generating power from solar and wind. This will subsequently bring down the rates of carbon dioxide production which in turn can lead to a cool atmosphere. The energy system can be transformed so that it can evolve into a cleaner system that does not depend on fossil fuels and coal by adopting renewable energy (Ábrego, 2018). Governments can again put high prices on pollution by making it expensive for companies intending to invest in carbon to think twice and try another option on business. Above all, it is estimated that a single tree is capable of absorbing at least a ton of CO2 from the atmosphere during its lifespan. Henceforth, planting a tree means a lot to the environment (Anisur et al., 2013).
All in all, it is the responsibility of each and every one to make sure that the issue of global warming does not exist anymore for the good of the generations to come. Speaking out will be one of the biggest ways mankind can think of if indeed there is any intention to make a recognizable change in trying to stop global warming. This can be through social media and even facing off with elected leaders so that they can enact laws to control the large emissions of carbon and at the same time press more price on air polluting individuals and companies. Individuals are advised to do more of recycling, drive less, use fluorescent bulbs in their homes, and even go for appliances that are energy-efficient (De Wrachien, 2017). This is estimated to be the lowest and cheapest way to moderate emissions.
MACROBUTTON MTEditEquationSection2 Equation Chapter 1 Section 1 SEQ MTEqn h * MERGEFORMAT SEQ MTSec 1 h * MERGEFORMAT SEQ MTChap 1 h * MERGEFORMAT Physics Basis of AFIT Sensor
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1
INTRODUCTION COMPANY BACKGROUND AIR ASIA AIRLINES COMPANY Air Asia company was established in 1993 by the Malaysian Government
Extraction of Efficient Electrical Parameters of Single Diode and Double Diode Model by Analytical-Numerical Technique Manjunath1 Research Scholar Department of E
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Catlin Not-een-a-akm, Strong Wind, Ojibway interpreter
George Catlin. “Not-een-a-akm. The Strong Wind.” From James C. Prichard’s The Natural History of Man. London: Hippolyte Balliere, [1844]. Octavo: 9 1/2 x 5 1/2 full sheet. Etching. Original hand color. Very good condition.
About the same time that Catlin was having his folio portfolio produced, James Prichard borrowed a number of the images of Catlin’s paintings for his scientific publication, The Natural History of Man. Prichard began the research for his study in 1813, intending to establish that the human race originally was all dark-skinned. He modified this view over the years, but still concluded that the human race was all one species, one family. Eventually Prichard gathered all available research about various races of humankind and his work became an important foundation for modern ethnological science. Included in Prichard’s History were fine portraits of different human races taken from original drawings of various artists, most notably these by George Catlin. Based on first hand studies made in the field by Catlin, these prints provide us with some of the most authentic images of Plains Indians from the mid-nineteenth century.
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Reading: Can UNESCO do More to Counter Terrorists’ Destruction of World Heritage?
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Can UNESCO do More to Counter Terrorists’ Destruction of World Heritage?
Vivian Beatrice Gornik
University of South Florida, US
About Vivian
Current PhD student in Applied Anthropology at the University of South Florida. MA in Museum Studies from the University of Florida BA in Anthropology, Minor in African Studies, from the University of Florida
How to Cite: Gornik, V.B., 2015. Can UNESCO do More to Counter Terrorists’ Destruction of World Heritage?. Present Pasts, 6(1), p.Art. 5. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/pp.61
Palmyra lies in ruins. Before the Temple of Bel was destroyed, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants murdered an 82-year-old archaeologist, Professor Khaled al-Assaad. He was an academic who dedicated more than 50 years of his life to the preservation of Syrian archaeology and Palmyra in particular. The media says he refused to tell militants the location of archaeological treasures. The US and other nations view ISIS as a terrorist group. The systematic destruction of Iraqi and Syrian tangible heritage continues to remain an essential component of ISIS’s campaign, and one with which cultural heritage professionals continue to grapple.
Palmyra is a United National Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site featuring monumental ruins of a once great crossroads between east and west in the ancient world. As a symbol of cooperative multiculturalism, it represents the antithesis of ISIS ideology. In the weeks leading up to the destruction at Palmyra, UNESCO issued several statements condemning the actions of ISIS. This did nothing to deter ISIS. They destroyed the Temple of Bel on August 23, 2015. The next day, the Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, condemned the actions of ISIS as war crimes, saying:
The systematic destruction of cultural symbols embodying Syrian cultural diversity reveals the true intent of such attacks, which is to deprive the Syrian people of its knowledge, its identity and history. One week after the killing of Professor Khaled al-Assaad, the archaeologist who had looked after Palmyra’s ruins for four decades, this destruction is a new war crime and an immense loss for the Syrian people and for humanity (UNESCO 2015).
Unfortunately, the story of Palmyra is one that continues to illustrate the challenges facing UNESCO in safeguarding World Heritage threatened by war and acts of terrorism. Yes, UNESCO openly condemns these terrible acts. Yes, UNESCO has reaffirmed its determination to protect what can be saved by fighting illicit trafficking of cultural objects, by continuing documentation of sites and by networking with experts throughout Syria and beyond (UNESCO 2015)–but what else can be done? What else should be done? Should the leading cultural heritage preservation organization in the world consider different approaches and philosophies to countering acts of war that destroy cultural heritage? I believe they could and should, but it would require substantive changes with philosophical implications. These changes begin at the foundation of the organization, with a reexamination of how UNESCO defines heritage.
I align my definition of heritage with that of Laurajane Smith (2006), who views heritage as a process. To me, the word heritage represents both tangible and intangible connections to the past that remain dynamic and are manipulated by power structures when advantageous. This differs from UNESCO’s stance on heritage, which was, until recently, purely focused on tangible heritage, specifically monumental architecture. However, even with the recent introduction of intangible heritage into UNESCO’s mission, the organization maintains a static, check-the-box view of what heritage can be. This in turn informs what, how and if heritage can be preserved.
If heritage is viewed as static, then the options for how or what is preserved are limited. However, if heritage is viewed as a process, it allows for more flexibility in dealing with the varying forms or new forms heritage may take. For example, Cornelius Holtorf proposed a somewhat controversial view of heritage in his 2006 article ‘Can less be more? Heritage in the age of terrorism’. Holtorf is a professor of Archaeology at Linnaeus University in Kalmar, Sweden. According to him, it is possible to conceptualize destruction as part of the lifecycle of heritage:
Destruction and loss are not the opposite of heritage but part of its very substance. It is not the acts of vandals and iconoclasts that are challenging sustainable notions of heritage, but the inability of both academic and political observers to understand and theorize what heritage does, and what it done to it, within the different realities that together make up our one world (Holtorf 2006: 101).
This reconceptualization of destruction requires a non-static interpretation of heritage. Acknowledging heritage as a process does not condone destruction, but it allows us to accept the possibility of it in the face of war or acts of war. Rather than becoming paralyzed by inaction in the wake of destruction, it opens up the possibility of new solutions.
I propose that UNESCO, in addition to its current response protocols, consider creating a new category for World Heritage destroyed by terrorism or as a result of human conflict. This new category would be built on the foundational understanding that heritage is not static. Destruction can be a part of the life cycle of heritage. But most importantly, ‘less (preservation) can be more (memory)’ (Holtorf 2006: 103). While heritage contributes to a people’s identity, the loss of it could contribute just as much. Consider for a moment places that gained more significance after their destruction, like the World Trade Center in New York City. What significance might sites like Palmyra hold for the future identity of Syrians?
Some scholars, such as Smith (2006), posit that UNESCO creates and perpetuates an Authorized Heritage Discourse (AHD). According to Smith, ‘there is a hegemonic authorized heritage discourse which is reliant on the power/knowledge claims of technical and aesthetic experts, and institutionalized in state cultural agencies and amenity societies’ (Smith 2006: 11). UNESCO’s AHD is being challenged more than ever as a broader range of populations participate in the production of heritage and heritage discourse, like ISIS. As a source of AHD, UNESCO could lead the way in changing how heritage is viewed globally, helping to account for and counter the actions of groups like ISIS. However, viewing heritage as a fixed and static entity is no longer sufficient in an increasingly dynamic heritage sector. For this reason, I think scholars like Holtorf offer ideas of merit in light of the current crisis that UNESCO and other heritage management organizations around the world are facing in the wake of terrorism.
There is a pressing need for more than condemnation and press releases. I believe that UNESCO should acknowledge the destruction as part of the heritage sites’ life cycle, without condoning it. By redefining heritage and creating a new category for sites destroyed by war crimes, UNESCO could bolster its claim that history cannot and will not be silenced. Without renewed flexibility in this way, I fear ISIS will have succeeded in erasing, both physically and symbolically, important parts of Syria’s, and the world’s, heritage. How can preservation continue beyond the physical ruins of a site? How can education continue beyond the tangibility of monuments? The future of these sites should not be curtailed by the vicious actions of groups like ISIS. ISIS has demonstrated flexibility in their many approaches to spreading not only their heritage discourse marked by destruction, but also the general ideology of the Islamic State. UNESCO, as a powerful, global institution, could embrace flexibility and change as a counter to terrorism, but it has to start from the bottom up, with significant changes to foundational philosophies that ground the institution.
UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova was correct when she said, ‘The destruction of Palmyra constitutes an intolerable crime against civilization but 4,500 years of history will never be erased’ (UNESCO). However, in order to strengthen her claim, I propose that UNESCO modify its philosophy on what heritage is, what it does, and what it means to preserve it. As of October 20th, the UNESCO website has not changed its information page on the Palmyra World Heritage Site, or any of its other sites in Syria. For someone unaware of the destruction, it would seem that the sites are still pristine and intact. This further demonstrates the static focus of UNESCO’s current philosophy.
Changes to the organization’s foundational philosophy will take a great deal of dedication and time. As an immediate step, I propose UNESCO modify the information it publishes on its website about sites, like Palmyra, that have been impacted by acts of terrorism. Their website should be current, demonstrating how the present state of the site does not negate its World Heritage status, but simply changes it. Destruction is not the end, but simply a part of the story and the history of the site itself. Regardless of the current state of the site, it remains a significant testament to human history, connecting the past with the present through tangible remains and intangible cultural resources, processes and discourse.
These viewpoint pieces represent papers originally written by Vivian Gornik and Melissa Sedlacik for Dr. Antoinette Jackson’s Issues in Heritage Tourism course at USF in Spring 2015. The authors were asked to revise and submit their work for publication in the journal to coincide with the current Call for Papers on Heritage and Destruction.
Holtorf, C (2006). Can less be more? Heritage in the age of Terrorism. Public Archaeology 5: 101–109, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1179/pua.2006.5.2.101
Smith, L (2006). Uses of Heritage. London; New York: Rutledge. [Electronic Resource].
UNESCO (2015). Director-General of UNESCO Irina Bokova firmly condemns the destruction of Palmyra’s ancient temple of Baalshamin, Syria. Available at: http://whc.unesco.org/en/news/1339/ [Last accessed August 24, 2015].
UNESCO (2015). Director-General Irina Bokova expresses consternation at the Destruction of the Temple of Bel in Palmyra. Available at: http://whc.unesco.org/en/news/1341/ [Last accessed September 1, 2015].
USAID (2015). Syria Complex Emergency Fact Sheet #8. Available at: https://www.usaid.gov/crisis/syria/fy15/fs08 [Last accessed September 28, 2015].
Gornik, V.B., 2015. Can UNESCO do More to Counter Terrorists’ Destruction of World Heritage?. Present Pasts, 6(1), p.Art. 5. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/pp.61
Gornik VB. Can UNESCO do More to Counter Terrorists’ Destruction of World Heritage?. Present Pasts. 2015;6(1):Art. 5. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/pp.61
Gornik, V. B. (2015). Can UNESCO do More to Counter Terrorists’ Destruction of World Heritage?. Present Pasts, 6(1), Art. 5. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/pp.61
Gornik VB, ‘Can UNESCO Do More to Counter Terrorists’ Destruction of World Heritage?’ (2015) 6 Present Pasts Art. 5 DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/pp.61
Gornik, Vivian Beatrice. 2015. “Can UNESCO Do More to Counter Terrorists’ Destruction of World Heritage?”. Present Pasts 6 (1): Art. 5. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/pp.61
Gornik, Vivian Beatrice. “Can UNESCO Do More to Counter Terrorists’ Destruction of World Heritage?”. Present Pasts 6, no. 1 (2015): Art. 5. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/pp.61
Gornik, V. B.. “Can UNESCO Do More to Counter Terrorists’ Destruction of World Heritage?”. Present Pasts, vol. 6, no. 1, 2015, p. Art. 5. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/pp.61
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Pirelli motorsport season presentation: Melbourne, March 12, 2015
PIRELLI PROMOTES OVERTAKING, WITH TWO TO THREE PIT STOPS, THANKS ALSO TO THE LATEST RANGE OF P ZERO TYRES
P ZERO EXPANDS INTO FAR EAST WITH GREATER INVOLVEMENT IN ONE-MAKE SERIES
EMPHASIS ON YOUNG DRIVERS IN EUROPE, WITH FORMULA 4 AND GERMAN GT
INCREASED PRESENCE IN THE AMERICAS WITH WORLD CHALLENGE AND BRAZILIAN STOCK CAR
With three days to go before the first round of motorsport’s premier racing series, Pirelli’s season comes to life with the presentation the 2015 Formula One tyres, marking the Italian firm’s fifth consecutive year in the sport. This underlines Pirelli’s strategy of expansion in the world of motorsport, where the company is already the world leader thanks to more than 300 championships in over 40 countries: half of which are in open tyre competition. State-of-the-art performance, frequent overtaking and exciting races with at least two pit stops per car: these are Pirelli’s objectives with its latest range of Formula One tyres. On top of that, Pirelli consolidates its relationship with World Superbikes – which are using the Italian rubber for the 11th consecutive year – and grows its presence on the Asian motorsport scene, especially within the most prestigious single-make series including those from Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati. Pirelli’s rally activities are expanding all over the world, as well as tyre supply agreements derived from production tyres, such as the German GT championship that features sports cars from prestige makes such as Audi and Porsche. Pirelli is pleased to support new championships such as Formula 4 and promote the careers of young drivers through specific initiatives designed to bring up-and-coming talent to the fore. The venue for Pirelli’s presentation of products for its championships on both two and four wheels is the historic centre of Melbourne: a focus of motorsport for the world and the Asia-Pacific region in particular this weekend with Formula One, as well as hosting the first round of the World Superbike Championship at Philip Island three weeks ago. Presenting Pirelli’s 2015 innovations are the company’s two sport directors: Paul Hembery for cars and Giorgio Barbier for motorbikes. They oversee departments that create 175 new tyre designs per year involving 500 people – including 200 researchers – six worldwide centres for research and development (with two in Italy for compounds and structures, plus one in Brazil), five factories (Turkey, Romania, Germany, Argentina, and Brazil with accompanying research centres) a logistics centre in Great Britain, and a total production per year of 570,000 tyres. These tyres are all recycled to the highest standards of sustainability at the end of every race, and if they were all piled up on top each other, they would reach a height of 180 kilometres. If lined up alongside each other, they would stretch for approximately 400 kilometres. WHAT’S NEW IN FORMULA ONE THIS YEAR: The tyres have all been evolved from 2014 to meet the requirements of the latest cars. The 2015 cars could be up to two seconds per lap faster than previously, with the latest-specification hybrid power units delivering higher average speeds. There’s a new rear construction for the entire P Zero range, designed to distribute heat and forces more evenly, leading to more consistent performance. One of the key evolutions on all the tyres this year has been optimisation of the footprint pressure and temperature distribution. This presents a more even contact with the asphalt, improving grip and handling. An all-new supersoft compound introduced for 2015 is designed to guard against blistering and graining. This development work that has been taking place throughout the off-season underlines once more Pirelli’s continual evolution and philosophy of improvement, as demonstrated since the company entered Formula One back in 2011. PIRELLI ON TWO WHEELS: The Italian tyre company will once again be official exclusive tyre supplier for all classes of the FIM Superbike World Championship this year, in an agreement that runs to 2018. This partnership started in 2004, making it the most enduring tyre supply in the history of international motorsport. Pirelli also has a firm commitment to the FIM Motocross World Championship, having already achieved 62 world titles, as well as the FIM Endurance World Championship, which consists of four rounds this year. Pirelli is official motorcycle tyre sponsor of AMA Supercross – an FIM World Championship (for 2014-2016) – as well as being the tyre supplier to different riders. Pirelli is prominent in many other control and open tyre national championships, including the BSB (British Superbike Championship), CIV (Italian National Championship), IDM (German National Championship) and FSBK (French Superbike Championship). In the Asia Pacific region, as well as being exclusive official supplier of the Superbike series in Malaysia and the Philippines, Pirelli will be title sponsor of the Malaysian round of the Superbike World Championship. For the first time the championship will also go to Thailand this year, where Pirelli will also race in the FIM Motocross World Championship. The Pirelli Cup 600 Challenge Series has been launched in Japan to promote the growth of young talent in the country. This year Pirelli will also open its fourth factory for the production of motorcycle tyres, in Indonesia. PIRELLI’S REACH: INCREASINGLY GLOBAL: Pirelli’s policy of expansion in the Asia-Pacific region is set to continue, reinforcing technology transfer between the racetrack and the road as a key objective. Pirelli is additionally involved in a vast number of other motorsport series within the Asia-Pacific territory, which are as diverse as the Ferrari Challenge (which takes in seven rounds from Sepang to Abu Dhabi), Lamborghini Trofeo, Australian GT Championship and Chinese Rally Championship. On the business side Pirelli expects an average annual growth in the Asia-Pacific region of around 16% in the next couple of years, making it the Italian tyre firm’s fastest-growing market worldwide. In particular, there is a growing demand for premium products, thanks to burgeoning car sales within China in particular. This upsurge demonstrates Pirelli’s increasing globalisation, with Formula One – which is the only truly worldwide championship in existence – providing a perfect shop window for Pirelli’s technology and know-how. PUTTING THE ACCENT ON YOUTH: A priority for Pirelli has always been promotion of young talent, seen in the past through the Pirelli Star Driver scheme and WRC Academy, and now in its continued support of the GP2 and GP3 championships, which go from strength to strength in 2015. This year, these important feeder championships are joined by Formula 4: designed to bridge the gap between karting and more advanced single-seater categories. Pirelli has supported this new championship from its inception, which currently runs in several countries all over the world with different engine, chassis and tyre manufacturers. NEWS FROM GERMANY: In Germany, Pirelli takes over as exclusive supplier of the German GT championship this year, which is based on race-prepared equivalents of the prestige and supercars that Pirelli supplies with original equipment for the road. Once more, this latest initiative reinforces the vital link between competition and the everyday road user: a hallmark of all Pirelli products. The German GT championship is an important breeding ground for endurance champions of the future, as well as a key market for the automotive industry as a whole. Pirelli naturally continues its relationship with the Blancpain GT series, which has proved to be extremely successful, featuring classic events such as the Spa 24 Hours. PRESENCE CONSOLIDATED IN AMERICA: In the Americas – which hosts four rounds of the Formula One world championship this year – Pirelli is once again reinforcing its presence. This territory is the biggest global market for Pirelli, with two of its most significant motorsport championships being the Pirelli World Challenge (for a wide variety of competition cars ranging from MINIs to Porsches, on the most prestigious circuits in America) and the Brazilian stock car championship, contested by legends of the sport such as Rubens Barrichello, who won the title last year. Pirelli’s motorsport director Paul Hembery, launching the company’s latest motorsport programmes in Melbourne, said: “It’s a real privilege for us to get the Formula One season underway here, and present our plans for the season ahead in such a vital territory for Pirelli. The Asia-Pacific region is really where Pirelli’s motorsport history originally started, thanks to victory in the 1907 Peking to Paris road race, and this year we actually celebrate 90 years since Pirelli won its first grand prix championship in 1925. While tyre technology has changed unrecognisably since then, competition remains firmly coded into our DNA, as the foremost means of developing innovations that will one day be seen on the road, benefitting road safety as well as pure performance. This season, we’re looking forward to understanding how exactly the teams have evolved their cars, as this changes the interaction between the tyre and the circuit, and we have a new race in Mexico: another country where we have a factory and a strong presence. We are also expanding our global activities outside Formula One, consolidating Pirelli’s reputation as the tyre manufacturer most heavily involved in motorsport throughout the world. Pre-season Formula One testing in Spain showed that the performance of our latest tyres is in line with what we expected, with the improvements that we have made delivering the results we intended with this latest generation of cars up to now.” Pirelli Moto racing activities director Giorgio Barbier added: “Collaboration and a constructive approach towards developers, manufacturers, teams and riders have always been the ingredients of our success. The work we do in the top championship for production-based bikes, as well as in all the series in which we participate, is fundamental for the development of our racing tyres, which are the same as those sold to customers. With increasing motorbike sales in the region, Asia-Pacific, is becoming a very interesting market for us, where we will invest even more over the next few years.”
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Home » The Archive » 2005 - 2006 » Boyd Norton: Nature Photographer
Lenna Keith
Writer’s comment: I’ve always enjoyed writing, but as I completed research paper after research paper, collegiate writing became more stressful and redundant than fun. I took Journalism during Spring Quarter 2006 for a temporary change of pace, but I ended up getting so much more out of it. From the beginning of the class I knew I wanted to write a piece about my Great Uncle Boyd, the published world-traveler of my family. I’ve only met Boyd a few times, but my family owns most of his books and I’ve always wanted to know him better. Writing this piece allowed me to learn more about his work; but more importantly, it allowed me to get to know a person that I admire a lot better. I would like to thank my Uncle Boyd for taking the time to speak with me and for inspiring me to pursue a meaningful life. I would also like to thank my Journalism lecturer, John Boe, because without him this article would not exist. His humor, positive attitude, and encouragement helped bring back a love of writing I haven’t experienced in years.
Instructor's comment: I think it's true for all writing courses but especially true for journalism: the most important factor is content. If you don't have an interesting story, it doesn't matter how well you write it. And Lenna Keith first found a terrific subject (nature photographer Boyd Norton) for the profile required in my journalism class, then she wrote the profile well. I especially liked how she organized her article, telling the story of Norton's life and career in a way that unfolds like a natural progression, then ending, for a kind of surprise bonus, with a poem by Norton's sometime collaborator, Yevgeny Yevtushenko.
—John Boe, University Writing Program
As a young 1960s college graduate, Boyd Norton worked as a nuclear physicist studying nuclear reactor safety at the Atomic Energy Commission’s National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho. His work was modern and exciting, but Boyd—who once blew up a nuclear reactor deliberately—was a free spirit who wasn’t made to spend his days in a laboratory. His first passions were nature and animals, so in 1969 he gave up his career in physics to pursue environmental journalism.
Looking at him, you could guess he has a unique and stimulating career. His grey hair is longer than most men’s, his blue eyes are the same color as the bodies of water he so often photographs, and his smile shows he’s really enjoying life. Although he is a photographer, writer, editor, business manager, world traveler, and award-winner, he is a simple man.
These days, Boyd is most famous for his photographs. His pictures of bears and gorillas are common in office buildings and classrooms throughout the country. But this great photographer actually started out in journalism as a freelance writer, publishing articles about nature conservation in small magazines and newspapers in Idaho while working as a nuclear physicist. As he learned more about the outdoors, Boyd began to take photography more seriously. Taking photos soon became easier than writing articles, and so his 40-plus-year career in photography began.
Since then, Boyd’s photographs and articles have been published in a number of national magazines, including Time, Vogue, National Geographic, Popular Photography, Reader’s Digest, Money, and even Playboy. He is also the author of thirteen acclaimed books, including Baikal: Sacred Sea of Siberia, The Mountain Gorilla, The African Elephant: The Last Days of Eden, Safari Journal, and The Art of Outdoor Photography, which is on Amazon.com’s Bestseller List.
Boyd the Science Guy
Considering that Boyd spent his adolescence writing equations and performing experiments, it wasn’t obvious that he’d grow up to be a famous nature photographer. In fact, anyone’s best guess would have been that he’d end up spending his days in a chemical plant, not in the wilderness. “He used to win prizes at the science fair,” Boyd’s nephew Jeff said. “Boyd was always very smart.”
Boyd’s interest in science was more than just academic, though. “Science was a fixation for me,” Boyd said. “By the time I was twelve I taught myself chemistry in a fully equipped laboratory in the basement.” He used to order chemicals from local plants and make mini-experiments, forming the reactions and writing the equations on his own. And even though he had never taken a chemistry class, Boyd’s knowledge was enough to convince a high school teacher to let him use the school’s lab for experiments without ever enrolling in a chemistry class.
After high school, Boyd’s skills in the sciences led him to a job as a lab technician at a Metals and Controls Corporation in Massachusetts. After gaining some work experience, he enrolled in what is now Michigan Technological Institute with a major in physics and the goal of a technical career in nuclear research. But before he could realize his career in science, nature called.
His First Passion
Boyd’s family, the people who know him best, remember him as passionate about the outdoors. “He always had a great love of nature,” Jeff said. “I remember hearing how he always used to bring critters home as pets.” His attraction to the wilderness came from his parents, who used to take him and his siblings on fishing trips and let him keep wild animals as pets.
“I used to go out and catch snakes, until I discovered you could order them through the mail,” Boyd explained. “So, I ordered an iridescent blue, six foot long Florida Indigo snake.” But the collection of peculiar animals did not stop with snakes: he and his mother once found an injured squirrel at the bottom of a tree, nursed it back to health by bottle feeding it, and kept it healthy for months. As a true nature lover would, though, he set the squirrel free on a friend’s farm.
Apart from keeping wild animals as pets, the most life shaping experience Boyd had was in his own neighborhood. “On the end of our street there was a broken fence that went through our neighbor’s farm,” Boyd said. “To get to the local park to meet my friends, I’d have to go through the farm.” Seeing these animals roam open land no doubt developed Boyd’s passion for protecting and nurturing even the wildest of animals.
Even though nature was his first true passion, Boyd chose a career in the area he was skilled and knowledgeable in. After graduating from Michigan Tech in the early 1960s, he started working at the nuclear testing station in Idaho. His work was cutting edge and important; after all, he was developing nuclear weapons during the height of the Cold War. “The project was studying reactor safety with reactors operating on remote control from a mile away,” Boyd said. The researchers would purposely let the nuclear reactors run wild for moments at a time, studying how each reacted to different situations. “There was no real hazard because it was a cold core,” Boyd added. Though his lab work kept him interested and busy, Boyd found himself more attracted to Idaho’s beautiful nature.
While still working on nuclear development, Boyd took up hiking and other outdoor hobbies. As he became more involved in the wilderness community, he became aware of some of Idaho’s environmental battles, the first over a dam proposal at Hell’s Canyon. And reverting back to his passion for preserving nature, he wanted to help save it. Through his and his colleagues’ dedication to the project, they won the battle and preserved the canyon’s natural state. This environmental work prompted Boyd to write nature pieces for small magazines and newspapers in Idaho and take photographs of the areas he wanted to save. As he gained more experience with the camera, nature photography became more than just a hobby.
Protection through Photography
Boyd’s big break in environmental photojournalism came when the Sierra Club asked him to create a book about endangered snake areas in America. “My first book was mainly text with small photos in the middle,” Boyd said. Even though this first book, Snake Wilderness, contained far more text than photographs, Boyd received praise for his pictures. And shortly after Snake Wilderness was published, Boyd’s career in freelance photography began.
After this first book came many more picture books raising awareness for nature, including The Grand Tetons. Boyd has even combined forces with other world-renowned artists, like Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, who coauthored and cophotographed a book about Alaska and Siberia titled Divided Twins.
Boyd’s publications aren’t limited to nature magazines and books: he once published a photo in Playboy. The picture wasn’t of a naked woman, though, but of a neon sign he found in a Malaysian travel agency. “Playboy published a collection of weird signs from around the world,” Boyd explained. “The sign I found said ‘Go Fuku Tours.’”
Boyd has taken hundreds of thousands of photographs, each with its own story, adventure, and purpose. His unusual experiences include meeting with African heads of state and witnessing thousands of wildebeests migrate across the Serengeti. One of his most thrilling adventures happened while he was traveling through Tanzania on a photo tour. As they were driving through the wilderness, a man stepped out from the bushes with an AK-47 and shot at their tour bus. The travelers managed to get away, but bandits robbed Boyd and his friends at the next checkpoint. But instead of quietly leaving the country, Boyd took action to help protect future travelers. “I was interviewed on national television about the incident,” Boyd said. “I told the government they could not allow this to happen again.” The event’s publicity outraged Tanzanians, and later that night the President gave a live speech stating his intention to put an end to such robberies.
Boyd continues to risk his life by traveling to these remote and often dangerous places to capture people and animals in their element. His bravery and hard work have paid off: his photos not only look pretty, they have an impact on environmental politics.
Some pictures are simply meant to capture a moment in time so people can admire it in the future. “It’d be frustrating to travel without a camera,” Boyd said. “I feel like I’d risk missing out on something important.” And he doesn’t just capture important moments in political or environmental history, but moments in the everyday lives of the animals he loves so much. Both children and adults cherish these nature photos, and I frequently see one of them—like a photo of a mother grizzly bear and cub snuggled up together—on a poster in elementary school classrooms.
Boyd’s photos are also historically and politically educational. From the time he published Snake Wilderness, Boyd’s top priority has been to show people animals and other cultures of the world that they may never get to see firsthand. Boyd explained that although some African nations, like the Hadza people, may still live in what we would consider the Stone Age—hunting and gathering, living in stone huts, and making fire by sticks—“they are not a whole lot different than us.” He said that while we think we can teach them about technology, art, and fashion, they are the ones that should be teaching us about leading a simple life and enjoying what we have. “It’s important to record as much as possible about these tribes so it doesn’t get lost in history,” Boyd said.
Another one of Boyd’s books, The African Elephant: The Last Days of Eden, was published to educate readers about the dwindling elephant populations in Kenya and Tanzania and the animal’s uncertain future. “Boyd feels a connection to animals he photographs,” his nephew Jeff said.
Since he is such an experienced freelance photographer, Boyd also uses his pictures to instruct his viewers about photography. In the past few years Boyd has started giving photo safaris through Africa, helping others with their photography skills while introducing them to the parts of the world that he loves so much.
Finally, Boyd’s work helps animals by raising awareness about protecting them from a continuously global and industrialized world. Boyd has maintained the same passion for protecting the environment that he developed at the beginning of his career. He has received various awards, including an award from the Environmental Protection Agency, presented by Robert Redford, for his “exciting, important environmental photography and writing.” He has also testified in front of the United States Senate on protecting the country’s wildlife parks.
Changing with the Times
Since Boyd began his career in photojournalism over forty years ago, most of his equipment has undergone major changes. Photos are no longer developed in dark rooms, cameras are primarily digital, and thousands of pictures can be stored on a disc smaller than my finger. Luckily for Boyd, he has been able to adapt—and even improve—from these changes.
“It wasn’t until about a year ago that I went over to the dark side,” Boyd joked, speaking of when he switched from a traditional camera to a digital one. He explained that while lugging around numerous cameras and hundreds of cans of film was a problem with the traditional cameras, digital cameras require even more work: he has to carry around hard drives, laptops, and cables so he can transfer the photos to permanent storage. To help other photographers make the transition from traditional to digital, Boyd is currently working on a sequel to his bestseller The Art of Outdoor Photography titled The Art of Digital Outdoor Photography. This second book will cover the best ways to photograph the outdoors using a digital camera and offer tips on using other technological techniques.
Boyd has also used technology to his advantage by developing a computer program for organizing photos, The Norton Slide Captioning System (NSCS). It includes features that help photographers sort, caption, price, and manage photographs. Since it’s marketed to a wide audience—pretty much anyone who finds themselves overwhelmed with hundreds of photographs—it’s received excellent reviews from professionals and amateurs alike.
Boyd continues to pursue nature photography and environmental protection issues. “I have over 400,000 photos filed away,” Boyd said. “Publishers email me every day with picture requests.” In addition to countless magazine articles that will feature his photos in the future, Boyd also plans to release three new books in the next few years: a picture and text combination book on the Serengeti, The Art of Digital Outdoor Photography, and a guidebook titled Safari Journal.
Boyd is also making huge strides in environmental conservation. In fact, he just finished working with Yevgeny Yevtushenko again, this time on protecting Lake Baikal in Russia from oil pipelines. “The Russian government wanted to build a huge oil pipeline through the lake, which is the purest water in the country,” Boyd explained. “If an earthquake broke the lines, millions of gallons of oil would spill into the lake.” Boyd’s efforts to persuade President Putin weren’t successful, so he contacted Yevtushenko, who hadn’t yet heard about the issue. As one of the most renowned Russian poets, Yevtushenko published an open letter to Putin in the largest newspaper in Russia, demanding that the pipeline be moved away from Lake Baikal. “One week later, Putin redrew the plans to move the pipelines out of watershed,” Boyd said.
No doubt Russians will appreciate Boyd and Yevgeny’s hard work for decades to come. These small victories inspire Boyd to keep questioning, fighting, photographing, and publishing. And although I haven’t seen half of the places Boyd has photographed, I understand his respect for nature and his desire to preserve it when I read “On the Komandors,” one of Yevtushenko’s poems in Divided Twins1:
Flippers flipping,
sea lions caress,
or kill,
rearing up.
And on the Komandors midnight couples meet,
and the gold-crowned teeth
of fish cannery girls
tingle, picking up vibrations from
the border guards’ caps
and they blush modestly.
And on the Komandors
mushrooms grow without aspens,
without worms,
and the eyes of irises,
treacherous and blue,
lure you into the bogs
of black oil.
And like a bull seal,
clutching at
a faint hope of survival,
I crawl dying,
ready to call for any lure…
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Home Free Papers The Impact of Tutankhamun on Egypt
The Impact of Tutankhamun on Egypt Essay
Tutankhamun (alternatively spelled with Tutenkh-, -amen, -amon) was an Egyptian pharaoh of the 18th dynasty (ruled ca. 1332 BC – 1323 BC in the conventional chronology), during the period of Egyptian history known as the New Kingdom. He is popularly referred to as King Tut. His original name, Tutankhaten, means “Living Image of Aten”, while Tutankhamun means “Living Image of Amun”. In hieroglyphs, the name Tutankhamun was typically written Amen-tut-ankh, because of a scribal custom that placed a divine name at the beginning of a phrase to show appropriate reverence.1 He is possibly also the Nibhurrereya of the Amarna letters, and likely the 18th dynasty king Rathotis who, according to Manetho, an ancient historian, had reigned for nine years-a figure that conforms with Flavius Josephus’s version of Manetho’s Epitome.2
We will write a custom essay sample on The Impact of Tutankhamun on Egypt specifically for you
The 1922 discovery by Howard Carter and George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon of Tutankhamun’s nearly intact tomb received worldwide press coverage. 3It sparked a renewed public interest in ancient Egypt, for which Tutankhamun’s burial mask remains the popular symbol. Exhibits of artifacts from his tomb have toured the world. In February 2010, the results of DNA tests confirmed that he was the son of Akhenaten (mummy KV55) and Akhenaten’s sister and wife (mummy KV35YL), whose name is unknown but whose remains are positively identified as “The Younger Lady” mummy found in KV35.4,5
The Life of Tutankhamun
People started to know more about King Tut when a tomb was discovered which remained hidden from robbers for thousands of years. The tomb revealed an elaborate lifestyle that many people could only dream about as well as providing clues and insights into King Tut’s life and how he lived. Even though little is known about Tutankhamun’s life, we do know that he was given the throne at a young age. During the time that this occurred, Egypt was in turmoil due to his father’s religious movement. This relig…
Excavation of Tutankhamun
Egypt and Mummification
Iufaa
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The Early Land of Egypt
Chapter 8, Ancient Egypt
Women in Ancient Egypt
Chronology of Ancient Egypt
Human Rights in Egypt
The Impact of Tutankhamun on Egypt. (2019, Feb 11). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/paper-on-the-impact-of-tutankhamun-on-egypt/
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IV Ketamine
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Robert Pollack MD
post-title When Is Depression ‘Treatment Resistant’? https://paswfl.com/wp-content/uploads/girl-1149933_1920-1.jpg 2017-01-30 22:21:54 yes no Posted by pollack
TMS Therapy
When Is Depression ‘Treatment Resistant’?
When should you, the prescriber, conclude that your patient with depression is “treatment resistant,” and thereby eligible for alternative non-pharmacological interventions—such as vagus nerve stimulation (VNS), electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), or transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)? There are multiple ways that the failure to agree on a standardized definition of treatment-resistant depression (TRD) impacts the clinical care […]
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When should you, the prescriber, conclude that your patient with depression is “treatment resistant,” and thereby eligible for alternative non-pharmacological interventions—such as vagus nerve stimulation (VNS), electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), or transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)?
There are multiple ways that the failure to agree on a standardized definition of treatment-resistant depression (TRD) impacts the clinical care of patients who do not respond to multiple medication trials. In an article appearing in the January 2017 issue of JAMA Psychiatry, Charles Conway, M.D., Mark George, M.D., and Harold Sackheim, Ph.D., wrote that the lack of a consensus definition around what constitutes TRD “limits the ability to do comparative treatment research, to understand the biological underpinnings of TRD, and produces ambiguous medical insurance coverage issues.”
Drawing on data from the Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR*D) trial, they proposed a definition for TRD: failure to respond to two trials of an antidepressant prescribed at an adequate dose for an adequate duration of time.
Conway, a professor of psychiatry and director of the Treatment Resistant Depression and Neurostimulation Clinic at Washington University, St. Louis, said that in the absence of a consensus definition of TRD, patients often receive multiple trials of medication. “Our experience has been that when faced with patients who do not respond to a series of medications, clinicians typically continue to give more similar medications, despite there being no evidence to support that the 5th or 6th medication will work,” he told Psychiatric News.
[Read the Full Article Here]
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TMS Therapy allowed me to finally manage my depression instead of my depression managing me. TMS Therapy has given me freedom from depression.
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8April
Drug-free Depression Treatment
You don’t have to travel to Tampa, TMS treatment is available to patients in located right here in Southwest Florida. Check out this news story for more information.
posted by pollack
Can Depression Be Treated Without Medication?
Virginia Beach, Va. – Rana Culotta Simpson has suffered from depression most of her adult life. “I would sleep three days, at times 2-3 days not getting out of the bed,” says Culotta. This made it hard for the 35-year-old Peninsula resident to keep her job as a newspaper reporter. “I was socially anxious. I was phobic, paranoid. It was very hard to focus,” says Culotta. She`d tried antidepressants, but she wasn`t getting better. Eventually, she was placed on work disability. Then she found Dr. Katharine Heatwole at Ocean Psychiatric Group in Virginia Beach. It’s one of only 2 or 3 clinics in Hampton Roads treating patients with transcranial magnetic stimulation or TMS. “It’s pulse magnetic energy to the front left part of the brain, and that stimulates a little electrical current to the neurons or brain cells,” says Dr. Heatwole. “During my 1st treatment, I actually felt like there was someone tinkering or tapping on my head,” says Culotta. “That has a stimulation effect on the mood circuit so that it releases the neurotransmitters that are involved in mood,” says Culotta. “It is based on neuroplasticity and training the neurons to do what they are supposed to do in […]
TMS: What Is It and Who Needs It?
By the time she was 61, Martha Rhodes had spent decades battling intractable depression. Diagnosis: treatment-resistant major depressive disorder. She’d tried a variety of medications to no avail; most were ineffective or caused nausea, diarrhea, weight gain and mood swings. During one particularly low evening in 2009, she attempted suicide. And every morning when she awoke, she experienced what she describes as “an emotional nausea – it was like this feeling of, ‘Why am I still here? Why do I have to be alive?’” But four years ago, Rhodes, now 65, of Danbury, Connecticut, underwent a procedure she says saved her life: repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, which uses magnetic pulses to electrically stimulate nerve cells in the brain and is used by doctors to relieve symptoms of depression. “My feelings of hopelessness, wishing I were dead and that life wasn’t worth living – all of that went away,” recalls Rhodes, who chronicled her experience with TMS in her 2013 book “3,000 Pulses Later.” Rhodes says she shares her story with others to demystify the treatment – which is often misunderstood by both patients and doctors, though it’s increasingly used by medical practitioners nationwide. What Is TMS? TMS was first developed […]
TMS Therapy Changed This Man’s Life!
So does Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) work for those that are clinically depressed? Take a look at how it changed this man’s life.
Depression and Cardiovascular Risk.
Are you getting your depression treated? If not then it could be increasing your cardiovascular risk.
NFL Player Tackled His Depression
Learn about how this former NFL football player tackled his depression when traditional drug treatments failed
Time Literally Moves More Slowly with Depression
When you’re depressed, literally and figuratively stuck in a dark place, with no desire to get out and experience the world, it feels like time is inching by. Seconds feel like minutes, minutes feel like hours, and hours feel like days. Apparently, though, it’s not just a feeling. It’s a very real perception of time. New research from psychologists at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz in Germany shows that depressed people actually experience time differently than healthy individuals. The scientists analyzed the results of 16 different studies examining 433 depressed subjects and 485 non-depressed control subjects. For the first part of the study, subjects were surveyed on their perception of time. “Psychiatrists and psychologists in hospitals and private practices repeatedly report that depressed patients feel that time only creeps forward slowly or is passing in slow motion,” reported study author Dr. Daniel Oberfeld-Twistel. The results of the meta-analysis confirmed that this is indeed the case. Then, for the second part of the study, they asked the subjects to subjectively estimate the length of a movie in minutes, press a button for five seconds, or identify the length of different sounds. In this case, the results obtained from the depressed […]
Ketamine May Reduce Chronic Pain in Adolescents
“A reduction of 20% or greater was considered significant.” [Read Full Article Here]
Could ketamine become the next great depression drug?
“The ketamine saved my life,” she says from her home. “Every time I think about it, I just want to cry.”
Ketamine Could Be Used To Treat Alcoholics And Alcoholism
Researchers are launching a new trial to look into whether low doses of party drug ketamine can be used to treat alcoholics. The new study is recruiting volunteers to test whether low doses of ketamine help make psychological therapy more effective and prevent alcoholics from relapsing. A pilot study previously found that giving people doses of the drug as well as psychological therapy saw average 12-month relapse rates drop from 76% to 34%. Severe alcohol use affects nearly four million people in the UK. [Read the Full Article Here]
TRIALS ON KETAMINE’S ANTI-DEPRESSANT EFFECTS HAVE BEGUN!
Australia and New Zealand start trials on the effects of Ketamine as an Anti-Depressant! This is huge in spreading the awareness of this as an incredibly effective treatment in treating depression.
Ketamine should be kept off worldwide illegal drugs list, doctors say
“They say [ketamine] should always be treated as a medicine and not be placed under United Nations illicit drug restrictions The World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists is calling for global support for its initiative to protect ketamine’s status as an essential medicine for anaesthesia and pain relief.” [Read Full Article Here]
‘Club Drug’ Ketamine Rescues Suicidal Patients: Study
Saturday September 10th, 2016 was World Suicide Prevention Day. This is such an important conversation to continue having everyday. In 2016, Ketamine has been found to “clear up the distraught thinking of people on the brink of suicide”. It’s giving hope to many people with severe depression that has resisted traditional antidepressants. “We’ll see what history has to say about the role of ketamine over a longer period of time, but as it stands now, ketamine is revolutionary.“ [Read Full Article Here]
General anesthetic shows improvement in patients with treatment-resistant depression
“A new study in Biological Psychiatry reports that esketamine, a component of the general anesthetic ketamine, shows rapid and significant improvement in depressive symptoms in patients who do not respond to currently available therapies.” [Read Full Article Here]
7October
Ketamine Is an Essential Medicine, Says Anesthesiologists
“Ketamine is an essential anesthetic and painkiller, especially in countries with limited options and poor storage facilities in their hospitals,” said WFSA president Dr. Jannicke Mellin-Olsen” [Read Full Article Here]
The Economist: Novel Drugs for Depression
Ketamine makes The Economist! “This is a change of direction so radical that some think it heralds a revolution in psychiatry.” [Read the Full Article Here]
1November
Research findings underscore striking heterogeneity of depression
An interesting article on the wide range of symptoms used to diagnose depression: “the standard rating scales used by healthcare professionals and researchers to diagnose this disease often differ in the symptoms they list, perhaps explaining why a one-size-fits-all treatment has to date been so ineffective.” [Read Full Article Here]
Ketamine for Depression: the Highs and Lows
If you’re looking for information about ketamine from a scientific research perspective a terrific article was published in The Lancet and the information is still very descriptive and accurate. Click the link below to view the PDF. [Read Full Article Here]
Ketamine Could Be Approved To Treat Depression
“A recent review led by Matthew Cooper of Dalhousie University, Canada, in ‘The World Journal of Biological Psychiatry’ examined all peer-reviewed reports on the use of ketamine to treat depression. The evidence is a mix of small trials and individual case reports, but collectively they build a powerful picture.” [Read Full Article Here]
Preventing Mental Illness With a Stress Vaccine
A fascinating article in The Atlantic that tells the story of a neuroscientist on a mission to change how the brain and immune system handle stress. Her work shows tremendous promise for the use of ketamine in treating PTSD and stress-related mental illness. [Read the Article Here]
Top 10 Medical Innovations to Watch Out for in 2017
Ketamine makes #7 on Dr. Axe’s Top 10 Medical Innovations to Watch Out for in 2017 list! “7. Ketamine for Treatment-Resistant Depression More than 15 millions Americans over the age of 18 suffer from depression — that’s 6.7 percent of the adult population. (8) And while there are some natural remedies and prescription medications available, for nearly one-third of depressed patients, they don’t work. Unfortunately, for about 43,000 people, the answer becomes suicide. The medical world believes there is new hope in ketamine for these extreme, treatment-resistant cases. For the last few years, the animal tranquilizer and sometimes-party drug has been studied and trialled as a treatment for major depression when other options have been exhausted, and the results are promising. Of course, I am an advocate for natural depression treatment and improving mood and brain structure through food and exercise, but in some cases, even that fails to work. Numerous studies have found that ketamine is extremely effective in treating major depression, sometimes as quickly as in 24 hours after just one dose. (9) Serial ketamine infusions seem to be even more effective at treating the mental disease. (10) It works by targeting and inhibiting NMDA receptors in nerve cells. Thanks to […]
When should you, the prescriber, conclude that your patient with depression is “treatment resistant,” and thereby eligible for alternative non-pharmacological interventions—such as vagus nerve stimulation (VNS), electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), or transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)? There are multiple ways that the failure to agree on a standardized definition of treatment-resistant depression (TRD) impacts the clinical care of patients who do not respond to multiple medication trials. In an article appearing in the January 2017 issue of JAMA Psychiatry, Charles Conway, M.D., Mark George, M.D., and Harold Sackheim, Ph.D., wrote that the lack of a consensus definition around what constitutes TRD “limits the ability to do comparative treatment research, to understand the biological underpinnings of TRD, and produces ambiguous medical insurance coverage issues.” Drawing on data from the Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR*D) trial, they proposed a definition for TRD: failure to respond to two trials of an antidepressant prescribed at an adequate dose for an adequate duration of time. Conway, a professor of psychiatry and director of the Treatment Resistant Depression and Neurostimulation Clinic at Washington University, St. Louis, said that in the absence of a consensus definition of TRD, patients often receive multiple trials of medication. “Our experience has been that […]
Ketamine Featured on DrugTargetReview.com
How Ketamine Could Cure Depression The major excitatory neurotransmitter in the central and peripheral nervous system, glutamic acid, has been known for more than 50 years to produce its actions through various ionotropic channels (NMDA and AMPA) and G-coupled metabotropic receptors (mGluR 1 to 5). The glutamate-sensitive ion channels comprise multiple protein subunits and are subject to many regulatory and modulatory controls. Such intrinsic mechanisms are most apparent in the N-methyl D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor-operated ion channel which, in turn, offers countless opportunities for drugs to selectively exploit the ubiquity of glutamate’s excitatory role. Discovery of NMDA antagonists Considerable discovery efforts in the early 90s targeted various components of the NMDA receptor complex with the aim of developing new treatments for neurodegeneration – Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s diseases, stroke, traumatic brain injury – as well as epilepsy and pain, with some interest directed to psychiatric indications like anxiety. When the undesirable CNS side effects of many of these new drug candidates became apparent much of this research was curtailed, although several compounds with weak, or non-selective effects on the NMDA receptor were subsequently approved e.g. memantine, adamantine, methadone, and dextromethorphan. Return of the NMDA antagonist – the Ketamine breakthrough Targeting NMDA receptors came back into […]
Ketamine Featured in the Globe and Mail: Offers New Hope for Patients with Severe Depression
WENCY LEUNG The Globe and Mail Published Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017 3:23PM EST Last updated Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017 5:18PM EST Inspired by promising research into ketamine’s therapeutic effects, people are swapping strategies online on how to use the drug to ease their despair. Could ‘Special K’ be a panacea for depression? Wency Leung reports John woke up one morning feeling almost like his old self. He got out of bed, took a shower and, for the first time in a long time, felt as though this day would not be his last. His suicidal thoughts had faded overnight. The previous morning, the 50-year-old Ottawa father of three was given his first intravenous infusion of the drug ketamine as part of a trial for people with treatment-resistant depression. John (not his real name) had tried various medications for his depression over the years – without improvement. But within hours of receiving his first ketamine infusion, he began feeling better. “I started feeling the benefits almost right away,” he said. By the next morning, “not completely, but I felt like I could behave like the normal man that I used to be.” [Read More]
Low-Dose Ketamine In Treating Depression: An Outsider’s Perception
A Very Moving and Well Written Account from a Healthcare Professional and Parent As both a healthcare professional and a parent of a child who suffers from treatment resistant depression and anxiety, I have been quite attentive to the changes that arise in an individual after receiving low-dose ketamine. I thought it would be helpful to share my observations with others who are contemplating offering this innovative treatment in their practices or for those that may be exploring ketamine as an option in treating their own depression. Though low-dose ketamine can alleviate suicidal thoughts immediately and lift an individual from feelings of despair which many have suffered for years, it does not cure one’s depression indefinitely. Ketamine, in my experience, has worked in a way that it offers hope to individuals and provides a new found resilience in dealing with life stressors. As an outsider looking in, I have watched my child develop the drive and passion to discover new approaches to help improve her mental health and overall well-being. I have been quite focused on my child’s state of mental health since her return back to college and found that the negative thoughts and depression started to creep back […]
8March
A Possible New Use for Ketamine? Depression and Aggression
Depressive Symptoms Associated With Aggression Violence is not usually considered to be related to depression, yet findings suggest an association between violent behavior and depression or depressive symptoms in many different disorders. A Swedish study compared the criminal records of 47,158 depressed individuals with the records of 898,454 people with no history of depression matched by age and sex.1 Those in the depressed group were approximately 3 times more likely than the general population to commit violent crimes, such as homicide, attempted homicide, aggravated assault, or robbery. This association was present even when previous histories of violence, self-harm, psychosis, and substance use were taken into consideration. Furthermore, the risk of violent crime significantly increased in individuals with more depressive symptoms. [Read the Full Article Here]
Why and How Does Ketamine Work When Other Antidepressants Don’t?
Ketamine the Next-Gen Treatment “There are key questions right now concerning both the scientific understanding of ketamine and the potential future use of ketamine or ketamine-like drugs for depression,” Dr Murrough told Medscape Medical News. One question is how ketamine triggers an antidepressant response within 1 day, whereas conventional antidepressants require 2 weeks or longer to take effect. “What is the biological basis of ketamine’s antidepressant mechanism of action?” he asked. It also remains a mystery why ketamine is successful in treating symptoms of depression in patients who have not responded to conventional treatments. “What can ketamine do in the brain that is relevant to the treatment of depression, that current antidepressant drugs do not do?” asked Dr Murrough. [Read the Full Article Here]
Doctors Say ‘Club Drug’ Ketamine Rescues Suicidal Patients
“Special K,” a psychedelic drug popular in dance clubs, is being used to treat severe depression when nothing else works. [Read the Original Article Here]
CBC: Ketamine for Depression Proposed by UK Doctors
Several research teams around the world have been trialing ketamine use in chronic and recurring depression Thomson Reuters Posted: Apr 06, 2017 5:04 PM ET Last Updated: Apr 06, 2017 5:15 PM ET The party drug ketamine can have powerful beneficial effects on severely depressed patients who have struggled for years to recover, and the drug should be developed responsibly as a psychiatric medicine, British experts said on Thursday. In a study published in the Lancet Psychiatry journal, specialists from Oxford University said there is an urgent need for ethical and innovative action by doctors to prescribe the drug under controlled conditions. “We think patients’ treatment should be in specialist centers and formally tracked in national or international registries,” said Rupert McShane, a consultant psychiatrist and researcher at Oxford who has led a series of ketamine studies. [Read the Full Article Here]
The Independent: Ketamine helps patients with severe depression ‘when nothing else works’, doctors say
One patient says drug slows down the ‘constant, overwhelming bombardment of negative intrusive thoughts surging through your brain’ Katie Forster Health Correspondent @katieforster Ketamine can provide relief to patients with severe depression “where nothing has helped before”, researchers calling for a new approach to the drug’s medical use have said. For six years, scientists from Oxford University have been using ketamine to treat more than 100 people with treatment-resistant depression. They said patients who received a series of carefully administered intravenous infusions of the drug, followed by oral top-ups, showed sustained improvement in around 40 per cent of cases – a significant result when other antidepressants have failed. “There are lots of people who are currently resistant to antidepressant drugs and psychotherapies,” consultant psychiatrist Rupert McShane told The Independent. “We’d like to see some more centers developing expertise [about ketamine] and starting to use it.” [Read the Full Article Here]
American Pharmacists Association: Ketamine for chronic pain on the rise
Ketamine, introduced in 1966 as an anesthetic, is increasingly showing up in private clinics nationwide as a treatment for chronic pain. While the drug is indeed a potent pain reliever, its effect is short-lived; and use may be accompanied by headache, nausea, and fatigue, among other adverse outcomes. There also is a risk of abuse given ketamine’s euphoric properties, which have earned it a reputation as a club drug. For these and other reasons, clinicians are apprehensive about pain centers administering off-label ketamine infusions for conditions ranging from fibromyalgia to migraines. The jury is still out, they say, on whether ketamine is a viable option for pain management. While some studies have reported a benefit, the quality of the evidence is low due to the small scale, limited generalization, and lack of effective blinding in these investigations. Moreover, research evaluating ketamine for chronic pain has focused on I.V. infusion, which inflates the cost of treatment and limits its use over the long term. The American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine is expected to issue guidelines on ketamine use for pain management within 6 months, but University of Pittsburgh anesthesia and psychiatry professor Ajay Wasan, MD, says clinicians will […]
New Depression Treatments offer Hope and Healing to Many
Over the past 15 years the treatment of Depression and related illnesses has undergone a myriad of changes. A milestone that had a significant impact was the effective use of Genomic testing that assisted in utilizing psychotropic medications in a systematic and scientific fashion. Here, the experience of the physicians was augmented by the genetic information about the patient and a better decision was reached in selecting the proper medication(s). This often resulted in a larger number of patients reaching greater degrees of emotional stability more rapidly and with fewer untoward effects. It has been noted that approximately 75% of patients can now reach a state of remission. The World Health Organization has stated that over 350 million people in the world suffer from Depression. In the United States in 2012, the NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health) reported 6.9% of the population (16 million) suffered from at least one major episode of Depression. If you factor in those suffering from the depressive aspects of PTSD, Chronic Pain, Bipolar Disorders and Post Partum Disorders, these numbers drastically increase. Early diagnosis and scientifically based treatment can facilitate successful treatment to reach or surpass the 75% referenced above. The remaining 25% are […]
Three-minutes of theta-burst therapy can help conquer depression
Jesse Tahirali, CTVNews.ca Published Sunday, January 25, 2015 10:10PM EST The grey clouds of depression are difficult to shake. Approximately eight per cent of Canadian adults will experience a major depression at some point in their lives, according to Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Medication often fails to temper the debilitating effects of the illness. Only one third of patients report improvement after their first round of treatment, and some fail to improve regardless of what they’re prescribed. Gail Bellissimo, a Mississauga mother of four, was one of those people who still suffer even after seeking help. “I tried just about every drug out there, antidepressant of all kinds,” Bellissimo said. “They just either didn’t work for me or the side effects were too much for me to take.” But after years of living through the lows, Bellissimo said it only took three minutes to pick her up out of her depression. She was driving home when her new treatment began to take effect. “It was so unnerving at first,” she said. “At first it was like, “Wow, is this what it feels like to be normal?’” Bellissimo participated in a four-week study for something called theta-burst stimulation, […]
FDA grants 510k clearance to MagVita TMS
The FDA recently granted 510k clearance to market MagVita TMS therapy, a repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation system, for treatment of depression. “The new FDA cleared MagVita TMS Therapy system is tailor-made for health care professionals seeking an entry-level TMS system without having to compromise on quality and safety,” Kerry Rome, BS, vice president of sales at MagVenture Inc, said in a press release. The MagVita TMS therapy system was first cleared by the FDA in 2015 for treatment of major depressive disorder. [Read the Full Press Release Here]
FDA Data Support Ketamine as Depression Therapy
Analysis of FAERS data finds less comorbid depression among pain patients on ketamine by Neel A. Duggal Contributing Writer, MedPage TodayMay 12, 2017 An analysis of data from the FDA Adverse Events Reporting System (FAERS) supported previous findings that ketamine could be an effective treatment for depression, researchers found. Given financial and ethical obstacles to a large randomized controlled trial of ketamine for depressive disorders, Ruben Abagyan, PhD, of the University of California San Diego, and colleagues decided to turn to AERS data on patients taking ketamine for pain, an FDA-approved use. They found that patients who took ketamine had significantly lower frequency of reports of depression than those taking any other drugs for pain, according to findings published in Scientific Reports. “This reduction in depression is specific to ketamine and is known to be much more rapid than current antidepressants, making this observed effect very promising for treatment of patients with acute depressive or suicidal episodes,” Abagyan and colleagues wrote. [Read the Full Article Here]
Shape Magazine: Could Ketamine Help Cure Depression?
Shape Magazine Recently Covered Ketamine as a Depression Treatment By Rachel Jacoby Zoldan | May 16, 2017 Depression is more common than you might think. It affects more than 15 million Americans, and the World Health Organization estimates that number grows to 300 million when you expand globally. There are a slew of different treatment options available to help alleviate its symptoms—think anxiety, insomnia, fatigue, and loss of appetite among others—with the most common treatment being serotonin reuptake inhibitors (or SSRIs). But since about 2000, doctors and researchers have been experimenting with ketamine—originally a pain management pharmaceutical, now abused as a street drug because of its hallucinogenic effects—as another potential way to treat the condition, according to Ruben Abagyan, Ph.D., a pharmacology professor at the University of California San Diego (UCSD). You’re probably thinking, “Wait! What?” If you’ve heard of ketamine, also known as Special K, you know it’s no joke or generic OTC drug. In fact, it’s known as a dissociative anesthetic (meaning a drug that distorts perception of sight and sound, while producing literal feelings of detachment from the self and the environment). It’s primarily used by veterinarians for treating pain in animals, but it can also be […]
Ketamine makes Time Magazine!
There’s More Proof That Ketamine Works for Depression For decades, scientists have searched for a new type of antidepressant, one that works differently from the 20-plus drugs already on the market. Finding a new option is crucial, since a third of people don’t respond to available depression treatments. They haven’t had much luck — except for the discovery that IV infusions of ketamine hydrochloride, an FDA-approved anesthetic, can cause rapid antidepressant effects in many people with stubborn depression. Figuring out exactly how ketamine has these effects has been a researcher’s dream, since ketamine is too problematic a drug to currently be considered a mainstream depression treatment. It’s illicitly used — and abused — as a psychedelic club drug and can cause hallucinations. Ketamine can also have negative side effects when used off-label to treat depression, including unexpected changes in heart functioning, cognition and respiration. Its antidepressant effects fade, so it typically has to be given over and over again, and it’s not yet clear how safe or effective it is when taken long-term. Developing a drug that works like ketamine, but without all the baggage, is the holy grail — but scientists haven’t known quite what to target. Now, in […]
Medical News Today: Study Answers why Ketamine Helps Depression, Offers Target for Safer Therapy
Scientists have identified a key protein that helps trigger ketamine’s rapid anti-depressant effects in the brain, a crucial initial step to developing alternative treatments to the controversial drug being dispensed in a growing number of depression clinics across the country. Ketamine is drawing intense interest in the psychiatric field after multiple studies have demonstrated it can quickly stabilize severely depressed patients. But ketamine – illicitly used for its psychedelic properties – could also impede memory and other brain functions, spurring scientists to identify new drugs that would safely replicate its anti-depressant response without the unwanted side effects. A new study from the Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute has jumpstarted this effort in earnest by answering a question vital to guiding future research: What proteins in the brain does ketamine target to achieve its effects? “Now that we have a target in place we can research the pathway and develop drugs that safely recreate the anti-depressant effect,” said Dr. Lisa Monteggia, Professor of Neuroscience at UT Southwestern Medical Center’s O’Donnell Brain Institute. The study published in Nature shows that ketamine blocks a protein responsible for a range of normal brain functions. The blocking of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor creates the initial […]
5July
PASWFL Featured on ‘Out and About Southwest Florida’
PASWFL’s New Treatments for Depression Showcased on ABC TV Show PASWFL was featured on Out and About Southwest Florida. We had a chance to film and take photos of our beautiful facility as well as discuss the different treatment options we’re proud to offer people in Southwest Florida and surrounding communities. Check out the video tour of our office below: And more images of our comfortable treatment rooms:
TMS in Reuters: California Doctors Hope to ‘rewire’ Depression with TMS
LOS ANGELES, July 11 — Doctors in California say magnetic stimulation can help ‘rewire’ the brains of people withdepression, offering hope for patients whose condition is not improved by medication or therapy. Depression is one of the most common forms of mental illness, affecting more than 350 million people worldwide. Bob Holmes is one of them. “I struggled with that for many years, didn’t know really what to do, tried to pull myself through it. And then ultimately when I got into my forties, I wasn’t successful.” Holmes has been receiving transcranial magnetic stimulation at the University of California Los Angeles, a treatment that beams targeted magnetic pulses deep inside his brain. Doctors say the therapy can effectively ‘rewire’ the brain by changing how brain circuits are arranged. Reuters Video: Doctors hope to ‘rewire’ depressed people’s brains: [Read the Full Article Here]
The Independent Features Ketamine
Ketamine has ‘truly remarkable’ effect on depression and is effective in elderly patients, scientists say. After six months, 43% of the subjects said they had no significant symptoms of depression. Katie Forster Health Correspondent @katieforster Wednesday 26 July 2017 08:38 BST Ketamine can have a “truly remarkable” effect on people with depression, researchers have said after a new study showed promising results among elderly patients. Colleen Loo, a professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia, led the world’s first randomised control trial into the drug’s effect on people over 60 with treatment-resistant depression. “This trial has shown ketamine can be used safely in the elderly and it tends to be effective,” she told The Independent, adding that a similar effect was observed in this age group as in younger patients. It is important to test how people of different ages respond to a new treatment before it can be offered by doctors, she said: “Sometimes depression in the elderly can be harder to treat, especially with medication. “Also, they tend to have more medical problems, which can interfere with medication.” Ketamine was discovered in 1962 and is licenced for medical use in the UK as an anaesthetic, but is also used […]
Time Magazine Gives Cover Story to Ketamine
New Hope for Depression Mandy Oaklander Jul 26, 2017 TIME Health For more, visit TIME Health. Every week, when Ian Hanley sits down with his therapist, he goes through a list of depression treatments he’s been researching online. The best-known treatments at the top of the list–half a dozen antidepressants and known combinations of those drugs–are all crossed out. “My therapist says he’s never had this much difficulty with somebody,” says Hanley, “which is sort of a dubious honor.” Hanley is only 21 years old, but he’s already six years into his search for something, anything, that can help him feel better for more than a few weeks at a time. “I’ve heard people describe it as sadness, and that’s not specific enough,” he says. Numbness is closer, but it’s not like depression inures you to suffering. “It’s like not quite being alive,” he says, “but still having to go through all the crappy parts of being alive.” When he was in the 10th grade, Hanley basically lost all desire to get out of bed in the morning. He started seeing a psychiatrist and a therapist–the same one he sees today–and went on Zoloft. “I wasn’t catatonic anymore,” he says. But […]
4August
Medscape: Depression in CAD Trumps All Other Risk Factors for Death
Patrice Wendling August 03, 2017 MURRAY, UT — Depression and coronary artery disease are known to walk hand in hand, but a new study suggests that depression any time after a diagnosis of CAD is the strongest predictor of death[1]. Among 24,137 patients identified with significant CAD, a new depression diagnosis was associated with a twofold higher risk of all-cause death after multivariable adjustment, the investigators reported in the European Heart Journal Quality of Care and Clinical Outcomes. “It was stronger than any follow-up events, stronger than diabetes, stronger than smoking, sex, prior diagnosis of high blood pressure or depression, and even whether they had a heart attack,” lead author Dr Heidi T May (Intermountain Heart Institute, Murray, UT) told theheart.org | Medscape Cardiology. “I thought it would be a significant predictor, but I didn’t anticipate it would be the strongest. “I would think most people would find that amazing.” She said the results emphasize the need for continual depression screening among all CAD patients, but an accompanying editorial[2] notes that recommendations by the American Heart Association (AHA) for routine screening in patients with heart disease have been met with some opposition, in large part because of a lack of studies showing a survival benefit with depression treatment. “Given the […]
Considerations on the Off-Label Use of Ketamine as a Treatment for Mood Disorders
Brain-altering Magnetic Pulses Could Zap Cocaine Addiction
By Meredith WadmanAug. 29, 2017 , 3:30 PM Luca Rossi tried to hang himself in a bedroom in Perugia, Italy, in 2012. Suspended by his belt from a wardrobe, he had begun to choke when his fiancée unexpectedly walked in. He struggled to safety, defeated even in this intended last act. The 35-year-old physician had everything to live for: a medical career, plans for a family, and supportive parents. But Rossi* was addicted to crack cocaine. He had begun his habit not long after medical school, confidently assuming that he could control the drug. Now, it owned him. Once ebullient and passionate, he no longer smiled or cried. He knew he might be endangering his patients, but even that didn’t matter. He was indifferent to all except obtaining his next fix. “It pushes you to suicide because it fills you with your own emptiness,” he says. In the first months after his near suicide, Rossi didn’t drop his $3500-a-month habit. Early in 2013, he learned that his fiancée was pregnant. Frightened by impending fatherhood, he smoked even more. He didn’t—couldn’t—stop. Then, in April 2013, Rossi’s father, a chemist, happened upon a local newspaper article describing work just published in Nature. […]
FDA and APA Recognition of the Positive Effects Associated with Ketamine Therapy for Severe Depression
Robert Pollack, MD Appointed to CTGRI
Dr. Robert Pollack, MD is excited to announce that he has just been appointed to the Clinical Research Faculty for the Clinical and Translational Genome Research Institute.
College Student Finds Relief Through Ketamine Infusions
William Storey remembers a childhood filled with hopelessness and loneliness instead of birthday parties and bike rides. “I was abnormal at an age in which abnormality is very unhealthy,” states William, now 23. The abrupt and dramatic cultural change caused by his family’s move from Maine to Georgia when he was eight complicated the challenges William already faced. Over the years, he’s been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, bipolar disorder, severe depression and Asperger’s syndrome, a higher – functioning form of autism. Generally, Asperger’s patients struggle to communicate with and relate to others. They may lack empathy and have difficulty reading other people’s moods and making friends. During his early years in private school, William felt isolated and misunderstood, especially by classmates, and by teachers who disciplined him for “being out of control.” He explains the mindset of those teachers this way: “I like to think of it as, This nail doesn’t seem to be fitting into this particular piece of wood quite the same way the rest of them do, so we should probably hit it more.” By the time he reached fourth grade, William wanted to die. “I hated my life,” he recalls. “I hated everything.” In […]
Texas Standard: Ketamine, the Future of PTSD Treatment
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has a reputation for being difficult to treat, especially in active duty military and veteran populations. That may soon change, according to research findings shared Wednesday at the 2017 San Antonio Combat PTSD Conference. There are two medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat PTSD: Zoloft and Paxil. Both are part of a class of antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. They’re only modestly effective and take about 10 weeks to set in. Outcomes have been poor in military and vet populations, particularly in people with chronic, multi-trauma PTSD. A new kind of treatment is gaining traction. It’s ketamine, a medication mainly used to start and maintain anesthesia. On Wednesday a group of leading researchers gathered at the San Antonio Combat PTSD Conference, presented by STRONG STAR and the Consortium to Alleviate PTSD, two programs of UT Health San Antonio. Dr. John Krystal, Chair of the Psychiatry Department at Yale University, studies ketamine’s effects on the brain. In his keynote address, Krystal said that ketamine works fast to relieve symptoms of depression in trials, with some patients showing a complete turnaround after just one intravenous dose. “This idea of people with chronic, treatment resistant depression–multiple treatments: psychotherapies, […]
Could treating depression worsen symptoms in the long run?
Published Thursday 26 October 2017 By Tim Newman Fact checked by Jasmin Collier According to a recent study, although treating major depressive disorder has benefits in the short-term, over a longer period of time, it may make the condition worse. Major depressive disorder is a serious, debilitating mental illness. In the United States, it affects more than 16.1 million people over the age of 18. Although its prevalence is high, it is still a difficult condition to treat. Treatments include medications such as selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors and talking therapies, such as cognitive therapy. No case of depression is the same, and often, individuals receive a range of treatments across their lifetime. How well the treatment of depression works has come under scrutiny over recent years, and the debate is by no means over. The latest study, published in the journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, adds another dimension to this ongoing conversation. Clinical Treatment Compared with Community Individuals with major depressive disorder who receive medication or cognitive therapy often see a reduction in their depressive symptoms and experience significantly longer times before relapse. But over the longer-term, the picture is less clear. This is primarily because studies generally only run for […]
TMS in 19 Minutes – New FDA Clearance for MagVenture!
The standard FDA cleared protocol can now be done in half the time, which means half the cost to you! Read the official MagVenture press release below:
A Veteran’s Story: How Genetic Testing Helped with PTSD Treatment
John Foster, like many who have served our country, has dealt with the lasting effects of war, especially post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The 38-year-old says a genetic test, ordered by his doctor, helped guide his treatment plan and allowed him to get better, faster. The Orlando, Florida, resident was a combat medic and served two tours of duty in Iraq. He says the first tour, in 2004 and 2005, left him with no problems…or so he thought. It was during the second tour, in 2006 and 2007, when his issues developed. This is when the Army extended tours as a part of the troop surge. During John’s deployment, 11 members of his unit were killed in the deadliest year of the war on terror. Foster’s PTSD has required both inpatient and outpatient treatment. Through the years, he’s dealt with the frustration of discovering that many psychiatric drugs don’t work for him: at one point taking as many as 13 different medications a day. “My doctor, Dr. Robert Pollack, was able to adjust my meds and recommend supplements to more effectively help me deal with the situation…the Genecept Assay® was key for me to help unlock the personal information that I needed […]
New Multiple uses Available for Old Medicine Ketamine
RENO, Nev (KOLO) The clear plastic IV bag contains saline and a small amount of Ketamine. Two times a week, Samantha Cobb is hooked up to the medicine for about 40 minutes. A chronic pain patient with depression, she says within hours she feels like a million bucks. “For the past four years I haven’t been able to walk without a brace or a crutch. Some days I couldn’t get out of bed, the pain was so bad. But these last couple of weeks, it’s been, I don’t even have the words to describe it. I mean, it has literally been a miracle,” says Samantha. Samantha says she had heard about Ketamine treatments and did her research. But until about three months ago, there was no such clinic locally to help her. That all changed with Sierra Ketamine Clinic. “Many of our patients are at wit’s end. They have given up on life in many regards. To see many people do a 180, really, and pick up the pieces of their life and move forward, with a smile on their face, is pretty impressive,” says Dr. Bret Frye with Sierra Ketamine Clinic. Dr. Frye says typically Ketamine has been used as […]
Inside the ‘Mad Rush’ for Ketamine Treatment
Publish date: December 8, 2017 By Randy Dotinga Clinical Psychiatry News Ketamine, once best known as a pet anesthetic and party drug, is taking the United States by storm. Dozens of ketamine treatment centers are operating from coast to coast.Big cities like Baltimore, Boston, and Phoenix have them. So do Charleston, S.C., and Boise, Idaho. Two such clinics are in sparsely populated New Mexico. And one national chain went from a pair of clinics to 10 in fewer than 2 years. Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman “There’s been a mad rush on the part of desperate patients to seek care,” said ketamine researcher Jeffrey A. Lieberman, MD, chair of the psychiatry department at Columbia University, New York; director of the New York State Psychiatric Institute; and a past president of the American Psychiatric Association. Never mind that these expensive treatments for conditions like depression are not covered by insurers or approved for this use by the Food and Drug Administration. Other questions also persist. “There is a considerable body of evidence that proves it really does work,” Dr. Lieberman said. “But we don’t know the extent of the range of conditions for which it might be effective, what the optimal frequency and concentration for dosing is, […]
More evidence links high-potency marijuana use to first-episode psychosis
Publish date: December 14, 2017 By Randy Dotinga Clinical Psychiatry News SAN DIEGO – High-potency marijuana use appears to be associated with an increased risk of a first psychotic episode, based on a case-control study conducted in Europe. “Daily users of a strong type of cannabis face a significant increase in the probability of developing a psychotic disorder,” reported Marta Di Forti, MD, PhD, MRC, lead author of a study whose preliminary results were presented at the International Congress on Schizophrenia Research. Dr. Di Forti spawned a media boomlet in 2015 when she and her colleagues raised the prospect of a possible association between so-called “skunk” marijuana and first psychotic episodes. In their study of subjects in London with first-time psychotic episodes and matched population controls, those who had psychotic episodes were three times (adjusted odds ratio: 2.92; 95% confidence interval, 1.52-3.45; P = .001) as likely as controls to have used “skunk” marijuana (Lancet Psychiatry. 2015 Mar;2[3]:233-8). In the new study, Dr. Di Forti and her colleagues analyzed 1,200 first-incident cases of psychosis that were captured between the years 2010 and 2013 by the European Network of National Schizophrenia Networks Studying Gene-Environment Interactions project (EU-GEI). The researchers compared the cases to 1,300 population-based controls in […]
Sources of Parent-Offspring Resemblance for Major Depression
Question: How do effects of genetics and rearing each contribute to the transmission of risk for major depression from parents to children? Findings: In this population register–based study of 2 269 552 offspring of intact, adoptive, not-lived-with father, stepfather, and triparental families from the general Swedish population, the effects of genes and rearing were approximately equal for parent-offspring resemblance for major depression. Genetic and rearing effects acted additively on offspring risk for major depression. Meaning: Genetic and rearing effects are important in the cross-generational transmission of major depression. Importance Twin studies have assessed sibling resemblance for major depression (MD) but cannot address sources of resemblance across generations. Objective To clarify the relative importance of genetic and rearing effects on the parent-offspring resemblance for MD. Design This Swedish population register–based study examined parents and children from the following 5 family types: intact (2 041 816 offspring), adoptive (14 104 offspring), not-lived-with (NLW) father (116 601 offspring), stepfather (67 826 offspring), and triparental (29 205 offspring). The 5 family types permitted quantification of parent-offspring resemblance for genes plus rearing, genes-only, and rearing-only associations. Treated MD was assessed from national primary care, specialist care, and inpatient registries. Data were collected from January 1, 1960, through […]
Tolerability and Safety of Theta-Burst TMS in Patients with Major Depression
Abstract The aim of this open study was to evaluate the safety and tolerability of theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (TBS) and to assess preliminarily its therapeutic efficacy in patients with major depression. A total of 33 patients were assigned to receive one of four TBS protocols for 10 consecutive work days. TBS consisted of triple-pulse 50-Hz bursts given at a rate of 5 Hz to the left or right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex at different stimulation parameters. Severity of depression was assessed by the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale. Our results indicate that TBS as applied in this study is safe and well tolerated in depressed patients and seems to have antidepressant properties. Increase of stimulation parameters is not associated with more side-effects and adds to its therapeutic effect. Introduction In the last two decades, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) has been studied as a therapeutic tool in several neuropsychiatric disorders, primarily for the treatment of major depression (MD) where it has shown a consistent and reproducible therapeutic effect (Feinsod et al.1998; George et al.1997, 1999; Pascual-Leone et al.1996). Previous studies have demonstrated that left high-frequency (⩾5 Hz) (George et al.2000) and right low-frequency (⩽1 Hz) (Klein et al.1999) rTMS to the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is effective in […]
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation vs. Traditional Pharmacotherapy for Major Depressive Disorder
Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is a novel, non-invasive method of activating neural signals through the use of strong, time-varying electromagnetic fields. rTMS is primarily used for patients with treatment-resistant depression. As its reputation has grown, so has its demand. But in the world of health economics and Return on Investment (ROI) ratios, is rTMS a viable option for the millions of people suffering from depression? To date, no such analysis has examined the cost-effectiveness of rTMS as a first line or at least an earlier treatment option over a patient’s lifetime. To investigate this question, Voight and Leuchter (2017) used Markov simulation modeling to analyze direct costs and quality adjusted life years (QALYs) of rTMS versus medication therapy in patients with newly diagnosed Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) who were age 20-59 and had not improved after a single pharmacotherapy trial. Response and remission rates, quality of life outcomes and life expectancy were culled from the scientific literature. The baseline for treatment costs was derived from federal Medicare reimbursement data. Additional baseline data included QALYs, assessment of superiority, analysis of instrument sensitivity, and lastly, a discount rate of 3% was applied. The results of this complicated health/economic analysis revealed the […]
5February
New therapies like TBS bring better results.
Melissa Banks says she struggled with depression “on and off, but mostly on” since the age of ten. She traces the cause to early life experiences, and while she doesn’t have a personal recollection of the details, her mother has helped fill the gaps in her memory.“My twin brothers were born when I was not quite two,” Melissa shares. “My life until that point had been great. I was part of a young family, was the first daughter and everything was wonderful. Then, when my brothers were born, my mom suffered from postpartum depression. She now had three kids under two. One had food allergies, which they didn’t know anything about in 1974. “My physical needs got met, but attention and affection were pretty much withdrawn at that age,” Melissa continues. “And then my parents split up when I was nine and divorced when I was ten.” Melissa’s mother was busy with a full-time job 30 miles from home, and then with her pursuit of a Master’s degree at a college 120 miles away. Melissa took care of her brothers and kept house. “I was a stay-at-home mom when I got home from school,” she remarks. “I never really felt […]
Scientific American: How Ketamine Relieves Depression
Getting the Inside Dope on Ketamine’s Mysterious Ability to Rapidly Relieve Depression The notorious party drug may act as an antidepressant by blocking neural bursts in a little-understood brain region that may drive depression By Simon Makin on March 2, 2018 Ketamine has been called the biggest thing to happen to psychiatry in 50 years, due to its uniquely rapid and sustained antidepressant effects. It improves symptoms in as little as 30 minutes, compared with weeks or even months for existing antidepressants, and is effective even for the roughly one third of patients with so-called treatment-resistant depression Although there are multiple theories, researchers do not quite know how ketamine combats depression. Now, new research has uncovered a mechanism that may, in part, explain ketamine’s antidepressant properties. Two studies, recently published in Nature, describe a distinctive pattern of neural activity that may drive depression in a region called the lateral habenula (LHb); Ketamine, in turn, blocks this activity in depression-prone rats. Originally licensed as an anesthetic in 1970, ketamine has since gained fame as a party drug for causing out-of-body experiences, hallucinations and other psychosislike effects. Its antidepressant properties in humans were discovered almost 20 years ago. Ketamine does not directly influence the same chemical messengers as standard antidepressants such […]
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation for Migraine Prevention in Adolescents: A Pilot Open-Label Study
An interesting and unusual approach to migraines in a difficult population: Credits: Samantha L. Irwin MSc, MB BCH BAO, FRCPC, William Qubty MD, I. Elaine Allen PhD, Irene Patniyot MD, Peter J. Goadsby MD, PhD, Amy A. Gelfand MAS, MD First published: 12 March 2018 [Buy the Full Research Article HERE] Abstract Objective To assess the feasibility, tolerability, and patient acceptability of single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (sTMS) for migraine prevention in adolescents in an open-label pilot study. Background Migraine is common in adolescents and can be disabling. Well tolerated preventative therapies that are safe and effective are needed. Methods This was an open-label prospective pilot feasibility study of sTMS for migraine prevention in adolescents aged 12-17 years. Participants used sTMS twice daily in a preventative fashion, as well as additional pulses as needed acutely. A 4-week baseline run-in period (weeks 1-4) was followed by a 12-week treatment period. Feasibility was the primary outcome. Secondary outcomes included tolerability and acceptability, as well as the change in headache days, number of moderate/severe headache days, days of acute medication use, and PedMIDAS (headache disability) scores between the run-in period (weeks 1-4) and the third month of treatment (weeks 13-16). Results Twenty-one participants enrolled. Nineteen completed […]
Music as Medicine: Ancient Wisdom, Modern Science
Healing Then and Now With Music Therapeutic uses of music date back to antiquity. Healing shrines in Ancient Greece housed both hymn specialists and physicians.[2] Native American tribes chanted, danced, and played drums to heal illness. And early Christian priests used hymns to ease pain in the sick. Today, scientific studies confirm what the ancients seemed to know inherently: that music can be medicinal.[3] The Ancient Greeks: Musical Wisdom Hippocrates advocated a “healthy mind in a healthy body,” which included mental health care and art therapy. Music and drama were used to treat illness and improve behavior in his time. The notion was that healing the soul through music would also heal the body, with specific applications. The sounds of the flute and harp, for instance, were a treatment for gout.[5] What Is Music Therapy? A Contemporary Definition Today, music therapy aims to influence both emotion and physiology. Music therapy is an established allied healthcare profession that entails a therapeutic relationship between a patient and a board-certified music therapist. Treatment techniques are designed to achieve functional changes in mood, brain, and behavior.[6] Imaging Studies: The Brain Dances to Music Music modifies brainwaves, a phenomenon that can be seen through functional […]
Depression researchers stop ketamine nasal spray trial because of psychotic-like effects
“Depression researchers at Black Dog Institute and University of NSW had to abort a “promising” pilot trial into the efficacy of ketamine nasal sprays after patients experienced psychotic-like effects and temporary loss of fine motor skills. The researchers were hopeful the trial would work as an earlier study in the US had shown ketamine – an anaesthetic drug shown to have rapid antidepressant effects – could be safely delivered using a nasal spray. But in a paper published in the latest Journal of Psychopharmacology, the research team, led by Professor Colleen Loo, said they had to stop the trial at five participants with severe depression (they were aiming for 10) because of unexpected side effects – their blood pressure shot up, they became uncoordinated and they suffered “unpleasant” psychotic-like effects.” The quote above is an exerpt from an article in the Sydney Morning Herald. To read the full article please click HERE. To read the original study in the Journal of Psychopharmacology that the Sydney morning herald is discussing, please click HERE.
A New Study on Theta Burst Stimulation Out of Canada
Three-minute magnetic brain stimulation treatments can reduce depression symptoms: study A three-minute treatment involving magnetic stimulation of the brain works just as well as the standard form of such therapy for people with hard-to-treat depression, a new study has found. The success of the intermittent theta-burst stimulation (iTBS) therapy could greatly increase the number of patients treated, according to one Canadian psychiatrist who provides the treatment at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). “A significant number of people can stand to benefit from this treatment that is an alternative to medications and works when medications have not worked,” Dr. Daniel Blumberger, the co-director of CAMH’s Temerty Centre for Therapeutic Brain Intervention, told CTV News. Theta-burst stimulation is a more powerful type of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), a proven form of treatment for illnesses like depression. A study co-authored by Dr. Blumberger and published in The Lancet found that theta-burst stimulation can reduce symptoms of severe depression just as well as the standard rTMS treatment. In the study of about 400 patients from Ontario and British Columbia with treatment-resistant depression, 49 per cent experienced a reduction in symptoms after receiving the three-minute therapy delivered daily over four to six weeks. […]
Ketamine: A depression drug that researchers have called ‘the most important discovery in half a century’ just got a big lift
Ketamine, which has been called “the most important discovery in half a century,” just got a step closer to becoming the first new depression drug in 35 years. Johnson & Johnson, one of the pharmaceutical companies pursuing the drug’s fast-acting antidepressant qualities, presented some promising new research on Saturday that could raise the drug’s profile as a potential treatment for the condition. It’s a dramatic departure for a compound that most people know either as a surgical anesthetic or a party drug. And it’s a seemingly welcome one, according to physicians and psychiatrists who say they’ve grown tired of giving patients the same mediocre drugs for the past four decades. Johnson & Johnson isn’t the only drugmaker that’s hot on the ketamine trail. Allergan is in the last phase of clinical trials with a drug that acts on the same receptor as ketamine, and San Francisco drugmaker VistaGen is studying a similar ketamine-inspired drug. J&J’s version of ketamine is a nasal spray made with a compound called esketamine, the chemical mirror image of ketamine. In its latest clinical trial, the company’s neuroscience partner, Janssen Research, wanted to show that the spray was safe, well tolerated, and superior to both a placebo and a traditional antidepressant. To do it, the researchers had […]
Intranasal Esketamine Succeeds in Depression Trial
4-point cut in MADRS scores versus placebo after 4 weeks by Kristen Monaco, Staff Writer, MedPage TodayMay 09, 2018 NEW YORK CITY — Intranasal esketamine paired with an oral antidepressant improved symptoms of treatment-resistant depression, researchers reported here. When compared to intranasal placebo plus an antidepressant, two phase III studies found twice-weekly flexibly-dosed intranasal esketamine added to a newly initiated antidepressant showed some benefit for depressive symptoms among adult and elderly populations, respectively, who had previously failed at least two prior treatments. Presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, both analyses were led by Larry Alphs, MD, PhD, of Johnson & Johnson, and colleagues. “Esketamine is thought to affect the glutamate system in the brain and is part of a class of investigational medicines known as glutamate receptor modulators,” explained co-author David Hough, compound development lead for esketamine at Janssen Research & Development, to MedPage Today. Esketamine is a chirally pure enantiomer of the anesthetic agent ketamine, which has shown promise for rapid relief of severe depression in previous studies. However, ketamine is available only as an IV drug. Janssen focused on esketamine “because it could be formulated as an intranasal medicine, thus potentially allowing appropriate patients in need to have access to […]
Effectiveness of theta burst versus high-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation in patients with depression (THREE-D): a randomised non-inferiority trial
Background Treatment-resistant major depressive disorder is common; repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) by use of high-frequency (10 Hz) left-side dorsolateral prefrontal cortex stimulation is an evidence-based treatment for this disorder. Intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS) is a newer form of rTMS that can be delivered in 3 min, versus 37·5 min for a standard 10 Hz treatment session. We aimed to establish the clinical effectiveness, safety, and tolerability of iTBS compared with standard 10 Hz rTMS in adults with treatment-resistant depression. Methods In this randomised, multicentre, non-inferiority clinical trial, we recruited patients who were referred to specialty neurostimulation centres based at three Canadian university hospitals (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and Toronto Western Hospital, Toronto, ON, and University of British Columbia Hospital, Vancouver, BC). Participants were aged 18–65 years, were diagnosed with a current treatment-resistant major depressive episode or could not tolerate at least two antidepressants in the current episode, were receiving stable antidepressant medication doses for at least 4 weeks before baseline, and had an HRSD-17 score of at least 18. Participants were randomly allocated (1:1) to treatment groups (10 Hz rTMS or iTBS) by use of a random permuted block method, with stratification by site and number […]
Robert Pollack MD Named ‘Top Doctor’ by Gulfshore Health Source Magazine
Treating Depression: The Future is Now Read the full magazine online for free HERE.
8June
Suicide Rates Increasing Across US, CDC Report Finds
The CBS Evening News (6/7, story 3, 3:05, Glor) reported, “The CDC put out an alarming report today on suicide. Nearly 45,000 Americans took their lives in 2016. That is more than car accidents or opioid overdoses.” On ABC World News Tonight (6/7, story 7, 1:40, Muir), ABC News correspondent Gio Benitez said that “the CDC is reporting that suicide rates have increased by 25 percent over two decades.” NBC Nightly News (6/7, story 9, 0:30, Holt) reported that the CDC’s report “shows a dramatic rise in suicide rise in half the states across the US more than 30 percent from 1999 to 2016.” The New York Times (6/7, Carey, Subscription Publication) reports suicide rates increased in all states but Nevada between 1999 and 2016, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report “found that slightly more than half of people who had” died by suicide “did not have any known mental health condition.” The Washington Post (6/7, Nutt) reports that Anne Schuchat, MD, the CDC’s principal deputy director, said, “The data are disturbing. The widespread nature of the increase, in every state but one, really suggests that this is a national problem hitting most communities.” Joshua Gordon, MD, PhD, the director of the National […]
The Benefits of TMS & TBS with MagVita
TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) is an FDA-cleared, non-invasive, non-drug therapy for patients with Major Depressive Disorders. In our practice we use a highly advanced MagVita TMS therapy system that possesses unique attributes relative to other available products. The market for TMS-based therapy has been growing, and the medical devices and accessories that are used to administer the therapy are being adapted and improved to provide greater patient comfort and more accurate and effective treatments. As noted in University of Florida research, TMS machines using arm attachments and coils that separate weight-bearing and positioning functions allows providers to administer therapy to patients in a variety of positions, with an attendant improvement in patient comfort and treatment accuracy. MagVita TMS therapy equipment uses flexible arms with four degrees of freedom, along with patient-focused designs for the chair and vacuum pillow. Choosing the Right TMS Equipment is Vital For providers, the selection of equipment is paramount. In our practice we use a MagVita therapy system, manufactured in Europe by a company dedicated to extremely high quality standards and integrating leading technology into its product offerings. MagVita machines and accessories provide a comparative market advantage in three key areas: Treatment chairs that adapt to […]
PASWFL is Now a Member of the American Society of Ketamine Physicians
What is ASKP? The American Society of Ketamine Physicians is a group of professionals dedicated to the safe clinical use of ketamine for mental health disorders and pain conditions. The mission of the American Society of Ketamine Physicians to advocate for the safe and effective use of ketamine in the treatment of mental illness and pain disorder to promote high scientific, ethical, and professional standards among physicians providing ketamine therapy for mental illness and pain disorders to maximize quality of care by furthering knowledge, collaboration, and the exchange of ideas and research in the use of ketamine and other psychotropic medications for the treatment of mental illness and pain disorders. to expand access to ketamine therapy nationwide Basics of Administration All of the providers in our group ascribe to the same basic tenets of safety when administering Ketamine for Non-Anesthetic Indications (KNAI). 1. Patients should be screened for and have been found to have a condition that is appropriate for ketamine treatment – Unipolar Major Depression, Bipolar Depression, PTSD, OCD, Fibromyalgia, CRPS and chronic pain. 2. A full history and physical including psychiatric disorders and substance abuse disorders should be completed in the patient’s chart. 3. The patient’s medications and […]
Magnetic Brain Stimulation Flops in VA Trial: Both sham and active rTMS produce high remission rates; unclear why
by Elizabeth Hlavinka, MedPage Today InternJune 27, 2018 About 40% of patients with treatment-resistant major depression achieved remission in a randomized trial of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) — but the rate was virtually the same with sham treatment versus active stimulation, researchers said. Among 81 patients in Veterans Affairs medical centers assigned to active rTMS, 33 (40.7%) achieved remission at the end of treatment, compared with 31 of 83 (37.4%) receiving sham treatment, reported Jerome Yesavage, MD, of Stanford University School of Medicine, and colleagues in JAMA Psychiatry. After a 24-week follow-up phase, 16 out of the 81 receiving active treatment (19.8%) remained in remission while 13 (15.7%) of the sham did. “On the surface it’s puzzling why the active would not be better than the sham and why both groups showed such a high resistance rate,” Charles Nemeroff, MD, PhD, of the University of Miami, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study, told MedPage Today. Most other rTMS studies have shown benefit, though not always large, relative to control. “When patients are enrolled in clinical trials and they get a great deal of attention from healthcare providers,” Nemeroff said, “there’s a therapeutic effect that I think would explain to some extent the […]
Prevalence of Prescription Medications With Depression as a Potential Adverse Effect Among Adults in the United States
June 12, 2018 Key Points Question How frequently do US adults use prescription medications with depression as a potential adverse effect and is use of these medications associated with concurrent depression? Findings In this cross-sectional US population-based survey study conducted between 2005 and 2014, the estimated overall prevalence of US adults using medications with depression as a potential adverse effect was 37.2%. The adjusted percentage of adults with concurrent depression was higher among those using more concurrent medications (eg, estimated 15% for ≥3 medications). Meaning Use of prescription medications that have depression as a potential adverse effect was common and associated with greater likelihood of concurrent depression. Abstract Importance Prescription medications are increasingly used among adults in the United States and many have a potential for causing depression. Objectives To characterize use of prescription medications with depression as a potential adverse effect and to assess associations between their use and concurrent depression. Design, Setting, and Participants Five 2-year cycles (2005-2006 through 2013-2014) of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, representative cross-sectional surveys of US adults aged 18 years or older, were analyzed for use of medications with depression as a potential adverse effect. Multivariable logistic regression examined associations between use of these medications and concurrent depression. Analyses […]
Acetyl-l-carnitine deficiency in patients with major depressive disorder
Significance Identifying biological targets in major depressive disorder (MDD) is a critical step for development of effective mechanism-based medications. The epigenetic agent acetyl-L-carnitine (LAC) has rapid and enduring antidepressant-like effects in LAC-deficient rodents. Here, we found that LAC levels were decreased in patients with MDD versus age- and sex-matched healthy controls in two independent study centers. In subsequent exploratory analyses, the degree of LAC deficiency reflected both the severity and age of onset of MDD. Furthermore, the lowest LAC levels were found in patients with treatment-resistant depression, whereby history of emotional neglect and being female predicted decreased LAC levels. These translational findings suggest that LAC may serve as a candidate biomarker to help the diagnosis of a clinical endophenotype of MDD. Abstract The lack of biomarkers to identify target populations greatly limits the promise of precision medicine for major depressive disorder (MDD), a primary cause of ill health and disability. The endogenously produced molecule acetyl-L-carnitine (LAC) is critical for hippocampal function and several behavioral domains. In rodents with depressive-like traits, LAC levels are markedly decreased and signal abnormal hippocampal glutamatergic function and dendritic plasticity. LAC supplementation induces rapid and lasting antidepressant-like effects via epigenetic mechanisms of histone acetylation. This mechanistic […]
Ketamine offers lifeline for people with severe depression, suicidal thoughts
Mount Horeb, Wisconsin (CNN) By Ben Tinker and Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN Updated 8:36 AM ET, Sat August 4, 2018 A few months ago, Alan Ferguson decided he was ready to die — for the third time. In 2014, he attempted suicide twice, and the persistent thoughts of “I need to be dead” were echoing in his brain once again. Now 54 years old, Ferguson was diagnosed with clinical depression when he was 18. Since then, he estimates, he’s been prescribed more than a dozen medications — SSRIs, SNRIs, tricyclic antidepressants — all to little or no avail.” I never got to the point that I thought, ‘OK, I’m feeling good,’ ” he said. “It was always, ‘OK, this is tolerable.’ But yet those thoughts [of wanting to die] were still there.” In early May, Ferguson abruptly stopped taking all of his medications, quit his job and gave away his dog, Zeke. That evening, he called his sister, Linda.”It was a very good conversation,” he said. “Linda and I disagree on a lot of stuff, and that night I avoided the hot-button topics because I did not want her to have bad memories or bad thoughts of what I thought was going to […]
U.S. Food & Drug Administration Letter Regarding Mag Vita TMS Therapy System w/Theta Burst Stimulation
This Letter Shows that TBS is FDA Approved Tonica Elektronik A/S Sanne Jessen Medical Advisor Lucernemarken 15 Farum, 3520 Dk Re: K173620 Trade/Device Name: Mag Vita TMS Therapy System w/Theta Burst Stimulation Regulation Number: 21 CFR 882.5805 Regulation Name: Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation System Regulatory Class: Class II Product Code: OBP Dated: July 10, 2018 Received: July 13, 2018 Dear Sanne Jessen: We have reviewed your Section 510(k) premarket notification of intent to market the device referenced above and have determined the device is substantially equivalent (for the indications for use stated in the enclosure) to legally marketed predicate devices marketed in interstate commerce prior to May 28, 1976, the enactment date of the Medical Device Amendments, or to devices that have been reclassified in accordance with the provisions of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (Act) that do not require approval of a premarket approval application (PMA). You may, therefore, market the device, subject to the general controls provisions of the Act. Although this letter refers to your product as a device, please be aware that some cleared products may instead be combination products. The 510(k) Premarket Notification Database located at https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfpmn/pmn.cfm identifies combination product submissions. The general […]
FDA Clears 3-Minute Brain Stimulation Protocol for Depression
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a newer and faster treatment protocol for the MagVita repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) therapy system from MagVenture, the company has announced. The FDA first cleared the MagVitaTMS therapy system in 2015 for treatment of adults with drug-resistant major depressive disorder, as reported by Medscape Medical News. Until now, each treatment session has lasted up to 37 minutes, with 20 to 30 sessions needed in total. With the new treatment protocol, which uses intermittent theta-burst stimulation (iTBS), a treatment session lasts only 3 minutes, the company said in a news release. The newly approved iTBS protocol is based on results of a multicenter, noninferiority clinical trial involving 414 adults with treatment-resistant major depression who were randomly allocated to receive standard rTMS or iTBS. The iTBS protocol was shown to be noninferior to rTMS, according to a report published in the Lancet earlier this year. For both treatments, the number of dropouts was low, and side-effect, safety, and tolerability profiles were similar. With iTBS, the number of patients treated per day with current rTMS devices can be increased several times without compromising clinical effectiveness, the authors concluded. “We have named it ‘Express TMS’ because that’s what it is: a treatment which is […]
Another FDA clearance for MagVenture: 3 minute depression treatment
August 2018: MagVenture’s Theta Burst solution is now FDA cleared. For people suffering from severe depression, the road to remission just became a lot shorter: The treatment is known as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), and MagVenture has now, as the only company in the US, received FDA clearance for a newer and much faster treatment protocol which will cut down treatment time to just 3 minutes per session*. Before that, the required treatment time per session was up to 37 minutes. TMS has been FDA cleared for treatment-resistant major depressive disorder since 2008. Since then, over 1,000 psychiatric clinics have emerged in the US. Most private health insurance companies also cover the treatment. The relatively long treatment sessions have, however, not only limited the treatment capacity for TMS practices but also hindered a more widespread dissemination. Until now, each session has been up to 37 minutes long, with 20-30 sessions needed in total. The new treatment form, which is known as Theta Burst Stimulation (TBS), offers one significant advantage: Time. A TBS treatment session lasts only 3 minutes and thus has the potential to revolutionize the clinical field of TMS. “We have named it “Express TMS®” because that’s what it […]
The Glutamate Hypothesis in Synaptic Connectivity
Glutamate neurotransmission is an active area of research in major depressive disorder (MDD).1 Much of this interest revolves around glutamate’s role in regulating synaptic connectivity, one of several pathways that may strengthen and initiate the formation of new synaptic connections.1 As research advances, a deeper understanding of MDD is within reach. Watch our video featuring Dr Samuel Wilkinson, Assistant Director at the Yale Depression Research Program, discussing the hypothesized roles of synaptic connections and glutamate signaling in MDD. Discovered as a neurotransmitter after serotonin and other monoamines, glutamate neurotransmission is an active area of research in MDD.1 Much of this interest revolves around glutamate’s role in regulating synaptic connectivity, one of several pathways that may strengthen and initiate the formation of new synaptic connections.1 HOW GLUTAMATE SIGNALING WORKS As part of a complex balancing act, glutamate signaling is tightly controlled by either inhibitory or excitatory proteins2 Once a burst of glutamate is released, the signal activates post-synaptic receptors3 These receptors then trigger downstream pathways that influence dendritic spine density, synaptic formation, and synaptic connectivity4 Glutamate signaling is one of several pathways that are being studied in MDD5 BDNF: Brain-derived neurotrophic factor Ca2+: Calcium ions TrkB: Tropomyosin-related kinase B Dendritic spines: Principal sites of synapses in […]
MDD and the Role of Neuroplasticity
Impaired Synaptic Connections Research increasingly links impaired synaptic connections with MDD.1 Synaptic connections are constantly remodeled, created, and lost as a result of new experiences, emotions, learning, and memory.1 However, this synaptic plasticity may be impaired in patients with MDD.2 In a study published in Nature Medicine, researchers found a significantly lower number of synapses in key regions of post-mortem brains from patients who suffered from MDD compared to healthy subjects3 Preclinical studies show that chronic stress not only causes dendritic spines to atrophy and contract, but also reduces the number of synapses2,4 The impairment appears to be centered in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, which are areas of the brain involved in regulating mood and information processing5 Other brain regions that are affected include the amygdala, nucleus accumbens, and orbitofrontal cortex4 Structural and Functional Brain Changes are Associated with MDD The findings on synaptic impairment add to the evidence that MDD is associated with structural and functional abnormalities in the brain, as previously seen by neuroimaging studies. Again, the most consistent alterations are observed in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, where reduced gray matter volume is associated with more severe depression. Impaired synaptic plasticity within these and other brain regions may reduce the number […]
A Deeper Understanding of Major Depressive Disorder is Within Reach
WHY AREN’T SOME PATIENTS WITH MDD REACHING REMISSION? For more than 50 years, major depressive disorder (MDD) pharmacological treatment approaches have focused on increasing the level of monoamine neurotransmitters in the brain, with the hope of reducing symptoms.1 And while conventional antidepressants have helped most, the STAR*D trial* found that one-third of patients didn’t achieve remission after multiple treatment attempts.2 What’s missing? BEYOND NEUROTRANSMITTERS: SYNAPTIC CONNECTIONS One emerging theory suggests that MDD may be linked to impaired synaptic connections in areas of the brain that regulate mood.3,4 The hypothesis points to an intriguing possibility: If synaptic connections are disrupted in MDD, can this synaptic impairment be improved?5 SYNAPTIC CONNECTIVITY: THE GLUTAMATE HYPOTHESIS Scientists are honing in on the role of glutamate, a major excitatory neurotransmitter that helps regulate synaptic connectivity.6 A burst of glutamate may initiate pathways that are believed to be involved in the strengthening and formation of new synaptic connections.5 As research advances, a deeper understanding of MDD is within reach. Watch THIS video or visit Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. to learn more.
Brexanolone Infusion Rapidly Relieves Postpartum Depression
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – A 60-hour infusion of brexanolone significantly improves symptoms in women with postpartum depression, according to results from two phase 3 trials. The results “confirm and extend the previous work showing that brexanolone has a rapid onset of action that is unlike anything else currently available,” said Dr. Samantha Meltzer-Brody from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. “Further, the robust treatment response to a single 60-hour infusion was maintained through the 30 days of follow-up in this clinical trial,” she told Reuters Health by email. Brexanolone is a proprietary, intravenous formulation of allopregnanolone, an endogenous progesterone metabolite that appears to modulate gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) receptors. Brexanolone showed rapid and durable antidepressant effects during an earlier phase 2 clinical trial. Dr. Meltzer-Brody and colleagues investigated the efficacy and safety of brexanolone injection in 246 women with moderate to severe postpartum depression in two randomized, placebo-controlled phase 3 trials at 30 U.S. centers. In study 1, Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAM-D) total scores decreased to a significantly greater extent at the end of the 60-hour infusion in the group receiving brexanolone 60 mcg/kg per hour (mean reduction, 19.5 points) and in the […]
Is the Ketamine Boom Getting out of Hand? A Response.
On September 26 2018 Scientific American published an article calling out some of the business practices being used by ketamine treatment providers across the country. The article summarized legitimate concerns about the business side of the ketamine while reiterating the promise ketamine shows as a breakthrough treatment for difficult to treat cases of depression. “This is not snake oil. It’s not something that has to be stamped out,” Lieberman said. “It’s something that has to be reined in.” PASWFL’s Approach to Ketamine Treatment Ketamine should be administered by a psychiatrist for the treatment of psychiatric disorders. At PASWFL, Ketamine is often part of a complete treatment plan that incorporates other treatments as well including transcranial magnetic stimulation, theta burst stimulation, and genomic testing. At PASWFL treatments are administered and overseen by a psychiatrist. We also use both the PHQ9 and the DSST evaluations throughout treatment to ensure patients are getting the care they need and are on a healthy trajectory towards healing. The First Antidepressant Was Discovered by Accident Ketamine is a new and still off-label treatment for depression. The development and improvement of medical treatments is an inherently iterative process.The National Institute of Health put together “A brief history […]
The APA Brings Genetic Testing Under Fire, Genomind and Genesight Respond
On April 25th 2018 the American Psychiatric Association published the following criticism of genomic testing emphasizing their skepticism towards psychiatrists who are using genetic testing to make informed decisions about diagnosis and treatment. An abstract of their statement reads: Evidence Does Not Support Commercial Rush Of DNA Tests Designed To Inform Decisions Regarding Patients’ Psychiatric Medications, Review Indicates. STAT (9/28, Robbins) reported that “several dozen companies” are now “probing patients’ DNA in search of insights to help inform decisions about what psychiatry medications patients should take,” and are even “touting applications for depression, bipolar disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder.” Now, “some top psychiatrists say the evidence doesn’t support the commercial rush.” In fact, in a review published online April 25 in the American Journal of Psychiatry, “a task force of the American Psychiatric Association’s research council concluded that such genetic testing is not ready for prime time in their field.” The members of the task force wrote, “Although some of the preliminary published data sound promising…there is insufficient evidence to support widespread use of combinatorial pharmacogenetic decision support tools at this point in time.” To read their full statement please visit this link. […]
Precision Medicine:The Future is Coming Fast
Promise of Precision Medicine in Psychiatry Nears Reality BARCELONA, Spain — Innovative approaches and widespread data sharing are essential in psychiatry to improve patient care and deliver on the long-held promise of precision medicine, a leading European expert says. In a plenary lecture delivered here at the 31st European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) Congress, Marion Leboyer, MD, PhD, professor of psychiatry, University of Paris-Est, Créteil, France, called for the creation of a virtual institute to leverage big data and build partnerships to speed the development of novel psychiatric treatments. She told a packed auditorium that much of the science needed to bring precision medicine to target different subgroups of patients is already in place, but that innovative, disruptive approaches are needed to bring that science to the clinic. Leboyer delivered the lecture as part of winning the 2018 ECNP Neuropsychopharmacology Award, which was given in recognition of her outstanding achievements in identifying genetic and environmental risk factors in major psychiatric disorders. The hope is that precision medicine in psychiatry will transform the diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of patients with severe psychiatric disorders. “Today, bipolar disorders, depression, schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorders, OCD [obsessive compulsive disorder], and so many more are known […]
Unapproved Pharmaceutical Ingredients Included in Dietary Supplements Associated With US Food and Drug Administration Warnings
Key Points Question What are the trends across adulterated dietary supplements associated with a warning released by the US Food and Drug Administration from 2007 through 2016? Findings In this quality improvement study, analysis of the US Food and Drug Administration warnings from 2007 through 2016 showed that unapproved pharmaceutical ingredients were identified in 776 dietary supplements, and these products were commonly marketed for sexual enhancement, weight loss, or muscle building. The most common adulterants were sildenafil for sexual enhancement supplements, sibutramine for weight loss supplements, and synthetic steroids or steroid-like ingredients for muscle building supplements, with 157 products (20.2%) containing more than 1 unapproved ingredient. Meaning Potentially harmful active pharmaceuticals continue to be identified in over-the-counter dietary supplements. Abstract Importance Over half of adults in the United States report consuming dietary supplements. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned of numerous dietary supplements containing undeclared, unapproved pharmaceutical ingredients. These FDA warnings have not been comprehensively analyzed for recent years. Objective To summarize trends across adulterated (containing unapproved ingredients) dietary supplements associated with a warning released by the FDA from 2007 through 2016. Design, Setting, and Participants In this quality improvement study, data were extracted from the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, […]
Press Release: FDA clears 3-minute, non-pharmaceutical depression treatment
For people suffering from severe depression, the road to remission just became a lot shorter: The treatment is known as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), and MagVenture has now, as the only TMS provider in the US, received FDA clearance for a newer and much faster treatment protocol which will cut down treatment time to just 3 minutes per session*. Before that, the required treatment time per session was up to 37 minutes. TMS has been FDA cleared for treatment-resistant major depressive disorder since 2008. Since then, over 1,000 psychiatric clinics have emerged in the US. Most private health insurance companies also cover the treatment. The relatively long treatment sessions have, however, not only limited the treatment capacity for TMS practices but also hindered a more widespread dissemination. Until now, each session has been up to 37 minutes long, with 20-30 sessions needed in total. The new treatment form, which is known as Theta Burst Stimulation (TBS), offers one significant advantage: Time. A TBS treatment session lasts only 3 minutes and thus has the potential to revolutionize the clinical field of TMS. “We have named it “Express TMS®” because that’s what it is: a treatment which is just as safe and […]
WITHOUT REMISSION, THE BURDEN OF MDD GROWS
For 50 years, pharmacological treatment approaches in MDD have focused on targeting monoamine receptors in the hopes of reducing symptoms. While conventional therapies have helped many, the STAR*D trial* revealed that as many as a third of patients may not achieve remission despite treatment with traditional antidepressants.¹,² Dr Rakesh Jain, clinical professor of psychiatry at Texas Tech University School of Medicine, discusses the estimated 5 million patients who aren’t reaching remission despite multiple treatment attempts in a video available on ConnectingMDD.com. THE LIKELIHOOD OF REMISSION DROPS TO 14% AFTER A SECOND TREATMENT FAILURE* In the STAR*D trial, 37% of patients reached remission after the first-line treatment step with an oral antidepressant.1 The chances for remission dropped substantially after 2 treatment attempts, even with augmentation strategies.1 WITHOUT REMISSION, THE BURDEN OF MDD GROWS REFERENCES Rush AJ, et al. Am J Psychiatry. 2006;163:1905-1917. The National Institute of Mental Health. Major depression among adults. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/major-depression.shtml. Updated November 2017. Accessed April 6, 2018. Uher R, et al. Depress Anxiety. 2014;(31):459-471. Feldman RL, et al. J Med Econ. 2013;16(1):62-74.
TBS: My Experience
Reason for Treatment: depression and anxiety for 5-6 years. Started with panic attacks and anxiety. outside stressors developed depression that escalated over time. panic attacks under control with proper medication. depression hit it’s worst state in the middle of 2018. I was ready to quit on everything. I was not suicidal or interested in losing my life, but I had lost my love and interest for the things that normally inspire me. I was no longer inspired by my work, my faith, or the people around me. I was spending days at a time in bed, delaying inevitable problems because staying in bed was easier than facing stressors. I let this carry on far too long because I had reservations about TBS. After several meetings with Dr Pollack I committed to TBS. below are my daily observations both physical and mental. Day 1: very reserved, inquisitive, a little nervous. learned about the machine, Nora told me what it did physically and how it would affect me. What i should expect to feel. Expectations set were far too severe. I was told to expect discomfort and a slight pain, having tattoos and piercings this sensation was a walk in the park. […]
7January
Being Bullied May Alter the Teen Brain
By Alan Mozes HealthDay Reporter THURSDAY, Dec. 27, 2018 (HealthDay News) — Teens who are often bullied may be left with shrinkage in key parts of their brain, increasing their risk for mental illness, European researchers report. They said such shrinkage eventually appears to create a growing sense of anxiety, even after taking into account the possible onset of other mental health concerns, such as stress and/or depression. “We don’t know how early in life these brain changes begin,” said study author Erin Burke Quinlan. “But the earlier bullying is identified, and the sooner it can be dealt with, the better.” Her team analyzed brain scans of nearly 700 14- to 19-year-olds in England, Ireland, France and Germany. The teens were part of a long-term project called IMAGEN that is studying adolescent brain development and mental health. “We found that the relationship between chronic peer victimization — an umbrella term that includes bullying — relates to the development of anxiety partly via changes in the volume of brain structures,” Quinlan said. She’s an IMAGEN project coordinator at the Center for Population Neuroscience and Precision Medicine at King’s College London. Researchers aren’t sure if the bullied teens’ brain shrinkage is permanent […]
Ketamine Found Effective for Patients With Anxious Treatment-Resistant Depression
Patients with anxious depression—major depressive disorder (MDD) with high levels of anxiety—are known to have a poorer response to commonly used antidepressants than those with MDD. A small study published in Depression & Anxiety now suggests intravenous (IV) ketamine may be able to reduce symptoms in patients with anxious depression. The study found patients with and without anxious depression experienced similar symptom improvements within 24 hours of receiving a ketamine infusion. Naji C. Salloum, M.D., of Harvard Medical School and colleagues compared the effectiveness of IV ketamine to that of midazolam (preoperative sedative) in relieving symptoms of depression with anxiety. They randomized 99 patients with treatment-resistant depression to one of five arms: a single dose of IV ketamine (0.1 mg/kg, 0.2 mg/kg, 0.5 mg/kg, or 1.0 mg/kg) or midazolam (0.045 mg/kg). Forty-five of those patients had anxious depression as defined by a Hamilton Depression Rating Scale Anxiety/Somatization score of at least 7. Using several depression scales, the researchers evaluated the patients’ symptoms on the first and third days after treatment. Although all patients responded to their treatment (either ketamine or midazolam), those who had received ketamine experienced greater improvements in their symptoms. Furthermore, there were no significant differences in response between the anxious and […]
TMS for Perinatal Depression
By Paul Croarkin, DO, Research Committee Co-chair and Philip Janicak, MD, Research Committee Member Introduction Perinatal depressions are serious, debilitating conditions which are often under-recognized; and, even when properly diagnosed, often sub-optimally treated. Notably, they can contribute to problematic maternal behaviors such as substance use, poor self-care, non-adherence to prenatal care, and a heightened risk for suicide. Maternal outcomes and the pathophysiology of untreated depression create challenges from conception throughout development via epigenetic mechanisms, aberrations in fetal brain development, and mother-child bonding. For example, offspring of depressed mothers are at an increased risk for future psychiatric disorders and related functional impairment.1,2 Standard treatment approaches of perinatal depression include evidence-based psychotherapies such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT). Selective serotonin re uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are the mainstay pharmacologic approach, often used in conjunction with psychotherapy. Studies consistently demonstrate that many mothers’ are hesitant about taking antidepressants while pregnant or nursing.2 As a result, both researchers and clinicians have considered the potential role for noninvasive brain stimulation modalities such as repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), as an alternative and possibly safer intervention for perinatal depressions. TMS is an appealing option given the lack of systemic effects that are typically associated […]
Ketamine as a Treatment for Postpartum Depression
Abstract Postpartum depression (PPD) affects over 10% of new mothers and adversely impacts the health of offspring. One of the greatest risk factors for PPD is prepregnancy stress but the underlying biological mechanism is unknown. Here we constructed an animal model which recapitulated prepregnancy stress induced PPD and tested the role of Akt-mTOR signaling in the hippocampus. Female virgin Balb/c mice received chronic restraint stress, followed by co-housing with a normal male mouse. We found that the chronic stress led to a transient depressive-like condition that disappeared within two weeks. However, prepregnantly stressed females developed long-term postpartum depressive-like (PPD-like) symptoms as indicated by deficient performance in tests of sucrose preference, forced swim, and novelty-suppressed feeding. Chronic stress induced transient decrease in Akt-mTOR signaling and altered expressions of glutamate receptor subunits NR1 and GluR1, in contrast to long-term deficits in Akt-mTOR signaling, GluR1/NR1 ratio, and hippocampal neurogenesis in PPD-like mice. Acute ketamine improved the molecular signaling abnormality, and reversed the behavioral deficits in PPD-like mice in a rapid and persistent manner, in contrast to ineffectiveness by chronic fluoxetine treatment. Taken together, we find that chronic prepregnancy stress potentiates a long-term PPD, in which Akt-mTOR signaling may play a crucial role. Introduction […]
“Brain Zaps” Reported by Some Following Antidepressant Discontinuation
Abrupt discontinuation of an antidepressant was found to be the most likely cause of brain zaps A recently published article discusses the characteristics, symptoms, and effects on quality of life associated with brain zaps, the electrical phenomenon that can occur following antidepressant discontinuation. The study authors explained, “In some patients, stopping or reducing the dose of an antidepressant can lead to electrical sensations (or brain zaps) perceived as occurring inside the brain.” To gain more insight into this poorly understood symptom of antidepressant discontinuation, the study authors analyzed 595 unso licited posts discussing brain zaps on a mental health website, Mental Health Daily, between December 13, 2014, and December 12, 2016. Further analysis and separation of the posts yielded a total of 648 statements discussing antidepressant intake; 378 of these statements discussed symptoms experienced following the discontinuation of an antidepressant. “These posts were further analyzed for specifics of the medications involved, temporal characteristics of the medication intake, associated symptoms, specifics of the “zap” experience itself, and effect of the zaps on quality of life,” the study authors added. Compared with how often the antidepressant was prescribed in clinical practice, brain zaps were reported more frequently with venlafaxine and paroxetine and less so with fluoxetine. “This finding mirrors […]
Ketamine Could Be the Key to Reversing America’s Rising Suicide Rate
Joe Wright has no doubt that ketamine saved his life. A 34-year-old high school teacher who writes poetry every day on a typewriter, Wright was plagued by suicidal impulses for years. The thoughts started coming on when he was a high schooler himself, on Staten Island, N.Y., and intensified during his first year of college. “It was an internal monologue, emphatic on how pointless it is to exist,” he says. “It’s like being ambushed by your own brain. He first tried to kill himself by swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills the summer after his sophomore year. Years of treatment with Prozac, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, and other antidepressants followed, but the desire for an end was never fully resolved. He started cutting himself on his arms and legs with a pencil-sharpener blade. Sometimes he’d burn himself with cigarettes. He remembers few details about his second and third suicide attempts. They were halfhearted; he drank himself into a stupor and once added Xanax into the mix. Wright decided to try again in 2016, this time using a cocktail of drugs he’d ground into a powder. As he tells the story now, he was preparing to mix the powder into water and drink […]
Intranasal Esketamine Evaluated in Treatment-Resistant Depression
(HealthDay News) — Esketamine seems to be efficacious and safe for patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD), according to a study published online Dec. 27 in JAMA Psychiatry. Ella J. Daley, M.D., from Janssen Research & Development LLC in Titusville, N.J., and colleagues conducted a phase 2, double-blind, doubly randomized, delayed-start, placebo-controlled study to examine the efficacy, safety, and dose-response of intranasal esketamine hydrochloride. A total of 67 adults with a diagnosis of major depressive disorder and history of inadequate response to two or more antidepressants (TRD) were randomized and 60 completed two one-week double-blind treatment periods. In period 1, participants were randomized to placebo or esketamine 28, 56, or 84 mg twice weekly (33, 11, 11, and 12 participants, respectively). In period 2, 28 placebo-treated participants were re-randomized to one of the four treatment arms. The researchers found that the change in Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale total score was superior in all three esketamine groups versus placebo (least squares mean difference versus placebo: esketamine 28 mg: −4.2; 56 mg: −6.3; 84 mg: −9.0), with a significant ascending dose-response relationship. Despite reduced dosing frequency in the open-label phase, the improvement in depressive symptoms appeared to be sustained (−7.2). “In this first clinical […]
Esketamine Evaluated in MDD Patients at Imminent Risk for Suicide
Janssen announced new findings from a Phase 2 study evaluating esketamine nasal spray in patients with major depressive disorder who were at imminent risk for suicide. The findings were published in the American Journal of Psychiatry. Esketamine nasal spray is an investigational glutamate receptor modulator that is thought to help restore synpatic connections in brain cells in patients with major depressive disorder. The double-blind, multicenter, proof-of-concept study randomized 68 patients to either esketamine nasal spray 84mg or placebo twice weekly for 4 weeks in addition to standard of care treatment. The primary efficacy endpoint was change from baseline to 4 hours post-dose on Day 1 in the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) total score; clinician global judgment of suicide risk (based on the Suicide Ideation and Behavior Assessment Tool) was also assessed. Treatment with esketamine led to a statistically significant, clinically meaningful improvement in depressive symptoms at 4 hours, including a measure of suicidal ideation in study patients, compared to placebo. Results showed that compared with placebo, treatment with esketamine led to a significantly greater improvement in MADRS total score 4 hours after the first dose (-13.4 for esketamine nasal spray + standard of care vs -9.1 for placebo nasal spray + standard of […]
FDA Committees Vote on Esketamine Nasal Spray for Treatment-Resistant Depression
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s Psychopharmacologic Drug Advisory Committee and Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee voted in favor (14 yes, 2 no, 1 abstain) of the approval of esketamine nasal spray (Spravato; Janssen) for the treatment of adult patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD). The decision was based on data from five Phase 3 studies assessing the safety and efficacy of esketamine, a non-competitive N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist; patients in these studies had a history of inadequate response to least 2 prior antidepressants and generally had more severe symptoms than those who participated in antidepressant studies for previously approved drugs. Results from 2 of these Phase 3 studies (1 short-term, 1 long-term), which primarily provided the evidence to support effectiveness, showed that treatment with esketamine nasal spray plus a newly initiated oral antidepressant was associated with a statistically significant, clinically meaningful, rapid, and sustained improvement of depressive symptoms vs placebo nasal spray plus a newly initiated oral antidepressant. With regard to safety, the adverse events identified as those of greatest concern were sedation, dissociation, and blood pressure increases, most of which occurred within the first 2 hours of administration. To address these issues, the committees proposed a Risk […]
FDA panels back intranasal esketamine for refractory depression
Each disposable intranasal delivery device contains 28 mg esketamine; it will come in prepackaged units of one, two, or three devices to deliver the prescribed doses of 28 mg, 56 mg, or 84 mg, respectively. The device does not require priming and, after use, contains only about 30 microliters of residual medication. Its interlocking design, with a glass vial inside the plastic outer assembly, would make it very difficult to pull apart, should anyone want to obtain the residue. The proposed REMS – the key requirement for approval at this point – would include the following measures: Prescriber training on the risks of esketamine and importance of monitoring patients after their dose is administered and the need to register patientsAdministration of esketamine only in certain health care settings that ensure patient monitoring by a health care clinician for 2 hours after administrationPharmacies, clinicians, or health care settings that dispense the drug are specially certified to ensure that esketamine is not dispensed directly to patients and that patients are monitoredEnrollment of patients who are treated with esketamine in a registry to better characterize the risks associated with esketamine administration and inform risk mitigation strategies After administration, patients would be monitored for […]
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In Austin
Book review: “The Art of Fielding” by Chad Harbach
Lincoln, work and prayer
I grew up in the Austin neighborhood on the West Side of Chicago. I am the oldest of 14 children, and one of my jobs, growing up, was to watch my younger sisters in the afternoon after school.
We lived on the second floor of a two-flat at 135 N. Leamington Ave. on the same block as our parish church (St. Thomas Aquinas), our parish school and the convent where the nuns lived. It was a crowded apartment, as you might imagine, and “watching the kids” meant taking two or three of the youngest girls to Grandma’s apartment a couple blocks away for a visit.
I alternated this job with my brother David. I was 11 or 12. He was a year younger. I did the job until I was 13 and away at high school — at a religious seminary that was a boarding school. My sister Mary Beth, a year younger than David, took my place.
The main idea was to get the youngest kids out of the house to give Mom some breathing space. She didn’t drive, and Dad, a Chicago police officer, was often at work at odd hours during the day or sleeping to get ready for a night shift.
Sometimes, there would be two kids to care for. More often, I recall, there would be three. I would push the youngest — usually an infant of about one or so — in the stroller while the other two girls would walk along on either side, holding onto the stroller with a hand. The neighborhood was all-white then — all-Irish, for that matter — as many Chicago communities were in the early 1960s, and I remember one time, as we were walking to Grandma’s, we saw a black man walking down the sidewalk toward us. My sister, Kathy, who was maybe four or five, looked at the man, raised her arm and pointed her finger at him, saying, loud enough for him to hear, “Look at that man! He’s chocolate!”
At Grandma’s house
There was never any variation in where we walked when my brother or I watched the kids. We always went to Grandma’s apartment — we called it Grandma’s house — in a large, long apartment building on Lavergne Avenue, just off of Madison Street, the main commercial strip for the neighborhood.
Grandma and Grandpa — they were my mother’s parents — had lived in this part of Austin much of their lives. They’d moved into the apartment on Lavergne one day in about 1960. The next morning, Grandma woke up to find her husband’s cold body next to her. He had died in his sleep during the night. A short time later, her brother, Eddie, my great uncle, whose own wife had recently died, moved in with her.
The trip to Grandma’s apartment was generally uneventful. We’d always walk down the alley past the convent and the school gym; down another alley past the school; and then down Lavergne past the church and across Washington Boulevard.
In the spring and summer, there would be a bright array of flowers growing along the fence and elsewhere in the backyard of the home — another two-flat — on the west side of Lavergne, just south of Washington. In the fall and early winter, there would be the nearly full-size Christmas stable outside the church, with its almost (but not quite) life-size figures of Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the angels, the Magi and Baby Jesus. On more than one occasion, we stopped there to play. Picture this: As the baby sits in the stroller, swaddled into immobility by her thick snow suit and mittens and scarf — -only her eyes in view — -the two slightly older girls wander around in the stable amid the Bible figures, smaller than normal adults and thus close to the girls’ own size. I stand there, hands in my jacket pockets against the cold, wishing I was young enough to play make-believe games with the plastic statues like the little girls. It was a scene of sweet weirdness and beautiful other-worldliness. At least, it was until Father Fitzpatrick, the bitter, irascible pastor leaned out of his rectory window and growled at us, “What are you kids doing there?!?!”
At Grandma’s apartment, I would go into the front room and watch the Cubs game with Uncle Eddie — I can’t recall what we would watch when the Cubs weren’t playing — while my sisters would go into the kitchen with Grandma.
Grandma and Uncle Eddie
In a neighborhood and a family culture that valued stability and a sort of stay-at-homeness highly, Uncle Eddie was an anomaly. He was something of a rover and something of a world traveler, at least through the military service. He’d served in Europe in the American Army in World War I, and, when told he was too old when he tried to enlist for World War II, he joined the Canadian Army and was sent overseas again. He was a great reader, mainly of history, and he would pass on to me his history books as he finished them.
Grandma was an earth mother, all smiles and treats for “the little ones.” She had a candy dish that she always kept filled. When we’d arrive, our first stop would be the dish for one — but only one — piece of candy each.
Often, when we’d arrive, the apartment would be filled with the aroma of fresh-baked bread, just out of the oven or just about to come out of the oven. Where Grandma learned to bake and learned her love of baking, I never discovered. She’d spent much of her childhood in an orphanage, even though her mother was still alive. The mother, abandoned by her husband, had been unable to care for her four — I think there were four — children. So Grandma was raised very much by the nuns who ran the orphanage, and, from scraps of evidence I picked up over the years, she seems to have been something of a pet of theirs.
(Grandma’s mother, by the way, survived the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 as a child. Her father was a fireman and was off futilely battling the blaze, and her mother knew she had to get her brood of seven, I believe, children to safety. So she tied the kids to one another with a red blanket, and led them north across the Chicago River and out to the shore of Lake Michigan, apparently around what is now Lincoln Park, to find safety at the water’s edge.)
Grandma’s specialty was kolackies (which we pronounced, “Ko-LOTCH-keys”). In later years, at the homes of Polish friends and in Polish bakeries, I would be served a thick, heavy sweet roll that they called a kolacky. But it was the exact opposite of the kolackies that Grandma made — thin, light pastries, almost like Communion wafers, but delicately sweet and buttery. They were dainty and flaky — and, yes, they did melt in your mouth. On the top, in the center, there was a thin layer of fruit filling, a kind of jam. And over everything was sprinkled a light dusting of white powdered sugar.
A walk down Madison Street
Often, after we had visited for awhile, Grandma would take us for a walk down Madison Street. Some years earlier, Grandma had had hip replacement surgery, and, ever since, she’d walked with a limp. As we’d move down the sidewalk along the north side of Madison Street between Lavergne and LeClaire Avenues, I’d push the stroller and the two older girls would walk on either side, and Grandma would limp along with us, in her curiously up-and-down fashion, pushing her two-wheel shopping cart in front of her, almost as if it were a walker.
We walked past a cleaners named for an old football hero, an old high school football hero, I believe, named DeCorrovent or something like that. And past a tavern with an Irish name — Brady’s, I think. There was a family story — every family must have a story like this — of Grandpa taking me to Brady’s and, when I got back, me talking about all the root beers he’d drunk.
Further along, we went past other storefronts. All I can remember now are a liquor store, a bakery and a grocery in the middle of the block. But I am sure all the storefronts were filled with thriving businesses. It was a moment when the Chicago of mid-century was still alive and strong, at least in our neighborhood. It was only a few years later that the block on Madison, and all of Austin, for that matter, was hit by the effects of the movement of people and jobs to the suburbs, the flight of whites from in-moving blacks, and the weakening of the city’s economy. Now, many of those storefronts on Madison are empty, and some of the buildings have been razed.
Grandma always headed to the grocery and the bakery. She had a nodding acquaintance with the people who worked in both places. “Hello, Mrs. Thomas,” they’d say.
In the bakery, she’d get some sweet rolls — I loved the ones with thin almond slices and sweet white icing — and hard rolls. At the grocery, she’d buy what she needed for the day: milk, eggs, perhaps a couple pork chops. She was still living the life of Chicago before larger refrigerators, even though she had one — we called it an ice-box. But it was her habit to go out each day to shop for that day’s groceries, rather than stocking up. It was also an excuse for her to be out and about.
By the time we’d get back to her apartment and I’d helped her in with her purchases, it was time to head home, usually with some small package of bread or kolackies for Mom. Once home, we’d park ourselves in front of the TV with the other kids to watch the Three Stooges until suppertime.
Going downtown unsupervised
Crime was not that much of a worry in those years in our neighborhood and throughout much of the city. Nobody thought anything of an 11-year-old walking his three tiny sisters to his grandmothers, or of my friends and I going downtown in groups of four or five to play around the big buildings.
We’d walk down Laramie Avenue to the Lake Street el station, and take the train to the Loop for a quarter. We’d look around, wandering at times into Sears or another big department store. But, really, they were too grand for our tastes. Besides, we never had any extra money to speak of, except our return carfare.
We’d always go to the top of the Prudential Building, the tallest building in Chicago then, and look out over the city with the telescopes there — one minute for a dime (I think that was the charge). And we’d go to a novelty store and arcade on Randolph Street, and to the Greyhound Bus Station. The bus station had this seedy reputation back in the neighborhood, and our parents would warn us to stay away from it. No one ever spelled out what it was about the bus station that we should fear — except the vaguely sinister catch-all: strangers.
We went there anyway. You could play on the escalators and get instant pictures of yourself — four for what? a quarter? — in a booth in the center of the station. If anything, it was the station employees who were afraid, afraid to see our group of four or five pre-teen boys coming in. We often got thrown out of there. At least it seems we did.
Getting ditched
One day, my brother David went downtown with his friends, and they ditched him. That is, they ran away from him and went home without him, leaving him to fend for himself. It was a summer Sunday, and David, who was about 12 at the time, wasn’t concerned. At least, that’s what he told us later. He got on the el and started on his way home until he saw the steeple of our church and got off at that stop — -only to discover that it wasn’t our church and it wasn’t his stop and he had gotten onto the wrong el line and had no more money to get back on and reverse his tracks.
The question later was why he didn’t ask someone for a dime to call home. To the adults, this seems like a sensible thing to do. But, when you grow up in a family of 14 kids, you learn early to do whatever you can to avoid asking for help. If David had called Mom and Dad, Dad would have had to get up from his nap or drop whatever he was doing and get in the car and drive to wherever David was. He was not going to be happy. Besides, David was a city kid. He knew his way around. He didn’t exactly know what neighborhood he was in, but he knew that he’d gotten there by taking the el one way so, if he followed the el track back from where he’d come, he’d find his way back downtown.
That’s what he did. And, when he got downtown, he located the Lake Street line, and proceeded to walk back to Austin along the sidewalk under the tracks.
David had been noticed missing at some point in late afternoon that day, but the search for him was hampered when his friends, afraid of getting into trouble for ditching him, at first said he’d come home with them from the Loop.
The police and Dad (and me in one of the squad cars) had been out looking for David for two hours and were back at the house on Leamington to trade notes. After a whispered discussion, the cop in charge was sitting down at the telephone stand in the front hall to call in what was euphemistically and somewhat dreadfully known as the garbage can detail. They were about to start looking for David’s body. My father, stolid and solemn, was standing in the hall. My mother, in the doorway to the dining room, was just this side of full hysteria.
It was at that moment that David, a very tired David — he’d walked at least 10 miles we later determined — came in the back door, through the kitchen and into the dining room which is where Mom saw him. She let out a loud sob and took him in her arms (or maybe — he was already pretty tall — fell into his).
Why, she demanded between sobs, why hadn’t he called? Why hadn’t he stopped a cop for help or walked into a fire house? Why? Why didn’t he tell someone he was lost?
David, somewhat at a loss to find himself the center of attention, especially of so many adults, many of them in uniform, nonetheless had an answer for her.
“I wasn’t lost,” he said in his weary, weary voice. “I knew where I was.”
were do i buy the book i just loved it and i love you too!
As my brother, maybe you’re biased.
Dear Pat , I’am almost in tears,I remember mom sobing too,it’s like it was yesterday.
God were we young then. what a great time it was,what a great family to be part of,
thanks for shareing this with us. Love Tim
Glad you liked it., Tim. I wrote it 15 years ago, but just came across it yesterday. The only brother I haven’t heard from is the star of the piece.
BTW, I have a piece about Alzheimer’s in the upcoming Sunday Tribune. It talks a little about Grandma Reardon. I was writing that piece when I came across “In Austin.”
We really enjoyed reading this.We are truly blessed to be from such a great family and to have our stories told so well. Thanks for the memories!,,
Look in Sunday’s Tribune for my op-ed piece on Alzheimer’s and Grandma Reardon.
Marie Barrows says:
I don’t remember this story—maybe I was too young. I do, however remember the walks to Grandma’s. And I loved Uncle Eddy, and was so upset when he died. I remember that day like it was yesterday!!!!!! You are such a great writer!!!!
Thanks, Marie. Everyone should put down memories and reminiscences like this so that they can be passed along to future generations. Pat
John McCormack says:
We have traded a few emails over the years. I grew up in the very same neighborhood. I am about your brother Tim’s age … in fact, you trained me to be an altar boy. I have vivid memories of the businesses that lined the north side of Madison St. between Lavergne and Leclaire: Brady’s tavern, Fitzsimmons Medical Supplies, Schneider’s Bakery, Mofield’s butcher shop, Armanetti’s. There was a little drug store on the nw corner of Madison & Lavergne, Featherstone’s, I believe. Near the middle of the block was a little grocery store whose name escapes me …. “Jim’s” maybe. There was also a storefront knitting business closer to Leclaire called Logan Knitting Mills that produced the types of letter sweaters that were popular back then.
I don’t know why but I get so sucked in when I find links to the old neighborhood.
John — Thanks for the comment (and thanks for the link earlier to the Austin Facebook page). I remmeber the letter sweater place as being named after some famous (previously) high school or college football player named DeCorovet or something like that. Just got word today of an all-class reunion at St. Thomas Aquinas (now St. Martin de Porres) on Sept. 30. Will you be there? Pat
Concetta Mangiardi says:
I enjoyed reading this article. It brings back so many fond memories of the Austin neighborhood as well as STA and Siena High School. I was in the same grade as
your brother, David, and Mary Beth.
Glad you liked it, Concetta.
Austin Chicago says:
I am slowly compiling a list of images and names of all structures on Madison st. in Austin back in the day. Here is a listing of the north side of 5000 block from about 1963.
5002 Armanetti Inc
5006-08 Mofields Finer Meats Inc
5016 Jeanne Napal Cosmetics
5022 Ven-Par Co Div Vendo Co
5038 Logan Knitting Mills
5040 Dr. Michael J Parenti
5040 T & T Liquor Oscar Tavlin
5042 O. K. Meat Mkt. Formerly Earl’s MKT 1956
5042 W Kings Quality Market 1957
5046 Fitzsimmons Medical Supply
5050 W H Heitbohmer
5054 Brady’s Le Claire Pub
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Associate Professor in Faculty of Health Sciences
In pursuit of the ideals of excellence and diversity, the University of Pretoria wishes to invite applications for the following vacancy.
The University of Pretoria's commitment to quality makes us one of the top research Universities in the country and gives us a competitive advantage in international science and technology development.
The Faculty invites applications from persons who comply with the relevant requirements for the position of part-time Deputy Dean responsible for Research and Postgraduate Studies. The appointment will be over and above the person’s existing academic appointment and will take up 50% of the successful candidate’s time, as negotiated with the Dean.
The successful candidate will have academic, managerial and administrative responsibilities and, as part of the Faculty Management Team, will take responsibility for assisting the Dean in implementing and executing the Faculty’s plans for research and postgraduate studies in conjunction with HODs. The Deputy Dean will also be required to chair Faculty committees related to these core functions as delegated by the Dean.
The Deputy Dean: Research and Postgraduate studies will assist the Dean with the development and implementation of innovative research and postgraduate strategies and will be required to cultivate and maintain strong relationships with the relevant support services in the University. Through strategic leadership, he/she will also be responsible for facilitating the development and creation of an environment (assisted by University support structures etc.) that will enable departments to achieve their targets in research and postgraduate mentorship. As part of the management team, he/she will assist in managing the performance of departments, HODs and staff, and encourage, enable and support interdisciplinary research as well as the forging of international academic links. The Deputy Deanship is a term appointment for four years.
Appointable at an Associate Professor level;
A successful track record at this level, with proven, on-going excellence in research and postgraduate supervision, lecturing at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and community engagement;
Appropriate experience in liaising with internal and external stakeholders;
Managerial experience relevant to the higher education environment.
REQUIRED COMPETENCIES (SKILLS, KNOWLEDGE AND BEHAVIOURAL ATTRIBUTES):
An understanding of the importance of the role of Health Sciences in tertiary education;
Demonstrable administrative skills;
An understanding of the vision of the Faculty and a commitment to achieving the strategic research goals as formulated in the Faculty Plan;
Excellent communication and language skills;
Proven strategic development, planning and implementation skills;
Facilitation and negotiation skills;
Good interpersonal and team-building skills;
Change management and conflict management skills;
Management and leadership skills.
PLEASE NOTE: Candidates will be required to do a presentation to the Appointments Committee on their vision for the Faculty.
The annual remuneration package will be commensurate with the incumbent’s level of appointment, as determined by UP policy guidelines. UP subscribes to the BESTMED and UMVUZO medical aid schemes and contributes 50% of the applicable monthly premium.
The Regulation and Procedure for the Appointment of Deans and Deputy Deans is available at www.up.ac.za (Link: Careers@UP, Appointment regulations for Executives and Deans). By applying, applicants consent to the appointment process as contained in the regulation.
Applicants are requested to apply online at www.up.ac.za, and follow the link: Careers@UP.
In applying for this post, please attach:
A complete, up-to-date curriculum vitae in the UP-prescribed format;
A brief self-evaluation;
Your vision (as the potential Deputy Dean) for the Faculty of Health Sciences in both national and international contexts;
The names and contact details (email addresses) of three referees who can attest to your academic stature and leadership ability. The University reserves the right to consult with additional referees.
No application will be considered after the closing date, or if it does not comply with at least the minimum requirements.
ENQUIRIES: Ms Letticia Jooste, Tel: (012) 420 6921, or e-mail: letticia.jooste@up.ac.za.
Should you not hear from the University of Pretoria by 30 September 2019, please accept that your application has been unsuccessful.
https://professorpositions.com/associate-professor-in-faculty-of-health-sciences,i4014.html">
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Parkdale’s history began in the late 1800’s when it was an elite residential suburb, that rivaled Rosedale as Toronto’s most desirable address. Parkdale’s popularity led to its incorporation as a village in 1878. Then in 1889, after many heated public debates, Parkdale’s citizens voted in favour of amalgamation with the City of Toronto.
Parkdale, became Toronto’s playground by the lake in 1922, when the Sunnyside Amusement Park and Bathing Pavilion opened for business on Parkdale’s beaches. Sunnyside was the place to be and be seen for a generation of Torontonians.
In 1956, Sunnyside was shut down by the city in order to make room for the Gardiner Expressway and a revamped Lake Shore Boulevard. Unfortunately, these new expressways cut Parkdale off from the lake and its glorious past. Parkdale then went into a period of decline that it is still recovering from today.
ROYAL LEPAGE SUPREME REALTY, BROKERAGE
9+9 Bed / 18 Bath $4,750,000 20 Maynard Ave, Toronto $21375/mo*
RE/MAX CONDOS PLUS CORPORATION, BROKERAGE
9+2 Bed / 9 Bath $2,499,000 33 Beaty Ave, Toronto $11246/mo*
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Arcade Fire and Lady Antebellum were among the big winners at the 2011 Grammy Awards. Additional winners include jazz bassist Esperanza Spalding who took best new artist honors.
Details on the Latin categories below.
Arcade Fire grabbed album of the year honors for the CD "The Suburbs" and beat out big names Katy Perry, Eminem, and Lady Gaga. The group was shocked when
they got the news - "It was shocking," bandmember Win Butler told reporters in the media room. "The idea never even entered my mid, even the slightest bit, until when they said the name of the album."
Meanwhile, Lady Antebellum took a major step beyond country when it won multiple awards - song of the year, record of the year, performance by a duo or group and country song of the year for their big hit “Need You Now” as well as country album of the year for the platinum selling “Need You Now.”
While they enjoy the accolades, the band is making plans to return to the studio for their third CD.
Little Joe won the best Tejano album honors for the CD "Recuerdos" (Memories).”
In the Banda category, San Antonio-based artists El Güero (The White-skinned Dude) y su Banda Centenario, took the Grammy for his CD, edging out Cuisillos, El Limón, Los Recoditos and El Chapo.
And Austin’s Grupo Fantasma came out of nowhere to grab the best Latin rock, alternative, or urban album for the CD “El Existential,” also beating
out a big name lineup including banda/norteña/techno mixmasters Bostich+Fussible (from Nortec Collective); Draco Rosa, Chilean rapper Ana Tijoux; and Colombian rappers ChocQuibTown.
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Discuss the potential negative impact of a dominant culture on immigrants and refugees.
Members of dominant ethnic and racial groups may assume that other groups’ struggles are not their own or assume that those of a given race speak with one voice and react in the same way to their oppression. In reality, people can cope with racial inequalities in a variety of ways, creating complex relationships both between the dominant and oppressed group and among members of the dominant and oppressed groups.
As a social worker, you must understand the many ways in which racial privilege can impact your clients. You must also understand the ways in which racial privilege has impacted your life and the ways you react to the realities of racism. You will likely need to help clients address racial divides and combat racial inequality to empower them.
To prepare: Review “Working With Immigrants and Refugees: The Case of Aaron.”
· Post an explanation of how dominant groups can play a role in marginalizing other groups based on racial and ethnic characteristics.
· Discuss the potential negative impact of a dominant culture on immigrants and refugees, such as Aaron.
· How might racism and prejudice impact his assimilation?
· Furthermore, explain how you would respond to Aaron when he discusses his family’s rejection of his desire to maintain his cultural roots.
· In your explanation, identify specific skills you would employ as a multiculturally sensitive social worker.
References (use at least 2)
Adams, M., Blumenfeld, W. J., Castaneda, C., Hackman, H. W., Peters, M. L., & Zuniga, X. (Eds.). (2013). Readings for diversity and social justice. (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge Press.
Chapter 8, (pp. 65–68)
Chapter 21, (pp. 125–126)
Plummer, S. B., Makris, S., & Brocksen S. M. (Eds.). (2014). Social work case studies: Foundation year. Baltimore, MD: Walden International Universities Publishing. [Vital Source e-Reader].
“Working With Immigrants and Refugees: The Case of Aaron”
Aaron is a 24-year-old, unmarried, heterosexual, Caribbean immigrant male who is experiencing symptoms of anxiety and depression. Aaron reports no history of mental health treatment nor any medical or legal problems. He admits to social drinking but denies use of illegal substances. He lives alone in a room he rents above the restaurant where he works. He works 24 hours a week as a waiter, has few friends, and is a part-time student at a local university where he is working on an undergraduate degree in biology. Aaron came to speak with me, a university counselor, because he is having difficulty concentrating and finding the motivation to study. Aaron denied any thoughts or plans of suicide or homicide and stated he felt hopeless and nervous.
In the first session, Aaron struggled with sustaining eye contact, presented as preoccupied, and was indifferent to the attempts to engage him in the intake process. When asked what he thought precipitated counseling, Aaron said that he had a difficult relationship with his parents who, he stated, “are not supportive and could care less” about him. He also reported that his younger brother was killed not long ago. When asked what he wanted to work on in counseling, he said that he wanted to address why his family was so “messed up.” Subsequent sessions explored Aaron’s perspective on his family, the strained relationship between Aaron and his parents, and the loss of his sibling.
During one session, Aaron said his parents had always favored his younger brother and overlooked his criminal involvement, which had been a source of conflict between Aaron and his parents for years. While it had not been confirmed, Aaron suspected his brother’s death was related to gang involvement. Aaron shared that his academic interests and achievement had been ignored by his parents and had never been a source of interest for them.
In a subsequent session, Aaron stated that he had always felt disconnected and different from his parents and brother. Aaron’s family immigrated to the United States from Guyana when Aaron was 8 years old and his brother was 2 years old. His parents brought only his brother and left Aaron with his grandmother, informing him they would bring him over when they were settled. Seven years later, at the age of 15, he joined his family. Aaron reported that reuniting with his family after all that time was difficult. Aaron had always felt rejected by his parents because they did not bring him to the United States with his brother. He experienced a void in his relationship with his parents and his brother, and he felt there was an unspoken alliance between his parents and his younger brother that he did not share. Aaron said that he was often made fun of by them for not losing his accent and for his use of their culture’s traditions and customs. They also ridiculed him for being homesick and missing his grandmother. He said that his parents rarely attended the West Indian activities he participated in, and when they did, they spent more time critiquing his performance than enjoying it.
In the following sessions, Aaron was encouraged to tell the story of his family and how the immigration process disrupted their connections with one another and how this may have affected their ability to grieve together as they faced the death of his brother. Using genograms and having Aaron educate me about his country, I was better able to understand his family’s immigration history and the roles played by extended family members. This approach allowed Aaron to talk more about how and when his anxiety and depression manifested. Later I learned that these symptoms had always been mildly present but became more acute after the death of his brother. Aaron grieved the loss of a brother and examined his feelings of loss around his relationship with parents who were both limited in their ability to include him in their own grieving processes.
After several sessions, Aaron was able to talk more openly about his frustration and disappointment with his family and identify the losses they had all incurred. He allowed himself the opportunity to grieve his brother and the lack of relationship with his parents and began to consider the possibility of a new relationship with them. Aaron reported a reduction in his feelings of anxiety and depression and resumed interest in his academic work. Aaron and I discussed termination at the end of the semester with a recommendation that he continue with individual therapy in the summer months.
Discussion 2: Dalia’s Behavior
Argumentative behavior, engagement in physical altercations, and evidence of mood swings can all indicate that an adolescent is experiencing anger and depression. Self-harming can surface in adolescents, too, as they experience difficult emotions.
For this Discussion, read the case study of Dalia and consider what you, as her social worker, would do if you observed self-harm indicators.
Post a brief explanation of self-harming behaviors that Dalia is exhibiting.
Describe theoretical approaches and practical skills you would employ in working with Dalia.
How might familial relationships result in Dalia’s self-harming behavior?
Moorey, S. (2010). Managing the unmanageable: Cognitive behaviour therapy for deliberate self-harm. Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, 24(2), 135–149.
Plummer, S.-B., Makris, S., & Brocksen S. M. (Eds.). (2014). Social work case studies: Foundation year. Baltimore, MD: Laureate International Universities Publishing. [Vital Source e-reader].
Working With Children and Adolescents: The Case of Dalia
Dalia is a 14-year-old, biracial female of African and Irish American descent who resides with her parents in a middle-class suburb. She is the youngest of three children and is currently the only child remaining in the home. Dalia’s parents have been married for 25 years. Dalia’s father works in the creative arts field with a nontraditional work schedule that has him gone overnight and sleeping late into the morning. Dalia’s mother is an executive who works long hours. Dalia was diagnosed with sickle cell anemia in early childhood and was hospitalized multiple times. At present, Dalia’s health is stable with the last serious episode occurring 2 years ago.
Dalia’s parents reported that until middle school, Dalia was an easygoing, good-natured youngster who enjoyed singing and participating in activities with her peers and family. Dalia denied any problems with drugs or alcohol but admitted to drinking with friends. Dalia described her family relationships as tense, stating, “My dad lets me do what I want” and “My mother is always trying to control me.” Dalia described her relationship with her older brother, who lives in another state, as “cool,” and her relationship with her older sister, a college sophomore, as “not cool.”
Dalia’s parents sought out counseling services for behavioral issues on the recommendation of her school. The issues included argumentative behavior with authority figures, physical altercations with peers, poor concentration in class, irritable mood, verbal combativeness when confronted, truancy, and highly sexualized behavior with male peers. At home, Dalia had become more argumentative and physically threatening. Her parents had discovered that she and her friends drank alcohol in their home. Dalia’s parents also reported that she was up most of the night and slept most of the day. They also reported that her mood was highly irritable and that she was extremely impulsive. She had no interest in getting involved with any extracurricular activities, stating that those things are “corny and boring.”
In the first meeting, Dalia and her mother both appeared agitated with each other and became argumentative when going through the intake information. Dalia quickly told me that she was not planning to talk about anything because this meeting was her parents’ idea. She stated, “I don’t have any problems, my parents do.” Soon into this first visit, Dalia blurted out that her mother was upset with her because she had just shown her a tattoo she had had done recently, purchased by using a fake ID. I acknowledged her news and asked if this was the way that she usually shared important information with her mother. Dalia shrugged and stated, “I don’t know. I figure I better her tell her now before she gets too busy.”
I asked both Dalia and her mother what their expectations were for counseling and what each would like to get from these visits. Dalia’s mother seemed surprised and stated, “This is for her. She better change her attitude and start to focus on school.” I explained that often it is helpful to have sessions both individually and with family members. I pointed out that because family issues were identified it might be productive to address them together. Dalia’s mother agreed to attend some meetings but also stated that her time was limited. I was told that Dalia’s father would not be able to join us because he was never available at that time.
Dalia and I began sessions alone, and her mother joined us for the second half. During the family sessions, we addressed the communication breakdown between Dalia and her mother and Dalia’s at-risk behaviors. Individual sessions were used to address her impulsive behavior and self-esteem issues.
In individual sessions, Dalia talked about how the family had changed since her sister left for college. She said her parents stopped being present and available once her sister went away to school. She said she spent more time on her own and her behavior was under more scrutiny. Dalia also talked about her sister, describing her as an excellent student and very popular. She said her teachers in middle school would often compare Dalia to her sister, making her feel unsuccessful in comparison. During a family portion of a session, Dalia’s mother initially disagreed with Dalia’s point of view regarding how the family had changed, stating, “She’s just trying to trick you.” I encouraged them to discuss what was different about the family dynamics now compared to when the older sister was at home. We discussed how the family had changed through the years, validating both perspectives.
In time, I was able to have Dalia’s father join us in some of the family meetings. He said he felt Dalia’s behaviors were just a stage and part of being a teenager. Dalia’s parents disagreed openly in our sessions, with each blaming the other for her behavioral issues. During these sessions, we addressed how they each may have changed as their children matured and left home and how this affected their availability to their youngest child. I helped them identify what made Dalia’s experience distinct from her siblings’ and examine what her high-risk behaviors might be in reaction to or symptomatic of in the family.
In the course of the family work, the realities of being a biracial family and raising mixed-race children were also addressed. We discussed how the parents navigated race issues during their own courtship and looked at the role of acculturation and assimilation with their children in their social environments as well as respective families of origin. Educating both parents around race and social class privilege seemed fruitful in understanding distinctions between what they and their children may have faced.
After 12 weeks it was agreed that therapy would end because Dalia would be starting high school and the family felt better equipped to address conflict. The family had made some changes with the household schedule that increased parent–child contact, and Dalia agreed to more structure in her schedule and accepted a position as a camp counselor in a local day camp for the summer. Termination addressed what was accomplished in this portion of therapy and what might be addressed in future counseling. The termination process included reviewing the strategies of conflict resolution and creating opportunities for family contact and discussion in order to reinforce those behavioral and structural changes that had led to improved communication and conflict reduction.
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Apple He built it
You Are Underestimating the Future
I do this talk called “The Engineer, The Designer, and The Dictator”, and it’s a talk about the things I love. It’s a little bit about the nature of engineers and why I think we might have more power than we deserve. I talk about designers, the creators of art, and how I want the engineers and designers to party together more. Lastly, I talk about the importance of dictators — forces of nature whose vision is terrifyingly clear and whom we willingly follow even though we’re a little scared of them. I explain how a dictator mediates the battle between art and science with a curious mind, an iron fist, and taste.
Yeah, it’s about Steve.
My first thought as I stared long and hard at Apple’s home page yesterday wasn’t a specific Steve story or one of his many insightful quotes. The thought was…
You are underestimating the future. You are fretting about the now; worrying about little things that don’t matter. You are wasting precious energy obsessing over irrelevant details. You don’t believe that a better future is out there and can be built, that it can exceed people’s expectations, because you’re spending so much time considering the truth of the present and the seemingly important lessons of the past.
You are underestimating the future because you believe you cannot see it, but you can – you’ve seen it done before.
My favorite video of Steve was shortly after his return to Apple. He wasn’t CEO yet; he was still consulting and was speaking on the last day of 1997’s WWDC. It wasn’t a prepared speech; it was Q&A, an open microphone where anyone could apparently ask Steve Jobs anything. (Steve starts at 2:12)
I’ve watched this video a few times, and what consistently impressed me wasn’t just his ability to elegantly answer random and sometimes hostile questions from an audience, it was the fact that it was abundantly clear what he wanted Apple to be. Again: 1997.
I was an Apple employee for eight and half years and I didn’t see the video until after I’d left the company. For those who worked there and for those who have watched Apple’s success, what resonates from this crackly old video is that it was clear that Steve could see the future. He may have given features, products, and strategies different names at the time, but so much of what Apple has become is described in a video from almost 14 years ago.
Steve didn’t underestimate the future; he could see it, and, more importantly, he built it.
# October 6, 2011
Marshall 8 years ago
One thing that struck me: “When you get up in the morning, and the press is selling Apple short – go out and buy some shares”
If you had followed that advice, you could retire today.
Closing price May 16, 1997: $4.3125 (the day of this talk)
Closing price October 5, 2011: $379
Return for those 14.5 years: somewhat more than 35%/year
cjagers 8 years ago
Wonderful Quote! I would like to share, but looking for the source of it … can you help?
Randy 8 years ago
Marshall, are you taking the two stock splits between now and then into account? I’m not 100% on my math but I’m getting a roughly 50% annualized rate of return.
In other words: 1000 shares purchased on May 16, 1997 would cost $4,312.50, and would now be 4000 shares worth $1.509 million. Which makes me really, really wish I’d had some money back then (though, given that I was in the ninth grade at the time, I likely would’ve blown it on something stupid)
Never mind – it turns out my historical prices were split-adjusted already. Whoops.
(This is why I don’t mess with stocks)
I’m sorry mis-reading your post. I now realize that is not a Steve quote, that is your thought. So wonderful. That seems to perfectly capture his spirit.
Josh 8 years ago
What amazed me about this video, aside from Steve’s prescience and ability to think on his feet, was how damn good each of the questions was. These days it seems that audience members are prone to blather on and make speeches in their questions. But almost every question here was astoundingly concise and to the point. That alone should have been a tip for me to buy Apple stock back then.
Martin 8 years ago
That’s almost exactly what I did. I bought the first week of July 1997, just prior to MW Boston. 300 shares at the time at $13/share ($3900 + commission – we had $4K to invest) which was a intraday low based on a rumor that Steve had sold off all of his Apple shares that he got in the NeXT deal a week or so prior. I think Apple was trading below book value and it was fantastically lucky timing. A month later it had nearly doubled in value after the MSFT investment and we nearly sold, but decided to hold on a while longer. Up and down it went, dot.com growth, then collapse, and then the iPod showed up…
We never sold and that’s now 1200 shares worth $478K. Won’t be able to retire off that but it’ll get the kids through college.
Nathan 8 years ago
“I don’t need a hard disk in my computer if I can get to it over the internet.” 14.5 years later: iCloud.
frick 8 years ago
Incredible. I loved that he ended the keynote with “Ripple”
Ed Smithe 8 years ago
It’s not about seeing the future, it’s about understanding possibilities. What Jobs did was understand what was possible and work his way back to the present. This video is excellent, but there is a far better quote that he delivered in his speech to Stanford University:
“You can’t connect dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”
That is a fundamentally different way of looking at the world. Indeed Jobs understood the way in which the world, or rather the universe, actually works. Again, it is about possibilities, not predictions.
Bill Houle 8 years ago
Initial takeaway as I listen?
“Lousy engineering management.” “People going off in 18 different directions doing arguably interesting things. Good engineers, lousy management.” “The total is less than the sum of the parts.”
It sounds like the Google of today. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/business/13hire.html
Michael Skinner 8 years ago
Steve didn’t just see the future, because of his wealth and access, he basically lived it. In the video, he talks about having 100baseT Ethernet, rich email, network home directory, etc. 8 years before returning to Apple, and a T1 at his house in the mid 90’s!. I experienced this same epiphany much later in 1997 when I bought a used NeXT Color Turbo Slab running NeXTStep 3.3 to see what the future Mac OS might be like. On booting that five year old machine for the first time, I suddenly felt propelled 10 years into the future. I didn’t feel that sensation again until my first iPhone. Finally, late in Steve’s life, he democratized the feeling of living in the future. Everyone who uses an iPhone or iPad now, and especially I think when Siri arrives, can live in the future. Typing this on my iPad now, and still can’t believe it actually exists. Every time I use it, I feel like I am in an episode of Star Trek.
KenC 8 years ago
A number of Steve’s interviews are scary in how prescient they are. I mean if you look at Bill Gates’ contemporaneous interviews, the difference in vision is quite stark.
Tim McDaniel 8 years ago
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and this video.
The most amazing thing to me was the question/response at about the 50-minute mark…the person who told Steve that he didn’t know what he was talking about, and Steve’s amazingly composed, self-deprecating, and wise response. I’d love to know if that guy is still around and when he finally realized how wrong he was.
AJ 8 years ago
Love what Jobs accomplished. Love my multitudinous Apple devices. Love this video/Q&A with the engineers.
However, I wouldn’t credit him with inventing these ideas. He was living in them because he was working with well financed companies. I worked at Bell Labs Allentown in the late 80s. I actually watched Scott McNeilly give a sales pitch to the Design and Engineering Services department pitching his sparcstation pizza boxes and using NSF home directories.
What Jobs realized is that there would come a point that all of this would be affordable and available to the common person. That does take quite a bit of insight. Making it user friendly takes a lot of hard work. However he did not invent these thing, just like he did not invent the mo3 player.
It seems so much bigger because it is a series of inter-tangled services rather than one describe device.
I will miss his contributions to my life which has given me much joy.
Hamranhansenhansen 8 years ago
> However, I wouldn’t credit him with inventing these ideas.
> He was living in them because he was working with well
> financed companies.
He was living them because he was a NeXT user for 10 years at that point, and he was the one who insisted those features be put into the NeXT system, even though it was a computer for non- computer scientists to use, like Steve Jobs or Tim Berners-Lee or millions since then.
Tim Berners-Lee didn’t invent TCP/IP or DNS, he just made then useful to everyone instead of a small technical priesthood because he started with the user and worked back towards the technology, which is exactly what Steve Jobs always said you should do. That is what gave us the future, not technology demos. Without the Mac or the Web, we would still have computers and the Internet, but we would be in a very different future.
Matthew Frederick 8 years ago
Jobs wasn’t prescient here; as John Siracusa ably pointed out in the last episode of Hypercritical, Jobs saw what could be done with technology and then made it happen at Apple.
It’s not predicting the future when you conceive of a great plan and implement it, that’s genius vision and leadership.
Gene 8 years ago
It’s not that Steve could foresee the future, it’s that he made it happen the way he imagined it.
Scott Cooper 8 years ago
It’s like William Gibson’s famous quote was about Steve, and then Steve took it as a personal challenge to make it happen.
Roman Gaufman 8 years ago
I don’t understand – over and over again Steve mentions that he wants people to build their own hardware and not be forced to use Apple hardware to run Mac. Why hasn’t this ever happened?
Kier 8 years ago
Watching this video was great. What made it better was that Steve’s vision enabled me to watch it on my tv via AirPlay from my iPad. Neither of them have moving parts, and I don’t need to care about any of the internal technologies that made this happen.
It still surprises me that most software/hardware companies don’t live in a world where people want to DO THINGS, not plug in, and build, and install and initiate. It just needs to work.
Gary Horsman 8 years ago
@Roman Steve Jobs wasn’t telling people to build their own hardware. He was saying the OEMs who built Mac clones should take on the responsibility for building their own hardware instead of relying on Apple and that they should pay higher rates for licensing the OS. Not long after Steve Jobs took over as CEO of Apple, he axed the clones and that entire experiment, trying to emulate Microsoft’s business model, was finished. In hindsight, it was the right decision for Jobs to end the clones when he had the power to do so.
Think Again 8 years ago
As someone said, we tend to overstimate technology 2 years in the future, and underestimate technology 10 years in the future
Kellee 7 years ago
We are not far off from students carrying iPads to class instead of notebads and books. Amazing when you consider that just a couple of years ago there was no tablet market. Now look how big it is.
flush dns 7 years ago
Really cool post. Thank you for posting.
You’re Probably Underestimating What You Can Do With Your iPhone Home Screen
iPhone Home Screen – Year in Review
How to Build a Button
My Apple Hardware Hierarchy of Need
Not a Hobby
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search filter Books & JournalsAll JournalsEthnohistory
About Ethnohistory: The Journal of the American Society for Ethnohistory
The journal of the American Society for Ethnohistory
Ethnohistory reflects the wide range of current scholarship inspired by anthropological and historical approaches to the human condition around the world, but with a particular emphasis on the Americas. Of particular interest are those analyses and interpretations that seek to make evident the experiences, organizations, and identities of indigenous, diasporic, and minority peoples that otherwise elude the histories and anthropologies of nations, states, and colonial empires. The journal welcomes a theoretical and cross-cultural discussion of ethnohistorical materials and publishes work from the disciplines of art history, geography, literature, archaeology, anthropology, and history, among others.
Robbie Ethridge, John F. Schwaller
Good Words: Chief Joseph and the Production of Indian Speech(es), Texts, and Subjects
Rethinking Amerindian Spaces in Brazilian History
Unexpected Cowboy, Unexpected Indian: The Case of Will Rogers
Reviving Witiko (Windigo): An Ethnohistory of “Cannibal Monsters” In the Athabasca District of Northern Alberta, 1878–1910
Furthering Their Own Demise: How Kansa Indian Death Customs Accelerated Their Depopulation
Transcending the Debate over the Ecologically Noble Indian: Indigenous Peoples and Environmentalism
Settlement Patterns and the Origins of African Jamaican Society: Seville Plantation, St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica
When the Mountain Dwarfs Danced: Aboriginal Traditions of Paleoseismic Events along the Cascadia Subduction Zone of Western North America
The Unintended Consequences of Clarification: Development, Disputing, and the Dynamics of Community in Ranongga, Solomon Islands
Women, Kin, and Catholicism: New Perspectives on the Fur Trade
Hurtling off a Precipice, Falling into a River: A Nahuatl Metaphor and the Christian Concept of Sin
The Personal Politics of Action and Applied Anthropology
Presidential Address: A Rainbow of Spanish Illusions: Research Frontiers in Colonial Guatemala
Testing the Limits of Colonial Parenting: Navajo Domestic Workers, the Intermountain Indian School, and the Urban Relocation Program, 1950–1962
Calendars in Knotted Cords: New Evidence on How Khipus Captured Time in Nineteenth-Century Cuzco and Beyond
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The Robert F. Heizer Article Award
This award was established in 1980 to honor Dr. Robert F. Heizer, ethnohistorian and archaeologist noted for his research in California and Mesoamerica and is awarded in recognition of the best article in the field of ethnohistory. All articles published in Ethnohistory are automatically nominated for this prize. Visit this site for information about this and other awards from the American Society for Ethnohistory.
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After A Huge Election Victory, What ...
After A Huge Election Victory, What’s Next For Marijuana?
January 7, 2017 admin General
While most people watched the presidential election in horror on Tuesday night, something else, quietly but surely, happened on Election Day: Marijuana legalization won. In fact, it won in several states in an election when liberals by and large seemed to lose across the board.
The key state here: California. There, voters overwhelmingly approved legalization meaning the country’s most populous state and biggest economy will now move to let people buy marijuana for recreational use and, most importantly, let for-profit companies come into supply all of that pot.
Obviously, by itself this is a huge symbolic victory. But there is a very practical effect, too: It means that big companies now have a massive economy to flock to and grow their pot businesses.
Until Election Day, only four relatively small states had already legalized pot: Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and Alaska. Altogether, these states hold about 17.1 million people, and their cumulative annual economic value totals around $1 trillion.
In comparison, California alone holds 38.8 million people and is worth around $2.5 trillion. That’s nearly twice as populous and more than twice as wealthy.
With such size, California isn’t just a bellwether for the national trend toward legalizing pot. It’s a bullhorn.
California solidifies existing polling trends
It would be one thing if this were just wacky liberal California doing something weird. That’s how some critics characterized the state’s legalization of medical marijuana in the 1990s at first until dozens of other states followed suit, to the point that more than half the states now allow medical pot.
Yet the polls suggest this isn’t just something that California wants to do, but that a majority of Americans want to do.
The Pew Research Center’s surveys illustrate the trend: In the 1990s and early 2000s, support for legalization was fairly low hovering around the 20s and 30s. In 2016, 57 percent of US adults say marijuana should be made legal, compared with 37 percent who say it should remain illegal.
As Pew’s numbers show in the chart above, support is rising in every generation. But crucially, millennials are particularly supportive a sign that as that generation ages and becomes a bigger share of the overall population, it will continue to push the country toward heavily favoring legalization.
California could also give more credibility to this movement. If nothing big goes horribly wrong (just as nothing big has gone wrong in Colorado or other legalization states), then the nation’s most populous state making up more than one-tenth of the US’s population could show everyone else that this isn’t the huge disaster drug warriors have long warned about. In fact, it might even bring in some big tax revenue and create a lot of jobs.
But California could have another, perhaps more subtle effect too.
California sets the stage for big marijuana playing a bigger role in ballot initiatives
Given the reputation of California’s medical marijuana industry, it might be easy to understate the scope of what the state did on Tuesday. After all, it’s already fairly easy to get pot in California you can just stroll down to Venice Beach in Los Angeles, pay $40 or so for a medical marijuana card, and legally buy some premium bud.
But there is a vast difference in scale between Venice Beach’s local medical pot shops and the burgeoning multi-state marijuana industry that can rise from full legalization.
Market analysts have backed this up: One report from researchers at the investment bank Cowen estimated that legalization in California alone will triple the size of the nation’s current $6 billion legal pot industry within a decade. Another report from ArcView Market Research estimated that legalization in California would create a new $6.5 billion market for legal use by 2020.
This does a few things that will make it a lot harder to contain marijuana legalization in just a few states.
For one, the market will be so huge that it will be difficult to avert smuggling from the state. There are already reports of Colorado pot making its way around the nation. Now imagine the potential impact of a market that is many times the size of Colorado. (Not to mention the other states that legalized last night.)
THE BIG MARIJUANA INDUSTRY, JUST LIKE ANY OTHER FOR-PROFIT INDUSTRY, WILL WANT TO GROW
The other consideration is that the big marijuana industry, just like any other for-profit industry, will want to grow. The obvious pathway to doing that is legalizing pot in the dozens of states where it remains illegal.
With many, many more customers thanks to California’s decision alone, the industry will suddenly have more profits that it can then use on a time-honored tradition in American politics: lobbying. The alcohol industry, for example, has successfully fought off all sorts of regulations and taxes over the years. The marijuana industry has a much bigger hurdle to fight than taxes in prohibition, but it now has a clear model for doing this: ballot initiatives.
The big problem with ballot initiatives is they can cost a lot of money. Whenever I ask legal pot activists why, for example, it took so long to get medical marijuana which now polls very well virtually everywhere in Ohio and now Florida, the response is usually that those states are very expensive to run ballot initiatives in.
Well, there’s now going to be a rapidly growing industry to cover those expenses.
Legalization advocates expect this. As Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the pro-legalization Drug Policy Alliance, previously told me, he’s long expected the marijuana industry to become a bigger part of the drug policy reform movement as legalization spreads.
On some level, we have always known that,î he said. ìAnd I think 2016 may be the last year in which drug policy reform organizations, driven primarily by concerns of civil liberties and civil rights and other good public policy motivations, will be able to significantly shape the legislation. And I assume that as the years progress, various industry forces will loom ever larger.
Legalization advocates have had public support on their side, particularly in the more liberal states, for years. With a big marijuana industry in California, they may now get more money to actually put those ballot initiatives in front of voters.
The federal government can’t keep ignoring what’s happening here
For years, Congress has for the most part ignored the spread of marijuana legalization. As legalization continues to spread, this is going to become less and less defensible.
Technically, marijuana is still illegal under federal law it is Schedule 1, the strictest classification in the drug scheduling system, and it has criminal penalties attached to it. The federal government has mostly ignored that contradiction and decided to let states legalize as they please, with minimal interference.
But this contradiction in state and federal laws creates other problems. For one, banks are generally afraid of doing business with marijuana growers and shops after all, it could put the bank in the awkward position of essentially taking part in an illegal drug industry. This has forced many pot businesses to function as cash-only businesses. That’s not only burdensome for pot businesses but also potentially dangerous, since it makes them better targets for would-be robbers.
Another hurdle: Due to a tax rule known as 280E, marijuana businesses can’t file for a bunch of deductions that businesses are normally entitled to, pushing their effective income tax rates to as high as 90 percent.
DOES CONGRESS REALLY WANT TO LET STATE BALLOT INITIATIVES, WHICH CAN BE RIFE WITH PROBLEMS, DECIDE THE FUTURE OF A MAJOR DRUG POLICY ISSUE?
Then there are the broader policy issues: Does Congress really want to let state ballot initiatives, which can be rife with problems, decide the future of a major drug policy issue? Is Congress really okay with the creation of another for-profit industry focused on marketing and selling a recreational drug, given the track record of the alcohol and tobacco industries? Do federal lawmakers really not want to make sure there’s at least some regulatory floor for how marijuana is grown, transported, advertised, and sold? Is Congress really going to do nothing as a giant new industry takes root in America?
It simply doesn’t make sense for Congress to simply ignore these issues, considering that federal law plays a direct role in all of them. It was already pretty bad for federal lawmakers to play ignorant when Colorado and Washington legalized in 2012, but with the biggest state in the country now allowing the recreational use and sales of marijuana, it’s completely ridiculous.
President Barack Obama, in an interview with comedian Bill Maher, acknowledged as much shortly before multiple states voted to legalize on Election Day: If in fact it passed in all these states, you now have about a fifth of the country that’s operating under one set of laws and four-fifths in another. The Justice Department, DEA, FBI, for them to try to straddle and figure out how they’re supposed to enforce laws in some places and not in others they’re gonna guard against transporting these drugs across state lines, but you’ve got the entire Pacific corridor where this is legal that is not going to be tenable.
One point of uncertainty: President-elect Donald Trump. Trump has suggested that he is okay with letting states legalize on their own. But his administration, especially one in which an anti-legalization figure like Trump ally and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie holds sway, could try to clamp down on states legalizing. Or the Trump administration could continue the hands-off approach of the Obama administration. We just don’t know what Trump will do on this issue.
Still, as it stands now, it sure looks like marijuana legalization and the big industry that could be behind it are coming. Staying in denial about that won’t change the reality.
adminAfter A Huge Election Victory, What’s Next For Marijuana? 01.07.2017
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1 Contributo su Rivista
1.1 Articolo in rivista
Stimulation of phospholipase C activity by norepinephrine, t-ACPD and bombesin in LA-N-2 cells
The release of [3H]inositol phosphates from myo-[3H]inositol-prelabeled LA-N-2 cells was measured in the presence of beta-adrenoceptor, metabotropic glutamate and bombesin agonists. Norepinephrine and isoproterenol increased the formation of [3H]inositol phosphates in a dose-dependent manner, with an EC50 of 100 microM for norepinephrine and an EC50 of 5 microM for isoproterenol. These stimulations were abolished by propranolol, a beta-adrenoceptor antagonist, with an IC50 in the range of 50-55 microM for both norepinephrine and isoproterenol. The stimulation of [3H]inositol phosphate appearance occurred with varying concentrations of trans-1-amino-1,3-cyclopentanedicarboxylic acid (t-ACPD), a metabotropic glutamate receptor agonist. This release of [3H] inositol phosphates was blunted by its antagonist, 2-amino-3-phosphonopropionic acid (AP-3). Bombesin and neuromedin-B, a bombesin-like peptide, also increased the appearance of [3H]inositol phosphates. This was blunted by the antagonist [Tyr4, D-Phe12] bombesin. The appearance of [3H]inositol phosphates stimulated by t-ACPD was coupled through a cholera toxin-sensitive G-protein and the bombesin-stimulated appearance of [3H]inositol phosphates was coupled through a pertussis toxin-sensitive G-protein. The norepinephrine-stimulated appearance of [3H]inositol phosphates was toxin insensitive. The stimulation of the [3H]inositol phosphate appearance by these three agonists was protein kinase and Ca2+ independent.
Titolo: Stimulation of phospholipase C activity by norepinephrine, t-ACPD and bombesin in LA-N-2 cells
SORRENTINO, Giuseppe
SINGH I. N.
MASSARELLI R. AND KANFER J. N.
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACOLOGY
Abstract: The release of [3H]inositol phosphates from myo-[3H]inositol-prelabeled LA-N-2 cells was measured in the presence of beta-adrenoceptor, metabotropic glutamate and bombesin agonists. Norepinephrine and isoproterenol increased the formation of [3H]inositol phosphates in a dose-dependent manner, with an EC50 of 100 microM for norepinephrine and an EC50 of 5 microM for isoproterenol. These stimulations were abolished by propranolol, a beta-adrenoceptor antagonist, with an IC50 in the range of 50-55 microM for both norepinephrine and isoproterenol. The stimulation of [3H]inositol phosphate appearance occurred with varying concentrations of trans-1-amino-1,3-cyclopentanedicarboxylic acid (t-ACPD), a metabotropic glutamate receptor agonist. This release of [3H] inositol phosphates was blunted by its antagonist, 2-amino-3-phosphonopropionic acid (AP-3). Bombesin and neuromedin-B, a bombesin-like peptide, also increased the appearance of [3H]inositol phosphates. This was blunted by the antagonist [Tyr4, D-Phe12] bombesin. The appearance of [3H]inositol phosphates stimulated by t-ACPD was coupled through a cholera toxin-sensitive G-protein and the bombesin-stimulated appearance of [3H]inositol phosphates was coupled through a pertussis toxin-sensitive G-protein. The norepinephrine-stimulated appearance of [3H]inositol phosphates was toxin insensitive. The stimulation of the [3H]inositol phosphate appearance by these three agonists was protein kinase and Ca2+ independent.
Appare nelle tipologie: 1.1 Articolo in rivista
Europ Pharm.pdf Altro DRM non definito Administrator Richiedi una copia
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About Robert
Robert Ringer is the author of the #1 bestselling conservative classic, Restoring the American Dream, as well as two other New York Times #1 bestsellers, both of which have been listed by The New York Times among the 15 best-selling motivational books of all time.
Ringer has appeared on The Tonight Show, Today, The Dennis Miller Show, Good Morning America, ABC Nightline, and The Charlie Rose Show, as well as Fox News and Fox Business.
In addition, he has been the subject of feature articles in such major publications as Time, People, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Barron’s, and The New York Times.
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Tag Archives: VGX
Hello Games announces No Man’s Sky
December 7, 2013 by masterbedgood in News Snippets, PC, PlayStation, Videogames, Xbox and tagged Gaming, Hello Games, Joe Danger, Microsoft, No Man's Sky, PlayStation, PlayStation 4, PS4, Sony, VGX, Video Games, Videogames, XBOX, Xbox One | Leave a comment
Hello Games, developer of Joe Danger, has announced today on VGX the next gen title No Man’s Sky. The game will be a science fiction featuring a huge universe that encourages exploration with multiple planets to explore from top to bottom. The game promises that the stars in the sky are suns featuring planets that can be explored with a “living” persistent world. It looks like a game with a lot of promise and I’ll be sure to post more regarding this game when more details become available.
Tomb Raider : Definitive Edition announced for next gen
December 7, 2013 by masterbedgood in News Snippets, PlayStation, Videogames, Xbox and tagged Crystal Dynamics, Microsoft, PlayStation, PlayStation 4, PS4, Sony, Square Enix, Tomb Raider, VGX, Videogames, XBOX, Xbox One | Leave a comment
Tomb Raider was released earlier this year and was well received. Personally, I found the game to be the best I’ve played this year and easily one of the best on this current generation of gaming platforms. It had some of the best action platforming I’ve ever experienced and was a much-needed reboot to a stagnating gaming franchise. Needless to say, I’m ready to get stranded on a hostile island with Lara Croft again with the power of the new game consoles. The game will feature improved graphics with some of the highlights being a completely reconstructed face for Lara as well as more realistic hair effects. From the trailer that was shown on VGX, it wasn’t terribly mind-blowing with the graphical improvements, but the hair does look good. The game will be released on Xbox One and PS4 and will be available next month.
Tales from the Borderlands announced
December 7, 2013 by masterbedgood in News Snippets, PC, PlayStation, Videogames, Xbox and tagged Borderlands, Gearbox, Gearbox Software, PC, PlayStation, Tales from the Borderlands, Tell Tale Games, Telltale Games, VGX, Video Games, Videogames, XBOX | 1 Comment
Today is the videogame awar… VGX. And with that, not only do we get some game of the year winners courtesy of GameTrailers, but also some exciting new game announcements. With that, the first announcement to come from VGX is Tales from the Borderlands. The game will be a collaboration between Telltale Games, the fine folks behind The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us, and Gearbox Software, the studio behind the Borderlands and Brothers in Arms franchises. The game will be an episodic adventure, in traditional Telltale fashion. Stay tuned to PowerUp for more on Tales from the Borderlands.
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Pussy Riot Claims Responsibility for Protest on the Field During World Cup Final
By Daniel Politi
A protester is evacuated from the football pitch during the Russia 2018 World Cup final football match between France and Croatia at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow on July 15, 2018.
ALEXANDER NEMENOV/Getty Images
The Russian government has been working hard to avoid controversy during the World Cup. Yet during the tournament’s final match, activist feminist punk rock band Pussy Riot made sure that Russia’s political reality shone through at least a little bit at a time when much of the world’s eyes were on the country.
It all happened in the first few minutes of the second half of the France-Croatia match, when four intruders ran on to the field from the stands in the game’s 52nd minute. The four intruders were wearing what looked like old-fashioned police uniforms and they were quickly tackled by security officers who dragged them out of the field.
Stewards drag off a fan who ran onto the pitch in the middle of play #FRACRO pic.twitter.com/fLqejdzuxU
— Alec Luhn (@ASLuhn) July 15, 2018
One of the protesters managed to reach the center of the field first and even gave a double high-five to French superstar player Kylian Mbappe. On the complete other end of the spectrum, a Croatian defender, Dejan Lovren, pushed one of the male protesters and tried to drag him off the pitch before security grabbed him. Russian President Vladimir Putin was watching from the stands.
A pitch invader high fives Kylian Mbappe of France during the 2018 FIFA World Cup Final between France and Croatia at Luzhniki Stadium on July 15, 2018 in Moscow, Russia.
Clive Rose/Getty Images
A protester is evacuated from the football pitch by security guards and Croatia’s defender Dejan Lovren during the Russia 2018 World Cup final football match between France and Croatia at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow on July 15, 2018.
Pussy Riot quickly took to social media to claim responsibility for the action, calling it a protest. In a statement, Pussy Riot explained what inspired them to disrupt the World Cup and called for the freeing of all political prisoners, an end to “illegal arrests,” allowing “political competition in the country,” and an end to fabricating criminal accusations, among others.
NEWS FLASH! Just a few minutes ago four Pussy Riot members performed in the FIFA World Cup final match — ”Policeman enters the Game”https://t.co/3jUi5rC8hh pic.twitter.com/W8Up9TTKMA
— 𝖕𝖚𝖘𝖘𝖞 𝖗𝖎𝖔𝖙 (@pussyrrriot) July 15, 2018
2018 World Cup Soccer
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Bacterial Cultures
By SHS Communications
James Stark and Catherine Stones, University of Leeds J.F.Stark@leeds.ac.uk C.M.Stones@leeds.ac.uk Germs have always been hidden. Impossible to see with the naked eye, microorganisms inhabit a world of their own. Invisible miniature organisms had long been theorised but were first revealed by the microscopy of Anton van Leeuwenhoek in the seventeenth century. With the increasing popularity … Continued
Settlement, Assimilation and the Monros in Early Modern England
By Exchange Editor
Dr Allan Kennedy is Lecturer in History at the University of Dundee. He is the author of Governing Gaeldom: The Scottish Highlands and the Restoration State, 1660-1688 (Leiden, 2014) and numerous articles on the treatment of Scottish outsiders or ‘others’ in the early modern world.
In his contribution to the Research Exchange, he reflects on the challenges of researching Scottish migration and identity in early modern England, which he wrote about with Professor Keith Brown in their recent article ‘Becoming English: The Monro Family and Scottish Assimilation in Early-Modern England’ published online with Cultural & Social History on 27 March 2019.
Researching the Ragged Schools
Dr Laura Mair is REF Impact Officer for the School of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh. Alongside completing her doctoral research on the ragged school movement, in 2015-16 she acted as research consultant to the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Museum of Childhood for their ‘On Their Own’ exhibition on British child migrants.
In her contribution to the Research, she reflects on her experience of researching the intimate history of children’s and adult’s lives in the Victorian ragged schools, which is the subject of her new book ‘Religion and Relationships in Ragged Schools: An Intimate History of Educating the Poor, 1844-1870’, which is published by Routledge.
Prisons, human rights, HIV, and other cheery subjects
Dr Janet Weston is a social historian based at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, with particular interests in health and law. Her first book, Medicine, the Penal System and Sexual Crimes in England, 1919-1960s, was published by Bloomsbury in 2018, and she has also written about HIV/AIDS policy, public engagement, and dementia.
In her contribution to the Research Exchange, she reflects on the limits of thinking about HIV/AIDs as a matter of human rights in the 1990s, something she wrote about in her recent article for Cultural & Social History, ‘Sites of Sickness, sites of rights? HIV/AIDS and the limits of human rights in British prisons’ was published online on 11 March 2019.
Women and Adult Education during the 1970s
Dr Eve Worth, University of Oxford eve.worth@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk 2019 is a particularly important moment to reflect on the history of adult education in Britain. This year marks the centenary of the landmark 1919 report on Adult Education produced by the Ministry of Reconstruction. The authors of the report argued that adult education had a significant … Continued
SHS Postgraduate Prize Winner: Dirt, Health and Home Gardening
Sophie Greenway is a PhD student at the Centre for the History of Medicine, University of Warwick. Her PhD is entitled ‘Growing well: Dirt, health and the home gardener 1930-1970’. She is currently on secondment with Warwickshire Wildlife Trust working on the project ‘Hygiene and our relationship to nature- achieving a better balance?’
In her contribution to the Research Exchange, she reflects on the process of pitching her work for the postgraduate paper prize which she won at the 2017 Social History Society conference and developing it for publication as ‘Producer or consumer? The House, the Garden and the Sourcing of Vegetables in Britain 1930-1970’ in Cultural & Social History, published online on 18 April 2019.
How Animals Shaped Georgian London
Dr Thomas Almeroth-Williams is a Research Associate of the University of York’s Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies and a Research Communications Manager at the University of Cambridge. In addition to human–animal interactions, his main interests lie in urban life and the world of work in Georgian Britain.
In his contribution to the Research Exchange, he discusses his hope of bringing animal history firmly into the realm of social history with his new book ‘City of Beasts: How animals shaped Georgian London’ (Manchester University Press, 2019).
Toil and Trouble: Ireland’s Last Witch Trial
Dr Andrew Sneddon is Lecturer in International History at Ulster University. He is a social and cultural historian of witchcraft and magic from the medieval to modern periods. He is the author of ‘Witchcraft and Whigs The life of Bishop Francis Hutchinson, 1660–1739’ (Manchester University Press, 2008), ‘Possessed by the Devil: The Real History of the Islandmagee Witches and Ireland’s Only Mass Witchcraft Trial’ (History Press, 2013) and ‘Witchcraft and Magic in Ireland’ (Plagrave Macmillan, 2015).
In his contribution to the Research Exchange, he reflects on why and how he returned to the subject of the Islandmagee Witches for his latest article, ‘Witchcraft Belief, Representation and Memory in Modern Ireland’, Cultural & Social History, published online on 31 March 2019.
Courtship in the Eighteenth Century
Dr Sally Holloway is Vice Chancellor’s Research Fellow in History & History of Art at Oxford Brookes University. With Stephanie Downes and Sarah Randles, she is the co-editor of ‘Feeling Things: Objects and Emotions through History’ (Oxford University Press, 2018).
In her contribution to the Research Exchange, she uses the eighteenth-century courtship of Elizabeth Jeffreys and Charles Pratt to illustrate the key themes of her new book, ‘The Game of Love in Georgian England: Courtship, Emotions, and Material Culture’ (Oxford University Press, 2019).
Beyond ‘mad’ and ‘bad’ at Salem
Isabelle Laskaris recently completed a Master of Arts degree at the University of New England in New South Wales, Australia, where she primarily researched emotions in New England witchcraft. She is currently completing an Honours thesis on slave resistance in eighteenth-century New England at Monash University, and also works as a Liaison Librarian at Deakin University.
In her contribution to the Research Exchange she discusses different ways of viewing the behaviour of young female accusers in the Salem Witch Trials, which is also the focus of her recent article, ‘Agency and emotion of young female accusers in the Salem witchcraft trials’, for Cultural & Social History.
Teaching Exchange
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Tag Archives: Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want
Theater Around The Bay: Writers Talking About Morrissey
With a somewhat heavy heart, we bring you some thoughts from the writers of the upcoming Morrissey Plays.
“David [Bowie] quietly tells me, ‘You know, I’ve had so much sex and drugs that I can’t believe I’m still alive,’ and I loudly tell him, ‘You know, I’ve had SO LITTLE sex and drugs that I can’t believe I’m still alive.” – Morrissey
Who the heck are you, Morrissey Play writer?
I’m Libby Emmons. My plays include I Am Not an Allegory (iamnotanallegoryplay.com, upcoming Under Saint Marks, March 2016, NYC), How to Sell Your Gang Rape Baby for Parts (Festival of the Offensive, NYC 2014, winner “Most Offensive”), “Soft Little Song Like Doves,” (upcoming Best Short Plays, 2015, Smith & Krause), & many more. Co-founder of the Sticky short play series (stickyseries.live, upcoming Lovecraft Bar, April 2016, NYC), and blogs the story of her life at li88yinc.com. So many thank you’s to Stuart Bousel for including me in the show, & to Morrissey, for seeing me through my teenage years relatively unharmed.
I’m David Robson. I have a degree in theatre from the University of Virginia. I was a director, adapter, and actor, in The Twilight Zone series at the Dark Room Theatre (RIP), which also produced my plays The Night and Zola-X. This is actually my Theater Pub debut!
I’m Susan Petrone, author of the novels Throw Like a Woman (2015), A Body at Rest (2009), and the forthcoming The Super Ladies (2016 or 2017 depending on when I get the manuscript to the publisher). My short fiction has been published by Glimmer Train and Featherproof Books, among others. I also blog about my beloved Cleveland Indians at the ESPN-affiliated blog ItsPronouncedLajaway.com.
Pete Bratach: I’m a guy who has been around long enough to have experienced the Smiths as an angst-ridden, morose teen, long before that whole Emo schtick sucked in the latest generation of outcasts and the disaffected. But “Girlfriend in a Coma” was the beginning of the end of my relationship with the Smiths; I know, I know, it was serious. Oh, I live in SF and write for a living.
Allie Costa: I’m an actress, writer, director, and singer. When I’m not in a theatre, I’m on a film or TV set. I’ve been writing stories and songs for as long as I can remember. My earliest audiences were my mom, my sister, and my cat. That audience has now expanded; it’s mind-blowing to realize my work as both an performer and as a writer has been seen in places I’ve never been, like Scotland and London. My play Femme Noir is currently running in New Jersey, while The Intervention Will Be Televised is having its world premiere production in Los Angeles.
Anthony Miller: I was born and raised in San Jose. I performed in the Rocky Horror Picture Show for several years, and then I ran a poetry slam, now I write weird cult plays. I am a man mired in sub-sub cultures. I currently live in Berkeley with my girlfriend and two cats that cant seem to stop eating.
I’m Alan Olejniczak, a San Francisco playwright, Theater Bay Area ISC Board Member, and a company member of We Players. Last spring, I started the fledgling At Last Theatre, with Rik Lopes, and premiered Present Tense at The ACT Costume Shop. Last autumn, City Lights Theater Company presented my short play if-then(-else) and San Francisco Olympians Festival VI premiered my ten-minute play Hylas. This spring, I’m producing my play Dominion and participating in the next San Francisco Olympian’s Festival VII with Lethe.
I’m Barry Eitel, an Oakland playwright and a recipient of the 2016 TITAN Award for playwrights from TBA. I was the Head Writer for Boxcar Theatre’s The Speakeasy, leading a team of nine to create a breathing novel set in a Prohibition-era speakeasy. I was the Fall 2014 Artist-in-Residence at the Bay Area Discovery Museum, where I created an interactive play for young audiences. My short plays have been produced across the country and have been published by Smith & Kraus. My play The Ice Cream Sandwich Incident will be produced by FaultLine Theatre at PianoFight in August, 2016. My website is www.BarryEitel.com.
Kylie Murphy: I am a creative writing and filmmaking student from New Jersey. My first short play, World Peace, premiered in New York last summer. I apparently cannot write any play without the phrase “world peace” in the title, and am working closely with a professional to figure out why that is.
How/when did you first discover Morrissey?
Pete: I first discovered Morrissey through the Smiths back in high school when Hatful of Hollow was released.
Libby: In 9th grade no one understood me except the college radio station from the University of Rhode Island which only came in after much fidgeting with the location of the boom box in my room and one day after school they played “Reel Around the Fountain”, and they played “November Spawned a Monster”, and my heart was filled with the most joyous melancholy and I knew I was home.
Alan: I dated a guy briefly in college who introduced me to Meat is Murder. Tragically, my love was unrequited and my life became a glorious Smith’s single. I played the album over and over until my roommate, so worried about my spiraling depression, finally broke the cassette tape. Strangely, one of my fondest memories of Morrissey is seeing the Queen is Dead tour. I worked at the venue and after the sound check, the band casually sat on the edge of the stage. I bravely walked up to Morrissey, but could form no words. I stood there stupidly with my mouth open, until they all started laughing. I walked away, humiliated but delighted I got so close to my idol.
Kylie: I discovered Morrissey while reading the coming-of-age novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower when I was fourteen. After the narrator famously placed “Asleep” by The Smiths twice on a mix tape, I listened to it endlessly and it was perfect. (What is my final cliché count?)
Anthony: I first saw the video for “Tomorrow” on 120 Minutes on MTV, followed by “Panic”, but it wasn’t until “The More You Ignore Me The Closer I get” that I was truly hooked. I promptly shoplifted a copy of “ Vauxhall and I” from my local tower records, thus began the love affair.
Susan: I lived at home during undergrad. My cousin Nora was studying at the Cleveland Institute of Art and lived with us. She (or one of her ultra-cool art school friends) had a homemade tape of Louder Than Bombs, which I “borrowed” and never returned.
Barry: I went through a time in high school obsessing over ’80s college rock, and there he was alongside Echo & The Bunnymen and Husker Du.
What do you love about Morrissey?
Alan: I love the man because he’s quirky, passionate, unafraid, and misunderstood. He’s unapologetic about his music and his views of the music industry, world politics, and religion.
Barry: His plainspoken poetry that would get destroyed at a writers’ workshop but works so terrifically set to music.
Libby: Back pocket daffodils, and the voice, and the emotion that is cold and emotionful at the same time, and the humour, how everthing is a joke on the world, but also on me, and how satisfying it is to be in the fray and be an observant bystander at the same time.
Kylie: I don’t know how to separate what I love from what I hate. Much like separating Morrissey the musician from Morrissey the man from Morrissey the demigod, it’s impossible. I love to hate him and hate to love him. He can be so wonderfully tongue-in-cheek, and yet I would like to rip that tongue out every once in a while.
Susan: He embodies the human paradox. We’re all of us wracked with self-doubt about our looks and abilities. At the same time, we’re all secretly convinced we’re smarter and better-looking than anyone we know. Morrissey lays that dichotomy right out in the open. Plus his lyrics are always clever and often hilarious.
Anthony: The overwhelming combo of melody and melancholy, it’s sad, introspective, and insecure but with a great beat you can dance. I find his music comforting under any circumstance. His music embraces aspects of our personalities that we are led to believe are bad or self-indulgent, but he shows us that these feelings are completely necessary.
Pete: He and Johnny Marr made a powerful songwriting team. That hair! That croon! That vow of celibacy!
What do you hate about Morrissey?
Barry: That posers sing Smiths songs at karaoke to get laid.
Alan: There is nothing I hate about the man.
Pete: His solo work pales in comparison to the Smiths. Sometimes his tremulous voice grates on me.
Kylie: When answering what I hate about Morrisey, I felt a little lost, so I turned to the internet. The top Google searches for “Morrisey is” are “a genius”, “vegan”, “dead”, “not vegan”, and “rude”. I think that says it better than anyone can. In the end, I believe that the only person who could be Morrissey is Morrissey, because he can afford it.
Susan: We all know that we shouldn’t invest too much emotional energy in what other people think of us. Morrissey is evidence of the dangers of completely not giving a shit what the rest of the world thinks.
Anthony: He is kind of a pompous old man now, he doesn’t wear self-confidence well.
Libby: I would say that I hated that time I saw him play and he bailed on the last few songs because he was having a drama freak out, or didn’t feel well, or whatever, but he also sang “Angel Angel Down We Go Together”, and I reached my arms out as far as they could go and felt loved for real, so I don’t even hate him for that, or for moving to LA.
Why do you think Morrissey is important?
Kylie: I’m not sure if I think Morrissey is important, because nothing is important. That’s an answer Morrissey would give. Just kidding, Morrissey would say Morrissey is important.
Alan: The Smiths were one of the most influential rock bands of the 80’s. They resisted being pigeonholed in this ever-evolving music scene. Punk rock turned hardcore, disco evolved into new wave, and rock detoured into heavy metal. Morrissey and Johnny Marr resisted all of these music trends with there own unique sound. The Smiths were never mainstream or found commercial success. They’ve always been underground. The Smiths were remarkable for never having a bad album or a bad song. Since the breakup, Morrissey continues to perform with a loyal following, despite uneven solo albums and infrequent tours. While an unremarkable vocalist, Morrissey has an amazing stage presence – both sexy and commanding. Morrissey’s greatest strength and continued legacy is his brilliant lyrics that range from droll and pithy to self-consciously maudlin. Morrissey is important because he is a rock legend, an icon, with a career that spans four decades.
Anthony: Hs songs create unity through alienation. As fans, we are able to be alone, together.
Susan: His lyrical and vocal style have influenced a wide range of bands and songwriters from Colin Meloy to Noel Gallagher to Sam Smith (who even ripped off the quiff). The meek shall inherit the earth. The misfits and weirdos get Morrissey.
Pete: He gave a voice to the legions of depressed and disaffected youth of the world.
Barry: He made sadness a fine thing to sing about–not “cool” sad, not “look at me I’m sad” sad, not “this world is so crazy” sad, but “I’m afraid I’m totally lame and no one actually likes me” sad.
Libby: I think he’s important as a discovery; for a person who needs to hear what he’s crooning, who feels all those things and has need to have those feelings in surround sound, simply to prevent exploding, Morrissey is essential.
Kylie: I think he is important so that each of us can identify with him at some point in our loneliness, and then find out he is just a guy who has said some bad things and move on with our lives.
David: I can really only talk about Morrissey with a timeline so…
1980s. Morrissey and The Smiths could be seen at school on t-shirts worn by all of the very, very serious kids who’d aligned themselves with alternative culture. I recognized that “How Soon is Now?” was held together by some terrific riffs, but there was something off-putting about the frontman’s…affectedness? Gloominess? The music from nearby Washington, DC’s punk scene seemed a more practical response to the problems faced by my generation, and the industrial/darkwave music out of Chicago was more fun to dance and fuck to. No Smiths or Morrissey for me, then.
1990s. The college’s weekly lively arts publication highlights the spectacularly insane contents of a press release announcing the coming of KILL UNCLE, Morrissey’s second solo album. Among the highlights: “Morrissey is clearly out to shock you with his new album. Just look at the title: KILL UNCLE. See? You’re shocked!” A few years later Morrissey’s VAUXHALL & I marks a pleasing new plateau for Morrissey, and meets with great critical and commercial success. The single “The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get” turns into some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy as it’s played at least once an hour on every goddamn radio station I listen to.
2000s. A noticeably-older Morrissey holds a tommy gun so gracefully on the cover of YOU ARE THE QUARRY that he seems to have pirouetted off the set of a John Woo film. I don’t buy the album (though a friend assures me that “First of the Gang To Die” is one for the ages) but the cover sends me. There’s something tremendously reassuring about Morrissey brandishing a machine gun, especially halfway through the second Bush administration. I’m pleased he’s still around, though damned if I understand why.
2010s. SF Theatre Pub puts a call out for submissions to The Morrissey Plays. I get cranky that they’ve picked an artist with whom I have so little affinity, but simply shrug and say ah well. A week later ask myself where I would start, and call up a YouTube recording of “Everyday Is Like Sunday.” And all the doors between Moz and me just disappear. I can see that crappy seaside town, I exult in the greyness overhead, I feel like I’ve lived there, and yet I can see it so clearly thru the eyes of Morrissey’s narrator; his ennui sounds overblown thanks to a downright Wall-of-Sound production, but the sensuality that informs it is the real deal, and THAT is where Moz and I finally connect. And over a couple of short sessions I find a play set against that grey landscape, populated with Morrissey’s characters and mine, pursuing what I find in the song to what feels to me like a natural conclusion. I can’t pretend that I know Morrissey better than anyone, or even particularly well, but I’m glad, after all of these years, to have finally had such a thrilling introduction.
Allie: I was inspired to write How Soon is Now? after hearing a friend gush about Morrissey the day after she attended his concert with two of her friends, dear friends she’s known since high school. As she told me about her experience at the concert, she positively lit up, smiling so broadly, and I could easily see her as a teenager, moved by the music and bonding with these girls who would become her lifelong friends. I wrote the piece that evening and I shared it with her the next day. When this piece was selected for The Morrissey Plays, she was the first person I told.
Okay. Five MUST HAVE SONGS on the Ultimate Morrissey Mix.
Kylie:
1. “Asleep” Obviously.
2. “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” I used this song in a school project where I created a musical companion to Crime and Punishment— you’d be surprised just how well Morrissey and Raskolnikov fit together.
3. “How Soon Is Now?” For the longest time, I thought that he was singing “I am human and I need to belong”. But who was I kidding, Morrissey doesn’t need to belong anywhere.
4. “Half A Person” Of course he says the YWCA and not the YMCA. Of course.
5. “Asleep” Twice, in honor of the book that brought Morrissey into my life.
Pete:
1. “Hand In Glove” Because the sun shines out of our behinds!
2. “How Soon Is Now?” Despite its relative ubiquity, Johnny Marr’s guitar on this song is amazing, and the lyrics were so fitting for an angsty, misfit teenager.
3. “Bigmouth Strikes Again” Again, Johnny Marr’s guitarwork, plus lyrics so over the top they’re funny.
4. “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” Another anthem for an angsty drunken teenager in college.
5. “What Difference Does It Make?” Songs that are questions are cool.
Allie:
1. “How Soon is Now?” is my favorite song by The Smiths/Morrissey, probably because it was the first I heard, but also because of its surround-sound effect and fantastic groove.
2. “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” Always reminds me of my friend Holly Cupala, whose novel used it as the working title. The book was later published under the title Tell Me a Secret.
3. “Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want” Always reminds me of Dream Academy’s instrumental cover as featured in the film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
4. “Reel Around the Fountain” Check out the acoustic cover version by Duncan Sheik, too.
5. “Girlfriend in a Coma” The juxtaposition of a poppy music line + creepy lyrics.
1. “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want” This song reminds me of the freewheeling melancholia of my youth – when the smallest problems loomed large and feeling sorry for your self was a badge worn with honor.
2. “Billy Budd” For me, this driving song is the painful remembrance of being young, closeted, and desperately in love.
3. “There is a Light That Never Goes Out” What twenty old doesn’t occasionally wallow in anguish and regret, yet desperately clinging to the hope of eternal love?
4. “Headmaster Ritual” In the golden age of Manchester schools, not unlike a good parochial education, helped students build strong character through fear, violence and humiliation.
5. “Sweet and Tender Hooligan” This song is hilarious – besides who has not loved the wrong kind of guy?
Susan:
1. “Ask” I used to sing this to my daughter when I was giving her a bath because it’s just ridiculously catchy.
2. “All You Need Is Me” Because I love to sing along with the line “I was a small fat child in a welfare house, there was only one thing I ever dreamed about.”
3. “Throwing My Arms Around Paris” In the song “Lush Life” Billy Strayhorn wrote “A week in Paris would ease the bite of it,” and so it would.
4. “Sing Your Life” This is one of three songs I want played at my funeral (no joke).
5. “Now My Heart Is Full” Simply because it’s lovely.
1. “Panic” How come people don’t still say “Hang the DJ”?
2. “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want” You aren’t too cool to appreciate the Pretty in Pink soundtrack.
3. “Shoplifters of the World Unite” A song from the viewpoint of the most pathetic security guard ever.
4. “We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful” There may have never been a truer thing ever said.
5. “This Charming Man” I wrote my play about this one so….
Libby:
1. “These Things Take Time” Because it’s the song we sang that one summer when we watched old movies in my bedroom, shunned the glorious singing bird sunshine, drank red wine, and lay the whole day in bed.
2. “Sheila Take a Bow” Because I saw the video for this on my local cable access channel when I was growing up, and some kids did a video show, and they played this and Morrissey does that bend forward thing and I knew I wasn’t alone.
3. “Driving Your Girlfriend Home” Because I’ve been the girlfriend.
4. “Last Night on Maudlin Street” Because it makes me feel like I’m leaving my child hood home forever all over again, and how life hurts, but is beautiful, and how even hurting is beautiful, and love is real, and really possible, even if it’s not always realized, and being alive itself is enough reason to stay that way.
5. “How Soon is Now” Because it’s the classic, and DJ Bobby Startup used to play it at Revival when I was a kid in Philly, and then when I got to know him years later and he dj’d Bar Noir where we did our first Sticky show he would play it just for us, even though otherwise he’d do the dance tunes, and we’d get up on the tables and sing at the top of our lungs and feel like the world was ours.
1. “This Charming Man” So many good memories associated with this song.
2. “November Spawned a Monster” I can sing this at the top of my lungs and just feel better, even if I didn’t feel that bad beforehand.
3. “The More You Ignore Me The Closer I Get” This is the song that hooked me.
4. “We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful” Because it’s the story of my life. And that’s Ok.
5. “Still Ill (John Peel/Hatful of Hollow Version)” It’s very much a portrait of how I feel at this point in my life, I am not who I used to be and the world has changed, and it’s equal parts good and bad.
Don’t miss The Morrissey Plays, opening on Monday!
1 Comment Posted in Theater Around The Bay Tagged 120 Minutes, Alan Olejniczak, All You Need Is Me, Allie Costa, Anthony Miller, Ask, Asleep, At Last Theatre, Barry Eitel, Bigmouth Strikes Again, Billy Budd, David Bowie, David Robson, Driving Your Girlfriend Home, Everyday Is Like Sunday, Faultline Theater, Girlfriend In A Coma, Half A Person, Headmaster Ritual, Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now, How Soon Is Now?, Johnny Marr, Kill Uncle, Kylie Murphy, Last Night On Maudlin Street, Libby Emmons, Morrissey, November Spawned A Monster, Now My Heart Is Full, Panic, Pete Bratach, PianoFight, Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want, Pretty In Pink, Reel Around The Fountain, Rik Lopes, San Francisco Olympians Festival, Sheila Take A Bow, Shoplifters Of The World Unite, Sing Your Life, Still Ill, Susan Petrone, Sweet And Tender Hooligan, The Dark Room, The More You Ignore Me The Closer I Get, The Morrissey Plays, The Perks of Being A Wallflower, The Smiths, Theater Around The Bay, There Is A Light That Never Goes Out, These Things Take Time, This Charming Man, Throwing Your Arms Around Paris, Tomorrow, Vauxhall and I, We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful, We Players, What Difference Does It Make?, You Are The Quarry
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DC’s ‘Green Lantern’ To Invade Theaters Today
Posted June 17th, 2011 by Dirk Van Tilborg
Warner Bros/DC Comics’ cosmic hero ‘Green Lantern’ debuts in theaters today.
Created in the 1940s, The ‘Green Lantern’ has been one of DC’s (and its predecessor companies) main superheroes for the last 60+ years. The original ‘Green Lantern’ was bestowed with magical powers and his adventures continued until after WWII.
The ‘Green Lantern’ has been revived a number of times since 1959 and has been portrayed by a number of characters including Alan Scott (the original), Guy Gardner, Klye Rayner and Hal Jordan, who will be featured in the new film.
The Hal Jordan version of ‘Green Lantern’ was created in the 1970s and portrayed him as a rebellious test pilot that is untrusted with an alien technology given to him by Abin Sur. Sur is part of an intergalactic police force known as the Green Lantern Corps.
About the ‘Green Lantern’ film:
‘The Green Lantern’: In a universe as vast as it is mysterious, a small but powerful force has existed for centuries. Protectors of peace and justice, they are called the Green Lantern Corps. A brotherhood of warriors sworn to keep intergalactic order, each Green Lantern wears a ring that grants him superpowers. But when a new enemy called Parallax threatens to destroy the balance of power in the Universe, their fate and the fate of Earth lie in the hands of their newest recruit, the first human ever selected: Hal Jordan.
Dirk Van Tilborg
After reading Jack Kirby’s Forever People and New Gods comic books and watching 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dirk was assimilated during first grade recess into the collective known as Science Fiction. Fueled by the visions of mad scientists such as Philip K. Dick and Frank Herbert, he has quietly searched the galaxy for the next BladeRunner, Brazil and Dark City. Born in San Francisco and currently enjoying a steampunk version of Ft. Lauderdale, when not grokking Science Fiction he spends his time with family and friends and just maybe trying to enter the dreams of disingenuous politicians.
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Parody: George Lucas Reassures Fans With Sneak Peeks Of ‘Star Wars VII’
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richardmitnick 11:40 am on August 2, 2016 Permalink Reply
Tags: ANL APS ( 12 ), Applied Research & Technology ( 5,648 ), Chicago Tribune ( 2 ), Medicine ( 855 ), OpenZika project at World Community Grid ( 24 ), ZIKA ( 30 )
From Chicago Tribune via ANL: “This giant X-ray machine helped decode one of the Zika virus’ secrets “
News from Argonne National Laboratory
Ally Marotti
Other viruses in the same family as Zika, such as dengue, West Nile and yellow fever, also produce the NS1 protein. (Argonne National Laboratory)
A group of Midwest researchers is one step closer to a Zika vaccine, and they used a giant X-ray machine at the Chicago area’s Argonne National Lab to get there.
University of Michigan and Purdue University researchers used equipment at Lemont-based Argonne to map the molecular structure of a protein the Zika virus produces.
That knowledge can lead to more accurate diagnoses of Zika and possibly a vaccine or antiviral drugs, said Janet Smith, professor of biological chemistry in the Life Sciences Institute at Michigan.
“We don’t have good diagnostic tools to know if a person has been infected with Zika,” said Smith, who led the study. “There are a bunch of antibody tests out there to see if you’ve been exposed to Zika — the problem is they’re not specific enough.”
Of course no vaccine will come in time for the Olympics, which start next week, Smith said, but these findings are important in the fight against the disease.
Zika is a growing concern in the U.S., as cases are increasingly reported in countries outside of the tropics. The virus is known to cause devastating birth defects, and the World Health Organization declared an international health emergency over its spread.
Nearly 1,500 cases have been reported in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but all were acquired while traveling. However, experts say that will change by the end of the year.
Although a study out of Yale University found it’s highly unlikely those traveling to Rio de Janeiro for the Olympics will contract the disease, fear has amplified as the games approach.
The protein Smith and her team looked at is called NS1. Other viruses in the same family as Zika, such as dengue, West Nile and yellow fever, also produce the protein. When a person gets infected, the virus induces their body to make the protein.
“It helps the virus to make more copies of itself, infect (the body’s) cells and hide from the immune system in ways that are really not very well understood at all,” Smith said.
Since Zika is a problem in places where dengue fever is prevalent, inaccurate diagnoses sometimes prevent people from knowing which disease they were exposed to. These new findings will hopefully change that, Smith said.
The researchers used Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source to conduct the study. The facility is used to conduct X-ray research, and is so large that its diameter measures just a little less than the height of the Willis Tower, said Stephen Streiffer, director of the facility.
“APS is used to produce hard X-rays — the same type you’d get in the dentist’s office,” Streiffer said. “The difference is that the APS produces X-rays which are about a billion times more intense.”
Smith and her team made a stable NS1 protein from Zika and put it into a crystal, which scatters the X-ray beam. Smith’s team uses a detector to measure the scattering, and can then figure out the structure of the molecule inside.
The researchers had already been studying structures of the proteins from West Nile and dengue, so that sped up the process, Smith said. Richard Kuhn, professor and head of Purdue’s Department of Biological Sciences, co-authored the study, which was published Monday in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.
The protein they looked at was from the first strain of Zika identified in Uganda in 1947, Smith said. Knowing its structure can help scientists understand how the virus has mutated since it spread to Brazil.
“Has it gotten worse when it evolved on its way to Brazil, or has it been this bad all along?” Smith said. “Viruses are amazing at sneaking around mutating … It’s like cancer. They produce fast and make a bunch of mistakes, but just one needs to take off.
YOU CAN HELP FIND A CURE FOR THE ZIKA VIRUS.
There is a new project at World Community Grid [WCG] called OpenZika.
Image of the Zika virus, Image copyright John Liebler, http://www.ArtoftheCell.com
WCG runs on your home computer or tablet on software from Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing [BOINC]. Many other scientific projects run on BOINC software.Visit WCG or BOINC, download and install the software, then at WCG attach to the OpenZika project. You will be joining tens of thousands of other “crunchers” processing computational data and saving the scientists literally thousands of hours of work at no real cost to you.
This project is directed by Dr. Alexander Perryman a senior researcher in the Freundlich lab, with extensive training in developing and applying computational methods in drug discovery and in the biochemical mechanisms of multi-drug-resistance in infectious diseases. He is a member of the Center for Emerging & Re-emerging Pathogens, in the Department of Pharmacology, Physiology, and Neuroscience, at the Rutgers University, New Jersey Medical School. Previously, he was a Research Associate in Prof. Arthur J. Olson’s lab at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), where he ran the day-to-day operations of the FightAIDS@Home project, the largest computational drug discovery project devoted to HIV/AIDS, which also runs on WCG. While in the Olson lab, he also designed, led, and ran the largest computational drug discovery project ever performed against malaria, the GO Fight Against Malaria project, also on WCG.
Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation’s first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America’s scientific leadership and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. For more visit http://www.anl.gov.
The Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory is one of five national synchrotron radiation light sources supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science to carry out applied and basic research to understand, predict, and ultimately control matter and energy at the electronic, atomic, and molecular levels, provide the foundations for new energy technologies, and support DOE missions in energy, environment, and national security. To learn more about the Office of Science X-ray user facilities, visit http://science.energy.gov/user-facilities/basic-energy-sciences/.
Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science
← From Rutgers: “You Can Be an Engineer, But You’ll Make More Money as a Lawyer”
From FNAL: “A new hunt for sterile neutrinos with NOvA” →
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List of Rare Minerals
What Rocks Are Fluorescent Under a UV Light?
By Derek King
Ever find an interesting looking rock? Chances are, you actually found a mineral. A solid chemical substance, minerals are naturally occurring objects found in the earth. They are found in a variety of shapes and colors. Rare minerals are only found in a few remote places in the world, and they have interesting physical and chemical characteristics.
Allanite
Allanite is a mineral that contains rare earth elements. The mineral is found in metamorphosed clay-rich sediments and igneous rock, which is formed by the cooling of magma or lava. Allanite was discovered in 1810 by mineralogist Thomas Allen. The mineral is usually black or dark brown in color and translucent to opaque. Allanite has a brittle tenacity and can be radioactive. As of 2011, only Los Angeles, California, and Llano County, Texas, has any record of Allanite findings.
Parisite
Parisite is a rare mineral that contains a calcium compound, cerium and lanthanum. The mineral is found strictly in crystals. The parisite minerals are light brown in color and are translucent. J.J. Paris discovered the mineral in Colombia, South America, in the early 18th century. Parisite can be found in several locations in North America, including Ontario, Colorado, California, Arkansas and Idaho.
Wakefieldite
Wakefieldite is another rare mineral. It is found in four different variations: Wakefieldite (La), Wakefieldite (Ce), Wakefieldite (Nd), and Wakefieldite (Y). The metal ion within the mineral determines which variation of Wakefieldite it is. The mineral has several different colors, unique to the Wakefieldite variation, and is translucent to opaque. The first Wakefieldlite mineral was found in 1968 in Quebec, Canada. The minerals are found in remote places in the world such as Kinshasa, Zaire; Thuringia, Germany; and Shikoku Island, Japan.
Zircon is a rare mineral made from the zirconium silicate compound with uranium and thorium elements. The natural color of zircon varies from being colorless to golden, red, green, brown and blue. The colorless zircons are expensive, and can substitute for diamonds in jewelry making. Fine zircon crystals are a rarity that may be found in Norway, Germany or Madagascar.
Arizona: Allanite
Mindat: Parisite
Mindat: Wakefieldite
Arizona: Zircon
Derek King is an undergraduate student attending the University of Austin. King was editor-in-chief of his high school newspaper for four years. In addition to online instructional articles, he also creates content for the music and entertainment blog GetFreshKid.com.
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List of the Minerals Found in the State of Washington
List of Ferromagnetic Metals
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What Was Bob Fosse Really Like? Stephanie Pope Knows
Many fans of Broadway musicals are riveted to the current television mini-series Fosse/Verdon on the FX Network. The eight-episode series, based on the biography Fosse by Sam Wasson and directed by Tommy Kail (Broadway’s Hamilton), follows the lives, careers, and relationships of film, stage, and television director-choreographer Bob Fosse, played by Sam Rockwell, and beloved Tony Award-winning actress-dancer Gwen Verdon, played by Michelle Williams.
Watching the series with particular interest in Stephanie Pope, who is featured in a revival of The Music Man at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam. (The run of the musical has been extended to Thursday, June 20.) Pope plays the comic character role of the mayor’s wife, Eulalie Shinn, but she proudly calls herself “a Fosse dancer,” having performed in many of his shows.
I talked with Pope, whom I saw in Fosse’s last original Broadway musical, Big Deal, during its out of town try-out in Boston in 1986. (The show closed shortly after it made it to Broadway, though his choreography earned Fosse his eighth Tony Award.)
In 1987, Pope played Helene in the tour launch of the revival of Sweet Charity, which starred Debbie Allen on Broadway. Fosse and Verdon were readying the company when he collapsed on the street in Washington, D.C. while walking with Verdon from his hotel to the theater where the tour was about to open that night. He died of a massive heart attack later that evening. He was 60.
What was he like that day?
“He rehearsed us like crazy and at the end we all gathered around and he made a speech, saying things like ‘Save your money,’ and things like that. We thought it was kind if an odd speech to give on an opening day.
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(Redirected from Flying)
Bird flight
A hummingbird in flight
An airship flies up because the upward force is equal or greater than the force of gravity.
Flight or flying is a process of movement of the object in a gaseous environment or a vacuum without contact with the surface of another environment, as is possible with the use of jet thrust, or other means of propulsion, and without it (by inertia). Best adapted for long controlled powered flight are flying birds and insects, and mammals of the order Chiroptera and extinct reptiles of the order pterosaurs. All of these animals use the aerodynamic principles of flight, using the load-bearing properties of the wing. There are also many animals that make gliding and parachute flight, such as spiders web, aeroplankton flying clams and flying fish, intending to use the ear or leather folds, mammals and reptiles. The fastest flying animal is the peregrine falcon. The speed of its dive is over 370 kilometres per hour (230 miles per hour).
Types of flight[change | change source]
Floating flight[change | change source]
Humans have managed to construct lighter than air vehicles that raise off the ground and fly, due to their floating in air and water.
An aerostat is a system that remains in the air primarily through the use of floating to give an aircraft that has the same overall density as air. Aerostats include free balloons, airships, and moored balloons. An aerostat's main structural component is its envelope, a lightweight skin containing a lifting gas to provide floating, to which other components are attached.
Aerostats are so named because they use "aerostatic" lift, a buoyant force that does not require lateral movement through the surrounding air mass. By contrast, aerodynes primarily use aerodynamic lift, which requires the side movement of at least some part of the aircraft through the surrounding air mass.
This short article about science can be made longer. You can help Wikipedia by adding to it.
Retrieved from "https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Flight&oldid=6342898"
Basic English 850 words
Science stubs
This page was last changed on 11 December 2018, at 16:01.
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Baseball Sports Spectrum Podcast By Jason Romano Mar 12, 2019
NEW PODCAST: Darryl Strawberry, 4-Time MLB Champion
Darryl Strawberry in January 2019 (Photo Courtesy: Sports Spectrum)
THIS IS EPISODE 263 OF THE SPORTS SPECTRUM PODCAST
Darryl Strawberry returns for his second appearance on the podcast. The No. 1 overall pick in the 1980 MLB Amateur Draft by the New York Mets made his MLB debut in May 1983 and became a seven-time All-Star for the Mets from 1984-1990. A member of the 1986 World Championship team, Strawberry’s 252 career home runs remain at the top of the Mets’ all-time list.
In 1991, Strawberry signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers. A short stint with the Giants followed, and then Strawberry returned to New York and helped the Yankees win three World Series titles in 1996, ’98 and ’99.
After many years of struggling with substance abuse and addiction, Strawberry has been sober for more than a decade now and spreads the Good News of Jesus across the country as a traveling evangelist.
On this episode of the podcast, we talk with Strawberry about why he is traveling the country sharing the Gospel, the biggest struggle for men, why being all-in for Christ is the only way, his memories of Gary Carter and Mariano Rivera, and his thoughts on guys like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens being kept out of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Today Was Amazing With @jasonromano @pjon @kstaylor5 Men’s Conference Journey Church ⛪️ Kenosha Wisconsin!! Jesus Is Crazy Crazy About People!! Blessings Friends 🍓🍓✝️
A post shared by Darryl Strawberry (@darrylstrawberry18) on Jan 26, 2019 at 4:34pm PST
– NEW PODCAST: Darryl Strawberry (January 2018)
– NEW PODCAST: R.A. Dickey, 2012 NL Cy Young Award-Winning Pitcher
– NEW PODCAST: Daniel Murphy, Colorado Rockies Infielder
PLEASE CONSIDER SUBSCRIBING AND LEAVING A REVIEW ON APPLE PODCASTS
NEW PODCAST: Zerbin Singleton – Marine Corps Major, Former Navy Running Back
St. Louis Cardinals’ Paul Goldschmidt excited as spiritual journey continues in St. Louis
NEW PODCAST: Patrick DiMarco, Buffalo Bills Fullback
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Sault Ste Marie – PPC Association
Liberty, Responsability, Fairness, Respect
Tom Quiggin’s ‘Kill Switch’ update
For those of us unable to attend any of the Operation Kill Switch Live events in Alberta and Saskatchewan, here is a recording one of Tom Quiggin’s private events out there.
Free speech is indeed our most important right. Without free speech our right to life can be assailed…
Please feel free to share this video.
We hope you enjoy it and find it informative. We’d love to hear your feedback either by email, or in person at our next meeting which is to be held Tuesday July 2, 2019 at 215 Fourth Line East where you can discuss the video and issues it raises with our candidate, Amy Zuccato, from 6:30 to 7:00pm
We wish you all a Happy and safe Canada Day and look forward to seeing you at the meeting.
Sault Ste Marie - PPC Association Uncategorized Leave a comment June 20, 2019 June 20, 2019 1 Minute
Comments on the PPC Firearms Platform by Amy Zuccato
“The firearms laws are so complicated, and so convoluted, that they have become the perfect example of injustice in the name of justice. To fix this, I propose we replace the current Firearms Act with clear legislation based on reason, not on fear.” – Maxime Bernier
To enable replacing the Firearms Act (1995), some amendments and redactions could be made to improve the existing Act. The Act was manifested originally from Bill C-68. These changes would provide further respect to firearm owners.
There are three areas that the leader of the PPC Party, Maxime Bernier, states he would like to focus on: licensing, classification of firearms, and magazine sizes.
Licensing: “I will double the length of firearms licenses from 5 to 10 years.” – Maxime Bernier
There would need to be a change in Sections 64(a), 65(3), and 120(3)(a) in order to accomplish the extension. All three of these Sections reference a 5 year term for the license, easily substituted to a 10 year term.
Additionally, the license for museums should be changed from 3 to 10 years [Section 122(2)(b)], eliminating the obstacles in finding or receiving the funds for the frequent licensing. There are currently just over 2,300 museums in Canada.
The clause in Section 121(4)(c) should be revised. It states, when a Minor receives their Minor’s Permit, it expires 5 years from issuance or when they turn 18 years of age, whichever is less. The glitch is when a 12 year old receives their Minor’s Permit, and they only have 5 years maximum, they will be 17 years of age. This would leave them unlicensed for a whole year until they can receive their full Possession and Acquisition License. This is found to be disrespectful and unnecessary. The Section should be revised to state that a Minor’s Permit shall expire on the permit holder’s 18th birthday.
Throughout the Act there is a loose term referenced as ‘gun collector”. Anyone who has more than 10 firearms is considered a gun collector, as per the Act [Section 102(1)]. Being classified as a Collector exposes the license holder to more restrictions [Section 30 (a), 30(b), and 30(c)]. To repair this bureaucratic ignorance, the sections including the words ‘gun collection’ or ‘gun collector’ should be removed. This can be found in Section 28(b)(ii), Section 30 (entirely), 102(1), 104(3)(a), and 117(f).
Classification of Firearms: “Non-Restricted: (a) a firearm that is not a prohibited or restricted firearms.
Prohibited: (a) a fully-automatic firearm, (b) a firearm that is adapted from a rifle or shotgun, whether by sawing, cutting or any other alteration, and that, as so adapted, is less than 660 mm in length. (c) a firearm that is listed as prohibited prior to June 20, 2016.
Restricted: (a) a firearm that is not a prohibited firearm, (b) a handgun that is not a prohibited firearm, (c) a firearm that is designed or adapted to be fired when reduced to a length of less than 660mm by folding, telescoping or otherwise.” – Maxime Bernier
Ideally, this would simplify the definitions that are attached to the different classifications of the firearms license. This new outlook on classes eliminates the illogical definition of a prohibited weapon. To clarify, it eliminates the 105mm rule and the .25 and .32 caliber prohibition.
Current law states that if a firearm’s barrel length is 105mm, or less, it is classified as prohibited, where 106mm is in the restricted class. Current law also classifies .25 and .32 caliber as prohibited, with an exemption to some competition shooting firearms. The caliber ban was mainly because they were originally manufactured in most self defense, short barreled handguns. If a specific minimum length was still required, a change from 105mm to 100mm would work. The law was set at 105mm to deter the importation of American made handguns into Canada. The standard American handgun barrel length is measured in inches. 105mm is approximately 4.13 inches. Therefore a 4 inch standard American handgun was ultimately eliminated from the Canadian market.
Under the quoted restricted definition, Part (b) should be eliminated since it appears to be redundant to Part (a).
On a side note, the word crossbow needs to be removed from the Firearms Act. A crossbow is not considered a firearm, and a license is not required to purchase or use a crossbow. There is a crossbow that has been prohibited in Canada because of its extremely small size which was used in a murder. This is listed in the Criminal Code of Canada as a prohibited device and does not apply to the Firearms Act. Sections 2(1) Definition of Business, 5(1), 6(1), 7(4)(e), 8(4), and 61(4) all reference crossbows in the list when naming types of firearms.
Magazine Sizes: “My proposal would repeal the ineffective, and frankly nonsensical, magazine capacity restrictions.” – Maxime Bernier
Current law is tricky to explain when it comes to magazines. Generally speaking, the Criminal Code of Canada, Section III, pertains to firearm regulations, ie. magazine capacity limits. Most limits are 10 rounds for a handgun, and 5 rounds for a long gun, depending on your activity of use. If the pistol magazine fits the long gun, then the capacity is 10 rounds. Capacity limits are based off of manufactured purpose. If the pistol magazine is manufactured as a 40 S&W, but fits in the same model gun as a 9mm Luger, then the capacity is now 14 rounds because 14 rounds of 9mm Luger will fit a 10 round magazine designed for 40 S&W rounds . If the ammunition is rimfire, as opposed to center fire, then there is no limit on capacity.
Brenda Lucki is the Commissioner of Firearms whom is in charge of the administration aspects of the Act. Perhaps she is the authority to contact regarding the following insignificant matters.
Section 97(3) is lacking a pronoun in its explanation of who can be exempt from the Act Provincially governed. To maintain sequential continuity to the prior clauses 97(1) and 97(2), non-resident is the missing pronoun.
Section 9(6)(a) refers to antique firearms allowed in a licensed museum. If a firearm is classified as antique, it is no longer a firearm and does not require a special license to use, or obtain, or be in possession of. This confusion in word use could easily be clarified by replacing ‘antique’ with ‘historical significance’.
Sault Ste Marie - PPC Association Uncategorized Leave a comment May 27, 2019 4 Minutes
Totalitarians draw first blood
The sheep’s clothing (progressivism) is slipping from the totalitarian wolves as they rend the flesh of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The attack on our rights, freedom of thought, belief, opinion, and expression, including freedom of the press and other medium of communication, continues.
Since September 25, 2018, the Information and Ethics Committee Chaired by CPC MP Bob Zimmer has sat on the proposal of Dr. Ben Scott Director, Policy and Advocacy, Omidyar Network and big Clinton supporter for whom the election of Donald trump was “DARK TIMES” indeed.
The ultimate irony of a foreign influencer trying to influence Canadian politics in order to prevent foreign influences on our elections.
Also on that Committee… Liberal MP Nathanial Erskine Smith remember that name!
This week, Digital Charter in mind, Trudeau told social media companies they will be fined if they don’t prevent the spread of “disinformation.” Of course the devil is in the definition. Typically the opposite meaning applies for Leftspeak.
Thank you @Smudboy for your commentary
But remember Dr Scott was there back in September 2018
Here’s where the state of the art is now. Essentially it’s a collaboration among security services, outside researchers, and companies to try to detect in advance the coordinated activity of disinformation operators. There are signals in the network if you know how to look for them, and they’re developing tools and they’re doing what they call red teaming, which is to put yourself in the perspective of a malignant actor who might try that Beyoncé trick. How would you go about doing that? If you can do it, what are the ways that could be countered?
If we can think of it in an imaginative red team exercise, you can be sure that our adversaries are thinking of it as well, and you build prophylactic defences against those things that you can imagine doing. It’s a very Cold War war-gaming exercise, and that’s what’s going on right now in the cybersecurity space.
You’re not going to be able to defend against all of these things. You’re only going to be able to contain a certain percentage, so the second piece of this is resilience. You need to have a plan in place to react very rapidly when that time bomb is triggered and suddenly something happens that you weren’t expecting. You need to be able to react fast to bring it down and to educate the public who were contacted by that account that they have been engaged by either an automated account with malignant intent or a foreign-operated influence campaign. Those rapid response techniques are also things we ought to be developing.
https://openparliament.ca/search/?q=Witness%3A+%22242715%22
But there are special protections for “political” speech right?
Peoples Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier commented:
” We also learned the government will unveil a list of medias deemed “reliable” under a multi-million dollar subsidy program.
Then, a Liberal MP, Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, proposed the creation of a new “flexible and efficient” mechanism to give warnings or fines for offensive speech online.
That could be you if you tweet about the Liberals being a bunch of corrupt liars.
This is no joke.
Minister Maryam Monsef used one of my tweets as an example of “online violence and hate” that needs to be “stamped out.”
It’s getting more and more disturbing.
This week, Trudeau told social media companies they will be fined if they don’t prevent the spread of “disinformation.”
How is this different from censorship? ”
As a precaution join us on Pocketnet
Sault Ste Marie - PPC Association Uncategorized Leave a comment May 19, 2019 May 23, 2019 2 Minutes
The GCM is Seriously Evil
The UN is not just a bad joke: the GCM is seriously evil
Open borders and the welfare system are not compatible – Milton Friedman
The UN Global Compact for Safe Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) preamble lists over two dozen agreements, conventions, protocols, agendas, declarations and platforms upon which it has been founded… most of them are, like the GCM itself, the wasteful thinking of contradictory and counter-productive mission-creep. Just how far the UN has wandered from its prime mandate becomes apparent when you consider it has representatives on the Human Rights Council from nations with theocratic dictatorships, in which there are open slave markets.
Aspirational goals, perhaps laudable at the outset, become laughable when failure and corruption is so blatant and ubiquitous: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/un-staff-responsible-for-60-000-rapes-in-a-decade-c627rx239
“Andrew MacLeod, who was chief of operations at the UN’s Emergency Co-ordination Centre, said that “predatory” abusers used development jobs to get to vulnerable women and children.
He estimated that 60,000 rapes had been carried out by UN staff in the past decade, with 3,300 pedophiles working in the organization and its agencies.”
The UN has failed to eradicate slavery, failed to arrest drug smuggling, failed to halt weapons trade and failed to stop genocides. It is now celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with aggressive repression of human rights in order to normalize migration at untold cost, which is already making it easier for traffickers of all sorts:
According to an April 24, 2018 report in the newspaper Kathimerini, there are thousands of unaccompanied children in Greece who have illegally entered the country, and government authorities have not turned their attention to them. Kathimerini reports that there are 3,050 unaccompanied child migrants in Greece, of whom 1,272 (42%) are either homeless, or live in a non-permanent residence or in an unknown location. They all face the risks of sexual exploitation and illicit organ removal. https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13346/greece-organ-trafficking
Gallows humour this must be:
“The majority of migrants around the world today travel, live and work in a safe, orderly and regular manner. Nonetheless, migration undeniably affects our countries, communities, migrants and their families in very different and sometimes unpredictable ways.”
Statements such as this illustrate the willingness of the UN to impose a negative result which is eminently predictable not only on nations but also on real refugees who may have fled said “migrants”.
“Full inclusion and social cohesion” evidently include mutual respect of all migrant cultures, without mentioning that some of these cultures include child marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM), or the fact that the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) officially endorses Sharia Law and discrimination against women and non-Muslims. This essentially invalidates the noble Western principle of providing protection to those persecuted for their political or religious beliefs, a principle which under girds the Geneva Convention on Refugees.
What the reader is also never told is that all migration to date is from poor third-world places to the well-off Western countries with established welfare systems and that, with very few exceptions, the migrants are, at best, economic refugees who haven’t been persecuted either politically or religiously. Moreover, the absorption capacity of these countries is finite before their welfare systems break down under the onslaught of the vast numbers of migrants this pact seemingly wants to encourage.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/11/a_migration_pact_to_disaster.html#ixzz5XjHhicOT
Equally foreseeable were the still-mounting social, economic and environmental costs of “green energy” another pillar of UN “sustainable development” which should be a warning that GCM talk of data-gathering and evidence-based decision-making is simply a ruse for further invasion of privacy such as the Stats Can banking info snatch https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/lilley-statscan-has-already-seized-reams-of-private-financial-info.
The disastrous transition from fossil fuels to subsidized unreliable and intermittent energy sources would have been averted had factual evidence indeed been properly accessed, but there was no cost/benefit analysis as Peter Foster points out with heavy sarcasm in green-energy-is-a-disastrous-flop:
Peter Foster: Another report reluctantly admits that ‘green’ energy is a disastrous flop
“The Sustainable Development Scenario not only solves the climate issue, but also takes care of universal access to modern energy and air pollution, too. Even more amazing, it achieves all this via imposing swathes of expensive and unreliable energy, but without the slightest impact on economic growth. How? By simply assuming so.”
The great catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming farce persists in the face of facts:
“There’s a lot of evidence mounting that solar cycle 25 will usher in a new Grand Solar Minimum.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/03/18/approaching-grand-solar-minimum-could-cause-global-cooling/
and that is no laughing matter!
“This Global Compact recognizes that safe, orderly and regular migration works for all when it takes place in a well-informed, planned and consensual manner.”
Apparently “No means No” does not apply for the people of Tiajuana who gave no consent and agreed with Trump’s assessment that the “caravan” is an invasion.
Mayor Gastélum blames the organizers, whom he cannot identify. He said they should be held accountable. He said the leaders of the caravan should face criminal charges.
“Those are the real criminals because they’re dealing with the lives of people,” he says.
https://www.foxnews.com/world/tijuana-mayor-vows-to-stop-funding-migrant-caravan-not-going-to-break-public-services-to-solve-this-problem
Italy’s Salvini seeks input from elected representatives of citizens… https://www.westmonster.com/salvini-italy-not-signing-un-migration-pact/
“He told Italy’s Parliament …the Italian government will not sign anything and will not go to Marrakech.”
Instead he declared that “the floor of Parliament must debate it with government allowing national politicians to decide.”
https://voiceofeurope.com/2018/12/the-eu-is-getting-desperate-and-urges-all-countries-to-sign-dangerous-un-migration-pact/
EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos thinks “those who reject the migration pact have not studied it enough”, however we disagree! The growing list of nations, now over 18, withdrawing from the odious compact illustrates what happens when democratic nations do read the long-winded un-elected technocrats’ pronouncements carefully and …WE DO NOT GIVE CONSENT!
“The Global Compact recognizes that respect for the rule of law, due process and access to justice are fundamental to all aspects of migration governance. This means that the State, public and private institutions and entities, as well as persons themselves are accountable to laws that are publicly promulgated, equally enforced and independently adjudicated, and which are consistent with international law. “
Ergo the irrational and perverse UN gives itself agency to decide if our laws are consistent with their international law which supersedes that of the state,
“…a whole-of-government approach is needed to ensure horizontal and vertical policy coherence across all sectors and levels of government.”
OBJECTIVE17: Eliminate all forms of discrimination and promote evidence-based public discourse to shape perceptions of migration.
To realize this commitment, we will draw from the following actions:
a) Enact, implement or maintain legislation that penalizes hate crimes and aggravated hate crimes targeting migrants, and train law enforcement and other public officials to identify, prevent and respond to such crimes and other acts of violence that target migrants, as well as to provide medical, legal and psycho-social assistance for victims
b) Empower migrants and communities to denounce any acts of incitement to violence directed towards migrants by informing them of available mechanisms for redress, and ensure that those who actively participate in the commission of a hate crime targeting migrants are held accountable, in accordance with national legislation, while upholding international human rights law, in particular the right to freedom of expression
Promote independent, objective and quality reporting of media outlets, including internet- based information, including by sensitizing and educating media professionals on migration-related issues and terminology, investing in ethical reporting standards and advertising, and stopping allocation of public funding or material support to media outlets that systematically promote intolerance, xenophobia, racism and other forms of discrimination towards migrants, in full respect for the freedom of the media
24d) Establish mechanisms to prevent, detect and respond to racial, ethnic and religious profiling of migrants by public authorities, as well as systematic instances of intolerance, xenophobia, racism and all other multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination in partnership with National Human Rights Institutions, including by tracking and publishing trends analyses, and ensuring access to effective complaint and redress mechanisms
e) Provide migrants,especially migrant women, with access to national and regional complaint and redress mechanisms with a view to promoting accountability and addressing governmental actions related to discriminatory acts and manifestations carried out against migrants and their families
f) Promote awareness-raising campaigns targeted at communities of origin, transit and destination in order to inform public perceptions regarding the positive contributions of safe, orderly and regular migration, based on evidence and facts, and to end racism, xenophobia and stigmatization against all migrants
g) Engage migrants, political, religious and community leaders, as well as educators and service providers to detect and prevent incidences of intolerance, racism, xenophobia, and other forms of discrimination against migrants and diasporas and support activities in local communities to promote mutual respect, including in the context of electoral campaigns
That explains why media in Europe downplay and obscure the news rather than giving the public factual reporting: https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2016/02/15/mass-media-migrant-rape-cover-up-huffpo-indy-metro-rt-claim-cologne-sex-abusers-not-refugees-german-prosecutor-total-nonsense/
Mainstream media outlets have been blasted for peddling “total nonsense” today as left-wing newspapers coalesced to claim with one voice that “only three” of the suspects involved in Cologne’s mass migrant rape on New Year’s Eve were recent migrants or refugees.
But Cologne’s prosecutor, Ulrich Bremer, has said that the claim is “total nonsense” after an interview with German paper Die Welt this weekend was misinterpreted and reported in a way that the left-wing outlets wanted, rather than what the truth was.
Is it intolerance, racism, xenophobia, or another form of discrimination against migrants to ask how this Global Compact for regular migration works for all when the data which has been collected in Europe & North America indicates that 75% of migrants remain unemployed for 5 years or more. How does this benefit the citizens of the countries that are obliged to foot the bill? While the UN mandates these costs it provides no guidance on how they are to be met. Does questioning whether this has been planned in a well-informed and consensual manner constitute an intersecting form of discrimination?
What all this lacks is coherence with the UN’s Universal Declaration on Human Rights Article 19:
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
This is also in direct conflict with section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms which states that everyone has “the freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication.”
WE ARE NOT AMUSED AND WE DO NOT CONSENT!
https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-1906
Sault Ste Marie - PPC Association Uncategorized Leave a comment December 4, 2018 7 Minutes
We Will Never Forget
On the eve of Remembrance Day constituents of the Federal riding of Sault Ste Marie got one step closer to a clear new voting option in the 2019 election, which most polling now indicates will be a rout of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party, unless he imports millions of foreign voters…
The Peoples Party of Canada (PPC), upholding principles of FREEDOM, RESPONSIBILITY, FAIRNESS AND RESPECT stands alone defending our Sovereign Nation against globalist oppression.
The Sault Ste Marie PPC Electoral District Association Interim Board of Directors, which has already mobilized volunteers equipped with an “activist kit” of educational material and flyers as well as a paper version of petition e-1906 to the Government of Canada for withdrawal from the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM), was easily acclaimed.
C.Bayne P., A.Zuccato VP., L.Baumhauer Sec., G.Browne Tres.
Despite much historic revisionism we do remember that our nation went to war to defeat the Axis powers and incipient global totalitarianism. We do remember that many of our families grieved the loss of courageous young lives; a sacrifice for freedom and democracy we honour to this day.
We have come again to a point when we must fight for our rights and freedom. The very agency which was devised to ensure World Peace has been, not just incapable of putting an end to war but instrumental in rehabilitating the evil of totalitarian rule. Outright dictatorships align to criticize democracies and impose regulatory strictures on sovereign nations. They do this under guise of humanitarian intervention and respect of national interests.
The United Nations has advanced its collectivist agenda using “Sustainable Development” as a suffocating blanket, chocking off dissent; it hampers Capitalism which has been responsible for lifting millions out of poverty and sickness. The GCM is the UN’s latest assault on the prosperity of Western democracies mounted on sundry “sustainability” agendas which must be subsidized by government and administered by a massive technocracy.
We will never forget that the people, not the elites, rule in a democracy and we stand gladly to defend our nation and honour our heritage.
We invite other patriots to join us and The Peoples Party of Canada.
Sault Ste Marie - PPC Association Uncategorized Leave a comment November 12, 2018 1 Minute
#WeStandOnGuardForThee
We started this Petition because we shared the angst on Social Media about general disrespect of borders, laws and our social structure. People from across Canada and all political stripes are fed up with the insanity.
National Post https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/influx-of-irregular-refugees-has-reached-crisis-level-for-most-canadians-poll-suggests recently reported yet more polls results from Abacus Data showed,
“Among voters who want a change in government, immigration and refugees ranked as the second reason they’re dissatisfied, behind deficits and debt.”
These issues are now all so inextricably linked that it hardly makes sense to differentiate. Angus Reid Institute reports,
“Two thirds of respondents believe that Canada has taken in too many irregular asylum claimants for authorities to manage, including majorities of Conservative, Liberal and NDP voters.”
Three allies from the war against Ontario’s “Green” Energy Act, a previous UN “sustainable development” derived disaster, drafted the Petition and got it to the stage where an MP was required to sponsor it. The Petition for withdrawal from the Migration Compact hung out to dry on the GoC Petitions site for a couple of days. As the Twitterverse responded to the posting, various MPs were retweeted on it but no takers until Maxime Bernier stepped up.
After that slow start a few patriots and their followers gave it a boost and now we hope for exponential growth to make it, as one tweep said,
“The biggest fastest e-petition ever to hit the Government of Canada”.
There is an identical paper Petition which will hopefully reach patriots who are not big Social Media users.
@TomTSEC #WeStandOnGuardForThee
In the works since 2016 this Globalist treachery must be known to our authorities THANK YOU for all you do @QuigginReport
The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, to give it its full name, originated with the bureaucrats of the UN General Assembly in 2016. It morphed into the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants and then through various stages to become in July 2018 the Final Draft, which is due to be adopted at the IGC (Inter-governmental conference) on international migration in Morocco in December.
The Compact is basically a means by which the UN can install itself within the legislative process of democratic nation states by persuading them to recognize the supremacy of international law, i.e. that proposed by the UN and its agencies, over domestic law. It has been described variously as ‘a vision for world order that promises disorder’ and ‘a plan for borderless chaos’.
It also plans to suppress any criticism of increased immigration by attacking freedom of speech. In a sinister passage it commits to ‘promote independent, objective and quality reporting of media outlets, including by sensitizing and educating media professionals on migration-related issues and terminology, investing in ethical reporting standards and advertising, and stopping allocation of public funding or material support to media outlets that systematically promote intolerance, xenophobia, racism and other forms of discrimination towards migrants’. The devil is in the detail as to whether such terms are to be defined objectively or subjectively. David Samuel https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/09/the-war-of-the-world/amp/
Sault Ste Marie - PPC Association Uncategorized Leave a comment October 27, 2018 October 26, 2018 2 Minutes
Your Participation is Working!
Your participation is working – political parties begin to engage on the Global Compact on Migration!
Note: Writing Challenge and Sample Letter !
https://www.canadiancitizens.org/single-post/2018/10/26/C3RF-Member-Update—26-October-2018
From a recent post on the C3RF website:
The bigger news, however, comes from the People’s Party of Canada (PPC). Under the sponsorship of its leader, Maxime Bernier, it not only calls for a pause to debate the subject it calls for an outright withdrawal from the agreement. No Canadian signature on the Compact this December in Morocco! The PPC does this through a Government of Canada petition that can be signed here. Please consider signing and distributing as far and wide as you can. It needs 500 signatures to be posted and presented to the House of Commons and finally bring the Compact into the foreground.
Sault Ste Marie - PPC Association Uncategorized 1 Comment October 26, 2018 1 Minute
PPC Sault Ste Marie
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Social Observers
Studying Cognitive Processes of Communication
Category Archives: Forms
The notion of nothing is a rather young concept in the history of human ideas. This may be due to the apparent inability to observe the absence of everything. In mathematics, for example, Babylonian scholars first had to invent a representation for the absence of a counter, thereby laying the foundation for the number zero as used today. As a number, zero is conceptually different from other numbers, since it cannot be represented by any describable physical entity. Socially, this has been made possible by the function of negation, which allows us to state that there is something, e.g. a section of a row on an abacus, which can and often does hold counters, but in this specific observation does not. This absence is then the core of this very observation, and it serves functionally as the equivalent of zero. In fact, the number zero can be seen as a shorthand for the observation above.
This shows that it is indeed possible and, with the benefit of hindsight, relatively easy to observe an absence inside a system. All it takes is a technical abstraction of some system of observations, such as counting, and then a reference to the substrate of the system, e.g. the abacus, to show and make explicit where elements are absent. This notion of absence is, however, quite different from the notion of nothing.
In nothingness, absence cannot be made explicit by referencing a substrate, for if there were a substrate, there would not be nothing. The trick how communication deals with nothingness is recontextualization: Nothing then has a semantic boundary, so that there is a system of meaning from which nothing can be observed.
Nothing in the world.
The holistic view of an all-encompassing nothing uses the same function, when it describes the world as the inside of nothing, nothing coming into existence.
The world inside nothing.
With this in mind, observations become non-materialistic, as it is clear that there is no qualitative difference between something and nothing, no substrate to provide a grounding. Rather, nothing and some existence are an oscillatory state, where any side inevitably invokes the other.
This entry was posted in Definitions, Forms, Reality on January 16, 2013 by fgrote.
Self and External Reference
Sociological systems theory has established a clear distinction between self reference and external reference. Self reference is the ability of an observer to refer to himself in an observation, while external reference means establishing a relation to another identity distinct from the observer. Self reference invokes the notion of self in the world, and especially the handling of self reference and external reference within one observation is considered an important ability enabling the observer to deal with complexity arising from double contingency.
Looking at the concepts of self reference and external reference in the light of the descriptions of observations we worked out in the previous posts, the intrinsic availability of self reference has to be questioned. If we take any one observer as identical with one and only one observation, and view the notion of unity as a construction coming in after the fact of the actual observation, then we would have to place the idea of self reference also in this realm of constructions coming after the fact. If no two observers are the same, then self reference is excluded, at least at this basic level. Here, all references are necessarily external, as no other identity can be the same as the actual observer. Even if the same reference were used, it would necessarily refer to a different observation that happened previously or will happen later.
The consideration of constructions coming after the actual observation has been theorized in the concept of second-order observations. These are defined as observations of observations, and they therefore come with the ability to create new contexts for other observations. Such a context can then be a notion of observer unity, i.e. selfhood. It can just as well include the actualization and reconstruction of another identity, such as a separate person. For a persistent notion of selfhood, it would be essential for both modes of observation to closely relate to each other, thus enabling a coherent construction of self reference. At the same time, any second-order observation is also a first-order observation, in that it also has its own unique observer, who can, at its own basic level, only make external references. These can, however, be constructions of self reference for another, external observation.
This entry was posted in Definitions, Forms on January 14, 2013 by fgrote.
Memory and Oscillatory State
We have discussed the availability of oscillatory (or complementary) states and of memories as contexts of an observed existence in the last post. Let us now look at their commonalities. Firstly, an oscillatory state as the complementary outside to the inside of the distinction in the focus of the observation necessarily also rests on the memory of a previous observation. As I have laid out, this is also the case if the complementary state consists of an expectation towards a potential future of the current existence.
Secondly, if we can indeed reduce any observation to fundamentally being one distinction separating its inside from everything it is not, then this must also be true for any previous observation remembered in the current one. With this in mind, the difference between oscillatory states and memories as contexts of existence becomes almost obsolete. The one remaining difference is retained in the marker that the oscillatory state is an alternative state of this existence, the existence in the focus of the observation. Thereby, oscillatory states can become a marker of uncertainty, as it is clear that they could potentially gain actual existence in the next observation.
In Chapter 11 of his “Laws of Form”, George Spencer Brown, in dealing with equations of the second degree – i.e., recursive functions -, introduced the notion of oscillator and memory functions. These notions are at the basis of our considerations, and we will return to them for further exploration.
This entry was posted in Definitions, Forms on November 25, 2012 by fgrote.
Momentary Observers
Considering the notions of space and time laid out before, observations can only be seen as momentary events, without any intrinsic duration in time or extension in space. This is a necessary pretense, as it is by observations, not within them, that time and space are constructed.
In this sense, only that on which the observation focuses can be said to exist, even if only for the specific observer. Everything else is context for that on which the observation focuses, either providing an alternative perspective on the existence in focus, or referencing the memory of some related entity that was observed before in other observations.
A possible alternative perspective would, for example, be the negation of that which is in the focus. In social phenomena, we often encounter such oscillatory states in which complementary views on one entity negate each other, but in a positive way that does not proceed to negate altogether the existence of the entity in question.
The other option for a context is to reference the memory of another observation. As I have mentioned, this can include expectations towards future observations as well, for they, too, have to be based on previous observations in order to project future events. Also, such previous observations were not made by the same observer. Firstly, any observation creates a discrete observer, thus ruling out the concept of unity at this basic level anyways. But secondly, they also do not have to be made by the same constructed unity, such as a person, on a more abstract level. A person is able to bind together different observations via self-reference, thus creating the notion of conciseness in recognizing existence. Memories of previous observations used as contexts can, however, also deal with external reference, e.g. the notion that some other person made a specific observation. This ability to build on the observations made by other points of reference is one of the strengths and efficiencies in society.
Therefore, any observation can be described as focused on some entity, thus attributing to it the possibility of its existence, and placing this entity in the context of alternative, complementary states of existence, and/or in the context of memories of other observations. All of this is just one event, which means it does not have a duration in time or an extension in space. For this, further observations would be necessary, which could be summoned to effectively construct such measurements.
With this, we have reached the same notion we started out with: The notion of distinction. Any observation can fundamentally be seen as just that, a distinction separating something from everything it is not.
The form of the distinction.
Everything on the outside of this distinction may be made more explicit to infinite detail, however, all of these explications will themselves be observations and thus fundamentally claim only this one distinction. In addition, all such distinctions would be decoupled as individual events, thus creating time, but never falling together. Thus, no universal existence could be claimed for them, and it could also not be referenced from any individual observation.
This entry was posted in Definitions, Forms, Space, Time on November 24, 2012 by fgrote.
The Form of the Distinction
One of the main advancements in recent communication and systems theory is the notion that communication is concerned with distinctions. Gregory Bateson’s description of information as a “difference that makes a difference” to a system (in his “Steps to an Ecology of Mind”) can, on an abstract level, also be found in Shannon and Weaver’s information theory (“The Mathematical Theory of Communication”), separating a signal carrying information from noise in the channel, as well as from other possible information. Niklas Luhmann then built his sociological systems theory (explicated e.g. in his “Social Systems”) on two sets of differences: Firstly, he described society as being differentiated by distinctions between functional systems, such as the economy, judicial system, or religions. Secondly, within these systems, he made out codes of distinctions in operational communication. Examples include distinctions between payment and non-payment for the economy, or lawful and unlawful for the judicial system.
The analysis of distinctions is depending on a clear and effective way to express the distinctions it wants to take into the focus of research. Language as a medium is not optimal for this, as it does not allow for the parallel expression of multiple distinctions at once, and it has no way to include the implicit other side of its statements, i.e. to say what is not said or to write the unwritten. In this sense, language is inherently positive, to the extent that even a negative statement is positive in its negativity. In order to gain the ability to discuss the other side of what is made explicit in communication, Niklas Luhmann already started to visualize distinctions using a notation developed by George Spencer Brown in his “Laws of Form”. There, the basic form of the distinction is visualized as follows:
The form on the right hand side of the equation sign is shorthand for a full enclosure being separated from the outside. It can – and regularly is – be represented by circles or squares, or any other form that is fully closed. However, this shorthand is convenient when it comes to more complex forms, with multiple layers of differentiation affecting each other. It is important to note, though, that this shorthand still represents a full separation between an inside and an outside. In his Laws of Form, Spencer Brown writes that “distinction is perfect continence”. This means that what is on the inside of a distinction is only on the inside, and definitely not to be found on the outside of the distinction. Moreover, what is on the inside of a distinction is fully enclosed by the distinction, and cannot itself be separated to be partly inside and partly outside of it. For this, further distinctions, and therefore further observations, would be required.
Dirk Baecker (e.g. in his “Form und Formen der Kommunikation”) then used the calculus proposed by Spencer Brown for the analysis of complex social phenomena, including the notion of the reentry, to which we will come in detail later. But first of all, I want to locate the analyses I will attempt in this blog in the tradition of communication theories viewing communication as being comprised of distinctions rather than humans, persons, or actors.
This entry was posted in Definitions, Forms on September 18, 2012 by fgrote.
Written by Florian Grote
Measurements and Time
Recursion I
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Tag: Non-Indians writing on India
Burmese Days, George Orwell (1934)
Burmese Days, by George Orwell. Harcourt: 1962 (1934). (Purchased in Cambodia).
When I was about nine or ten years old my family bought its first video player, my parents got it for Christmas. But the only video we had to watch that Christmas was a cartoon version of George Orwell’s Animal Farm–my dad being an English teacher, he had brought it home from school. I’m the oldest child in my family, so my brother was about eight, and my sister would’ve been about five. Animal Farm is NOT a story for young children, not even in cartoon form, and I know we all have frightened memories of that Christmas, of the horse being taken to the glue factory! A few years later, Orwell’s 1984 is the first adult book I can remember reading, aged 13. I had been reading Sweet Valley High until then, much to the annoyance of my father (see how they turn out?)! I’m not sure I entirely understood the novel, but I had been told the storyline by my mum, so understood the concept, if not the execution. But despite Orwell filling in a couple of these firsts, I hadn’t read anything else of his until I picked up this copy of Burmese Days in Phnom Penh.
The novel is based in a small-town British jungle outpost in Burma in the 1930s. The main protagonist is John Flory, a close-to-middle-aged single man who doesn’t fit in with the other imperial bureaucrats and military-men in town, but can’t quite bring himself to defy them in the ways he would like to:
“In the end the secrecy of your revolt poisons you like a secret disease. Your whole life is a life of lies. Year after year you sit in Kipling-haunted little Clubs, whisky to the right of you, Pink’un to the left of you, listening and eagerly agreeing while Colonel Bodger develops his theory that these bloody Nationalists should be boiled in oil. You hear your Oriental friends called ‘greasy little babus’, and you admit, dutifully, that they are greasy little babus. You see louts fresh from school kicking grey-haired servants. The time comes when you burn with hatred of your own country-men, when you long for a native rising to drown their Empire in blood. And in this there is nothing honourable, hardly even any sincerity. For, au fond, what do you care if the Indian Empire is a despotism, if Indians are bullied or exploited? You only care because the right of free speech is denied you. You are a creature of the despotism, a pukka sahib, tied tighter than a monk or a savage by an unbreakable system of tabus.” (p. 69)
Burmese Days critiques the arrogance and debauchery of the waning years of empire, and also serves as a good period piece, reminding us how British women were treated as chattel, ‘natives’ as little more than animals, and dissent within the ranks was not tolerated. I was also surprised by how entwined in ‘India’ Burma was back then: I knew it had been administratively treated as part of British India, but it was interesting to note the intermingling of the Burmese and Urdu languages in the life and administration of British Burma.
Burmese Days is an enjoyable and readable book, but there are good reasons why this, his first novel, doesn’t have the iconic status of Animal Farm or 1984. Like these novels it, too, is prescient and biting, but Burmese Days’ twilight-of-the-empire critique is overshadowed by its near-contemporary, A Passage to India. The plot and sense of place evoked in E. M. Forster’s classic is just more memorable. Nevertheless, Burmese Days is an intelligent book, and perhaps unfairly out-of-fashion these days. There are still discernible truths within it, appearing in private discussion in neo-post-colonial ex-pat culture in the ‘third world’, if not the official line any more: “He had forgotten that most people can be at ease in a foreign country only when they are disparaging the natives.” (p. 118) Recognisable sentiments like this help the contemporary culturally-western reader resist the temptation to look back on the times narrated in the novel and think ‘how far we’ve come’.
Posted on February 22, 2014 February 22, 2014 Categories Burma, India, Non-Indians writing on India, NovelsTags Burma, colonialism, India, Non-Indians writing on India, novels4 Comments on Burmese Days, George Orwell (1934)
Asymptote’s take on the Wendy Doniger case
Most of what I’ve been reading on Penguin India’s decision to withdraw and pulp Wendy Doniger’s book The Hindus: An Alternative History is fairly similar: outraged and persuasive. I even wrote such a piece myself. But Eric Gurevitch’s analysis on the Asymptote blog is something a bit different, putting the controversy in a much more focused literary context. Worth reading here.
Posted on February 19, 2014 Categories Censorship, Commentary, Non-Indians writing on India, PublishingTags Asymptote, Censorship, Commentary, Non-Indians writing on India, Publishing, The Hindus, Wendy DonigerLeave a comment on Asymptote’s take on the Wendy Doniger case
My commentary on the Doniger “The Hindus” case
My commentary in Himal Southasian on the disgusting case, in which Penguin India succumbed to the irrational, fundamentalist petition against the American scholar’s book:
“The recent case of American Indologist Wendy Doniger’s book The Hindus: An Alternative History (2009) being withdrawn by Penguin India and committed to pulping is another example of India’s succumbing to regressive politics. An out-of-court settlement was reached between Penguin and the complainants, a right-wing Hindu group called the Shiksha Bachao Andolan (the Save Education Movement), while the Saket court in Delhi was considering the complaint that had originally been filed in February 2010.”
Read the rest here.
Posted on February 13, 2014 Categories Censorship, Commentary, India, Non-fiction, Non-Indians writing on India, Women's writingTags Censorship Himal Southasian, Commentary, History, Non-fiction, Non-Indians writing on India, Penguin India, Shiksha Bachao Andolan, The Hindus, Wendy Doniger, Women's writingLeave a comment on My commentary on the Doniger “The Hindus” case
Jaipur Literature Festival 2014- Day 4
Day 4 of the JLF 2014 brought sunnier skies, meaning that sitting around outside became much more pleasant. It was also a Monday, so much of the throng had returned to Delhi (or wherever else from whence they came), making movement between venues at Diggi Palace less of a scrummage.
(Vikram Chandra and Adrian Levy)
At every festival there are people who you’ve penciled in to see, and those who you end up listening to because you have a free hour and have managed to secure a seat. Sometimes these latter prove to be revelations, introducing you to writers not otherwise on the radar. Adrian Levy (in conversation with Vikram Chandra, whose epic Bombay gangster novel Sacred Games I am a big fan of) was one of these finds for me, not least because I had a long chat with him over dinner this same night and he proved to be a thoroughly nice man. Levy, with his partner Cathy Scott-Clark, has most recently written The Siege, a non-fiction work on the 26th November 2008 terrorist attacks in Bombay. Most of the session was spent discussing his main ‘protagonist/antagonist’ (my term, not his) David Hedley, a fascinating and complex creature. As Vikram Chandra described him, “If I had made him up and put him in one of my novels, nobody would have believed him.”
(Elephants in the Room: India and its Neighbours)
My Himal Southasian colleage, Aunohita Mojumdar, appeared in the next session, ‘Elephants in the Room: India and its Neighbours’, along with representatives from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Bhutan. The chair, a former Indian diplomat, opened by saying that while India might be an elephant, elephants are widely loved, gentle creatures. Aunohita rightly pointed out that they also have a tendency to crush things in their path, indiscriminately.
This afternoon was also spent at the Bookmark event for publishing professionals. As I wrote yesterday, this was industry-related, so while it was interesting and important for those in the industry, I don’t think it needs South Asia Book Blog’s special attention. Being our last evening in Jaipur, we stayed for the entertainment at Clarks Amer hotel, and I’m glad we did: the fabulous Tuarag band from Mali, Tinariwen, played for about an hour. After some lovely conversations with writers over dinner in the delegate lounge, I was sorry to be leaving the festival a day early, having to travel back to Delhi and then on to Kathmandu the next day. Despite the excellent networking opportunities for work, there were so many interesting people I didn’t get to see. Gloria Steinem! Nadeem Aslam! Robyn Davidson! But, we woke up the next day to torrential rain and thunder storms, which lasted all the way through Rajasthan and into Delhi, so in the end praised our own good foresight at calling it quits when we did.
Posted on January 23, 2014 February 11, 2014 Categories Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Jaipur Literature Festival, Literary festivals, Non-fiction, Non-Indians writing on India, Novels, Pakistan, Reportage, Women's writingTags Adrian Levy, Aunohita Mojumdar, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Himal Southasian, India, Jaipur Literature Festival, Literary Festivals, Non-fiction, Non-Indians writing on India, novels, Pakistan, Reportage, Tinariwen, Vikram Chandra, Women's writingLeave a comment on Jaipur Literature Festival 2014- Day 4
Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, Katherine Boo (2012)
Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, by Katherine Boo. New Delhi: Hamish Hamilton, 2012. (Purchased in India).
It was Ramachandra Guha’s endorsement on the front of the Indian version of this book that drew my attention to it: “The best book about contemporary India, the best work of non-fiction that I have read in the past twenty-five years.” I don’t tend to take these author recommendations too seriously, as who knows what behind-the-scenes machinations go on to get endorsements from prominent writers (some truly good writers have endorsed books by Kamila Shamsie, an author who I have vowed never to read again). But this one got me interested because on the surface it didn’t appear that Katherine Boo was doing anything new in writing a book about the slums of Bombay. Such literature and reportage has almost become an industry in itself, especially post-Slumdog Millionaire, and details of plot and character, you’ve read one, you’ve read them all. So how could such a hackneyed topic have caught Guha’s attention?
Boo’s extraordinary writing. This is a work of non-fiction, but it doesn’t read like it. The author enters the heads of the characters, understands their motivations and speaks their words. This could all read as creative license, and indeed I thought it was, until I read the astonishing author’s note at the back of the book: Boo did extensive fieldwork in Annawadi, the slum that is the setting for the book, recording hundreds of hours of interviews, visiting and revisiting her subjects in order to clarify details, employing a translator, gaining access to court records. The kind of research that only very dedicated and inspired writers can pull off (and that should put those like Ned Beauman to shame, who recently, at the NCell Nepal Literature Festival in Kathmandu, admitted that he loved the internet as a writer’s resource because writers like himself, “who couldn’t be bothered”, didn’t have to actually go to the places they were writing about.)
Boo follows the lives of several families in a small section of Annawadi, a slum situated next to Mumbai airport, over the course of a couple of years. I give nothing away in saying that the pivotal event (that happens early on) is the burning-to-death of a Muslim convert woman, over a neighbourhood dispute, and the ruination of a neighbouring family in being implicated in it. Even before I understood how much research had gone into this book, I inherently believed Boo’s portrayal of surroundings as accurate:
“And here at Cooper [government hospital], where fluorescent lights buzzed like horseflies, she continued to feel like a person who counted. Though the small burn ward stank of fetid gauze, it was a fine place compared to the general wards, where many patients lay on the floor. She was sharing a room with only one other woman, whose husband swore he hadn’t lit the fateful match. She had her first foam mattress, now sopping with urine. She had a plastic tube in her nostrils, attached to nothing. She had an IV bag with a used syringe sticking out of it, since the nurse said it was a waste to use a fresh syringe every time. She had a rusty metal contraption over her torso, to keep the stained sheet from sticking to her skin. But of all the new experiences Fatima was having in the burn ward, the most unexpected was the stream of respectable female visitors from Annawadi.” (pp. 99-100)
The sequence of events that follows Fatima’s death illustrates the fragility of the ability to make one’s living in the slums; the corruption and degradation that is an everyday fact of life; the ability of the desperate to keep on living when they have to. Despite ‘hope’ featuring in the title, I didn’t feel that there was very much of it here, unless it can be considered hopeful that life continues, no matter what.
Boo’s writing is what makes this book so brilliant. She has a novelist’s ability to follow characters and plot, and a poet’s sense of language. For instance: “He often presided over his lavender-walled, lavender-furnished living room in an undershirt, legs barely covered by his lungi, while his petitioners flopsweated in polyester suits.” (p. 21) I have often been dumfounded by Indian lads in their top-to-toe shiny polyester in the heat, and now have a new word with which to describe them: flopsweaty.
And the title? I had assumed it was a reference to Bollywood movies. That this book would document what happened once the cameras stopped rolling, once the beautiful happy-ever-afters were screened and everyone went home. But happy-ever-after isn’t a common trope of Bollywood movies, whereas tragedy is, perhaps more fitting for this book. Nevertheless, I was wrong, the reference isn’t to this at all. A “beautiful forever” is a particular wall in Annawadi, keeping some things out, others in; perhaps a more fitting metaphor for the lives retold in this book.
Posted on November 21, 2013 February 22, 2014 Categories India, Non-fiction, Non-Indians writing on India, Reportage, Women's writingTags India, Non-fiction, Non-Indians writing on India, Reportage, Women's writing2 Comments on Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, Katherine Boo (2012)
The Water People, Joe Simpson (1992)
The Water People, by Joe Simpson. London: Abacus, 1993 (1992). (Second-hand acquired copy).
Joe Simpson’s The Water People is the story of childhood friends, Chris and Jimmy, who set off into the Indian Himalaya partly for the adventure of climbing mountains, partly because of Jimmy’s search for the “water people.” These are creatures of folklore, more real than imagination but still intangible. They are the spirits, you could say, that dwell in all water bodies, from rain to rivers to glaciers and snow, and can move between them all, wherever they meet. Chris, the narrator, is skeptical of their existence.
A large chunk of the novel passes, however, before Chris and Jimmy even arrive in India, and much more before they reach the mountains. This enables the author to set up the characters’ personalities and their relationship with each other in complex ways: Chris is slightly uptight and generally skeptical and fearful of the unknown. Jimmy is more open-minded, but also pretty irresponsible and annoying. Chris’s ‘secret’ relationship with Jimmy’s younger sister is symbolic of how well, and how little, the two young men know each other.
There are many beautiful and poignant parts of The Water People, but overall it felt as though the author was trying to do too much. There were too many different locations entered, too many personal anxieties explored, too many complicated relationships entered into, for a relatively short book. The love and tension between Jimmy and Chris underpins the climactic tragedy, and it was necessary for these to be articulated in a slow and sustained manner. But in the end it felt disjointed.
Furthermore, Simpson’s skills lie in describing the natural environment rather than the built, human-inhabited one. Chris’s impressions of Delhi are described in the cliched terms that make me cringe. He writes well in many ways, but the imagery is so stale. Describing Old Delhi:
“At the back of the mosque I found a bazaar laid out in the pattern of a Mogul garden and pathways lined in sandstone, and fountains by terraces and every imaginable type of stall staffed by dark-bearded Pathans–soothsayers and snake charmers, hawkers and beggars. I bought sweet milked tea in a thick chipped glass and sat resting on sun-browned grass watching the Hakims sell their wares. The midday sun hung in a cloudless sky directly above the domes of the mosque. It was refreshingly cool in the open esplanade of the park, free from the stifling claustrophobia of Chandni Chowk. I had learnt that in the past caged cheetah, greyhounds, hooded hunting leopards and Persian cats had been sold in those darkened lanes. They were gone now, replaced with the plastic squalor of consumer goods but the fervent desperation of the sellers was no doubt the same.” (p. 75)
Everything and nothing changes in India, looking back to the past…
At the heart of Jimmy’s search for the Water People is what could be considered a cliched desire of a young British man searching for an alternative way of understanding his place and his world through the ‘east’. But this desire largely comes across as sincere in The Water People, :
“There are countless myths and legends associated with the mountainous regions of this planet. Fantastic tales, mysteries, archetypal stories imbued with fear and awe. I have heard many of these legends and have begun to recognise a common theme running through them all. The stories, like poorly fitting clothes, hide what lies beneath. The people from whom I have heard these stories have good reason to believe them. Fear and ignorance might account for most of the fantasy that embroiders the tales but these people are blessed with open uncluttered minds that are prepared to acknowledge the truth in them. We can believe in Christianity. Some of us can blindly accept transubstantiation–that wine becomes the blood of Christ and a sliver of bread becomes his flesh when consecrated in Eucharist. Yet we will laugh at the myths and legends of other cultures. We laugh with the amused, conceited arrogance of fools unable to recognise that our own truths are equally unfounded.” (p. 123)
This is all true, but it is not fresh. Simpson succeeds in detaching himself somewhat from these sentiments, however, by making Jimmy an inherently naive character. Chris’ world-weariness also reflects a similar naivete, and it is in this that The Water People holds is charm.
Posted on September 19, 2013 February 22, 2014 Categories India, Non-Indians writing on India, NovelsTags India, Non-Indians writing on India, novelsLeave a comment on The Water People, Joe Simpson (1992)
Godavari, Fahmida Riaz (2008) Translated from Urdu by Aquila Ismail
Godavari, by Fahmida Riaz. Translated from the 1998 Urdu novel of the same title by Aquila Ismail. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. (Purchased in India).
Though very short at only 110 pages, Fahmida Riaz’s Godavari is a dense book that packs a lot in, wasting few words. The story is told from Ma’s perspective, and recounts her family’s holiday at a hill station in Maharashtra, somewhat reminiscent of Ooty in Tamil Nadu, or the Wayanad region of Kerala. The family is Pakistani, having moved to India some time before, a fact that would always cause problems in India, but is particularly worrisome at the time being recounted in the novel, as their holiday coincides with an outbreak of communal violence in Bombay. On one level, Godavari is about Indian Hindu-Muslim relations, told through the personal perspective of a single family. On another, it is about adivasi politics and the Hindu right wing’s cooptation of tribal peoples into the Hindutva fold. And yet on another level, Godavari is an intimate story of a wife’s struggle to come to terms with her husband’s flirtations with the hired help.
The complexity of the politics and relationships in Godavari is one of its strengths, and what Riaz manages to communicate through very select language and imagery is impressive. However, some of it could have done with a bit more fleshing out. I felt that I didn’t get to know many of the characters very well as they were being used so sparsely and symbolically.
I was drawn to Godavari out of curiosity over how a Pakistani writer would depict Indian communal tensions. Riaz was born in 1946 in undivided India, but is an Urdu-language Pakistani writer. On the whole, the critical perspectives on Hindutva (the Shiv Sena is singled out here, as the novel is based in Maharashtra) were not so very different from how many Indian writers, particularly female writers, treat the topic. I found though that there was a bit more explanation of things, such as regional political movements, that may have been taken for granted by an Indian author writing for Indian readers. The audience for Riaz’s Urdu book would be mostly Pakistani, and while I’m sure educated Pakistanis have the same knowledge of Hindu-Muslim problems in South Asia as Indians, they may not be so aware of the regional Indian politics.
I particularly like the description of the chaos caused to the postal system when the decision was first made to officially change Bombay’s name to Mumbai. The change is usually discussed either on political terms (it was an imposition of the right-wing Marathi chauvinism of the Shiv Sena) or in linguistic ones (it is more “natural” to call the city Mumbai when speaking in Marathi, Bombay when in English). I had never read a comedic (albeit wry) account through the lens of practicality:
“In the end the government decided to really implement the law and used the postal department for this purpose. Therefore a notification was issued that in future only the mail which said Mumbai and not Bombay would be delivered.
With this notification the postal system of Bombay was badly disrupted. This grand commercial and industrial centre of Asia received thousands of letters and parcels every day from abroad. When the error was realized in two days the notification was withdrawn. In its place a relatively softer injunction was issued that let Bombay be accepted when written in English, but in Hindi only Mumbai was acceptable.
But this law could not be implemented. The government of Maharashtra could not enforce its laws in other Indian states, and could not force citizens of other states, for example, Uttar Pradesh or Rajasthan, to write or say Mumbai instead of Bombay. And the governments of other states did not show even an iota of interest in this Maharashtra government law.” (p. 102)
An interesting article by Fahmida Riaz recently appeared in the Pakistani English-language news outlet Dawn, an article called “This too is Pakistani Fiction“. In this, Riaz discusses how though she has been writing since 1967, she has been overlooked by Pakistani literary critics of Urdu literature. But this article is not just a whinge about not receiving enough praise herself. Riaz also laments that much progressive Urdu literature has been overlooked by literary critics, and this is surely a problem for a country and a culture that seems to take so much pride in their literary prowess.
Posted on August 25, 2013 February 22, 2014 Categories Non-Indians writing on India, Novels, Pakistan, Translations, Translations from Urdu, Women's writingTags Non-Indians writing on India, novels, Pakistan, Translations, Translations from Urdu, Women's writingLeave a comment on Godavari, Fahmida Riaz (2008) Translated from Urdu by Aquila Ismail
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#RUSSIA#USA 13.12.2016 - 797 views
Obama’s Spokesman Blames Donald Trump for Links with Moscow & Its ‘Propaganda Outlets’ 5 out of 5 based on 2 ratings. 2 user reviews.
Obama’s Spokesman Blames Donald Trump for Links with Moscow & Its ‘Propaganda Outlets’
According to White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, President-elect Donald Trump and top members of his team have “lucrative” links with Moscow.
US President Barack Obama meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, November 10, 2016 (Photo: Reuters / Kevin Lamarque)
President-elect Donald Trump and top members of his team have “lucrative” links with Russia, including the Russian RT media service, spokesman for President Barack Obama, Josh Earnest, said at the daily briefing on Monday.
“It was the president-elect who refused to disclose his financial connections to Russia,” said Earnest. “It was the president-elect who hired a campaign chairman with extensive, lucrative, personal financial ties to Russia. It was the president-elect who had national security advisor on the campaign that had been a paid contributor to RT, the Russian propaganda outlet.”
According to the White House press secretary, cyberattacks on the main rival of the Republican presidential nominee brought ‘benefits’ to the latter, and “his campaign did not make any effort to obscure this.”
Earnest has directly blamed Trump not only for turning a blind eye to Russia’s “attempt to destabilize our political system,” but even for ordering Moscow to attack Hillary Clinton.
“The President-elect did not call it into question. He called on Russia to hack his opponent. He called on Russia to hack Secretary Clinton,” President Barack Obama’s spokesman said, however, did not provide any proof of his words. “He certainly had a pretty good sense of whose side this activity was coming down on.”
Since October, the White House has been accusing Russia of cyberattacks on the DNC (Democratic National Committee) and Clinton in an attempt to interfere in the US presidential elections in order to help Trump to win.
Last week, the Washington Post newspaper reported that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) announced that people, associated with the Russian government, used hacker attacks to steal documents of the Democratic Party, sent them to the WikiLeaks website and helped in this way republican Trump to win the election. Trump himself said that such accusations are “ridiculous.”
“I think it is ridiculous. I think it is just another excuse. I do not believe it,” he told Fox News.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the Reuters news agency reported, citing three American officials, that the US intelligence community has not agreed with the conclusions of the CIA that Moscow influenced the US presidential election, helping Trump to win.
According to the US intelligence community, there are no convincing evidences of the Moscow’s influence, and the CIA conclusions are based on “a thin reed.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) also has not supported the CIA conclusions.
Spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, also noted that the CIA did not provide any evidences of the fact that the hacker attacks were carried out by the Russian side.
Tags:Donald Trump, russia, us, US Presidential Election, us-russian relations, usa
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Barba_Papa
So Russian hackers have now become to the Democrats what the socalled betrayal of German politicians, who signed the WWI armistice, became came to the Germans after WWI? A convenient scapegoat to blame so they wouldn’t have to acknowledge that they really were responsible for their own loss? It was the DNC that pushed through the nomination of Hillary Clinton who was so deeply unpopular that she failed to energize her own voter base. Even if the Russians did hack some databases, they weren’t the one who helped her win the Democratic primaries and nominated her. It wasn’t the Russians who squandered away her lead in the polls and thought they had it in the bag after ‘grab them by their pussies’. It wasn’t the Russians who stopped Hillary from ignoring the Rust Belt. And it wasn’t the Russians who tarnished Hillary’s reputation as a deeply corrupt crooked politician.
No. Let’s blame the Russians instead. After all, the CIA says so. And if there’s one agency in this world with extensive experience in influencing elections its the CIA. So if they say it’s true it must be true. Right?
In a nutshell, right on man. :P
Joseph Scott
Totally different. The ‘Stab in the Back” wasn’t about signing the treaty. It was about a.) the Socialist Party in Germany voting against funding so that all available males in each age class could actually be conscripted and trained, in the years before WWI, leading to Germany being able to mobilise a smaller proportion of it’s manpower than France when the war came, b.) Communist agitation in the training centres and barracks in Germany, that led to some new soldiers sent to the front from very late 1917 on disobeying orders, refusing to fight, etc. c.) the Communist-led Kiel naval mutiny, and d.) the implication that, in combination with the Communist uprisings in Germany right after, items a-c had all been part of a comprehensive plan to seize power in Germany by undermining the war so that the government could be overthrown. Contrary to Allied propaganda, there was actual substance to the National Socialist claim about the Stab in the Back, as almost all German war veterans knew.
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July 2019: Jesse Cenere
Licence Number: LTPM/19/04577
1.These terms and conditions of entry, including information on how to participate and prize details (terms), apply to the promotion and entry into the promotion is deemed acceptance of these terms.
The promoter is C.R. Kennedy PTY LTD, 300 Lorimer Street VIC 3207 (promoter).
The promotion period is from the first Monday of the month until the last day of the month for every month until 30TH June 2020. Promotion starts 1st of July 2019
No purchase is necessary.
Entry in the promotion is only open to residents of Australia aged 18 years and over, excluding:
Management, employees, resellers, directors and contractors of the promoter, its related entities, and other agencies, firms or companies associated with the promotion (including suppliers of prizes);
A spouse, de-facto spouse, parent, guardian, child or sibling of a person referred to in paragraph 5(a) of these terms;
Persons who have used or attempted to use any more than one name in order to qualify to win a promotion run by or on behalf of the promoter (except in the case of a legal change of name); and
Persons who have breached the terms and conditions of any promotion run by or on behalf of the promoter,
(eligible entrants). The persons referred to in paragraph 4(b) of these terms includes natural and non-natural relations (in the opinion of the promoter) and the promoter is responsible for determining whether a person is an eligible entrant in its absolute discretion.
Entrants must sign up to the C.R. Kennedy Survey mailing list on at survey.crkennedy.com.au and must remain subscribed. Customers can also fill up mailing list subscription form at any of C.R. Kennedy offices or email filled up form.
The promoter reserves the right, at any time, to verify the validity of entries and eligible entrants (including an eligible entrant’s identity, age and place of residence) and to disqualify any eligible entrant who submits an entry that is not in accordance with these terms or who tampers with the entry process. Errors and omissions will be accepted at the promoter's discretion. Failure by the promoter to enforce any of its rights at any stage does not constitute a waiver of those rights.
If there is a dispute as to the identity of an eligible entrant, the promoter reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to determine the identity of the eligible entrant.
Winners will be selected on the first Monday of each month at 11am.
Judging and prizes
This is a game of chance. The monthly winner will be chosen at random.
The chosen winner will be contacted via email. The winner will also be announced on facebook and or instagram. The promoter’s decision is final.
The winner will receive one (1) Leica DistoD2. Total retail prize value is $249as of 1st July 2019)
Prize claim date for a given prize is within 6 weeks of the relevant promotion period closing. If the prize is not collected within this timeframe then it cannot be claimed or refunded at a later date. Prize will be delivered to the winner once the winner has been selected, and the winner has contacted the promoter and informed the promoter of their (the winner’s) nominated delivery address. Prize can be shipped to any valid delivery address in Australia.
Only one entry is permitted per person.
Eligible entrants can only enter the promotion in their own name.
Prizes are not transferable, exchangeable or redeemable for cash. Prize must be taken as offered and may not be varied.
The promoter shall not be liable for the prize being lost, stolen, damaged or tampered with in any way before it reaches the winner.
If the promoter is unable to provide a winner with a nominated prize, the promoter reserves the right to supply an alternative prize of similar monetary value to the nominated prize
The promoter accepts no responsibility for any entries not received for any reason during the promotion period.
the prize winner will be:
Notified via email; and
Asked to respond to the notification email confirm their contact details.
In the event that for any reason whatsoever the winner does not take the prize at the time stipulated by the promoter then that prize will be forfeited by that winner and cash will not be awarded in lieu of the prize. The promoter reserves the right to redraw unclaimed prizes. Winners of an unclaimed prize will be notified via instagram or facebook.
If, for any reason, the promotion is not capable of being run as planned, including due to tampering, unauthorised intervention, fraud or any other causes beyond the control of the promoter, which corrupt or affect the administration, security, fairness, integrity or proper conduct of the promotion, the promoter reserves the right in its absolute discretion to take any action that may be available to it, subject to state and territory regulations, including cancelling, terminating, modifying or suspending the promotion.
The promoter is not responsible for any problems or technical malfunctions of any telephone network or lines, computer online systems, servers or providers, computer equipment, software, technical problems or traffic congestion on the internet or any website, or any combination thereof (including, but not limited to) any injury or damage to participants or any other person’s computer related to or resulting from participation in or downloading any materials in this promotion.
Acceptance and use of the prize is subject to terms and conditions imposed by those involved in providing goods and/or services as part of or in connection with the prize
Any eligible entrant who, in the opinion of the promoter, tampers or interferes with the entry mechanism in any way, engages in any unlawful or improper conduct which jeopardises or is likely to jeopardise the fair or proper conduct of the promotion, or who does not properly comply with the entry process, will be ineligible to win.
Incomplete, illegible, indecipherable or incorrect entries are not eligible to win.
The promoter reserves the right to disqualify entries in the event of non-compliance with these terms. The promoter's decisions in relation to all aspects of the promotion are final and binding on each entrant and no correspondence will be entered into.
The promoter collects personal information about entrants to include entrants in the promotion and where appropriate award the prize. If the personal information requested is not provided, the entrant cannot participate in the promotion. By participating in the promotion, each entrant consents to disclosing their personal information to the promoter and the promoter using, and disclosing their personal information to the promoter's related entities, the promoter's agencies and other third parties engaged to provide services in connection with the promotion (including suppliers of prizes for use for, the following purposes:
Contacting the entrant in relation to the promotion;
Improving the promoter's or the promoter's related entities' goods and services; and
In the promoter's and its agencies’ case, the purposes set out in the promoter's privacy policy
The promoter may disclose entrants’ personal information to relevant authorities in each relevant state and territory, and the winner’s name and state/territory of residence may be published in accordance with these terms and as required under relevant legislation. The promoter’s privacy policy is available on the promoter’s website
The entrant provides this consent until such a time as they withdraw their consent by giving notice to the promoter. Withdrawal of consent by an entrant will disqualify the entrant from the promotion unless the promoter, in its sole discretion, determines otherwise. Entrants can also gain access to, update or correct any personal information held by contacting the promoter at the details listed in paragraph 2 of these terms. All personal information will be stored at the office of the promoter.
By entering the promotion, entrants agree and acknowledge they may be contacted by the promoter with marketing communications.
The promoter accepts no responsibility for any tax liabilities that may arise from winning or receiving the benefit of the prize.
All costs associated or arising in connection with the prize are the responsibility of the prize winner.
Each entrant acknowledges and agrees that it is a condition of participation in the promotion that the entrant be capable of agreeing to these terms and giving the consents contained herein.
The:
Promoter, the promoter's related entities, and all agencies associated with the promotion; and
The employees, agents, directors and contractors, of all entities referred to in paragraph 35(a),
Shall not be liable for any loss or claim, action, demand, liability, damage, cost, expense or personal injury whatsoever (including but not limited to any direct, indirect or consequential loss), incurred, suffered or sustained by any person or entity (without limitation) in connection with, or arising from, the promotion or the acceptance or use of, or participation in, the prize, except that which cannot be excluded by law (in which case that liability is limited to the maximum extent allowable by law).
Entrants acknowledge that the promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, instagram or facebook.
Entrants acknowledge that any information they provide in connection with the promotion is provided to the promoter and not to instagram or facebook.
Any questions, comments or complaints regarding the promotion will be directed to the promoter, not to instagram or facebook.
Entrants release instagram and facebook and their associated companies from all liability arising in respect of the promotion.
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Southern Virginia to Host 18th Conference, Spiritual Retreat June 20-21
Hannah King · May 7, 2014
The 18th Annual Education Conference, a spiritual retreat at Southern Virginia University, will feature a keynote presentation by Elder Spencer J. Condie, an emeritus general authority of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The conference, which will feature two days of spiritual presentations on the theme, “By Their Fruits,” will take place on Friday and Saturday, June 20-21. Held in the historic Shenandoah Valley, the annual conference also features other activities and entertainment, including the Southern Virginia Theatre Program’s production of the musical “Dear World.”
“The conference theme this year, ‘By their Fruits,’ was inspired by the Lord’s words,” said Kathleen Knight, who has organized the conference since its inception in 1997. “To his disciples and followers, in both the old and new worlds, Jesus gave a simple, fail-proof test by which his followers might avoid deception, which is most applicable today: ye shall know them ‘by their fruits.’”
In addition to fulfilling numerous Church callings throughout his life, Elder Condie has served in both the first and second quorums of the seventy during a time span of more than 20 years. After receiving emeritus general authority status in 2010, he served for three years as president of the Nauvoo Illinois Temple.
Professionally, he worked at Brigham Young University as a professor of both sociology and ancient scripture for more than 15 years. He received a bachelor’s degree from BYU, a master’s degree from the University of Utah, and a doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh.
In addition to Elder Condie, this year’s presenters include Bruce Olsen, the former managing director of public affairs for the Church. Olsen oversaw the LDS Public Affairs Department for nearly 20 years, directing worldwide offices in 11 countries and domestic offices in Washington, D.C., New York, and Los Angeles. He has previously served as president of the Massachusetts Boston Mission and the San Diego Temple.
Lee Donaldson, who served as president of the San Diego Mission while Olsen served as temple president in San Diego, will speak at the conference for the second year in a row. Donaldson currently serves as manager of proselytizing services in the Church’s Missionary Department and previously served as global director of Leadership Development for the Church. He also has 26 years of experience as a teacher and administrator in the Church Educational System.
Other presenters will include Dr. Barbara van Kuiken, professor of chemistry at Southern Virginia; Rod L. Meldrum, an author and lecturer who has written and presented on the historicity of The Book of Mormon; Tyson and Brittany Anderson, a dentist and stay-at-home mother raising four children; and Linda Schneider, who will present a textile display.
“Our theme will be expanded by fabulous presenters in the areas of missionary fruits, fruits of the Spirit, fruits of service, and more,” said Knight. “A fruitful life is a happy life. It is an abundant life. It is a Christ-centered life. … It is our hope and prayer that this conference will prove valuable, inspiring, and uplifting and give us renewed determination and skill to avoid deception in our personal lives and to motivate us to a more fruitful life.”
In addition to the theatrical and musical entertainment provided, many conference attendees take advantage of highlights in the area including scenic views at the Blue Ridge Parkway, historic sites in nearby Lexington, Va., and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello — located one hour away from the university’s campus.
Full biographies of each presenter and registration information are available at svu.edu/conference.
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Dem Poll: Majority Oppose Defense of Marriage Act, Support Obama Position
By Benjy Sarlin
House Republican leaders are mounting their own legal defense of the Defense of Marriage Act following President Obama’s decision to drop support for portions of the bill, slamming the White House for abandoning legislation that passed with overwhelming support under President Clinton. But according to one poll commissioned by a gay rights group, the Human Rights Campaign, the White House is on the right side of public opinion today.
According to the poll, which was conducted by Democratic firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, Americans oppose DOMA 51%-34%, including a similar 52%-34% split among independents. A similar proportion disagree with the Republican decision to defend the law, 54% to 32%.
DOMA prevents the federal government from recognizing gay marriage in states where it is legal, a provision of the law the Department of Justice says is unconstitutional.
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Envoy raises $43 million to digitize your office
Jon Russell @jonrussell / 9 months
The office might not seem like an area in desperate need of disruption, but Envoy — a Silicon Valley company used to sign in over 100,000 visitors at offices across the world each day; and a TechCrunch SF office neighbor! — has raised $43 million to do just that.
The company started life five years digitizing the sign-in book with a simple iPad-based approach, and it has moved on to office deliveries with an automated system that simply involves scanning a barcode. In both cases, alerts are routed directly to the person collecting the goods or visitor using an app.
The concept is simple: no more pen and paper, no calls or prompts, everything goes digital.
The result is an easier life for office workers and more efficiency for front desk staff, who have more time for important items. A basic version of Envoy is available for free, but the feature-rich options include two-tiered plans ($99/$249 per month) and bespoke packages for more advanced integrations.
This new Series B capital takes Envoy to $59.5 million raised to date. The round was led by Menlo Ventures with participation from existing backers Initialized Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. Envoy’s previous round was a $15 million Series A in 2015, and its seed investors include Marc Benioff as well as Initialized Capital partners Gary Tan and Alexis Ohanian.
Envoy has certainly expanded since that first $1.5 million seed deal. CEO and founder Larry Gadea, who spent four years at Google after joining at 19 and later worked for Twitter, told TechCrunch in an interview that its customer base spans 72 countries. Over 32 million visitors have been signed in to date and Gadea is particularly proud that 80 percent of its 10,000 daily companies — which includes well-known names like Yelp, Mailchimp and Rakuten — are based outside of Silicon Valley. That, he rightly asserts, is evidence that the issue isn’t just a Silicon Valley/first world problem like so many ideas spun out of The Valley can be.
“The growth has been absolutely nuts. It’s a very viral product… people see it, use it and then take it back to their company,” Gadea, who joined Google from high school in Canada, explained. “The majority of our deals happening through inbound.”
Child prodigy Larry Gadea was plucked from high school in Canada by Google after the company discovered a plug-in he had developed for its desktop search service
Organic growth is a good start, but $43 million is a lot of money and it’ll be used to go push things further still and expand the Envoy team which is currently at around 100 people. You can expect more new office digitizations from the company since its ultimate goal is to make the entire office smarter. That could include products like meeting room booking and other small pieces which, when put together, Gadea hopes will allow workers to concentrate on their work not unnecessary admin. Just as Envoy has done with front desk staff.
“We’re known for the front desk and sign-in but where I think it’s really interesting, and where our future is, is that the rest of the office is just so broken,” he explained. “There’s so much low-hanging fruit we can go after.”
Gadea explained a little more in an Envoy blog post announcing the new round:
Though we’ve helped modernize over 10,000 lobbies with automated iPad-based sign-in, and started bringing some order to the chaos of the mailroom, the rest of the workplace remains largely untouched: people are losing their keys/badges (and being locked out of their office!), meeting rooms are reserved but are unoccupied, lights/heating are left on after-hours, there’s all sorts of out-of-place things that nobody’s reporting, etc. Where are the products to fix all those things? And to unify them all together.
The ultimate vision is a kind of ‘office OS’ platform that other companies can build off. Gadea compares the potential impact to what Nest has done to the home with its smart products, which started with the thermostat.
Gadea is still working on a name for the platform, and he isn’t saying exactly what features it might include. Certainly, now that there’s an additional $43 million in the kitty, expectations for what might (first) appear to be a modest proposal for the front desk have been raised.
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John Fitzpatrick is a television editor and independent film writer/director/producer. His genre shorts have garnered several awards at genre film festivals worldwide and his horror web-series Scary Endings is one of the most watched horror anthologies on YouTube. Following the Directors’ Workshop, he made his television directing debut on an episode of Supernatural (CW).
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The J-TAC (Stephenville, Tex.), Vol. 2, Ed. 1 Wednesday, December 1, 1920
One of 2,549 issues in the title: The J-TAC available on this site.
Weekly student newspaper from John Tarleton Agricultural College in Stephenville, Texas that includes local, state and campus news along with advertising.
four pages : b&w ; page 20 x 13 in. Digitized from 35 mm. microfilm.
Creator: Unknown. December 1, 1920.
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: Texas Digital Newspaper Program and one other and was provided by Tarleton State University to The Portal to Texas History, a digital repository hosted by the UNT Libraries. It has been viewed 68 times . More information about this issue can be viewed below.
First founded in 1899 as a private, liberal arts college, the school joined the Texas A&M University System in 1917; started granting four-year degrees in 1959; and became a full-fledged university in 1973. With its main campus in Stephenville, it serves as the educational and cultural flagship of the Cross Timbers Region.
Main Title: The J-TAC (Stephenville, Tex.), Vol. 2, Ed. 1 Wednesday, December 1, 1920
Serial Title: The J-TAC
four pages : b&w ; page 20 x 13 in.
Student publications -- Texas -- Stephenville.
Tarleton State College -- Newspapers.
Tarleton State University -- Newspapers.
Places - United States - Texas - Erath County
The J-TAC
The student newspaper The J-TAC, now called JTAC News, began regular publication in the fall of 1919. Originally called the Tarletonite, The J-TAC is Tarleton State University's official newspaper.
Jan. 25, 2011, 3:37 p.m.
Description Last Updated
Oct. 23, 2012, 12:01 p.m.
United States - Texas - Erath County - Stephenville
or search all 2,549 items in the series: The J-TAC
The J-TAC (Stephenville, Tex.), Vol. 2, Ed. 1 Wednesday, December 1, 1920, newspaper, December 1, 1920; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth139862/: accessed July 18, 2019), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Tarleton State University.
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Opinion: Fan safety should always be paramount
Posted on October 23, 2014 by Tom Power under Everton FC
It should always be of the upmost importance that football fans be kept safe before, during and after any football match that they attend.
Whether it be a 65 year old veteran home fan, or a young supporter attending his or her very first away match, the safety of fans have to be the number one priority for those in a position to keep the peace.
Which is why yesterday’s and today’s rough punishment, handed out to the travelling hordes of Evertonians, by the police force in Lille should rightly be met with such disgust and disdain.
A number of Everton fans were attacked, by a group of at least fifty Lille ‘supporters’, late last night whilst they soaked up the atmosphere ahead of an eagerly anticipiated Europa League clash, between the two alleged favourites to progress from a tough looking group H. The police’s reaction to Evertonians asking for help and/or safety? The firing of tear gas to ‘disperse the crowds’ and bring back the peace.
Despite this rough treatment, the incident could have been put down as a one off situation ahead of what could have been an enjoyable city break watching our Club play away from home in the flesh.
Until today’s unsavoury incident.
Despite numerous reports coming from Evertonians, on social media website Twitter, that there was no provocation or threatening behaviour made towards the French police, officers saw fit to fire tear gas canisters and, allegedly, rubber bullets into the crowds of Toffees supporters who were savouring the atmosphere in and around the Place du Général de Gaulle in the centre of Lille.
This is not the first time that a heavy handed approach has been used in Lille, with police notably using batons and firing tear gas into the away section during a match between Lille and Manchester United back in 2007.
Such unprovoked behaviour gives grave cause for concern, especially with news breaking that children and disabled fans have travelled to watch the Blues in action, and should not be tolerated in this day and age.
Any supporter who attends a football match should come home safe and sound, and not have to be subjected to any kind of excessive force from those in a position that are supposed to provide safety.
Everyone here at NSNO hopes that all Evertonians, who have travelled, are safe and well and that each and every one of you returns home unscathed after, hopefully, watch our beloved team claim all three points this evening.
Monday Musings: Barkley can bring out best in Lukaku
Effervescent Barkley can help Lukaku return to form
It will come as no surprise to Evertonians that the return to full fitness of Ross Barkley coincided with the Toffees’ best league performance and result so far this season.
The midfielder was instrumental in the 3-0 victory over Aston Villa at Goodison Park last Saturday afternoon, and he even announced his return with a deft assist for fellow youngster Romelu Lukaku.
And it is Barkley who could help the Belgian striker find his best form after a below par start to the season for the 21 year old.
It is highly likely that Lukaku has not fully recovered from his exploits for both Everton and Belgium over the last twelve months, particularly his efforts for his country at the World Cup following a Premier League season where he started every match he was available for, a first for Lukaku in his still fledgling career, and for a player who relies on being fully match fit to perform at his best.
However, the Goodison fan favourite has still performed at a level lower than was expected of him after the Blues shelled out £28m for his services in the summer, and before the recent international break he even came in for some stern criticism from Evertonians.
Barkley’s return can help Lukaku find his best form
The return of Ross Barkley can, therefore, not only boost the Toffees’ season overall, but also be of massive significance to Everton’s record signing.
The young pair were a force to be reckoned with after Lukaku joined the Blues on loan on transfer deadling day last season, with Lukaku proving to be an effective foil up front to the marauding runs and movement of Barkley. With Barkley’s running style and gait allowing him to glide past opponents with ease, the amount of space created for Lukaku to work in was far greater than it has been with a partner like Steven Naismith occupying similar positions in and around the penalty area, regardless of the Scot’s rich vein of goalscoring form thus far this season.
Barkley’s vision and awareness of those around him will be of benefit to Lukaku also, with the midfielder’s creativity allowing for fellow players like Leighton Baines and Kevin Mirallas to manouvere into better goal creating positions in a bid to lay on a potential assist for Lukaku, whilst the Belgian himself can hold up play in the opposition’s half knowing full well that Barkley will not be far away to support him further up the field.
Of course, a below par performance from Aston Villa as a whole, an easier-on-the-eye upcoming run of fixtures and Lukaku’s own personal fitness could also be key components towards the Belgian looking more like his old self, but there is no denying that the return of Barkley from injury is of great importance to the striker, and it is this pairing of two young, gifted footballers that could help propel Everton up the table in the coming weeks.
Baines early contender for end of season prize
It is, of course, still too early in the season to even consider any end of season awards, whether it be a club’s own personal awards ceremony or that of the wider footballing world.
The form of Leighton Baines means that it is possible, even at this early stage, to state that the Toffees left back will be in and around any potential candidates list for any such awards.
Baines’ form so far this season has been impressive
Only Cesc Fabregas of Chelsea, Dusan Tadic of Southamption and Gylfi Sigurdsson of Swansea City have laid on more goals for their team mates, at their respective clubs, than Baines has done so far during the 2014/15 season, with the 29 year old notching two of his five assists in the weekend win over Aston Villa.
Much was made of Baines’ ‘lack’ of assists during Roberto Martinez’s maiden season in charge at Everton, but there was certainly no signs of disgruntlement amongst Evertonians, who are, and have been, very much aware of the qualities that the England international brings to Everton’s starting eleven, regardless of whether he lays on the final ball for a goal.
It is pleasing to see Baines receiving widespread praise again, however, and it will be of no surprise to see Everton’s Player of the Season for the 2013/14 season make the shortlists for numerous awards come the season’s end if his form carries on over the course of the current campaign.
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Tales of Mystery, Intrigue, Humor,
and Enchantment
What defines the 21st century
American-Jewish experience?
To have a better understanding of where we stand today we must look back to what it was like in the 20th century. Author Joseph Rotenberg does just that with his breakthrough debut book, Timeless Travels: Tales of Mystery, Intrigue, Humor and Entertainment (Gefen Publishing House, Cloth, $24.95, 374 pages, August 2017, ISBN: 9789652299154).
“Timeless Travels is an enjoyable and evocative read.”
-Jeffrey S. Gurock
Yeshiva University Professor of Jewish History
“Rotenberg’s broad range of interests – all infused with a uniquely contemporary and modern American Jewish sensibility and lens - shine through in stories
ranging from the comedic, historical, and often partly autobiographical.”
-Moshe Kinderlehrer
Publisher, The Jewish Link Media Group (NJ, Bronx, Westchester, (T) )
"We haven't read any book recently as compelling as Timeless Travels - don't miss it!"
-Sholem
"We can't remember when we last had such a good time reading a new book by a debut author - this boy is a master storyteller!"
-Saul
"We wouldn't be surprised if the author's parents are very proud of him right now!"
-Harry
"Between us, we've sold a lot of books over the years - now at last we've got some competition!"
-Isaac
Joseph Rotenberg
Joseph Rotenberg, 67, has visited Israel over 30 times, lived in Jerusalem for several years, and attended the Hebrew University in Givat Ram as a visiting student in 1969-70 (a sojourn that provided him with lots of material for Timeless Travels). Born in New York City, he grew up on the Upper West Side and has spent more than four decades living in Teaneck, New Jersey.
MEDIA CONNECT
steve@foxmarketing.com
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